Moving around geographically, the Merrimack
is in Massachusetts.
And now we tour Wyoming a little bit for John.
"Rabbits."
--and this happens to be where I met my husband.
Just saying.
"The first time the rabbits died, it was spring.
And she hardly knew what to think about the Wyoming
testimony, the Godlike wind in the cottonwoods, the way
the lightning cracked your skull wide open
and made you see things in X-ray.
She crept.
She followed her friend, who acted as guide.
They were coming back from Walmart or somewhere,
back to the friend's trailer on company land.
The boss man was filthy rich and old and loved his guns.
They opened up the gate.
And the friend showed off her little garden.
And then they walked up to the front porch.
Four dead baby rabbits lay in a line on the top step.
In the garbage can, they found three others.
The garbage can was actually a burn barrel.
Here's where you burn trash yourself about once a week--
spilled a little kerosene in there and lit a match.
It stunk, yes.
But it did the job.
And you didn't need to wait for any damn government truck.
'He must have done this,' the friend said.
'He hates rabbits.'
The newcomer took pictures of the rabbits
as evidence of something.
But when she sent the photographs back to New York,
the package got lost in the mail.
Two years later, the newcomer lived in Wyoming herself,
up a hill in another house on company land, a geodesic dome.
She drove the beat-up old station wagon
that her friend had sold her.
She drove it up the dirt road, up the dark hill to her house
after a night at the bar.
At that time of year, you had to drive slowly.
Because the rabbits had recently given birth.
And there were swarms--
millions, zillions of darting rabbits on the dirt road.
On either side of the road was a field with warrens and streams
and all kinds of rabbit habitat.
They came out at night.
It was as if the baby rabbits didn't yet
know the danger of cars, or perhaps they
were so multitudinous that they hopped everywhere, road
or no road.
Anyway, you had to drive slowly not to hit them.
And she did drive slowly.
The rabbits came out every night, the baby rabbits.
And they were like small, gray streaks on the road.
You could hardly see them before they were there
in front of you, streaking across the dirt, zigzagging
around, frantic, stupid.
She leaned forward, holding onto the steering wheel.
She honked.
But to really ensure their well-being,
you just have to turn the car off and walk.
Night after night on her way home from the bar,
she drove on.
There would be bumps.
She began to drive a little faster over the hill,
like she belonged here, like the rabbits would disappear,
as the dead ones on the porch did-- even the photos of them.
There were so many rabbits, after all.
In a few months, she herself would be gone."