Ron and the Ducks

[stanley]

Ron and the Ducks

Ernie and Sloan were in the pet store when Sloan discovered what had been missing in her life for the past nine years. "Grandpa, baby ducks for only $1.78 each.

Ernie was in a stare down with Ron. Ron was the resident NOT FOR SALE alligator held without charge or legal counsel in a big wire cage. Ron had not moved a muscle nor blinked an eye. Ernie had to look away. "I hate zoos," he said.

"Grandpa, never mind," Sloan said. "This is not a zoo. He's fine. He's got a little pond in there. Alligators don't think like we do. Grandpa, we could get a helluva lotta ducks with my birthday dollars."

"Watch your language in here, " Ernie warned, then, following up with a hopeful buckpass, "You better call your mother first."

For phone privacy Sloan moved off across the store, giving Ernie time to prepare his mind for a new kind of life.

Sloan was on her way back. "Here come the ducks," Ernie said to Ron.

"Mom says it's nice you insist on ducks for my birthday, but since we have a dog and a baby and everything, she thinks that would be too confusing for everybody, and so the ducks would be mine but they would have to stay at your house.

"Shouldn't we read some books about ducks first," Ernie stalled. It was desperate hypocrisy. Do it yourself duck books were part of the current suburban fad that now so threatened Ernie's tranquility. For millennia sensible country folk had raised ducks and chickens modestly without unnecessary discussion or showing off. Now there was much precious talk about the challenges and earthy rewards of a back yard coop. At parties people vied for having the most whimsically named goose, or the funniest story about a favorite eccentric chicken. Ernie had supported such talk with approving nods and gentle laughter. Now his complicity was coming home to roost.

"You could be reading some books while the ducks are growing up," Sloan said, and give me synopses on the phone."

"Whatsies?" Ernie asked. "You are in the fourth grade. What happened to book reports?"

"Grandpa, never mind. It will be easy. Just a cardboard box with a little straw, a bowl of duck chow in the corner, and a pan of clean water, and a light bulb to keep them warm."


That evening at the first sight of the water, the ducks charged straight through, breaking stride only to whiten it with quick squirts of duck excrement. Ernie changed the water.The ducks regrouped, charged, and squirted again. The cardboard box turned to brown mush, dirty white straw everywhere. Ernie's living room began to smell much larger than just a duckling home. That night Ernie listened to the oversize flappy scratch of webby feet as the ducks squabbled and quacked obscenities.

"How are my ducks?" Sloan called.

"I can't sleep," Ernie complained. "Maybe they would settle down if I turned off the light bulb." Ernie did not tell her about his dream in which there was a banging at the door. It was Ron who pushed his way in and, running amok, gobbled up every duck.

"Better not," Sloan warned. "They could get hypothermia. We learned in Blue Birds that hypothermia kills campers."

"What about insomnia?" Ernie countered.

"Grandpa, you'll be fine. When they're big enough move them out into the tool shed." The next evening Ernie noticed just how large the ducks had become and, so, followed orders. He left the shed door ajar in case the ducks felt like going out for a walk. He didn't want their lives to be like Ron's. The next morning when he went out to say hello the ducks were gone. With fear in his heart Ernie looked around for bloody feathers. Not a trace. They had not fallen to cats or raccoons, then, and Ron had only been a nightmare. The ducks had succumbed, it seemed, to young wanderlust. Already, Ernie was sure of it, they were in a better land far away.

"How are my ducks?" Sloan called the next evening.

"Away on a trip," Ernie answered.
"Where, Grandpa?

"Probably south," Ernie speculated. "Maybe Arkansas. It's duck heaven down there."

"My ducks are gone?" There was a long silence with little sniffs in it. Was she crying? Ernie felt in his stomach the miserable creep of guilty. Another little sniff, then, "Grandpa?"
"What?"

"You have a hard time keeping houseplants alive. I have another idea."

"What?"

"Turtles."

Ernie thought about the silence and modesty of turtles, about their slow, courteous ways, their immaculate hygiene and their clean hard shells. "How many?' he asked.
"Well, one would be lonely. but three would be too many because two best friends would tease the other one, so just two. Do you think you could handle two, grandpa?'"

I'll be over to pick you up and we'll go look," Ernie said.

[DATo]

Thanks for the chuckles ... it was a fun read *L*