Do you remember Cindy the elephant? When she died in 2002 at the Point Defiance Zoo, she
was 40 years old and had been suffering from arthritis. One day the
pain in her monster joints got so bad, she couldn’t stand up on her
own. The once-feisty Asian elephant had become a massive heap of
misery. As no amount of medicine or surgery could bring that famous
beast back to good health, the zoo officials decided to put Cindy to
sleep. Her last day on earth was November 19, 2002.
A week after she was euthanized, Qar Dead Animal Removal, a company
based in Graham, Washington, was called to do what it does best. This
was the first elephant Qar had to deal with, but it was by no means the
first time they were hired to remove an unusual creature. They once
dealt with a dead sea lion near the ferry terminals in Seattle. The
company’s philosophy is: Anything that dies, we go pick up. When
the Qar people arrived at the zoo, they were surprised to find not a
whole elephant, but an elephant in pieces. For reasons related to the
advancement of science, the zoo vets had cut Cindy’s head and legs off
for a necropsy. The head and legs were now in several 55-gallon drums,
and the main body was split wide open—a 10-foot-long, 7-foot-wide
slab of elephant meat. With the assistance of thick metal chains and
machine-powered pulleys, the removal specialists loaded Cindy’s remains
onto a truck and took her (as they do all other dead animals) to the
rendering plant. At this place, animal corpses are transformed into
bonemeal (which goes into fertilizers, which bring life back to
exhausted soil). The rendering plant also makes tallow, which is a soap
ingredient (which brings zing back to dry flesh).
The rendering plant rejected the elephant. It was not their business
to process things like elephants—nor for that matter, rhinos,
giraffes, or hippos. Keep those kinds of beasts away from their plant.
The big obstacle forced the removal specialists to call the health
department. The people at the health department put their heads
together and came up with an idea: Take it to a landfill. Faced with no
other options and burdened by the decomposing elephant in the back of
the truck (big-eyed flies buzzing at the insane amount of meat that
came out of nowhere), they went to a landfill. A huge hole was dug at
the edge of the wasteland, Cindy’s parts were dropped into that hole,
and a bulldozer covered her with lots of garbage. The job was done.
This, however, was not the end of Qar’s problems. It was only the
beginning.
“Popular-elephant carcass dumped with the garbage,” reported KOMO
News a few nights later. Although Cindy was an irascible elephant,
known as “possibly the most dangerous elephant in the country” (as the
head of the elephant program at a zoo in Portland, Oregon, described
her to the Associated Press in 1982) and a “bad girl” with a
“notoriously unpredictable disposition” (Seattle Times, December
27, 1992)—despite all of these issues, Cindy had thousands of
fans and admirers. Indeed, in the early 1990s, Cindy was responsible
for record-breaking visits at the zoo (News Tribune, 2003).
People had real feelings for her. She was part of many childhood
memories. This big thing with a bony head and rubber-thick skin. And so
when it was leaked to the press that her life—a life that began
exotically in the jungles of India (she was captured in 1962 and
brought into the human world), which involved a trip across the Pacific
Ocean, a year promoting a mall in Nevada, a stormy relationship with
Tacoma zookeepers, a banishment to San Diego, and a triumphant return
to Tacoma—when this life came to an end in a garbage dump, the
public was not at all pleased, zoo officials were deeply embarrassed,
and community leaders demanded answers fast. Why wasn’t Cindy
cremated?
“We feel fortunate to have been able to share in a part of her
remarkable life,” wrote Cindy’s caretakers (Craig, Shannon, Paul,
Stephanie, Aimee, Andy, and Sally) and elephant family (Suki and
Hanako) on the obituary page of www.elephants.com. At the top of the
page is an elephant ghost depicted high above a setting sun, golden
rays of light, and strips of darkening clouds. This may have been where
Cindy’s spirit went (elephant heaven) but not her body (a Pierce County
landfill).
“Channel 4, 5, 7, 13, and 11 all came down to our house and wanted
to know why Cindy the elephant got put into a landfill. I told them the
landfill was the only other option of what we could possibly do with
this thing,” says Bud Mothershed, 35, who now owns Qar Dead Animal
Removal and at the time of the Cindy scandal was working for his
father, Richard, the founder of the business (it started in 1980). Bud
has owned Qar for the past six years, after buying the company from his
father, and he now picks up dead animals with his 6-year-old son, who
is fast learning the business of removing things that no longer move.
“The people at the zoo,” says Bud, “are a bunch of pricks, and they
skipped us with the bill—they owe us $500. They told everyone
that we lied to them and said it was gonna be cremated, and they told
everyone we took this poor elephant up to the landfill and booted it
out. That’s not how it was at all. The zoo made it seem like we were
the assholes. But they didn’t even tell everyone that it wasn’t a whole
elephant—it was an 8,000-pound elephant that had been cut up. We
came to pick this thing up, and they never said: ‘Oh, by the way, we
cut this thing’s head off. And, oh, by the way, we cut this thing’s
legs off. And, oh, by the way, it’s in 55-gallon drums.’ They made it
seem like we took poor Cindy and went and threw her in a garbage dump.
That’s not what happened.”
A scan of the reports concerning the scandal shows not one newspaper
or news station siding with Qar Dead Animal Removal. In this blame
battle, the zoo enjoyed a complete PR victory.
“We had people calling us up, hate mail, you name it. We had people
calling us up at three o’clock in the morning telling us we’re
bastards. My mom had to deal with people calling her up and telling her
she’s a bitch and all this stuff. When we pick the animal up and we
leave the property, it’s our responsibility to get rid of the animal in
the proper way. When you take it to the only rendering plant in the
state of Washington and they say they’re not taking it, what are you
supposed to do? There’s nothing else to do with it. The elephant was
probably the most pain-in-the-ass thing we’ve ever had come through
here.”
I ask Bud for his second-worst experience as an animal remover.
“There was a barn fire a couple months ago in Spanaway. Fourteen horses
died in the barn fire. That was pretty nasty and took a day and a half
to clean. I had to bring chain saws and cut the barn doors… and got a
couple of guys to help me pull a bunch of burned horses out.”
His next-worst experience? “A chicken ranch called me up—they
had 10,000 chickens die on them.”
His next-worst experience? “It was summertime, and a big huge semi
loaded with dead animals broke down and sat there on the side of the
road for a day. They had to take it to a mechanic shop. But the
mechanic told them to unload it, because he didn’t want to work on it
with all the dead animals in the back. We had to pull out all these
rotten animals.”
I finally ask Bud to tell me the one important thing that the public
should know about dead animals. “If something wanders over to someone’s
property and dies in someone’s backyard, the county roads department
won’t touch it. Because private property is a private person’s problem.
Your house, your problem. The county roads department won’t go get it,
so they tell the people to call someone like me. I go out there, clean
up whatever is dead, and I charge the homeowner…”
After a moment of silence—I’m busy making notes and checking
to see if there are any remaining questions about his line of
work—Bud, who has been very open and friendly, suddenly goes dark
and asks me a dark question: “I have been doing all the talking. Now
you tell me something. Why do you want to know all these things about
my job? What are you up to?” Not wanting him to think badly of me, I
tell Bud the whole sad truth. That truth comes in the form of a story.
Bud listens to the story.
While in college, I was hired to take care
of two horses (one was brown, the other white; the brown one was tall,
the white one short; the big one was called Dandy, the small one
Angel). Both had outlived their owner’s childhood. The girl (whom I
will call Margo) had become a young woman, moved to another state to
study law, and left her aging mother—a short woman with ugly
glasses, straight legs, big breasts, and a sandpaper-rough
voice—with the responsibility of caring for the abandoned gods of
her childhood. The mother (whom I will call Mrs. Beasley) lived in an
almost-well-to-do area between Bothell Way and Lake Washington. Her
house, a kind of Spanish villa, was crumbling. Its thick walls and the
low-pitched tile roof were slowly making their journey back to a state
of nature, back to the green of plants and randomness of rocks.
In fact, it was not a stretch to compare Mrs. Beasley’s run-down
place with Miss Havisham’s ruined mansion in Great Expectations.
Both were time stuck, dust dominated, and dramatically disintegrating.
However, the reasons for Mrs. Beasley’s ruins were not the same as Miss
Havisham’s. Though dumped by her husband for another woman, Mrs.
Beasley’s mess and must had more to do with the innate core of her
personality rather than a traumatic event in her life. Old Miss
Havisham’s decay was, of course, entirely connected to one big event in
her youth—she was jilted at the last minute by her fiancé.
For that one reason, she froze the time in her home. Nothing moved
beyond the minute of that betrayal. Miss Havisham’s place was all about
hate, whereas Mrs. Beasley’s was about a love for floating/falling
particles, creaking furniture, dank spaces, and moldy smells. Her TV
set was old, her couch had holes, and her video player munched and
digested tapes. Even her dog, a brown Chinese shar-pei, seemed like
something imported from a distant time.
Mrs. Beasley was a hardcore Republican. She ran for some political
office twice and lost twice. She had meetings with neighborhood
Republicans—a music teacher, a widower who fought in World War
II, a boat owner. As they sat in the living room, denouncing this or
that policy, rats ran up and down the walls of the crumbling house. The
rats used the home not as a point of destination but as a way to get
from the ground to the trees and from the trees to the ground. Mrs.
Beasley’s meetings always came to an end with resolutions that were
sent to a larger body of the party.
Big trees surrounded the Beasley house, and the lake was to the east
of the house. Both the moon and the sun rose from the hill on the east
side of the lake. On this hill was a dense and medieval forest that was
threatened by development encroaching from Bothell and Kirkland.
Seaplanes rose from and landed at a floating base in Kenmore. At the
back of the house, at the bottom of a small valley between a road
winding in the west and the end of the yard surrounded by trees, was
the stable and corral. The horses lived down there.
My job was to feed and entertain the heavy and hairy creatures. The
job was easy and paid well enough for the little work and time it
demanded. Only the bus trip to the Beasley place was a drag (I was
living in Ballard at the time); aside from that, it was a perfect job
for a young man whose day was mostly spent reading Russian
literature.
As for my relationship with the horses? I tried my best. I tried to
brush them, I tried to talk to them, I tried to see things their way.
Nevertheless, Angel and Dandy always looked at me in the way a human
being looks at a passing apparition. I made no sense to them
whatsoever. Where did I come from? Why was I black? Where was their
mistress? They were always waiting for the return of Margo. They wanted
her to ride and groom them again. They wanted her girl-arms thrown
around their thick necks. Where had all the flowers gone?
At night, under the moon and stars and leaves, after I led the
beasts into their stalls and locked them up, Angel and Dandy would
stick their heads out above the door and look at me with puzzled but
moist eyes. The white horse was ghostly, the brown one animated.
Indeed, Dandy had a lot of life in him. His dense muscles, tough hair,
and the hot air that shot out of his huge nostrils—all of this
burning, beating, and breathing added up to an abundance of life. With
watery eyes, Dandy and Angel would watch the strange form of me walk up
the path and return to the world of Gogol and Sologub.
I did this job from spring to fall without a hitch. The horses spent
the day out in the open and the night closed in the stable. The
Republicans generated resolution after resolution. The rats ran up and
down the house. The moon rose over the lake and crossed the corral. The
lake reflected the moon. Winter came and it got real cold. By the
middle of December, it started to snow. On the day before Christmas,
Mrs. Beasley was in Maine visiting a sister and I was at her home
visiting the horses. The sun was out, but ice and snow covered the
ground. I walked down the path with an empty bucket, entered the
stable, and opened the water tap in Dandy’s stall—but nothing
came out of it. The cold had frozen the pipes. I had to carry water
from the crumbling house down to the stables. This was a bitch because
I badly wanted to leave to Portland for the holiday. The time of my
train’s departure was quickly nearing, and I was stuck here making sure
the horses had enough food and water for my three-day absence. Finally,
everything was done and I left the Beasley house and its horses.
I returned four days later to find a
horrible sight in Dandy’s section of the stable. This is what happened:
The day after I left, the weather had gotten warmer, and the day after
that, the cold and snow returned. As a result, the frozen tap I’d
turned on (but nothing came out of) began to run, filling Dandy’s stall
with water, up past Dandy’s hooves. Then when things went cold on that
following day, the water turned to deadly ice. The horse was still
alive, but his knees were freezing. His big eyes were in a lot of pain.
I opened the stall door and Dandy pulled his freezing feet out of the
ice. Crack by crack, he walked out of the ice box. And then Dandy
collapsed in the middle of the corral. The light of the afternoon sun
fell on the heap of hair and frost. This did not look good.
When Mrs. Beasley returned the next day, which was warm again, Dandy
had not left the spot of his drop. We both looked at the poor horse,
and I pretended to be as puzzled as Mrs. Beasley. What’s wrong with
Dandy? Why does he look so down and out of it? Angel was silently
standing at a distance. He, like I, did not throw any light on the
mystery. The ice in Dandy’s stall had melted. There was no evidence of
my error. It was decided that if Dandy did not rise the next day, a
horse doctor would be called.
Dandy did not rise the next day because he was dead.
Instead of calling a doctor, we called an animal-removal service.
Mrs. Beasley was surprisingly calm about the so sudden and so
inexplicable death. She had the attitude that it was all a fact of
life. One day you’re alive, the next day you’re not. There are no
guarantees in this world. Our lives hang by a thread. True, indeed. And
if some absentminded bugger leaves your feet in ice for 40 or so hours,
there is nothing you can do but die.
The animal-removal person arrived around noon. All of the snow was
gone. You could see grass again. Light fell through the denuded
branches. The remover parked her truck on the road on the west side of
the corral, cleared some brush for a drag path, knocked down a fence,
and ran chain to the horse’s bulk. Angel was in the stall eating hay.
The remover was a woman with long Nordic hair. She was somewhere in the
late part of her 30s. Her legs were heavy. She was a wild-looking
woman.
The horse was harnessed, and the machine started pulling it toward
the truck, which contained the forms of other dead animals from around
the city. As the machine pulled Dandy up the hill, his body hit bushes
and stumps. When a rock blocked the movement up the hill, the noisy
machine terrifically roared down at the rock, and the terrified rock
rolled away, and the corpse continued up the path. At one moment, the
chain got stuck. A big dead thing on the bed of the truck was caught in
the chain. The wild woman climbed onto the truck, and then onto the
dead animal, and then jumped up and down on it until its lifeless form
freed the chain. When the noisy machine started pulling Dandy again,
she looked over at Mrs. Beasley and me and noticed that we were
completely together in the horror we felt from the way she jumped on
that dead big thing.
The woman stopped the machine and walked down to us. “Look,” she
said with fake sensitivity, “that thing is dead. It don’t feel a thing.
If it were living, there is no way I would treat it like that. Okay?
Just remember, it’s dead.” She then walked back to the truck and
started the machine again. Dandy was pulled up onto the truck and
dumped with the other dead things. The wild woman shut the back door,
gave Mrs. Beasley a bill, and left for the rendering plant.
That was the end of my story.
I asked Bud if he knew that wild woman.
Did she work for his father or another removal company? Bud did not
think she worked for his father, and also he felt she handled the whole
situation badly. “You have to take into consideration that when you go
pick up a horse that the owner has had for 25 years, it’s not just a
horse out there in the field, it’s a family member. When the horse is
dying of whatever, the woman who owns the horse is extremely upset,
she’s sometimes crying. Just like any family member—when they
die, the rest of the family is upset. You have to be sensitive and walk
up, give them a hug, and say, ‘I’m sorry your horse is being put down.’
And make sure they’re not gonna watch you load the animal into the
truck. I tell them to go into the house for 10 to 15 minutes, and I
load the animal up. Then I knock on the back door, give the lady
another hug, and tell her you’re sorry her horse died and wish her
luck—and then off to the next call. Like I said, you have to be
sensitive, because you’re dealing with people’s emotions and people’s
family members.”
The year Dandy died, Cindy the elephant was still alive, still
beating up on her keepers. It was also the year the Republicans made
their Contract with America and took control of Congress. The following
year, Angel lost his mind. He began bucking out the boards of the
corral and escaping into the neighborhood. Misty morning after misty
morning, people in the area would rise and see the most ghostly thing:
a white horse running down the street. Where was it going? Who was it
looking for? Angel always failed to find Margo or Dandy. And I would
find him not far from the Beasley home, bring him back to the corral,
and repair the fence. Angel lived for another year. 
Simply heartbreaking. Great piece of work Charles.
Completely unrelated…have your read “The Faculty of Useless Knowledge”? It is one of my favorite examples of Russian literature.
I love Charles Mudede.
the whole thing?
damn
Wow, great story! Thanks for sharing!
Wow, that is a great read! Thanks for sharing!
When you didn’t call the vet it stopped being an accident.
Great story, Mudede. Sure, you may write like Sarah Palin on Valium, but nobody can ever say you didn’t fess up to killing that horse — many, many years later, of course.
I’m amazed Mudede took so long to get around to including his requisite pseudo-intellectual name-dropping. In this case, of course, Great Expectations. Though this meant I read more of this article than I can typically stomach from him, maybe one day Charles will stop leaning on references to other great authors and write a story all on his own and I’ll actually be to finish it without rolling my eyes and clicking to something else.
I love this.
@ 9 for the fail.
so good Charles.
Oh! Sorry, I came here thinking this was Mudede’s review of “The Godfather”. (I’ll show myself out.)
eloquent prose, Charles! Bravo!
mmmm waited till the statute of limitation has run, eh?
Why the hell would you not call for help right away? Even if the horse might be dying, especially since it was obviously not well or in pain. 🙁 Awful story. That’s going to haunt me for quite some time.
well, he probably didn’t think it was going to die. reading the story, we only think that because of the title of the piece.
still, you wish he’d give you something to show that he had a little bit of concern for the horse.
holy crap, that is sad. if an animal is in pain call a vet. we go to the doctor for stupid colds… what a wiener
I liked that story a lot, even if it wasn’t a very happy story at all and even if I don’t really have anything more poignant to say than ‘I liked that story a lot.’
I love the features you write! The literary references enrich the story. This is a short format and mentioning Miss Havisham was a quick way for us to understand Ms. Beasley. To those distracted by dreams of a vet rescuing Dandy; there is nothing that could’ve been done. Don’t judge until you are in a situation with equal stakes. The author stood by Ms. Beasley and endured the natural repercussions. That takes strength. Also, love to Bud of Qar for his practicality and sensitivity.
I wish Charles Mudede was in a landfill – in Liberia
I wonder why liberia? What a strange choice. Personally, I do not care what happens to my corpse. It has nothing to do with me.
Wow – really good story. Except that why didn’t you call a vet when you freed the tortured horse from the ice? Pretty shitty if you ask me Chuck. Pretty horribly shitty.
@20: how do you know a vet couldn’t have done anything? it’s possible the horse could’ve been saved, if not, he could have been put down and been saved long hours of misery. this is why i would never, ever leave one of my animals in the care of someone who isn’t experienced with animals. though you’d think it would be common sense to call a vet.
What a catalog of assholery this piece is. I echo the thoughts about the statute of limitations, which just adds another asshole act to the list. I’ve only been willing to skim his stuff for years but now I am just going to skip his stuff altogether.
I expect a Level 5 shitstorm from PETA, veterinarians and horse-lovers in next week’s Stranger.
Given that this happened 20 some odd years ago to a college student who was probably not a little bit worried about what would happen it’s not a surprise he might not have made that the totally obviously rational decision to you reading this story.
Maybe he didn’t do the right thing (in whatever respect or whoever’s opinion) and it’s fine to say what you would do now or what you think ought to be done (or know ought to be done), but give the situation some perspective. I’m sure you haven’t made the most seemingly logical decision at every juncture in your life, either.
First word that came to mind Bastard. Second why no vet? And again bastard. Longest Un-anonymous I can remember reading here for some time. “A Confession” Is true and I am only sorry the horse had to suffer so due to your stupidity.
David Linger
Good story…I am glad you made your confession.
A veterinarian should have been called…the horse should not have suffered…
I have had to use QAR on a few devastating occasions over the years…they were very kind…A necessary service and they handled the uncomfortable situations with care.
I really must stress that I’m a panpsychist:
Panpsychism is the view that all things have a mind or a mind-like quality… What does one mean by “all things”? [L]iterally every object in the universe, every part of every object, and every system of objects possesses some mind-like quality.
I do separate man from animals.
I’m left pondering our strange sacredization of some animal corpses over others, how often people bullshit their way into jobs they aren’t qualified for, images of Grey Gardens … Obviously in hindsight the best thing to do would have been to call a vet. But, it sounds like the woman wasn’t responsible enough to find a qualified caretaker. Mr. Charles was in over his head from the start.
I remember stories of bad girl, Cindy. How is a landfill any less awful than cremation?
This is an essay on the contrast of our personal and public feelings about animal death couched in a story that describes a city whose ethics are easily manipulated by media, a brazen personal confession of unintentional equuscide and a few “removers,” who have to tread lightly to make a buck.
I’ll refer to this story next the next time someone says I’m weird for the practice of imagining peering to the big cow eyes of a big yummy cow animal and then its big bloody slaughter just before I eat a steak. “Thank you for your life. I’m sorry your transition into death wasn’t that fun. Now I will eat you.”
Misadventures of a Farm Caretaker- yeah, me too. Left the hose on in the pasture trough for three days. Massive swamp but all survived. And I was nearly murdered by a horse with one eye who hated me. Bastard ran me over deliberately. There was another horse who adored me but was an incurable sneak. He liked to tip the wheel barrow over when my back was turned. Horses. They’ll getcha. Nice to meet a fellow screw up caretaker. Support group!
I remember that period very well, the old lady, your rather unaccountable presence by the side of the road, and laughing very hard with the Russians, who seemed to be the only ones capable of pointing out the idiocy, even though it was totally familiar. In your piece there is that moment when the animal remover puts his elbows on the table and looks you hard in the eye, and then the camera reverses and you are on the spot. That is the Russian moment!
A beloved elephant packed in 50-gallon drums, the public outrage! The stinking carcasses of dead animals! Flies! And then your confession. All told in sort of bland reminiscent style. I think the feature before this was the one about trees! My God! what is The Stranger thinking?
Well, c’mon. Who hasn’t nearly killed a horse or two? Or something like…
I’m totally with you, James L. I gotta say, I do love them Ruskies! (I’m actually having one right now! A White one! My Second!)
I also love Ms.Christine.
Very much.
Not too bad, Charles.
Why didn’t he call a vet? This is a confession, not an apology. Get your genres straight. I would speculate he didn’t call a vet because he was scared, didn’t want to get in trouble, etc. It would hardly be a “confession” at this point if it involved him doing everything right, or reasonably right. Yet I wonder if the event ever happened at all. I suppose it doesn’t matter.
Wow a very great story indeed. I once got bread from a freezer that was outside. When i opened the door, apparently a cat walked into the freeze – of course while I wasn’t looking. The cat was later found with its paws frozen into the frost buildup – and after they melted, and the days past – her back feet just fell off. The cat lived a full life as far as I know. It may have had to do some extra hopping around here and there, but shit happens and life goes on. I feel bad for what I did, though.
I’m from Ohio and live in Guam now. Found “The Stranger” while surfing the net. This story by Charles Mudede was very interesting and I’m glad I read it.
I don’t think he’s a bastard. I think he’s human.
When Charles tells stories like this his writing is wonderful.
When he spouts pseudo-philosophical bullshit, or comments on current events he knows little about (but pretends to) his writing makes me want to vomit.
Mr. Mudede, you may or may not be an asshole, but you are a writer who manages to be both weird and boring, which is an accomplishment. I salute you!
@35: Freezers are air-tight. If a cat were left in a freezer, it would have suffocated long before its paws had time to freeze. Did you leave out some details?
It all seems pretty obvious to me that Charles is not soulless or an asshole in regard to this accidental horse killing. We’ve all fucked up when we were younger in ways we would take back. Small fuck ups sometimes have huge consequences though. How unfortunate for Charles and the horses that he forgot to turn the faucet off, then didn’t call the vet.
Yeah, he mad the wrong decision – I think I would have called someone for help or advice at least – but what do kids know? this is a real rough break, I’m glad I don’t have to live this one down, but then again, who knows what kind of personal fuck up are in my future?
This was great. It says a lot about the way we view death and the death of innocence as the same thing. When the horse died so did Charles’ sense of how the world should work, which is why he didn’t do what somebody with more of a broken spirit would do – call someone and admit that bad shit happens and the world is a fucked up place sometimes. It affected him so much so that he told the story to a stranger years later not so much as a statement but more as a question about what had happened, and why did it all not feel right.
Well done Charles.
Charles is like us, in that he makes mistakes. Sometimes we make tragic mistakes. We don’t like the part of us that makes mistakes, and so we strike out at Charles as a way of striking at the part of us we hate. We don’t hate him, we hate ourselves.
Amazing that The Stranger continues to headline the likes of Mudede and Novoselic…but the rag still does a great job of lining my garbage can.
The editor must have cut out Charles last sentence for space reasons or something: “Once again, it’s all about the color of your skin (or hide). The brown horse dies in the dirt without any healthcare or compassion while whitey gallops merrily free into a new day.”
Everyone makes mistakes, sure. Doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be called out on them.
Ah, sad and sweet article. Thanks Charles, I appreciated it.
For horses community is like food. No wonder Angel the horse went mad. It’s only company was humans from which it felt no love. They live in herds. Leaving a horse without comrades is like banning internet trolls from being unnecessarily mean. Death is a release from such deprivation. You’ve got to provide for the emotional needs of the animals you care for. It’s not enough to keep them fed and watered and clean.
I feel sad for both horses.
Charles should have called a vet when the horse’s feet got frozen. Most doctor types feel it’s more important to treat their patients than tattle on people. It probably wouldn’t have mattered though. Horsey probably had severe frost bite on all four legs. They would have had to put him to sleep anyway.
Mudede is one of my favorite local writers. His posts on Slog are always fun and insightful. Plus I know we read the same websites every morning, because he posts tons of articles I’ve read and found interesting on Slog.
Thank you for writing this. I loved it. I’ve made some mistakes in my life, too.
This endless piece of pretentious mumbling is yet another example of what belongs in the “NO” pile of some Eastern Washington community college literary journal. The Stranger could be the greatest paper ever if they would only get rid of Mudede (maybe the Weekly is hiring interns?). I can’t believe I fell for another one of his pieces and pushed onward, thinking there must be something (ANYTHING!) relevant/interesting/funny/READABLE about this piece, and once again, I was wrong.. Never again shall I be fooled!
You’d have gotten less flak about the vet if you removed the ‘Accidentally’ from the title. Let the reader decide whether you should be blamed.
nice story thanks for writing 😀
Charles, Charles! Have you read this??
Monday, July 27, 2009 at 9:50 PM
Rendering truck scatters load on I-5 near Tacoma
Washington State Patrol troopers say a rendering truck that lost its load scattered dead animal parts across the northbound lanes of Interstate 5 in Tacoma.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/lo…
Do you think your friend Qar might have been involved in this? Or maybe the wild woman??
What is wrong with you? You were in a paid position to care for these animals and all you could think about was your holiday in Portland? YOU were responsible for the care of an animal, regardless if the young woman had stopped riding/ caring, or the old woman was a Republican. Thank God, you were able to write an eloquent prose about YOUR tragic, thoughtless, cowardly and fatal actions. Jesus, Imagine what the poor fucking horse had to go through! Are you intelligent or imaginative enough to put yourself in another creature’s position? Do you know how aware horses are to there pain; if they can feel a fly on their neck, how would their knees freezing and hypothermia feel to them? I respect Bud “the dead animal remover, ” he is, at least, taking care of the animals that other people can’t take care of and the animals that assholes like you destroy in painful ways. You ended your “story” with “Angel lived for another year” is this because you neglected him so greatly that he suffered the same or similar fate as Dandy? I hope you are neglected in your old age and die a slow and painful death, with no one asking questions because you are, only human!
Mrs. Beasley saw the sick horse and could have called the vet, but instead she chose to just let it lie there and die. The way Charles describes it, she didn’t seem too heartbroken about it.
But as long as we’re talking hypothetically about what he should have done, Charles should have called a vet, he should have called Mrs. Beasley in Maine and explained what happened and got her opinion on what to do. Taking immediate responsibility for your mistakes is always the best course of action.
I’m reading this for a second time and all the comments again. Why all the hatred for Charles? I think lost in all this stupid literary crap and all this sticking up for Charles for no reason is that Charles should have called a vet. This wasn’t a small decision that he looked over as a young, human that made a simple mistake. Why not call the vet? Im sure the horse would have had to be put down but you let it die and awful fate for no reason. No excuses. Horrible thing to do.
This is awful. Horrible. Seriously. Call a fucking vet.
Did you have a FABULOUS time in portland? I should hope so.
The horses didn’t fucking look at you funny b/c you’re black. jesus.
Finally, so many unnecessary details. Over half of this story is completely superfluous. Editing is your friend.
That was wonderful and touching. Russian literature indeed. A story without heroes or redemption but full of life and a touch of something higher. One of the better stories I’ve seen in the stranger for a while.
Beat that dead horse, people! Beat him into the ground!!!
Mr. Mudede, you are an excellent writer and a human being who made a mistake. I don’t understand why “call somebody” wasn’t the first (or second or third) thing you thought of, but I too like all other human beings have made mistakes that in retrospect seem pretty easy to right.
Keep writing.
I found an error 4 words into the story:
Accidentally s/b Negligently
what a heartless dumb-ass! who cares that he was a college student? most people know by age 7 or 8 to call for help when an animal is suffering. Way to support this crap you quasi-academic losers, giving him props for ‘great prose.’ Puke. But who needs common sense or a heart when you can be a lame attempt at an author? And besides the poor horse that died, gee, I wonder why the other horse went nuts, he probably didn’t really care about that either. Horses are herd animals. They go nuts alone, but what did he care. Total crap, way to set a bad example to other ‘college students’ and try to justify it. Poor horses.
Charles,
I hope that you do not own any sort of animal ever, or children for that matter, and that you have stayed awake many nights feeling shitty for that horse in un-bearable agony for the last few miserable days of its life. Rather than spending your time writing this crap and inflicting it on others, try volunteering for an animal rescue orginization. It would be a helluva lot better way to make up for your ‘accident’ then profiting off of it as a cute little story about the foibles of youth. Oh, and horses don’t see in color nor do they practice racial profiling, way to attempt a clever racial reference. Jeezus, you are one sick dude. End rant.
The things to learn here:
1: Horses need care. In the unlikely event of taking care of a horse, don’t leave for a few days and expect everything to be OK, except feral horses in large open spaces.
2: If the water doesn’t work, shut it off. This same thing happened where I work and the damage is permanent. The tap doesn’t work now: it will never work::I can’t see you: you can’t see me. Can’t tell morons from simpletons? Just ask them to draw some water after you’ve shut it off the supply.
3: Panpsychism is a bunch of BS. This is not my opinion, simply the collective feelings of the electrons needed to form that message, who outnumber you by nearly a Coulomb. In case of your horrific death, they will rationalize it via acerbic and slightly ironic probability fields, similar to how they remember potted plants or their brothers who have gone from up to down. Amen.
charles mudede is an insignificant piece of shit. dig a hole. go head. bury yaself.
This is so much like the story of the woman in Dallas who accidentally hit a homeless man hard enough to entrap him through her car windshield, then parked in her garage and closed the door, but checked daily until he finally died, and then tried to dump the body. Its odd how some humans can equate themselves so superior and arrogant as to not recognize their own acts of extreme cruelty.
-Michael Vick
Chas., your only accident was forgetting to shut off the water. All other acts were deliberate acts to cover up your involvement in the cruelty suffered by the horse and show your total disregard towards alleviating any suffering you had caused. You cannot write well because you are not sentient enough to really understand what it is that you did. Even in your “confession” you blame shift to get yourself off the hook. You elude to the fact that an elderly republican white woman’s intention to postpone calling a vet until morning when she didn’t have all the facts equates to your actions of negligence and deceit. You seem to be pointing out that you are black in this story as if it were some sort of an excuse for your behavior. People who hire or even befriend you need to look a little deeper into your lack of character.
This is excellent writing. It’s a perfect short story. I enjoyed the entire thing from beginning to end.
My favorite part was the reference to Clint Eastwood’s “Unforgiven” about the elephant having notoriously unpredictable disposition.
Excellent. Absolutely excellent. I read this yesterday, and this story is still with me. I had to comment.
What a brave and honest (and, of course, literate) story. I miss my Police Beat fix as much as anybody, but if that’s the price of Mudede’s writing at greater length on a wider variety of subjects, it’s well worth it.
–Joe
Really? What’s all this bullshit about Russian Literature? What’s with the goddamn comparison to Great Expectations, and why, oh why, is it in an article about you being a bad keeper of horses? Mudede, you’re an intelligent guy who understands what he’s doing. But you don’t understand how to do it. First of all, this is no journalism, but that’s not really the important thing. The important thing is that this story has NO FLOW TO IT. I read it chunk after sickeningly limping chunk, wondering when the pace will pick up, and then, when it does, I either wonder when it will slow down, or I wonder why you slowed down so damn early. Learn pacing.
Oh, and learn not to be a self-important egotistical cock while you’re at it, it’ll do you some good.
you kill??? can’t blv
that’s all fine and Dandy, but you accidentally killed TWO horses, didn’t you Chuck?
You were hired to watch out for an animal and instead were a selfish coward and let it die cold, alone and no doubt in discomfort from your neglect. You should never be allowed to get over this.
I hope people wave signs at you and boo you wherever you go. Old horses need extra care and your callous nature betrayed the trust both the horse and their owner had in you.
You should have never written this self serving piece and inflicted it on others.
I was sure this was a story written by JENNY EDWARDS (ZOO and Hope for Horses)when I saw the headline. After all she’s killed many horses (accidently, of course). But then being the sociopath that she is (she recently bragged on her own web-site “We were the subject of a Documentary that made it all the way to the Sundance Film Festival), she would have most certainly taken credit for “writing this great work of fiction.” Sorry Charly, you lose the credit again.
To FunnyFarm – Actually, what the w/s says is that we were “involved in a documentary that made it all the way to Sundance ….” If you’re going to quote me, at least do it accurately. And that sociopath comment — that’s the second time you’ve diagnosed me without ever having met me. // Jenny Edwards
This is the most despicable act of cowardace I’ve ever seen.
There were way too many adjectives and details that did not need to be included. Too wordy and frilled up overall. Takes too long to get to the final point of the story. Could be well-written, if reworked.