A Language Older Than Words - Derrick Jensen [94]
tempting to mate, when it comes to that form of interspecies communication) to know that though this resembled an attempted mounting, it was not. He was simply attacking her. His best buddy stood beside him. I ran outside, realized I wasn't wearing shoes (don't run around a chicken yard without shoes), ran back in, found only sandals, ran back out, grabbed a piece of wood, got the goose off her, and chased him around the yard, losing my sandals twice and using the long piece of wood as an extension of my arm to force him into a corner. Finally I caught him, held him, and told him that if I ever caught him doing that again, I would eat him for dinner.
It is the next day, and I have been thinking more about the goose and hen. Two nights ago I dreamt of chickens, and was surprised to find none missing. Later in the day, though, one of the ducks disappeared. Obviously the Dreamgiver knew something I didn't. That makes me wonder if the goose, too, knows more than I. Perhaps he merely wants to put the hen out of her misery.
If the goose attacks her again, and if I kill him, would I be killing for the wrong reason? Or am I, to ask the same old question, simply projecting my feelings onto the situation? Was the goose merely being a goose? Maybe. But there's a third male goose, not a member of this duo, who does none of these things. He usually hangs out with his duck-buddy, wandering about eating cantaloupe rinds and lettuce heads.
Perhaps, once again, this is all displacement of responsibility. If I want to have goose stew, maybe I shouldn't rationalize, but just grab a hatchet and kill one. But I don't know.
I killed the goose. After I warned him, he killed the wounded hen, then a rooster, then another hen. Still I hesitated.
A few days later I returned from errands to find yet another hen dead, with the skin ripped from her skull. She looked as though she'd been scalped. The goose’s face was bloody, and blood flecked red across his white breast. I said to him, "That's it," and picked up a stick. I used it again to corner him. He must have known the stakes were higher this time, because he kept ducking under the stick and racing away. I finally caught him, and held his large body close, one wing trapped against my chest, the other under my right arm. I remember his eyes were wide, and I could see the black of pupil, blue of iris, white of fear, red of lid, white of feathers, and red of hen's blood.
I dropped the stick, and on the way to the chopping block picked up the hatchet in my left hand. I laid down his head. He did not stretch it like the Pekin of so long ago, but held his neck in a tight S that afforded no room to strike. Finally, more through random movement than cooperation, he straightened his neck enough that I could hit it cleanly. I broke his neck, but did not cut all the way through; I struck again and his head came free. Blood exploded from his neck, his mouth gaped and closed, gasping for breath, his chest heaved, pushing air past taut vocal cords to give voice for the last few times of his already completed life. His wings moved hard against my breast and arm, and finally I released them to spread. Blood covered the block, and the dogs— who had long ceased hurting the birds—approached to lap it up. I hung him to bleed, then scalded and picked him. I eviscerated him and put him into the refrigerator to cool. The next day I would make a stew.
That night my friend Julie Mayeda took me to dinner. We went to a Thai restaurant, where I ordered chicken and she seafood, and we both tried not to think about the lives represented in our meals. I couldn't get over the look in the goose's eyes. It wasn't so much the fright, but simply the knowledge in my own body that his eyes were now closed, his body now dead. His running as I chased