9
Mine, mix, fill, place, tamp, wire, repeat.
By the half moon they had it down to a science. Geology maybe. Mornings filled the air with a dust cloud of enthusiasm, they were covered in it. Miles had never worked this hard in his life, and for so little monetary incentive, yet he felt better on every level than he’d ever known before, inside and out.
His back and arms had grown accustomed to the workout routine, the stiff neck he’d lived with for years dissipated as his core became stronger, the full days of action promised a restful recovery as any lingering insomnia was consumed by the Earth’s gravitational pull. He felt nourished in a new way, by community, and purpose, by sunshine and happy thoughts and deep heartfelt conversation, he felt alive and full and healthier than ever, and each night the spirits of the hillside got a taste of whatever delicacy Cap’s gourmet kitchen could stir up.
They were becoming a family. This was becoming home. The love was as thick as the coffee, and twice as energizing. They’d power through the morning chill, melted the frost from their eyes by brunch, the knee high wall showed enough signs of progress to feel good about some midday downtime. Cap’s older bones were always in the mix, but the three of them became a well oiled machine, instinctively flowing through unspoken shift rotations, growing more inseparable by the bag.
He and Spaz were connecting in a big way, developing a brotherhood of mutual adoration, which only further cluttered his feelings for Annie. They’d grown far beyond coworkers as they explored the path to the best friend zone, spans of silence comforted by one another’s presence, spans of intimate conversation found him opening up about things he’d long repressed, they’d formed a platonic solid that almost made it possible to not look at her in that kind of way.
The recreational use of their time kept morale in the upper register, poker for piñons and blackjack for dishes. A tennis ball challenge of most boulders bounced, Miles held the record at five, Timps was undefeated in downhill retrieval. Cap pulled out an archaic croquet set that could have been original equipment of his vehicular home inside. The once docile game of tea time, quickly evolved into an extreme sport across a wonderland of potential landslide victories.
The boys would sneak off to hone their craft of projectile hunting, casing the leftover piñons as each patron effortlessly evaded contact, and only once they’d vacated their post, would they hear the territorial cry of what had to be the mountain lion, expressing disinterest with the encroaching of two-legged competition. Unsure of a boomerang in a cat fight, they were relieved when Timps always came to the rescue, even if her primal instincts chased off any chance of a successful hunt. If they ever had one to begin with.
And eventually, she scored the first point in the hunger games anyway, she took off after a whiff of adolescent raccoon, and finished the job by the time the crew caught up. The rest of the family clung to the treetops, they’d been through enough trauma today, no further shots were slung, besides, they already had their hands full with unmasking Timps’ bounty.
Spaz pulled out his fixed blade, a rather stout shine of metal with a handcrafted walnut hilt, “It’s a bit big for this little fella, but I think we can get it done.”
He dug into his back pocket and found a leather pouch of tobacco, a small ration, but plenty for a nonsmoker to survive on. He shared gratitude for abundance, and for this opportunity to honor the spirit of a relative in a good way, then he placed his prayer into the motionless mouth of the fallen creature and proceeded to fulfill his obligation. Miles held the tiny paws, as Spaz made the incision and began to separate the wheat from the chaff.
“You know,” he said. “I’m not gonna kill anything I’m not gonna eat, it’s part of my sacred pact with the wild, but dang it if Timps won’t hesitate to terrorize a squirrel or a cat or a raccoon, with no intention of anything but playtime. She’s got such a strong predator drive, but really only a taste for deer, which she’s yet to graduate up to. It’s hard to believe that her natural instincts are to seek and destroy, just to leave the remnants by the wayside.
I think she’s fallen victim to the same colonial mindset as the rest of us. She eats from the spoils of human superiority, without fear of going hungry, which leaves her free to pick and choose the most desirable bits, and toss the rest out to the dogs. It’s not her fault, it’s the only way of life she’s ever known, but we could say the same about all those poor innocent people out there trapped in a world of death and destruction.”
He motioned for Miles to turn the raccoon and continued, “We can only know what we’ve been shown to know. And all we see, is go to work all day, get money and buy stuff, work more, get more money, buy more stuff, and bigger stuff, so much stuff that you have to work more to afford it, take out a loan for even bigger stuff, work just for the sake of work, that’s what grownups are supposed to do, no worry that it’s not the greatest contribution to society, or anything that you’re even passionate about, which leaves us with a society of half-assed contributions and completely devoid of passion, but at least we upheld the colonial work ethic our infallible country was founded by, working for a living instead of living for a lifetime, and look at all this stuff, you’re doing so good, way more stuff than you can even use, so you throw some old t-shirts in a bag, shirts from all over, shirts shipped from china to your latest vacation destination, shirts you’ve never even worn, or worn once as a promotional giveaway to prove how much stuff someone else had, with little thought of the global footprint it took to fill your dresser, just the extra space you need for more stuff, so you bag up a few that you can manage to survive without, and when you drop them off at Goodwill, you’re reassured that you’ve done your part to bridge canyons of inequality, even if those lazy bums will never fully appreciate your yard sale leftovers.”
Miles was beginning to feel overpacked with dirty laundry.
“And don’t even get me started on the whole Goodwill sham, millionaire executives whose only good will is to hand out jobs that pay below the poverty level, forcing their clientele to start the entire viscous cycle all over again.”
Spaz had successfully removed the pelt, while pushing Miles to shed another layer of worldly weights from his excess baggage. He folded it up into an origami fur ball and placed it on the rock beside him. This next part might be a little too graphic for a legitimate vegan, or for the fear factory carnivores who insist on a disconnect between farm and table, so we’ll just leave it at Spaz removing a bit of unwanted interior design. He pulled a crumpled ziplock from his pocket, obviously used and reused past the manufacturers repurchase date, but plenty of life left to contain the recently deceased until tonight’s cremation. He left the remnants in trail to the piñon patch, figuring that the cougar would enjoy an offering of nutrient density, Timps had no interest as she seriously considered veganism.
Spaz added a pinch of tobacco and sang a short song, a foreign language, though it was starting to ring familiar, and the finally victorious hunting party headed back to camp to celebrate their prize.
“Now we get to work the hide,” explained Spaz. “We get to honor this creature’s sacrifice as we pour our hearts into preparing it in a good way. And we’ll forever know what it took to make our next hat, and who it took, we won’t be blinded by seven degrees of separation from the destructions of mass production, and the only ones sweating in our shops will be us, which will ensure we treat each article with the respect it deserves, even patching and mending as we help it last a lifetime, because any other way, is simply wasting another’s lifetime as we perpetuate the disposable nature of repeat business.”
They crested the camp and held their trophy for all to see. “Got dinner,” Spaz announced. “And a hat, might be a bit small on you though.”
Annie squeaked with excitement, “Oh goodie, I knew you boys had it in you.”
“Well, actually...” Spaz nodded towards Timpsileh.
“Oh Timps, did you show those tough guys how it’s done. You’re such a good girl.”
“Hey now,” resisted Spaz. “We did all the work, you know.”
“And for that you will be rewarded handsomely. In fact, I’ll even let you tamp the row me and Cap put in while you were on your little adventure. Now let me see what you’ve got there,” she perused the treasure. “Another Raccoon, well at least she’s consistent. And you got the heart?” He nodded. “And the liver?” Again. “And I’m sure you got the brain.”
“You know me babe, all brains and no guts, that’s the way you like ‘em.”
She laughed and fired back, “Think you’re clever huh, I guess that means you kept the asshole too? Oops, I mean butthole, and here I was thinking you were the crude one.”
“I think we all know better than that.”
“Hehe, I said butt.”
By the time the row was half packed, the sizzle of hot oil wafted from he fire, with every brick in the wall the aroma caught up.
“Hunters, party of three,” the hostess announced. “Your table is ready, and boy are you in for a real treat. Tonight’s menu includes a wholesome vegetable fried rice, a healthy dose of homemade kimchi, and our featured dish tops it all off with piñon crusted raccoon wings a l’orange. Bon appetite.”
When she put it that way, it didn’t sound half bad, made you think it was some kind of delicacy for the elite, like little baby cows kept in small dark boxes for the duration of their reduced sentence. And it wasn’t half as bad as Miles had prepared for, quite good actually, and made with so much love and gratitude that you could almost taste it. Oh, is that what that taste was?