The Collector

A red fox in a black garbage bag was my first, and then the countless possums, coons, and the squirrels—for them I just use paper lunch sacks, slip them in one by one, fold the lip and set them neatly in the bed of my pickup. I don’t do birds, they seem to want to stay out there, but four-legged things, things with fur, you can tell they want to be wrapped, removed. I have a shovel, a scraper, and even ropes and pulleys, for the deer, but mostly I like to use my hands. Once I sealed a black cat and a white cat in the same bag together, both from Hwy 76, I don’t know why. The worst are those twisted forms you see from a quarter mile or so away, the ones that look like sculptures, or three-headed sleek-necked dogs, but then you get close enough to see they’re really just reels of stripped tire, or mufflers caught in branches—I usually get out and kick those to the side of the road. I imagine if I was invited to a dinner party, I would tap my fork to my front teeth between sips of wine and say, “It’s just a job.” But I wouldn’t tell them what I keep in my deep chest freezer, what’s buried in my back-yard, or that I don’t get paid, that I only work under the cover of night, that I don’t really live alone.