Chaz Werbenverber was the Taxidermist Laureate. The position had been created
by the previous president, who had made himself famous with the number of
varying pets he kept. Eventually, an executive position had to be created to
deal with the eventual inevitability of dead animals that had to be dealt with,
otherwise they pile up around the white house lawn. So Chaz had been appointed
to stuff the presidents ex- pets.
The problem came about, though, with the new president. He kept no pets, so
Chaz took to stuffing any animal that happened to die around the white house,
birds and squirrels and such. Eventually saving any sort of road-kill,
out-of-its-misery, or ran-into-a-window within a mile of Pennsylvania Avenue.
When he was mapping out a route to collect every animal that would die within
the limits of the city proper, he knew it was time to move on.
With a small suitcase in hand, Chaz Werbenverber locked the door to his
office. He walked along the hall of the west wing, passed the vast collection
of his own work, which was beginning to clutter the entire White House by now.
Each animal held a special feeling in him, and they seemed to well up together
all at once as he passed his animals now for the last time. Not a memory of the
animals life, or an appreciation of the exquisite job that he had done in
preserving them for an eternity, but just the memory of the time that Chaz had
spent with each one. In that way alone, he felt as if he really had come to
know each and every one of them.
Stuffed cats and dogs, families of mice along the floor posed in natural
looking scenarios. Little fake holes painted along the trim, one little mouse
frozen half pounced, glasses eyes focused on a block of fake cheese. The
presidential mansion was becoming a museum. Most of the statues had birds
perched on their arms or shoulders, or if sitting, a dog on their laps.
He passed quickly through the lobby and security, handing in his I.D. and
White House badge. Once outside, Chaz was met by Arlo McAuschventierrez, the
Secretary of Health.
"Well I guess this is it, Mr. Secretary." Chaz said without fanfare.
Taking a long drag from an almost completely smoked cigarette, Arlo regarded
the Taxidermist. "What are you gonna do, Chaz?" he finally asked.
Chaz just shook his head, staring at the floor now. Tapping one finger against
the handle of his suitcase in a slow, nervous rhythm.
"Know what would be funny?" Arlo asked, the hard lines of his face straining
together to form an ill smile.
Chaz Werbenverber looked long at the Secretary of Health, the old crazy man,
as he lit up another cigarette. "What?"
"It'd be funny," Arlo McAuschventierrez started, speaking through one half of
his mouth as he sucked in smoke with the other, "If you just went down on to
the lawn by that tree over there. The one where you put Norble, the presidents
-ahem- ex-horse. And you just stood there unsure of what to do. And then you
cut off your foot, stuff it, put it down in front of the horse, and then go
home."
Chaz looked at the satisfied look on Arlo's face. "And then go home?"
"Well, wobble home I guess," the secretary went on, "But then you come back
the next day, and cut off your other foot, and stuff it. And then you go up
your legs, day by day, until you cut off your torso, your chest, your shoulders
and then arms-
"Cut off my own arms?" Chaz interrupted, irritated by the direction of the
conversation.
"Yes, but one at a time," Arlo explained, "Eventually, only your head would be
left. With your stuffed limbs you would attach it to the stuffed body. Like a
scarecrow with a mans head. And then you'd climb on top off that stuffed horse,
Norble there, and he would come alive. And you would ride him off into the
sunset."
"Or, I'd go back in there, "Chaz gestured toward the White House, "And bring
all those stuffed animals to life. They could be my army."
Arlo McAuschventierrez frowned, obviously more pleased with his own ending of
the story. "Well, keep in touch, Chaz. We'll miss you around here."
"Call me when the president gets some goldfish." Chaz said, shaking hands with
Arlo, and then going home. Standing by the stuffed horse, Norble, for only a
brief, final moment.
#
Once he got home, Chaz sat at the kitchen table. For nearly three days he did
not move. He just sat there in the chair closest to the fridge, staring down at
the floor, drinking an endless number of beers.
His wife Edgnus would come into the room, arms folded. "What are you going to
do, Chaz? Die in that chair?".
He would just nod his head slowly without lifting his eyes to hers. She stood
and fumed for a minute before turning hautily back toward the living room. "I
can't take this anymore!" she cried, arms waving furious.
One night in a fit of despair, Chaz attempted to stuff some wood-chips and
feathers into the garbage disposal, imagining that it might somehow give some
release to his tension, his anxiety. He was standing there stupidly in the dark
with the bathroom plunger, up to his elbows in the soaking, stinking sink, when
Edgnus flipped on the kitchen light.
"What the hell are you doing?" her face showing more fear than anger. She
looked upon the mess he was in with utter incomprehension.
"I just need to stuff something!" Chaz shouted out, frustrated.
"Well then go into porn." his wife replied with a scowl.
Just then there was a bumping noise from the living room, a loud thud. Chaz
disengaged his hands from the pasty mess that was clogging the drain and
followed Edgnus. They both stood in front of the large bay window in the living
room, staring out at the dark night. His wife edged nearer to the window,
peering down into the little space between the house and bushes.
"Chaz," she whispered with a finger pointed and eyes lit bright, "Come, look."
He rushed to her side, following her finger passed the glass to the little
patch of dirt just beyond the window. A small bird lay there. "He must have hit
the window," Chaz floundered nervously with the guilt of having an innocent
creature kill itself against his house, and- excitement, "What should we do
with it?"
Edgus took Chaz's hand, smiling warmly at him. "You know what you have to do,"
she said.
So he began almost immediately. A driven man once again, Chaz spent the next
several days preparing the bird. Edgnus could see once again in his eyes a
burning of life. He worked almost incessantly for those days and nights, but
laboriously, he did not rush. He put every ounce of energy into the
preservation of the bird, and in return the bird retired its soul to him.
#
Derek Tangent knocked upon the door. He turned to his companions, saying "Just
let me do the talking here."
A woman opened the door. "Can I help you?" she said.
"Mrs. Werbenverber," Derek said, "I am Officer Tangent. This is Mr. and Mrs.
Oglesby. We would like to come in and talk about that stuffed dog on your lawn."
Edgnus invited the three of them in. They entered the house, gazing around to
find a stuffed bird, a squirrel and a few other animals posed about the living
room.
"My husband is a taxidermist," Edgnus commented, seeing there reaction, "He
was the Taxidermist Laureate at one time. Chaz!" she called out for her husband
now, "There are some people here, honey."
Once Chaz entered the room and was introduced to everyone, Officer Tangent
opened his notepad and explained, "You see, Mr. and Mrs. Oglesby reported
losing there dog, Hampshire, a yellow lab. That was two weeks ago. Hampshire
was not the type to run away, he was getting up in the years-
"He had a limp in his front, right leg." Chaz interrupted.
"You stole our dog?" cried Mrs. Oglesby, ripping a tissue from her pocket to
dab at the tears that were starting to spill.
"No, no, no," Edgnus reached over to console Mrs. Oglesby, "It was about a
week ago and we heard a scratching at the back door. When I opened it, a dog- I
didn't know it was your dog- but he just walked in and sat down at my husbands
feet. And then he-" she cut herself off.
"So you're saying," the officer recalled, trying to make sense of the story,
"That their dog, limping and all, trotted in here and died at your husbands
feet so that he could stuff him?"
Edgnus and Chaz Werbenverber sat looking at the police officer and the other
couple. They saw on their faces the need for more explanation, the Oglesby's
needed to know what happened to their dog, and Derek Tangent needed to know if
the law had been broken. But they had nothing else to offer in the way of
answers, Edgnus gave them a sheepish shrug.
There was a slow, quiet knock at the door, like knuckles dragging against
wood. Edgnus rose to answer the door. She opened it and was met by an
orangutan, standing there and staring in at them.
The monkey looked around the room from human to human until it caught view of
Chaz. With a start, it ran over and jumped into his lap.
"What is going on here?" Officer Tangent asked, glancing back and forth from
Edgnus to Chaz to the monkey now curled up in a fetal ball.
"We've never seen this animal in our lives," Edgnus said, the emotion in her
voice imploring them to believe her, "This just keeps happening. They keep
coming here. To my husband, to die."
Chaz nodded his head, Edgnus was telling the truth.
Derek Tangent, shaking his head in bemusement, took out his police radio.
"This is Officer Tangent, I'm at the Werbenverber residence," he spoke into it,
"This is going to sound crazy. But do guys have any reports of missing
Orangutans?"
After a moment, a spurt of static rang back through the radio. "Officer
Tangent, there was a call from the City Zoo just now about an Orangutan that
disappeared from the infirmary. They think it was kidnaped, I guess it was too
sick to escape on its own."
"When was the last time they saw the monkey?" the officer asked.
"About fifteen minutes ago." the answer came back.
"We've been here twenty minutes," Derek commented, thinking aloud, tapping the
antennae of the radio against his lower lip, "They couldn't have taken him."
"Officer, why do you ask?" the radio sputtered, "What is going on there?"
Derek Tangent clicked off the radio, staring off into the distance, trying to
piece together the puzzle in his head. He looked then at Chaz, who was now
petting the monkey softly.
Meeting his eyes with the officers, Chaz said "He's dead."
At that exact moment, off the shores of New England, an old Blue Whale was
preparing to die. It knew it was old and that its life was nearly over. It new
instinctively that it was to emerge itself out of the ocean, up on the sand.
And it knew, somewhere deep within its bones, that it must beach itself farther
up on the shore than any whale had ever gone before.
(C)2002 Robert E McWhorter