on the bench and wrestles the legs off, hammers the meat with a mallet that he seems to have pulled out of his T-shirt, carves slabs of meat from every part of the carcass, zooms more sections through the band saw, and thrusts his arm up to the shoulder into parts of the cow that magically fall apart into cuts of meat. The air gets thick with minute particles of meat and bone and gristle, and all the while Hectorâs grunting and shouting.
âRound!â he calls as he flings a fan-shaped selection of rump cuts to the front of the bench. âRib eye! Brisket!â
âDone!â he screams, dropping his knife on the bench and raising his hands into the air. We turn to Mario, whoâs staring at the stopwatch.
âHoly Jesus,â Mario whispers. âHeâs broken his own record.â
It takes ten minutes for the applause and cheering to die down. The abattoir blokes crowd around Hector, slapping him on the back and punching him and hugging him.
âItâs not official because we didnât have an independent timekeeper,â Marioâs telling the reporter, âbut it shows youâHeck hasnât even reached his peak. Weâre going to take out the Australia-wide. Youse people donât understand the talent weâve got in this town.â
âMario, youâve been hiding this bloke away!â the mayor says. âWe could get him on TV.â
âHeâs got a big future. Heâs only nineteen.â
We all look at Heck. I would have picked him as thirty-five.
âOutdoor work,â Mario says, shaking his head.
The mayor keeps brushing at his robe. Itâs an odd mottled color. I reach over to pick a bone chip from his gold chain.
âDonât worry, thatâll clean up. It was worth it to see Heck perform. Heâs a champion.â
âThe minister?â I ask.
Out in the yard Normâs got hold of a wet cloth and heâs wiping the minister down while Nick, the charioteer, leans against the car, watching.
âBit of a dry clean and the suitâll be fine. There, that feels better, doesnât it?â Normâs talking all cheery, like heâs pacifying a child. The minister stands with his arms out. He raises his face to Norm to have it wiped. I think heâs regressed. We canât send him back to Melbourne like this.
âSchoolâs next!â I say. âLetâs get cleaned up before the choir.â
The driver holds open the door while Norm and I help the minister into the car. Halfway to the school he snaps back to his old self, plugs himself into the mobile, and talks gobbledegook to someone about outcomes and competencies. When he pulls out the earplug heâs got the concrete smile back, festooned with a morsel of raw steak glued to his upper lip.
âFascinating. What an experience,â he says. âSo next itâs the school?â
This would be the denial stage.
âMaybe weâll freshen up first at the Neighbourhood House,â I suggest. We donât want him to go frightening the children.
âGood idea,â he replies cheerfully.
In the front of the car Nick swats a fly away from the windscreen.
11
THE HEADMASTERâS TAKEN my signs off the school fence. I was happy with the misspelled one. It looked like one of the kids had made it. Now the schoolyardâs back to its usual self. Waist-high cyclone wire fence, a few bedraggled trees, adventure equipment that stopped having adventures years ago. The education department seems to have forgotten the school already. Heat rises from the asphalt in the yard, and cicadas make attempts at calls that peter out after a few strokes like a chain saw that wonât catch. I wonder if everyone arrived here before us, or if theyâve gone to the pub to celebrate Heckâs record.
The door of the school opens and the grade-three teacher bounds down the steps and pitter-patters toward us, his hands waving and his little
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