With the grease that moisten the lips that lubricate the lips that lubricate our accursed utterances, we cry.

To extend our bellies with the meat of our prey.

Let us exhale the fumes of our excess.

For the bread is the story and the drink is the sin.

Their slippery marriage encourages us to speak. The story must be told.

What then is gluttony without consequence? The animal fat that clings to our fingers stains the pages

in the books of our lives.

Remember St. Vitula and the warning in her words.

Meat is the progenitor of our waste, and our waste is the culmination of our neptitude.

May the words of the Psalm instruct us.

In the backyard, Curtis had a shed where he hung the meat he'd catch in the wilderness.

Last summer, an implacable stench

seeped out from the rotting wooden doors.

Curiosity got the better of me,

so I peeked inside.

The neighborhood kids had snuck in.

They sat cross-legged in the blood-stained dirt, ripping meat off the bone with their baby teeth

and gums where baby teeth once lived.

I called out to Curtis, and boy if he didn't come running out of the house.

He let himself into the shed and told me to beat it.

No one saw the kids ever again.

But I'll tell you what, Curtis's brother, the butcher, had some fine quality

...