Crazies Raising Crazies

They called him Mother Spoopy. It was derisive at first.

It wasn't on account of how he dressed, though the ambiguity of the oversized bags, aprons, and the unkempt hair that covered body and face, contributed to the effect. All of this had grayed over the years as well, along with the porch he sat on, dragging heavily on a perpetually half cigar. We could smell it down the at the corner, sweet cherrywood, and knew he'd be out, and always nursing some wounded bat.

If it wasn't a bat, it was a pygmy owl, or an ermine weasel, white as death and he would say to us: "Lor' knows if she'll make it thru' though, devil be damned we're goin' to try maties!" and we weren't ever to sure who was "we" and which side anybody stood on: us, or him, or God, or Lucifer, for that matter, any living creature.

What we saw was tubes, and sometimes white translucent stuff, and sometimes a thing looking a lot like blood. What we could figure for sure was, was it going in or going out? And why not just take it to the vet?

Bobbie Sue would snicker and say, "Why, he is a Vet!" and giggle. We thought that must be the effect of his peg leg on her imagination, cuz we all knew he'd descended from pirates. He routinely said in passing: "Been to Hell and back, boys! to Hell with it all!" waving his hands like he saw the parting of the red sea or something, his fingers stained with substances we'd never seen. Sometimes orangish red, sometimes green.

Our folks though they tried to steer us clear. Something between, "Don't go meddling," and "Doing the Angel's work!" out in the fresh air. We found in time respectable people would bring him their pets sometimes, like when the Mayor's terrier was struck in hit and run, and so badly mangled. There were a few eyebrows over her choice of "witch doctor" over clinic. But when Bartlet turned a corner, the local paper declared Mother Spoopy a healer, and said we had so much to learn from Nature and the compassion of man, dedication, love, patience and separation from unwieldly machinery.

We started thinking differently about war, and science, and magic. Life.

10.15.2024

Crazies Raising Crazies challenge @AJAY9979