22 Oct Red Rabbits

Part dream, part high, it was 4:30 A.M., again, that meant I’d been away from Jack Daniels and an iffy consciousness for a couple of hours.  R.E.M. sleep and I don’t get along.

He’d been standing there, the hare, or rabbit, for some time, I’d been confident.  This Evil Rabbit King stretched tall, nearly to the ceiling.

I wasn’t psychologically equipped to identify him, at least using common sense or my imagination.

His face appeared bloated with folds, a breed of a bloodhound, but more enormous, with droopy ears, shorter whiskers.  The giant rabbit had always seemed to be hairless and a colorless shade of tan if you add up all the shadows.  Mr. Evil smelled as if his rabbit hole had been oiled in sulfur and rust, something akin to dried blood.  My senses rang out: full panic.

His paws were all rabbit, sporting longer claws that resembled barbed-wire hooks, each claw dripping with blackstrap molasses.  The tarry substance smelled of plasma and coagulation.

When he opened his jaw to speak, his mouth appeared square-ish.  I’d seen the look before, at the shelter in a pit bull’s face, afraid, angry, and menacing.  His teeth sharp, all canine, his foulness of breath.

Oh, he’d spoken too, but mostly beyond me, to the crowd of silent and attentive children seated directly behind me.  I was a spec with a Bic lighter in a massive stadium.  The children absorbed every word he’d spoken on his grand stage.

It has always been the same speech, only different faces in the crowd, so maddening.

“O-o-ok children,” says the Evil Easter Rabbit King, “It’s that time of year again when we get sick and tired of taking care of our beloved pests.  You heard me right, bitches, pests, not pets!  I’m speaking about the pets you can’t seem to live without each year, dumbshits.

“Ok, it’s a week after Easter.  Listen up, guys.  Jesus has risen.  Believe it.  You have no choice.  Hopefully, you’ve already let your Easter rabbits starve to death, oh-k-kk?  I’m talkin’ about feeling its ribs through that matted white fur.

“SILENCE!  Never whisper when I’m in command!

“Ok, darlings, when your rabbits crap all over the place, just leave the poop, giggles.  Hehe, get it, my little stupids?  It is ‘get even’ time with all of your ignorant parents, feel me? Buck up, buttercups.  There’s no reason to feel guilty.  Remember when your mother or father nearly stroked out after you pissed the bed or brought home those crappy grades?  Big F’ing deal, right?  To hell with all of em’.

“Kids, ears up here, I’m preachin’.  Don’t make me claw your fleshy cauliflower ears off!  Remember to feed the bitches all kinds of toxic grub, pudding, pickles, Cheetos.  Hell, give em’ Trix for all I care; anything but rabbit food.

“LISTEN UP, SHITS!  Give the damned thumpers away, in the millions.  Find a butcher without any scruples.  Let the damned fur-balls stink themselves to death on the porch, all alone in a cage.  After all, you have more important things to do, like play video games.  Turn em’ loose in the woods, yes, my favorite!

“Oh, before I wink out in a flash, next year kids, howz-about we do chicks?  Yes, lots and lots of fucking baby chickens?  BABY CHICKS, KIDS, yum de dum!”

I waited until the King Rabbit finished in my head.  I had no choice.  After, I climbed out of bed, grabbed a smoke, drank a cup of coffee, and took a long hot shower.

* * * * * *

“Mr. Burns, it’s late.  C.P.S. is waiting outside.  They want a few minutes with your son, alone, before he’s taken to juvenile hall out on Kiefer Road.  Since he’s only 13, they need to prep him for what’s coming up in court and to make sure he’s assigned an appropriate public defender.”

I’d had enough experience with social workers to know exactly how much they really care.  In reality, C.P.S. doesn’t give two shits about a complicated childhood beyond a late Friday paycheck.  Damn it.  I just wanted to show my boy I supported him.

I stood in the doorway and glanced back at Trix.  In my eyes, he was still a child.  How could he have done such a thing?  But who was I to get preachy, a messed-up meth dealer who’d done his fair share of a hard time?  My last stint was close to home in New Sacramento.  New Sacramento is an updated version of the historic Folsom State Prison, about a mile away as the crow flies.

Trix brushed back the mop of hair that cloaked his dull green eyes.  He pretended to look for anything on the spotless floor.  He’d shuffled his shoes and placed a palm on his knee.  His hands were caked red from all the blood.  They’d read him his rights in front of me.  DNA had been authorized and taken.  He’d been photographed nearly naked from head to toe.  There were bruises and scars I hadn’t seen before.

Hell, there was already enough evidence to convict O.J. Simpson…again.  They’d recorded Trix confessing at the horror fest.

He’d breathed long and hard before I left down the hall, looking so fresh in his white papery jumpsuit.  They’d kept his bloody jeans and the old school Metallica Tee-shirt for the forensics lab.

“See ya soon, son,” I’d said, but there was no response.

I shed some severe tears on my way back home to my cheap studio apartment.  It’s an apartment only a convicted druggie can afford.  When your life is a turnstile of good and bad, a revolving door of ins and outs, that’s what you get, kids.  I don’t need anyone to remind me that all my shit caused me and others a lifetime of grief.

The following day, I read the local rag at the donut shop over coffee.  There was this article in the Sacramento Bee with the headline, “The biggest horror fest since Richard Chase, Sacramento’s one and only Vampire Killer.”  I nearly gagged on the last of my maple bar.

* * * * * *

I’d heard about the cages.  Jesus, Bobby and I had briefly discussed the cages he’d built in their backyard, his third and fourth cage.  All of the pens had been surrounded by crime scene tape.

I’d know precisely when Trix had gotten the idea to build his first one.

It was the day after Easter Sunday, 2003.  Bobby was only seven back then.

And just think, all this insanity started with a ‘silly wabbit.’  Not just any rabbit, Easter rabbits: primarily white, some tiny, some large, clean and fluffy, hippity-hoppity Easter bunnies, the kind moms and dads across our religious landscape give their children each Easter, along with a butt load of baskets filled with tooth decay.

Who’s Trix?  Trix is my son, Bobby, of course.

Martha and I, the kid’s mom, had called Bobby Trix when he was about eight.  We were a little late to the party.  His few friends had already named him that about a year before.  It wasn’t until after the name stuck that we’d discovered it had a negative connotation.  Sadly, that’s how some kids get stuck with terrible nicknames.

Here’s how it went down.  We’d driven from South Sacramento all the way to this beautiful Ancil Hoffman Park, outside the city limits.  The park was named after a local gentleman who’d distinguished himself.  It’s a jewel in the American River Parkway: the American River meanders north and south through Sacramento County before its confluence with the blue-collar Sacramento River.  From there, the Sacramento River contours down the valley through marshlands and delta, eventually washing into the Pacific Ocean.

It was the weekend after Easter, our outing.  My best bud and I, Bobby, had walked through the woods near the golf course.  After we’d reached the Effie Yeaw Nature Center and spent some time watching a rescued Great Horned Owl behind a sheet of glass, we’d trekked the extra mile to the river.  It was peaceful and quiet that day, a few deer, some wild turkey, squirrels, nothing to write home about.

On our way back to our picnic blanket, Bobby spotted something under an oak tree, in plain sight.  As we walked closer, we noticed it was a rabbit.  Not just any rabbit, it was a giant, white fluffy rabbit.  Bobby had gotten up close, down on his knees, petted the rabbit.  It had clearly been released in the gorgeous park by some loving parents whose kids had grown tired of cleaning up all the rabbit pellets and feeding the damned things.

“Please, Dad, can we bring it home?”

I’m not one to pick up after someone else’s bad choices or mistakes.  Mine keep me fully occupied.

“Son, you know your Mom ain’t going to have anything to do with that, right?”

“Mom will let me keep it; I promise.  She always gives in.  She feels guilty because she works all the time.” To be honest, that’s the last time I’d seen my son smile.

“What the hell, son.  Let’s give it a try.”

“Really, Pops, I love you.  You have balls.”

And so, Trix, ah, Bobby swooped up the large floppy-eared creature.  We’d walked back to the picnic area where Bobby presented his wondrous rabbit to his surprised mom.  I’d thought it would somehow stop some of the loneliness inside he’d been feeling at school, the loneliness of not having a sister or brother or many friends.

Bobby is smart.  He’d known that his mother didn’t want to have any more children with me.  It was my fault.  I own that.  After a good amount of verbal arm wrestling, Martha relented.

For the next week, evenings mostly, it was all about building Bobby’s rabbit hutch, just one.  Google and YouTube advised us on the project.  We’d used a lot of scrap wood and screws I had littered around the house and the small garage.  Luckily, I’d had a leftover roll of chicken wire from a concrete pour I’d done.

We’d gotten feed, even bought a second-hand metal watering bowl at Goodwill.  Bobby insisted on a padlock for protection, “hawks, coyotes, even cats,” he’d said.

Two weeks passed.  By now, Bobby had gotten into the rhythm of feeding his pet and cleaning up after it.  It didn’t take long before he’d twisted our arms to go back to the park, and so we went.

After KFC and slurps of biscuits and gravy, Bobby tugged me up on my feet and insisted we hike to the river again.  We’d ended up under the same oak tree, where he’d found R-1.  Bobby looked sad.  It was as if he’d thought another rabbit would appear out of nowhere, like when Jesus had left the cave, but there was nothing.  Nothing unless you count the cool breeze that insisted on wafting up off the cool, green American River.

We’d made it to the water’s edge, near the skipping stones.  We skipped a few.  Bobby chatted up a storm.  He was on one of his few talking jags.  I’d agreed to another trail on our way back.

Bobby spotted it, not more than twenty feet ahead.  It was white and bright red.  I’d attempted to hold onto my boy with everything I had, but he was strong with love.  He’d forced himself free.  By the time I’d quickened my step to the scene, Bobby was bawling like a newborn calf.

Just outside the pathway was a patch of blood-stained fur and what looked like a crab’s body.  You know, the shell part, after you spoon out the guts?  It was an empty white rabbit skull, or what was left of it.  There was: an unlucky, bloody rabbit’s foot, an eyeball, dry and dull, and intestines that had been half-eaten by coyotes or ravens, and the cutest pristine, white, fluffy tail.

Snot bubbles percolated out of Bobby’s nose.  He’d sobbed so much.  His hair was sweaty and wet as if he’d been in a fight.  He was shaking, a coiled spring of grief, red-faced and angry too.

“Why, what, who, dad?” he’d asked.

“Son,” I’d grabbed him by his bloody hand, “let’s go.  Your mother is waiting.”

“No, I never want to go home again.”

“Bobby,” I was firmer, “let’s go, now.  There are coyotes down here, along the river.  They have homes in the clay banks and in the fields up over the levy.  They eat anything they can catch, even cats, lost small dogs, dead salmon.”

Bobby half walked but mostly dragged himself alongside me.  We had maybe a hundred yards to reach the parking lot and beyond, another quarter mile to Bobby’s mother and her picnic blanket.  That’s when the damn thing appeared, not ten feet in front of us, under sagebrush.  It was skinny and shaking, hyper venting in the darkness of the shade.  Its beady eyes were guarded as we approached, not knowing how it was going to be slaughtered.

“Dad, look!  This one is white, too, but it’s much smaller.  He looks so thin, Dad.  Poor thing.”

Bobby’s mother could hear a pin drop a mile away.  She had x-ray vision too.  As we bent over for a closer look, I could see her signaling up head, no, no.  She waved us off so we’d place it deeper in the forest.

“You see your mother Bobby, way over there?  We can’t take it home, son.” I pointed and lowered my head.

“Please, Dad, it’s gonna kill me if I leave it behind!  We’ve seen how a lot of the others have ended up.  I won’t ask you to come back and search for anymore, please, I promise!  I won’t be able to sleep again if we don’t save it!

I know it’s mostly coyotes.  I researched it online.  It’s not that they are vicious.  I get that.  They are just hungry predators that want to survive, just like us.  But, the others, like the one with the arrow in its head?  That makes me sick.”

“Did you see that one?  I was hoping you hadn’t.  Sorry, Trix, we humans are apex predators too.  But with us humans, we have darker souls, son.  We kill for sport.”

Bottom line, Bobby got to save another rabbit, a rabbit that some irresponsible parent had dumped in the woods after Easter.

Just like the parents in the thousands who too often give in to their children for all the wrong reasons, “Please, please, we want one.  We’ll take good care of it.  We will feed it.  We’ll clean up after it, please, please?” Children are children, after all, and responsibility is a work in progress.

I’m almost sure there’s some sort of Shakespearean hip-hop personification that appears during the lead-up to Easter.  He’s the antithesis of my Evil Rabbit King.  Let’s call him the Good Rabbit King.

I imagine him making the rounds to all the children’s homes, starting with Good Friday.  He’s like a glorious, furry white used car salesperson.  His job is to convince the throngs of good little boys and girls that they truly need a white rabbit, that owning one is right up there with oxygen and hope.

Imagine him being one of those mutated St. Patrick’s Day characters, but instead of playing the flute to attract all the snakes, he whispers in the children’s heads about the joys of owning wonderful rabbits.

Working moms and dads don’t have time to enact a plan B on behalf of their spoiled children when they abandon their Easter rabbits.  After all, they work their asses off all day.  The Evil Easter King Rabbit knows that.

They don’t have time to clean up after the ‘silly wabbits.’  Filling their water bowls and feeding them is out of the freaking question.

Like most working parents, it takes all their energy when they get home to muster up dinner and help with the homework.

But still, all the rabbit parents feel good.  After all, they’ve given their precious Jacks and Jills a damned good Easter present, the gift that keeps on giving–giving them a pain in the ass.

And so, there is more relief than guilt when these parents sneak out after dark and dump their collective rabbits to fend for themselves in the darkened woods, local parks, or any remote location away from the notion of responsibility.  On their way home, these doting parents convince themselves that the rabbits will live happily ever after.  Surely the tame little things will be spared the tooth and claw of the jungle?

Of course, the kids never notice.  There’s school the next day.  And on the weekend, they’ll be off to soccer or skateboarding, maybe a visit to the mall, grandmother’s house, a Marvel Movie.

* * * * * *

Once the kids at school had found out about Bobby’s saving the two rabbits, they’d begin to tease and bully him.  “OMG, all those lions, tigers, and bears out there in Ancil Hoffman Park, how scary?  Bobby, you are weak and pathetic.  Easter rabbits.  Give me a break!” they’d said.

Knuckle dragging Johnny.  “Coyotes my ass, you dipshit, there’s no such thing in the local parks.”

Timmy.  “Yea, we had three.  Bizbie peed on the sofa.  Our dog killed him for other reasons.  My dad let the other two free at Shasta Community Park.  He’d promised us they’d adapt.  You got something against freedom, dip?”

“What you described, Bobby, about all the butchered white rabbits in the park, and all the bloody fur and body parts is a bunch of gory bullcrap.  Do you have any pictures to prove it?”

Jessie, the sadist, was the only one that halfway hoped Bobby was telling the truth.  “Dude, I throw table tennis balls into a goldfish bowl at the fair, just to flush the little bastards down the toilet,” he’d said.

“From now on, Bobby, we are going to call you Trix.  Silly wabbit, Trix are for kids.  Remember that old ass YouTube cereal commercial?  Well, that’s on you now, dude.”

Having said that, the boys roared louder than a pack of hungry hyenas.  “Yea, Trix!  Hey, Trix!  Trix are for kids, Trix!”

The name stuck to Bobby as sure as an arrow from a crossbow.  They’d shamed him to the dark edge of silence over the next couple of years.  Clear up to the beginning of high school.  All he had left was a shrinking world and two rabbits.  Sometimes me when I wasn’t in jail.

* * * * * *

I’d gotten my ass incarcerated, again.  Martha was done with it; she’d divorced me and remarried shortly after.  She tied the knot with this beefy guy who hated children.  Trix had grown nearly silent with anger.  As if his conflicts at school weren’t enough, now he’d been terrorized at home, too.  It hadn’t taken long for his mom to turn into a conspirator.

That’s my understanding, anyway, from letters and relatives, year after year.  Bobby had kept up with his rabbits, those damned aftermarket Easter bunnies, the ones no one wanted.

When I’d gotten out, Bobby had just turned fourteen.  On rare occasions, I’d taken my moody Trix to Chuck E. Cheese every odd Sunday.  While there, he pretended to be happy and try to make friends with all the other kids whose divorced fathers had taken them for pizza.  Chuck E.’s is the kind of place where if you don’t have much in common with a child, you can watch your kid from a distance, all the while convincing yourself you’re a good father.

Occasionally, when I’d finally gotten Trix to sit down and enjoy our giant pizza, I couldn’t get the kid to shut up.  Everything poured out of his mouth all at once.

As I recall, there was a time or two when he sounded too excited and acted happy, well, at least excited.  The things he’d said were fascinating, if not a bit disturbing, but I’m not a psychologist; I’m simply a screwed-up father.  How could I have known what was steaming around the dark horizon?

I’d seen the cigarette burns on his arms and back.  They’d mostly healed.  But I sensed the sinuous scars over his heart would continue to grow.  His mother had said he burned himself, something about self-harm.  I was skeptical, but not sure.  My hunch was his new stepfather was frustrated and would rather not have him around.  It was difficult enough to control his mother.  It would be easier without Bobby being around.

If he were abused, I imagined one day Bobby would grow tired of his existence, and for just about any reason, he’d use a handgun to end the assumed misery he’d seen in the eyes of just about anyone.  I continued to be the best distant father I could be and keep my eyes open.

Easter brings with it its very own cottage industry.  Farmers raise white rabbits especially for Easter, butchered lambs for Jesus suppers.  Off the grid, pet shops and farm implement suppliers sell their hordes of bunnies leading up to Easter Sunday and the rising.  The whole cycle repeats itself year after year.

My funny Trix couldn’t keep up his regimen of trying to save them all, the hundreds, the butchered and eaten thousands, those left to rot in the unfamiliar tall green grass of hell.

Apparently, out of guilt, Martha and her new husband had allowed Bobby to bend the rules to avoid further social abuse.  She’d let her vulnerable son collect more rabbits over the years.  I hadn’t known that, and Bobby never mentioned it.  She’d later say it was all about keeping him from going over the edge of teenage madness.

Bobby had constructed at least 13 hutches in total.  Each cage held two to three abandoned Easter rabbits.

Martha had sent me the obligatory holiday cards, keeping me at a distance.  The occasional brief notes would include a thin veneer of lies about how happy she was in her new marriage, the stability and all.  Her husband was a truck driver, gone a lot, but not like being away in prison.

There would be periodic updates about how Bobby was doing.  She’d made it difficult for him to visit, and he’d outgrown Chuck E. Cheese.  I didn’t need any tarot cards to figure out Bobby had grown to hate his cruel stepfather and his controlling behavior.  Bobby had gotten upset on the phone and hung up when he’d spoken about how all the mean kids weren’t done with him, how they and his asshole stepfather had continued to call him Trix, the ‘silly wabbit.’

The county psychologist had called me once.  He’d said, “Please encourage your son to attend therapy.  He really needs it.”

“I’ve done the best I can.”

“Cody, he told me about a dream,” he’d said.

“Let me guess, it involves locomotives, right?”

“Yes, so you’ve heard it?”

“Not all of them, just the main parts about how it’s a vintage steam engine and how it whistles when it comes around the corner of the mountain.”

“Well, I’ll do my best to describe it, Cody.  Bobby is tied up on these railroad tracks.  Out of the corner of his eye, he sees what appears to be the locomotive bearing down on him, full throttle.  He’s sure the locomotive is shiny black, with a red emblem on the front, like when they’d had them as emblems in front of the engines in the former USSR.

“The locomotive starts out the size of a bee.  As it gets closer, Bobby squirms because he’s been tied to the tracks.”

“Ok, that’s all I’ve heard before.”

“I’ll finish it then, Cody.  As Bobby twists and tugs at the ropes tied to his chest and legs, he screams, begging for the train to hurry and run over him.  He wants everything in his life to be in body parts.”

“Jesus, doc, that’s some dark shit.”

“Yes, but I’m not a doctor.  I’m only a licensed psychologist.  My take, Cody, is that symbolically, his head is the overheated steam engine, and it’s about to blow.”

After our discussion, I get the chills from this cold wind that hasn’t blown yet.

Trix, or Bobby, was on his way to the age of fifteen that Sunday after Easter when he’d returned home from his bus trip to Ancil Hoffman Park.  He’d picked up another, fluffy, white rabbit.  At least the rabbits appreciated the simple things in life, freshwater, food, and Bobby’s usual T.L.C.  It was much more than he’d gotten at home and school after being bullied for his simple kindness over the years.

Bobby had walked into the house.  It was deadly quiet, except the grandfather clock, tik-tok tik-tok.  Martha and stepfather Jack had sat quietly in the adjacent room.  The house smelled like a gym.  As he walked past them, on his way outback, he could tell they’d been fighting again.  Bobby’s mother had red streaks that ran the length of her pretty face.  Her lips were puffy from being slapped.  Her black mascara had streaked down her face, vampiresque.

Jack, his nightmare truck driver stepfather, was reclined back in his oily easy chair.  He couldn’t contain himself.  He’d chuckled under the bellows of his heavy breath.

“Got you another rabbit, hey, boy?  Trix are for kids.”

Bobby’s mother stiffened into a waxy corpse.

“Stick him outback with all the rest, Trixie, hehe.  You’re getting to be quite the hoarder, ain’t ya, boy?”

By now, some of the kids at school had quit the hurtful name-calling, if only to save their pathetic asses.  Bobby had grown tall and robust.  Apparently, stepfather Jack hadn’t noticed.

Bobby was all stocked up on bullshit and bullying, not wanting to get into a fight.  He’d attempted to hurry past the dysfunctional mess and towards the sliding patio door.

Bobby opened the door and stepped out, shutting it quietly behind him.  He turned and walked toward the cages.  Halfway across the yard, he raised his head.  His stepfather had pushed his buttons again.  The rabbit hutches stood in the back, next to the fence.

As he approached the cages, the small, white rabbit he had been carrying had begun to squirm like a toad that had been trapped in his skull.  It attempted to free itself.  It thrashed about, unconcerned that it was bashing its brains into mush against the heavily wired cage.  Bobby’s new rabbit chirped and squealed as if it was being stung by bees.

Now in front of the rows of cages, Bobby dropped his caged rabbit on the dirt.  He looked left and right.  Inside the 13 rabbit hutches lay disarticulated rabbits.  The colors white and red, red and white flashed before him as if the last traffic signal to the Mad Hatter’s tea party.

Bobby could hear the loud train whistle in his head as the noisy locomotive rounded the corner of a tall granite mountain.  The sound was harsh and mechanical, the whistle, a fire alarm.

The evil conductor’s bloody, hound dog face grew more prominent.  The giant rabbit’s raw skin was sweaty and vile.  Dried blood caked its short fur.  Somehow, Bobby was able to see inside this thing’s head.  It was his stepdad.  Next, the train’s pressure cooker engine exploded.  Everything in Bobby’s world ignited.  The only thing left inside his skull was red vapor…if it existed at all.

Sacramento County detectives had taken long breaks, shared vomit bags.  A pastor and county-paid therapist had counseled any involved.  They’d been sickened too.  What they’d found in the backyard wasn’t just a massacre.  It was an emphatic statement.

They’d discovered and photographed each and every rabbit body part, the smelly guts, the severed heads with vacant eyes.  The shit, the piss, the stench of blood permeated the fresh spring air.  Surely this time of year, nothing so foul should be wafting or rising above.

They’d taken photographs, even videos of Bobby’s stepfather.  He was found in all the cages, along with the dead rabbits, just as bloody and dismembered.  More so, some had said.  Bobby had been systematic, taken the time to hammer a white poster over one of the rabbit hutches.

It read, “Silly wabbit, Trix are for kids.”

* * * * * *

It’s been a long ten years.  I’ve been visiting Bobby.

“When you were a child, and I was out of prison, I watched as you stood stoic in the school’s play yard.  Your eyes always bent to the cracks in the pavement.  Cruelty followed you like a heavy condensation, making it difficult for you to breathe, I’m sure.”

Ever since Bobby was born, his cell door had been open, waiting for the longest time.

He’s said he enjoys the cooling touch of his cell door bars – a particular touch that was unwanted by family and friends.  In his shame, he’d experienced his hands as decaying flesh not fit for others.  He often turns, turns, turns his Macbethian hands as if he can’t get them clean enough.

I visit Bobby on Sundays when he’s calmer.  He rarely talks.  I know he doesn’t mind the visits; they’re mainly for me.

When we are all asked to leave each late Sunday afternoon, I drag Bobby’s clumsy ghost of a heart through the visitor’s room door, down the long hallway, and out of the prison’s main gate.  Eventually, I reach my car, get in and slump.

As I slam the car door to leave, I wonder which one of us needs the company of the other?