The Taxidermist

One morning, I was in the woods, alone, except for my Remington 870 shotgun. I sat on a wooden platform in a tree about 10 feet up. There was a chill in the air. A thin layer of frost covered the blood-red leaves on the ground. Blinding sunlight shone through the bare branches, and birds chirped to each other. I wasn't interested in shooting them, though. My shotgun was loaded with buckshot, not birdshot.
Then, from a nearby thicket, a branch cracked. I held my breath. A white-tailed deer pranced into view. It was a buck with a fine set of antlers. I raised my shotgun and lined up his torso in the crosshairs. The buck suddenly froze. He glanced around, neck rigid, ears alert. His short tail shot up, revealing its white underside. I squeezed the trigger, and a deafening blast rang out. Birds squawked and fluttered from their branches. The buck staggered backwards and collapsed.
I dropped down from the platform, and rushed over to the buck. His torso was filled with bloody holes where the buckshot had entered. His chest heaved. One of his brown eyes was swimming with tears. It looked straight at me. I pumped the shotgun, aimed at his heart, and fired. The birds squawked and fluttered again. The buck's face slumped and his eye dimmed.
He was a beautiful buck. His coat was a rich brown. His snout was long and regal. His antlers were white as ivory, twisted and knotted like ancient trees. The buckshot appeared to have missed his head and neck completely. He would make a nice trophy. It would impress my buddies, but, more importantly, it would impress the ladies. When women saw a buck's head mounted on a wall, they swooned. At a deep biological level, I figured, women wanted a hunter—a meat provider. I decided to bring the buck to a taxidermist.
With a ball of twine, I tied the buck to the luggage rack on top of my beat-up Chevy. I felt like I was tying up a Christmas tree.
Soon I was speeding along the forest-lined two-lane road, listening to the wind whip by. A thick stream of blood oozed down the front windshield—the buck must have been bleeding out. I turned on the windshield wipers, but that just smeared the blood around, making a pink film on the glass. I tried turning the wipers to their fastest setting, but that made no difference. I pressed the button to squirt windshield wiper fluid, but nothing squirted. I was out of fluid. I had to follow the road through the pink haze. Rose-tinted glasses, I thought to myself and smiled. I was seeing the world through rose-tinted glasses. It seemed that nothing could spoil the good mood that came from bagging a buck.
Suddenly I noticed I was passing a small wooden sign at the side of the road. It said: “TAXIDERMIST.”
I slammed on the brakes. A jet of blood from the roof flew forward and splattered on the front hood. I backed up the car and pulled into the narrow gravel driveway. I figured I'd take a look at this taxidermist's work and see how much he charged. I knew how to do it myself—once I had caught a squirrel in a trap, and taxidermized it using a “do-it-yourself” book from the library—but I had a sensitive soul, and performing taxidermy made me sick to my stomach. The whole thing was gruesome. First was skinning. To remove the hide with no nicks or cuts, I had to go into the squirrel's mouth with a scalpel. I sliced the gum tissue above the teeth, then peeled the face from the skull, like skin from a grape. Once I got the hide off, I had to flesh it: scrape the fat off the hide. The smell of decomposition set in fast, and I had to hold my breath through most of the fleshing. After that was tanning. At first it smelled like noxious chemicals, but then it started to smell like beef jerky. Finally, when the tanned hide was ready, I glued it to a polyurethane mold, using glass marbles for the eyes. Unfortunately, when the ladies saw the squirrel, they didn't swoon. They ran from my apartment like it was on fire. I figured I needed a larger mammal, like a deer.
I parked in front of the taxidermy shop. It was a small townhouse, barely bigger than a trailer. Peeling tendrils of white paint hung from the walls. Trees surrounded the house, but the birds' chirping seemed hushed, as if they were whispering to each other. I supposed that if I were a bird living next to a taxidermy shop, I'd be quiet too.
I left my shotgun on the dashboard of my car, and approached the house. I was about to rap my knuckles on the screen door, when a man swung it open. He was tall, several inches taller than me, and had broad shoulders. His face was square, his eyes narrow. He looked about 40 years old—pale skin, receding hairline. He wore overalls and a sweat-stained white T-shirt.
“Hello,” he said. His voice was soft and scratchy, like fine sandpaper.
“Hello,” I said.
We shook hands. His handshake was limp—a dead fish. I suppressed a shudder; I hoped he mounted deer better than he shook hands.
He squinted over my shoulder at the buck on the luggage rack.
“That's a fine-looking buck,” he said. “Bring him on over.”
“Maybe I could see your work first?”
His mouth smiled, but his eyes didn't.
“Come on in,” he said.
I followed him inside. The room smelled of leather and chemical traces. Pale sunlight filtered through the window shades. Narrow tables lined the walls. The tables were covered with small animals: squirrels, possums, raccoons, cardinals, robins, blue jays. They looked alive, about to pounce on me. My heart thumped. If the animals let me get so close to them, they probably had rabies.
No, I told myself. Their lifelike look just meant he was a good taxidermist. It also meant I probably couldn't afford his services.
The taxidermist sat down at a table covered with taxidermy supplies: scalpel, tape measure, tanning chemicals, sandpaper. He picked up the tape measure and moved the measuring tape in and out.
A deer buck's mounted head was on the wall at eye level. Its glass eyes looked so lifelike that I felt anxious when it didn't blink. I worried its eyes would dry out. It was a good-looking buck (though not as nice as the one on my car). The fur was rich brown with a reddish glint. The taxidermy was excellent. The hide fit the mold perfectly, the fur touching the antlers, no white polyurethane poking out. The flesh had no visible nicks or cuts. I didn't even see stitches. I pressed down the fur on the back of the neck, and was just barely able to see the tiny, even stitches.
“Looks like you know a thing or two about this,” the taxidermist said, setting down the tape measure.
“I did a couple squirrels,” I said. “It's not for me. I like the fresh air.”
“You ever skin one that's still breathing?” he asked. The corners of his mouth rose. His eyes twinkled.
“No,” I said, feeling disgusted, imagining a squirrel scream as its face was peeled off. I decided right then and there to find a different taxidermist. This guy was too creepy.
“I got something that'll really interest you,” the taxidermist said. He glanced around, as if to make sure we were alone. “A trophy so amazing—you won't believe it.”
“Is it a stuffed person?” I guessed.
The taxidermist made a sour face. “What's that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing,” I said. “It's just a joke.”
“A joke,” he said, rolling the word over his tongue as if he was unfamiliar with it.
“Yeah,” I said. “You know: ha-ha.”
“Well, it's not funny,” he said. “Now I don't know if I should show it to you.”
“That's fine,” I said, stepping towards the screen door.
“Oh, what the hay,” he said. “I'll show it.”
He disappeared into a back room.
I felt dozens of pairs of glass eyes staring at me. I focused on the carpet, not looking at the animals.
The taxidermist returned, lugging a piece of taxidermy that was bigger than him. It was stuffed with polyurethane, though, so it was light enough to carry. The upper half was an American bald eagle—shiny white feathered dome, hooked yellow beak, dark wings outstretched. The eagle, however, stopped at the waist. It had the hindquarters of a lion—golden fur, muscular legs, fluff at the end of the tail. The taxidermy work was excellent, of course. The dark eagle feathers molted seamlessly into the golden lion hide. The taxidermist set the creature down and stepped back. The lion's crouched hind legs looked ready to spring the eagle's yellow talons ready to strike.
“It's a griffin,” the taxidermist said. “When you combine two animals, it doesn't just add their powers together—it multiplies them. That's why you feel so much energy.”
I felt something, but it wasn't energy; it was the urge to leave. What was a roadside taxidermist doing with a griffin? Mutilating an American bald eagle into a hybrid with a lion was unpatriotic, and probably illegal too. Bald eagles were protected animals. African safaris allowed hunting, so lions weren't protected, but they should have been.
“I bet you didn't skin that lion while it was breathing,” I said. “I notice you still got both hands.”
His face soured and hardened.
“It's a joke,” I said.
He scowled. I heard his teeth grating.
“You like jokes?” he said. “I got a joke for you.” He licked his lips and rubbed his hands together. “What walks on four legs in the morning, two legs in the afternoon, and four legs in the evening?”
I suppressed a groan and felt embarrassed for him. It wasn't even a joke. It was a riddle. And he didn't even tell it right.
“You mean three legs in the evening—not four,” I said. “It's the riddle of the sphinx. What walks on four legs in the morning, two in the afternoon, and three in the evening? The answer is man. He crawls on all fours as a baby, walks on two legs as an adult, and walks with a cane in old age.”
“Wrong,” the taxidermist said and slapped his palms together. “I told it the way it ought to be told. This is a sphinx all right—a different sphinx. Four in the morning, two in the afternoon, four in the evening. I'll give you a clue: it's something in this room.”
He picked up the measuring tape and started playing with it again.
I sighed. The answer was obvious.
“It's the griffin,” I said. “It had four legs when it was a lion, then two legs when it was an eagle. Now it has four legs as a griffin—two talons and two hind paws.”
“Wrong,” he said. “The lion never had an afternoon of two legs. It was never an eagle. And the eagle never had a four-leg morning. It was never a lion. They both went straight to being a griffin.”
“Then it's the lion,” I said. “It did have an afternoon of two legs. When you cut its hide in half to make the griffin, before you sewed it to the eagle—that was its afternoon of two legs. The answer is the lion.”
The taxidermist's jaw hung slack and his lips quivered. I thought he was about to cry. Then his face hardened and he shook his head.
“It's not the lion,” he said.
“Sure it is,” I said. “Just because it's not the answer you thought of doesn't make it wrong. If it fits, it's the answer to the riddle.”
“It's not a riddle. It's a joke. And the lion isn't funny, so it can't be the answer.”
He was right about that: it wasn't funny.
“Let me think,” I said.
I stroked my whiskers to help myself think, and looked at the animals. The birds had two legs. The varmints had four. The mounted deer once had four legs. Now it had zero. What would the taxidermist think was funny? From what I had seen so far, he didn't appear to have any sense of humor.
The first two parts of this riddle (or joke) were the same as the original sphinx riddle: walks on four legs, walks on two legs. A baby crawled on four. A man walked on two. If the man had four legs after that, the riddle would work. Maybe an old man with two canes?
I pictured the ancient sphinx that asked the riddle: a lion with a human face. A cold tingle shot up my spine. Maybe that was the answer. The answer was the sphinx; the answer was me. The taxidermist was going to cut off my head and put it on a lion's body, just as he had done with the eagle. That would fit with the riddle/joke. When I was an infant, I crawled on all fours. Now I stood on two legs. Soon my severed head would rest on a lion's shoulders, and I would be on four paws. And I was certainly something in the room.
But was it funny? I certainly didn't think so. The taxidermist probably didn't think so either. He would only scowl and get angry again if I suggested that answer, so I stroked my whiskers and continued thinking.
Maybe the answer used some other meaning of leg. What else had legs? Journeys had legs. Tables and chairs had legs. That must be it. Several of the tables in the room had four legs. Had one of them broken in half at some point and needed to be fixed? That seemed to fit with the taxidermist's sense of humor.
“Tell ya what we'll do,” the taxidermist said. “You walk around the room. If you get closer to the thing I'm thinking of, I'll say 'warmer.' If you get farther, I'll say 'colder.' Okay?”
I was embarrassed to be playing these infantile games, but I was curious about the answer, so I did as he suggested, and started walking. I took a few steps, then stopped and looked at him. He pursed his lips, drew in a breath like he was getting ready to speak, but then stayed silent. I took a few more steps, and looked back at him. He was smiling, a broad grin stretched across his face. His fingers tapped on the tape measure.
“Well?” I said. “Am I getting hotter or colder?”
“The same,” he said. “You're staying the same.”
I knew he'd probably get angry, but I couldn't let him think he stumped me.
“I know the answer,” I said. “It's me. I'm the answer. You're planning to cut off my head and sew it to a lion's neck, making a sphinx you can set next to the griffin in your sick little menagerie.”
He started to laugh. Big hoots of laughter burst out of him and tears sprang to his eyes. He slapped the table in front of him, making the taxidermy tools dance.
“Sp-p-p-p-phinx!” he sputtered, sending threads of saliva down the front of his bib overalls. “You're absolutely right!”
He kept laughing, clutching at his sides. Tears of laughter rolled down his pale cheeks.
“It was nice to meet you,” I said, “but I'm going now. When someone gets the sphinx's riddle right, it lets him pass, so I'll be passing on my way now.”
The taxidermist's laughter subsided like a wave crashing into the shore.
“But the sphinx never leaves,” he said, wiping tears from his cheeks. “It lies there in the sand, year after year, decade after decade, century after century.”
He picked up a scalpel from the desk. There was orange rust on the blade. I thought of the shotgun on the dashboard of my card. There was still a cartridge of buckshot in its chamber.
I ran past the taxidermist and burst out the screen door. I sprinted for my car, not looking back over my shoulder. I felt like a coward for running. This was probably just his sick idea of a joke—he did claim it was a joke, after all—but I didn't think it was funny and I wasn't going to take the chance, especially when he held a scalpel.
In one practiced, smooth motion, I opened the car door and slid into the driver's seat. I snatched the shotgun off the dashboard. When I looked back, the taxidermist was just coming out the screen door. He lazily walked towards me, the scalpel clutched in his hand.
I checked the ammo. There was a live cartridge in the chamber. I jumped out of the car and pointed the shotgun at his chest.
“Stop!” I shouted.
He continued his snail's-pace approach.
“Don't worry,” he said. “I'm not gonna kill you. I know where all the blood vessels and arteries are, so if you hold still, I'll avoid them, and you won't bleed to death.”
“One more step and you're gonna die,” I said.
He kept approaching. I stepped back, pressed against the car.
When he was only a few feet in front of me, I dove into the driver's seat, and slammed the door behind me. I had never killed anybody before, and I wasn't going to let this lowlife make me kill him. I pressed the power door locks.
The taxidermist tapped on the window with the scalpel blade.
“Open up,” he said. “I'll let you keep your nose. The sphinx doesn't need a nose.”
I threw the shotgun on the passenger's seat. I had to get out of there before he thought to stab the tires with the scalpel. I pulled my keys out of my pocket, but my hand shook so badly that the keys tumbled to the floor into a swamp of coffee mugs and fast food wrappers.
“Fine,” the taxidermist said. “If you're not coming out, I'll take the buck.”
He reached above the car with the scalpel. I dug around in the fast food wrappers, trying to feel cold metal, keeping one eye on the taxidermist. A cut end of twine fell against the driver's side window pane. Then the taxidermist's body rose as he pulled himself up on the roof.
The metal on the roof popped in and out as he stepped around. Through the pink front windshield, I saw his shadow cast on the blood-speckled front hood as he cut the buck's tethers. More frayed ends of twine fell and dangled against the window panes.
My hand clutched cold metal. The metal jangled: it was my keys. Using both hands, I jammed the key into the ignition and turned it. The engine roared to life. I glanced up and saw the taxidermist's shadow on the front hood. He was holding the deer high above his head, as if offering it to the sun.
He threw it down, slamming it into the pink window pane. The window shattered. Shards of glass rained down. I covered my face, and felt sharp slices on my shoulders and forearms. The buck's head landed on my lap. Its antler dug painfully into my crotch. Its face was sliced up from the glass, and it would no longer make a good trophy. Its brown eye stared up at me, and seemed to be saying, “Now it's your turn.”
The taxidermist jumped down on the front hood, his boots crunching the metal in. He kicked out spears of jagged glass from the window frame.
The shotgun was on the passenger's seat, under the buck's haunches. I yanked at the shotgun, but the buck was heavy. The shotgun didn't budge.
The taxidermist stepped down onto the passenger's seat. He ducked under jagged glass hanging in the window frame, and knelt on the deer's haunches. Sunlight glinted on the scalpel's rusty, orange blade as he brought it towards me. The taxidermist's eyes gleamed and saliva rolled down his chin.
“Don't move,” he said.
I grabbed his wrists and tried to push his hands away, but he was stronger than me. I pressed my lips together, but he easily separated them with the scalpel blade. I felt the blade pass over my upper teeth, and slice into the gums above them. Sharp pain burned my upper gums. Warm, salty blood flooded my mouth. I tried to bite him. He grabbed my hair and pressed my head against the seat. He kept cutting, scratching away at the gums.
I let go of his wrists and gouged his eyes with my thumbs. He didn't seem to feel it. He just hooted laughter and kept cutting away. I punched his face over and over again. He squealed a hysterical laugh. My upper lip was numb, and I hard cartilage crunch; the scalpel had reached my nose tissue. I promised myself that if I got away from him, I would make my life count for something. I wouldn't waste it hunting for foolish deer trophies. I'd find a woman who swooned for the right reasons, not for a buck's head mounted on a wall.
Suddenly I realized the engine was still humming. I switched the gears to drive, and slammed my foot on the accelerator. The tires screeched, gravel crunched, and the car bolted towards the house. The taxidermist stopped cutting, and looked where we were headed.
The front of the car crashed into the wall. Twisting metal screamed. The impact threw me forward, but the buck acted as a seatbelt, stopping me, and slamming my back against the driver's seat. The taxidermist went flying through the empty window frame, and collided with the side of the house.
The crushed-in front hood was coughing out smoke. My back screamed in pain. I thought I had whiplash, but there was no time to think about that. I had to make sure the taxidermist was finished off.
I struggled out from under the buck's head. Then, pressing my boot against the buck's antler for leverage, I pulled out the shotgun from under the haunches.
I opened the drivers door and tumbled out, trying not to think about how badly I was bleeding.
The taxidermist pulled himself out of the smoking, tangled mess of metal that had been the front of my car. He staggered to his feet, bursting out hoots of laughter. Blood poured down his face, and one of his legs bent the wrong way, but he still clutched the scalpel.
I raised the shotgun and pointed the barrel at his face.
“I'm putting you out of your misery,” I said.
He slapped his thigh and laughed harder, a bloody mist spraying from his mouth with every hoot. He staggered towards me, swiping the scalpel in long arcs.
I squeezed the trigger. The taxidermist's head exploded. His brains splattered against the wall of the house. The scalpel fell from his limp hand, and his body collapsed to the ground. The birds squawked and fluttered overhead. It didn't matter if they were loud now—the taxidermist was dead. I spat a mouthful of blood on his corpse.
There was no time to celebrate. I was in bad shape, and would need an ambulance. I staggered to the house to find a telephone. My gums were cut up. My mouth was full of blood. My scalp and arms were sliced from the broken windshield glass. I probably had whiplash.
Inside the house, the griffin glared at me with its fierce yellow eyes. I shuddered. I had barely avoided its fate of becoming a monstrous hybrid. I remembered my promise to change my life if I survived—to make my life count for something. But that promise didn't count. It was made under duress. No one could hold me to it.
The mounted buck head on the wall stared at me, unblinking. My buck was ruined, its face sliced up with broken glass. I figured I ought to be able to take this one instead—it was only fair. It would be the trophy that marked my victory over the taxidermist. When the ladies saw it, they would swoon.