Goose Hunting

Goose Hunting

         by Honkin' Hank the Hillbilly

                  If a goose sits on your head

                  demands the feathers from your bed

                  it's time to head down south for good

                  to live the kind of life you should

That Sunday, Milford gave himself over entirely to his inclinations and achieved the biggest origami he had ever met managed. He gave up the hobby from that moment on and never bothered with folding paper again. It was the Sunday of the raid on the dormitory. Girls of all sizes, shapes, color, height, scent, dress, length, bent, and even appearance, converged on the first floor and worked their way upwards, floor by floor, missing not a room, and purged it of offenders. The displaced boys, guilty of frequent misdemeanors over the years, accepted their lot and left for the city where apartments were not quite as affordable, but available nevertheless. But, too, that was the Sunday of the dinner party at which the mayor and the university president were caught insitu flagrante and expelled from their respective posts. These two married and raised children after, but neither has been heard of much since. 

          That Sunday, too, set off a series of events that have plagued our university town for two decades. I tell this to you now as one remembering the events that I participated in and had not a little to do with. My very appearance excites comments and incites rage. When, as I did, I also actively involve myself in the moment's public activities, terrible things can and do occur. I tend to keep to myself now for the most part, but it has taken me almost twenty years to fully understand the nature of my folly.

         The first thing that devolved from the events of that Sunday was the morning paper. At midnight, a party at which I was in attendance turned into a brawl that left two men's lives hanging by a thread. One of the young adults, Jose Phillipe, son of the respected Reeve, Joseph Philippe, later died on the operating table. His father was overwrought and took up federal politics shortly thereafter. The other men survived, but an observer may see him to this day wheeling himself about on an automated wheelchair in the Student Services Building confronting students with loud nasal noises and spittle in a sort of bellowing call for individuals to come attend to him. Members of the Christian Students Organization frequently can be seen for ten minutes at a time standing around his chair in quiet support. When they leave him to get back to their studies he calls after them in loud incoherence.  

         Later in the day, about 10 o'clock, those of us who had gone to the hospital to check on our companions, and were asked to leave by security, marched our way to the back of the pub on Hamlin since we were out of beer. We broke down the doors and stole a dozen cases of whatever beer we could lay our hands on and sat outside drinking waiting for the police to come, which they soon did. In jail, we sang songs such as "We shall overcome," and "Go tell it on the mountain," and "Llght the spot that stains my soul." Some of us were released and others kept. I got out. I think that no one at the police station wished to have to look at me for any longer than necessary. McKay stayed in, and he is in prison to this day for repeated offenses in the following years, ranging from petty theft two grand larceny. What he did the last time was steal a Cadillac that he'd been let to test drive. They found it in Alberta, and him in British Columbia. 

       We shot many geese on the University lawn that Sunday afternoon after we'd been released. With 22's, three of them taken from our father's basements, we walked up and down the university lawns and shot the birds. We were goose hunting and preparing for a major Beta phi Kappa wild meat cook-out that evening. We never did eat them. They needed cleaning and none of us knew how or felt like doing it that. The event that most astonished those of us who began to be aware that some sort of mysterious force was working on our local history was The sudden decision by the Provost, Mr. Alcock, to oust the subordinates in the administration and place on the board many of the parents of the malingerers who were responsible for the general malaise at the University in the past year. Grospbeck's father became the Don of Residences; Mr. Cruft, the stepfather of Grady Parkin Bangcock, was offered and accepted the position of Rector to the Anglican Diocese; Whisper Willowchuk's mother took over the Deanship of Ambri College, where so many of her relatives had held important posts; my father became head librarian at the Dorchester Music Llibrary and sat on the university board of directors from then on to his death sixteen years later; Mycroft Spenceretti, the father of the Vagina Williama, took on the responsibility of Assistant to the Treasurer and still holds that post all these years later.       The entire social edifice of the University, and so the town, crumbled and we now have to live with the effects of our actions. Never will we live down the fact that we caused it. We did to this town what was done to it and we all, except Raymond Slim, feel shame and guilt for having so deformed Slocum's future. I offer this letter as a public apology that, though late, may be of use to those who follow.