The Stronger Eye

Stephen M Batey

smbatey@grove.ufl.edu

Deep South v.2 n.2 (Winter, 1996)

"You know," Mike said softly, breaking the silence, apparently acquiescing, "it's just the way they are. When it's over, it's over... and it's like there was never anything between you." I snapped the last twig off of the pine branch in my hand, and flicked it into the fire, following with the branch itself. There was nothing useful I could say to this, so I said nothing, maintaining instead my ear and presence, which are probably the two most useful things one could offer a friend in times like these. Mike finally finished off his beer and walked over to the rabbit cage, while I dutifully tossed the remaining branches into the fire.

"The fire's getting low," I said, "and we're out of fuel."

"What time is it?", he said, struggling with the latch on the cage door.

"12:30," I said.

"Let me just check their food, and we'll make another trip," he said

Though this meant we would be out here a few more hours, and it was bitterly cold and thirty minutes into Friday, I did not even consider suggesting anything different to my best friend.

"Dammit!" Mike shouted, causing me to jerk slightly in surprise. "I can't believe this. Get back, Happy, you...!"

Apparently, Happy was at it again.

Samuel and Happy, they were. Brothers, both two years of age, both white with red eyes, given to Mike by Kelly three months ago - or nearly three months prior to the break-up. Mike didn't really want them, but he also still loved Kelly - and coveted them now, I would guess, as being the one thread of connection that he might somehow weave into a reconciliation. Kelly had raised the rabbits from birth, Mike told me, but had forced herself into taking in a stray ash-gray kitten that wouldn't go away after it showed up in the yard one day and she made the mistake of feeding it. The cat and the rabbits, needless to say, did not become fast friends, and Kelly decided after a few trying days that the rabbits must go. As I recall the conversation, I remarked that I thought it was strange that, after one year of playing surrogate mother to these rabbits and presumably developing an attachment to them, she would opt for the cat over them. In response, Mike nodded and sighed knowingly, saying she was like that - that the cat was new, and she just gets bored with things.

The problem is that Happy has recently developed a habit of nipping Samuel in that most sensitive area of male anatomy, a behavior which one might naturally attribute, lacking evidence of a more serious pathology, to an overly aggressive display of otherwise normal sibling rivalry.

"That's it!" Mike exclaimed.

Mike, however, had rather suddenly decided in his drunken state that any male - of any species - who would bite or otherwise harm another's "most sensitive area", irrespective of cause, is deserving of no less than the harshest possible punishment. The conviction in turn was swift, and a sentence was immediately passed: it was to be the firing squad for Happy, a decision which in my near-drunken state I did not argue.

Mike stomped into the house, falling up the stoop in the process, to shortly return with his rifle and pet-to-vet carrier. He then snatched Happy from his home and stuffed him, without any resistance, into the carrier. We both grabbed our flashlights.

It was then, on this cold December night, that we marched off into the woods to carry out the execution of Happy the rabbit.

The moon was quite full, which helped us unwittingly as we pushed through the underbrush. Happy appeared totally oblivious. Though Mike was the drunker of the two of us (as far as I could tell), I trusted him completely with the navigation. His experiences in these woods far outnumbered mine, as this was his house (though not his woods) and he often went out on solo excursions. Me, I had been out here maybe half-a-dozen times. There was quite an interesting mix of things once you got past the first few hundred yards or so, which was mostly thin pine. One could find terminal buds, leaf venations, sphagnum, cotyledons, and countless other plant-born wonders - all of which were pointed out to me by Mike, who took an interest in these sorts of things. In the darkness and drunkenness, though, I could not really tell if we had even cleared the pines yet. Arriving after some time at what seemed to be as good a place as any for a rabbit execution, in a small clearing, Mike set the cage down and opened the door, then began raising the back end. "Go!", Mike snapped. When the cage reached a tilt of about thirty degrees, Happy made one quick hop out onto the ground.

We stood there a few minutes, watching to see what he would do. He just sat there, though, as rabbits do, and seemed to be staring blankly, as rabbits do. As Mike aimed the rifle, I nearly stopped him - but did not. I watched Mike's trigger finger slowly coil, the trigger giving way. We were not too far out, I thought, and I hoped that the trees and the walls and the televisions were enough to shield the surrounding neighbors from the sound of the impending shot.

Finally, the hammer fell, and then... click!

Drunk, Mike had not checked the chamber, and it was indeed empty. Happy displayed little reaction. After standing silent and motionless for a few moments, Mike finally sighed and turned to start back for home, uttering a subdued "good riddance".

At that very moment, I imagined a faintly plaintive tinge in Happy's otherwise blank stare. It was to be banishment, then - the lesser punishment. "Still," I thought, "we had acted in sport, really, but the rabbit will suffer in earnest, for he is a stranger to these woods." The thought quickly passed, though, as Mike waved me on. After all, though he had never known the wild, Happy was a child of nature, not an abandoned human baby. When I glanced back for the last time, he was still in the same spot, now only the one eye that reflected my light.

On our way back, we rather unexpectedly encountered a small open field about a hundred feet in diameter, with grass knee-high and dry.

"Mike, I don't think I've been here before," I said, somewhat struck by this strange moonlit scene before me, a circular field of grass in the middle of the woods with what appeared to be the rusted-through shell of an old car, maybe even a tractor, situated about 20 feet from the perimeter opposite to where we were now standing.

"We came through here both times we went out to the pond," Mike said, seemingly sure of himself in spite of his condition.

"Really?" I said, puzzled. "I guess it just... looks different at night."

"It was four or five months ago, anyway. You just forgot," Mike concluded.

We were tired now, and after gauging the distance before us by the size of the lighted window on the back of Mike's house, we decided to rest here a few minutes. The wind was fairly brisk, and the night was quite cold and clear. We both plopped down flat in the grass, and just stared up at the moon a while, framed concentrically by the surrounding treetops, our conversation waning with the rebirth of sober vision. I asked myself, wondering intently, "What exactly was it... that my friend was thinking?"

The longest time then seemed to pass; and after it passed, I yawned in the most pleasant way - the effect of which could be likened to the feeling a young child experiences crawling into its parents' bed on a quiescent Sunday morning; for I did now believe that Happy the rabbit, brother of Samuel, would continue to live, and perhaps even be better off for his fate.