Love

by M. P,, Merrimack, NH

"Do you know how they cut beef?" he said to the unexpecting teenaged girl, cradled in her boyfriend's arms. The couple, unsure as to whom the man was talking, took a collective glance around the bleachers on which they sat hoping to find an alternate target for his question. Ignoring the blank stares that the young lovers gave him, the elderly, yet mobile man, veteran of America's most glorious hour, dressed in plaid flannel with a conspicuously red hunting cap, continued.

"They take the dead cow, and shave it, then wash all the blood off, and let it sit for a few days, then we cut it, sideways, and when we get two thousand slabs, we put 'em on a flatbed and they go to Nashua." The young man tightened the grip on his female companion in an attempt to stop her (or himself, he could not tell) from nervously quivering.

The old man, nameless, sipped his hot chocolate, placed it down beside his right foot, then produced a white handkerchief from his shirt pocket, and proceeded to wipe the warm liquid from his mouth.

"It would take three of us to carry the meat from the belt to the lift ... used to get thirteen bucks a week."

The girl nodded affirmatively toward the speaker, then, with a flick of her unrestrained light brown hair, she flashed her lover a smile composed of giddiness, affection, and fright. In response, he lightly touched his right index finger to the tip of her feminine nose, winked and gently kissed her sanguine lips - love.