Dead Squirrel How Sad

Driving to work this morning, I noticed, a block from my house, a large, seemingly beautiful, dead squirrel on the road. I really like squirrels, and in my head I heard myself say, “Oh, dead squirrel, how sad.” I drove to work and came home to Sasha eleven hours later. It was a warm, balmy summer night, unlike what is considered normal weather this time of year. I let Sasha out when I came home, did some things around the house and then called my brother, Seth, to talk. I am the oldest of my siblings, and Seth is the youngest with ten and a half years between us. We have always been exceptionally close, especially when we were young. I remember running home after my piano lesson on the day he was brought home from the hospital, and he seemed the closest thing to a miracle my ten-and-a-half- year- old brain could imagine. Knowing and loving him from his first moments here, I have always felt a strong responsibility to protect him. I consider him one of the most important relationships in my life and even though we don’t talk as regularly as we used to because of our work schedules and life interrupting, our phone talks are often long, engaging, intense and always interesting.  

The sun had just set, and orange hues across my yard were fading to amber, then grey and, finally, crimson-black. I was watching for Sasha to let him in but was also engrossed in my phone call to my brother. At some point, I took the conversation outside and was standing on my porch talking. It was almost dark now, and I felt Sasha around me. I was glad he was at the house but something seemed strange. He was writhing and coddling and making strange love to something at my feet. He seemed pumped up proud and kept looking at me for approval in between his rubbing and licking and weird amorous longings for what he was engaging in so completely. Even in the darkness, I could tell he was smiling. He seemed so happy to have presented, what was now becoming evident, a dead object. I looked down in the semi-darkness and realized the object he was making weird love to was the dead squirrel I had seen over twelve hours ago. It was so stiff it could have been an exhibit at a natural history museum.     

I  screamed slightly into the phone, then explained the predicament. Seth tried to talk me down and gave great advice (being a film editor, he saw the humor in the scene, yet he is also an animal lover and wanted to help), but I hung up shortly after and tried to deal with the situation hands-on. Sasha, meanwhile, was continuing the post-mortem love fest and finding my hysteria more and more confusing. He kept looking to me for adulation, yet all I was giving him was my intense phobia and verbalizing it in random surges of disgust. 

“Oh geez, oh my God, oh Sasha, that is gross. Okay, Sash, stop rolling in it. Oh Sasha, stop it now. Okay, that is so disgusting, Sasha, but yes, good boy, and what a good job to bring it to me. Very good job, Sash. Okay, that is really offensive, Sash. Stop rolling. Really freaking me out here, Sasha. Really grossed out, Sash. This is not your kill.  I saw it this morning. You are not fooling me, by any means.”  

My repulsion to the dead squirrel was infused with the need not to make him feel bad. I read you are supposed to support their hunting, but this was corpse-robbing, clear and true. So I stammered, like an auctioneer wooing a bid, between encouragement and condemnation.  

I hate dead things; I hate all dead things, specifically dead animals. Having Sal for nearly a year and constantly being surprised and grossed out by dead, headless mice, rats and other inanimate objects I couldn’t completely identify has left me a bit jumpy and paranoid. I still walk out my door and keep my eyes unfocused as I walk to the car because a beautiful morning can be completely ruined by a dead rodent in various poses of demise.  

After my manic and disgust with Sasha’s new love object, I tried to focus on a plan. I would normally have called my backup, but I have no backup anymore. In all of my intimate or close relationships, I was never the one who disposed of the dead bodies. It had always conveniently worked out that way. My new backup is new support, and I certainly didn’t want to use up my chips on dead squirrels and seem like a complete fragile, incompetent wusss. I decided to put Sasha in the house and get rid of the body. Getting rid of the body is always a good thing; it is the epicenter of good plans gone wrong.

After I put Sash in the house, he stared at me on the porch through the glass door, intently watching my next move. He stared a long time because I didn’t have one. He eventually got bored and went to the kitchen to eat some food. I decided, after much thought, to take the shovel from the shed and toss dead Rocky onto the street so the street sweepers could deal with him tomorrow. He was so large and heavy it took me several attempts to get him on the shovel. This was compounded by the fact that every time I looked at him, I felt so sad about his being dead and so guilty about my being grossed out I had to stop. In the end I decided to take my glasses off so I really couldn’t see very well and thus cut the gross-out factor considerably and sped up the process. Again, sometimes what cannot be seen cannot hurt you or make you feel bad, especially when you are already overwhelmed with too much emotional overload. Sometimes, shutting your eyes is a very good thing because your heart is seeing for you.  

Still, it took twenty minutes to get him on the shovel. Eventually, I walked beautiful, dead squirrel to the road and tossed him into the street. My shaking while I performed the slinging of Rocky was an obvious indication about how bad I felt about the act, but I didn’t know what other recourse I had. He was too large to put in the trash, and it was four days until garbage pickup. I should mention the squirrels in Carmel are beautiful and I hated leaving him in the street. Yet, I convinced myself the street-sweeping crew would handle Rocky gently. I went in the house and found Sasha staring ruefully out the front windows. He had obviously been watching me. His look was an intense mixture of confusion, disappointment and disgust. I wanted to welcome him to my world but just made a mental note and went to the kitchen to pour a glass of wine.

A few hours later, I went outside to look at the stars and process the squirrel night debacle. Sasha came out with me though I had no intention initially of sharing the space. He just walked with me like he often does and sat next to me while I decompressed. And then the phone rang. I went inside to answer it and eventually took the phone call outside to resume my relish of the summer night. As soon as I stepped on the porch, I knew what an idiot I had been. Déjà vu all over again. Sasha was rubbing and purring and seemingly dancing for joy. He was writhing in ecstasy. Rocky, now more hours dead, was under my feet once again.   

It felt like all my blood left my body and every rational thought with it. I picked up Sasha and put him in the house and went once more for the shovel. Getting a dead, stiff, large squirrel in a garbage bag is much worse and more difficult than just getting it on a farm tool and tossing it on the street. It made my work of a few hours ago seem like child’s play. Glasses off, once again, and not letting my eyes focus helped considerably, and wearing thick work gloves made me feel more brave. “Dead squirrel, how sad” went into my trash container after thirty minutes of struggle and gagging. When I came in from the ordeal, I washed my hands several times and finished my glass of wine I noticed Sasha in the window staring longingly toward the shed, where the garbage containers are stored. He turned around slightly and gave me a look I will never forget. His sad face seemed to say, “But, I brought it for you.”

Ashes and Rain

I’ve been thinking about you for weeks now. You seem a bit playful to me, but I know you have my best interests at heart. It is Easter Sunday and it is colder than I can ever remember for April. I was driving to work today thinking of you and remembering your pretense of loathing this holiday and then also remembering how you indulged others with the candy and the flowers and the little eggs you seemed to hate. I always admired your deft hand in the situations that made you uncomfortable. 

It started storming early in the afternoon and has not let up. It is late in the evening now, and the rain is still pouring down on my cottage. I am determined to take some of you to the beach. This is your day, after all, and the rain has ceased for a moment. I draw myself in and put myself in raingear and gather a small part of you for the journey to the beach. I keep you under the alcove in my desk normally. I have not looked at your ashes in a year. I take you out of the box, which holds Jose’s special tin, and pour a fragment of you into a zip lock baggie. This is my big moment, careful to not spread you on the carpet and trying not to be worried about the sanitary ramifications. Have I become you?  

I start walking to the beach, and the rain commences like a long- lost relative eager to make up for lost time. I keep walking but am becoming thoroughly drenched. I make a new plan and walk the two blocks back to the car. I had a glass of wine after work, and all of my decisions in the downpour seem to be based on staying safe yet reckless. I am caught in the tumbler of my contradictions. Still, I take you to the car and drive to the beach such a short distance from my house. When I get there, the wind is pummeling, and the rain is coming down in sheets. I walk to the edge of the beach but realize the wind will only throw you back in my face. Even though I can’t see the surf because of the rain and fog, the ocean is roaring and makes for the dramatic flare I know you would love. I take you back to the car and ask simply, “Where do you want to be?”

Your answer seems swift and clear. Hurricane Point or Sierra Mar Restaurant. I leave you in the car and get completely soaked getting back to the house. You are in a zip lock, hopefully not fully knowing you have been left in the car overnight. But at least now you know I have a Lexus. Toward the end, you were worried about my next car purchase. You were very clear about not getting a 7 series BMW, even though I could not have afforded the one I wanted. You told me I was too young to be that old. The Lexus was a great deal, and even though I bought it used online, it has been fairly respectable toward me. After witnessing your horror stories of buying two cars online, and having lived through the consequences of carpooling in those two vehicles, I was incredibly skeptical about the whole affair. I once said that your affection toward your cars was based on how much abuse they would take under your tutelage. I don’t think I ever carpooled with you in a vehicle that didn’t smell of oil, gas or distrust. 

Tomorrow I will take you to Big Sur. One last carpool, in a way. I will probably feel too much. I always do once I allow myself to remember, but it is bittersweet in some ways now. On a good day it can feel like the ticklish sensation you get in your stomach after you have been spinning very fast in circles, and you are just starting to feel dizzy. You can’t help but smile in that moment because nothing else matters for a second except for the feeling of falling, free and clear and out of control from the world. For one brief moment, you have no control and it feels so good, just for a second or two, to succumb to the chaos. 

I think you were the first person I knew who used chaos as an effective tool to keep people guessing and off balance. Chaos was your fictional reality. It was your refuge, comic relief and sleight of hand. The truth is you kept your house in immaculate order; chaos was just your border patrol. Tangibles were never left to chance until the end, where they will remain so for infinity. You could counsel, critique and observe better than anyone I have ever known. You withheld and hinted and peppered the truth more than I could sometimes tolerate. You created mysticism and mystery in your chaos, but it was your structured order that held your soul.

By now, I hope you know I ended up taking you to Big Sur the next day. I let your ashes go high over the Pacific at the restaurant you loved so much. I was careful to understand the direction of the wind, but I still ended up with some of you in my hair and face because of  a sudden gust from a different direction. I realized at that moment you still always get your way, and it made me smile. I wish I could tell you Jose is okay, but he is not really. He moves forward in his time and place. He bought a different house. He is still taking care of his mother, whom he loves so much, but there is a loneliness in his voice that sounds like an echo, and it reverberates and dies a quiet death in all of our interactions. It is the sound of his love for you, and when I hear it, I know that I am no longer too young to be old.