I roll up my blinds to see a deer in the front yard, heaving, lying on its side. No cars, only skid marks. I yank my comforter from the bed and run out.
Outside the deer kicks her hind legs solemnly back. I sit next to her in the grass, examining the damage. Her organs spill out from a hole in the abdomen. I craft a tourniquet with my comforter; blood stains its oatmeal linen with nauseating speed. I take out my phone and dial every person I know with a car. My cousin Jack, Katie who never answers, that guy Chase I met on Tinder. Chase says he’s on his way.
*
I read this article online once. Some old lady fed the local deer carrot chunks and grapes and heads of iceberg lettuce. She gave them all names, one she called Steinway, like the piano. One day she saw a family of them grazing on her petunias. She grabbed her produce and her slippers and went outside, scattered the food along the grass.
When they didn’t walk up she took the leftovers and went to feed them. Turns out you’re not supposed to get so close to families. The mother deer lunged and the woman fell to the ground, guarding her organs with bent knees.
I just tried to stay alive, she said.
The website displayed a picture of her with a pink glitter eyepatch.
*
Chase pulls up in an old Slug Bug painted canary yellow, bass booming. Our first time meeting in real life.
Where’s the deer gonna go, I ask. On top, he says.
We strap Delilah, that’s what I named her, to the top of the Bug and head to the vet.
Chase relegates me to the back seat. An old TV, the color of a goldfish with all the knobs missing, sits in front. She’s my baby, he says. Shouldn’t babies sit in the back?
The cars around us honk, creating a chorus of clown noises. He flips them off, curses as if they could hear him through the car’s shell and the zoom of traffic. The roads diverge and Chase enters the freeway, easing onto the gas. Delilah pounds her hooves on the roof.
Chase expends all his energy explaining NFTs to me, then Dogecoin. It’s the dawn of the future, he says. My eyes flutter as I nod along, brain strung out, fingers drumming to Delilah’s heart.
I say, You love to talk. I wait for questions about me.
Switching lanes we hit a bump, the car rocking over it and side to side as it settles. Delilah shimmies off and goes flying from her pedestal, landing in the center lane. Cars crash behind us, one into the other into the other and so on. Horns blare and people scream and plastic flies everywhere. Delilah explodes in violent rapture, her body crescendoing into a spray of guts and gore. A tire rolls lethargically past. Pull over, I say. And Chase pulls over, shifting through four lanes of traffic.
Panic becomes fear becomes a shot of adrenaline straight to the aorta. The taste of excess thickens in my mouth, salty and parched like seaweed chips.
I climb out and watch as the pile of cars and shattered deer parts grows higher. I shake, breathing shallow, senses muzzled. My vision narrows into two lanes which converge and part like roads leading nowhere.
It’s nearly beautiful, the shifting perspective, the path among the chaos.
*
My father liked to hunt. He’d come home with bundles of bunny rabbits strapped together by the legs, limp but still cute. Sometimes he used his gun to end them, other times he went out only with an old shower rod, rust collecting at its tattered edges. He thought the meat tasted better, more robust, savory, when you did it with your own hands.
It’s the chase, he’d say, Flavor comes from fear.
I followed him out one day, dressed in camo and wellies and a highlighter orange construction vest. It was a pole day; guns aren’t for little girls.
We walked out into the meadow behind the old steel factory. He pulled out a megaphone that made this big siren noise. The bunnies scurried out of their hiding places and circled around, all staying within the same, sorry jurisdiction. They just tried to stay alive.
Dad ran after them, slapping his pole onto their necks, a little pop marking the death of the animal. And the screams. Like a baby needed its mother. I just covered my ears and watched.
I guess something that runs will always be caught.
I stopped eating meat after that, turned to salads and lentils and banana cream pie. When I went off to college, Dad surprised me with a coat. Pelts of fur pieced together so haphazardly you could see where they were all stitched with glossy, red thread. A woman needs a coat, he said, I hope you like it.
*
The engine revs. Get in, says Chase. I float into the center of the highway, now come to a full stop, and he drives off without me.
I pick up the pieces of Delilah: A leg, her nose, a little swatch of hide. A hand reaches out from the car beside me, grabs onto my arm.
Fuck the deer, its person says, Save me.
I gaze into his eyes, nearly obscured by blood and fear, all at once fiercely human and devoid. I pry the fingers off and run back to the side of the road, call 911. The operator leads with mmhmms and I sees. I start the walk home.
*
Her leg is too heavy, so I leave it at the park. I drop her nose somewhere along the way. I’ll save the hide, make a coin purse to store odds and ends in. I’d call it animal cruelty, but Delilah went as naturally as you can go these days.
I pause at the window of a strip mall boutique, its glass so clean you could walk right through. It spits my reflection back at me. Blood and clumps of biology clinging to my blueberry sweater. I knitted it myself, spent months agonizing over each stitch and square, the tips of my fingers growing calloused. I made a matching one for my dad, but he called it itchy. I plan a trip to the store for baking soda or hydrogen peroxide or rubbing alcohol, hoping one could remove the stains.
I retreat to my room and strip naked, toss my clothes in a Thank You Come Again plastic bag. Before hopping in the shower I tack Delilah’s hide onto my cork board. Soon enough it’ll cure into leather.
*
Chase comes back around. He says, Crazy girls give the best head. I’ve already replaced my bloodstream with Sauvignon Blanc, so I don’t take offense.
In the car I pull my knees to my chest, not bothering to hide where my panties poke out. I reach between the seats and rap my knuckles on the TV. Where’d you find this thing, I ask.
He swats them away, says, Searching hands usually find something.
Well what did they find?
Homesickness for a place I never knew, he says. It was my dad’s.
Chase leaves it at that.
At the doorstep I intend to say goodbye, but he’s cute with fluffy red hair and a mustache that droops at the ends and he kisses me and I rile up and we head to my room.
We bump and grind until he whinnies and collapses. Afterwards, I weep. The release comes from my abdomen, a gaping hole that leaves my insides vulnerable. He says, I know it was good, but you don’t have to cry. Delilah is dead, I say before withdrawing to the bathroom. When I come back, only the smell of him remains.
*
Already late, I hurry up and get ready for work, sniffing clothes from the dirty pile for the freshest. Before leaving I stop to pet Delilah’s hide, but it’s not there. I kick up mess and turn over all the knick-knacks. Rage text Chase, saying shit like, I need that back, and Suck my left nut, thief. Katie suggests I forget about it.
*
The Boobie Trap breeds men with thinning hair and soft bellies. Katie plays pool with them, stopping periodically to shimmy her top down and puff up her chest. The neon lights wash the room in delicate rainbows. They spell out the names of stout beers and clichés like, It’s 5 o’clock somewhere. The ice in my drink melts until the orange juice and vodka grow impotent. I rifle through my bag for lipstick, pull it out with a compact and reapply the red velvet.
Chase emerges in the corner of my mirror. We’ve found each other. Makes me believe in fate. I tap him on the shoulder. I say, Where’s my hide? His eyes shiver in their sockets, searching. Then they open wide, and he runs his hands through his hair, dandruff billowing down and catching under his nails. He rubs the flakes between his thumb and index, looking anywhere but me. I’ve never seen you here before, he says. I’m getting impatient, I say. He shrugs his stupid shoulders and orders a vodka cranberry.
I shove my hands into his pockets, pull out keys, his wallet, a loose piece of red licorice. He grabs me by the wrists; I’m caught. And what did you find, he says. I wrestle free and pull out my taser, hit the button, igniting electricity. The bar patrons circle around us, jeering. I lunge and he trips, falls straight to the ground. An arm reaches through the crowd, yanking me from the floor.
I tried to save her, I yell. Save yourself, says the bouncer.
*
Katie follows me outside, preaching about right and wrong or taser ethics or some other bullshit. I’m patrolling the parking lot, searching for his car through the sea of gray plastic exteriors. Finally I find it, cup my hands on the window to peer inside. I bet he leaves his doors unlocked, I say. Just let it go, says Katie. The door opens with no resistance. His television sits on its pedestal.
*
I rip my shower rod from its socket, curving it in the process. I drag the TV into the backyard and smash it, shattering the screen in a scene of violent rapture. It folds in on itself, making pops of protest. Dust billows from the tubes and fixtures, sending up its last ounce of entertainment value. It explodes and I keep going, keep beating it until its metal crumples under the weight of my anger.
*
The first time I visited Katie’s house, a mounted deer head greeted me in the foyer. When we stepped into her mom’s craft room, the underworld opened and coughed up an entire pet cemetery.
Stuffed raccoons playing croquet, mice celebrating unbirthdays, a teacup Yorkie plastered in Purple Hearts and Bronze Stars, among other oddities, lined the walls. Missy here served in Vietnam, her mom said, We found each other at the flea market. Mom believes in fate, said Katie.
On the table were scalpels, loose cotton stuffing, curved needles threaded with stiff string. A ferret laid open in the center, its insides scooped out of the middle.
I orbited the standard poodle wearing a pink poodle skirt. That’s Patsy, said Katie, My childhood dog. Her mom stroked Patsy’s head, fluffed up her groomed ears.
I just don’t know how to let go, she said.
*
Deer lose their antlers. They grow a new pair. Every year, every cycle.
I lost my antlers in meaningless encounters, in the search for placation. The double-edged thoughts circling around, waiting to be slapped with a pole.
When I found Delilah, my antlers reappeared. I held life in my hands, life on the brink of death. I had the power to save her. So I rushed into the wall, headfirst, strong. I tore it down. And in its wake, there I stood. Screaming in a bar, destroying a TV.
I’ll take back what’s mine, even if it means I have to steal what’s not.
*
Just as I’m losing hope, my phone pings. I want my TV back. I laugh, smash my thumbs into the tiny letters. You know what I want. The phone thinks for a while, a bubble letting me know he’s typing. I’ll be there at six.
Six rolls around. I’m in the front yard, filling the bird feeder so the sparrows and scrub jays won’t go hungry. He pulls up, the booming radio announcing his presence. When he steps out he looks near the end.
Where’s my TV, he asks.
I say, Crazy girls serve the best revenge.
I just can’t let go, he says.
He pulls Delilah’s hide from his pocket, places it in my hands. I lead him to the backyard, beyond the gate and the pebbled path. He sits in the grass next to the television and examines the damage, runs a searching hand through the carcass, lifting off a layer of dust. He rubs it between his thumb and index, walks over and blows it in my face.
I lick my lips, taking in the grit and the myth of principle.
Indigo Palmer is an emerging writer from Las Vegas, Nevada, currently transplanted in evergreen Ashland, Oregon. She studies creative writing there at Southern Oregon University. She dabbles in extreme lava lamp watching and avoiding the excruciating experience of being truly known. If bewitched, you can find her other work under the name Rita Redd in the Lunch Break Zine, Wild Roof Journal, Book of Matches, and Jokes Literary Review.
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