I am Roadkill

I live in Wisconsin. It’s very rural. When we drive by roadkill, my partner makes sure to tell me that it’s just sleeping.

When I’m alone, driving to work, confronted by the same thing, I try not to look because I know there’s a 1 in 100 chance it’s a cat. That happened to me once about 6 years ago and again, accidentally, this morning.

I love cats. This one’s eyes were fixed in my headlights (I’m sure it was gone). It was a busy highway, so naturally, I risked my life to swerve around it, honking my horn to safely warn other drivers, who, in turn very likely believed I was honking at the cat and therefore the one who killed it.

(I just didn’t want to desecrate it.)

I grew up around the thick smell of formaldehyde. My father, the ghoul, taught high school biology. His advanced bio students dissected cats. As a small child, I would walk to his classroom from my elementary school and every year, re-discover a small morgue of about 15 dead cats, neatly stacked on examining trays, in the back of his classroom. From a young age, I didn’t just learn what a cat looked like on the outside.

Often, there’d be students working after school on their big cat project. Some of them got to know me very well as I provided them with, in retrospect, an unusual audience. Since I was the teacher’s son, I got away with it—but probably shouldn’t have.

I remember, as a third grader, being very happy to find a discarded liver. With an unattended scalpel, I carved a TV into it because that’s what I really wanted to watch. I was bored and fucking stupid. I took this liver and carried it into the hallway where I found the high school cheerleaders working on a paper banner. One looked up as I approached, her face changed and she announced more than asked, “W-What is that?”

I learned that day, girls don’t like when you approach them while you’re holding a random cat organ. I pretended I just wanted to SHOW it to them. I asked them what their favorite TV show was. Eventually, I retreated back to the biology room.

I deeply regret all of this. I genuinely do. I know I’ve framed it as a darkly amusing story but I’m masking shame with humor. (It was also 40 years ago. So, if you’ve ever wondered what kids did before the internet, there you go. Oh, did you show someone a gross video on your phone once? Amateur.)

When I say I’m an animal lover, now, don’t read that like so many other people write it. A lot can change in 40 years. I’m vegan. Like, I genuinely love them. It’s the difference between someone who reads Harry Potter and someone who isn’t a transphobe.

But when I do write it, know that I’m also aware no one is reading what I write. I’m like that cat on the road, today. So much potential for cuddles and toe-beans and bitchy-cat stuff everyone loves … “sleeping” on the road.