Felling-hammer

Grandpapa rolled shag and tuck that he bought from the K-Mart across from the Waymart. He tamped the shag slaving it between the gummy fold of the paper with his thumbs. The paper stuck to his bottom lip, a clot of blood and skin poled to the shag-end. His dentures clewed the tissue around his lips, giving him a clownish look, his cheeks bellowed with smoke. The man in the hat’s grandfather wore crepe-soled boots with metal catches. He wore chain mail gloves with railheads sewn into the palms to engage a better grip on the felling-hammer, which was swung over the hip and across the front of the chest in one unbroken parry, ensuring a clean even cut back. The man in the hat’s grandfather stood knee-deep in gore-house offal, his waders bled through to the lining. He never once blinked an eye or winced, as he was too busy correcting his swing or rebalancing his footing. He preferred the older cattle to the greenlings, as they felled easier and lost breath quicker. He wore a woolen cap with earflaps to keep the bone and gore from liming his head.