From High in the Mulberry Tree

Taking somewhat after my mother and heir to generations of hybrids, I couldn’t pass as a purebred anything. I was dismayed when I discovered that Spielberg had stolen my image to create Yoda—no release, not even a credit! Not that I wanted credit. It was a most unflattering caricature. The old woman changed the sign to read rat-terrier and dropped my price to twenty-five dollars.  I drew blood on a fellow who offered two dollars to take me off her hands. A few weeks later the old lady dropped my price to nothing and took the sign down altogether.

The old woman went by the name of Rose Poni, an Oklahoma Indian name, braided her hair  – that had a white streak down the part – with yarn, dressed Miccosukee style, and wore a turquoise Navajo design necklace made in China. She was a  generic Indian –  more Scotch-Irish than Native-American.

Rose’s son, Eli, lived in a shack next to the channel that ran behind the shop. Even before I saw him, the hackles on my back rose the instant I smelled him.  He looked like a reject from the Dalton Gang. His skin was the color of swamp water and his hair – that  hung down to his shoulders – and his teeth were a shade darker. The odor of trouble laced his swampy stink. Reflexively my lips pulled back, and I bared my teeth every time I saw him.  Every time he saw me, he kicked at me.

Out in front of the shop obscured by cattails, a faded sign advertised SAFARI AIR-BOAT EXPIDITION. I don’t know what he was up to, but it wasn’t tours. A person would be crazy to take a ride with Eli.  In the middle of the night, I’d hear the engine rev up and the boat whine out across the everglades. Normally he spent his days pent up in his shack drinking beer and smoking pot or sleeping it off. I didn’t know the source of his money, but most of the time he had enough to maintain his supply of mind altering substances. The only time he came into the shop was to cadge money off of Rose when his funds ran low.

Rose, muttering, thick ankles, feet squeezed into too small moccasins would make her way, reaching and leaning for support hand over hand from cabinets and racks frosted with layers of dust, to a stool made of a cypress knee painted silver near the front door. From there we watched cars whiz past.  A day we had two customers was a busy day, and many days we had none.

“Come here you little good for nothing,” Rose grumbled, and standing on my hind legs I lay my head in her lap. “You ain’t no bigger than a muskrat.” I was as fully grown as I was going to get. She would scratch my ears. “And you sure ain’t big enough,” she sighed, “to guard nothing.” With scarcely enough to live on, Rose always saw to it that I was well fed. I desperately wished that I could demonstrate my appreciation.

My opportunity finally came one day when Eli snuck into the shop while Rose was off in the kitchen. I watched him from beneath a case of alligator skulls as he looked about to be sure that nobody was around, then he went to the money drawer. He must have been desperate. They had had a big row just a few days before. Ruth told him she didn’t have enough to pay her bills. He threatened her with a knife until finally she gave in, but I had never seen him outright steal. I didn’t make a sound. Best catch a thief red handed, I always say, or is it, give him enough rope and he’ll hang himself. Eli pulled the drawer open and had his hands in the till, when I let loose a bark that would do a Doberman proud. Coins flew all over the place. My bark is bigger than my bite, as the saying goes, but, pressing my advantage of surprise, I lunged and sunk my teeth into Eli’s Achilles tendon. I’d never heard such words as came out of his mouth, but somehow I sensed their meaning. He beat at me with his fists, then he whacked at me with the bat Rose kept for her protection behind the counter. I was nearly unconscious by the time Rose appeared wielding a shotgun.

More foul words ensued. It turned out that Eli was Rose’s step-son. He was likely to end up out in the Everglades wearing concrete boots like his father. Rose wouldn’t hesitate to fill his scrawny hide full of buck-shot if she caught him stealing from her again. But only when Rose  threatened to report him to the Feds, Eli suddenly exuding the stench of fear and dropped the bat as if it had turned red hot.

He fixed me with pale snaky eyes and growled, “I’ll get you, you little son of a bitch.” There was no need to bring Mother into the altercation.

A few weeks later – earlier than usual – the sweet smell of burning ginja and loud country western started up, and empty beer bottles began sailing out the shack window at regular intervals. Evidently, Eli’s financial situation had improved. Every half hour he stood naked in the shack’s door – his belly distended like a pregnant woman’s – and let water. Toward noon the bottles flew out less frequently. The music had long since ended when a final bottle hit the sill and fell back inside. Eli muttered an obscenity, and then silence fell over the place.

Though normally Eli kept it closed and locked even when he was inside, the door to the shack stood ajar.  The temptation was too great. . . .