i'm with my lawyer, he's the guy i write about occasionally because there are strange parallels to  hunter thompson in that he wrote most of fear and loathing with his lawyer while off their heads on exotic drugs and booze, and although my tastes are very different from hunter i do share his connoisseur like approval of some fine things in life provided by our nature spirits. so we are trawling the bowels of balmain, not my favourite suburb, i've always preferred sleepy little rozelle but my man is on a mission and i am captain mission, so we travel down strange winding roads and dark cul de sacs, we weave in and out of traffic with him cursing and fuming, while i am taking in the sights, big old industrial warehouses, dark walls from another age, huge great big bridge structures curving in the distance, and those cheeky angles that balmain has, often the eye follows their trail nowhere.
we pull up in a car park, it's derelict, no one has been here for many years, the sun attempts to penetrate but casts long shadows instead. where has he taken me, it's the perfect place for a hit, a quick shot to the head and the body can fall into the harbour swept away by currents, washed up a week later as a passing party on a hens night discover it, 'bouys ahoy' 'bodies to die for' you can see the headlines.
i'm sucked out into the light, wishing i had brought my sunglasses, for the contrasts and my eyes are far to open for saturday morning.
i follow him, he's making tracks for the darkest areas, the doorway into murder inc, this is going to be bad, i get a bad bad feeling.
there it is a strange secret room hidden away, a huge freezer door, and a chopping area where they are cutting into dead animals. fuck this is heavy for me, i only started going into butchers when i first had pan, i have acclimatised to butcher shops but when you see them working it's a different story. 
these chaps are the happiest people i have ever met, it's true what they say about butchers, they are lovely smiling happy people, always laughing, telling you a story, a joke, a strange tribe indeed as they hack into a poor lamb or cow. my man goes off to buy some products while i nervously look at some cheese. in a room full of meat there's a small block of cheese being carved up. now i happen to enjoy cheese, i quite like a little nibble, and when one of the happy butchering butchers offers me a slice i accept. 
this is incredible cheese, it's melting in my mouth like some sort of rare wild llama cream. i end up buying some. the friendly murderers then open the vaulted freezer door and there i see the horror within, the bodies, carnivore city. my lawyer buys up some of this stuff, he's a gourmet chef, a man of all seasons, except the witch whereas i am not comfortable with this strange stench and sound of bones being chopped, although i grab one for pan. the whole thing is quite disturbing yet these chaps are lovely, really friendly. i sniff around, it's a little vile but i think they are high on death, they are constantly putting their hands into flesh, chopping, sawing, grinding, it's in the air thick like fog, it gets under the nails, in through the pores, it wanders up into the brain where some primal circuit is switched on. i need to get out of there, to much joy can't be healthy, not when it's narcotic snorted into the nostrils from dead beings. is it blood lust, mortality crisis, what the hell goes on in butchers brains? 
why are they so happy, they are the opposite of clowns, think about that!
i get out, breathing fresh air, my legal escort, my friend is high on the good vibes of dead meat. while he's in the area i suggest popping into see some friends of mine over at rozelle, the common ground coffee shop, nice peaceful people who live and eat in ye olde style, they make good stuff, all grown on a farm, they practice yoga and smile without the stench of death, i want to sit there and feel nurtured but the common ground has been and gone, it closed down two years ago, relocated to the blue mountains, so i drive home disappointed nibbling on cheese while the legal man tells me about the way to prepare some dish i will never make.