The Night We Killed Rudolph
We always used to describe my buddy Bret as "big for nothing". He was a massive guy, not really fat, more like a normal person scaled up about 150%. Grace, athleticism, and coordination were not his strong points. Bret had this really deep loud voice as well, kinda what you'd expect God to sound like.
Bret also had a pretty nice Buick GNX, and one night he and I were out cruising to get some food (in hindsight, it seems like anytime you hung out with Bret, you were getting food). Route 35 in Shrewsbury is your typical 4-lane highway through a suburban commercial area...bunch of shopping centers and restaurants, some smaller office buildings, and a few wooded areas in between that hadn't been developed yet. We were going past one of these wooded areas when a pretty large deer - 8-point buck actually - ran directly in front of the car.
As mentioned, big-for-nothing Bret wasn't the most coordinated guy. Hitting the brakes wasn't even an option. We nailed this buck and cartwheeled it up and over the car, into an adjacent lawn. It took Bret a good hundred feet to even react...and finally he did so with a thunderous
GOOD GOD WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT.
We pulled the car over to look at the damage. It wasn't all that bad, GNX's had a pretty sturdy front bumper, and some of the front header panel was cracked. With no immediate problems there we walked back to go find the deer.
It had ended up right in the middle of the front lawn of what looked like a commercial-zoned house. Like a house with a sign and small parking lot out front. As we walked up to the deer, a lady opened the door, looked out, and quickly came running towards us after slamming the door shut.
"Did you guys just hit this deer?"
"Uh, yeah, it ran right out of those woods across the street...didn't even have time to hit the brakes." (especially if you're big-for-nothing Bret)
"Well, it can't stay here."
I should say at this point that the date was December 24th, and this commercially-zoned house was actually a halfway house/assisted living place for mentally challenged people. And the lady had a legitimate concern that some of the occupants might glance outside during their Christmas party (which was happening right at that moment), see this 8-point buck laying in the yard dead, and come to the conclusion that we'd just killed Rudolph. Surely pandemonium would ensue.
"OK. Let me make a call, we'll take care of it."
This is when having friend(s) with pickup trucks comes in handy. One phone call later and my buddy Jesse was on the way with his stepdad's F150. He brought along two other people and the 5 of us wrapped the deer up in a blanket, threw it in the bed of the truck, and took off back to Jesse's house.
We all have a bit of outdoor experience and between all of us, we had enough collective knowledge about field-dressing animals that we decided to give it a shot. Jesse's garage has exposed rafters so we tied some rope around the antlers and hung the buck from the ceiling. We laid a tarp down and got to work. Chest incision, cut around the asshole, get through the sternum...
"Hey, my knife isn't sharp enough to get through the ribcage."
"Here, try these tree loppers."
*chomp chomp chomp*
"Cool, ribcage is open. Thanks!"
Big-for-nothing Bret was turning slightly green at this point and finally asked, "What are you guys trying to do here? Why didn't we just dump it in the woods or something?"
"Ever have venison for christmas dinner?"
"...you're kidding."
"Nope."
At this point a few things were in our favor. The impact had killed the deer pretty much instantly so the meat was still pretty tender, unlike if the animal panics and runs for a long time first. The guts had remained largely intact and although the stomach was punctured, it had all gone forward. So the loins were in excellent shape and Jesse made short work out of getting them bagged and into the refrigerator. It was now getting pretty late on christmas eve so we all washed the blood off, left the deer hanging (it was freezing out), and got on with the normal christmas eve festivities.
The next night we tried grilling the loin steaks, and they turned out OK. Given what we had to work with I wasn't disappointed. After dinner we figured we should probably address the deer carcass still hanging in the garage.
"Well, I'm not digging a hole for it. F that."
"Why don't we just throw it out?"
Keeping in mind, it's the day after christmas. People are gonna be throwing all kinds of crap out. We divided it up into manageable pieces and after cutting the top of its skull off to save & mount the antlers, we packed it in a few heavy garbage bags and took it out to the curb. Just a few more trash bags on top of an already big pile.
The next morning, Jesse's stepdad woke up and looked out the window to see one lone trashbag sitting at the curb. Curious, he went outside to see what it was. Sure enough, there was a hoof & leg poking right out the side of it. Guess the garbage guy picked it up, had the hoof poke through, and wanted no part of it.
That bag ended up in a dumpster, Bret drove the GNX for the next two years still damaged before he moved to Florida, and the mentally-challenged people had a wonderful christmas party.
The end.
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