The Photographer

Click, flash

The Photographer flicked the switch to his left with a static buzz, the gray-blue light flicked on. He nearly tripped running down the stairs to his carcass collection. In the middle of work, the idea hit him. He hung the carcass on the deer hook, recalling his early years when his dad taught him how to dress a deer on the same hook after a long day in the blind, high up in the trees.

Hind legs splayed, pointing to the sky, abdomen lower to the ground, just above the steel bucket.

The remains could have kept well in the freezer but the bodies drained better when body heat hadn’t dropped too low. Keeping the body temperature around ninety hadn’t been too hard until he could start digging in.

Two cold meat bags of bones to dress immediately and three weeks of patience to cure every piece, this could not be rushed. He tamed his chafing appetite, reigning in his desire to see the final product.

A rough pass through the pictures gave him an idea of what he had been able to accomplish. He would need to pacify himself until the manual labor could be finished. If he let his mortal models decay, he’d lose half of his final product.

Dumping his beautiful creatures in the wild for the beasts to devour turned his stomach; that had the earmarks of barbarism and insulted their beauty.

Unfortunately, because of the wet conditions outside, his usual dress and burn routine couldn’t be followed. He’d never get a fire to burn long enough to get rid of all the waste.

The ground, though drenched, hardened each night, preventing any deep graves. A shallow hole would not hold the bodies. He would need an alternate plan to take care of the unused pieces.

This inspired him. Flipping through the hunting catalog someone had left on a desk, he knew just what he could do to make use of all of his models.

Even with the threat of his father breathing over his shoulder, he felt confident when he could find a new solution to the problems before him. That endorphin rush, the wait before he yelled, the cold air before his hand came crashing down, flooded with memory back into the Photographer as he stood in front of the splayed carcass.

Giddy, he grasped the boar knife; his fingers tingled as the blood in his hands stopped just before the tips. The invigorating rush of adrenaline and dopamine congratulated him as he upcycled presumed lost materials.

He channeled his childhood lessons, the tricks his daddy taught him about creating venison jerky. People loved getting baskets full of that jerky and his mom’s canned garden vegetables. They always gave to their neighbors and the folks at church. The smiles on their faces lit up his mom and dad like nothing ever could. They were only happy when they were doing for other people.

His dad aged the dressed deer nearly two weeks then spent a full day cutting each section of meat, the backstraps to the neck. Of course, they kept and froze the backstraps for steak in the winter but the rest he placed in the little freezer just long to get it nice and solid so he could cut every piece just right.

One half inch thick would be all he would let get cut. Eyeballing that measurement took quite a few tries and mom made deer-burger meat out of the mistakes. Once they cut each piece to size and rubbed with jerky salt, daddy let it seep in a salty-pepper brine with worchestershire sauce. He resolved the perfect color only came from the sauce with the most mispronounced name.

Waiting the full day for the jerky cuts to marinade just about drove him crazy and by proxy, his mom because daddy worked all day at the tobacco factory. But there were plenty of things to do like check the skin and clean the cutting room.

When it the time came to dehydrate the jerky, mom let daddy have the kitchen and he and his dad spent the entire weekend watching the pieces shrink, tasting each batch, and making sure they didn’t leave the kitchen a mess for mom to clean up.

It had been ten years since he last cut into a deer but he could hear his dad’s voice in his ear, walking him through each step.

The first to go, the head, sliced off at the base of the neck, blood drained out of the opening, slowing to a drip.

Just as when inspiration hit him, he felt strengthened and moved with purpose, a joy driving each movement. In the middle of the sternum, he inserted his knife, blade edge up.

The boar knife, inserted by just the tip, broke the connective tissue, deep enough to cut through muscle but shallow enough to avoid the organs and contaminating the meat. With his left hand, he carefully opened the incision and positioned his fingers as an open V. He moved slowly, from sternum to pelvis. Reaching into the cavity for the first time, as with the deer, caused him to throw up into the tub below. But he pushed himself, as his dad had pushed him.

Using butcher twine, he tied off the opening by the larynx and then again by the openings for the bladder and rectum. His daddy had used his hands but contamination presented a very real obstacle and he could not afford to waste his materials.

The organs came out with little trouble, though carefully disconnecting them from the man had been more intensive than with the deer. He placed each organ in the tub carefully, respecting the sacrifice the body had made.

The heart and liver sat in a separate bowl of water, to be fried or used in a stock.

The bladder, creamy white and surrounded by red lines, sloshed and jiggled as he gingerly removed it from the cavity. Luckily, though there were remnants in the intestines, the long tubes of waste were easy to tie off and remove without worry.

Beginning at the upside, while the arms dangled below and dripped spilled blood down the wrinkled and sagging skin, he had been able to remove the lower organs. Almost elbow deep in the open cavity, he used a smaller knife to work blood vessels free and separate any attachments the remaining organs might have to bone or flesh.

He felt the esophagus and windpipe, the slippery tubes barely giving way and following the rest of the organs.

Breaking the connective tissue in the wrong place would cause the whole project to be contaminated. He would loose the meat. The bones, since they were used for decorative pieces, jewelry or furniture could be salvaged. He had forgotten how slow he needed to move to keep his workspace viable. But if he wanted the marrow for stock, he would need to be methodical.

The first time is the hardest; the sounds of flesh opening and separating, the smells of blood and internal organs mingling over power the senses. The next would be easier, both on his stomach and his nerves. He closed his eyes as he cut through the breast skin and broke open the chest cavity, ribs split from each other. The ones that would follow would feel like routine.

The biohazard pieces of discarded internal organs filled the tub to the top. He brought it to the backyard and dumped it into the septic. The chemicals in the cement holding area would break down the waste and return it to the wild.

With the garden hose, he washed out the shell; carefully keeping the carcass cool and removing any bits he may have missed. The red soup in the tub swirled with bobbing chunks and white froth. Carefully, he maneuvered it out the cellar doors and into the backyard, where it sloshed into a six-foot long trench that barely went down two feet. The ground would drink this sacrifice and purify it through the dirt and stone.

The art of skinning a deer focuses the attention on breaking the skin from the flesh without tearing too deeply. Removing the skin from this man had been no different. Once he had a opening large enough to give himself a firm grasp, he pulled the skin down, using gravity and his own weight to pull the pelt from the connective tissues. Occasionally, he needed to pause and use a scapel knife to loosen the hold.

The ripping of the skin reminded him of the thick peels of juicy oranges coming apart in one large chunk.

Though his stomach balked, he stayed the course, humming to cover the sound. Art is sacrifice, he reminded himself. His art, from the photographs to the canvas and carved bone, would honor the lives of his subjects. Their donation to his gallery greatly appreciated. Even if in life they were not worthy of such a tribute, they gave him the task of redeeming their choices.

The torso skin lay in a heap in the tub by the man’s dangling arms. He dumped a ten pound bag of ionized salt over it. He needed to begin the process but he couldn’t take the time to remove all the flesh and fat particles that still clung to the hide while the flesh waited for him.

Digit by digit, he removed the male’s fingers, carefully placing them in a jar of formaldehyde on his workbench. Cracking at the joints, they snapped like dried limbs under yard clippers. Then, he removed both arms and legs from the torso. The skin from the appendages didn’t need to be part of this piece. They were short and while a small print would make use to the canvas, his time would be better spent on the larger pieces.

As he cut through the tendons on the wrists, the fingers clenched, clawing at him as if reaching out from the dead. He cut the torso free, leaving the hunk of meet in the stainless steel washing tub. Breaking down the legs to more manageable pieces, he watched again as the tendons reacted to his pressure and the toes on his model’s feet curled, as if clenching in anticipation for ecstacy.

Again, he used the garden hose to wash the carcass. His daddy taught him a lot about prepping the meat, cleanliness needed to be a priority. The waiting for the next week as the meat aged would be frustrating; patience had stalled so many of his previous exhibits. He hated waiting.

Each bone carefully detached from meat and muscle went straight dermestid beetle tank in the back of the room. His colony could clean a large bull skull in twenty-four hours. They also kept the bones from yellowing, devouring the fat before it could soak into the bone.

Torso in hand, The Photographer severed the head from the remains of the body and discarded that into the tank as well. He wouldn’t use the skull for any project but the beetles deserved all he could give them. He brought the deboned torso to the walk in cooler and set the temperature for forty degrees Fahrenheit. Any warmer, the meat would spoil, any cooler, it wouldn’t age properly.

He took his time moving the heavy compost tub, sloshing with liquids, out to the pit behind the house and when he dumped it in, he felt a twinge of grief. Not for the loss of life, but for the pain of no one knowing the care he took to make sure every part did its job.

Looking up into the night sky, he attempted what little he knew of a funeral. “Yay, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.” It hadn’t been much but he felt he had done his duty. Besides, the sharp bites of rain were irritating his sweaty skin.

The soul had long parted the body, captured only in photographs, living forever in the heaven of joy and indulgence he had given them. He wrote their eternity with his photographs.

He rinsed the tub out outside and left it to dry on the stairs between the basement and the yard.

Holding the salted skin up, he draped it from the ceiling hooks and gently drizzled water down the inside, rinsing the salt from the pieces of fat and flesh that still clung to the skin. Slowly, he shaved the remnants away, breaking their last hold on the skin.

Washing the hide again with the garden hose, he ran his fingers over the inside of the dermis, loosing any bits of salt or fat that might still cling to his canvas. As clean as he could get it, he unhooked the end and carried it to the plastic barrel with drainage nozzle. This husk would sit for a few days until it softened and then he’d soak it again in the alum bath, enduring the dragging of time as he kept all of his pieces moving.