First printed in Pulse Niagara
Back in the old days, when we were all little, we went to my Auntie Vi’s house by the lake. It seemed like a long drive, but drives were longer then. My daddy said Auntie Vi was ‘a weird old bird’ and my little brother Malcolm, being too young to know better, told her. She laughed and looked at daddy, and I thought she might be a witch. When she looked at him I thought time might stop for a second, and I saw her tongue get big when she laughed. I wasn’t scared because I was a witch then too.
Auntie Vi was my grandma’s sister and because she was rich we could go and stay at her house and it would be like going on vacation. We took a lot of walks on the beach. Her house had a big patio with a glass table. Then there was a wide stretch of grass and a flagpole. At first you thought the lawn dropped right into the lake but it only dropped off a little, and there was the beach.
Auntie Vi had an umbrella that she carried when she walked, rain or shine. On windy days she stayed indoors, because she only got her hair done every two weeks and it had to last. Otherwise, we walked along the beach every day. Sometimes we would stop and sit, and Malcolm and I would build sand castles, and sometimes we would just walk and walk.
Auntie Vi told us stories sometimes when we went on walks. They were strange stories that let you know she was a witch, but only if you were one too. Auntie Vi’s stories made you feel like pressing your face to the stair railing spindles at night, to listen to Mommy and Daddy when they fought. Most of them are hard to remember because they only stick with you as long as you are a witch, and I gave that all up so long ago.
I remember one she told us about the butcher in town, who was not the butcher in town anymore but used to be, way back when.
Auntie Vi said, ‘One day the butcher was slicing a bologna for Mrs. Kelly, who had it extra thin because of the children and the cost of feeding all those mouths, when he looked down and by God, if there wasn’t a streak of fat running through that bologna in a perfect image of the blessed Virgin Mary.”
We had been to the butcher’s before and I could imagine what it must have been like in the old days. It would have been a dim place, and smelled of spices and blood: The kind of place you had to put your face right up to the window, and block the light with your hands, to see into.
The butcher, whose name was Mr. Lazio, stopped slicing. He looked back through the translucent slices he had already cut. He let them flip down, one at a time, like a flip book, the ones where the little man dances as you flip through the pages. The spices and meat and fat danced before the butcher’s eyes, swirled and formed the perfect image of the Holy Mother.
He took the rest of the wide sausage off the slicer and examined the freshly sliced end. There again was the perfect form of the beautiful Virgin Mary.
Mr. Lazio made this bologna himself, in the old style, like everything back then, with cubes of white lard mixed with the ground meat. When the shop wasn’t busy he ground the day’s trimmings and scraps into a chunky pink paste and put it into his giant refrigerator. When there was enough he would mix and spice, and add the lard. He would grind the mix again and stuff it all into the red bologna casings.
Mr. Lazio was at a loss. Mrs. Kelly, still unaware of the miracle, was still waiting for her sliced bologna, and he couldn’t sell her this bologna, it was Holy bologna. He did not know how to interpret such a sign, and what it might mean.
He called out to his wife, “Marietta, come and a-look at this bologna.” Auntie Vi tried to imitate Mr. Lazio’s Italian accent, but we all ended up laughing because it was so bad, even though we never met Mr. Lazio, we knew it was bad.
“Mr. Lazio, is everything alright?” asked Mrs. Kelly, seeing Mr. Lazio’s agitation.
“Yes, Mrs. Kelly,” he said with his eyes wide open.
Auntie Vi, did this part of the story with her eyes as wide open as they would go, which made it seem extra creepy.
“Everything is alright, but look! Look at this bologna! Blessed with the image of the Holy Mother of Our Lord!” and he held it up for her to behold, and she saw that it was true. There it was, as plain as an English nanny. Between the cubes of lard and meaty pink, pressed into the casing with Mr. Lazio’s own hands, was the unmistakeable form of Mary, the Blessed Virgin.
Mrs. Lazio marched in upon this scene and was immediately swept up with the excitement. Mr. Lazio was still holding the bologna above his head and Mrs. Kelly was crossing herself with zeal. Upon seeing the bologna and its holy manifestation Mrs. Lazio began crossing herself and mumbling incantations and prostrating herself before it.
Once everybody had calmed down Mr. Lazio set the meat down on the counter and they all stood back to take a close look.
Aunt Vi said that pretty soon everybody in town wanted a slice of that bologna and that Mr. Lazio had to stop selling meat. So many people had come to see the bologna that the people who wanted to get pork chops for dinner couldn’t get through the door.
Mr. Lazio refused to sell another slice of the bologna, but Mrs. Kelly was allowed to buy hers with one thin Holy slice on top, all for the regular price, and only because of her fated hand in the miracle.
Soon the priest and the town fathers were down to Mr. Lazio’s, each of them demanding that slices should be provided for posterity and that measures ought to be taken to preserve the smoked meat.
Mr. Lazio was not accustomed to refusing the Mayor or the priest, so when they demanded slices (Two for the town; one for display and one for the archive, and three for the church; one to be used on Sunday, one for the church records an one to be sent to Rome as proof of the miracle,) Mr. Lazio complied.
By the third slice the image of the Blessed Virgin was starting to change. Mr. Lazio sliced it thin, the way he did it for Mrs. Kelly, knowing that the meat paste that constituted the bologna could not be trusted to maintain the form for many slices.
By the time the mayor and the priest had been satisfied the Holy Mother could still be seen, but she was starting to list badly to the left and subsequent visitors complained. Though they would admit that they could see the Blessed Virgin, she was not quite as they had imagined.
Auntie Vi stopped there and was quiet for a moment.
“What happened next Auntie Vi?” I asked, wanting the bologna to go on forever.
“Mr. Lazio cut off one last slice to put into his freezer and they made sandwiches with the rest.”
