Kudzu Queen

By Tamara Ducote

My mother has been my mother all of my life. It’s a dirty job, but somebody has to do it. Judy just happened to be the one who drew the karmic short straw. When I start to feel bad for Judy, I console myself with the fact that due to her lifelong association with me, Judy has largely become inured to shock. Rare indeed is the event that breaches my mother’s threshold for scandal, disgust or horrified surprise.

“What do you think, Mom?” I asked, after laying my and Bob’s latest humanitarian plan on her.

“I’m in shock,” Judy responded. “I’ll call you back after I recover from being scandalized, disgusted and horrified.”

Wow, I thought. It had been years since I’d gotten such an impressive reaction from the old lady. I got off the phone feeling perversely proud of myself, almost as self-satisfied as if I’d actually accomplished something.

If my news could shock Mom, it would surely put Grandma in her grave. Not having any personal animosity towards Gran at the time, I skipped that phone call.

The whole thing was actually Bob’s idea. I just went along with it, in that goofy, unquestioning spirit of comradeship one reserves for blood relatives, fellow plane crash survivors and old college drinking buddies.

I’d always been bad about bringing home stray animals, but I’d never gone higher up the evolutionary ladder than canines. Adopting a stray is always a crapshoot. Sometimes they make fine pets, once they’re cleaned-up and start feeling secure as a result of being consistently fed and cared for. Other times, they just can’t shed that street mentality and they remain forever untrustworthy.

I’d never brought home a stray primate before. Leave it to Bob to take stray adoptions up to a whole new level.

“This is my old friend Alan,” Bob had said, indicating the shabby, stinking, unkempt creature in the doorway. “I just sprung him from the nut ward. Alan’s had some hard times lately. I thought he could stay with us a little while, until he got back on his feet.” Alan shuffled over to his dusty Explorer and unloaded his household, which fit into a raggedy plastic laundry basket.

One would expect that inviting a mentally unstable homeless addict into one’s home would prove to be a bad idea. One would expect to be lied to, taken advantage of, and stolen from. This is precisely what happened, which is why I found myself closely following a 1996 black Explorer Saturday morning.

I had my pepper spray in my jacket pocket, and my tire iron on the seat behind me. It was my intent to mace Alan and then systematically break every bone in his thieving head. I understood that I was going to go to jail that Saturday, and this bummed me out, but I felt honor-bound to complete my mission. Using the mace seemed somewhat cowardly to me, almost as chickenshit as a sucker punch, but I rationalized that when the sonofabitch stole from me, he had in effect agreed to a suspension of the rules of fair play.

I cautioned myself to refrain from actually killing him. I didn’t want him dead, anyway. I wanted him suffering. I wanted him to think of me every single time one of his shattered facial bones ached. Jail was going to suck, but Bob would surely take care of my iguana and my snake for me while I was inside. My daughter would be disappointed, but she’d probably been expecting me to go to jail for years, so it would hardly be a surprise to her.

I was beyond mad. I’d passed-up mad light-years ago. I was in the grip of a dark, terrible, inexorable force. I was fixing to commit extremely bloody, gory interpersonal violence, and I knew there would be severe consequences. And I was going to do it anyway. I had to.

The Explorer suddenly changed lanes and braked, and I met the driver’s eyes. It was not Alan. I’d been following an innocent vehicle.

I pulled into a shopping center parking lot. I put the mace back in the glove compartment and the tire iron back in the trunk. Then I drove home and confessed to Bob what an evil person I was. This was not a revelation to Bob, as he has been living with me for five months.

“I’m afraid of what I’ll do if I run into Alan,” I said. “Help me purge myself of all these violent intentions.”

“You know,” said Bob The Wise, “As soon as you get to jail, they take away your cigarettes. Every last one. There’s no smoking in jail anymore.”

DAMN. I’d known that jail would suck, but even in my darkest imaginings, I never suspected it could be THAT horrifying.

“Thank you,” I said to Bob. “You have healed me of my violent tendencies.”

All of this turmoil could have been avoided if I had only been able to read my dog’s mind. I’ve been wondering what goes on in that pointy little yellow head for years, because knowing my dog’s thoughts would help me out in all sorts of ways. I wish I could read which one of Bibi’s squirmy whines means, “Cuddle me now, Momma,” and which one means “I’m going to projectile vomit all over the couch in 1.5 seconds, Momma.”

The week that Alan was in residence here, Bibi was distinctly uncomfortable. I just thought that Bibi had found yet another way to annoy me, by orbiting around my ankles like a demented yellow electron, 24/7. She followed me everywhere. Even into the computer room, which she generally avoids, as it is the scene of many of her past Poop Crimes. While Alan was here, Bibi gave up her much-loved activity of escaping out the back door and taunting the chained pit bulls who live (if one can call it that) down the alley. Bibi kept her beady little eyes on her Momma every waking moment. With hindsight’s 20/20 vision, I can see that Bibi was protecting me. That dog had Alan’s number from the beginning.

The day we threw Alan out, Bibi visibly relaxed. She returned immediately to her old behavior patterns, bolting out the back door and frisking down the alley to torment the Chained Ones.

I’ve got a new respect for Bibi. I’m thinking of changing her name to The Oracle. The minute I figure out what that little yellow dog’s favorite numbers are, I’m zooming off to Florida for a lottery ticket.

Last, I’ve got to give Judy props. Yes, Mom, I know: You told me so.

Contact Tamara Ducote at TDDucote6@aol.com.

Archives