It was late autumn, my second autumn in White Hall, IL., the little town I'd moved to from St. Louis. While I'd been in town for over a year and a half, I hadn't made any real friends-mostly just friendly acquaintances, people I knew from their service jobs, friendly enough that you'd exchange brief pleasantries if you encountered each other in places other than the usual, not friendly enough to invite you home for barbecue. In short, I was lonely.
I filled a lot of time paying attention to the local fauna; I made friends with all the town's feral cats, made friends with several crows and thrushes, and made a hobby of watching the rabbits that hung out in the overgrown railroad easement that ran behind my place of work. Since I was the only smoker in the office staff, rather than step out the front door for a quick cigarette, I would walk to the back warehouse and smoke outside the loading dock, which gave me a great view of the hedgerow and open field beside the plant. There was a little colony of rabbits that hung around that part of town, in the verge, and foraged in our little field in the mornings and the evenings. I got to know them pretty well, hanging around that back door, smoking. I'd guess there were about 7 or 8; one I noted in particular, because of his distinctive white stripe along his flanks. It sorta looked like a racing stripe, so I named him "Racer X".
Late autumn turned into early winter, and that made it a little easier to see those rabbits, even when they crouched in the dried out weeds of the verge. I made it a point to look for them every time I walked back to the dock, every time I passed the windows looking out onto the field, every time I was around that part of the property. It was a snowy, icy winter, and as it deepened I wondered how they would fare. Forage was dying off, as was cover. Too, it was a rural town, full of dogs that could get loose, and boys looking to do a little varminting with their bb-guns and .22's. Around the end of December, I noticed several days in a row when I saw no rabbits at all. I began to worry a bit. Maybe the cold had just run them into their holes? Maybe they'd all migrated somewhere? Then, happily, right after the New Year, we had a break in the weather. The "January Thaw", old-timers called it. Surely those rabbits would show up now.
Through the week of warmer weather, one did. Racer X. Alone. I noticed him, morning and evening, by himself, in the field, sometimes in the verge. I took frequent breaks from the office, to walk to the plant windows and the dock door, to see if any others would appear. I only ever saw my little friend, Racer X. And I wondered, did the others migrate off while he stayed behind? Had something happened to leave him the only survivor of that little band in the verge? I didn't know, but day after day he alone appeared, and my sympatico for him grew; he was alone now, just like me. Solitary. I obsessed about him a little, and the next weekend walked the rails to that place behind the plant, and scattered some baby carrots along what looked like a rabbit-run thru the weeds. Colder weather was coming again, soon. It was a lonely weekend.
Monday morning I drove into work, early as usual, and it was just getting light as I approached the plant. At the edge of the ditch that ran along the field beside the plant, I saw a little hump, like a rabbit, maybe, and slowed down to look closer.
It was a rabbit. It was Racer X. He lay somewhat on his side, turned a bit, very dead. I paused only long enough to see the prominent stripe on his side, and then hurried into the office. I was a bit rattled.
I walked back to the dock door and lit a cigarette. I looked towards the verge; I looked at the field. No rabbits, anywhere. I smoked my cigarette, and looked at the gathering clouds. The world pulled in a little closer.
Racer X haunted my thoughts the rest of the day. Where had his cohorts gone? Had he survived some catastrophe? Had he, in his lonely solitude, run out into the road, for his own reasons, when he'd survived many, many months living right by that dangerous passage? Had he decided, hesitantly, that he had to move on, but, hesitantly, couldn't pull himself away, until, finally, in a fit of despair, moved to sudden action by a noisy, threatening glare in the night, run out to where he never otherwise would, and find himself relieved of worrying where the others were, and where he should go, or what he should do?
The people I worked for and associated with would never understand what was going through me then; I knew that. The farming folk I knew in that little town would not understand why this simple event shook me, deeply. Even my far-away friends would not understand why this impacted me so. In all that little, insular, remote, isolated world, my best friend was a rabbit, and he had died. I wanted to go and collect his small body, and put it into rest with some sort of memorial, but I realized his best memorial was to return to that world he'd come into, anonymously among humans, except for me. The beasts of the fields, the birds of the air, all come into this world, and depart this world, largely unnoticed by busy man.
He lives in my heart. That's the best memorial I have to offer.
I felt very lonely in the weeks that followed. When I went for my little smoke-breaks, I looked at the verge, and the field, and felt very isolated. When, a few weeks later, the owner took me aside and told me my services were no longer needed, I was actually glad, in a way.
Why does this come to me now? When I went out a little while ago, I saw two rabbits by the bushes that separate my apartment building from the houses up the road; they each had creamy white stripes along their flanks, like Racer X.
I hope I see them again.
