Thirty-some years ago
when I was about 16
I spent a summer in Florida
working at my brothers moving company…
Driving down the highway
I recall seeing dozens,
if not hundreds,
of armadillos digging in the dirt
and grass
on the sides of the road…
Never had time to stop…
So, even then,
I never saw one up close...
But I was always fascinated
by the primitive look
of these creatures…
Always wanted to observe one up close…
See how the plates fit together…
Watch how the joints and seams
worked together…
How they moved...
***
Years later
I found myself in Texas…
Long-term living there…
Kinda sorta chasing tail…
Not that I’m a big Woody Allen fan,
or anything,
but he was kinda sorta right
about the three certainties of life:
death, sex, and taxes…
Not necessarily in that order
and often involving only
somewhat related topics
compared to the original
subjects of the premise…
And,
since I got to this place,
before I digress any further
from my originally intended topic,
I’ve only seen dead armadillos…
Hadn’t seen a live one
since I moved to the state
nearly 17 years ago…
Just the random cracked shell
on a bloated dead body
that had been run over…
Often nearly unrecognizable
at first glance
as anything remotely
armadillo…
Their armor does not protect them
from creatures like us…
And we can kill without even a single thought…
***
Very recently, I saw my first live armadillo up close…
Very alive…
And somewhat to very preoccupied with the business at hand
that it was tending to…
At first the sound seemed to be coming from the trees…
Loud rustlings of branches
like heavy taloned feet
were moving from branch to branch
urgently, almost frantically,
but still heavy…
It was evening and very dark
so I got a flashlight
to see what was making all of this noise…
I expected the noise to stop as I got closer to the trees,
but it did not pause for even a moment…
That’s when I realized
the sound was coming from ground level…
Just about ten feet ahead of me
in the sticks and leaf litter
between the cedars…
A full grown armadillo
busily rustling through
the sticks and the leaves
looking for food…
Didn’t even pause for a second
when in my flashlight beam…
No deer in headlights response at all…
I walked right up to it
and squatted down near it
to get a closer look…
It seemed completely oblivious
to my presence…
Just kept noisily rooting around
in the sticks and leaves…
I reached out to tap its shell
with my index finger…
About two inches up the backplate
from the base of the tail…
Tap, tap, tap…
Finger nail to armor…
It paused what it was doing for a moment and
turned its head to look at me
as if to silently ask, “Ummm… What...”
The kind of “what” that doesn’t necessarily ask a question…
Doesn’t always need the actual question mark...
Kinda metaphorical or rhetorical…
A smidgeon curt…
More than a fleeting hint of impatience…
Maybe somewhat of a
“Oh, what the fuck do you want?”
feel to the expression…
Somewhat slightly amused by the inconvenience,
the poetic injustice,
of the moment...
But otherwise distracted and relatively emotionless
(too focused on its own problems laying beneath the leaves,
where its mind is, and its attention)...
And then it went right back to
rooting around in the sticks and leaves…
This time with a slow meander away from me
as it snuffled through…
No big rush to “escape”
as it, apparently, didn’t feel at all
in danger…
Maybe it felt a tad inconvenienced,
but it definitely was not
fearing for its life…
Focused or distracted…
Sometime it’s hard to tell the difference…
The observable behaviors are often the same...
***
I saw that look on my ex-wife’s face…
I was at a Walgreens getting lemonade
(great for dissolving kidney stones, BTW)...
The person in front of me in line
is having trouble understanding
how the credit card reader works…
It. is. taking. forever…
So I glance across the aisle at some “specials”,
then pivot back to my place in line
to see her in line
two places behind me…
Split second eye contact
as I spin back to facing the cashier
and, I’ll be damned,
she had the same expression on her face
as that armadillo…
Focused or distracted…
Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference…
The observable behaviors are often the same…
Of course,
the customer in front of me
cancelled her own transaction
multiples of times
at this point
(which had slowed even more to a crawl
due to the heat on the back of my head
from an imagined glare…)
Finally,
after what seemed a near eternity,
the person in front of me actually
successfully navigates
the card reader…
Cashier asks me,
“How’s your day going?”
x
x
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