Friday Night, October 27th, and the boys - the band at the BBI, called to see if we, the staff, would be going to see their show.
I wasn't aware there would be a show, only that there was a party, and so go along for the entertainment, it's been a month, too long, too soon...
The BBI, the bar at the end of the world, the real "Magic Tavern", the Hive of all Scum and Villainy...
I digress. The night passes, The boys - D*** and B*****, D***, in his baseball cap and mullet, play their set, B***** has taken the spirit of the season and facepainted himself to look like "The Joker" from the latest Batman...Heath Ledger's 'The Joker'. It's a look, for sure, I guessed "Kiss" and a couple of other stray shots before I landed it. With his long, dark hair and slender appearance its certainly scary...if that's what he was going for...
End of the night a chef at the restaurant agrees to give them a ride home, I go along as well, my trailer's only a few km up the road...they don't drop me off, I'm along for company for the chef on the way back, I'll have to get out on the return trip...
Winding bends, it's dark, late, after 2:00, approaching Nelson when from the left of the road come a couple of deer...
...it's quick, they're small, she only hits one, it goes flying perhaps 5 meters, struggles to get back up, falls back down, tries to get back up...it's hip, maybe some legs are broken, flailing in the middle of the road, God knows what internal injuries, it's done, deer, people, animals in general, they never do well with car collisions...
B***** from the back seat says: "Let me deal with this..." and I let him out, a minute later there's the surreal scene of the Joker in the headlights dragging the futilely struggling deer by it's hindquarters over the edge of the embankment, they disappear into the high weeds and trees...
Waiting, waiting...D***, The chef and I, we're all quiet. What's to say? This is lousy, the companion of the deer is off in the distance, just beyond the glare of the headlights, you can see it's shadow against the night, it's waiting for it's friend, it'll be waiting for a while.
After an eternity I get out, walk to the edge of the embankment, I can see nothing in the weeds, the night, the darkness, it's complete, strange noises, not B*****, howls or cries, I call for him:
- silence.
Again:
- "Damn thing won't die!!"
he replies, the deer, in shock, many broken bones, it won't live until morning but he's trying to kill it with his bare hands, finish it off, some bizarre obligation, "put it out of it's misery", but this last bit of misery is the last bit of life it will have, it's not feeling a thing, only struggling against it's inevitable death and his helping is not encouraging...
We finish the drive to Nelson, all of us, drop the boys off, the Chef is in tears, a vegetarian, perhaps a little more sensitive to it than the rest of us, crying, I can't shake the image of the Joker hauling the deer off the side of the road, off into the bushes, out of the headlights, it's the darkest thing I've seen in a while...