Johnny D Gets Goosed

---

JOHNNY D GETS GOOSED

So, Kate and I live at “Casa Bella” in an undiscovered area of northern California. There is a tidal creek at the end of our back yard. Twice a day we live near the water, and twice a day near the muck. Sometimes muck; sometimes water.
There is a protected island across the creek. Clapper Rails, Mr. and Mrs. Osprey, Snowy Egrets, a Great Blue Heron, and wee little unidentified birdies visit the island during the day. In the dusk, blue-black swallows dart around. At twilight, with a mountain that is supposed to resemble a sleeping princess as a background, a very moody barn owl glides past, appearing out of nowhere, stealth on wings, silent as a dead feather in a vacuum.
Not so long ago, the island was home for a wild goose, breezily named “Goosey” by those of us who had come to know, love or fear him.
Goosey was drawn to men, hated women, and had a very close encounter with my friend Johnny D., a longtime guide dog trainer, one of the best in the country.
Johnny D., like me, is a big guy and a former athlete. I think it’s fair to say that both of our most limber, lithe and acrobatic days are well behind us. I mean, I used to run a hundred yards pretty fast: I can’t even SEE that far now.
Now, Johnny D’s is from the U.P. (the Upper Peninsula) in Michigan. I knew that they did things differently up there, but…
Not long ago he was visiting Kate and me at the Bella.
“There is this goose” I told him, “He comes to me when I whistle. He beats his way over to the edge of the dock, and we hang out together. He honks, I listen. Sometimes he honks in more than one syllable, but it’s still the same sound. Sometimes he raises his neck, tosses back his little gooseyhead and furiously beats his wings to make a point. We have an understanding. I think he is trying to tell me that communication is frustrating when you have only one honk available in your vocabulary. I tell him, I understand, I tried to sing in a chorus once.
“Honk” he goes.
“I only had one sound in my repertoire that came close to sounding like a musical note. I may not have had a voice, but I had a strategy. I waited until that one note came around, and then I’d throw my voice at it, and then I’d duck just in case my voice missed.”
“Honk.”
"Beethoven." I added.
"Honk."
"Ode to Joy, actually. With the San Francisco Sinfionetta, and that extraordinary maestro, Urs Steiner. You'd like him, Goosey."
"Honk."
“Bass section, I was."
“I will train that goose to fetch”, Johnny D declared.
“You can’t train a goose to fetch” I said derisively. “I mean, even if you ARE from the U.P.” (as I said, they do things differently up there), “you can’t teach a goose how to fetch”.
“I taught a chicken how to fetch, once,” says Johnny D.. “How much more difficult can training a goose be? Whistle him over”.
So, I did. I gave my purest goose whistle, and sure enough, Goosey appeared across the creek on the island. Jubilantly, if in a rather ungainly fashion, Goosey plunged like a bold swimmer into the creek and pounded his way through the water to the dock where Johnny D and I were waiting.
We had some string. We had some goose food . It was gourmet goose food actually. It looked like organic corkscrews and wood-hued grommets, twisted gnarly fescue, clumps of our cat’s (Billie Louise Booddjey) fur.
I figured that Johnny D would tie some gourmet goose food to the string, and work it from there.
I was wrong. To my astonishment, Johnny D swooped up Goosey and proceeded to hold him in his big arms. Goosey was shocked at first. I’d like to say that his eyes got real wide, but I’m not sure that a goose’s eyes can do that.
After a very brief few seconds of flapping his wings furiously, Goosey suddenly became all quite like and peaceful. After all, he had already pursued so many of the men in the neighborhood, if only to hang out with them. To actually be in contact with one of them: this was a revelation indeed, and Goosey was digging it big time.
“First thing about working with an animal: you want to gain its trust” Johnny D said after holding and stroking the goose for a while.
Goosey was REAL peaceful now, almost euphoric, blissful.
I have to admit that I was getting jealous. Here I had thought that me and Goosey had a special relationship. The tramp.
Johnny D laid down on the deck. Goosey was totally pacified by now. It was like the two of them were going to take a nap together.
Ahhh… but nature, she has its ways.
The minute Johnny D was lying on the dock, Goosey saw a chance in a lifetime opportunity.
“There are three things that are essential, primal, instinctive in all creatures,” the text book tells us.
“Remember the letter F to memorize them:1) Food 2) Fight or Flee and, last, in order to continue as a species, 3) Fu…”
Just then Goosey mounted Johnny D, like a starving Rottweiler pouncing upon an unsuspecting ham sandwich.
Kate screamed.
Johnny D suddenly went into paroxysm of laughter, and was immobilized by a bout of uncontrollable hilarity. Seized silly.
Me, I kept my camcorder going. You will find the video of it, with Johnny D’s blessing and permission, at the top of this blog.
As for any further description of what went down between Johnny D and Goosey, for decorum’s sake I will only mention that, when I described this part of the adventure to my friend Arial, she said, “Well, if this were a French film the goose would have rolled over and smoked a cigarette.”
They do things differently in the UP.
******
It’s fair to say that after Johnny D left things had changed for me and Goosey. Sure, we were still close, but now it was like some kind of bond was broken. I just wasn’t sure I could trust him anymore. I wish that, before I had made an emotional commitment to him, I could have known he was the kind of fowl that would mess around with other guys.
I only saw him two more times. One evening, Kate and I were taking a moonlight rowboat ride around the island. There, just on the other side of the little bridge, we saw him, and he saw us, and it took everything he had to keep from honking out to me, but he knew he had to remain silent. Then Kate and I realized his dilemma: he was sitting on a duck nest, protecting some eggs. Apparently he gotten a babysitting gig somehow, and he was determined not to blow it.
A few weeks after that, he saw me standing on the dock, forlorn, maybe weeping, and he floated over contritely, and I picked him up in my arms as Johnny D had showed me how to do, and I asked him, “Why, Goosey, why?”
But he could only reply with his threadbare timeworn solitary honk.
Not long after that I came down with the worst case of Poison Oak I had ever experienced. There are certain nooks and crannies and top secret places in the human body that you didn’t even know existed until you get a case of Poison Oak like the case I got from Goosey.
Still, hoping against hope, I wanted to see my untrustworthy friend at least one more time. But after months of futile waiting, I had to face the truth.
And I had to break the news to Johnny D.
“The goose is long gone,” I emailed him. “Vamanoosed. Vanished. Cooked.”
“I loved that goose” Johnny D wrote back.
And so, my friends, did I.
Sometimes muck. Sometimes water.

---

Comments

[Aerial]

Goosey is on a mission
He is migrating to the UP to find John!

[Linda Myers]

He will be back!
I am sure Goosey will return. He might be waiting for Johnny D to visit again.