Cold April morning · Posted Apr 19, 08:49 PM by Todd Babiak
The community league sent around a photograph today, of three dead deer with their antlers removed. Someone had dumped them in a field adjacent to the ravine.
The note attached to the photo employs the phrase “rotting carcasses” and that is precisely how they appear, in the photograph. Their bodies askew. One of their torsos has been opened and they’re in pieces — a head here, a lower half there.
I have taught myself, when I receive information like this, to attempt empathy. The people who dumped them — two men, I imagine. At night, the grass adjacent to the ravine is shadowed. A truck could pull in and out in moments, and no one would discover the animals until the morning. Between three and five-thirty in the morning the city is dark and peaceful — all but night-shifters are asleep.
But why not in a ditch, outside town? The Mill Creek Ravine is in the core of the city. Driving with dead animals in the back of a truck, among streetlights, could only be unpleasantly risky. If a police were to pull you over, randomly, and discover the dead deer, the fish and wildlife officers would make things financially difficult for you. If someone were to witness the actual dumping, criminal charges would be forthcoming.
It was surely a sign, a message. But to whom? And why such a stupid and vile message, when clever messages are easier and quite a bit more fun? Spelling out a haiku threat with cheap off-season Christmas lights, plugged into an unsuspecting dope’s outdoor plug, for example; now that is a message worth sending.
Cold April morning:
For all of that crack you smoked,
Give me my money.
commenting closed for this article
Quiet Riot fan:
Why must we still feel the noize?
You’re driving us nuts.
— Rob D Apr 22, 09:28 PM #
Beautiful, Rob D. Like raindrops in an alabaster pond.
— Todd Babiak Apr 23, 08:26 AM #