Gristle

The squirrel flew and over the fence screaming obscenities as he came. This is pretty much how it happened.

From Lawrence Binky's back yard, the small brown object came flying through the air and landed in a heap at the foot of the oak tree in Dan's back yard.

I should start by telling you about Dan. Dan was a she… not a he. Everyone called her Dan because she hated her name. Her parents called her Danielle when they were upset and her friends called her Danielle when they teased her. They would make it sound sing-songy and snooty. Danielle was simply known as Dan to anyone who mattered and she loved animals.

Dan couldn't believe her ears. If she had ever used the language like that squirrel was using, there wouldn't be a bar of soap left in the house.

When she finally got over her shock of seeing the airborne squirrel, she was torn between retracing the projectile to see where it had come from and looking after the clearly injured rodent.

Finally, after noting the cursing critter licking its wounds, Dan sneaked to the fence and looked through a knothole. She was just in time to see Lawrence cup his hand over the deep claw marks the cat had left just before it leapt loose and disappeared under the porch. The makeshift catapult that Lawrence and the hooligans had made stood cocked and ready for the next living projectile.

Satisfied that justice had been served, Dan turned her attention back to the squirrel.

When she got back to the oak tree, the squirrel was still cussing lightly under its breath. Dan knelt down beside it and asked if it was okay.

The squirrel screeched in anger, "ARE YOU THIS IDIOTIC ALL THE TIME?"

“Does it look like I'm okay?” it retorted sarcastically.

"Look at my fur! I’m a mess. I have a patch missing from when I landed in your yard! Haven't you people heard of grass? I would have been fine if you had even just a little!!! You know... the soft green stuff sometimes planted in the backyard of many homes!!! GRASS!

At first Dan was shocked, then appalled.

Finally, she fell backwards and rolled on the ground laughing. When she finally sat up and looked back at the squirrel through streaks of laughing tears, he remained scowling and licking his fur.

"You know", she said plainly, “you're lucky to be alive! Usually Lawrence only catapults body parts over the fence and my mom makes me pick them up." This was not entirely true. It had happened once and after Dan’s mother had talked to Mrs. Binky, and Mrs. Binky talked to Mr. Binky and Mr. Binky had finished with Lawrence , Lawrence never did it again.

But still, Dan muttered under her breath, "I wish someone would catapult his body parts over the fence".

The squirrel made a small moaning sound.

"Oh quit your whining. Lets see if you're really hurt."

Dan reached out with her hand to pick up the squirrel and the rodent snapped at it as she approached. Dan pulled back quickly, looked carefully at the squirrel and got up to leave.

When she was half way back to the house, she heard a moaning and whimpering coming from the base of the oak.

Dan couldn't stand it. She sometimes wished she could care a little less, but it just wasn't in her. She envied Lawrence a little that way. He would never be cursed with being bothered by the hurts and pains of others. The world would always be a harder place with people like Lawrence living in it.

Dan went back to the squirrel to look at it more closely. She could tell that although he had a lot to say, he truly was badly hurt.

"I don't think you're in any shape to avoid the 'machine' when Lawrence comes looking for you. Do you want some help or not?"

"What's your name anyway?"

“My parents call me Gristle.”

Gristle? Why Gristle?

“Why should I tell you?????? You think that I care whether you know how I got my name? I'm just glad they didn't call me something like Sue or Daaaannnnn.”

“Whatever.” said Dan sourly. “I really don't care. In fact, I think I'm going to get a pair of gloves and haul you back to Lawrence . The cat got away and I'm sure he's looking for something to strap into the 'machine'.”

Dan turned to leave once more. Gristle stopped her with a moan and whine.

"What?" she demanded, knowing he was about to cut her some slack.

“Gristle. They called me Gristle cause I've always been this way. It’s the toughest part of the meat. They always said I was just like Gristle.”

Finally, after taking a significant amount of abuse, Dan convinced Gristle to allow her to pick him up and carry him onto the back porch. On the porch, Dan found an old towel lying in a heap. She shook it out and laid the whimpering Gristle down on it.

Of course he complained the whole time. And after checking him carefully, Dan determined that he had a broken leg. It was clear that he wasn't going anywhere so Dan asked his permission to set it.

"Set it?" thundered Gristle. "Set it where? I'm fine with it just where it is! I am not going to be no three-legged squirrel! I'll never hear the end of it! Just like that accident-prone dog named Lucky. They still make fun of him!

"No, no, no. We're not going to take the leg off. I'm going to fix it. I'll put the leg back how it belongs, and then I'll get some plaster. When it hardens it will hold your leg in place till it heals. You'll be good as new."

Gristle looked at her skeptically.

Dan quickly went into the house and gathered the supplies that she needed. She raided the medicine cabinet and her mother's art supply room.

By mid afternoon Gristle was sporting a left leg half the size of his body. His hair was no longer a luscious red, but now it was covered with white hard bits of dried plaster.

Gristle lay still but nattered incessantly about the pain, discomfort, Dan’s methodology and the weather.

As always, the weather is as it is, and as always, it is something to complain about. Gristle, like so many others usually complained about the weather when nothing else presented itself. If it was too hot, there was no shade cool enough. Too wet and Gristle complained how the water ran down the fur of his neck and chilled him right through. Today the weather was warm and mild. Gristle had, during the repair of his leg, complained that it was both too hot and too cold. He had also wished for rain and thought that might help the sparse lawn in Dan's back yard.

Dan worked carefully throughout Gristle’s constant complaining. And even though she was very patient, more than once she threatened to punt him back into Lawrence 's domain. This seemed to work for short periods of time, but other than those brief moments, Gristle’s complaints were continuous.

Dan knew her mother complained about the nattering squirrels in the back yard, but she was the lucky one. She had no idea what they were constantly complaining about. Dan's mom wasn't "blessed" with the ability to understand animals.

Blessed indeed. Cursed more like it.

From Mom's perspective, Dan keeping an injured pet squirrel around the house was like so many other strays she had collected throughout the years. Some survived and some didn't and Mom was well beyond counseling Dan about the care or the ‘pets’ or issues about ‘hygiene’.

During the weeks that followed, Dan was just about driven to frustration. How much complaining can one person stand? And when a person finally breaks, what then?

Dan never found out because the day finally came to remove the cast. Dan didn't know how long to keep the cast on for, but Gristle had long since stopped complaining about the pain and now it was the weight of the thing and the itching beneath it and the weight and the itching and how it got in the way and how heavy it was and, and, and...

"Gristle shut up and lie still or I swear I get a hammer and get it off like cracking a nut!"

Even in Gristle’s small mind, he could fathom what a hammer might do to his leg. He sat quietly while Dan finished removing the cast.

For the first time in 6 weeks, Gristle’s leg saw the light of day. Gristle couldn't bear to look at first and when he did, he let out a screech so loud that it surprised even Dan.

The leg was bald from the top of the cast all the way to the tip of his toes. Only the small ends of his toes still had fur. Worse still, Gristle was unable to move his leg at all. On top of that, Gristle’s foot looked terribly odd. It was then that Dan realized that the foot was actually turned around a full one hundred and eighty degrees. The foot was on backwards!

Dan wasn't concerned much about the bald leg. She knew that limbs that had been in a cast for so long were usually stiff and Gristle would probably regain the use of it.

But... what was she to do about the foot????

The possibility of re-breaking it had occurred to Dan, but she could not bare the idea of having that obnoxious rodent in the house any longer. She knew she should do something, but she had no idea what. Gristle’s screeching didn't help matters either.

During the next 10 minutes, Gristle’s fate became horribly and irreversible sealed. He never was able to connect his loud and obnoxious behavior with what happened, but people of get their just deserts and Gristle got his.

It became clear to Dan during the ranting and raving that followed that Gristle would not spend a moment longer in the house than was absolutely necessary. She would put Gristle through vigorous physiotherapy. Gristle would have to learn to live with his disability.

At first Dan had to watched how Gristle moved in order to see what she might do to help him. She noticed that Gristle was nearly unable to bend the joint at the knee, but that was not the biggest problem. She could tell that Gristle was going to wear the hide off of the top of his foot as he dragged it around.

That was the essence of the problem. He didn't want to put any weight on his upside down foot so he kept favoring the whole leg. At the rate things were improving, Gristle would be at Dan's house forever! A solution had to be found.

One day, while Dan was spending a few quiet moments of her own in her back yard, she began to watch normal squirrels scurrying about. She noticed how they used their back feet to dig into the bark as they scrambled and jumped among the trees. All Gristle really needed was some kind of an attachment that would allow him to dig into bark and protect his foot at the same time.

Dan went back to the drawing board, the art room and the medicine cabinet. Before long she had created a number of prototypes. In the end, the successful contraption was a mechanical masterpiece. It looked like an upside-down miniature leg hold trap. When no weight was on it, it would sit completely flat. But when Gristle pushed down on it, the little teeth would dig into whatever Gristle was standing on.

Dan had used some of her mother's moleskin to make a padded area that would protect the underside of Gristle’s foot. It worked perfectly.

Once Gristle found that his foot had some use, he began to use his leg more and more. Within days he was running up and down the curtains, leaping across the doorframes making a complete mess of Dan's room.

You could always tell when Gristle was coming from the sound that he made... scurry, scurry, scurry clunk scurry, scurry, scurry, clunk.

It wasn't too long before Gristle recognized other benefits to his new prostheses as well. He found that if he pressed down with all of his weight on something that he could clasp completely, the new teeth on his foot would close together and handily clip it neatly in two.

Gristle found that his tool could be used to break open nuts, clip branches and cut down pinecones. So many jobs that his teeth used to do, now he could do with his foot. And it was so much easier too.

As Gristle began to be more comfortable with his new foot, he also began to spend more time outdoors until soon, the only time that Dan saw him was when Gristle came by to say hello and show her some new way that he learned to use his prosthesis.

And at some time during all of this, Gristle’s mind began to turn to the idea of revenge. Each day he worked hard to find a new and inventive way to use his foot and sooner or later his mind settled on Lawrence .

He began to worry himself gaunt thinking about all the ways he could get back at Lawrence . Gristle would often sit atop a large tree looking into Lawrence ’s back yard. It was clear that after all this time Lawrence was still as mean as ever. Countless animals had suffered since Gristle had been crippled. But now... Gristle had a ‘tool’. The ‘tool’ could bring justice.

When Gristle clattered over the fence that night, the catapult sat gloomily in the moonlit night. The strings, rope and wire made it look like an ancient torturing device... a fitting imagine.

As quietly as he could, (scuttle, scuttle, scuttle, CLANG, scuttle, scuttle, scuttle, CLANG) Gristle made his way over the fence and into Lawrence ’s yard of horror. He made his way stealthily to the catapult.

In less time than it takes to tell, the catapult was transformed into a heap of small bits. This catapult would never be used to send another critter into Dan's back yard.

The next day when Lawrence woke up and went out into his backyard he was horrified to find his prized possession transformed into a useless heap of rubbish. Who would do something like that? He ran into the house and into the kitchen where his mother was doing the breakfast dishes. He immediately threw himself to the floor (as was his custom) and had a fit at his mother's feet.

As always, Mrs. Binky promised Lawrence he could have anything he wanted if only he would stop screaming (this was also the custom), but none of the normal bribes worked.

Finally, after exhausting himself completely, Lawrence lay quietly on the kitchen floor and the truth suddenly became clear to him.

DAN! It was that little snot nose rodent loving tomboy from the other side of the fence. Right then and there, Lawrence became determined to get her back in some most malicious way.

But how was the question. What could he do to hurt her? He had tried to get at her before, but his efforts had never amounted to much of anything. Now it was imperative that she suffer.

In the mean time, Gristle watched the scene from his perch with interest. He was quite shocked and surprised to see the strange boy’s reaction to the loss of his toy. Gristle almost fell out of the tree with laughter. And when he got to the ground he rolled around in hysterics with his little attachment clanging in time with his fits of laughter.

But, Gristle was also watching and listening when Lawrence vowed revenge on Dan. Waiting until Lawrence was out of sight, Gristle made his way back to Dan's house.

Once there, he was able to get her attention by yelling at her bedroom window. Gristle told Dan everything he had heard. They sat together for a long time and when all was said, she put out her hand and Gristle slapped her five. As of yet neither knew what Lawrence might try, but they vowed they would be ready when the time came.

The first surprise came the very next day. Dan's mother sent her down the street to the mailbox. Dan lived at the top of a steep hill and she loved to coast her bike down to the mail as fast as she could. Today like any other, she got up a good head of steam and the wind was blowing her hair back as she sped down the hill. It was too late to stop when she noticed the street ahead littered with nails.

She slammed on the brakes and locked both tires up, but it was too late. The bike careened sideways down the street right into and through the pile of nails. The tires went flat instantly. The bike came to a sudden stop and Dan continued over the handlebars. She landed on the ground skidding through the nails and then continued to roll down the hill. When she finally came to a stop she lay in a motionless heap.

When Dan awoke, she found herself in her own bedroom. She tried to get up, but her head was pounding. She could feel the beat of her own heart in her temples. Weakly, she lay back down.

Gristle looked sadly in at the window as Dan's mother came in with a bowl of water and a cold compress. Dan's hands were cut and swollen. Her mother removed the bandages and put her hands in the cool water to soak. It was Gristle's turn to look on and wait for his friend to recover.

During the next weeks, it became clear to Gristle and Dan that Lawrence had to be stopped. The boy was clearly psychotic. He was a menace to society. He belonged behind bars, but how?

All great plans are simple and this was one of them. Dan and Gristle began to put it into action straight away.

Gristle started by talking to the other animals. This in itself was a difficult task since every animal in the animal kingdom hated Gristle and to boot, they were also deathly afraid of Lawrence .

But if Gristle was anything, he was persistent. He kept at the other creatures until finally one after another began to listen. Soon the entire rodent population had been recruited into Gristle’s service. Training began immediately.

At night, the raccoons would make a racket outside of Lawrence 's window so that he couldn't sleep. When he opened his window to shoo them away, the pigeons would swoop down on him. Whenever Lawrence left the house, the neighborhood dogs would worry him wherever he went.

For the next three weeks Lawrence got little sleep. He began to live in fear of going outside.

For Mrs. Binky, life was equally as bad. Her son began spending more and more time in the house. He began to loose weight. She could not figure out what was going on. Before, her son, who would hardly come in from outside for his lunch, but now he would rarely go outside at all.

For the first time since Lawrence and his family had moved to town, the birds once again began singing in the trees and many other squirrels and rodents returned to the nearby forest.

Then one day when Dan walked by the front of Lawrence 's house she noticed that the inside was dark. On the front lawn a Remax sign waved on its post. The driveway was quiet and forsaken. Not even a tonka or tricycle lay in the tall grass.

Throughout the years that followed, Dan continued her dedication to the animals and Gristle grew to become extraordinarily popular within the forest community. Dan had long since become fond of Gristle’s eccentricities and she changed his name from Gristle to Griz because of his immense bravery and audacity.

***