When you cross over into our old hometown, you can pretty much guarantee that something fucked up is going to happen, but you’re really never prepared for what it is. You may come in knowing that you’re probably going to get a little blood on you, but you never think it’s going to be your own.
The morning of the day when I was partially mauled, Hailey and I walked outside my parents’ back door to see a stranger in a black hat and a bloody rubber apron, who was missing only a mask made of human skin and a chain saw to bring his whole outfit together. He apparently worked for my father, and he’d strung up a buck that he was in the process of skinning. He smiled naturally at Hailey and me, while he seemed to be digging his hands deep into the deer’s pockets, as if he were looking for his keys. Turned out, though, that deer don’t even have pockets, and he’d simply lost a glove in the deer. These are the things you come in expecting when you’re in Wall, and so you aren’t completely surprised when a stranger cheerfully yells at your preschooler to come over and help him “undress Mr. Reindeer because that’ll be a hootload of fun!” And when he tells her she can swing on the deer’s skin to help him get it all off, you’ll already have one arm on her sleeve pulling her back toward you, because this is the sort of thing you come prepared for. (Side note for nonnatives—“This’ll be a hootload of fun,” coming from a taxidermist’s assistant translates to: “This will cost thousands in psychoanalysis and will probably ruin your dress.”) Personally I prefer to avoid any activity that ends with a strange man offering to “hose the blood off of ye afterward, mate.” It’s just a rule I have. Because I’m picky. Also, when did my father hire a pirate to do taxidermy? The whole thing was weird.
Lisa agreed that it was unusual, but felt it fell short of being all-out “weird.” “Take yesterday, for example,” she explained. “Yesterday Victor walked into that swampy puddle behind the house and he was all, ‘Ew, is this from the septic tank?’ and I was like, ‘Where do you think you are? Beverly Hills? That’s leftover skull-boiling water.’ He looked ill, but I thought he should know. Comparatively, deer pockets are really pretty humdrum.”
She had a point, but it still struck me as odd. Here’s a picture of it, but it might gross you out, so use your discretion:
My dad, dinner for weeks, random drifter/cowboy/pirate/taxidermist.
I know. I’m sorry. But in my defense, I did warn you.
Anyway, I expect a lot of odd things in a town known for armadillo races, and bobcat urine collections, and high school bovine fertility rituals, but one thing I did not expect was to be attacked by a pack of wild dogs. And yes, perhaps technically they weren’t “wild” so much as they were “excitable,” and maybe I wasn’t attacked by a pack of dogs as much as it was one jumpy dog and one bitey dog, but I can honestly say that the dog that bit me was probably infused with radioactive spider juice and had diesel-fueled vampire fangs. And adamantium claws. Also, he was part bear and his whiskers were made of scorpions.
Lisa laughed, and so I pulled out my phone and showed her the pictures of me after getting out of the hospital the next day. I’d added some text to make things more clear:
“Holy crap,” she said. “That looks disgusting. Okay, I apologize, because I was really sure this was blown out of proportion.”
“Apology accepted,” I replied magnanimously.
“So, where did you even find wild dogs?” she asked.
“Oh,” I said hesitantly. “Well, ‘wild’ is perhaps a strong term.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Out with it.”
I explained that Mom, Hailey, and I had gone to our uncle Larry’s house so I could meet his new wife, who was sweet and adorable, and who had pet dogs that were ginormous.
“Oh, yeah. I’ve met them,” Lisa said. “Cute dogs.”
“Yes, well, apparently they’ve been trained to look very cute and tail-waggingly giddy to see you in order to lull you into coming outside with them so they can chew your bones off.”
“You got attacked by Theresa’s pet dogs? Aren’t they like collies or something?” she asked in disbelief.
“They’re animals. Literally,” I assured her.