Goat Reckoning

My spousal unit was going through one of her piles of stuff yesterday when she came up with these two invitations to a couple of my early parties. Both of these particular parties were from our first year hanging out with each other, our deal hadn't really been done or, sealed, should I say, until the amazing interstellar propeller party.

It was an extraordinary event that I can't even begin to recount, culminated in a massive weird bug attack, something I have never seen before or since. And that was the very night that we decided to hitch our wagons and travel down the road of life together.

I don't really know what interstellar propeller is supposed to signify. Maybe I forgot. May have been trying to invoke the ancient gods or spirits in some arcane way.

My parties used to be sort of legendary around these parts and sometimes they took a couple of days to finish. The invitation was your ticket to ride and definitely meet some great people. Think we played volleyball at this one, the time Nitza hurt her finger.

You see how crude my computer graphic skills were back then. No photoshop in those days, you sort of had to figure things out on your own, which I often did. Forget which antediluvian drawing program I was messing with at this point. I am sure that the paper tore off a roll and the edges. Drawing with a mouse was never easy.

The carnivorous happening is four months later. Leslie had now moved in and we had bought ourselves a goat, a young goat named Annabelle. I bought Annabelle to keep my arabian horse Jasper company but he chased her around and around the pasture, not real keen on the idea. In fact he would have none of it.

This particular goat did two things quite proficiently, jump and shit, sometimes in tandem. We had bought her with a purpose in mind, a goat barbecue. Or should I say, I did, my girlfriend Leslie not real keen on the idea of eating a pet. And after three of four months of fattening, our sacrifice was ready for the pyre.

I drew up this invite and invited a couple of hundred people out to the ranch. We hired a Oaxacan man to help us butcher and prepare the goat. I dug a large pit that we filled with rocks. I had to turn my head when they hung the goat from a patio structure and killed her. Never killed a friend before and never since either. Put her on a board and covered her in large agave leaves, Oaxacan style. She stayed in the pit cooking for about five or six hours. Quite tender.

It was as gross as you could imagine.

Leslie wouldn't eat a single bite. I had one bite and spit it out, sick to my stomach. Never again will I chomp on a family member.

Everybody had a hell of a good time. Except for Leslie, me and of course, the goat.