SHOPKEEPER.

Today I can confirm it: Herve Duchaussoy of the Butcher Shop Duchaussoy, 55 rue Clemenceau (next to the Credit Lyonnais Bank), at Epinay on the Seine, taught me everything.

He was like a father to me.  Beef shoulder, flank steak, hanger steak, it was he who taught me how to cut them. It was he, my boss, who showed me how to add pieces of donkey to the beef for hamburgers destined for the retirement home in St Denis. I tell you, he was a real father. He was always amiable and joking with the clients of the shop, which considerably helped the business.

” A little oxtail as always, Mr. Laurent, to keep the wife happy?” Everyone in the shop laughed, except of course, Mr. Laurent!

As for his skill, no one could match Mr. Duchaussoy. When he carved up the meat even his glasses were full of blood. But wait a minute! Not dark gloomy blood, no! It was joyful blood, rosy red, like the cheeks of my boss.

Then one fine day, crossing the Carnot boulevard to buy his daily packet of “roll your own Boyard corn paper” at the news stand… you’ll never guess what happened; he didn’t see the ambulance from Saint-Marcel Hospital which had swerved to avoid an imprudent old lady in a wheel chair and my boss got pulverized. 

The head of poor Herve, I can tell you, it was not nice to see. Like chopped beef parmentier. They had to take a dust pan to gather it all up. Happily it didn’t drag out too long, seeing that the ambulance was already there.  

Anyway, what I want to say here, to the clients of the butcher shop Duchaussoy, is that the shop will not close; I’ve decided to take it over and will do my utmost, I want the memory of our dear Herve to remain unsullied.

I am quite hardheaded and once I make a decision, I hold my ground. So on my taking over the butcher shop, I also inherited my boss’s wife.

She is called Robert. Oh yes, I forgot the tell you that Mr. Herve was… how do I say it… well, he had limp wrists. You get my drift?  Anyway, thank God, Robert and I always got along marvelously. He was the cashier at the shop and business was good.

The only fault with Robert is that he snores, it is absolutely unimaginable. The way our walls shake, one would think a Caterpillar is rumbling by; but with “Boules Quies” (ear plugs) it’s quite bearable.

On weekends we go to the Yonne River to fish, for Robert adores fly fishing. Just to tease him, I say that his casting is like a fairy waving his wand.  One day he didn’t take it so well and got down to serious fishing. We were using pieces of beef fat and I can’t tell you the tons of catfish that we took back to the house that sunday night.

Robert is full of great ideas. Paul Duchaussoy would be proud of him. He cut the catfish in pieces that he mixed with ground beef to make hamburgers for the retirement home in Saint-Denis… quick as a flash, without anyone noticing. And we don’t expect those old relics to bitch or gripe. What’s more, it gives it an “exotic” taste.

In these troubled times, every penny counts.

And it’s business before everything!  It’s the spinal cord of our beautiful country.