the vegetables, arranging them into a rack. Rest the roast
on top of the bones, fat side up. Arrange the pats of butter on top. Set the roasting pan into the oven and cook for about
an hour and a half, basting every fifteen minutes or so--you want as much of the rich juices that melt out of the bones to
be absorbed into the meat as possible.
The roast is done when a meat thermometer inserted into the center reads 130degF. Remove it from the oven and let it rest until
it comes to room temperature, then slice thin for sandwich meat. Makes enough roast beef sandwiches to feed a small army.
Oh, and: after you've finished, smear the marrow from the middle of the bones on some bread, sprinkle with a bit of salt,
and you have an ambrosial snack.
I'll do that a little later on. For now I have to remove tough sinews from the end of the knuckle, and from the upper shank
muscles, which will go into the grind. I work away. The lyrics in my nostalgic head aren't the ones playing on the iPod, but
those that often linger up there, from an Old 97's rockabilly tune I once referred to, half-jokingly, as D's theme song:
I don't want to get you all worked up
.
Except secretly I do. I'd be lyin' if I said I didn't have designs on you.
I enjoy our bursts of talk at the table, which then sink back into an industrious quiet. The rhythm of it feels like real
work with comfortable companions. But at the end of the day, as soon as I take off my leather sheepherder's hat, wash my hands
and knives, scrape and salt the table, this peace is already leaving. When I walk out the door, the need will come down on
me again like an anvil.
"Jules, come have a drink. Mother's Milk. It's local. We have half a keg back there we need to get through."
So I sit around with Jesse and Aaron and Josh and drink the beer, darker than I usually take it, and bitter. We talk about
this and that, nothing important, mustaches and presidential hopefuls. Juan has a glass poured too, but he can't sit yet.
He has dishes to wash, a band saw and grinder to break down and clean. Miles to go before he sleeps. As I do, in my own little
way.
"So, Jules. Did you know that butchers in Paris have their own entire language?"
"What are you talking about?"
"Well, it's slang. Like pig latin. It's called
louchebem
. They, like, switch around syllables. It's so they can talk smack about the customers."
Josh is straightening out his long red hair with his fingers and rebraiding it. "Do they have a word for 'Bite me, douche
bag'?"
"I'll look it up."
I ask, thinking ruefully of how, I know, my evening is going to go, "Do they have a word for 'crazy lady'?"
"Almost certainly. Hmm. I feel a nickname coming on..."
I could ask out any one of these guys, whose company I enjoy so much, for another drink around the corner. But I don't. I
leave after the one beer. We lock up; I walk alone to my car.
There's no place that's really safe, other than the shop, these days. I'm just climbing into the Outback when my phone rings.
"I need to ask you a question. Are you seeing him still?"
"What? No! No--I--I haven't even talked to him. He's not--" I can't tell Eric the truth. Can't tell him,
He's not speaking to me and it's killing me
. "Where is this coming from?"
"You know what? Forget it. I wouldn't believe you, whatever you said. I don't want to know."
"I haven't
done
anythi--I'm sorry. I'm sorry."
Eric and I haven't had sex in months. And though D is gone, hasn't exchanged a word with me in weeks, despite or because of
the desperate, pleading texts that our horrid at-last-real breakup didn't succeed in deterring me from, still he's there,
of course, living in our apartment. Eric doesn't touch me. And I can't touch him either. The truth is that Eric's love, his
very dearness, is excruciating to me, a constant stabbing. If we were to sleep together now--sleep together as in sex, of course;
we still sleep in the same bed every night I am home--he would see
on top of the bones, fat side up. Arrange the pats of butter on top. Set the roasting pan into the oven and cook for about
an hour and a half, basting every fifteen minutes or so--you want as much of the rich juices that melt out of the bones to
be absorbed into the meat as possible.
The roast is done when a meat thermometer inserted into the center reads 130degF. Remove it from the oven and let it rest until
it comes to room temperature, then slice thin for sandwich meat. Makes enough roast beef sandwiches to feed a small army.
Oh, and: after you've finished, smear the marrow from the middle of the bones on some bread, sprinkle with a bit of salt,
and you have an ambrosial snack.
I'll do that a little later on. For now I have to remove tough sinews from the end of the knuckle, and from the upper shank
muscles, which will go into the grind. I work away. The lyrics in my nostalgic head aren't the ones playing on the iPod, but
those that often linger up there, from an Old 97's rockabilly tune I once referred to, half-jokingly, as D's theme song:
I don't want to get you all worked up
.
Except secretly I do. I'd be lyin' if I said I didn't have designs on you.
I enjoy our bursts of talk at the table, which then sink back into an industrious quiet. The rhythm of it feels like real
work with comfortable companions. But at the end of the day, as soon as I take off my leather sheepherder's hat, wash my hands
and knives, scrape and salt the table, this peace is already leaving. When I walk out the door, the need will come down on
me again like an anvil.
"Jules, come have a drink. Mother's Milk. It's local. We have half a keg back there we need to get through."
So I sit around with Jesse and Aaron and Josh and drink the beer, darker than I usually take it, and bitter. We talk about
this and that, nothing important, mustaches and presidential hopefuls. Juan has a glass poured too, but he can't sit yet.
He has dishes to wash, a band saw and grinder to break down and clean. Miles to go before he sleeps. As I do, in my own little
way.
"So, Jules. Did you know that butchers in Paris have their own entire language?"
"What are you talking about?"
"Well, it's slang. Like pig latin. It's called
louchebem
. They, like, switch around syllables. It's so they can talk smack about the customers."
Josh is straightening out his long red hair with his fingers and rebraiding it. "Do they have a word for 'Bite me, douche
bag'?"
"I'll look it up."
I ask, thinking ruefully of how, I know, my evening is going to go, "Do they have a word for 'crazy lady'?"
"Almost certainly. Hmm. I feel a nickname coming on..."
I could ask out any one of these guys, whose company I enjoy so much, for another drink around the corner. But I don't. I
leave after the one beer. We lock up; I walk alone to my car.
There's no place that's really safe, other than the shop, these days. I'm just climbing into the Outback when my phone rings.
"I need to ask you a question. Are you seeing him still?"
"What? No! No--I--I haven't even talked to him. He's not--" I can't tell Eric the truth. Can't tell him,
He's not speaking to me and it's killing me
. "Where is this coming from?"
"You know what? Forget it. I wouldn't believe you, whatever you said. I don't want to know."
"I haven't
done
anythi--I'm sorry. I'm sorry."
Eric and I haven't had sex in months. And though D is gone, hasn't exchanged a word with me in weeks, despite or because of
the desperate, pleading texts that our horrid at-last-real breakup didn't succeed in deterring me from, still he's there,
of course, living in our apartment. Eric doesn't touch me. And I can't touch him either. The truth is that Eric's love, his
very dearness, is excruciating to me, a constant stabbing. If we were to sleep together now--sleep together as in sex, of course;
we still sleep in the same bed every night I am home--he would see
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