Goat Love

In an afternoon worthy of his epithet, the Great Dane made a goat. Well, two goats. “Two perfect goats,” as he could be heard chanting, sometimes just to himself.

To make a goat is, of course, no simple process. It began days before, with a long negotiation, conducted by the Crazy Belgian Boy Scout (he is, after all, the only one in the house who speaks French, whose reputation as the language of diplomacy still, inexplicably, sticks). The bargaining ended so well for buyer and seller that the seller invited him for a beer.

And thus is born the union of which a great day was made: Goats, and beer. (Alas, a beer or two was displaced in the making of said goats, which overtook our fridge for a day.)

I was sleeping off a night of dancing on Sunday morning, but at 8 am the Men transformed a bald patch on our lawn into a barbecue pit: coals spread on the ground, a big strip of metal fencing held up by rocks dug up from…somewhere, and on top, two goats that somehow seemed earnestly pleased to be placed on the impromptu grill. The Men hollered back and forth at each other like a married couple, each so convinced of the other’s reliability that they drop the pretense of politeness in pursuit of a shared vision: I need the charcoal.
Get me a lighter, would you?
My foot is burning, hurry up with that water.
It was, somehow, kind of sweet.

I did not rouse myself until a few hours later, when I’m guessing things looked much like they did at the start. (If you keep reading, you’ll get pictures, and the rest of the post, but I didn’t want to just throw carcasses up on the blog without warning you….)

I don’t know if it’s the way that cigarette is hanging, the beer at such an hour, or simply the uniquely strange masculinity that shirtlessly grilling goats somehow gives off, but it felt, for a few hours that morning, like Hunter S. Thompson lived again, in my Rwandan garden, with a Danish accent. He did, as promise, give those goats love all afternoon, and when the Crazy Belgian Boy Scout put his survival skills to work and carved them up, the Great Dane looked on like the proud father of newborn twins.

So proud, indeed, he decorated them:

The rest of the afternoon was awash in alcohol and revelry, most of it in French, with a brief and failed attempt by my our newest American roommate to teach whiffle ball, a game quickly outshone by a half-inflated soccer ball held together with duct tape…

This morning, I announced my intention to share with the inquiring public the news of the Great Dane’s grand success. “Wait, my goats are going on the Internet?” He stops to consider whether he can tolerate this violation of privacy for his dear ones.

“That’s good. They deserve that.”