Liz, Ernie and the mercy killing

In 1985, in a big house, blocks from the University of LaCrosse, Wisconsin, I lived with three entirely spectacular roommates. David, the gentle giant, the musician and the enumerator. Ernie, the wise elder, the archeologist and the gentle soul. Liz, the kooky, Liz the magnificent, Liz once the object of my desire. We were all such characters and so meant to be together. Our house was filled with music, parties, joy, chess and even a big hookah which we kept on the screened porch next to the hydraulic barber chair.

In my memory, I can hear the gurgle of the Hookah that I'd share with Ernie as we played chess on that porch—our chess board, a crate turned upside down with the board squares painted on rough wood. We played and smoked in a jungle of hanging plants. Reggae and afropop, our soundtrack; Ernie was particularly fond of King Sunny Ade and my favorite was Burning Spear.

Ernie and I were well matched opponents, aside from two unique nights. The first night was perhaps a year after I'd left LaCrosse, when I returned and stayed with Ernie on the eve of his wedding. That night, Ernie, a sly one with his gambits and discrete in revealing his defensive posture, played like a coffee-shop patzer. Though I would stand with him the next day at his wedding, I delighted in trouncing him. Another year later, Ernie stayed with me in Minneapolis on the eve of my wedding. Believe you me, he got his revenge and then some.

All sorts of things are replayed in my mind when I remember Liz. My crush on her was deep. My adventures with her were tremendous and plentiful. And, I feel that my retelling is as saccharine as a bad pop song. Just as saccharine, are my regrets. If I could change my early years with Liz I would. I'd relive them as a more mature person. Liz was wiser than I, politically, socially and sexually and I wonder what might have been if I'd held up my end of the bargain, as much as we had one.

Liz and I came to know that Ernie was planning to visit a friend in Rhinelander, Wisconsin. Liz, because she was in possession of the car, on loan from her dad, that Ernie was arranging to borrow. I, because I knew how to get to Rhinelander since my parents had a cottage nearby. Liz and I promptly inserted ourselves into Ernie's plan: We'd take Liz's Dad's car and drive to my parent's cottage, there, Liz and I would hangout with my folks while Ernie continued on to Rhinelander. At the end of a long weekend, we'd connect again at the cottage for the return trip to LaCrosse.

Our drive was long and our departure late in the day. Ernie, the driver, the Chicagoan, the guy who didn't own a car, seemed less than confident once we were off the interstate and onto some real boondocks roads. I recall he asked often, during our many miles on those dark roads, if I really knew where we going. All of my assurances meant nothing to him when, in an instant, a deer bounded from the woods into the road. Ernie swerved and locked up the brakes. Liz screamed from the backseat. I, in the front passengers seat, with my bare arm hanging out the window, felt the deer's fur as it slid down the side of the car.

We hadn't really hit the deer, the deer had hit us.

Ernie pulled over on the shoulder and we all sat in silence for a moment. Then, Liz made it very clear that she wasn't getting out of the car. I suggested to Ernie that he back up, while I hung out the window looking for the deer. It didn't take much backing and we found the deer on the shoulder. Ernie and I got out to investigate and our already-unsettled state got much worse when we found the deer alive, unconscious but breathing, its body swelling up and down with each labored breath. Ernie and I both immediately imagined that a mercy killing was necessary and we began arguing about who would do it. In my view, the driver was most responsible. Ernie thought that, since I had chosen the ridiculous boondocks roads, the responsibility was mine. Then we wondered how it could be done. Was there a tire iron in the trunk? Would the stomp of a foot be enough? What if it wasn't swift? God, it all seemed so awful.

As this nightmare played out, the lights of an approaching car appeared. They were heading in our same direction and they slowed to a crawl as they approached us. Just then, as Ernie and I stood on either side of the unconscious deer, in the weird light of our flashers and the approaching car headlights, the fucking deer came to and stood up.

Ernie and I took a step back. The deer was small and without antlers, but who knows how pissed off it was going to be. Clearly, the deer's bell was rung. It didn't immediately run from us. Instead, it looked quizzically at Ernie and me, and Ernie and I at it, and then the three of us at the people in the car that had now come to a stop alongside us; their eyes wide, their jaws dropped. If only I'd had the presence of mind to say something perfectly nonchalant, like, "Hey, howya doin."

The comedy of the passers-by faded quickly and the deer's fog cleared. With a few graceful lopes the deer moved from the shoulder to the edge of the woods just a short distance away. There it laid down and left Ernie and I to continue arguing over a mercy killing we imagined was still necessary. However, we now knew that a tire iron and a battle with a conscious, injured deer was out of the question. I had another plan.

Thinking I knew just where we were on this country road, I believed that a little tavern was only a mile or two away. From there we could call a sheriff or a DNR guy to meet us on the highway. They could deal with the injured deer and we'd be absolved; having done the right thing for the animal. We'd have to split up do this. One of us would have to stay with the deer or we'd never find it again on the side of the dark road. I was the one who knew where the tavern was, there was no fucking way that Liz was getting out of the car, so that left the task of staying with the deer to Ernie.

I was right about the tavern up the road but wrong about the one or two miles. It was more like ten miles. The tavern's small parking lot was packed with pickup trucks and the tavern was filled with men and women in flannel and Packer's sweatshirts. They were a loud and friendly bunch but I was in too much of a hurry to appreciate the scene. I waited for the bartender to make change for me so I could use the technology of the time: a coin-operated pay phone. Liz found her way to the bar as well. I looked for her as I was plugging coins into the payphone and spotted her with a drink in her hand, having already befriended the locals.

I managed to get the cops on the line and a dispatcher agreed to send a squad out to our section of the highway, as best as I could describe it. Liz polished off her drink, we thanked the Packer fans and off we went, back to the scene of the accident.

When our headlights finally illuminated Ernie, we could see him pacing furiously on the road's shoulder. What I'd imagined would take ten or fifteen minutes, took more than an hour. This was an eternity for Ernie who'd been left on the side of a pitch-black road, in the thick woods, in the care of a wounded animal. Ernie, the gentle soul, was livid. It turns out that moments after Liz and I departed for the tavern, the deer rose and loped off into the woods. For the next hour Ernie was alone with his imagination in the dark. Each crack of a twig seemed to Ernie like an approaching Grizzly Bear. The few cars that passed might have been filled with Deliverance-like, back-woods types.

In the time that it took for Liz and I to return from the tavern, a cop had made his way to the scene as well. We explained to the cop what had happened and he gave us a look as quizzical as the look we'd gotten from the people who saw us standing with the deer. The cop took out his flashlight and swept it over the woods into which the deer had run. We thanked him, felt absolved and went on our way.

Ernie recovered from his horrible experience and quickly saw the humor in it. That was Ernie's way. There wasn't a scratch on Liz's dad's car. My folks loved my friends and my friends loved my folks. Ernie's time in Rhinelander was a smash success and, I think the deer was ok too. If I could change anything about this story, I'd have joined Liz in a drink at the tavern. After all, Ernie wasn't the only one whose nerves were frazzled by this experience.