Roadkill

My father was a conundrum of a man. A living, walking oxymoron. He was a good ol’ country boy, but never once in his life did he ever drink a beer. He was an academic, an intellectual – but enjoyed what Jeff Foxworthy would call “a glorious lack of sophistication.” He was a redneck. World-traveled and exquisitely well-read, Dad was, but he operated the world around him on the premise that if a thing could not be fixed with duct tape, baling wire, or JB Weld, it was dadgum well broke. He could (and often did) debate fine points of theology while scaling a mess of fish with his pocket knife, and in the next moment be picking his teeth with the same knife. He was a pastor the first 17 years of my life, and wore a suit most of the time; thereafter he was a residential construction contractor and only exchanged his jeans and t-shirts for suits on Sundays for church.

Dad loved to hunt and fish. As his only child until I was 20, I grew up with shotguns and fishing rods in my hands. Each fall, we counted down the days to the start of deer season with growing excitement. Nearly every weekend during the season, if we didn’t head out on Friday afternoon, he and I would leave for my grandparents’ house at 4 am on Saturday. By 5:30 we would be in our respective deer stands, waiting for first light.

Now, the roads between dad’s house and my grandparents’ are typical Louisiana “back roads.” They wind and twist and snake up and down rolling hills. In pre-dawn darkness, only a fool takes chances with speeding on those roads if not intimately familiar with them. Even dad, who usually drove as if Hell itself was hot on his bumper, kept it under 70 when driving that route in the dark.

Early one morning that October, as he drove around 65, we were deep in some theological debate when a little maroon sports car raced up behind us and, without slowing down, shot across the double yellow line to pass us. Dad paused in making his point to say, “You go on and get you that ticket, there, fella!”

About 200 yards from where he passed us, the road took a sharp turn to the right. As we approached the curve, we saw what looked like a bumper spinning to a stop beside the road. Sure enough, as we rounded the curve, there in the ditch, sans bumper, sat the little maroon sports car. Its driver was easing himself out of the dented door. And there, in the middle of the road, lay a very dead large whitetail doe.

Dad slammed on his brakes and pulled over. Before his truck had come to a complete stop we both were jumping out and running toward the driver.

The first words that came out of my father’s mouth will forever echo in my memory. They were NOT, “Are you ok?” or, “Do you need an ambulance?” or even, “Is there anyone else in the car?” Although he did, subsequently, ask those questions. No, the words I heard my dear father, the seminary-educated pastor, say were far, far more memorable than that. In his native deep-South drawl, a voice far from the cultivated, proper tones I heard from the pulpit, my dad called out,

“You gon’ keep ‘at deer?”

It turned out the driver was alone in the vehicle, and, while very shaken, he was unharmed but for a small scratch. And no, sir, he did not want the deer. He looked at dad as if he were some wild man come crawling out of the woods as he said this. I think I actually tried to die of embarrassment. We loaded the deer into the bed of the truck, waited with the man until the police arrived, then continued on to my grandparents’ where dad and grandpa dressed and butchered the deer instead of going hunting that morning.

We had deer steaks for dinner that night. They were good.