Tales of the Southwest: A Dead Cat in the Freezer

By Grant McGee   

     

                One of the goldfish in the pond died the other day.  It was a big ol’ fella, homegrown, born and raised in the backyard pond.  I didn’t name it or anything, I just know it was born some time ago.

                “I have a dead fish back here,” I announced to The Lady of the House through the kitchen window.  “Is there some plant you want me to bury it near?”

                “Put it near the rhubarb,” she said.

                I didn’t know the fish personally but I knew it didn’t deserve the dumpster or the toilet.  I always liked the practice of the Native Americans, putting a dead fish in with the squash and corn for fertilizer, at least that’s what they taught us when I was a kid in school. 

We didn’t have any squash or corn but we had the rhubarb.

                We had a fish die-off one cold, cold winter…we lost about a dozen goldfish.  They all got buried at the base of one of those scrubby elm trees.  The next year the thing rocketed up.  From then on I called it “The Fish Tree.”

                People dispose of dead pets in all kinds of ways.  I know of one friend who had a beloved dog cremated.  The container for the dog’s ashes is probably a lot nicer than the one I’ll probably get for my ashes when I’ve “done gone on to Glory.”  Although I did find a nice wooden box at a yard sale recently that I’m keeping my papers in.  But when I’m gone The Lady of the House may want that to put her stuff in.

                Of course there’s always burying the dead pet in the back yard.  I’ve known people to put the decedent in a garbage bag and toss it in the dumpster.

                One friend had read a book called “Sky Burial,” the title referring to the practice of native Tibetans of hacking up the corpses of those who have “gone on to Glory” and leaving them on rocks for vultures and other scavengers to devour.  This practice has its practicality in the Asian nation as the soil is so hard and rocky and wood for cremation fires is scarce.  So my pal took his beloved cat out to a remote High Plains range and left the carcass out in the open for whatever critters to come and devour.

                Sometime later he returned and found nary a trace of the cat. 

                “Don’t say it,” he held up his hand.

                “What?” I asked.

                “You were going to tell me a tale of how a coyote came by, grabbed the carcass and took it to its pups,” he said.

                “Perish the thought I said,” while wondering how the hell he knew what I was going to say.

                I was acquainted with a woman who wanted to have her beloved Dalmatian freeze-dried when it died.  This is apparently a thing that can be done.   I wonder how THAT went.

                And then there was the dead cat in the freezer.

I want to emphasize this was not my cat, not my freezer.

I encountered this when some pals and I helped an acquaintance quickly move out of her digs over in Arizona.

                “Why do you have to move out so fast?” I asked the woman as we dashed about the apartment tossing things in boxes.

                “The landlord found my cat,” she said.

                “I thought your cat died.”

                “She did,” she said.  “I had her in the freezer.”

                We all stopped in our tracks.

                “You put your dead cat in the freezer,” I said slowly.

                “With your ice cream?” asked another pal.

                “Don’t judge me,” said the woman.  “I bury all my cats in my mom’s backyard in Seattle and it’s going to be a couple of months before I go home.”

                “Well, let’s see it,” I said.

                “Of course you’d ask that, Grant,” she said. “It’s not here.  My friend Annabelle is letting me keep it in her freezer.  Her husband has a bunch of deer meat and stuff in it so she figured one dead cat in there doesn’t matter.”

                “So her husband doesn’t know there’s a dead cat in his game freezer,” I said.

                “I don’t know.  I’m just glad she’s letting me keep it there.”

                I was imagining the discovery of the dead cat in the freezer by Annabelle’s husband.

                “Look at me not say anything,” I said.

                “Don’t judge me!  Don’t judge me!”

                “So you’ll be driving cross-country with a dead cat in a cooler?” I asked.

                “No,” she said.  “I’m flying.”

                “And how are you going to get a frozen cat on an airplane?” I asked.

                “In my suitcase, of course.”

                I wondered if she would be making national news like the woman arriving from Haiti who tried to smuggle a freshly-dead human head past customs at the Ft. Lauderdale airport.  It was to be used in her voodoo rituals.

                Interesting what a dead fish makes you remember.

                                                                                -30-