Bats!

The other night I was driving home from work. It was a bit foggy but not as bad as I had seen it before. The day was warm and the early evening saw brief, violent thunderstorms whose showers were now slowly, eerily rising up from the river valleys and blanketing entire watersheds in thick, dense, ethereal white wisps of fog. So I’m totally zoning out on the landscape all John Muir-style and shit while I’m driving along, around the turns, decelerate here, and speed up there for the long, slow climb out of Dunns into Camp Creek. I’m listening to tunes and keeping a sharp eye out for deer which gather in this valley by the hundreds at night. Then all of the sudden, out of the smoke and fog, a motherfucking bat smacks into my windshield, bounces up over the cab of the truck and disappears into the darkness. It happened in slow-motion; or rather my mind seems to have captured it that way. I saw him when he was about six feet from the windshield, shrouded in smoke and the fractured cones of headlight. His wings were spread as if he was trying to put on the brakes. The light from the truck shown through a pale grey scrim of tissue-thin fabric framed in the most beautiful black wing structure. The body was black as was his head. As the slow-motion frames click on his wings begin to flap wildly, click, click, I can see his face, click, click, his beady little blind eyes and his black head, click, click, his mouth gaping wide still filling his belly with insects…click, click, ...THUMP! He tumbles over the truck and into the darkness never to be seen or heard from again.

Several nights later I am at home, sleeping out on the screened-in porch when I have to get up to pee. I do this like a veteran somnambulist. I draw back the covers, slide my legs to the edge of the bed and drape them over, search with my feet until they find solid, unobstructed purchase on the floor. My eyes have not yet opened. With my feet firmly planted on the floor I then assume a sitting up position at the edge of the bed. Now I open my eyes, not open really, more like pryingly crease my lids so that the tiniest sliver of light makes it through. I am seeing my back porch through a forest of eyelash. Noting the floor is clear I stumble onto my feet and then gangle forward in a monster of Frankenstein manner, up the step, into the house, across the creaking pine floorboards, the moonlight casting on the boards and lighting my way, hands outstretched and probably mumbling to myself I awkwardly bumble along until I reach a threshold. A doorway! Hooray! I grasp it with both arms reassuringly and push my way through.

(Now just to pause for a moment and consider the quantities of urine that must have been pressing against my bladder to cause me to (semi) awaken, leave the Holy Sacred Warmth and Comfort of The Worshipful Bed and journey off into the night in hopes of relief.)

Through the doorway I shift my body to the left and lumber through an open sliding-glass doorway out onto the wooden deck. I’m multi-tasking now. As I lurch the last few steps I fish out my penis and ready it for draining. At last! I find a comfortable stance on the edge of the porch and just let it rip, full bore wide open high pressure fire hosing going down. I’m already beginning to feel the relief. I begin to smile, kinda laugh a little. Now I’m really getting into it, swaying back and forth with my hands on my hips, listening to the puddle form on the ground below when all of the sudden out of fucking nowhere this motherfucking crazy-ass bat dive bombs the shit out of me and gets all Kenneth Shuler up on top of my head. Somehow (the startling fright I guess) my valve immediately shut off as I 1. Screamed outloud. 2. Started waving my arms all around like a lunatic. 3. Lost my balance and ate shit onto the deck floor in my boxer shorts. I was pretty much asleep during this whole thing, up until the moment I hit the dirt and found myself wounded, on the ground, outside, at night, with my dick hanging out. In a matter of seconds my pack of dogs had me surrounded and was investigating the scene; barking loudly and charging fearlessly out into the front yard to attack. Three stayed behind and guarded me with cold noses and wet tongues. I gathered myself up, pulled myself together and stood up. I felt soreness and dull pain coming from my left knee and looked down to see a nice two inch gash cut across my kneecap and blood running down my shin and calf. Being somewhat used to this kind of thing I just said fuck it and got back in bed and went to sleep.

So if you ever see me waving my arms around wildly and muttering incoherently about “the god damn bats” you’ll know I’m being totally fucking serious.