My friend Bubba is in jail again. It isn't his fault --so he says.
He was home minding his own business, bothering no one when this Arkdack
came
swooping down from the sky and attacked his dog. Bubba has this old
half-blind hound
dog that he inherited from his late Uncle Zeke. None of the other relatives
wanted the
dog. Bubba said, the hound is about a thousand years old in dog years.
Anyway, Bubba was outdoors relaxing in a lawn chair, enjoying the April
sunshine. He
had his winter jacket buttoned to the top button, because every few
minutes a wooly breeze
came by and buzzed him, like the old wind was messing with him, pestering
him, telling him
to get himself back in the house 'cause it wasn't Spring yet, and the
winter wasn't through
with him yet, either.
"Hmmm ..." Bubba paid no attention to anything, but to his need to get
outdoors and to lie
in the strong sun.
His wife Sissy was cleaning house. Bubba said, she was twirling around
in a circle like a
cyclone and leaving no thing, body or object, alone.
It is the usual story, Bubba said. Let the first sign of Spring poke
its green little head
through the thick layer of cellophane, the wife put up over the windows,
and the insanity
begins. The wife turns into a menace with the single purpose of bugging
her poor husband
to death.
I asked Bubba to explain.
"All winter long," he said. "Wives behave themselves. It's cold and
they are glad to have
a warm man in bed with them, and they don't bother you with a lot of
doings and so, as long
as you take regular showers the wife is happy. But, then, comes the
first sign of Spring and
wives gets very particular about everything, themselves too, and their
houses, and their
bedrooms, and you -- specifically you, the husband!"
"Oh?"
"Sissy said I am getting a pot belly," Bubba said. "All winter she kept
stuffing me with
stuff, but now she wants me thin. She got me fat, made me eat, got
a hurt look when I
hesitated to finish my plate. She said: Are you feeling okay? I said:
Yes, dear. She said:
Your plate isn't clean. And so I cleaned it. Now, she is trying to
sweat me -- believes she's
going to sweat me lean."
Bubba told me that his wife wanted him to take up jogging. He refused,
so she tried to sweat
him by getting him to move this piece of furniture and that piece!
She had him lift up and
hold the heavy lounge chair and the sofa, while she swept under them.
She had him climb
a step ladder and pull down all of the drapes and the blinds, so she
could wash them. Worst
of all, she had him to stand still, and sweat like a green marine recruit
at some boot camp, and
listen while she did her act, discussing the various shades and hues
of paint she could possibly
use to repaint their bedroom.
"Discussing colors of paint!" Bubba throat "grrr-ed" with
disgust as he told me this. He cared
less what color his wife painted their bedroom.
Bubba bucked. He escaped outdoors, telling his wife that he was tired.
"Huh?" his wife said.
She followed him outside and began to fuss. "You're not going to run
away," she said.
"Do you hear me?" she asked. "Do you? Are you deaf? You can't hear?
You lazy son of
a --. Aren't you going to help me?"
Bubba said, he said nothing. He sat, and as his butt touched down into
the cushion of the soft
lawn chair's seat, a feeling of relief rushed forth and embraced him.
He leaned all the way
back and kissed the warm sun rays that flooded into his face. God,
it was good to rest!
His wife kept fussing for five minutes before she gave up and returned to the house.
Bubba said he wasn't alone for another five minutes before the Arkdack
swooped down
and began the chain of events which led to his arrest.
Bubba had his eyes closed. The sun's rays were bright, and he thought,
if Sissy was
peeping out at him from the back window, she would think he was asleep
and would not
come out to bother him again. Bubba said, he suddenly felt cold, as
if a great hand had
come over the sun and was blocking out the warmth. He heard a loud
flutter of wings and
a swoosh of wind like a sudden squall was coming. He heard the old
dog bark, then whine. His
eyes opened and he jumped.
The Arkdack was attacking the dog!
Bubba said, he didn't know what kind of a bird it was. He had never
seen such a big, ugly
bird. It was a monster, almost two feet. It looked three or five feet
long. It had the old dog
pinned to the ground. Bubba said, for a moment he froze, --stilled
by the way the Arkdack's
talons stuck out, razor-like and like pincers, and sunk into the dog's
neck. Bubba said, the old
dog bent close to the ground and went down each time the bird stretched
its claws, and fanned
its wings, and drove its talons into the dog's neck, like the dog was
dog sausage.
Bubba jumped up and began to shout at the attacking bird.
Bubba said, the bird just kind of turned its head, looked back at him,
opened its beak and
made a guttural noise, like something what Bubba thought sounded like
something he had
heard in a fright movie. Bubba told me that he felt threatened. "That
was no bird I had ever
seen, and it didn't act like no bird, it acted like a monster possessed!"
Bubba said Sissy ran out of the house, yelling and screaming, cursing,
as the bird returned
its attention to the dog. Sissy had a broom in her hand. She'd been
sweeping the floor when
she heard the dog whining. She had seen the attack and was coming to
help. She tried
frantically to brush the bird away from the dog. The bird showed no
fear of her. It turned
and stared hard, as if trying to stare her down. It made the guttural
noise and Sissy's hands
and knees began to shake
. Bubba said that his heart was pounding, but he calmed himself and
took the broom. Using
the wooden handle, he struck the bird to beat it away from the dog.
The bird shrieked and
flared up like an angry fire. It attacked Bubba. Its left talon struck
Bubba's arm and drew
blood. Bubba whirled, spinned about, shook loose from the bird. It
fell, dazed on to the ground.
Bubba, using the broom's handle, beat it dead.
While Bubba was doing this, a couple of uptight research fellahs from
the office of the state
board of wild game arrived in Bubba's backyard. These fellahs were
tracking the bird. They
had fitted a couple of transmitters to each of the Arkdack's legs,
and relying on electronic
apparatus, arrived a tad too late to save the bird.
They screamed at Bubba.
"Do you know what you've done! You idiot!" one of them said.
"Why don't you tell me about it?" Bubba stared at the strangers. A thick
sheen of sweat
was on his redden brow. He was aroused and the sweat made him look
madder than any
body, I guess, those research fellahs knew. One of them looked nervous
and began to
stutter; the other mumbled something about the bird being a member
of a protected species
and that it was against state, federal, local, county and international
laws to hinder or harm
one.
"Yeah?" said Bubba. "What are you doing on my property?"
The strangers said that they wanted the bird. Bubba told them they could
have the dead bird.
Those fellahs took what was left of the bird, a bloody pulp and feathers,
and they left.
A week later, 5:30 P.M on a monday, a paper came, delivered by the Sheriff's
office. Bubba
wasn't home, so Sissy accepted it for him. On the paper was written,
"Tuesday at 9 A.M.
(which was the following day) - Failure to appear might subject you
to arrest." Sissy read
the paper three dozen times. She couldn't believe that Bubba had been
summoned to report
to the state government building in the county seat to discuss a violation
of the law on the
preservation of endangered species. When Bubba came home, she showed
him the paper
and she and him spent the rest of the evening, and stayed up all-night,
angrily discussing the
summons.
The next morning, Sissy accompanied Bubba to the government building.
They were ushered
into a room where six armed government men in black suits, who wore
pointed-toed shoes,
awaited them, and where Bubba was promptly arrested.
"Under arrest? Why?" Bubba said he inquired calmly. He suppressed his temper.
The head government man in the room stared, stiff-necked and stoney
eyed. "You killed
an Arkdack," he said. "There are only fifteen Arkdacks left."
"I'm sorry," Bubba said. "Your Arkdack attacked my dog, and attacked
me, and frightened
my wife."
Then, Bubba stopped trying to reason with the man. He could see from
the way the
man's muscles were bunching up along his jaw line that the man was
not listening. Sissy
could see this too and she began to curse.
"Doesn't my husband have a right to protect himself, me and his home?"
"We must protect the Arkdacks," the government man said.
Sissy yelled, "Your damn Arkdack injured my husband!"
"Irrelevant to the charges," said the man.
"This is irrelevant!" Bubba shouted, showing the arm, and the scab over
the wound,
where the Arkdack's talon had struck.
The government man said dryly, "You will live, that's more than you
allowed the
Arkdack."
"Listen, please?" Sissy asked.
"Don't plea with him," Bubba told her, "These people are crazy."
"I've heard enough," Bubba said the government man said, with a tone
of finality. "You
are going to be booked and charged with a violation of law."
Sissy shouted, "Your bird violated--"
"Nonsense," the government man said, cutting Sissy off. "That bird was
a beautiful and
proud Arkdack, a hunter, and what it did was natural. It hunted. "
"Our dog!" Sissy shouted. "And if your Arkdack had killed our dog, you
would say, sorry,
that's nature's business? Right?"
The government man nodded, and added, "If the dog had killed the Arkdack,
under the
circumstances, no criminal charges would have been filed, but your
husband killed the
Arkdack and that is a criminal offense."
At this point Bubba exploded. He said, it took all six of the government
men to subdue him
and to put the cuffs on him. Boy, he said, he was madder than he had
ever been! Gawd,
was he mad! He told me that to those government men a dog has more
rights to defend
itself than does a man. They put the rights of a man below that of
a dog.
Well, I don't think that is quite the point of this story. I think the
point is that if in early April
you ever find yourself summoned to a room full of government men wearing
pointed-toe
shoes, you can be sure that you're in for many bad days and a late
Spring.
(c)Copyrighted 1993 by Franchot Lewis All Rights Reserved
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