What does Will compare his mother’s eczema to in Chapter One? And how does he turn this into wordplay talking about the grudges in the neighborhood?

Will compares his mother’s eczema to something eating her alive in Chapter One. He posits that something invisible is trying to eat everyone in the neighborhood as “if we are beef” (58). He then changes from the definition of “beef” as food, to the definition of “beef” as a dispute, and says that everyone in the neighborhood has beef with one another, beef that is passed down, and that got Shawn killed.