It was a hot and lazy Thursday evening, it felt like it could be June but it was nearly Halloween, Renee and Dean Chenore were recent transplants from Chicago’s uppity North Shore to the rural townships of South Carolina and this was the hottest autumn in 65 years. It was also one of the first times The Chicago Cubs were still playing baseball so late in the season, Renee had just sat down to watch the game when she cracked open a beer and said something lame about her husband not being there, “You wanted to watch the game, you turned up the air so we could watch this stupid game…where are you?”
“Don’t feed the dog fruit!” Renee went to grab the peach from Bushman’s mouth but the dog wanted to play tug-of-war, Renee was irritated, “Bushman, no! Gimme the peach!”
“He’s an Allman Brother…” Dean quipped as he swung his feet upon the coffee table, “Eat a Peach, brother dog!”
“He’ll get sick…” Renee’s fingers can’t grip the slippery peach, “Dean, get the peach from the dog!”
“C’mere boy!” Dean put his hand down near the big dog’s big black shaggy head, “Spit it out!” the dog did as he was asked and walked away without a second thought, “Eeew…this peach has been dogged!” Dean held the mush piece of fruit up like an alien object, “Gross! Want some?” he dangled in front of his wife who shrieked, “It’s only a fruit, dear…” Dean wrapped the mangled fruit in a napkin as the sportscaster yelled something exciting from the television, Dean yelled, “What the hell?”
“Holy Cow!” Renee laughed, “The Cubs win the first game!”
“It’s over?” Dean’s shoulder’s slumped, his voice damp, “I didn’t get to see a single play!”
“Sorry baby…” Renee patted her loving husband’s half round belly, “You’ll have to take the day off tomorrow, otherwise you’ll miss that game too!”
“I hate this job, I hate this place.” Dean clicked off the television, crossed his arms and pouted, “Why the hell did I take this do nothing job in a hell hole like this place?”
“Two words…” Renee purred, “Mon-Eee!”
“Money, fuck money…” Dean closed his eyes and tilted his head back, “I miss Chicago.”
“Yeah? You miss Chicago?” Renee knew Dean didn’t mean it, he never liked Chicago and couldn’t wait to get out of there, anywhere was better he often said, he hated Chicago, “You miss the weather? The high was only 38 today…or walking the dog and picking up his poop in plastic bags? You miss that?”
“No, well, no…” Dean lifted his resting head and Bushman lifted his resting head with the sounds of the words walking and poop, the master noticed the dog and said, “You want to go out Bushman?”
“Deal…” Dean stood up and Bushman did too, then to the dog he said, “Come on boy, let’s go shit with freedom in the South Carolina countryside!”
“Lock up when you come in…” Renee said as Dean and the dog walked towards the back door, “Then come find me…okay?”
“I think I know where to look…” Dean chuckled with a creepy but loving laugh as he stepped into the warm, steaming evening, he continued talking to Bushman the dog, “I’m gonna hit a homerun tonight boy!”
Passion runs deep between lovers, this was so with Renee and Dean, their passion ran deep and long into the night. Hours later, when they were sitting in bed sharing a fat joint and contemplating life as lovers often do, there was a loud smashing sound from the kitchen. Renee jumped with a startled moment of fear, she grabbed Dean’s naked arm and urged him, “What the hell was that? Did you hear that?” her eyes wide, her heart beating faster, “What the hell was that sound?”
“It was probably Bushman…” Dean tossed the covers off his wiry naked body and shuffled towards the kitchen, Renee, wrapped in a blanket, followed closely behind him, “I left him outside, he was into the midnight moonlight scene and I figured it was cool, right?”
“I guess…” Renee wasn’t too sure, she stood behind her man as he flipped on the kitchen light and they saw their beautiful Newfoundland standing at the backdoor, something dangled from his mouth, “What the hell does he have? What is that?”
“A dead critter, he probably caught something…” Dean unlocked the door and let the big, black, furry Bushman inside as the dog carried in the dead, dirty object in his mouth, “Yeah, it has hair…he caught a critter or something…” bending over, Dean reached for the dog, “What do you got boy?”
“It looks like…a head!” Renee gasped with horror, “It’s a small child’s head, ohmigawd!”
“It’s not a head, silly…” Dean reached for the dead something in the dog tight jaws, as he tried to pull it from the big beast, the dog pulled back, “It’s a critter, it’s a, it’s a…a…rabbit?”
“A rabbit?” Renee’s lips curled with disgust as the dog finally dropped the dirty animal on the kitchen floor and looked up at the couple with a doggy smile of pride, “Like a bunny rabbit?”
“Well, yeah…a field rabbit or something.” Dean kicked the dead bunny with his naked foot and asked the dog again, “Where did you get that Bushman? Did you catch that little sucker? Good boy!”
“Dean?” Renee knelt down for a closer look at the dead animal on her kitchen floor, “That doesn’t look like a field rabbit…it’s so big, so fat and fluffy…and dirty, it’s really, really dirty.”
“Well sure, the dog did a canine ritual, dragged it in the dirt…” Dean pat the dog on the head and bent closer for a look at the dead rabbit, “He played with it after he killed it…right?”
“Did he?” Renee’s face became white as she stood up with the frightening realization, “Dean, this is not a field rabbit…this is a bunny rabbit, like a little kid’s pet bunny, that kind of bunny rabbit.”
“A bunny rabbit?”
“A pet rabbit?”
“From next door…” Renee’s eyes welled up with tears, “Oh gawd, Dean, Bushman ate the neighbor’s pet bunny rabbit! Oh my, he ate their bun-bun!”
“Their bun-bun?” Dean flipped the dead critter over with his foot, “What bun-bun?”
“In that cage, in their backyard…that bunny?” Renee was shaking with anxiety, her voice vibrating as quickly as he heart raced, she imagined the horror of their pet’s crime, “We’re the bunny killers!”
“Bunny killers?” Dean laughed, “We’re no stinking bunny killers!”
“Dean, this is awful, this is…” Renee choked back a sob, “this is tragic!”
“Tragic?” Dean shook his head amused with the notion this was some kind of tragic event, he reasoned with his frantic wife, “Renee, it’s not tragic…tragic is Bushman eating the kid next door, not the stupid bunny…why did they leave the bunny in a cage? That’s stupid, it’s asking for troubles, this is what they get…it’s not our fault, it’s the circle of life, man!”
“Oh Dean, imagine those kids in the morning…” Renee’s voice cracked, “They come to find the bunny gone, eaten by the new neighbor’s dog…we’re screwed, we’re, we’re…screwed!”
“Screwed?” Dean laughed nervously, “No, we can fix this, I can fix this…come on, I have an idea, get me a couple of clean towels, the mayonnaise, an egg and the bong…”
“Mayonnaise, an egg and the bong?” Renee stood up and started walking to the fridge, “What do you need the mayo, egg and bong for, Dean, what are you going to do?”
“It’s hair conditioner.” Dean walked to the bathroom calling back, “The towels, don’t forget towels.”
“The bong in hair conditioner?” Renee followed her husband down the hall, “Really?”
“The bong is for you…” Dean turned the water in the tub on and sat down on the floor, “You need to fucking chill out…some music too, put on some music.”
“Music? Bong?” Renee was confused but had stopped sobbing, “Dean, what the hell are you doing?”
“Making all things right in the world…” Dean let the tub fill with a few inches of water, “Please, just do what I ask, I have a plan and it’s going to work, okay?”
“Plan? What plan?” Renee asked as she started backing out of the bathroom, “What music?”
“Grateful Dead seems appropriate, right?” Dean chuckled, “It’s a dead bunny, Grateful Dead, okay?”
“You’re sick, you’re twisted…” Renee left to fetch the bong, start some music and when she came back to the bathroom, Dean had the bunny submerged in the water and Renee freaked out, “What the hell are you doing? Oh mu gawd, you’re a fucking sociopath!”
“What?” Dean continued rinsing the dirt off the very white bunny, “It’s dead, it’s not like I’m drowning it or anything…relax, just keep the bong packed and I’ll take care of everything.”
“So, you’re going to what? Wash it?” Renee packed the bong and handed it to Dean, “Wash it, dry it…then what, take it out?”
“Oh no…” Dean let the dead bunny soak in the water and before he took a hit from the bong, he chuckled, “I never date my customers…no, this will work, trust me, it will work.”
“I hope so, I don’t think I could handle this otherwise…” Renee sighed as she watched her husband clear the bong, hand it back to her and as he exhaled and returned to washing the dead critter, she repacked the bong for herself and told her a husband a story he never heard before, “When I was a little girl, I was eight or nine years old…we just moved to Gila Run in New Mexico…we were there only a few weeks, it was the second week of school and it was the worst thing…” Renee paused to take her hit from the bong as the music played and Dean continued washing the dead rabbit in the tub, “I was sitting on the patio in back, I was playing with my toys when this huge, big green and brown Gila Monster came crawling from the yard towards me…I was scared, I was fucking freaked out, it looked like a monster and so I started screaming…wild, blood curdling screams of terror…it was awful.”
“I bet, sounds scary…” Dean finished with rinsing and cleaning the dead bunny, he started to towel the limp, floppy rabbit as he wife exhaled before she continued with her story, “So what happened?”
“Your dad was quite the stud, eh?” Dean finished blow drying the dead bunny and set it down on the floor in a towel as he took a second hit from the bong, “So, that terrorized you, eh?”
“That wasn’t the worst part…” Renee shook her head, her voice still filled with shame of the event from 30 years ago, “It turned out that it wasn’t just some random, wild Gila monster, it was the mascot of the tow of Gila Run!”
“The mascot?” Dean coughed with disbelief, “The Gila Monster was the town pet?”
“Yes, it’s name was Gilberto…it roamed the entire town for almost 15 years before, before…daddy killed it…” Renee took the empty bong from her husband and as she packed one more hit for herself, she concluded the story, “After that, it was really awful…we were completely ostracized, shunned by the community. The kids called me “The Gila Killa” at school…I had no friends, daddy’s business was a failure…my mother couldn’t even go to the church she was so embarrassed…they just never forgave us, they, they never accepted us…and this is the same thing, it’s the same thing all over again!”
“No, this is not the same thing…” Dean picked up the very dead, very floppy bunny and teased it’s furry white hair while he spoke like a gay hair dresser, “Oh darling, you are drop dead gorgeous!”
“Stop it, this is not funny!”
“Why?” Renee followed Dean into the bedroom as he quickly changed into the shadowy spy outfit, “What are planning on doing next?”
“I am going to be a stealth motherfucker…” Dean slipped into a Humphrey Bogart accent, “See darling, me and this bunny, we got a destiny to fulfill…we got a mission, a mission from Bugs Bunny!”
“You’re crazy…” Renee shook her head in disbelief, “This is not going to work, we’re going to hell, we’re screwed, they’ll know…they’ll know…know it was us, it was our dog…it was Bushman!”
“No, all dogs go to heaven and so will Bushman!” Dean smeared black shoe polish on his face and returned to the bathroom to fetch the very dead bunny rabbit, “So will you and me too, this is going to be alright, it will work out just fine…have faith, baby!”
“Faith…yeah, right.” Renee shrugged as she followed Dean to the back door. Dean held the dead pet close to his chest and then, before disappearing into the night, he dramatically turned to Renee for a kiss, she kissed him, “Good luck Agent Dean!”
“Thanks, sweetheart…” Dean said like Bogart again, “but I make my own luck.”
Renee watched her husband as he duck walked across their lawn in the dark of the half moon’s light, she chuckled as Dean held the dead bunny in the towel between his teeth while he half leaped over the small fence between their big yard and their neighbor’s bigger lawn. He looked foolish as he crawled army commando style across their grass and crept like a suburban ninja on their patio to the bun-bun cage at the far end. Renee held her breath in silence as Dean set the dead pet next to the cage, slowly and as quietly as possible he opened the small creaking door. He unwrapped the towel, the very dead bunny was so clean, it’s white furry limp body almost glowed in the subtle moonlight as Dean carefully placed the critter inside the cage before he closed the little, creaky door and snapped it shut.
Another hot and steaming day in late October, Dean was already outside mowing the backyard when Renee walked outside with her first cup of Joe in hand. Dean smiled at his wife and Renee smiled back at her husband as she raised her cup with a loving greeting. So far, so good, she was thinking as she took a seat at the table and continued to watch Dean walk back and forth across the yard, pushing the loud lawn mower with determination. The dog was on his tether and sitting peacefully next to Renee on the patio when she saw the mother neighbor next door come outside. Renee looked down at her dog, pretending not to notice the woman. Dean saw the woman too, he turned around to walk away from her when they both heard the shriek, that blood curdling scream of agony. Dean continued to mow, also pretending not to hear the next door neighbor woman as she frantically called for her husband, “Ryan! Ryan! Oh My God!!! Ryan!!!” and although both Renee and Dean wanted to continue ignoring the drama, it would be both rude and suspicious to not show concern, the poor woman sounded like she was going to have a seizure, “Ryan! It’s…Ryan! Come here!”
“What is it Sarah?” the husband next door, Ryan, ran outside followed by two kids, a boy and a girl, about 8 and 10 years old, the family ran to they hysterical woman, “Woman, are you alright?”
“Dean? Dean! Dean?!” Renee called out a few times before her husband turned off the mower and finally heard her, “Dean, what’s wrong?”
“I’m not sure…” Dean said loud enough so that if anybody heard him say anything, it wasn’t an admission of guilt. He walked next to Renee and they watched like concerned neighbors should do as the family all suddenly started crying, saying amen and praising Jesus. Dean whispered, “What the hell?”
“They obviously found it…” Renee whispered with onus, “We’re screwed, we’re so busted…oh, Dean… go there, go talk to them, tell them the truth…”
“The truth?” Dean protested but then the husband next door, Ryan, looked up and saw the guilty couple watching from their yard. The man waved at them, Dean blushed, “What is the truth? Shit, I better go there…stay here.”
“No, I’m going with you…” Renee held Dean’s hand as they together began to slowly walk towards the back fence between their yards, she whispered, “You do the talking.”
“Hello!” Dean called out as the came to the fence and their neighbors, holding the dead bunny in his hand, followed by his wife and kids, walked towards the guilty couple, “Is everything alright over there? We heard the screams, and well…is everything okay?”
“It’s our bunny rabbit…” the man held the dead critter out, it hung from the neighbor’s trembling hands with a deadness that looked both shameful and sinful, the man said, “He’s, he’s dead…”
“Oh, gee, I’m…I’m so sorry…I know, it’s hard to lose a pet…” Dean was sincerely sorry, he truly felt the pain of loss and a big heap of guilt, he stammered, “I know, if my dog…our dog…when it dies…I mean…”
“No, no you don’t understand…” the next door neighbor man interrupted with his calm, easy on the ears southern drawl, “The bunny died, we buried it three days ago…”
“Today I found him in his cage!” the neighbor wife interjected with a kindly smile, “He’s cleaner than the day he died…”
“You don’t say?” Renee played dumb.
“I don’t know what to say…” Dean was filled to the brim with remorse, with shame, with sheer heavy guilt, he was going to spill the beans and come clean himself, “It’s…it’s hard to say…”
“A miracle from God!” the next door neighbor woman jubilantly rejoiced, “We are blessed!”
“Blessed?” Renee’s jaw dropped as she glanced at her husband.
“A Miracle?” Dean stopped his admission, the culpability faded quickly, “Miracle from God?”
“Indeed, praise us Jesus, the Bunny has Come Back from The Dead!” the main continued to praise the Lord in the backyard as the children laughed and his wife started singing some Gospel hymn, “Like Christ on The Cross, after three days he has returned…we are blessed, this is a sign from heaven!”
“A sign from heaven…” Renee could hardly hold her laughter, she tittered under her breath, “Dean, let’s let them have their peace…”
“Well, yes…Amen, amen brother and sister…” Dean nodded kindly as he and Renee stepped backwards away from the blessed family rejoicing in the return of the three day dead bunny rabbit. Dean’s smile was askew as he again waved and said, “It is a miracle, somebody should call a preacher!”
“Yes! Yes! Yes!” the man was almost delirious with elation, they danced as they held the dead bunny up in the pale morning light, “Amen brothers and sisters, praise to all!”
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| Cover of "The Sacred Bunny of Love" audioplay |
“Yes, indeed!” Dean waved one last time as he and Renee stepped back inside, “I guess that goes to show you…” he said and closed the door, “One man’s sin is another man’s miracle…”
“And dog spelled backwards is god too…” Renee grabbed her husband tightly, “I Love You.”
