I’m a proud slaughterhouse manager of thirty years. I’ve seen the industry change a lot. But this new generation just might bring the whole thing down. Like, at our weekly “team meating,” my man Gus was presenting about how to best stun a cow with a captive bolt gun and sensitive Sylvester raises his hand and says, “I just think we can get beyond meat.” You know what, Sylvester? I’m Gen-X. I grew up listening to Morrissey. I knew meat was murder before you were even born.

Last night I saw HIM again. No, not Jesus. (If only it was, maybe HE’D save me.) It was the elephant man. He was slinking down the hallway, in that mysterious little way he likes. He crawls on all fours, balancing on the tips of his fingers and the balls of his feet. His shoulders dip back and forth, back and forth, as if dancing to some awful song that only sick creatures like them can hear.

I understand now how serious you were when you shouted, “I will not live with a pig!” It is also abundantly clear that my decision to bring home a four-hundred-pound Gloucester pig named Dumplin’ did not turn our sad two acres of weedy herb gardens and blighted squashes into a Farm.

It was a crisp, fall day in 1981 and my brother Steve and I were searching our grandparents’ basement for Grandpa’s severed thumb. We were frantic, not because he needed to reattach it but because he promised a fifty-cent piece to whoever brought it back to him.

If you care about your image, dying should scare you to death. For years, the final moment of our lives has been glorified as some serene, almost beautiful process: we die peacefully then cut-scene and bam—tux, flowers, funeral. Nothing in-between.