Rerun

This is from Fall of 2006. I wrote it for an assignment on dialogue (I think). It won an award and a contest but failed to make me a stud with the ladies.

Lawns Like White Elephants

As Ronald “Ron” Johansen awoke one morning from uneasy dreams, he found on his front lawn a very large and very dead elephant. Now, the appearance of a deceased elephant on one’s front lawn is not an entirely foreign sight if one lives in an exotic locale such as the high deserts of Africa, the outskirts of Bangladesh, or certain parts of Wisconsin, but Ron Johansen and his family and his lawn were proud and productive citizens of Cheboygan, Arizona. While Cheboygan, a bustling tourist community in the summer season, is known for its jeep tours of the desert and its proximity to various canyons, it is not well known for its elephants—and for good reason: until this morning, no one had ever seen an elephant in Cheboygan.

The noble creature’s carcass didn’t seem to be harming anyone or anything—though its presence probably wasn’t great for the grass. Ron wondered if he might be able to just leave it there and let it decompose and, hopefully, fertilize his lawn and make it greener than Steve Schuster’s lawn next door. Walking cautiously around it, Ron found that there was no note or anything attached to the elephant to indicate its origin and, stranger still, there didn’t seem to be any tracks or drag marks around the lawn. It was as if the beast had materialized in that spot for the sole purpose of confusing Ronald Johansen. A minivan drove by carrying Cindy Martinez’s boys to Tomahawk Middle School and Cindy Martinez to the Southwestern novelty store she owned in town. Next door, Steve Schuster walked out to the sidewalk in his bathrobe to pick up his newspaper. For everyone but Ron, it seemed, it was a perfectly normal Tuesday morning.

Loosening his tie and rolling up his sleeves, Ron stretched his back and shook out his arms and legs. It had been a long time since he played third string fullback for Cheboygan High School intramural football league but he figured it would come back to him. He sized up his adversary. The elephant was very large and, dead, looked very much like a large boulder. Ron tried to make a mental projection of the best way to roll the thing to the curb; that would be the easy part. Calling the Cheboygan Sanitation Department and explaining to them that they needed to come and collect a two-ton dead elephant, that would be difficult.

“Mornin’, neighbor.” Steve Schuster, newspaper under his arm, was waving at Ron as he walked back into his house. He didn’t seem to notice the impending man v. nature battle that was about to take place between Ron and the elephant.

“Mornin’,” replied Ron. He didn’t know if Steve had heard or not since he was already inside. Had they known each other better, Ron might have asked Steve to help him roll the dead animal off his lawn. Taking a few deep breaths and glancing briefly at the sky in silent prayer, Ron launched his whole body weight into the elephant on his lawn. It didn’t budge. He attacked again. Nothing.

“Honey? What are you doing? Where did that elephant come from?” Rhonda Johansen, Ronald’s wife of twenty-three years stood on the threshold, dressed for work with a travel mug of coffee in her hand.

“I don’t know. I came outside this morning and here it was. Can’t get the darn thing to budge.”

“Well …well where did it come from? Is there a note or something on it?”

“No, hon, I checked. Think we ought to call poison control? I was pushing up against it just now.”

“Why on Earth would we need poison control for that?”

“Well maybe it’s poisonous. Like some snakes have poisonous skin.”

“Snakes are reptiles.”

“Elephants are reptiles, right?”

“What?”

“Like Gila Monsters and Rattlesnakes.”

“No.”

“What?”

“Elephants aren’t reptiles, silly.”

“Then what are they, then?”

“Marsupials? I don’t know. Honey, what are we going to do about the dead elephant on our front lawn?”

“I had thought about leaving it here. It might decompose into fertilizer.”

“We can’t just leave it there. What will the neighbors think?”

“I don’t think they’ll notice.”

There was a moment of silence while the Johansens thought about this. Though it was still early in the morning, a monsoon cloud was forming in the North. The morning sunlight, not yet obscured by clouds, reflected dully off the elephant’s back. It was Rhonda who broke the silence.

“We can’t just leave it out like this for everyone to see.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right.”

“Can we cover it with blue tarp?”

“I suppose.”

The Johansens went into their cluttered garage and, after moving some boxes around, emerged with a paint stained blue tarp.

“We’d better get Ronnie to help us.”

Ron went inside to wake his daughter, Ronnie.

“Where did the elephant come from?” asked Ronnie, wiping sleep from her eyes. Cheboygan High School had a late start today. She had hoped to sleep in.

“We don’t know. Help dad and I cover it with a tarp.”

“Okay.”

Together, father, mother, and daughter, they covered the once magnificent beast with the paint stained blue tarp, weighting the corners with some desert rocks and the lawnmower. Rhonda refilled her travel mug and watched the blue mass, breathing with wind, shrink and disappear in her review mirror. Ronnie looked forward to seeing a boy at school and went back to bed. Alone with a tarp—covered elephant, Ron smoked a cigarette and remembered the newspaper was still on the sidewalk.