Backroom Fear
Mindy looked exceptionally happy behind her caged barrier. Her tail wagged vigorously sharing my enthusiasm. Her paws pitter-pattered excitedly as I skipped my large, oversized rubber boots down the bleached concrete aisle. Unable to receive a paycheck at my age, I had simply volunteered to do what I loved—help take care of dogs and cats. My older brothers, Jim and Ed, were working with a government contract that paid half of their salary at the Southwest Missouri Humane Society. I was volunteering in the kennel area, working rather hard for a youngster, hoping someday soon that Mindy's adoption rights would be all mine.
Mindy and I were instant friends, although the judging was a bit partial. I was still in mourning, in a post death, requiem state, when we first met. I had recently battled my brave little Toy Eskimo Spitz through the treacheries of intestinal worms. "Tiny" was her name, suitable to her likeness, small and puffy-white. I received my Spitz from a hard working, Amish family. Expressing their remorse, admitting they loved little "Tiny," the whole family agreed she was one of the best cattle dogs they had ever worked with. "She may be small and bark like an injured possum, but their ain't none better than little Tiny," the Amish father bolted. Nevertheless, they could no longer afford a second dog and was searching for a new, sound home for her; they had picked my solemn face out of a crowd.
I could not hide my strong affection for animals as my parents soon became involved. My implying gestures had worked well enough for my father to reach down and gently brush Tiny's silky smooth coat, things were looking good. Tiny and I had already become great pals, all I needed now was a "Yes." My father had never shown much affection toward animals before; the small head pat assured a longtime, dog/boy relationship. Seven years Tiny and I were together, leading to my days at the Humane Society.
The love that some people have for animals is sometimes more powerful than the love amongst their own species. It can be very strong in some, and is in me. While working with my brothers, I had to learn the trade the hard way: Numerously cleaning up the noisome remains of digested food left behind in putrescent, curly piles, fetching deranged cats from taped, packaged deliveries, left at the gate and evacuated (making the deranged beast within fly directly up and out of the box in an insane fury), and worst of all, picking which animals might have to go to the backroom first.
My brother Jim was mature and civil about the hatred and fear I had of the backroom, but Ed was not. He thrived on what his younger sibling would do even to hear the mention of that God-forsaken-place. I would shiver and repel away from such terrible, inhumane thoughts; I could not even bare the sight of the closed door as I walked out back to check the cat traps so strategically placed near the female felines in heat. The place beyond that yellowed, horrifying door was surely Hell in itself; it was the place where puppies died.
Often I would come running in, first thing in the morning, and discover another unfortunate cage full of love, terminated—extinct of ever being able to cuddle, to love, to happily bite the ear of their new, young humane friend—to live. How could they do such a thing? Weren't there people that wanted a good dog like the half Doberman, half Pit bull from cage 6A that was so gentle it could lick you to laughing through the cage? Sadly, the dogs with Pit bull in them, always perished first. You could see the look on the their doomed faces, they knew. It was for these reasons and more that I never even wanted to be near the backroom.
One day, after my volunteering had come to a denouement, I was spending some time with one of the prisoners that would surely be gone by the end of the week. "Rufus" had been held his full two week expectancy and a little more, thanks to my pestering eleven year old implications, and the fact that he was a pure bread German Shepard. However, his time was near, I knew it and Rufus knew it. I wanted to spend time with him, comfort his last hours, trying to block-out Mindy's tempting, jealous bellows from down the caged aisle of prisoners. It was when I was with Rufus that my brother Ed called to me, "Hey, Tommy, come back here, I want to show you something."
My heart told me to stay, but my gut wouldn't let my brother's implications reside. I walked nervously toward the forbidden, infamous, backroom door, shaking and wanting to turn and run with every step. I told my brother repeatedly that I did not want to see an animal die, and he assured me that I wouldn't; so I followed his gestures. In hours of thought, moments of time, I was in the scary confines of what we sometimes called "The Dead Room."
I admired my strength, conjured up only to show my older brother I was not afraid. A friend once told me later, "If you are afraid and still do what scares the shit out of you, that is the meaning of bravery." I was brave.
After I was inside, the door seemed to shut magically. Simultaneously, Ed's smirk grew. I sensed evil, bad things. I could feel the death lurking throughout the shelves of injectable drugs, drugs not taken for cures but for the opposite— extinction. The smell of poison chemicals and frozen dog deaths (stored in the backroom's three huge deep-freezers), filled the confines, nearly choking even the most stern of man. One of the more skilled laborers of the shelter was standing behind the door holding one of the six growing, beautifully golden, Retriever puppies. I did not like her. She was always pushing her weight around, as if to achieve some higher recognition.
A few times she was caught beating one of the dogs or cats for supposed disciplinary reasons, claiming "the bloody beast tried to escape," looking me in the eyes, she would lie. Others called her Gladys; I thought of her with an eleven-year-old name, "evil witch."
She was smiling that big, vindictive grin of hers, thriving on my fear, holding the poor little puppy stiff enough to cause fear in his eyes as well. This made her feel good, I could see the enjoyment in her bloodthirsty eyes. I searched my brother's face for some help. He knew what she was about to do. He had helped prepare the lethal injection and the necessary death-harness needed to hold the perishable body from squirming around during the process. I remember feeling the only love in the room for what was perceived by the rest of the group as just another task of a seemingly carefree job. I was the only one that cared.
My brother, whom which I was sure was going to intervene any second, would not let me watch a death. He knew I could not bare the death of a puppy, but, he did not motion or comment. He just stood there with that evil, unforgiving smile and stared, not at the injected puppy, but at me. He stood and watched me go through the death with that poor, little creature, as it pissed all over itself and faded off.
As its life expelled, the happy little puppy from cage seven-A looked me in the eyes pleading, looking for answers I couldn’t give, as if saying "How could you?" My eyes, pleading and desperate, were searching my brothers eyes for the same.
Tom Mezzacapa
English 220
C. Closser, Instructor
16 June 1997
"Descriptive Essay, Writing Assignment # 1"
Mindy and I were instant friends, although the judging was a bit partial. I was still in mourning, in a post death, requiem state, when we first met. I had recently battled my brave little Toy Eskimo Spitz through the treacheries of intestinal worms. "Tiny" was her name, suitable to her likeness, small and puffy-white. I received my Spitz from a hard working, Amish family. Expressing their remorse, admitting they loved little "Tiny," the whole family agreed she was one of the best cattle dogs they had ever worked with. "She may be small and bark like an injured possum, but their ain't none better than little Tiny," the Amish father bolted. Nevertheless, they could no longer afford a second dog and was searching for a new, sound home for her; they had picked my solemn face out of a crowd.
I could not hide my strong affection for animals as my parents soon became involved. My implying gestures had worked well enough for my father to reach down and gently brush Tiny's silky smooth coat, things were looking good. Tiny and I had already become great pals, all I needed now was a "Yes." My father had never shown much affection toward animals before; the small head pat assured a longtime, dog/boy relationship. Seven years Tiny and I were together, leading to my days at the Humane Society.
The love that some people have for animals is sometimes more powerful than the love amongst their own species. It can be very strong in some, and is in me. While working with my brothers, I had to learn the trade the hard way: Numerously cleaning up the noisome remains of digested food left behind in putrescent, curly piles, fetching deranged cats from taped, packaged deliveries, left at the gate and evacuated (making the deranged beast within fly directly up and out of the box in an insane fury), and worst of all, picking which animals might have to go to the backroom first.
My brother Jim was mature and civil about the hatred and fear I had of the backroom, but Ed was not. He thrived on what his younger sibling would do even to hear the mention of that God-forsaken-place. I would shiver and repel away from such terrible, inhumane thoughts; I could not even bare the sight of the closed door as I walked out back to check the cat traps so strategically placed near the female felines in heat. The place beyond that yellowed, horrifying door was surely Hell in itself; it was the place where puppies died.
Often I would come running in, first thing in the morning, and discover another unfortunate cage full of love, terminated—extinct of ever being able to cuddle, to love, to happily bite the ear of their new, young humane friend—to live. How could they do such a thing? Weren't there people that wanted a good dog like the half Doberman, half Pit bull from cage 6A that was so gentle it could lick you to laughing through the cage? Sadly, the dogs with Pit bull in them, always perished first. You could see the look on the their doomed faces, they knew. It was for these reasons and more that I never even wanted to be near the backroom.
One day, after my volunteering had come to a denouement, I was spending some time with one of the prisoners that would surely be gone by the end of the week. "Rufus" had been held his full two week expectancy and a little more, thanks to my pestering eleven year old implications, and the fact that he was a pure bread German Shepard. However, his time was near, I knew it and Rufus knew it. I wanted to spend time with him, comfort his last hours, trying to block-out Mindy's tempting, jealous bellows from down the caged aisle of prisoners. It was when I was with Rufus that my brother Ed called to me, "Hey, Tommy, come back here, I want to show you something."
My heart told me to stay, but my gut wouldn't let my brother's implications reside. I walked nervously toward the forbidden, infamous, backroom door, shaking and wanting to turn and run with every step. I told my brother repeatedly that I did not want to see an animal die, and he assured me that I wouldn't; so I followed his gestures. In hours of thought, moments of time, I was in the scary confines of what we sometimes called "The Dead Room."
I admired my strength, conjured up only to show my older brother I was not afraid. A friend once told me later, "If you are afraid and still do what scares the shit out of you, that is the meaning of bravery." I was brave.
After I was inside, the door seemed to shut magically. Simultaneously, Ed's smirk grew. I sensed evil, bad things. I could feel the death lurking throughout the shelves of injectable drugs, drugs not taken for cures but for the opposite— extinction. The smell of poison chemicals and frozen dog deaths (stored in the backroom's three huge deep-freezers), filled the confines, nearly choking even the most stern of man. One of the more skilled laborers of the shelter was standing behind the door holding one of the six growing, beautifully golden, Retriever puppies. I did not like her. She was always pushing her weight around, as if to achieve some higher recognition.
A few times she was caught beating one of the dogs or cats for supposed disciplinary reasons, claiming "the bloody beast tried to escape," looking me in the eyes, she would lie. Others called her Gladys; I thought of her with an eleven-year-old name, "evil witch."
She was smiling that big, vindictive grin of hers, thriving on my fear, holding the poor little puppy stiff enough to cause fear in his eyes as well. This made her feel good, I could see the enjoyment in her bloodthirsty eyes. I searched my brother's face for some help. He knew what she was about to do. He had helped prepare the lethal injection and the necessary death-harness needed to hold the perishable body from squirming around during the process. I remember feeling the only love in the room for what was perceived by the rest of the group as just another task of a seemingly carefree job. I was the only one that cared.
My brother, whom which I was sure was going to intervene any second, would not let me watch a death. He knew I could not bare the death of a puppy, but, he did not motion or comment. He just stood there with that evil, unforgiving smile and stared, not at the injected puppy, but at me. He stood and watched me go through the death with that poor, little creature, as it pissed all over itself and faded off.
As its life expelled, the happy little puppy from cage seven-A looked me in the eyes pleading, looking for answers I couldn’t give, as if saying "How could you?" My eyes, pleading and desperate, were searching my brothers eyes for the same.
Tom Mezzacapa
English 220
C. Closser, Instructor
16 June 1997
"Descriptive Essay, Writing Assignment # 1"
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