A Helping Hand

“Wanted: a good home for a 10 year old boy. Good grades, a sunny if oftentimes inconsistent disposition, and a penchant for sleepwalking at all times of the night.”

This was the want ad I imagined my parents putting into the local weekly, having finally worn themselves ragged on dealing with my nightly sojourns down the hall, into the bathroom and finally the kitchen, all under the auspices of unconsciousness. It was under this same spell that I once walked a deer head down the hall.

A normal night, if you can consider one’s teenage years anything normal. School, friends and the burgeoning interest in girls made for long days and sometimes equally long nights. The clock radio next to my bed played the disco and rock tunes of the day, and competed for my attention with whatever sci-fi book I was reading at the time. Asimov, Heinlein and Bradbury held a special interest for boys of my age, and I was no different. I fall asleep with “Kashmir” and “Night Fever” ringing in my ears.

At 12 years of age, I had already grown taller than my 5’3” mother, who used my height during the daylight hours to procure spices and jars of preserved fruits down from the upper reaches of the avocado green cupboards. It is this same petite woman who I semi-awoke to find wrestling me down the hall, shouting “wake up David…wake up!” as I clutched a massive stuffed 4-point trophy deer head in my arms, headed God knows where.

East of the Mississippi, antlered animals are counted by the full number of “points” or tips of antlers, whereas in the West, they count them by only one side. So, my deer had 4 large points on one side, with an equal number on the other. Easteners would call this one an 8-point…those points were exactly what my mother was trying to avoid as she attempted to steer me back to my room.

The year prior, when my father called from the hunting grounds to tell my mother in an excited, hurried voice about his trophy kill, my mother at that point resolved two things: first, that she would hang a sign on the front door to be seen upon his return that read “Welcome Home, Deer Killer”. She wasn’t a big fan if the hunt, but knew that my Dad would never kill something just for the fun of doing so. We would be eating on that deer for a few months, until venison became a four-letter word in our home.

The second, and more important proviso my Mother set down, was that no deer head would ever grace her bedroom, family room or any other place where visitors to our home would see it. My father had it in his head that he would be able to wake every day to his trophy, satisfied that he had cemented his place upon the ranks of men. After much heated discussion, it was decided that the stuffed head would go in my room. Although I didn’t have a vote in the matter, I was more than thrilled to have a symbol of my father’s masculinity in my room….some of which I hoped would rub off on me.

After a month or so, Dad and his two sons climbed into the truck to pick up the head from the taxidermists. We had already procured the rest of the animal, turned as it had been into steaks, ribs and jerky. But this was a more important event because it was a lasting symbol of the event…much more so than that gamey, heartburn-inducing venison we kids forced down 3 times a week. I even think she tried a form of Venison Helper, ground deer meat taking the place of hamburger in the Helper recipe. At that point I refused to eat anything with the word “Helper” in it again, deer meat or not. I recanted that vow later in life when my former spouse decided to make it for the kids (with the proper ground beef inside) and I “helped” myself to a bowl to see if I could eat it again. Three days and 20 pounds lighter, having shat out the lining of my stomach, I realized that I had either been poisoned (and given the state of our marriage at the time, I couldn’t rule that out…) or I was having a 20-year-later psychological response to a certain dish. Who knows?
As my mother tried her best to move me back in the direction of my room, back to the wall spike upon which the head rested, my father joined in the fray with his large frame and even larger hands, worn and calloused from years of hard work. They made small work of me, relieving me of my deer while mother, safe from an eye gouge or cheek pierce, got her son back to bed. I vaguely remember Dad sticking the head back on the wall and wondered in my narcosis just what all of the fuss was about.
The next morning, with bags under her eyes that no amount of coffee would erase, my mother asked if I remembered what happened.

What?

My father laughed as Mom recounted the previous night’s events and I sat there, red-faced with shame and embarrassment, wondering if I would ever live down a night of carrying mammals down the hall.