The Great White
Rabbit Hunt
by Jan F.
Drewniak and Don Drewniak
Setting:
The Berkshires in Massachusetts during the Great
Depression.
The
characters:
Pinball (Pinball
Johnny) — My father, Jan F. Drewniak, who
was nineteen-years old and had recently purchased
a piece of property that had ten acres of land
and included a small house, workshop and two
storage sheds.
Sparks
— The nearest neighbor who was a friendly
rival and sometimes foil.
Jack
— The owner of the country property Pinball
was repairing. He also owned a machine shop and
home in Brooklyn.
Mrs.
Sparks — Sparks’ wife.
* * * * *
Cooler weather
was coming and the days were getting shorter.
“Pinball,”
said Jack, “we have a couple down from
British Columbia who are staying for a month. Any
chance of getting some rabbits?”
“Rabbits?
What’s this about?”
“He goes
hunting quite a bit, so does his wife. They fixed
us up a meal from rabbit a while back that was
out of this world.”
“Well,
there are plenty of them around, but I have never
hunted anything. I’ll have a talk with
Sparks. When do you want them?”
“Next
weekend would do.”
I told him
that I would try my best. However, preoccupied
with my new property, I forgot about the rabbits
until it crossed my mind when I woke up five days
later on a Thursday morning. A promise was a
promise, so I drove to see Sparks figuring he
might just walk out to the back of his place and
shoot a couple if I told him Jack would pay top
dollar.
“Rabbits?
What the hell, don’t them people bring
enough food? You have to give half of it away
after they leave.”
I told him
what Jack had told me and said Jack would pay him
well for a couple of rabbits.
“Hell, I
don’t have no time for that. Go get them
yourself.”
“Listen,
Sparks, I have never even fired a gun before,
never mind trying to hunt and I only have two
days left.”
“Nothing
to it. Fire a couple of practice shots and you’ll
be all right. Your best bet is at night.”
“Night,
are you kidding me?”
“Hell no,
you see their eyes shine when you drive at night?
We use a flashlight in the fields. They freeze
when the light shines at them. Bang, and you got
them. They’d be too fast for you in the day.”
Sparks paused. “But you don’t even need
a light if you go in my back fields.”
“Why not?”
“White
ones there.”
“I have
never seen white wild rabbits.”
“My dad
used to have them and somehow they got out of the
pen. Since then they’ve been breeding like
mad all over the place. They’re fatter than
the regular ones and the meat is more tender.
When you going to go?”
There was no
way I was going to talk Sparks into doing it, so
I said, “More than likely tomorrow night.
That will give me time to practice and the
rabbits will be fresh.”
I figured if
Sparks could do it, I could do it.”
“Make
sure you go way in the back, pass the second wall,
as I don’t want you to pepper the house and
break my windows.”
Knowing that
Jack kept a shotgun in his garage, I brought it
back to my place and fired it a few times that
day and a few more during the day on Friday. It
seemed easy.
I set out
about an hour before dark and parked my van on
the edge of Sparks’ driveway. Armed with the
shotgun, shells and a flashlight, I headed out on
the great white rabbit hunt. By the first wall I
went, through some brush and then by the second
wall. I sat down just behind a clump of tall
brush to wait for complete darkness.
I began to get
impatient as the minutes passed. Looking back at
what happened, I can only guess that it was the
presence of the brush which caused me not to
notice the patch of white coming my way until it
was only about seven feet away. Without thinking,
I jumped up and readied myself to fire the gun.
Too late. It fired first and I was hit. Dazed, I
lunged forward and swung the butt of the gun with
all my might. Down went my target. I dropped to
my knees and proceeded to heave my heart out.
I had no idea
how much time passed until I was finally able to
assess the situation. “So this is the
bastard’s white rabbit,” I yelled out.
“Pinball, how green could you be?”
Motivated
solely by revenge, I picked up the gun and then
the skunk by its hind legs, and staggered toward
Sparks’ barn. Given his acute hearing, I
knew that somehow, despite the horrific stink, I
would have to be as quiet as possible. I looked
up to the sky and gave thanks when I saw that
there were lights on in the barn. Sparks had to
be working.
The big double
doors were closed, the small one open. I moved up
near the open door and stayed in the shadows. It
wasn’t long before Sparks began to grumble.
He stopped what he was doing and walked toward
the door.
Stepping out
of the shadows, I hurled the skunk straight at
him. By the time he saw what was coming, it was
too late for him to react. He was hit straight on
in the chest. I slammed the door shut, padlocked
it and ran like hell.
Hearing his
frantic screaming and pounding on the door, I
yelled, “Yes, yes, yes!” Not until I
reached the van did I remember that I had
forgotten to try to lock the double doors.
Into the van I
went and drove it as fast as I could back to Jack’s.
Had I my wits about me, I would have never used
the van. I pulled up to the front of Jack’s
barn. That was another mistake. I emptied my
pockets, tossed everything onto the van floor and
dashed to the creek. After stripping, I dug into
the silt and began scooping handfuls of mud
trying to cover myself from head to foot. After
dropping my clothes in the creek, I continued to
pack mud on my body.
“Pinball,
where are you?” It was Jack shouting in the
distance.
“Here at
the creek.”
“Where is
the stench coming from?”
“Sparks’
white rabbits.”
“Damn, I
might have known something like this would happen.”
“Thanks
to Sparks.” I caught myself just before I
was about to say, “Thanks to Sparks and the
greenhorns from British Columbia.”
“What are
you doing there?”
“Making a
mud pack. What else?”
Next came the
sounds of a door and multiple windows being
closed. It was then that I realized I had left
all the van windows open and that the van had
obviously absorbed much of the stink.
I knew what I
had to do. Dropping into the water, I thought I
would freeze to death. I scraped off as much of
the mud as I could, pulled my boots and pants out
of the water, put them on and headed for the van.
Somehow I forced myself to get behind the
steering wheel, start the van and drive it about
a quarter-mile down the lane where I parked it
next to the wall. I left the windows wide open.
Keys in hand I ran to the barn.
Off came the
boots and pants. I put the boots back on, wrapped
myself in two greasy work blankets, put the pants
on the end of a stick and grabbed a flashlight.
There was no moonlight, but I decided to risk
cutting through Jack’s fields and the woods
to get back to my house. I dropped the pants and
stick part way through the fields.
After what
seemed like an hour, my buildings came into view.
I tossed the blankets and pulled off the boots,
made a barefooted beeline to the house and then
headed straight into the shower. I stayed in the
shower until the last of the hot water was used
up. The night was spent sleeping in the new
building and cursing Sparks.
Sparks fared
no better. It took some time, but he finally
thought of the big door, picked up the skunk with
a shovel, buried it across the road and then
screamed at Mrs. Sparks to throw out some
blankets and a bottle. He didn’t dare go
near the house. The garage was uninhabitable, so
he stayed overnight in the outhouse with the
blankets and a bottle for company while cursing
me.
When dawn
broke, Mrs. Sparks stepped outside and after she
repeatedly called out to Sparks, he opened the
outhouse door and meekly said, “Hello, Mom.”
She stayed her
distance. “What happened?”
He told her.
“You
never learn, do you? You send him after white
rabbits. What did you think he would do, run away
and never come back? Serves you right, Sparks.”
Once again, I
missed a Saturday night date.
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