Amityville Slaughter House

     I do not know why men think women are dainty creatures that needs protecting.  Perhaps some women do faint at the sight of blood or scream at the sight of a snake crawling across the floor but not me.  I was raised with the enjoyment of blood, guts, and gore.  While some girls I knew found gratification of looking at clothes and jewerly, I was finding pleasure in horror movies and getting down and dirty.  As a child my sister and I would watch the movie series Friday the 13th and our VCR had a slow motion button to it.  There was a scene where a cop ran through the woods trying to chase Jason Voorheis.  The cop came to a small run-down cabin.  He is looking through some things when Jason comes up behind him and slams the hammer claw into the back of the cops head.  My sister and I would click the slow motion button and watch how the cops eyes would look as if are popping out of his face once the hammer was entering the back of his head.  Morbid, I know, but my sister and I were laughing too hard to care.  My family is twisted.

     I was only dating Brian a few weeks when he asked if I wanted to join him in the semi-truck to make a pick up in Chicago.  It sounded exciting and it was.  Sitting up high in the semi-truck you can see everything.  You felt powerful and tall.  In Chicago traffic you can look down into people's cars and see what they are doing or little children will look up and beg for the air horn to be blown.  Sometimes Brian would blow it and the kids in the car would hoot with delight. 

     He was scheduled to pick up meat from a slaughterhouse in Chicago.  It was called the Amityville Slaughter House and it lived up to its name.  He told me to wait in the cab as he went inside to deal with the paperwork.  I looked around through the cab's windows and there wasn't much to look at.  Older looking cars were in the parking lot, weeds vined up the broken down fence that surrounded the building, and the building looked old.  I even watched a pig being escorted in the air by a Bobcat 4-wheeler across the parking lot.  Little did this pig know but its final ride would lead him become bacon and ham. Did my mouth just water, I thought.

     After a while an uncomforting feeling came across me.  I needed a bathroom.  Oh how I envied men who can just stand hidden in a corner to use it or relieve themselves in a bottle or jug.  God just did not make women that way.  I looked at the mulitple doors to the building.  I didn't know which door to go into.  I looked around for another business, perhaps a gas station would be nearby.  There was nothing but old, run-downed, two story homes.  Please God, let Brian come out soon! I anguished.  After what seemed like forever Brian came back to the truck to check on me.  The shippers were still messing with the paperwork.  I told him I needed to use the bathroom.  He asked if I could hold it.  I have him a look of urgency.  He begged me to hold it because this wasn't a nice place to use the bathroom.  "I don't care," I pleaded, "I am about to squat in front of this truck if I don't get to a bathroom now!"

     He comes around the truck and opens the door for me.  "I don't want you looking around.  Keep your eyes on the floor.  There is disgusting things in here." he says tenderly as we approach a set of doors.

     Disgusting things?  Did that ever get my curiousity going!  We entered the first set of doors and a lady sat behind a window with papers shuffled across her desk.  Brian asked where the bathroom was for me.  The lady gave him instruction through the factory maze. We entered another set of doors.  It was loud and smelled nasty.  As we rounded a corner the floor turned red.  It's wasn't paint either.  But I was mindful and still kept my eyes on the ground, mostly because I didn't want to step on the chunks that was litered on the ground. We entered another area and he told me that when he says "GO!" we have to move quickly forward.  I couldn't look down any longer.  The urge to look up was too great.  I told Brian I can handle this.  I looked up and gasped out loud.  Brian was so concerned and disappointed that the image I seen was terrifing to me.  On the contrary that was a gasp of excitment. 

     This is a part of our food chain that most people don't get to see and here I was observing it.  Up above were skinless headless pigs hanging on hooks through its feet cascading around on a system that looked like a cruel roller coaster ride.  It went from an upper level and down across the room we were in and into a lower level room for more processing.  As we passed through the room, we had to dodge between the hanging pig corpses.  It was thrilling.  A smile even emerged from my face which confused Brian.

     We went down a flight of grated stairs.  I placed my hands on the railing.  It was sticky and gooie feeling.  I knew it was because of pig blood.  I quickly let go of the railing.  Just because I found this experience interesting I didn't want to feel it.  We finally found the bathroom.  It wasn't pretty, to say the least.  It looked as bad as it did the slaughter house.  I didn't care.  I had to use it.  A toilet was a toilet and I was thankful.

     We made our way back up the sticky stairs, dodged the hanging carcas of pork, and back around to the lady at the window.  Brian walked me back to the truck apologizing for the sights that I seen and that a lady shouldn't of seen something to that degree.  I told him I found it rather interested and I liked it but he didn't understand how someone could like something so grusome.  I climbed back into the truck and Brian went back inside to finish up on the paperwork.  I sat there wishing how I could see the rest of the factory and how a pig goes from being carried on bobcat to becoming bacon on our breakfast plates.

     After some time Brian comes running to the truck.  "We have to go now!" he says urgently, "The inspectors are closing the factory down!  They just finished loading our truck and we have to leave before they lock up the gates."  He gets the truck moving fast and starts shifting gears.  A few other trucks were in line of leaving the premises quickly.

     We get back on the road and Brian says, "I bet after that you won't want to eat meat anymore."

     I looked at him, smiled, and replied, "Actually a grilled ham and cheese sandwich does sound good."  Then we rode off on the highway.  I think Brian then realized that I was different than the other girls he knew.