He remembers the first time he saw pain and recognized it. He must have been seven years old, reading a book in the living room of the home he still lives in today. As he turned the page, he heard it. Outside, he listened to his father’s truck pull into the dirt driveway. The door opened and then slammed shut with a force that suggested he was keyed up. He could hear him grumbling to himself out there, cursing and spitting as he shuffled to his shed.
Jeremy jumped up and ran outside to see what was going on and when he did, he heard something new. The sound came from the bed of the pickup truck in front of him, and it was agonizing. At first, he swore there was an injured child in the back of that truck. The cry was so human and so tortured—a series of wails followed by low, painful moans. It fascinated and repelled him in equal measure, and he felt every cell in his body vibrating with anticipation. The heat of that late afternoon beat down on him like a weighted blanket, ominous and foreboding, and warning him to seek sanctuary. But still, he was compelled, as if being pulled by an invisible string, toward the screaming form in the bed of the truck. Hoisting himself up to see inside, he saw lying twisted in front of him a terrified doe. He noted her clearly broken leg and an open wound that extended from the left corner of her mouth down to her shoulder. Her sides and stomach rose and fell with such labored, excruciating breaths that air seeped from his own lungs in response. Blood dripped from her nose, and her eyes were wild with fear and pain. He could still see those eyes today when he closed his own. He couldn’t look away. For a few seconds, he just stood there, sharing a nightmarish moment with a beautiful creature.
As if on cue, music began to cut through the air. His father had switched on the ancient radio in his shed. He always liked to have music playing while working. “These Boots Are Made for Walkin’” by Nancy Sinatra slithered from the speakers.
“Son, get down from there. You’re gonna scare it, and I need that goddamn screaming to stop,” his father instructed as he strolled back from the shed in the side yard.
He had a hunting rifle slung over his shoulder, and he gestured his hand to wave Jeremy away from the screaming animal before him.
“Dad, what happened?” Jeremy asked tentatively, jumping down from his vantage point.
His father ran a hand through his sandy hair and then rubbed his chin anxiously. It made a familiar scratching sound.
“She ran out too quickly in front of the truck. The damn thing was so twisted up, lying in the road. I couldn’t leave it screaming there. I didn’t have a gun with me, so here we are,” he responded matter-of-factly as he walked around to the back of the truck and pulled the tailgate down.
Jeremy could see her better now, lying on an old dirty drop cloth that was once white but had since turned a foul shade of beige from use. Stains of blood bloomed on the fabric. Now the doe’s tongue was protruding out of her mouth. As he stared, his father wheeled a large wheelbarrow over to the tailgate and looked at Jeremy.
“Good thing I got you here, boy,” he said slapping Jeremy on the back and making him lurch forward.
“What are you going to do?” he asked earnestly.
“Well, we have to kill it. We would be monsters to let it suffer for too long.”
Jeremy felt his breath hitch in his throat.
“Kill it?” he asked, never breaking his gaze from the doe’s.
“It’s life, son. You don’t let something suffer needlessly. And besides, there’s a pecking order. Some are on the top, and some are here to provide something to those on the top. This doe’s sacrifice will provide good meat,” he explained and yanked on the drop cloth, causing the injured animal to shudder with the sudden movement. “Come on, help me pull her down.”
Jeremy was awestruck. He robotically helped his father pull the drop cloth toward the tailgate and climbed into the bed with the doe to lower her down while his father pulled. Now the noises were loud and urgent. She was calling out, trying to alert her kin for help, but she was too far from home now.