Wednesday, 17 April 2002 | Solo rabbit

I live on a street with century-old houses on one side, a YMCA parking lot on the other. I live on a street two blocks long, with an IHOP at one end and railroad tracks at the other. Between the IHOP and the first house is a field of grass and clover. On the IHOP-side of the field sits a large metal creature that drinks bacon and french fry grease and lets off a perfume if you come too close. On the house-side of the field is a fraternity known as "Farm House," a white photograph-of-a-house framed by trucks with tires the height of my car.

There are chipped concrete stairs leading up to the field from the sidewalk, stairs that must have once led up to a house, though they are the only remaining evidence of one. It is in this field the strange white rabbits hang out almost every evening. Humans are not of much interest to them, unless you approach them, or unless you throw carrots their way.

This morning on my way to work, I swerved around a white lump of fur in the road and stopped my car. I wasn't sure how I was going to move it, but before I got very close, I saw one of the Farm House guys approach it with a shovel. "Might need two shovels to get this thing," he said in a thick southern accent with a hint of amusement, as he tried to wedge the shovel under the large rabbit. From the way its body reacted to being lifted, it looked like it had been dead a few hours. I got in my car and drove to work. One more left to worry about.

The man with the floppy hat visited my desk again today, this time to show me a black widow he'd caught in the yard. He carried it in a glass jar, and as soon as I saw the eight busy legs, I rolled back in my chair a safe distance. It seemed a bit frantic, its legs working at the lid of the jar as if it were swimming. He held the jar at an angle so as to balance the spider on its back and show me the dark red spot and the sack of eggs.

Cycling through my head: The legs. I don't want those legs on me. I hope it has enough air in there. What could be done with it, so that it's both free and far away from me? How many spiders are in that sack, anyway? Until he walked away taking the spider with him to show someone else, I hadn't noticed the roll of lifesavers he'd left for me.