Death of a friend

A fawn pictured in Winslow's backyard

The sight dumbfounded me: Here was a creature I knew as living and breathing now on its side, bloated and glassy-eyed with flies circling its muzzle. I cried out, and pulled hard on my bicycle’s brakes.

I stumbled across the fawn’s body today by accident; I had planned to ride my bike on another, steeper route, but opted for Ralston Avenue at the last moment. Flying down the hill on South Road felt marvelous, a cooling breeze rushing past my sweaty hairline as I sang along to Paul Simon playing on my iPod. I was reminded of how Roald Dahl, in his autobiography, “Boy,” described a memory of watching another youth experience a similar exuberance of freedom.

Yes, today is a good day, I told myself.

And then, just as I was losing momentum from the steep decline and starting to pedal, I spotted the body in the grass between the sidewalk and the Notre Dame de Namur University tennis courts. I yanked the headphones from my ears. I felt sick. 

Was it really, truly dead? Perhaps the animal was simply stunned. The body looked intact. There was no blood. I used the tips of my trainers to inch myself and the bike closer. I looked down and stared at the ribs, willing them to gently rise with a breath. Instead, they bulged unnaturally outward in a sickening bloat. The adorably dappled back I had seen so many times from afar was now at my feet, but the white spots no longer radiated with life. It appeared someone had struck the fawn with a vehicle and then moved the body to the side of the road. I was grateful the driver hadn’t left the beautiful body to be destroyed by traffic.

This was one of two black-tailed fawns that, along with their mother, had paid daily visits to my yard for months in order to eat whatever they could find.  As much as I bellyached about their systematic destruction of my garden, I delighted at seeing and greeting these graceful creatures each day. I often snapped pictures of them to text to my 80-year-old friend because she becomes so excited when I do so.

“If I lived there, I would go out and hug them,” she liked to say.

Drivers in my neighborhood frequently speed, so part of me knew it was only a matter of time before someone killed a deer. Over time, I developed this inexplicable “Catcher in the Rye” -like feeling of responsibility for the two fawns; somehow, I had to be there to protect them from the “cliff.” Whenever I noticed the two leaving my yard and moving toward the road, I became agitated. Sometimes I even motioned up the hill so approaching drivers would know the family was hovering just beyond the trees.   

So finding the body was a shock. I stared at it for several minutes to reconcile the sight. I whipped my head around to locate other bicyclists and pedestrians to share my horror, but no one seemed to notice the dead deer. The tennis players continued playing. A man walking past failed to acknowledge me or the deer. I was alone. I wanted to do something, but I didn’t know what. I debated riding back to my house to get a shovel so I could bury the fawn myself. I felt like I at least owed the animal this small dignity.

Frantic, I called my husband, and he urged me to notify Animal Control in case the deer was infected with Lyme disease. Based on my experience with the Peninsula Humane Society Wildlife Department, I believe Animal Control will cremate the remains. That seemed preferable to simply letting the body rot. 

Arriving home, I used cardboard and a Sharpie to make a sign asking my neighbors to please drive slowly. I fastened it to my garbage can with some duct tape, the whole set-up looking just about as shoddy as it sounds. But it was the only action I could think of to fix a situation that couldn’t be fixed. Somewhere out there, the dead fawn’s sibling still lives.

*Please drive slowly in wildlife-populated areas.