(A true story)
It was a dark and windy night, clouds scudding rapidly across the moonless sky. The mango trees creaked, while the palmetto’s fan-like leaves scraped and rustled in the gusts of wind. Inside the house, our family was quiet and subdued as we prepared for bed. There had been several unsolved murders recently, and justice had to be done.
My dad’s chicken house had been broken into twice in the past few days, with two feathered victims left bloodied and dead, despite his taking extra caution to check for openings for predators and lock it up at night. There was only one suspect: My sister’s old orange-and-white cat, Elmo.
After the double murders, my dad had caught sight of Elmo unwisely lurking around the scene of the crime, during the hours the door was left open for the hens to wander and scratch in the yard. He had been seen standing below the open door, poised as if to jump inside the coop, but had quickly darted away when he saw my dad come out on the porch. He had been known to try to stalk the chickens in the past (granted, without any success, since they were about as large as he was), and Dad was quick to point out Elmo’s guilty, furtive air that he had worn the past week. The theory was that he was getting old and bloodthirsty, sneaky and able to kill but unable to devour his victims. To my dad, there was no doubt: Elmo needed to be humanely and quickly put down before more innocent chicken lives were ruthlessly taken.
In our family, any of our animals that took the life of another of our animals was quickly dispatched, usually by my dad, in the form of an appointment with a shotgun in the back corral. Elmo was our family’s oldest surviving pet in our home in the tropics, and despite his grumpy ways, was generally viewed with fondness and affection. Until now.
Elmo the cat was finding himself decidedly in the doghouse.
During the family court held that night, with my dad as prosecutor, jury, and judge, there was only a slim chance for Elmo. But my sister and I quickly appointed ourselves the defendant’s attorneys, and pled for a delay of execution due to lack of evidence. We said that if there was another such incident and Elmo was indeed caught as perpetrator, we would no longer stand between him and a justly deserved death sentence. We only asked for at least a week’s reprieve or till a more thorough investigation could be done. Our dad, torn between wanting vengeance for his chickens and upholding unbiased justice, reluctantly agreed.
For the next few days, Elmo, sensing the grim skepticism of my dad toward his innocence, only added to his tarnished reputation by being excessively slinky and furtive. We kids kept a sharp lookout for any convicting behavior, but everything was quiet. Very quiet.
The tension grew.
My parents’ room was closest to the chicken coop, and each night my dad would lie in bed awake, listening for any sound of a poultry commotion, silently daring the cat to try his luck one more time. Each morning, we children would anxiously ask if anything had happened in the night, holding our breath till we heard that Elmo was still on probation.
Then, one night as my parents were getting ready for bed, my dad heard it: a squawking and fluttering, and a loud agitated scuffling from the chicken house. This was it! At last, if he could get there in time, the culprit would be brought to full justice!
Without pausing to pull on pants, my dad thundered out of the house in only his white briefs. The door slammed behind him as he pounded down the porch, jumped the steps, and charged up the lawn in the windy night toward the chicken house. Reaching the coop, he barely slowed before flinging open the back door of the coop that had been somehow pushed ajar. The chickens were squawking, thrashing about, and screeching with such noise my dad’s approach was unnoticed by the killer within.
Reaching in, he grabbed the furry beast in the midst of attacking the chickens, and in righteous indignation, holding Elmo fiercely by the scruff of his neck, began spanking him, saying through gritted teeth: “Bad cat! Bad cat!”
Suddenly, my dad smelled a rank and fetid odor. It appeared to emanate from the creature he had assumed was Elmo. He stopped, and, holding up the animal carefully in the dim light, was stunned to see that he had been spanking a large, dirty-gray, wild possum. The possum, startled and immobile, gazed back at him in shock.
By this time, my mom had followed him outside and was standing on the porch, peering across the wind-swept, dark yard. She saw him standing stock still next to the chicken coop, clad only in his underwear, holding something out at arms’ length. She called out, “What is it?”
“A possum!” He yelled back, with some consternation. “What do I do with it?”
“I don’t know!” she exclaimed, starting to laugh at the odd question. “Just throw it away!”
Dad carried the possum off into the night, far away from the chicken coop and over toward the fence of our property, where he chucked it into the bushes. Then he returned to latch up the chicken coop again, and head back to the house to shower and get in bed, both relieved and somewhat chagrined to have the case closed in this unexpected way.
The next morning we children were delighted to hear that Elmo had been fully exonerated and his innocence reestablished. He was indeed now out of the doghouse. His expression that morning might have been interpreted as slightly relieved to be off the threat of death row (but then, cats are usually somewhat inscrutable).
As for the possum, we never saw it again, possibly due to its permanent shock at being the recipient of a spanking when it was just trying to snag a free chicken dinner. My dad later found a small gap in the slats next to the chicken coop door that had allowed the predator access, and after it was fixed everyone slept with far greater serenity.
Especially the chickens.
