UnBooks:Did you ever lock horns with a goat?
Did you ever lock horns with a goat?
Well I did! You can see the marks, right here, under my hairflap.
This locking-of-the-horns contest lasted about a minute, back last July 30th. I was at a picnic at somebody's farm sponsored by the gang down at Louie's, had too many beers, and wandered through the gate that held up the NO TRESPASSING sign, and there I found the strange falling-down-around-itself building containing the goats. Hundreds of them! Dozens! Smelling like a mountain of year-old hay and all walking towards me with those HOOVES click-click-clacking on the tile floor of this place I had wandered into, it may have been painted red, what in God's holy name was this place? I have no idea, not to this very day. Red paint, maybe a drinking bucket or a table, and the goats. Dozens of them.
Then one of them charged, and that brought me back to my senses pronto. I put my head down, WHAM, we crashed against each other and locked horns. My peaked skin arrows wrapped around his horns, and his horns crunched against my exposed brainpan as we pushed each other across what-is-this-place and all the other goats lined up on either side of us and they were WATCHING, I swear to God, they were watching and some of them were cheering! We backed off, got on our hind legs in the air, and then, WHAM, came together again, our headbutt echoing and game for more.
Oh fuck, the memories fade out about then; blood loss? But when I awoke on this farmer's daughter's bed with my head wrapped in bandages and soot, the daughter rubbing her back against my exposed elbow, going at it like there was no tomorrow, I looked around – I swear this is true – to see if the goat was in the room. Because I still wanted it, I wanted to lock horns with the motherfucker and PUSH, push it across the tile floor my hooves click-click-clackedy and the gang on either side bleating and shuffling their feet in support. God, I never felt so alive as I did standing on that floor, body covered in combat musk, unblinking wild eyes drilling into mine, with my brain leaking onto the horns of that creature. Blood all over, yet I still held my own for a MINUTE!
Yeah, time has gone by. Life just isn't fun anymore, the thrill of the fight was too intense for anything else to compare now. Even though the farmer's daughter comes by once a week to rub her back against my elbow or my shoulder, and then we eat some kind of dinner or other, usually corn, I think her name is Nancy something, it's not enough. I lived man! Can you understand me? I was ALIVE for a whole MINUTE back last July.
And when they chip-chip-chippedy my life onto my tombstone I want it to say "HE LOCKED HORNS WITH A GOAT AND LIVED TO TELL THE TALE".
The air smelled fresher for a long time after that, like I was five again and netting crayfish out of the mud at the lagoon.
And I dream that sacred sound at least every second night, I dream it like I was back there, past the NO TRESPASSING sign, fully alive again:
Click
- Click
- Clackedy
