Sarah Court by Craig Davidson Page A

gleefully gulp
down three or four.
    Their frightful dying squeals compelled Excelsior
to leap off Mama Russell’s porch into Saberhagen’s
yard. Crazed on squirrel meat, Moxie lunged for
the much larger sheepdog’s throat. Excelsior seized
the corgi by his scruff and whipsawed her head to
fling Moxie a good ten feet. The dog’s ungraceful
trajectory took him over the tree; he hit harshly and
rolled as tumbleweeds do.
    Excelsior rooted through the branches to recover
the remaining squirrels. That all four fit safely in
the pouches on either side of her teeth was the first
oddity. The second was that she dropped them on
four different lawns. One she left at the Hills. One
she left at Mama Russell’s house, where it was taken
in by her “boy,” Jeffrey. One for Abigail Burger. Alvin
given to me.
    “The momma squirrel won’t take it back now,”
my father said. “Your scent’s on it. It’s tainted. The
mother might eat it. Mothers can be like that. In the
animal kingdom.”
    We packed a shoebox with cotton batten and set
Alvin beneath a gooseneck lamp. I was concerned
this may scald him: his pink skin put me in mind
of the flesh under a fresh-picked scab. His paws so
much like tiny human hands. I wished he would open
his eyes so I might intuit what he wanted. But when
his eyes did open they were inexpressive black bulbs.
    Each day Alvin remained alive, often barely
so, I took as a breed of miracle. My father filled an
eyedropper with cornstarch-thickened milk and fed
him. He’d squirt hypoallergenic soap into his palm,
set Alvin in the bowl of his hand to clean him with
gentleness bordering on reverence.
    “So fragile. Bones like sugar.”
    A covering of black fur filled over Alvin’s body.
His tail, a nippley nubbin, came in bushy. He never
grew quite as big as a squirrel should.
    One afternoon he dashed out the patio door. My
father pursued—“Alvin! Come to your senses!”—
and, spying him in the crotch of the backyard
elm, jabbed a banana on the end of a stick as an
enticement. When the squirrel refused, Dad mooned
by the window, yet he soon turned philosophical.
Not an abandonment, he reasoned, but the animal’s
natural predilection.
    “Squirrels live in trees. Gather nuts. As they’ve
always done.”
    “Sorry I left the patio door open, Dad.”
    “Never mind, pet. Recall the old saying: ‘If you
love something, let it go.’”
    Overjoyed as my father was when Alvin returned
that night, he resolved to let an animal be an animal.
Mornings Alvin bolted out his squirrel-door—a
miniature doggy door my father installed—to
dash across the fencelines attaching yard to yard.
Plaguing, in the inimitable manner of squirrels,
the local canine population. Even Excelsior chased
Alvin, who chattered cheekily from a high bough
while the poor sheepdog howled.
    Later, Alvin was shot dead with a revolver.
    Mama Russell took in troubled children. Her
“boys,” they were known. Teddy and Jeffrey spent
years in her care. Others who broke curfew or broke
into neighbours’ houses were sent away. At the time
of Alvin’s death, Social Services remanded an infant
into Mama’s custody until a foster family could be
secured. Mama named him Carter, though she had
no right. Afternoons she paraded baby Carter round
the court in a pram. Alvin, naturally curious, stole
into the pram. I pieced this together afterwards.
    Mama swatted at Alvin, who scrambled up a tree.
Mama called the police. A cruiser was dispatched. A
deputy not long on duty unloaded on Alvin with his
service revolver. Centre of mass, as they teach at the
academy.
    A squirrel weighing that of a bar of soap.
Annihilated.
My
first
attempt
at
parenthood
culminated with a squirrel so blown apart there
wasn’t much to bury.
    “You mustn’t give your heart to wild things,” my
father said that night. “Or take on burdens of care
more than you need to.”
    “But aren’t I a