In Response To A Question Posed By My Friends The Baha Men
The worst thing I think I ever did happened on the way to the bus stop in the seventh grade. It was one of those horrible winter days where it was fifteen degrees, the sky was crystal blue and the two feet of snow on the ground (that had fallen over a month ago) was a grey sheet of ice. Your shoes made that unpleasant squeaky crunch as you walked and your nostrils stuck together every time you took a breath.
I don't know too many boys who haven't thrown a rock at a bird a few times in his life. I don't know why we do it but we see a bird and we want to see if we can hit it. For me it was some sort of baseball fantasy I guess. If I could throw a rock thirty feet and hit a bird maybe I'd have a chance pitching for the Cincinnati Reds. It may even have had a little bit of a caveman thing to it. Something in our heads makes us want to catch and hunt things. Why else would we see a frog and think, "Hey I need to put that in a jar."
That morning when I was walking I saw a bird on a telephone line. I had a long icicle in my hand I had broken off the rafters as I had walked out the front door of my house. I snapped the icicle over my knee and flung the smaller part as hard as I could toward the bird. Now, I had been throwing rocks at birds on the way to the bus stop every morning for a couple months and never even gotten close. I'd be lucky if I was even within ten feet. But this morning everything horrible that could of lined up-lined up perfectly. The icicle hit the bird and it dropped to the ground.
I ran over to look at it and it was just sitting there staring at me. I couldn't believe it. It then hit me what I had done and I started freaking out. "Oh G*d, I'm sorry. I didn't think I'd actually hit it. You can't let it die. I' m sorry. I promise I will never throw anything at a bird again." I picked up the bird, brushed the snow off of him and wrapped him up in my stocking cap.
I thought if I got him to school my first period science teacher would know what to do. The bird didn't make it. It died before I even got to the bus stop. I dumped out my lunch and put him in my lunch box. I walked out in the middle of a field and buried him in the snow. It took forever to dig in the packed ice and I missed the bus. This was probably for the best because I felt sick the entire day and didn't come out of my room.
How I reacted to this shouldn't have surprised me. I've had a pretty long history of worrying and fretting over animals.
When I was in the fifth grade we lived next to this pound. It was only a couple blocks away and you could always hear dogs barking and fighting. My friends and I use to ride over there pretty regularly and look at the dogs through the fence. I always thought it was horrible that no one wanted them. Then one day my Father told me that they could be put to sleep if nobody came and adopted them. I quickly decided I had to do something.
Now saying I HAD to do something is a bit of an exaggeration. I rarely do anything. I'd like to believe it's because I'm more of a "thinking man" but the truth is I'm often a chicken-shit. I didn't really have to do anything. What I had to do was plan something for everyone ELSE to do! I immediately went to work gathering some friends.
I rounded up the usual suspects. Reyes, my Mexican friend who was always up for whatever I came up with. Trey and Luther, the two little black kids that lived next door, for some reason would do anything if you promised to make them a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Since I pretty much lived on the stuff my self I could get them to do anything and at a reasonable price. Then there was the red-headed freckled girl. I never wanted to get her in trouble but I liked having her around. I'd find something safe for her to do. Then we had Charlie. He was this heavy set Korean kid who had asthma. We hardly knew him but he seemed pretty cool. We were a great bunch - kind of like a cross between the A-team and the Black Eyed Peas.
I brought them together and told them about the dogs. "They are going to kill these dogs and we have to do something to save them." I then proceeded to tell them about my plan. We were going to sneak my fathers bolt cutters out of the shed. Leave our bikes in the bushes near the pound. We'd then walk back to my house and dress up in all black, crawl through the field so nobody would see us, break the window, jump in, unlock the front door and cut all the dogs out of their cages. Since our bikes would already be there we could get away quickly. It was a foolproof plan! It would be the redheaded girls "safe" job to find me a white shirt. It was my job to sit on the rock down the road a little way. Since I was going to be the "lookout" I had to blend in with normal people so no one would suspect anything. And that is exactly what I did.
The plan went off with out a hitch. We road our bikes to the pound, hid them in the bushes and walked back to my house. Charlie broke into my fathers tools and got the bolt cutters and put them in his backpack. Reyes, Trey, Luther and Charlie all dressed in black and I put on my white shirt. I then told the Red-Headed girl to stay in the house (I'd come get her if trouble came up).
I don't know how long the four of them crawled on their stomachs, through the field, in the middle of the hot Sunday afternoon heat before they got to the pound but I felt like I was sitting on that rock forever. "What is taking so long?", I thought. Just as I was sure I couldn't take it anymore I started seeing a few dogs. Then I saw a few more. Before I knew it there were literally fifty dogs running all over the place. I couldn't believe it. I had no idea that place held so many dogs. Within in no time people were out on their front porches laughing and cursing and shooing terriers out of their yards. We saw big dogs, little dogs, black and white dogs. It was complete and utter dog chaos. People were trying to catch them and they were running between their legs. It was amazing. Then of course I started freaking out. "G*d. Please don't let me get caught. I promise I will never do this again."
By now someone had called the police and they had shown up. Fully uniformed officers were now in on the spectacle. Then they called for back up and two fire trucks loaded with firemen got in on the action. They were all tripping over themselves, scrambling and cursing. My friends (who were back by now) sat on the rock with me and watched. I think everyone there realized what we had done but we were trying really hard to act like we weren't scared. I kept telling them to "just look natural".
To this day I still can't believe we didn't get caught. Even more I can't believe no one in the group cracked. It took a week before we stopped seeing dogs running around and took even longer than that before people stopped talking about it. There was all kinds of rumors from animal rights activists to a disgruntled employee. I still wonder what would have happened had they found out it was me. Well, it wasn't me. It was Dennis and Trey and Luther and Charlie.