Open Season

My childhood was filled with killing. There was no real season for it. The guns stayed in the truck window hanging on the rack all year long. Depending on the time of year, the dead deer were either strung up proudly in a tree at the end of our driveway, or hung secretly down in the dirt cellar. We butchered them on the kitchen table. Bones sawed and cracked through rang in my ears. The blood got on everything, and it smelled...sweet and heavy on the edge of decay.

And it wasn’t just deer. There were bloody headless chickens who ran even after they were doomed. There were turkeys soaked in pails of stinking brine whose feathers needed to be plucked out. Pluck, pluck, pluck... the perfect word for how it sounds and feels to pull a feather from a soaking wet bird carcass. There was the rabbit I saw getting skinned. My young eyes were fascinated by how his coat peeled from his body, leaving a thin layer of film to hold in his red, purple, and grey guts. “Looks like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich,” My grown step brother said staring down at his catch. The next time I opened my lunch to find the white bread faintly seeping up with grape jelly trails, I knew he was right.

And it wasn’t just things we ate. There were troublesome dogs, unwanted litters of kittens, and foxes who did not belong in our coop. There were floating bull fish after the quarter stick went ka-boom in the pond. There were unrecognizable piles of skin and bones littered throughout our woods. The deer skulls were obvious... the others I wondered about.

And it wasn’t just animals. There were two little girls who came to believe Him when he said he would tie cement blocks around their necks and throw them in the pond. Those girls grew up and got away. But I know if you go back and look into that dark and murky water you will see reflections of them lying there at the bottom.