On Parole

Yesterday was like day parole. We were freed of the prison of winter with a day warm enough to have been spring. After Sonja made us a substantial breakfast of tofu scramble and fried red potatoes washed down with organic coffee sweetened by blackberry honey, the Hammer and I went out to love the sun. The sun is easy to love in February, in summer it has become an evil beast.

We found ourselves a mountain and hiked around its bright south side. Water, clear as a sailor's intentions on shore leave, splashed down the many creeks. A breeze just strong enough to have me keep my hockey jacket half buttoned up played in the leafless tree branches. Green ferns waved just perceptibly as they photosynthesized happily as I drink beer.

The Hammer and I spotted two deer as we rounded a boulder bigger than a three storey apartment building. I think it was the Hammer's first good look at deer. She just sat there and watched them as they casually put a little distance between themselves and the unwild. They were robust looking animals. Deer think very much like wild horses. They like people without guns or arrows but keep their distance from humans in all but the most unusual situations where they are in contact with humans constantly, such as on the islands of dope between Dope City and Marijuanatoria.

Just about as soon as we were out of sight of those two deer we saw another pair running from our approach around the next turn in our path. The Hammer turned to look at me as if to say, "Fuckin' A Beer. We have to come back here soon." My dogs have all liked and been kind to deer. Strangler was never happier than she was following politely behind lazy summer mule deer in the mountains.

I have eaten deer. I did not care for it. Lucky for them.

Besides being like wild horses, deer are like Mike Walton. Run wild, run free motherfuckers.