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!," I whispered.
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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