from Lacerations (c) 2002 by Your Anarchestrator

“I can jump higher,” Denise bragged. “C’mon, it’s my turn!”

She began climbing onto the trampoline, which took up most of her back yard.

“I bet you can’t!” I taunted as I hopped off to let her try. I knew she could jump higher. It was her trampoline. She could even do flips and stuff that I was too scared to even try.

I hopped around in the grass as I watched her jump. She wore dark blue Tuffskins and a red and gray striped T-shirt. Her hair was shaved in a crew-cut – easily four inches shorter than mine. She looked more like a boy than anyone I knew. But her wide, brown leather belt clearly stated that her name was “DENISE” across the small of her back.

“Watch this!” she shouted and did a back-flip, landing on both feet.

I smiled and hollered, “Yeah!”

“Hey kids, I’m gonna skin a rabbit! Wanna watch?” Denise’s dad, Mr. Grainger, shouted to us from the shed.

I wasn’t sure I wanted to watch Mr. Grainger skin a rabbit, so I looked to Denise for confirmation. She had already leapt from the trampoline and was running toward the shed. I followed.

It was a small tin shed. Mr. Grainger had stacked cages on tables against two of the walls. I could tell he built the cages himself out of old plywood, strips of cedar, and chicken wire, but they looked sturdy.

He stored rabbit food and bedding under the tables, along with some garden hose. We couldn’t all fit in the shed together, so Denise and I held onto the doorframe and peeked in from outside. This gave us the best view of Mr. Grainger’s cleaning table, which was just inside the shed door.

The cleaning table had a smooth wooden surface, covered with dark stains. A fluorescent utility lamp hung over it and a large mallet and a variety of butcher knives hung from the wall above it.

Mr. Grainger pulled a big white rabbit with black speckles from one of the cages, lifted it by its neck, and placed it on the cleaning table. It sat there calmly, twitching its nose, not even looking around too much. My fingers squeezed the doorframe tightly.

Mr. Grainger lifted the mallet from its hook and wrapped his left hand around the rabbit’s hind legs. He swiftly hammered the rabbit in the head with the mallet. I knew the rabbit was supposed to be killed instantly, but it flopped and twitched, held in place only by Mr. Grainger’s left hand grasping its hind legs. I was clenching my teeth and digging my fingernails into the doorframe.

“What’sa matter, Blue? You got a weak stomach or something?” Denise teased.

Mr. Grainger hung the mallet back on the wall and pulled a large cleaver from its hook. He held the cleaver over the still twitching body and I closed my eyes. The metal blade met the wood cleaning table with a thud that vibrated the doorframe.

“Here’s some good luck for you kids!” I heard him say.

I opened my eyes. A bloody rabbit’s foot was flying toward me. I ducked, and the foot fell in the grass behind me. Denise caught hers and cupped it in her hands, examining it with a smile that showed her crooked teeth.

I walked over to where my rabbit’s foot had landed in a patch of green clover. The white fur was speckled with red dots. I pinched a toe between my finger and thumb and lifted the little foot, holding it in the air in front of me.

“Hurry up! Dad’s starting to clean the rabbit!” Denise shouted from the doorway.

I walked back to the shed, not sure I wanted to see Denise’s dad clean the rabbit, but positive I didn’t want to miss it.

Mr. Grainger had cut around the rabbit’s neck and pulled the skin away from the body. The skin came away so easy, like a pair of baggy trousers bunching up around the rabbit’s legs. The inside of a rabbit looked like a shiny red baby to me. Mr. Grainger started cutting the meat away.

I stopped watching him and instead watched Denise watch her dad. She saw him do this every week, but the pleased look on her face showed how much she enjoyed it. Her mouth was open, and her eyes wide in a gaping, sparkling stare. A fly landed on her forehead and she didn’t do anything about it.

I blew a puff of air at the fly, hoping to scare it into flight without her noticing that I had done it. Her eyes darted to mine, her pleased face now fixed upon me and the fly still stuck to her forehead. I made an embarrassed smile and at that moment, I heard my mom’s voice calling my name.

“Blue!” the faint echo bounced among the houses on my street. That’s how moms and dads in my neighborhood found their children. They stepped onto their front porches and shouted. My mom’s voice had found me from more than a block away.

“I gotta go!” I said. I started running across the yard.

“Bye!” Denise called at my back.

“See you later!” I kept running as I said it.

“Where were you?” Mom asked when I came in.

“I was playing with Denise,” I answered. “We were jumping on her trampoline and then we watched her dad clean a rabbit!”

There was just a little bit of silence before my mom said anything. “I don’t want you to play with her any more,” is what she said next.

“How come?” I asked, because I really could not think of any reason.

“Because she’s ugly as sin.”