Rabbit Fighter

“Get ‘im Shelley!” My brother Tommy yelled as I stomped through the mud. 

We were chasing rabbit’s again. Mama was making stew for dinner, and she told us that if we’d caught a rabbit she would skin it and cook it for dinner. Hunting rabbit’s was easy for most folks. But we were just kids, I was only ten and my brother was 7. We couldn’t shoot them or make traps because Pa didn’t let us touch his gun or traps because he didn't think we could handle them. Even if he did, what good would it be to set a trap when dinner would be ready in three hours anyways?

Instead, me and my brother took a different approach. Hunting rabbit’s wasn’t just hunting for us. We saw the rabbit’s as equals, smart and fast enemies fighting to ruin our dinners. Hunting rabbit’s was war. And we were the rabbit fighters. 

Even though I was older, I was always the faster one. So Tommy would hold the big stick while I chased them. This time was no exception. We saw the rabbit’s just 5 minutes into our hunt. It had been drinking water from a stream by our house when we saw it, and we snuck up on it then. We were smart with rabbit’s. Sometimes if you were quiet enough, you could get right up next to them and bang them on the head without ever having to chase them, boom, easy dinner. But this one caught on to us, and that's when I ran at it. 

I could feel the grass on the soles of my feet, and my toes dug into the wet earth beneath me with each stride. When you're fighting rabbit’s you gotta have a sense to you. You get it once you’ve chased them around enough. You start to know when they’ll turn, which direction they’ll hop in. But here’s the thing about chasing rabbits, they’re way too fast to catch. That’s why we fight rabbit’s, not catch them. Because if it came down to physical skill alone, rabbit’s would win every time. Instead, it’s a battle of strategy. Because I can know where the rabbit goes, I must also know how to send it somewhere. 

I jumped ahead of it, sending it running back in the direction we’d just come from. It thought it had outdone me, and escaped my attempt to jump it right there. But that was all part of my plan. I chased it further, through the woods then back over the stream we’d started at. That’s when Tommy jumped out from behind a bush. He caught it in a sack, then hit it a few times with a stick. We’d beaten the rabbit this time. 

Sometimes we weren’t so lucky. As I said, we thought of the rabbit’s as our equals. They were smart and cunning just as we were. Some battle’s were meant to be failure’s. But you see, fighting rabbit’s was the best kind of war. The kind without gun’s and bombs and chemicals that send you back home wishing you were dead. Instead it was a war where you splashed across streams and felt the wind and breathed in the sweet smell of pine and oak. It was a perfect war, even if sometimes you ran around for nothing. 

This time me and Tommy brought our spoils of war to our Mama, as serious as real warriors. Just as she’d said, she skinned it and threw it in the stew. We waited around, playing board games or fighting until Mama yelled at us to stop and told me I had to go work on my school project. I’d whine and moan until finally I went back up to my room and would finish the strange array of glue, gumdrops, and toothpicks I called my science project. 

Finally, Pa would get home, and mom would shout for me to come down for dinner. I came down the stairs, three at a time then jumping the last 6 and running to the table, helping set all the plates and silverware before sitting down. We’d all link hands, and Pa would say grace. 

“So what’d you kids get up to today.” he’d say after telling Mama how good dinner was.

“I don’t know,” I’d say, “Stuff I guess?” 

“I think I’m starting to see how you got that C in English,” He said with a laugh.

“They went out catching rabbits for me, in fact you're eating it right now,” Mom interjected. 

“Oh really? I remember when I was younger we used to go rabbit hu-”

“Pa! You’ve told us this story before! How you and all the boys would go rabbit hunting by the creek too, and how you’d all get so dirty and muddy all your mama’s would threaten to give you a beating.”

“Oh. Well I didn’t realize you were all getting so tired of me.” he said, putting on an over exaggerated frown and moping.

“Oh look at that, you made your dad sad,” Mom said, “ Why don't you apologize for making him so depressed,”  

“We’re sorry dad!” We said, Tommy a bit louder than me.

“You mean…you kids still want me around?” He said, lifting his head up dramatically. 

“Oh stop being so dramatic dear,” Mom said. “Why don’t you tell us about your day at work instead?”

He then went on to talk about his day at the lumber yard. My dad worked there everyday of the week but Sunday. Things were always happening there, whether it was someone getting a promotion who didn’t deserve a promotion or someone getting demoted who didn’t deserve to get demoted. They seem bad at promoting and demoting people from how dad said it. Sometimes things would get really exciting and there’d be some sorta accident. Like a fella getting his foot run over by a truck or someone's finger getting chopped off in the saw.

When dinner was done, Pa would make sure we went and got showered and brushed our teeth. Tommy still had pa come in and tell him a bedtime story, though dad kept telling him he was getting too old for that. We both would have either mom or dad, whoever was feeling less tired that night, come in and give us kiss goodnight and tell us they loved us.

* * *

I leaned back in my chair and let out a deep, deep sigh. I heard some wild conspiracy theory that the lights in school and office buildings were made to melt your brain. Looking up at the blinding fluorescents above me in this stupid snack company's ceiling, I could practically feel it melting out my ears. I sat back straight again and looked at my screen. 

4:00

Only an hour left at work, but it just seemed too much already. I felt like a kid again, and not in a good way. I wish I could still break out crying and screaming every time I had to do a bit too much. Have someone try and quiet me down before taking me home and making me take a nap. Being 31 is so shitty.

I forced myself to keep at it, even if I was only working at 20% battery, until five. I had to make calls, log appointments, and send emails. All of which seems like it should be so easy. Not of it was. 

The calls were extra hard to do. It’d been 13 years, yet I still had to actively try and hide my accent. In retrospect it was so stupid. But when I first went to college on the west coast, I felt so self conscious about it. I felt like people would see me as some dumb southern hick. I’d googled some simple exercises to get rid of it, to sound more ‘normal’. It worked, people never even realized I was southern for years. I would tell certain friends sometimes, and they’d always be so shocked. Yet still, if I’m not careful, little bits and pieces slip in. It’s even worse when I talk to my parents. Something about them makes me just fall right back into my old ways.

5:00

Thank. God. If I had to sit through another minute I was going to go postal. I logged out of my computer, grabbed my stuff, and walked out to catch the bus. 

I got home at 6:30. I dumped my stuff on the table, walked to my bed, fell down on it, and let out a deep groan, stopping about every 45 seconds to breathe, for 20 minutes. After sufficiently expressing the pain of the day, I rolled myself off the bed and made myself dinner, a nice gourmet meal of stale pizza and a beer I found somewhere around the back of the fridge. 

I sat on the couch and ate. Normally I’d put on some music or tv. But I just couldn’t bear it this time. I just wanted to bask in the silence of the apartment. Maybe if I spent enough time in it, I could just dissolve into the dark and quiet. I closed my eyes and set down the half eaten slice of pizza next to the half empty beer and just wallowed in the uselessness of it all. 

While I was sitting there desperately trying to dissolve into mist, I remembered rabbit fighting. I remembered the thrill, the exhilaration, the joy of victory. I remember sitting quietly watching them with my brother, who I haven’t spoken to for years. But most importantly, I remember the taste of the rabbit stew. The heartiness, and the way it filled your stomach. Gosh I missed eating rabbit stew. 

I almost got excited before I opened my eyes and realized I wasn’t in Kentucky anymore. I was stuck here in my LA apartment. Wasting away with the setting sun. 

I picked myself up from the couch and walked to the bathroom. I had to take off my make-up before I went to bed. As I walked in and looked at myself in the mirror, something in it made me die a little more inside. I realized for the first time in years that the face in the mirror, it just wasn't me. She was so put together. Her long hair was brushed and combed just right (despite how plopping down on the bed and couch messed with it), her makeup done just so that it would look like she wasn’t wearing any but still look good. The person in the mirror was so organized and neat. The person wasn’t a girl.    

I got my makeup wipes out and started the process of wiping everything, putting forth the extra work of wiping off the eyeliner I usually just left on while I slept. The person in the mirror looked more familiar, more like the country girl I’d always been, like the buck toothed kid who grew up fighting rabbits. 

I made a rash decision. I pulled the scissors out from my cabinet, and chopped off any hair beneath the nape of my neck. Then I cut the sides so they didn’t cover my ears, and I brushed my bangs out over my forehead, and cut off any hair over my eyes. I splashed some water to try to wash out some of the hair spray, and roughed up my hair. 

The result was bad. My hair wasn’t cut evenly. Patches stuck out all over the place where I’d cut to close or I’d cut shorter than the other side. And my face looked bad too. You could see all the freckles, all the skin spots, the beginning of wrinkles, and the bags under my eyes. But the results were what I was looking for. Because in front of me, was that same buck-toothed kid running around in the woods. That same messy hair girl in overalls who’d catch bugs by the creek. 

In front of me in the mirror, was the rabbit fighter.

I knew what I needed to do then. I went over to my computer and booked a one way plane ticket. I quickly packed a single backpack with some cash, my passport, and some warm clothes, then made my way to the airport.

* * *

It’s been about a year since I landed in Greenland. The first thing I did when I got here was go out and fight a rabbit. It was hard, I’ve grown, and I’m not as quick as I used to be. My bones ache, and my joints are stiff. Even still, I found them in a meadow a little ways out from town. I didn’t catch any on the first day, but as I was leaving the hotel I found a dog. He was young, though not a puppy. He was dirty and skinny. I took pity on him and snuck him into my hotel room to clean him off. I named him Sam. 

I took Sam out to the meadow. Slowly, over the next few weeks, he learned how to rabbit fight. That’s the first time I’d started being successful in our battles. When Sam would chase them, I’d sneak up and catch them in the sack, hit them with the stick, then skin them there and clean them to cook later.

I found a job when my savings started running low. I work as a farm hand, helping with sheep. It doesn't pay much, but me and Sam get a free room. And as long as we provide the rabbits, they provide the stew, so we don't spend much on food.

My brother and his family even came to visit a few months ago. We got back in contact, and I finally got to meet his kids. They're wild little things, but then again, so were we. I got to go rabbit fighting with them.

I’m stronger now. Physically and mentally. My bones still ache, but my muscles can do more. I can run faster too. I feel comfortable for the first time. I talk in my southern accent, though a bit of L.A. slips in, and nobody cares. I just sound American to all them. 

I spent so long pretending to be someone else. I made a new person to be, someone I pretended to be so I could feel accepted. So I could succeed towards a goal that never existed. But I feel real now. Not like some mask I put on. I feel like a rabbit fighter now.