The Horse in My Garage and Other Stories (10 page)

As the rental car manager had explained, the road to Far Outback Lake consisted of a fairly smooth layer of dirt that sloped gradually into the ditch on each side. The standard procedure for passing consisted of each driver putting the two tires on the left side of his car down in the ditch shortly before passing. The driver in the approaching car often slowed down to 80 miles an hour or so. (You have to travel very fast if you want to get anywhere in Australia.) I never quite got the hang of passing head-on traffic at eighty miles an hour, so as soon as I spotted another vehicle approaching, I headed for the ditch, and we sat there until the other driver shot by in the opposite ditch. You might think that one would become accustomed to this method of passing head-on traffic, and one does, of course, but not until one is a nervous wreck.

Here I should mention something about Outback vehicles. Each of them seems to come equipped with thick iron bars in front of the radiator. Rental cars from Sydney, such as ours, do not come equipped with such bars. Early on, I asked one of the Outback residents about this accessory.

“Oh, you mean roo-bars.”

“Roo-bars?” I said.

“Yes, indeed. Out here, you quite often hit kangaroos while driving. The roo-bars keep the beasts from wiping out your vehicle.”

“Oh,” I said. “Well, I certainly have no intention of hitting a kangaroo.”

“Good luck with that, mate.”

After traveling 500 or so miles across Australia, we at last arrived at what appeared to be a sandy desert. It looked like the sort of place where we might find a lake, and I sent Bun into a gas-station-café-and-motel combination to ask for directions. I would have gone in myself, but I was afraid I might run into one of the triplets.

When Bun returned, she reported that she had asked the lady at the counter where we might find the lake. The lady pointed to the sand outside the window and said, “That's it.”

“Oh, dear,” Bun said to her. “We drove all this way to see the birds.”

The lady shook her head. “No birds here, I'm afraid. You should have come after a wet.”

“When was the last wet?” Bun asked.

“Seven years ago.”

We eventually met up with Retch and his wife. They don't care much for birding but had been exploring expensive restaurants and numerous resorts near Sydney. They had no trouble persuading Bun to give up birding in exchange for their kind of adventure. Some people simply aren't cut out for the hazards of serious birding.

Oh, I should also report on the condition of the rental car when I turned it in. Both headlights and the windshield were broken. All the wheel covers had been knocked off, and there were multiple dents randomly distributed about the car. Most of the trim was still intact, if somewhat rearranged. Bun's faculties were also pretty much intact, if somewhat rearranged. Most of the damage was concealed under numerous layers of dirt. Fortunately, I'd had the foresight to add several extra layers of insurance on the car, so the car rental company would be made whole.

Bun said, “You better clean off all that kangaroo blood.”

I refused. How many Americans ever get to turn in a rental car, one side of which is smeared with kangaroo blood? I am happy to report, though, that the kangaroo was already dead before we hit it. Still, it was a scary situation. The next time I drive in the Australian Outback, I'm definitely going to be equipped with roo-bars. Maybe I'll even get a set for the car.

The Chicken Chronicles

M

ost people nowadays never have a close relationship with chickens and so never get to know them as individuals. My very first memory involves chickens. I was probably about two years old and was wandering around the backyard of our old farmhouse. I was stark naked. For some unknown reason, I had taken off all my clothes, possibly because it was summer and very hot. The family's free-roam chickens gathered around, clucking and squawking and seemingly accepting me as one of their own. I came across the chickens' water pan and sat down in it. I can recall quite distinctly that the water was warm and very pleasant. The chickens gathered around, expressing great interest in me, clucking excitedly and cocking their heads this way and that. Apparently, they had never seen anyone sit in their water pan before. It was at that moment that my grandmother happened to look out the front window of the house and saw a car coming down our long driveway. Having already observed me in the backyard, she certainly did not want visitors to see a member of the family sitting stark naked in the chickens' watering pan. She flew out of the house, scooped me up under one arm, and rushed back into the house. Later that day she had a stroke, for which I was forever after blamed. Gram and I were very close from that day until her death many years later. So you can see that chickens can create binding relationships.

Our chickens and other livestock were not kept as pets. They were expected to earn their keep, often giving up their lives in that effort. Until I went off to college, there was not a single time I can remember that we did not have chickens at the farm.

I imagine that farm life today isn't all that different from suburban life, except perhaps there is more distance between neighbors. In the farm days of my youth, an immense amount of killing went on, the victims being chickens, rabbits, hogs, steers, even fish, deer, and just about any wild creature that wandered by.

Even when I was still very young, my grandmother would stand by the chopping block and tell me, “Run down that chicken for me.” It seemed the chickens were less afraid of me than of Gram. It was easy for me to imagine them yelling, “Run for your lives! Here comes that crazy old lady with the ax.”

Many years later, after I had become a professor and we lived in the suburbs, we kept a family of bantam chickens, which our daughters named Verde, Gladys, Mabel, and Ralph, the first two after aunts, the third after their grandmother, and the fourth after an uncle. They said they were perfect chicken names, an opinion we did not pass on to the adults who owned the names.

One spring, I took the family off with me to Mexico, where I had a job teaching at a university, and when we returned the chickens had vanished. None of our neighbors or friends or our house-sitter could explain what had happened to them. I guess there are just some people who don't appreciate chickens. I, on the other hand, have long taken the trouble to distinguish them as individuals.

To most people, I assume, all chickens pretty much look alike, and they are therefore incapable of distinguishing them as individuals. I suppose they think there is no difference between chopping off a chicken's head and eating him or her, and chopping off Ralph's head and eating him. There is a big difference. Once a chicken has distinguished himself as an individual, he or she is pretty safe, at least from my hands. Nobody would feel comfortable eating Ralph.

A local columnist for a newspaper, a friend of mine, has had great success in writing about a chicken who roams her neighborhood. That chicken has become famous in our town. If the column goes too long without a report on “Chicken,” readers become concerned. I think their concern has something to do with identity. Once you are distinguished from the herd—or the flock, in this case— people view you differently, even if you are only a chicken. Walt Whitman, the poet and mystic, wrote, “Once you have been identified, you are saved.” I think that is true, even for chickens. I doubt any readers of the column will ever forget Chicken. If you are undistinguishable in a crowd of a thousand, no one is particularly concerned about turning you into nuggets.

Many of our chickens ended up as Sunday dinners, while others earnestly laid eggs as quickly as they could, while keeping an eye out for the crazy old lady with the ax. Several, however, did distinguish themselves as individuals and were saved. One that comes to mind is Old Biddy, my mother's name for a little, white hen. While Mom was shucking corn, say, on the back porch, Biddy would wander over and talk to her.

“So, how are you today, Biddy?” Mom would ask.

Biddy would reply, with clucks and squawks, perhaps telling Mom of her latest adventures.

For some reason, Biddy took it upon herself to become the protector of the family, attacking anyone walking down our driveway that she didn't recognize. One day I was walking out to the highway when I came across two shoes, both pointed away from the house and a long stride apart. As we learned later, a girlfriend of my sister's was coming over for a visit when Biddy attacked her. The girl turned around and ran right out of her shoes. No doubt Biddy had recognized the girl was up to no good and presented a significant danger to the family.

My grandmother was not the only threat to the lives of our free-roam chickens. Every spring, some of our hens would come plodding out of the brush followed by a string of little yellow puffballs that had been hatched out in the wilds. Mom decided they needed more protection from the elements, which included skunks and weasels. So she built them half a dozen little lean-tos in which to spend the night. It probably was my job to close the entrances on the lean-tos, but apparently one night I forgot. Mom heard a terrible racket outside and rushed out to save her chickens. She dropped on her knees in front of one of the lean-tos, slipped her hand under the hen, and set it off to one side, trying to see what all the ruckus was about. Then she realized the hen wasn't a hen but a skunk. The skunk didn't spray her, but rushed off without firing a single shot. I've always thought that the skunk was so impressed by someone who calmly picked him and set him aside that it decided she was not a person to mess with. And he was right, of course.

I do not care all that much for county fairs, except I do like to stop by and watch the baby pigs perform. After that, I walk over to the chicken pavilion. The chickens seem uncomfortable to be on display in cramped, little cages. Somehow they seem to recognize me, perhaps from another life, when I spent a hot afternoon sitting in their drinking water. They smile and nod, although it takes a great admirer to recognize when a chicken is smiling.

Secret Athlete

M

y athletic prowess may not weigh heavily on the minds of potential world champions, but that is because they have never heard of me or it. Once word gets out though, they won't sleep nights for worry.

I am that rarity in the world of sport—the secret athlete. Even my family and friends don't suspect they live in close proximity to the unofficial world-record-holder in more track-and-field events than they have ever heard of. They think all I do is fish, a sport popularly regarded as mild therapy for outpatients from the geriatric ward.

Most of my acquaintances are under the impression that I would get shin splints from a fast game of Monopoly. I'm said to get short of breath ascending the north face of a bar stool. People joke that my only form of exercise is elbow-bending. (Seriously though, you never know when you might break a leg and have to crawl out of the wilderness on your elbows.)

The reason for these false impressions about my fitness is the clever disguise I've perfected over a number of decades, essentially the appearance of a gray-haired, middle-aged guy shaped like a yam. But as I recently revealed to my wife, Bun, beneath the flab hides the rock-hard body of a world-class athlete.

“
Whose
?” she exclaimed. “I hope it doesn't belong to anybody I know!”

I mention Bun's pitiful attempt at sarcastic wit only as an indication of my fantastic disguise. “Why, it may be asked, do I hide my sleek, rippling physique from the eyes of the world?” Quite simply, it is to avoid the attention of wild, wanton, beautiful women and their come-hither looks, not to mention the endless pestering of male fashion magazines for me to act as a model of their latest fashions. It would all be so very boring and, most important, a distraction from my pursuit of a really big fish.

For me, stepping into a pair of waders is a lot like Clark Kent stepping into a phone booth.
Is it a bird? Is it an airplane? Is it a flying yam? No, it is Super Athlete!

Just recently, for example, I ran a 100-yard dash in 9.5 seconds. I would have done much better if I had been wearing only a pair of shorts and track shoes, instead of being fully clothed in a pair of hip boots (one of which was half-full of water) and carrying a fly rod, a creel, a landing net, and five pounds of fishing tackle.

The time for the herd of cows was about a minute five, but they had trouble getting organized and properly aligned on my track. I think one of them was a bull, but I'm not sure. Usually, I can identify a bull right away because he is the one who smiles when he sees a fisherman. The only thing that prevented the race from becoming a cross-country event was a fence at the end of the pasture.

Sadly, the fisherman-athlete must learn to live without the slightest recognition, let alone fame. Millions of sports fans thrill at the sight of an Olympic runner crossing the finish line, but a fisherman fighting a five-pound rainbow can be swept over a twenty-foot waterfall, do a one-arm backstroke through a hundred yards of of No. 5 rapids, crawl out on a beach, and land his fish, but if there is a single spectator on hand, he will be another fisherman who will ask, “What kind of fly you using?”

One of my specialties is the sitting broad jump. Fishermen with a preference for high mountain streams perform this event with practiced skill, although even a beginner usually does fairly well at it. I once saw a plump, middle-aged fisherman scoot himself out on a log extending over a nice, deep pool thirty feet or so beneath him. The log suddenly snapped in two. Even an experienced high-mountain fisherman might have ridden it down, but this gentleman somehow flexed his rear in such a manner as to propel himself back to solid ground.

“Nice recovery,” I said.

“Thanks,” he said.

“You done fishing that hole?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he said. “I think I'll go take a nap.”

Clearly, he was new to the snapped log event, which often takes a new angler some time to recover. I eased out on what remained of the log and managed to get a couple of casts in before a loud crack sent me into the double back flip while tying on a new fly. The “crack” was nothing more than the popping of an inflated sack by the previous occupant of the log. Although he was doubled over in a fit of mirth, I was not amused. Fishing high-mountains streams is serious business.