Cutting Animals Up Can Be Messy

Cutting Animals Up Can Be Messy

We poked it with a stick and prayed to God that it would moan or growl or get up and walk or, at the very least, give us something exciting to brag about (other than the bragging rights a kid gets for poking a corpse with a stick).  It was on its side, one red, bulging, eye open staring beyond the sun, a dry tongue hanging out of its jaw, and a small, burgundy, hole in its rib cage, feeding the desert ants of the area.  It did not have a collar.  When we poked it, to our disappointment, nothing happened.

“Who do you think it belongs to,” asked Gallo.

“I don’t think it’s anybody’s that lives in Mission,” I replied. 

I recognized that the dog was a Miniature Doberman Pincher.  At home, I have a chart at home of the various breeds of dogs and what they look like.  On the chart, next to each picture, there are dash marks.  Each dash mark represents the number of times I have seen that specific breed of dog lying, dead in the desert.  At this point, poodles are in the lead with five dead dogs found.  Shih-Tzus are a close second with four.  Today was an exciting day because I had never seen a dead miniature pincher.

“Looks like a gunshot wound,” Gallo lifted the dog by its left ear, “and I don’t see an exit hole which means that the bullet is probably still inside of him.”

I stayed quiet, observing the beauty that life leaves behind when death overcomes.  I tried to ignore the stench leaking from the body of the dog.  The collar-less dog.  It hung there, by its left ear, as Gallo made it rotate in the sun, like a roasted pig over a flame. 

“We should cut it open and try to get the bullet.  I’m sure Mr. Tarrant would give us some money for it.”

“It’s not worth it, man.  My mom will kill me if I get these shoes covered in dog blood.”

“True,” Gallo dropped the dog on the ground, causing a cloud of sand to rise into the air, “cutting animals up can be a little messy.”

The desert was our haven, our place to escape the inadequacies of our everyday life.  There wasn’t a park where we lived, but there was plenty of boulders to climb and jump off of and cacti and desert shrubs to play hide and seek behind.  We didn’t have access to a zoo, but the wildlife in the desert had no restrictions.  We were free to feed the animals or feed off of the animals.  We’d stick knives in horny toads, avoiding their sticky spit, and shoot pellet guns at jack rabbits and vultures that would come down to feed off of our kill.  We’d explore the vast regions of the desert, looking for shot-gun shells, gang member’s belt buckles, butterfly knives, and switchblades.  The random sounds of gun shots, coyote yells, and wild crickets were like thunder to a rain storm. 

That day, Gallo and I walked south, away from the collarless dog and away from civilization.  Vultures soared over our heads, occasionally coming close enough for us to hit with rocks.  They mocked our Nikes by spreading their wings wide over the naked sky.   Finally, we took a break beneath a huge boulder that looked like a brain that had been sliced in half. 

“You know,” Gallo began, as he stretched out as if he were about to take a nap, “vultures are carnivorous and they may think, since we are sitting still, that we are dead and try to swoop down and eat us.”

“ Maybe that would be a good way to hunt for vultures.  Pretend we are dead and then catch them by surprise,” I had never seen a dead vulture before.  Up to that point, it had been my life long dream.

“With what?,” asked Gallo.

“A rock would probably do.”

So, we played possum, rocks in hand, awaiting our prey to step into our cleverly planned trap. 

 

We imagined this to be true, as we would sometimes run, out of an imagined fear that we were being stalked by carnivorous eagles and resurrected pterodactyls. 

Hours passed and, eventually, everything looked identical.  We were lost in a maze of golden bolders, ten foot high tumle weeds, and mocking cacti.  It’s not as if there are trees and cliffs, like in a forest, where one can get turned around, but the stalking scent from the miniature pincher made us nauseous enough to throw off our sense of direction. 

Dialogue

“We should probably start to head back now,” I suggested, afraid of the dropping sun behind the plain desert frontier. 

“That was probably a better idea an hour ago, when we knew which direction ‘back’ was,” responded Gallo, “we may have to start thinking about staying to fight instead of escaping.”

Gallo always had a way of over-dramatizing things, making the ordinary seem heroic, but, at the same time, he was scaring the hell out of me.  I had been lost before, but never like this. 

One time, I got off on the wrong bus stop from school.  I roamed the strange rural neighborhoods for over two hours that day, looking for some sort of familiarity.  Finally, after unloading a few tears from my eyes, a police car pulled up beside me, rolled down their passenger window slowly,  and asked, “Are you Robert Gonzalez.”  My leg buckled beneath me from the excitement of hearing my name.  I remember being attracted to the shine from the police officer’s name tag.  His name was Caleb Ceballos, and he was brown, like me, but he spoke with a thick southern accent, kind of like John Wayne.  I thought it was the collest accent I had ever heard from a brown person.  Unfortunately, while lost in the desert, there were no roads for Caleb Ceballos to drive along and rescue us.

So we walked.  Gallo had a long stick and I had a few rocks to fight off potential predators.

“The sun always sets on the side of my home where there are no windows,” I argued, “So that means we should walk in the direction of the sun and that will take us directly to my house.”

“No!  The sun shines on the side of my house where there are flowers.  Which means we have to walk away from the sun.”

“That’s stupid because your house faces a different direction than mine.”

“They face the same f*****g direction, you s**t.”

The sun seemed to be dropping more quickly and the once barren air developed moisture that, when mixed with the sweat from our brow, made the scolding desert seem arctic.

Finally, after the sun had almost completely set, and the full moon over our heads was our main source of light, we miraculously stumbled upon the same dead Doberman Pincer from earlier in the day.

“You see, I told you we had to walk directly towards the sun.”

Gallo did not say anything.   He stood in silence, pale and lost, overcome with a sudden fear that spread its coldness over me, as if it were contagious. 

“I don’t think this is the same dog, dude.  If it is, we need to get the f**k out of here.”

The dog, its left eye was still open, staring into the stars above, but the hole, where the bullet had supposedly entered and never exited, and ended this poor dog’s life, it had been ripped open, widened.  The entire top layer of the dog’s chest had been ripped off, in chunks, leaving an exposed, broken rib cage, an assortment of organs playing a somber tune, and one bloody bullet.

We ran in the direction of the sun set, where we believed our homes would be.  In the coldness, we heard the sound of tiny footsteps sprinting behind us, after us, towards us.  A low growling, steadily decreasing the distance between us with each step.  The dust that we kicked up from the ground, burned as it occasionally mixed with sweat and flooded my eyes.  As the growls and the trot of the footsteps got louder and closer, our breaths, our ability to breath, became more difficult, as it felt like an Earthquake in my chest. 

Finally, we saw some familiarity.  Mr. Tarrant’s mobile home was the most isolated home in the park.  It was as far into the desert as he could get, while still staying within the mobile home park’s property lines.  When we saw the Tarrant’s mobile home, we just about squealed from excitement. 

“Mr. Tarrant!  Mr. Tarrant!” we screamed. 

As if he had been waiting for such a moment, Mr. Tarrant bust open the front door, rifle in hand, and started aiming beyond us.  We kept running, afraid of what followed us until, suddently, Gallo dropped to the floor. 

“Robert!” he screamed.  I stopped and turned to face him, knowing Mr. Tarrant had his rifle aimed behind us.  At that moment, a fierce coyote leaped onto Gallo, red bulging eyes, mouth open wide, ready to rip into Gallo as if he were a collar-less dog.  Down came his mouth, Gallo screamed in fear and agony, and all I could do is watch.

From behind me, I heard the heavy footsteps of Mr. Tarrant approaching, until they stopped slightly behind me.

Then I heard a shot.  The coyote, once standing proud and beginning to tear off the flesh of my best friend, let off one exaggerated yelp, then dropped to the floor.  Gallo yelled, as if his life depended on the decibel level and pitch of his voice.  Mr. Tarrant ran to him, and I behind him.  Gallo’s shirt had been almost entirely torn off, but, for the most part, Gallo was safe from harm.  Gallo whimpered, Mr. Tarrant wiped the sweat off of his brow, and I took a seat on the ground and stared into the dark desert.

Author's Note

Incomplete, but any comments up to this point would be appreciated

Reviews

[Larry Dyson]

Nice subject MAtter and the flow is easily followed.. it hurtled me along as the intensity and tenor rippened...nice beginning....