A Bone to Pick
Tara Ventura

The boys played games in the back of  the butcher shop. Blackjack, poker, 
it didn’t matter. They all ended the same, with their own urbanized version of  
Russian roulette. I was fresh out of  the army then, a field medic of  all things. I 
was 95 pounds and in basic training a week after my high school graduation. Got 
my degree. Did a tour in Desert Storm. Cut into the wounded with a cigarette 
hanging out of  my mouth. When that couldn’t do it for me anymore, I started 
counting during surgery. I remember this one guy, Bishop from Fayetteville, got 
carried in with his left arm turned inside out but the bone, by the grace of  God if  
you ask him, still intact. I counted all the way to 16,752 on that one. I always took 
the first two beats to breathe and cut into the skin on three. I never got used to 
the feeling of  my knife slicing into their flesh. Didn’t matter after Khafji, anyway. 
I took a bad fall, messed up my hip, and that was it.

I sat at home with my dad through the spring. Drank beer. Watched golf  
on TV. He didn’t ask me for war stories and I didn’t offer any up. I was twen-
ty-five years old and burnt. Hobbled around the house. Sucked on snack cakes 
and Aunt Chrissy’s cobbler until one May day when I pinched at my waist and 
found a new layer of  fat.

“What are you doing?” My dad asked when he found me lying face-
down, cursing at the floor.

“Planks,” I muttered through my teeth.
“Jen,” my dad huffed. “This ain’t doing nothing.” I collapsed.
“It was doing something!” I protested, trying to find comfort in pulling 

my knees to my chest. I tugged on my shins, wanting so badly to reign them in. 
My hip locked, blocking its path. One leg fell lopsided on the floor, the other 
touched my chest. The walls of  my room were still the same Tiffany blue that my 
dad had painted them when we first moved to Staten Island twelve years ago. He 
said New York was a city of  islands so I asked for the room downstairs, my Tropic 
of  Cancer. A gallon bucket of  paint had sat on the floor since my return, collect-
ing dust, reminding me of  the reality of  what Staten Island actually was; slate 
grey, minus the sparkle. There it all sat in the corner, so unbothered by itself. A 
gallon of  grey paint. Me and trips to the V.A. and gas station down the street and 
all of  Staten Island for that matter sealed inside of  it.

“My buddy, Louis, you remember Louis, don’t ya’?” I shook my head no. 
“Oh, come on, Uncle Louis? With the, the uh, the red leather jacket he always 
had on and that son of  his, Nico?”

“Dad,” I spoke, half  asking him to stop this train before it got to wherev-
er it was going.

- 16 -



“He owns the deli on Adele?” My dad tried one last time. I knew the one. 
“Well anyways, baby, he needs a cashier. Said the job’s yours if  you want it.”

“I don’t know if-” I retorted.
“He’s got a stool all ready for ya’. No standing required.” A man con-

scious of  the hip.
“Okay, sure.” I agreed and became all the worse off for it.
When I walked in the backdoor of  the deli at 4 a.m., I sneezed. It was 

cold and reeked of  carcass. Peppercorn littered the countertops. No standing be-
came two hours of  nothing but standing real quick when Nico handed me a spray 
bottle of  bleach and rag and told me they opened at six.

So I cleaned. I scrubbed and washed and turned my back when I heard 
Nico and his five friends shouting slurs at one another while gathered around a 
folding white table. They were all drunk off their asses, throwing Jokers to the 
stain-splattered floor. They hadn’t just started either, at 4 a.m. they were deep into 
two bottles of  vodka.

“Fuck you and fuck your mother,” I heard one of  them yell, slamming 
his hand down. “It’s not going to be me tonight, boys.” It felt like the army again. 
The boys looking for a rise and me refusing to give it. I mopped with more vigor. 
Pretended a sergeant was looking over my shoulder. I scrubbed grease off the 
walls that looked older than me. The floors were cream-colored after but not 
before. Fifteen minutes from open and my stool. That’s when I heard them flip 
the meat grinder on.

“You don’t bet with money when you work at a deli and nobody shoots a 
gun in New York without somebody else around to hear it,” Nico told me when 
he noticed me peeking. Like that explained it.

“It’s now or never, Michael,” Nico warned.
 “Lose your hand and you might lose another,” one boy teased, nudging 

Michael closer to the machine. Michael closed his eyes, bit his lip, and screamed, 
“now!” right before jamming his hand in the meat grinder. Nico pulled the plug 
and Michael’s hand returned in one piece.

“Maybe next time, Mikey,” another boy joked. I leapt, the medic in me 
wanting to inspect the hand that had somehow escaped the claws of  death un-
harmed.

“Jenny, you tryna’ be our virgin sacrifice or something?” Nico asked and 
the boys laughed, and I thought about it. That rush-hour savior that I used to 
be really thought about it, and when the rational, 'doing planks in my bedroom 
alone is enough thrill for me' part of  me jumped out and tried to resist, I gave her 
and the boys and the rest of  Staten Island the finger.

Show off. Girl with a grudge. A bone to pick. Nothing but carcasses came 
through the back door of  the deli. The belly of  a pig swung by my face and I 
dared it to spill its guts.

- 17 -



“Alright, Jenny,” they whooped and hollered from behind. Nico stood 
with plug in hand, ready to yank, the meat grinder rumbled on.

“One, two,” and I thrust my hand forward. A chorus of  "holy cows" 
could be heard from behind me but I was the cold cut. I was the mangled meat, 
wounded soldier, wrist-deep in a mess of  my own making.

“Three,” and I cut myself  free with a butcher’s knife as the boys watched, 
mouths wide. I stood up tall and saw the cream floor beneath me turn red, heard 
someone say “lock the door.” I’ve cut to the bone before. It was nothing new, not 
really. I performed my own autopsy and lived to tell. Cause of  death: who cares, 
ask the V.A.

I came home from the hospital a week later, all bandaged up and fixed by 
doctors who found a life in medicine more stable than I ever could. My dad didn’t 
ask me why I did it, just if  it hurt and by how much.

My first night home, I woke up sweating but silent, like after so many 
nights in the desert I had forgotten how to scream. It was summer in New York, 
hot and stuffy. More uncomfortable, harder to ignore than the desert’s dried-lips 
kiss.

'I had lost my hand without ever even playing the game,' I thought to 
myself. My room was too small. Too optimistic. Opening the windows just meant 
letting this city win. Again, I picked up a knife, felt its familiar blade. Glorified it, 
lied to it, hated it. Used it. Slashed open that can of  grey paint. Tore down my 
posters of  the Everglades and coral reefs that I would never see. Took my one 
good hand and painted all through the night. Became the begging city bird Stat-
en Island always knew me to be, hungry for a taste of  something carnivorous.

- 18 -