At eight o’clock on a Thursday night Joe Perl’s standing at the bar with a bucket of meat. In his left hand he has a four-pound ham. In his right a small knife. A half dozen men at the bar are unwinding with shots and beers. Perl’s workday is just beginning.
The men gather around and snatch up the pieces.
“It’s a lean rich meat,” Perl says, “almost like a chicken breast. You got to be careful with it.”
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He moves through the room slapping people on the back. The men are almost all Vietnam vets in their 40s. Perl had met one of the guys while on R and R in Bangkok during the war. He visits this bar only twice a year, yet everyone seems to know him.
“What kind of bags of beef jerky again? Not the roadkill”–the menu says From the Interstate to Your Dinner Plate–“I didn’t like the roadkill. It was a little tough.”
Perl’s truck is parked at the curb. It’s a Ford pickup with a white refriger-ated box over the bed. The rear door has a painting of a giant sausage with arms and legs and a smiley face. In one hand the sausage holds a knife, in the other a bucket of his brethren. Above him is stenciled “Deli Direct, Perl’s All American Sausage Co.” A bumper sticker reads, “Wanna Get Laid? Crawl Up a Chicken’s Ass and Wait.”
Four men in their 30s and 40s are watching a WWF match between Triple H and the Rock. Triple H has just lost the count, but of course it isn’t over.
