Attack of the
Killer Cows
by Don Drewniak
From the
middle of first grade through the middle of
fourth grade, I attended the Laurel Lake School
in Fall River, Massachusetts.
The duplex in
which our family lived was located at the
intersection of Rhode Island Avenue and Tucker
Street, and was owned by a Portuguese couple who
were probably in their late 50s or early 60s.
Their last name might have been Arruda. His first
name was Manuel. My father referred to him as
Manny. I came to think of him as Mean Manny. As
to his wife, my only remembrance is that of my
father calling her the Old Lady.
Not only were
they the landlords, they occupied the second
floor. In the three years we lived there, not
once did I see the Old Lady leave the house. The
only way I knew she existed was that every Friday
afternoon after my father closed down his auto
repair garage and came home, I had the chore of
walking upstairs to bring three one-dollar bills
to pay the rent. She was always seated at a
kitchen table.
Mean Manny
would take the three dollars from me without ever
saying a word. After making certain there were
indeed three bills (and I m guessing examining
them to make sure they weren t counterfeit), he
would nod. I took the nod to mean, Get the hell
out of here.
It was the
second Friday following the end of school in 1952.
While walking down the stairs after paying the
rent, I said in a low voice, What a jerk.
There was a
loud knock on our door a few minutes later. It
was Mean Manny, who told my parents that I used
swear words while walking down the stairs.
Denials to my father were in vain. After three
stinging swats to my backside, I had to go
upstairs and apologize. With that, I swore I
would get revenge.
I stayed awake
in bed late into the night trying to think of how
to get that revenge. Flatten the tires on his car?
Nope. I would be suspect number one. Put oil on
the stairs leading down from the second floor?
Nope. I might be put to death for murder. Hide
behind bushes and shoot out one of his eyes with
my BB gun when he came home after dark? Nope.
Life in prison. I finally fell asleep without any
hope of gaining revenge.
Divine
intervention? Maybe. Pure luck? Most likely.
Directly across Tucker Street was a cow pasture.
Mean Manny s prized possession was a circular,
cement-encased, outdoor goldfish pond located on
the lawn facing the cow pasture. From May through
September, it was stocked with dozens of goldfish
of various sizes. They disappeared during the
winter months. I theorized that he cooked and ate
them.
Fifteen years
later while in the United States Army, I was
stationed at Fort Gordon, Georgia in the 385th
Signal Company. Half of those in the company had
returned from Vietnam and were waiting to be
discharged. Those of us in other half were
waiting to be shipped to Vietnam. The company
commander was universally despised by the troops.
Like Mean Manny, he had an outdoor goldfish pond.
During a June
morning roll call, the troops were informed that
all of his goldfish had been killed by someone
who had poured Clorox (or some such similar
chemical) into the pond. As a result, we all had
to take turns doing guard-duty shifts to protect
a new stocking of fish.
Back when I
was trying to plot my revenge, I had no idea that
bleach existed. Fortunately, the gods intervened
before such an idea ever came into my soon to be
third grade brain.
Unusual for me
on a Saturday morning, I woke up shortly after
dawn and headed from my bedroom to the kitchen to
get a drink of water. I had trouble believing
what I saw as I looked out of the kitchen window.
About three dozen cows had broken loose from the
pasture and made their way to Mean Manny s
thickly-grassed lawn. Some were chewing up the
lawn, while others were drinking from the pond.
My brain
screamed, Yes, oh yes, oh yes, oh yes!
Should I
wake up my parents? Heck, no!
Somewhere from
deep within my brain came the thought that God
had extracted revenge on Mean Manny.
Enjoy the
show!
Several joyous
minutes passed until Mean Manny appeared in the
yard yelling and screaming at the cows. That was
enough to wake up my mother who, in turn, pushed
my father out of bed.
As he tottered
into the kitchen, I shouted, Look! as I pointed
to the window.
With that, he
uttered a Polish off-color word and began to
laugh. The police, followed by a fire engine,
arrived a few minutes later. The cows were
eventually herded back through the opening in the
fencing that allowed them to escape. All of the
fish died from a lack of water as a result of it
having been consumed by the cows. The once
pristine lawn had been all but destroyed.
As we walked
away from the window, my father put his left arm
around the back of my shoulders and said, I guess
that proves that Manny lied about your swearing.
Although I
felt bad for the fish, through the years I have
laughed hundreds, maybe thousands, of times
picturing Mean Manny yelling at the cows.
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