told them about the deer, removing the gory details, and it reminded me why I loved this place. Seeing their faces light up with the prospect of eating a good dinner with meat and vegetables brought me a happiness that I couldn’t have ever found anywhere else.
***
That night, as our community flocked to the tables in the evening light around 7pm, Bastion filled with a warm bustle. People laughed and smiled and talked, and after letting Henrietta take over management I made my way through the streets to the Kitchen.
That’s Kitchen with a capital K – in Sam’s spelling of the word the K was backwards, of course, but that didn’t matter. The Kitchen was a place of wonderful sustenance. Like many of the other buildings and storage houses, it was one of the old suburban bungalows, but unlike the others it was certainly the most highly modified. While the food was stored in a nearby building kept under several locks and chains, the Kitchens had almost the entire outer wall removed in order to cope with heat management mechanisms. Sam worked a certain way, and I respected that as long as he kept us all fed – which he always did.
I made my way up to the front of the open house, beneath the rolls of tarpaulin that he brought down when the rain picked up, which wasn’t a problem we had had lately. On a sanitised metal table top inside the carcasses were laid out. I won’t go into excessive detail about how it looked, but it was fair to say that he had stripped every piece of meat he could off of them. They looked nothing like they had done when Carl and I had watched them in the field, or even when we had moved their bodies into the trunk of the Ranger.
‘Over there, over there!’ Sam shouted, ushering Laz over to one of the metal countertops with a plate of meat. Laz was his assistant, a young guy who had been with us for some time now. The kitchen was about the only thing he was good at operating, but Sam still gave him grief no matter what he did. For some reason Laz could take it, though. That was why he didn’t want to work anywhere else.
Sam turned to me, holding his arms out.
‘Tommy, my boy!’ He shouted, but I held up my arms in a signal to tell him that he I really didn’t want a hug.
‘Food poisoning is the last thing I want, Sam. We can hug it out later. How’s it coming along?’
‘Impeccable. Stellar. Plenty for everybody. I’ve no clue how you get this lucky sometimes…’
‘It was a stroke of luck,’ I admitted. ‘We just stumbled on them.’’
‘Well, stumble or not, we’ll all have full bellies tonight. Veg is ready, and plenty of meat, so you can start moving them. Lazarus! Boy! Help Tommy with the food.’
Laz and I took a huge platter each, both filled with meat, and set off for the tables. By the time we arrived I didn’t know what to expect. As we set them down it wasn’t stunned applause or stunned silence – instead we were showered with praise, and I couldn’t help but smile, not at the kind words of everyone but at the smile on Laz’s face as people shook his hand and patted him on the back, admiring the food. Usually it was Sam who got the praise for everything, but seeing Laz adorned with it made me feel more than happy.
After a few more trips all of the food was on the tables, and everybody was ready to dig in – even Sam had joined us, and now it was for me to say something before we ate.
I never sat at the end of the table, and neither did anybody else, but while I spoke I stood there, watching everybody’s faces turn to me.
‘Thank you all for joining us tonight for this magnificent feast that Sam and Laz
***
That night, as our community flocked to the tables in the evening light around 7pm, Bastion filled with a warm bustle. People laughed and smiled and talked, and after letting Henrietta take over management I made my way through the streets to the Kitchen.
That’s Kitchen with a capital K – in Sam’s spelling of the word the K was backwards, of course, but that didn’t matter. The Kitchen was a place of wonderful sustenance. Like many of the other buildings and storage houses, it was one of the old suburban bungalows, but unlike the others it was certainly the most highly modified. While the food was stored in a nearby building kept under several locks and chains, the Kitchens had almost the entire outer wall removed in order to cope with heat management mechanisms. Sam worked a certain way, and I respected that as long as he kept us all fed – which he always did.
I made my way up to the front of the open house, beneath the rolls of tarpaulin that he brought down when the rain picked up, which wasn’t a problem we had had lately. On a sanitised metal table top inside the carcasses were laid out. I won’t go into excessive detail about how it looked, but it was fair to say that he had stripped every piece of meat he could off of them. They looked nothing like they had done when Carl and I had watched them in the field, or even when we had moved their bodies into the trunk of the Ranger.
‘Over there, over there!’ Sam shouted, ushering Laz over to one of the metal countertops with a plate of meat. Laz was his assistant, a young guy who had been with us for some time now. The kitchen was about the only thing he was good at operating, but Sam still gave him grief no matter what he did. For some reason Laz could take it, though. That was why he didn’t want to work anywhere else.
Sam turned to me, holding his arms out.
‘Tommy, my boy!’ He shouted, but I held up my arms in a signal to tell him that he I really didn’t want a hug.
‘Food poisoning is the last thing I want, Sam. We can hug it out later. How’s it coming along?’
‘Impeccable. Stellar. Plenty for everybody. I’ve no clue how you get this lucky sometimes…’
‘It was a stroke of luck,’ I admitted. ‘We just stumbled on them.’’
‘Well, stumble or not, we’ll all have full bellies tonight. Veg is ready, and plenty of meat, so you can start moving them. Lazarus! Boy! Help Tommy with the food.’
Laz and I took a huge platter each, both filled with meat, and set off for the tables. By the time we arrived I didn’t know what to expect. As we set them down it wasn’t stunned applause or stunned silence – instead we were showered with praise, and I couldn’t help but smile, not at the kind words of everyone but at the smile on Laz’s face as people shook his hand and patted him on the back, admiring the food. Usually it was Sam who got the praise for everything, but seeing Laz adorned with it made me feel more than happy.
After a few more trips all of the food was on the tables, and everybody was ready to dig in – even Sam had joined us, and now it was for me to say something before we ate.
I never sat at the end of the table, and neither did anybody else, but while I spoke I stood there, watching everybody’s faces turn to me.
‘Thank you all for joining us tonight for this magnificent feast that Sam and Laz
Similar Books
