Now, I find it difficult not to make a story about the people who keep up this seasonal beaver fashion show. They may be the next Project Runway contestants, but I think it was a bet.
Maybe Myrna, the lady of the house, beat Stan, the man of the house, at guessing the height of the river during last Spring’s flood. Maybe, he just loaded the dishwasher the wrong way or threw her best white blouse in the wash with his red flannel shirts. It’s a grudge match, then. Perhaps they’ve only been nodding in each other’s direction for years, over coffee and toast and hard-boiled eggs in the morning. He looks at the floor instead of at her. He looks at the carbuncles on her feet, poking out through worn house slippers. She pretends not to see his false teeth are in sideways. Maybe, she complains too many times about the ugly tree in the front yard, hit by lightning, and like the creaky front stairs and the leaking guest bathroom shower, it needs to be taken care of, already.
Perhaps that was it. He’d had enough. Slapped the table at that fateful breakfast years ago and said, “If I have to take care of getting that old tree down, then I’m going to carve that old trunk into a beaver.” She said, “don’t you dare, Stanislaus Adolphus Svenson. I’ll be the laughing stock of the whole town.” To which, of course, he responded to by leaving and slamming the door and heading straight to the hardware store. Where, he was so angry, he told all the boys, the retired or quasi-retired male citizens, who hang out after 9am and watch the comings and goings from the hardware store’s front stoop. By the time he bought the chisels and blades and heavy rope, it was too late to back out. They’d already said, “you won’t do it! Myrna will kick you out!” and he had already said, “She’s been complaining about that blasted tree for months, now, if I’m taking it down then I’m the one that will do with it what I like.”
By the time the old, damaged tree was cut back and a pretty good beaver if he didn’t say so himself, was coming through–well, Lars and Eddie Sy had shown up with lacquer, which he’d forgotten to get, but talked about out loud while planning and saying, “I’ll do what I LIKE.”
He had a cold bologna sandwich for dinner and no dessert. The house was quiet and the floor still had a few crumbs around the stove and sink. The morning dishes were there, too. He went to bed, beaten out of argument and spent from hauling limbs out of the way. The shellack would dry, though, and Myrna would come around. Wait ’til everyone is stopping by to see it. She’ll have to make a cake. Her lemon pudding cake, her best. That will bring her around. That will shut her up. He peeked out the dining room window before heading upstairs to bed. Yes, hey there. Through the sheer curtains, there in the moonlight–oh, the tail had come out fairly well. Isn’t that just, majestic, now?
When Stan wakes in the morning, he smells coffee and toast. Everything is fine. Right fine. He shaves and finds a clean shirt in the drawer when he decides he can’t take it any longer. He’s got to look at his handiwork in the morning sun. His knuckles are sore and there’s a faint chemical smell about his hair. He’ll take care of that, later. Then, he does look, and at first, doesn’t understand what has happened. The boys from down at the shop, the young couple next door, the crazy teenagers he doesn’t like much have their bikes slung across his lawn. They’re all looking at the beaver, his beautiful work, but…somehow, his beaver has sprouted bunny ears.
And so, I imagine, it began.