CaMeron ConawAy

Spring in Central Pennsylvania

Spring in central Pennsylvania is truly a gift for the body. Coming at different times each year, spring is always a pleasant surprise, a break from snot running down the nose, from sore lower backs after a day of shoveling, and from burning tongues and lips after impatiently drinking hot cocoa. Spring is also a time when rabbits “mate like rabbits.” Capable of having three to five kittens every month, it was often during the spring that does from the area would make stops (a separate burrow shelter for their young) out of their own fur under our deck. Stops?

Dad and I tried to stop them by lining the underbelly of our deck with wire mesh. Our Basset Hound, Meghan, brought several hairless kittens to the front door, intestines out, with blood on her snout. This was the reason for our wire mesh. Logically, we thought that putting a stop to their stops would ultimately protect them from our long-faced, sad-looking, predacious Meghan. Besides, Dad would hit Meghan’s sausage-link of a body with loud cracks. It scared me. And it hurt me that he hurt Meghan. Cracks?

I’ve felt those cracks in our backyard, pants down, Dad’s hand brought back like a fly swatter, crashing into my backside as he supported me on his knee.

Upside down on the monkey bars, I noticed two rabbits come into the yard that day, just days before my birthday, April 23rd. Or was it a couple days after? I’m unsure, but I do remember curling down surreptitiously off the monkey bars, the callous on my palms pinching as I realized the struggle of moving slow. I sidled to our porch. These rabbits had to go, or else Meghan would get them, or their babies, or Meghan would get my Dad’s hand. It was days before my birthday. That year I got a Schwinn bicycle; I’d never be on the monkey bars days after I got a Schwinn. Instincts, (or Dad really) told me that rabbits in the yard were not good. We hammered wire mesh under our deck for this reason. Hammer?

 No pliers. It was pliers that I grabbed from the deck that day I wanted to make the rabbits leave. I grabbed the silver metal pliers and quickly threw them to what I thought would be in front of the rabbits to scare them, but what turned out to be in the front of one of their hind legs. It stuck. I watched the rabbit squirm and squeal. It jumped as high as our red three-foot wooden fence. But what I most remember is that penetrating rhythmic squeal, loud enough for all the neighbors to hear, loud enough for me to load embarrassment onto the list of horrible things I felt. Load?

Screams wouldn’t cease. Dad pinned its soft furry neck down between the rough inner edge of his leather boots, and with his loaded, silenced pistol, put lead into its malted milk ball shaped head.

That night I heard the squealing, (my first dream?) and then I woke up. Then, awake, I kept hearing the same rhythmic squealing cadence. Was I being punished for my deplorable pliers throw? I tucked my head under my covers, folded the pillow to cover both ears, and pressed it tight. Muffled, but still there. I peaked out and saw my Michael Jordan poster; he was mid-air from the foul line. I used to call my birthday “Michael Jordan Day” due to the recurring twenty-three’s. Michael Jordan wouldn’t curl his pillow around his head. He’d probably act like the rabbit and spring through the air to face his fears.

 I sprung into my sister Courtney’s room. She must have been four at the time as I was going on eight in several days. I woke her, asked her to listen, told her to come with me and follow it, to follow the rabbit. Maybe Dad didn’t kill it? Courtney, though she could walk, often decided to crawl on her knees instead, as she did now. Her pink bunny-sleeper (a one-piece sleeping suit for babies) as it was ironically called, wish-wish-wished across the carpet as we followed the struggling rabbit. I also realize now how ironic the sound of her knees were on the carpet, or rather, how ironic my description of that sound was – we were wishing to find the source of the squeal. I mimicked her crawl. There we were, both on all fours, walking like Meghan hunting for a rabbit. Courtney and I both brought our blankets along on the journey. Holding the silk that outlined them to our noses, I sucked my thumb, while she sucked her index and middle finger.

 Dad’s door was ajar. I wanted to go to him for help, but found that the closer we got to the crack of his door, the more intense the sound was. Courtney noticed the sounds of water, or bubbles, I told her it may have been my stomach growling. She stayed behind me, as I, the revered older brother peered in through the pitch-black crack. Could Dad sleep through that sound?

It was too black. I was too scared. And I wanted to impress Courtney, so, from my knees, I pushed the door open. The squealing stopped. I saw Mom get off Dad.

She reached her hand to the other side of the waterbed (Courtney was right) to turn the lamp on.

I sprung back to my bedroom. Courtney crawled through the hallway and into my room, sucking her fingers with the extra suction that only fear can bring. Mom opened the door just as I closed it. I grasped her knees, telling her I was afraid of the sound. I told her I didn’t want to hurt any more rabbits, that I didn’t mean to. She told me the sound was her. I asked if she was hurt. She said no, that there are springs in the mattress that can get loud sometimes and that she was sorry. Springs?

 Of my many springs in Central Pennsylvania, this is the one I remember.

© Cameron Conaway
Cameron is Poet-in-Residence and graduate student at the University of Arizona’s MFA Creative Writing Program. His work is forthcoming in Poetry Midwest, The New Writer, and Aethlon: The Journal of Sport Literature.
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CaMeron ConawAy