He enlarged the hole and pulled himself through and stood in quiet darkness. He scratched a match to flame and saw steps; he mounted them and peered through a keyhole: daylight. He strained to hear the typewriter. Maybe the office was closed? He twisted the knob and the door swung in and a frigid blast made him shiver. In the dimness were halves and quarters of pigs and steers hanging from metal hooks on a ceiling, red meat encased in layers of white fat. Fronting him was frost-coated glass from behind which came indistinguishable sounds. The floor was covered with sawdust that held clotted pools of blood. The odor of fresh raw meat sickened him and he backed away, his hand still on the knob. A meat market, he whispered.

Light flooded the room and he tensed himself. The red-white meat was drenched in a yellow glare. The door opened and a white man wearing a crimson-spotted jacket came in and took down a bloody meat cleaver. He eased the door to, holding it ajar just enough to watch the man. He hoped the darkness in which he stood would keep him from being seen. The man took a hunk of steer and placed it upon a bloody wooden block and bent forward and whacked it with the cleaver. The man’s face was hard, square, grim; a tiny jet of mustache smudged his upper lip and a cowlick of black hair fell over his left eye. Each time he lifted the cleaver and brought it down he let out a short, deep-chested grunt. After he had cut the meat, he wiped blood off the block with a sticky wad of gunny sack and hung the cleaver upon a hook. His face was proud as he placed the meat in the crook of his elbow and left.

The door slammed; once more he was in the dark. His tension subsided. From behind the frost-coated glass he heard the man’s voice: “Twenty-eight cents a pound, ma’am . . .” He shuddered, feeling that there was something he had to do. But what? He stepped forward and looked at the steel cleaver. He sneezed and was terrified lest the man hear him and return. He took down the cleaver and squinted at the sharp edge of the steel blade smeared with cold blood. Behind the ice-coated glass a cash register rang with a vibrant, musical tinkle. He rubbed the glass with his thumb and cleared a spot that enabled him to see into the front of the store. The shop was empty, save for the man who was now putting on his hat and coat. He grasped the meat cleaver and walked briskly through the door into the basement and groped his way to the hole behind the furnace and stood with his hand about the handle of the cleaver, breathing softly. He struck a match and held it near the sharp, steel blade; red blobs of blood fascinated and repelled him. His fingers tightened about the handle with all the force of his body; he wanted to fling it from him, but he knew he could not. The match flame wavered and fled; he climbed through the hole and put the cleaver in the sack with the radio. Yes, he would keep it, for what purpose he did not know.