Jason Did Not Like Foxes

[Seattle Taz]

Justin And The Foxes

Susan J O’Shea ©2006

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Justin did not like foxes, he said, because they chased rabbits and made them afraid. That is every thing he knows about them. Once he heard a story about little foxes who were scared and their Dad got hurt. Then he felt bad for them, too.

So this is Justin’s story. He started it himself not too long ago, while talking to a donkey. That was the day that Justin wore his elephant suit when his Mom said to come with her for a ride.

They got into the car that day and buckled up. When they left town, they drove north (his Mom told him) for a long time. The wind smelled good and there was sunshine outside. Then the car slowed down and turned off the big highway but went on driving along the smaller road.

“Are we driving south now?” The elephant asked his Mom.

“No, honey. We’re still driving north but now we are on a county road.” She said it in her Mom-voice, the one that’s just for Justin. That’s how the elephant knew that his Mom knew for sure that he was really Justin, even when he was the elephant.

The Elephant’s Journey

The county road sounds different from the interstate highway. The air is cooler and smells like woods. The elephant began to get restless, his big ears moving just enough to catch the sound of the tiki bird. The tiki bird signals to elephants when there are tigers nearby. There were no tigers, the bird said. The elephant nodded and waited, watching.

The car slowed again and the turner ticked, making the car turn left.

“West,” the elephant’s Mom said when he asked her.

They drove west on the slow crunchy road, where the grass grows right on the edges, and sometimes up on to where the car drives. The road is made of dust and gravel. There are strong-yellow buttercups and weak-yellow tiger lilies in the ditch on each side. He raised his trunk in greeting, because an elephant never forgets.

The Clown House

This is where the elephant’s Mom’s sister lives, in a house with a gas stove that smells like a hot springs. Some corn grows out back. It is a clown house. The front door is red, like a nose in the middle of two big square-eye windows.

Elephants use the back door anyway. Lavender grows in pots by the back door because there is sunshine behind the house. There are bright orange nasturtiums, so bright they make elephants feel thirsty for something orange like orange Kool Aid.

The tiki bird said the coast was clear. His Mom said he could go outside if he liked; her sister said the donkey’s name is Jake. The jungle continued to call softly and the elephant swayed his head again, in royal greeting.

The Big Hand Tree

Donkey Jake does not live on a farm but his pasture is very big. It may even be bigger than the park in the city where the elephant goes with his Mom. At Jake’s place there are no fences and the trees are wild.

In front of the wild trees grow roses tangled with blackberries and morning glories. Under the trees is every kind of thing that a hungry elephant eats except pancakes.

At one end of Jake’s pasture is the ‘big hand’ tree that is more than one hundred feet tall. It is shaped like a lime gumdrop on a stick, and in the spring it has thousands of flowers on it, like sugar on the gumdrop. The flowers are in big clumps shaped like baked potatoes standing on end. The leaves are huge big green hands, bigger even than Dad’s. That is why it is called “the big hand tree” but not really. It is really called a Horse Chestnut tree.

Under the Horse Chestnut tree are Spike Balls that have the nuts inside. Spike Balls have a bright green husk covered with inch long spikes that are not sharp; they are about the size of baseballs. Inside the tough husk is a dry and fibrous white stuff; inside the white stuff are the nuts. Usually only one nut is inside, sometimes even three. They are dark brown and streaked, like cousin Linda’s chestnut brown hair, and shiny.

The Spike Balls and everything inside are what elephants and children must not eat. In school, the boy from Wales said these are ‘conkers’ and the teacher said they were buckeyes, but Jake and the elephant and the elephant’s Mom and his Aunt, too, all call them Horse Chestnuts. Once Justin planted some to see if they would grow wild horses. He did not tell anyone about his experiment; then he forgot about it.

The Meet

Justin the elephant-child remembered them now, as he walked toward the Horse Chestnut tree to talk to Jake. He quickly looked around, afraid of being seen. He did not see any extra wild horses and anyway he knew that horses did not grow on trees. What a baby he was in those days!

The elephant checked the air with his trunk held high. Yes! Donkey ahead!

There stood Jake the donkey, just as gray as the elephant, even with a raggy taggy tail like the elephant. No wonder they liked each other so much! They stood there for a long while, in gray-animal mystery.
The Question

Then, using his special heart talk, Justin asked his question:
“Jake? Why is it that foxes chase rabbits? It just makes the rabbits so afraid!” Even as he said it, he could feel a kind of rabbit fear.

Jake lowered his head and thoughtfully bit off a clover flower. As he chewed the flower, he turned his head slightly to one side so he could see Justin the Elephant better. Donkeys do that, they turn their heads to see better because their eyes are set like THIS and not like ours at all.

The elephant began to sway, back and forth. This meant that the donkey was taking a long time to answer and Justin was getting worried. Jake understood this and nuzzled the elephant very nicely. This is how donkeys pet elephants.

The Answer

At last the donkey sighed. Then he said, “Justin? Foxes chase rabbits because they want to eat them.”

The elephant was shocked. Elephants never eat other animals; it was hard to understand. Justin felt like crying, so Jake nuzzled him some more. They stood like this under the Big Hand tree, Jake the donkey and Justin the elephant-child.

They swayed and rocked; they nuzzled and murmured. The Big Hand tree leaves overhead fluttered and muttered, like holy hands giving blessings for the two; a big holy man in gumdrop-green holy clothes, fluttering and muttering holy green blessings.

Justin leaned against Jake’s warm muzzle and scratched behind the donkey’s long sturdy ears. With special heart eyes, the elephant-child saw the green leaves overhead waiting for school to start before turning yellow, then brown. By Thanksgiving all the leaves have fallen off and the tree is dark, naked.

Finally, Justin sighed a deep deep sigh and asked Jake the next sad question.

“Who eats the foxes, then?”

Jake turned his head to look at Justin. He snorted and looked again. Then he rested his muzzle against the elephant’s chest for a moment before speaking.

“Eagles,” he said.

When Jake spoke that one word, suddenly Justin’s special heart eyes and heart ears saw and heard an eagle scream as it soared overhead, and the shadow of it raced the wind.

This, said a teacher, this flight of the eagle singing the eagle’s song is a very special blessing. It is given for strength to people of courage. The teacher’s name is Bruce. He is A'aninin Indian from Fort Belknap in Montana.

These, then, are all the things that Justin the elephant-child saw happening in his heart that afternoon in Jake’s pasture, under the Big Hand tree. It’s his story.

So Justin wrapped his elephant ears closer in. He lifted his feet high (like this, UM AHM UM AHM) as he walked through Jake’s pasture toward the house. Jake followed. UM AHM UM AHM CLUMP CLUMP CLOMP!

From this side the house is not a clown house.

It is jumbled with Morning Glory vines and blackberries. There are flagstones here and there with great clumps of grasses standing tall between them. Two tables, four benches, twelve pots of lavender, nasturtiums and sweetpeas, five pots of geraniums, a window sill with little pots of petunias, a cement mushroom upside down, some pieces of sheet metal and heating duct, a roll of tarpaper and two of chicken wire.

The chickens won’t stay in the chicken house so they stay pretty much in the attic and the dog stays in the chicken house.

The child and the donkey walked slowly through the pasture, the child taking giant steps, marching to secret music. The donkey followed close behind. It made a gentle afternoon picture.

From the distance, of course, you couldn’t smell the fresh baked brownies that child and donkey were following home.

[gailkate]

Thank you, Taz.
The elephant was shocked. Elephants never eat other animals; it was hard to understand. Justin felt like crying, so Jake nuzzled him some more. They stood like this under the Big Hand tree, Jake the donkey and Justin the elephant-child.

They swayed and rocked; they nuzzled and murmured. The Big Hand tree leaves overhead fluttered and muttered, like holy hands giving blessings for the two; a big holy man in gumdrop-green holy clothes, fluttering and muttering holy green blessings.
Justin leaned against Jake’s warm muzzle and scratched behind the donkey’s long sturdy ears. With special heart eyes, the elephant-child saw the green leaves overhead waiting for school to start before turning yellow, then brown.

I don't know who you tell this stroy to, but my 60-yr-old heart eyes are misty. Holy green blessings to you.

[Seattle Taz]

gailkate said:

[green]Thank you, Taz.
I don't know who you tell this stroy to, but my 60-yr-old heart eyes are misty. Holy green blessings to you.[/green]

I'm not real sure who it's for, probably myself but overtly for Sharon's grandson Davis who comes to the Chapel with her.

In the early days of recovering from whatever they did to my brain during surgery (March 2005), I could not manage anything at all. The Clinical Psychologist suggested to Jerry that he read children's stories to me. Jerry found he had to be very careful about their content! I freaked when The Little Mermaid gave up her beautiful singing voice. The stories provoked vivid images in my mind and the emotional content was 3-D - an incredible state of mind that I haven't really been able to capture since.

Justin the Elephant and Jake murmuring together was drawn from my own experience of "talking" things over with horses, donkeys, dogs, cats, cows. It was always a great comfort to me and I usually came out of it with enhanced clarity - and "answer" to what bothered me.

Mine was a "challenging" childhood and I don't think I would have made it without the Jakes in my life. Bless their hearts, my parents did everything in their power to be good parents but there was too much needed that they themselves had never experienced.

Only recently did I discover that both sets of grandparents had witnessed familial murder: My Dad's father saw his own Dad shot down dead by a neighbor when he was 9 years old. My Mom's mother was 9 years old when she saw her father beat her sister to death. So much for the romantic frontier days in the wild wild west! Not the raw materials with which to build a Norman Rockwell home, is it?

I have a series called "Beyond the Pale" (Voices of the Streets) that follows a slightly whacked out guy who hangs out with a really whacked out guy. They live in the bushes. They, too, scratched an emotional itch, and sort of spotlighted the various ways in which people come to terms with stuff.

Then, too, when I started following Justin going to his aunt's house I had no idea he and Jake were going to meet, much less 'click' like they did!

After Pentecost we come to "Ordinary Time" in the Church. It's a time when the altar is dressed in green and my chasuble is the same green as the Horse Chestnut tree and I feel like the tree. Sometimes I grab a branch off of the ficus in the chapel and dip it in our little fountain to sprinkle the folks. Holy green blessings! I wish I had Chestnut Tree Leaf gloves to put on. Wouldn't that be great for baptisms?