The Goat Doctor

Comedy, bring me a goat. I’m no stranger to goats. I once knew a goat named Romeo. He was the size of a Buick, covered with the hair of Enkidu and he stank like a New Jersey marsh reclamation. And yes, he was always hungry. In fact Romeo’s hunger lead his owner Mrs. D, a country widow who cleaned houses to swipe food from her employers. My mother was one of her “marks”. 

My mother was eccentric and solitary and a heavy drinker. She slept most of the day and Mrs. D would run the vacuum ever so lightly, dust a lone room and then clean out the refrigerator, stuffing her oversized satchel with hams, onions, lettuces, cheeses, celery, anything that struck her fancy–which was Romeo’s fancy, for once, home for a visit, I overheard Mrs. D talking to herself at the wide open fridge, saying: “Oh, Romeo will love that. Oh, oh, oh, won’t Romeo love this!” She was actually cackling. And into the big bag went a whole baked chicken. I approached. Said: “Who is Romeo?” The question came from liberal conscience. I reckoned there might be a Mr. D who perhaps was a wounded veteran of the Korean War, or maybe he wore medical stockings owing to phlebitis–and certainly I wasn’t going to rat out basic humanitarian thievery if I could help it. Besides, my mother tended not to notice the disappearance of material things, even baked chickens. “Romeo?” she said, “Why Romeo is my goat!” “Your goat?” I repeated. “Oh yes, he’s a big one too!” More cackling. And into the satchel went a large head of lettuce and some grapefruits. 

I asked Mrs. D if she’d introduce me to Romeo and she did. She stood at the edge of a broad pasture and with her cotton house dress billowing, she called to her beloved with high and plaintive tones, a sound known to our ancestors on the steppes of Central Asia–a song to waken the brute spirit–and over a hillock long un-mowed rose a creature so large and hairy I thought of Hemingway’s “Green Hills of Africa”. “Jesus,” I said, “that’s a big fucking goat!” “Oh yes,” said Mrs. D, who seemed unoffended by my expletive, for she added, “Oh yes, Romeo’s a bruiser!” 

How do you describe the smell of a goat? One thinks of Hell, of sulphur and desiccation, but that doesn’t really cover it. Goats smell of shit and testosterone and rotting cabbages. I wished for a kerosene soaked rag. But Mrs. D was oblivious and cackling again, tossing grapefruits and chicken legs over the fence and Romeo caught his morsels straight out of the air and I watched as my mother’s groceries disappeared down his gullet. “Isn’t he a fine specimen?” she asked. I agreed. And I told Mrs. D to leave a little food at home for my mother because one should share the wealth, as it were. And she cackled. 

I remembered an ancient Scottish superstition that called for a he-goat to be hanged from a ship’s mast as it would bring a good wind. I suspect the sailors couldn’t smell. There is no good wind with a goat. In the olden days it was said a goat was good on a farm, as its stink kept off diseases. I know naught of these things. But I saw Romeo. He was a doctor of something. Of this I remain certain. 

Author: stevekuusisto

Poet, Essayist, Blogger, Journalist, Memoirist, Disability Rights Advocate, Public Speaker, Professor, Syracuse University View all posts by stevekuusisto