Jul 31 2008
Nailed
Based on stories from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.
When There isn’t a Movie Theatre…
A light mist was rising off the road, golden in the beams of a rusted-out, one-time-green truck. A young man sat crouched in the bed with a flashlight and haphazardly piled planks of wood.
The truck came to sudding stop and started backing up.
The man in the bed pulled a small sack, a roll of duct tape, and a hammer out from behind him.
“John…,” called a voice from the cab.
“I’m way ahead of you, Klein.” John called, as he jumped out of the bed.
Klein crouched in the middle of the unpaved right lane, “We’re gonna to need more than one, John,” he said.
Klein shouldered two of the heavier boards and moved into the truck’s lighted path. John backed away so Klein could see. “Whoa, shit, we hit the fuckin’ mutha load!”
“I know,” Klein said excitedly. “What do ya thing?”
John picked a stiff body up by the tail and examined it as it slowly rotated. “They haven’t even by hit yet…Jesus. They’re beautiful!”
“Well, cornfields….shining…we got lucky.”
“It’s just too good,” said John, enraptured by the swinging striped body. “I mean, six, dead, dry…hard, but bendable…”
Klein tapped one of the planks John carried, pulled a couple of nails from his pocket, and asked, ”What will it be? Orgy, or tea party?”
The End
—
I read about an artist who started dressing up and posing roadkill to make a statement about drivers ignoring death….but the thing is, before I read that, I knew these guys in the Upper Peninsula who would nail roadkill into erotic or other ridiculous positions on the side of the road…not to make a statement, but just as something to do on the weekend.
I’ve met other people who knew guys, also from the U.P., who did the same thing. But they also did minor taxidermy; using squirrels to make beer can holders and bookends out of the stuffed rodents.
