W. A. Reed

Fiction Archives

Connie Keeps Goats
By W. A. Reed
from Volume7 Issue2

Connie keeps goats. Many of them she treats like children. She calls them by name, caters to them with maternal pomp and circumstance. She bathes them in lemon juice and Chanel No. 5. She ties bright ribbons in their coarse hair. They live in her house, sample the raspberry pies she bakes with her glasses perched high on top of her head.

Connie's farm lies just inside the city's limits. It had been built beyond the clamor of civilization, at a time when second-growth forests still crowded the small farmers' wheat fields and ragged fence lines. Decades of urban sprawl had resulted in several expansions to the city's already haphazard boundaries, and zoning had never been a popular plan among the area's cluster of family farms. For years, Connie had fought with the city's floundering fathers.

"You're a hard woman, Connie"

"Bullheaded."

"Stubborn as a damned mule," they had all agreed.

"You just can't keep a stinkin' herd of Pygmy goats in the city. Speak nothin' about live with 'em, let 'em eat off the table."

Following a number of halfhearted attempts to reach a settlement, to come to some agreement, Connie and the city council had only agreed to disagree. Throughout the process, she 'd ridiculed their indecisiveness. She'd questioned their character, their moral fiber, and in an emotional rage charged each of them with incompetence. Noting the mounting support of their stoic wives, all the while convinced of her own strong standing, she had even threatened to run for mayor.

"Run, Connie, run!" the council members ' wives had cried.

"Let 's show these horses ' arses how to play pin the tail on a donkey, " they encouraged each other.

Eventually, decided in the courts by right of eminent domain, calmly, safely outside the jurisdiction of the city council, the goats had been grandfathered. A sympathetic judge and a jury of Connie 's peers had observed the goats and listened to her impassioned pleas. It was in early spring, with the daffodils and tulips nearly in bloom, that they 'd been awarded a lifetime tenancy - Connie's lifetime, the decision made clear, not the goats'.

"Rascal, you and your cronies get yourselves away from there. If I've told you once, I've told you a dozen times," her voice rising as she surveys the other goats from across the kitchen. "I baked them cookies for the Sunshine Club!" White sugar hermits. Rascal grunts, backs away from the kitchen table with a sniff and a disapproving glare. "That goes for you too, Kate. I've got eyes in the back of my head, swear I do."

The farm is not easily seen from the streets that curl to the south and around its northwest corner. Weathered to blend with the ancient lilacs that crowd three sides of the frame house, narrow clapboards meet at odd angles to shutters and window frames. The roof's cedar shingles are discolored from the moss and spidery lichens that attach themselves to their rough surfaces. Loose bricks perch precariously on the edges of the two crumbling chimneys, beneath which broken glass glitters from around the chimneys ' stone foundations. To the uninformed, the house might appear to be suffering from disrepair and neglect. To Connie and her goats, the house's natural decay is beautiful, oddly endearing. And in many ways, enchanting.

The interior of Connie's house presents a dramatic contrast to its exterior. In nearly pristine condition, the house is tastefully furnished with period pieces. Some of the pieces had simply remained there, having been handed down through Connie 's family; others were acquired at the auctions and tag sales of deceased neighbors. Braided rugs and oriental carpet remnants are scattered throughout Connie 's smallish rooms and connecting corridors, reminding her of specific people she 'd known in her lifetime. With increasing frequency, she seems to be losing her aging neighbors and friends. The hardwood floors in her house had been constructed by local craftsmen from a combination of black Missouri walnut and bird's-eye maple. Painted in a rainbow of pastel colors, the plastered walls resemble those of the patched and faded stucco paradores found in Central and South America. High ceilings depict pastoral scenes in repeating panels of pressed tin. The house is bright and kept clean as a hospital.

Connie keeps goats. She talks to them, tells them her deepest secrets. She asks their advice, listens carefully when they breathe into her ear. They tap-dance when she sings and grumble when she scolds them for scuffing the parqueted floors.

She grooms the goats, tenderly, and with an eye out for scurvy. She feeds them apples to keep their teeth clean. "It 's a good way to prevent premature gum disease," she advises. She arranges for the apples through a friend of Nate Cauldrey 's, preferring the crisp Macintosh varietal native to Vermont and central Maine.

The goats are clearly not cut from blue ribbon material. Their symmetry and proportion were not high priorities in the breeding process. Coloration was more a matter of natural order than selective screening. The goats ' manners were not acquired at Cambridge or Harvard or some fancy finishing school. They had come to Connie over a period of several years as misfits, her social outcasts, she had confided to friends.

Rascal is Connie's dearest and oldest friend. He 's the first one she turns to when she feels out of sorts, or at times of loneliness. Though he seems able to anticipate her fleeting moments of insecurity and provides her the comfort of his familiar touch, their relationship is certainly not without conflict. Much to Connie's displeasure, Rascal's propensity for trouble is legendary among the other goats. He delights them with his mischief and his uncanny sense of timing. He rearranges the furniture. He drinks from the toilet, lifting the seat cover with his nose and leaving puddles of toilet water on the linoleum floor. As guests are arriving, he 's just as inclined to eat a plate of tuna fish sandwiches as he is to fall asleep on them. Like a good husband, he frequently finds himself at the center of Connie's wrath. But in him, she also finds companionship and consolation.

"Rascal, swear to God, I don't know what I'm going to do with you," picking up what remains of her potted Christmas cactus.

Kate rubs against Connie 's ankles, down low where they swell into her shoes. She nibbles Connie 's shoelaces, nudges her knees as the other goats notice the commotion and begin to crowd around.

"My mother gave me the cutting for this cactus," showing them the damaged pot with the plant 's tangled roots exposed. "Handed down from her own mother just before she broke the heart of a preacher outside of Poughkeepsie," Connie continues as she sifts through the soil and carefully selects several of the plant 's more salvageable sections. "It's the only piece of her I have left, God rest her sorry soul. Land sakes." Then, more to herself than to the goats, "If she'd given me a pearl necklace, you'd probably eat that too. Swear you would."

Rascal grins, exposing his nubby, yellow teeth.

It isn't as if Rascal is out to hurt Connie. He cares as deeply for her as she cares for him. When she leaves to go grocery shopping or to visit with the church ladies, he snaps at the other goats. He stands by the front window like a lost puppy, missing Connie 's idle chatter and eagerly awaiting her return. When she entertains, he paces outside the sitting room. He belches and snorts until her visitors notice his peculiar behavior and begin to grow nervous.

The goats are kept closed in Connie 's house. There was a time when she might have permitted them to accompany her whenever she ventured outside the farm 's cloistered compound. Truth be told, there were times when they had accompanied her.

She 'd taken them skating on the pond behind her barn. In the early part of winter, with everything frozen but before any significant snow would have accumulated, the ice groaned like it was speaking to them in the language of whales. Connie and the goats had clamored out from the shoreline, breaking through the river birch and the dogwood red as an open wound, amid great fanfare until they 'd lost their footing and their dignity and fallen spread-eagle on the pond 's shimmering surface.

In the warmer months, she 'd led them on a tour of the city 's transfer station or commissioned a leisurely stroll past the Methodist church and the public library. That all ended - the skating and the tours and the leisurely strolls - the year Rascal chewed his way through a fiber optic switching cable and plunged the city into total darkness. Trekking off on his own, he 'd felt suddenly exhilarated by the new-found freedom of his independence. He 'd concluded the evening locked inside Grady Getchell 's walk-in milk cooler - staring round-eyed at the cooler 's galvanized steel door, patiently chewing his cud like a contented cow.

On cold nights, Rascal quietly eases himself into Connie 's warm bed. While she sleeps, he slips between the crisp sheets, breathing in the sweetness of her soft skin. He lies as still as a bundle of laundry. His love for Connie is as deep and wide as her feather pillows and mattress. He just doesn't always know how to show it.

Kate 's approach is entirely different. So small, so much frailer than the other goats, Kate's goal in life seems to be her quest for Connie's recognition. She studies the dynamics of a situation, from across the kitchen measures Connie's awkward movements for any opportunity to play to her weaknesses. She watches Connie 's face for signs of compassion, runs to her with the most superficial injuries and with every ailment.

The other goats despise Kate and her obvious attempts to court Connie's affections. The little shit. They bump their heads against Kate's soft, white belly and turn their backs when she tries to engage them in conversation. At times, even Connie finds her exasperating. If the goats look to Rascal for leadership, they see Kate as disingenuous, a threat to the household's precarious balance and tenuous sense of community.

Like many of the Sunshine Club ladies, shiners as they prefer to call themselves, Connie drives a Comet. Her white knuckles grip the steering wheel, her smallish head barely visible above the dashboard. Her hair takes on a blue tint when viewed through the Comet's windshield. She tends to drive significantly below the speed limit and rarely uses her blinkers.

Connie 's Sunshine Club is a group of elderly volunteers, mostly widows with time on their hands, who raise money for the infirmed and for those less fortunate than themselves. They 're kindhearted old souls, sometimes confused by a weary world. Always cautious, a shiner keeps one foot on the brake. She places the other, unsteadily, on the accelerator. Occasionally, she confuses her right foot with her left. Oblivious to the impatience of the drivers behind her, she looks both ways and waits too long at stop signs.

"Connie, I just didn't expect you to sit there all day. When the Firebird passed, I thought you'd pulled out."

"Nate Cauldrey, you know damned well I can't see past my own nose. And I don't have eyes in the back of my head. You been tailin' too close ever since I got that judgement, swear you have. Land sakes. Last week, I thought you was a fire engine. Liked to have run me over."

"That's nonsense, Connie."

"Call it what you want. When I 'm dead, there 'll be no one to argue with."

"Thought you 'd pulled out, is all," repeating his first line of defense. Nate is the only widower on the city council and had not been intimidated by Connie's threats to campaign for public office. For years he had dealt with a wild array of personalities, both in business and in public life. He had come to understand most of the intricacies of human nature. Privately, he'd thought a run for mayor might be good for Connie and the city council. Though he hadn't told the other council members, he'd been disappointed when she'd dropped her bid. "You're just jumpy. That little scrape must 've given you quite a start. You sure you're okay?" He furrows his brow. He stands beside Connie's slight frame and slumped shoulders, her scarf billowing in the brisk wind, her Comet's rear bumper hanging precariously from the grille of his bright red Suburban.

Connie has neither the patience for Nate's obvious attempts to placate her, nor the time for yet another unscheduled excursion to the Stars and Stripes AAA Garage. During the week, she arranges her social calendar around the afternoon soap operas and TV game shows. Days of Our Lives and Jeopardy are among the goats' favorites.

"Days!" Connie announces, like she 's calling them home for supper.

The goats herd themselves into the living room in a sort of established hierarchy. Once there, they crowd onto Connie's overstuffed sofa, shoving and jostling each other for space and the softest pillows. They turn in tight circles as if trampling timothy grass before plopping down for an extended stay. Some of them lie on Connie 's floor, their delicate legs stretched out behind them.

Connie never developed an affinity for daytime soap operas or the intellectual TV game shows. She prefers the less cerebral Wheel of Fortune, watching on the kitchen's smaller black & white as she bakes sourdough bread and scours the pots and pans and the white porcelain sink. She attends her Methodist church every Saturday night and thinks her minister bears a strong resemblance to Pat Sajak. Saturdays bring her salvation. She reserves the rest of her weekend for less onerous social affairs.

Fourteen goats live within the confines of Connie's house. Penobscot was the first to arrive, without formality or fanfare more than a decade before. She 'd settled in like she 'd always lived there, like a well-to-do mother-in-law returning from travel abroad.

Montana and her triplets were the most recent additions. Thought to have been two sets of mirror twins with one lost early in Montana's pregnancy, the triplets exhibit a tendency toward distraction. They spit. They pull out each others' hair. They scream and climb the walls like caged animals. Chief Allagash and Gwendolyn make every effort to maintain a comfortable distance from the triplets. Chewing on Special K and shredded wheat biscuits, eyes as round as dinner plates, they patiently observe from their warm corner by the kitchen stove.

Connie has difficulty in separating her life from the lives of her goats. The sudden and violent death of Gwendolyn's devoted mother had reminded Connie of the unexpected death of her own mother nearly sixty years before.

Dearest Gwendolyn, the tragedy you have experienced at such a vulnerable age affects me as if it were my own, she had written in her diary. Innocence goes the way of the wind. You have visited God's garden and sampled His fruit. Never again will the pear taste as sweet. And then to the off-tempo UPS driver who 'd become lost and rolled over Gwendolyn's mother without so much as a backward glance: trouble with you is your sorry-ass sense of direction, closing the diary's smooth cover and snapping its clasp.

In her mind's eye it was little Kate, not Gwendolyn's mother that Connie had seen squashed in the street that curls just beyond the confines of her dusty driveway. As Connie had run from the house, before she 'd learned the tragic details, she imagined the other goats prancing around Kate's flattened carcass, snickering and chattering. None of them would miss Kate's gossip, her false pretenses and hidden agendas. In her mind 's eye, Connie saw the other goats kicking up their heels as even she, herself, would have felt a certain sense of relief.

Or perhaps it was Penobscot. By many years, surely Connie's eldest. Her most senior señorita. Penobscot had lived a full and rich life. And after all, in the end isn't everything a compromise? No, Connie couldn't bear the thought of losing Penobscot. She was too fixtured. Indelible. Too much like Connie. It had to be Kate.

When it became clear that it was Gwendolyn 's mother they 'd lost, and not Kate, a despondency descended on Connie 's house. The air was still, the odor of prolonged containment nearly overpowering. The goats huddled together, content to nip and nuzzle each others ' tightened flanks. In a light rain, no longer thinking about Kate, Connie had cried for her own mama as she 'd held Gwendolyn's trembling shoulders and kissed her face.

And much later, seated at her desk in the quiet solitude of her room, she 'd stared at a blank page in her open diary. The only light was from a tiny, yellow desk lamp. We can excuse the meager indiscretions of the infinitely good, Connie had finally written. We can absolve them and hold them forever in our hearts, not knowing for sure if it was Gwendolyn 's dearly departed mother she was referring to, or her own.

A wide range of personalities comprise Connie's family of Pygmy goats. Some unleash a shameless assault. Most of them treat Connie and each other with a degree of dignity. They bear their burdens of shame, look to the future with cautious optimism.

Penobscot respects the institution of Connie 's household. She provides a sound foundation, something Connie and the other goats can count on and hold on to.
Montana's triplets, who represent the young and the new unafraid, and who respect no one, appear to be drawn like magnets to Gwendolyn and Chief Allagash. Seemingly unimpressed, Gwendolyn and The Chief continue to pursue their very public romantic inclinations. Although nearly twice her age, Chief Allagash is infatuated with Gwendolyn. Connie calls him her sugar daddy. When he mounts Gwendolyn and bites her slender back, the triplets dance around them and squeal like children. The Chief's hooves make hollow clopping noises on Connie's clean floors.

Connie lives in the house her father built. He 'd earned his living as a blacksmith until development of the automobile finally forced him to accept employment at a local foundry. Call it progress, he had lamented, still tending the draft horses he couldn't bring himself to part with even after Danny Boy kicked the teeth clean out of his head. They 'd landed like shell casings, one after another in the steaming manure.

Connie 's mother and father were not well during most of her childhood. She 'd been born too late in their lives, a surprise to both of them. Their ailments ranged from asthma and arthritis, to an episode of the shingles that nearly cost her father his right eye. By the time Connie was ten years old, they were already beyond middle age. An only child, she 'd spent her adolescence looking after the farm and caring for her parents' immediate needs.

Just shy of three years prior to her father's death, Connie had almost married. As a young woman, she'd found herself easily influenced and had nearly been swept away by an aging horseshoe nail salesman from Boston. Connie 's father had called him her nailsman. She'd thought nailsmith to be a more dignified vocation and that is how she referred to him as she described for her parents and their befuddled friends the various technical aspects of shear stress, tensile strength, and shaft-to-strikeplate ratio.
"Your mother and I think you should marry him, Connie," her father had confided, not as focused as he should have been on what might happen to himself and Connie 's mother. "He 's dependable. And firmly established. He'd certainly keep the horses in nails".

" Seems like that 's all you ever think about, those silly draft horses"

"That 's not true, not true at all, raising his hand to his jaw."

"But Papa, how could I care for you and Mama and him, too? What if we had children right away? Besides, I'm not sure he'll even ask me."

"Oh, he'll ask. Like most men, he just needs to gather some courage. Build himself a platform, so to speak. I can read him like a newspaper. He'll ask."

Before their relationship could fully flourish, however, Connie had somehow caught the eye of his superiors. By the end of their second summer, she had assumed the responsibilities for his horseshoe nail sales territory and he 'd been shipped off to the more remote Portland area to peddle barbed wire. He'd shown her his sample case on the day of his departure, shortly before boarding the train. She 'd admired the shiny sections of wire, each cut to a convenient length, took note of the variations in their gauge and barb. Then, with the suddenness of a summer storm, his face had clouded over and he 'd slapped the sample case closed. For a brief time following his departure, they 'd corresponded: Distance makes the heart grow fonder, she 'd written. And then: Talking to myself happens easily. Just a word, softly, or a phrase becomes a habit. After her father finally died and her mother had been dead a year, they drifted apart.

Connie keeps his letters tied neatly together in a metal strongbox. Periodically she gets them out, patiently untying the frayed string and breathing in their earthiness. As she inhales, she 's reminded of wet leaves, of turned farm fields in the early spring. She holds the letters close to her glasses, toward the light, as she reads them to Gwendolyn and Chief Allagash.

On the morning of Connie's stroke, the goats seem preoccupied. They wake up late, stretch slowly, and look around. The soiled ribbons in their coarse hair hang like streamers left over from a previous Christmas or Easter celebration.

Connie 's stroke starts as a tingling sensation in the tips of her fingers, working its way up one arm until a corner of her mouth begins to droop. The sensation moves slowly at first, the way a freight train eases away from the station. Connie appears unaware of the progression, or for that matter, the slight slur in her speech. She doesn 't think about the early symptoms of an impending stroke, only that she feels the tingling in her fingers so she compensates by cradling her left hand in her right and holding them both in her lap.

Normally, a stroke develops suddenly and unexpectedly. It can be the result of a blocked artery, or something as simple as a ruptured blood vessel in the roof of one 's mouth. In Connie 's case, for seventeen years, a tumor no bigger than a lima bean has been disrupting the flow of blood to part of her brain.

Connie's house is dark and quiet, food still on the table, the breakfast dishes soaking in the sink. The goats lean into each other. They roll their glassy eyes. They nervously nip at each others' heels, plant warm kisses on Connie's rosy cheeks.

"Oh Rascal, you know I don't have time for that. Swear I don't," she softly scolds, her glasses perched high on top of her head. She nudges him away. "And you, little Gwendolyn. My land, where do you get your energy?"

Together, Connie and the goats sit in front of Connie 's television as animated contestants spin the wheel. The television 's glow reflects off Connie 's glasses, shines out through her living room windows. Vanna White wears a dark dress with lace at the collar. With the television 's volume turned down, she reminds them of Mary Pickford in Love Among the Roses.

Penobscot lies curled around Connie 's feet, eyes still bright, hooves shiny and black. For the moment, Kate and Montana 's triplets appear uncharacteristically subdued. Across the room, Chief Allagash maintains a respectable distance. He provides Gwendolyn the necessary time for reflection and relaxation. He does his best to ignore the others, but with a wary eye on the triplets, wishes he had the courage to join them on Connie 's overstuffed sofa.

Connie keeps goats. She caters to them. Their lives are free and easy. The younger goats compete for Connie's affections. They fight among themselves, take far too much for granted. The older goats nuzzle her tired knees, express a sense of gratitude.

W.A. Reed, Cedarburg, Wisconsin, is a poet, novelist, and Managing Editor for Porcupine Literary Arts Magazine. His poetry and short fiction have appeared in numerous publications. He is currently at work on his second novel.