It was a nondescript building with a peeling windowless front door never intended to be exposed to the elements. A worn sign no longer displayed the hours or even the name of the company. The only hint, in this tired strip of car lots, bars, and gas stations that it was a taxidermist was the placard out front - "Bring a deer, get a pair of gloves."
I'd called ahead looking for small animal skulls. You don't find them so often in the city and a friend had commissioned a small painting for his wife's birthday. I was met by the smell I couldn't quite identify. Images of dinosaurs and cave bears came to mind. I realized it was the smell of a natural history museum, the smell of stuffed and preserved animals. Covering the walls were the heads of deer, elk, moose, antelope and sheep. Some craned their necks as though they'd just heard a sound and hoped to find its source. On shelves sat motionless ducks and quail. Stacked in one corner, headless animal hides of every shape and size.
In my searching for this place, I'd learned that the old owner had drowned out at the beach this past fall. A young man, perhaps his son, showed me their collection of skulls for sale. Some broken, most missing teeth. I debated between the bobcat, the badger, and the coyote. The cat, missing a canine and some molars, kept staring at me. I set aside the badger skull I'd been looking for and took the cat. In real life, they're not much bigger larger than a big house cat such as ours.
An old woman took my credit card and bundled the small skull. As a small molar fell from the cat, she snatched it up deftly with sharp bent fingernails nearly an inch longer than the tips of her fingers. These weren't the primped nails of vanity, painted a glossy red or pink. These were thick and jagged well used tools, claws stained black and crusted brown from her work with the dead. With heavily calloused and cracked hands she had been polishing a pronghorn antelope head. Marble eyes stared out wary for predators. They hadn't seen well enough.
My jacket still smells like the taxidermist. It smells a bit, I suppose, like death.
The end of life is a hard pill to swallow, though not as hard to swallow as some things.
Brussel Sprouts 6" x 5", available
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