by David Thorne
“But he always has, you know, that big bulge in the front of his trousers. It’s not just the pleats. It’s pretty out there.”
“Overcompensation. Same thing with the way he walks. It’s actually a rubber penis. A special one that he can pump up by squeezing the balls.”
“Really? I’m going to ask him if I can see it.”
“You can’t do that.”
“Why not? He’d probably be flattered that I took an interest. Have you ever seen it?”
“Yes. At Applebee’s. He was using the restroom stall while I was using the urinal and I saw it drop on the floor and roll under the door. I kicked it back under for him.”
“Are you making this up?”
“I swear to god.”
“I’ve never been to Applebee’s. Is the food any good?”
“Not bad. The quesadillas are fairly decent.”
I thought I knew a transgender woman named Brooke once. Turned out she wasn’t and had no idea what I was talking about when I casually bought up gender reassignment surgery one day. I’d been open-minded and accepting for three years so I was a bit pissed off that it was a complete waste of effort.
I finished my quesadilla and threw the foam container into the fire. We’d decided to stop at Applebee’s on the way and pick up dinner for everyone. It wasn’t as good as JM had made it out to be. I held my hands over the container as it flared up, thankful for even a small amount of additional heat.
“Do you want to borrow a beanie?” Murdock asked between mouthfuls.
“No, I look like a fisherman when I wear one. I own a wide brimmed Fedora but I didn’t bring it. It’s mainly just for the beach.”
“What about thermal underwear and waterproof camo gear? What’s in the suitcase you brought?”
“Snacks mostly. And hair product. I also bought a Keurig machine and K-cups on the off chance there might be a generator. I almost purchased a pair of battery-heated socks I saw at Dick’s but I put them back when I saw the price tag. They were $49.99, which is a bit steep.”
“I can loan you some gear for tomorrow,” said JM, “You’ll need it. It’s going be even colder when we get up at 5am.”
“Hahaha...”
“If we’re at the top of the ridge before sunrise,” he continued, “you will definitely see your first deer.”
“Wait, you’re serious? I’ll probably just sleep in then. I’ve seen deer before. What time are we going shooting?”
I’ve only ever killed two animals in my life. The first was a kangaroo that I struck with a Daihatsu while driving Seb to school several years ago. It’s a common misconception that kangaroos plague Australian city streets but they do occasionally make their way into residential areas from surrounding bush land. Their numbers are fairly similar to that of deer in the United States but deer don’t bound twenty feet into the air. I’ve had to brake for deer a few times but you are not given that opportunity with kangaroos, they just kind of appear from above in front of you. The Daihatsu was a complete write-off. We thought the kangaroo was fine at first, as it got up and took a few wobbly hops, but then it leant back, wiggled its arms like Neo dodging bullets in the Matrix, and keeled over. Seb poked it with a stick and took a picture on his phone for Show & Tell.
The second animal I killed was a hamster named Mr Steve. I was vacuuming under Seb’s bed and heard the ‘thok’ as something went up but I didn’t realize what it was until I reversed the hose to clear the blockage. There was another ‘thok’ followed by a ‘thud’ as Mr Steve hit the wall. I was equally horrified and impressed by the distance cleared. I put him back in his cage for Seb to find later and suggested dysentery, due to the state off Seb’s bedroom, as the most likely cause of death.
“I’m not shooting a deer. I thought there was going to be a course like the Flying Rabbit but more, you know, rustic. Stations made out of logs tied together or something. You said there were stands.”
“Tree stands,” JM replied, “it’s deer camp. What did you think you’d need a rifle with a scope for?”
“I don’t know, targets a long way off or something. Another game. I thought Deer Camp was just the name, like Bear Lodge or the Canary Islands. Is it lowercase or capitalized? I’m fairly sure it was capitalized in your email.”
“Do you even have a license?” asked Doug.
“Yes.”
“A hunting license?”
“What?”
JM sighed. “Right, we will set you up as a diversion tomorrow. I’ll put you to the left of the ridge and if you see deer, shoot into the air to send them running in our direction.”
“And then you’ll shoot them?”
“No, we’ll jump on their backs and ride them back to camp.”
“Do you eat them?”
“Of course we fucking eat them.”
“Fine. Straight up or on a little bit of an angle?”
“What?”
“When I fire into the air. If I shoot straight up, should I quickly run under a tree or something?”
“If you like.”
If I thought it was cold that evening, 5am the next morning taught me that I had no understanding of the concept. I pulled a borrowed glove off my hand to light a cigarette and the cold bit into my fingers instantly. A wind through the valley took snow from branches, making soggy thud noises as clumps fell beyond the light of the campsite’s single lantern.
Doug heated water for coffee on coals still red from the night before, JM helped Murdock unload two ATVs from a trailer attached to his Chevrolet Silverado. I was wearing a pair of JM’s thermal underwear under my jeans but JM is shorter and wider than I am so it bunched at the crotch and only came to my knees. He’d also given me a camo jacket to wear over my hoodie so I looked the part from the waist up. It was far too wide and the arms only came to just past my elbows but it was warm. It had large pockets so I packed a Fruit Rollup and a packet of Cheetos along with my cigarettes and lighter. I found an unopened Hothands hand warmer and two ticket stubs from a Lynyrd Skynyrd concert in one of the pockets. I have no idea who Lynyrd Skynyrd is but if it’s the type of concert you wear a camo jacket to, I doubt I’m missing out on much. It’s probably the type of stuff they play at NRA membership drives and Autumn Beer & Ballad festivals. Stuff about eagles.
I’d discovered, from a 2am excursion to the outhouse through foot-deep snow, that my boots weren’t waterproof. Murdock constructed a tripod out of sticks and duct tape for me to hang them from over the firepit.
I’ve never knowingly met a marine before meeting Murdock but if I’d known how handy marines are to have around, I might have started hanging around jetties years ago in the hope of doing so. I assume marines have something to with boats, I’ve seen photos of Murdock wearing the same outfit as Captain Stubing does on his. I’ve also seen photos of Murdock in a helicopter wearing camo, entering murky water in diving gear and deep-sea fishing in shorts. From his photos, his cool name, and his job of course, one might assume him to be a bit of a dick, but this is not the case. He’s pretty macho but it’s a quiet macho, if you didn’t know what he did for a living, you might assume him to be a maths teacher or piano tuner. Unless, for whatever reason, you suddenly decided to attack him. I’ve not yet suddenly decided to attack Murdock but I’ve thought about it.My guess is that I would live but it would be a long recovery.
I’d probably have to use those parallel bars you see people who survived bear attacks or texted while driving using to learn to walk again on television. In one report I saw, the parallel bars had been set up in a swimming pool. I’d definitely pick that if given the option.
I tied plastic shopping bags around my feet while I waited for my boots to dry. If a travelling sock salesman had wandered through the camp selling battery heated socks for $500 a pair at that moment, he’d have made a sale.
“And will you be needing batteries with those, sir?”
“They don’t come with them?”
“No, sir. Special on batteries this week though
. Ten percent off if you sign up for our rewards card.”
I hadn’t had much sleep. Before climbing into the bunk above JM’s, I’d been warned about his snoring but dismissed it as wild exaggeration. Holly snores and it’s never really bothered me much, I find it kind of cute. There was nothing cute about JM’s snoring. It sounded like wild boars eating a dead body. Worse than the snorty gobbling noises were the gasps and sudden silences as if he’d stopped breathing. Around 1am, I remembered I had hearing protection in my rifle case but it was far too cold to get out of my sleeping bag. Around 2am, I discovered the quesadilla hadn’t agreed with me and I had to dress and make my way out to the outhouse. Using the word ‘house’ in a name gives the impression of walls so really it was just an out. The out consisted of old kitchen chair, with a circle cut in the seat, placed over a hole behind a tree. As I sat in the dark with my pants around my ankles, the wind howling across my cheeks and genitals hanging through the hole, I thought about Holly at home in our warm bed. Probably with the electric blanket on six. She’d leave it on all night and forget to turn it off in the morning, which is a huge, waste of electricity and quite dangerous. I read somewhere that electric blankets account for 4% of all household fires. If there was a fire, I’d probably get back to find she’d saved the dogs instead of anything valuable. It’s the kind of thing she’d do. I’d say the things you are meant to say like, “I’m just glad everyone got out okay” and “things can be replaced” but really, the dogs have legs and if you are running out of a burning house, there’s no reason not to be carrying a flat-screen television.
I forgot to grab my hearing protection before undressing and climbing back into my sleeping bag. Around 3am, I reached down and slapped JM’s bald head. He opened his eyes and said, “The fuck you didn’t” so I had to pretend there was a bug on him.
We headed out after breakfast. It was still dark but the ATVs had lights. Murdock and Doug shared an ATV, I sat behind JM on the other like his bitch. The trail passed a frozen lake and wound over several hills. I spent most of the journey with my face pressed against JM’s back to prevent the wind freezing my eyeballs. We came to a rickety bridge spanning a small creek and parked the vehicles nearby.
“Right,” said JM, breaking a small branch from a tree and drawing a map in the snow, “We walk from here. Doug and I will head up towards the top of the hill, Murdock will be on the other side, you follow this creek until it branches.”
“Okay. And then what?”
“You sit still and wait.”
“For how long?”
“Until noon. We’ll meet back here then and head into camp for lunch. Then we’ll do it again.”
I’m not a huge fan of sitting. Especially sitting still. I’m not a huge fan of running about and exercising either but somewhere in the middle works. Maybe a little bit less than middle. Not everything has to be Xtreme. I accidently attended an Xtreme thing once and it was dreadful. I agreed to join a work team on a charity-run as it was held on a work day and I assumed, based on the fitness level of my coworkers, that it would be a brisk walk, interspersed with less-brisk walking, through a park or something. I realized this wasn’t the case when we arrived to discover people wearing Fitbits and neon. They were talking about ‘times’ and doing stretching exercises behind SUVs with bike racks. A sign over the starting point read, ANNUAL 5K MUD, SWEAT & CHEERS RUN! Two of our five-member team went home. Joylene from Human Resources and Kevin from Accounts guilt-tripped me into staying. None of us finished. Kevin bowed out when he got a leg-cramp within the first three minutes, Joylene fell hard and lost her glasses in mud on the first obstacle, and I was disqualified for taking a cigarette break behind a log wall. I’d made it the furthest of our team though so that’s not bad. Joylenedidn’t speak to me for a week but I dismissed her claims of being pushed as fanciful and expecting me to stop to help find her glasses as against the rules.
“Maybe it was just a muscle twinge.”
“It wasn’t a muscle twinge, I know what a push feels like.”
“Well, there’s no point speculating about these things.”
“I’m not speculating. You pushed me. I made it to the rope platform before you, so you pushed me.”
“Muscle twinges can feel like a push. Besides, you wouldn’t have made it across anyway. Probably better to go down at the edge where it’s shallow than in the middle. Being stuck in the middle would hold up everyone behind you.”
“We were last. The only person behind me was you.”
“Well there you go. Muscle twinge. Alluding to anything other just makes you come off as a bit of a bad sport. I didn’t complete the mud run either.”
“No, but you’re wearing the t-shirt that says you did.”
“I got further than you.”
The sun had been up for nearly an hour. I trudged through knee-deep snow in areas. The wind picked up the snow and flung it in my face so I pulled the drawstring of my hoodie tight, leaving a hole just large enough to see out of with one eye if I walked with my neck turned. To keep my boots dry, I’d wrapped silver duct-tape around them from toe to mid-calf as per Murdock’s suggestion. Doug commented that they looked like robot legs and I told him that I was happy about that, because I liked robots, and that his beanie made him look like a pedophile. The tape kept snow out but having the tread covered proved slippery on the creek’s bordering slopes. I fell several times and slid into the creek twice. The creek wasn’t overly full, mostly just leafy frozen puddles, and I walked along it where possible, looking for places to climb back up. At one point, a large fallen tree blocked the way and I had to climb up and around a small cliff to continue. From my vantage point, I could see where the creek branched a few hundred feet ahead. I heard a gunshot in the distance behind me and hurried.
The creek widened and deepened at the branch, a sheet of ice separating me from the opposite bank. I tapped at the ice with a boot and it held. To distribute my weight, I got down on my hands and knees, with my rifle slung across my back, and shimmied across. The water under the ice was only a foot or so deep but, as I was on all fours when the ice gave way, it covered my calves and knees and halfway up my thighs. There was no warning crack like you hear in movies, a chance to pause and lie flat and wiggle off or something, it just gave way.
The water actually felt warm for a moment, I’m not sure how that’s possible. Perhaps it was just the nerve endings in my legs confused momentarily by the affront. They sorted it out fairly quickly. I dragged myself out of the water and attempted to ascend the steep bank but my legs were shaking uncontrollably and the duct-tape that served to keep snow out now kept water in. It was like having my feet stuck in vases. I waded clumsily along the edge of the bank, to a spot where large gnarled tree roots protruded, and used them as a ladder to make my way to the top. The trunk of the tree above the bank had burned at some point, it was broken off at about fifteen feet up and hollowed out by fire. The inside, lined with charcoal and blown in leaves, offered some protection from the wind. I rested my rifle against the trunk and crawled inside.
There have been instances throughout my life where I was as miserable but I can’t think of many where I was more so. I’ve certainly never been that cold. I watched a documentary about arctic explorers once and it said there is a point during hypothermia where you feel an enveloping warmth. I wasn’t anywhere near that. Perhaps I should have climbed back down the bank and rolled about in the water for a bit.
Sticking my legs out straight allowed much of the water to drain from my taped boots. Unzipping JM’s huge jacket, I pulled my knees to my chest and zipped the jacket back up around them. My gloves were soaked so I pulled them off and tucked my hands into the pockets. I’d forgotten about the Hothand’s hand-warmer and actually sobbed a bit with excitement as I read the instructions on the back of the label. The front showed a hand holding a hand-warmer that was lit up like a small sun. Inside was what looked like a fat teabag. As I held the fat teabag between frozen fingers, shaking vigorously
to activate the chemical reaction, it slipped from my grip and flew over the bank into the creek.
At just past eight, I had almost three hours of sitting and waiting to get through before it would be time to start heading back. I considered starting back immediately but waiting for the others at the ATVs would afford less protection than my burnt out trunk. Besides, I had a job to do. I was the diversion. The importance of the role was questionable to say the least but after eating my Rollup and half a packet of Cheetos, there wasn’t much else to do.
I looked through the scope of my rifle for a bit, scanning the area and making pew pew pew noises, jumping when the scope was filled by a giant squirrel’s face. It was sitting on a branch a dozen or so feet away staring at me. I threw several Cheetos to him but he didn’t eat them. I had a can of cashews in my bag back at camp and I told the squirrel I’d bring them with me next time. After a while, his staring began to annoy me so I retracted the offer and threw a stick at him.
I’d been told not to have a cigarette, for deer have an excellent sense of smell, but I had one anyway. I then built a fire at the entrance to my shelter using leaves, sticks and Lynyrd Skynyrd ticket stubs. It was a small fire, decent wood being hidden beneath a sheet of snow, but enough to bring some feeling back into my hands. With a source of heat, shelter, and a fairly good view of the area, I put my chin on my knees and waited.
Waiting for something that may or may not happen is worse than waiting in an airport or doctor’s reception where eventually the flight will board or the doctor will call you through to have a look at that weird lump on your left testicle. Waiting for deer is like waiting for a bus that may or may not come after you’ve heard reports of a possible strike. At least I assume it is, I don’t catch buses. Not because I’m a snob, but because only school children and poor people who don’t own cars catch buses. People who say they catch buses for environmental reasons aren’t fooling anyone but themselves. My friend Geoffrey pretends he enjoys it but if that were true he wouldn’t ask for a lift everywhere. I waited for deer for about ten minutes, and then I just waited for three hours to pass.