Saving Simon

by Jon Katz

  While incidents in this book did happen, some of the names and personal characteristics of some of the individuals have been changed. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental and unintentional.

  Copyright © 2014 by Jon Katz

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of Random House, a division of Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company, New York.

  BALLANTINE and the HOUSE colophon are registered trademarks of Random House LLC.

  ISBN 978-0-345-53119-3

  eBook ISBN 978-0-8041-7728-3

  www.ballantinebooks.com

  All photographs by Jon Katz

  Jacket design: Victoria Allen

  Jacket photograph: Jon Katz

  v3.1

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  PART I

  Saving Simon

  PROLOGUE • The Raid

  ONE • My First Donkey

  TWO • Simon Arrives

  THREE • Simon and Bryan

  FOUR • Simon’s First Home

  PART II

  The Call to Life

  FIVE • The Call to Life

  SIX • Sweethearts

  SEVEN • The Theater of Chance

  EIGHT • Two Asses on the Road

  NINE • Fox Attack

  TEN • The Farmer

  ELEVEN • The Summons

  TWELVE • The Different Face of Compassion

  PART III

  The Meaning of Compassion

  THIRTEEN • Rocky

  FOURTEEN • The Tao of Red

  FIFTEEN • New Bedlam Farm

  SIXTEEN • The Triad

  SEVENTEEN • The Move

  EIGHTEEN • Trouble in Paradise

  NINETEEN • Afterward

  TWENTY • Open Houses, Open Lives

  EPILOGUE • Toward a Compassionate Heart

  A Note to the Reader

  Other Books by This Author

  About the Author

  PROLOGUE

  The Raid

  It was McKenzie Barrett, the animal control officer’s daughter, who named him Simon. A name from the Bible, she said, and she thought if she named the donkey Simon he would be blessed and never be hurt again. A New York State Police trooper had come by earlier in the day, climbed the hill nearby with his binoculars, sketched out a map of the donkey’s enclosure (he wasn’t sure what to call it, it was so small), and distributed copies to everyone assisting with the raid: the other troopers, the vet, the local animal control officer, the driver of the trailer that would take Simon away, dead or alive. It was difficult to tell through the binoculars. He thought it might already be too late.

  The property had a farmhouse and a large barn that fronted the north side of the road. Between the house and the old barn, a dirt road—little more than a path at some points—wound back through a meadow and a stand of pine trees, then alongside a small wire mesh enclosure. The structure, completely out of sight from the road, sheltered by brush and trees, was small, the fences sturdy. Even standing by the farmhouse, no one would have imagined it was there.

  It was probably built for pigs or a couple of goats—animals that needed strong fences and barriers to keep them contained in a small pen. It was ugly and primitive, a mud path surrounded by heavy mesh fence. Two or three pallets stood up to form a V, low enough for a pig or some chickens to get inside. Through his binoculars the trooper had seen that the donkey was lying down with his head under the pallet, perhaps seeking shelter from the rain. Perhaps to die.

  From the slime and muck that coated the creature’s side, the trooper saw he had been lying there a long time. His skin was black. They call it rain rot—an animal’s skin dying, turning black from lying in the rain and cold for weeks or months and never being dry.

  The pallet was an island in a sea of mud, waste, and bits of rotted wood and fence post. The donkey was sunk—stuck, really—in the mud up to his shoulders. He was almost buried in his own manure. The smell was awful, the stench reaching out across the meadow, into the wind.

  The trooper estimated the pen was ten feet by ten feet, barely big enough to accommodate the donkey’s prone body. If he could stand, the donkey would barely be able to turn around. But he was absolutely still.

  Even from the distance, the trooper could see the awful condition of the animal’s legs and coat, the skeletal ribs protruding. He could not see any sign of the stomach rising or falling. The animal’s home was more like a place to dump garbage or waste, rather than a shelter.

  At ten P.M., the trooper was finally at the pen, dreading what he would find. He had fretted about it all day, pushing paperwork, nudging the bureaucracy along, arguing it was worth the time and expense, even though his superiors thought there were more pressing issues.

  As the troopers and the animal control officer approached the gate, they stopped. They were hardened and experienced. They had seen a lot, but never anything like this. The animal control officer shook her head. “My God,” she said. “Why didn’t whoever owns him just shoot him?” One of the young troopers rushed over to the brush and vomited.

  The donkey was covered with lice, and tracked with the bite marks of rats. One of the troopers asked the vet how old the donkey was. “There’s no way to be sure; I’ll have to see him in the light. But I’d guess about fifteen years,” the vet replied. He fell silent, shifted his big bag from one shoulder to the other, then said, “Let’s get in there.”

  Rats were spotted at the edge of the field, staring, waiting. A sheriff’s deputy put his hand on his gun, but another officer touched his arm, shaking his head. Even rats were not grounds to shoot. He leaned over and tossed a rock out toward the rats, but they did not move.

  Another deputy walked up with a light on a tripod stand and a small portable generator. He fired up the generator, and the pen was flooded with white light. The troopers, vet, and animal control officer all gathered around the donkey, who had not moved nor made a sound.

  The vet placed the flat metal disc of his stethoscope on the donkey’s neck. “Well, he’s alive,” he said. “Barely. Let’s get the pallet off of him.”

  They stood up and shifted the wooden structure away from the donkey’s head and shined their flashlights on his face. There was a moment of stunned silence, then some of the men tied handkerchiefs over their noses and everybody got to work.

  The vet placed his big canvas bag down in the mud, taking out syringes, vials, sponges, painkillers, wrenches and clamps for teeth pulling, vitamins and energy boosters, balm and ointments for the skin, powder for the lice, gauze patches for the rat bites, antibiotics for the oozing eyes. What to treat first? He would need everything he had. He went to work quickly.

  The troopers were used to standing and watching and waiting. It was a big part of the job. They gathered in a circle behind the vet, handing him towels and blankets, hand wipes and tools, pointing their flashlights where he asked. Some of the work he could do later, after they transported the donkey to the animal control officer’s farm a few towns over. That was the plan. If Simon was still alive, they would stabilize him and get him up and over to the farm. There was a barn there with some empty stalls. They could get a better look at him in the morning.

  As the vet kneeled over the donkey, he said, “This is the worst state I have ever seen an animal in in twenty years of practice.” He was surprised to see his own tears falling on his bag, on his bottles and wraps. It rarely happened, but he told himself to suck it up and get to work. Lord, he thought, I did not ever want to see this. But wasn’t it why he had become a vet, wasn’t it the point? Sometimes, he thought, I am ashamed to be a human.

  He had little tim
e. The animal’s pulse and heartbeat were fading quickly.

  The vet had seen that the donkey’s hooves were sticking out like wings, it had been so long since they were trimmed. “He must have been walking on his ankles,” he said. “He can’t walk that way to the trailer. I have to cut the hooves off right now.”

  He stood, ran over to his truck, and pulled out a battery-charged buzz saw.

  He reached for the painkillers and a sedative. He would have to put the donkey out for a bit. The pain must be horrible. But if he didn’t trim his hooves, he would never make it to the trailer.

  Before he started, he pulled open the donkey’s mouth. Simon’s right eye was sticking out of the mud, open, staring at him through the film and ooze. The vet looked at his jaw, then up at the trooper. “I have to pull them now, there’s a massive infection in there. I have to sedate him. I won’t knock him out, because we won’t be able to get him up. I’ll get him sleepy, poor guy, but he’s going to feel this.” And he went to work.

  “Will he make it?” asked one of the troopers.

  “I don’t know,” said the vet. “A part of me thinks he ought not to make it; that would give him some peace.”

  “No,” said the animal control officer, leaning over, putting her arm on the vet’s shoulder. “I think I may have found a home for him. A guy has two donkeys, a writer. He said he’d come take a look in the morning, if we can get him to my house. Let’s try it, let’s give him a shot.”

  The vet looked up at her, nodded. He opened Simon’s jaws and put a clamp inside to keep them open.

  They did not know a donkey could scream.

  He would have died except for the child who lived in the farmhouse. The small boy came quietly every night, very late. Simon could have seen his face clearly in the moonlight if he had been watching for him, but mostly he became aware of him as he approached the fence, so softly in his bare feet, even in the cold, whispering quietly for Simon to be still, and tossing some hay over the fence toward the donkey’s head.

  At first, the boy could reach over the fence and hold some hay out for Simon to grasp, but in recent days, Simon was lying on his side, unable to move or stand up, and the boy threw the hay as near to Simon’s head as he could.

  “I’m sorry,” the boy would say, sometimes crying. “This is all that I can give you. I can’t do any more.” He would look to see if the donkey were still alive, toss the hay, then as quickly as he had come, he was gone, vanished into the meadows behind the farmhouse. From the first, Simon loved the boy, as donkeys so dearly love their human children. They protect them, watch for them, bray softly for them, love giving them rides on their backs and hanging around them. The spirits of children are so like the spirits of donkeys, small and good and open, curious and independent.

  The boy had always sensed that Simon needed human attention. For all the hard things that came from people, donkeys never take attention for granted. They need the touch of people, the safety and the tenderness of children. It heals them, and they heal in return.

  Simon was still. The vet was finishing his work and the animal control officer had begun to think about Simon’s future. “We need to try. That writer texted again; he has a big barn and lots of pasture. He loves animals and he’s stubborn like a donkey. They’ll get along.”

  And then, unimaginably just a few minutes later, Simon was moving, his instincts returning, fighting to live.

  The animal control officer—she had long yellow hair, the kind donkeys love to nibble on—and the men were all shouting at him: “Simon, get up! Get up! You’re okay now! We’re here to take you away!” They were excited, and their excitement was being transmitted to him. The vet kept yelling that his pulse was dropping. He was in shock. They forced open his swollen jaws again and squirted liquid into his stomach through a tube. They put a needle in his neck and attached it to a plastic bottle hanging on a stand.

  “Eat it, Simon,” they begged, “eat it. Get up, move, please move.” Simon started at the radios crackling; in numbing pain, he was blinded by the bright and flashing lights and confused by the noise. He seemed dizzy, light-headed and struggling. He seemed to focus on one person, the woman with the blond hair. She had connected with him; it was as if she grounded him, helped him make sense of the chaos and pain.

  They made their way slowly down the drive, and then the procession suddenly stopped.

  Across from the farmhouse, his hands folded across his chest, his head bowed, the farmer stood waiting. The troopers and the others stopped to look at him. Some were angry—it showed on their faces. Others were bewildered, trying to comprehend. The farmer looked exhausted, downcast. He was in jeans, wearing heavy boots and a red flannel shirt. He could not lift his eyes to look at Simon. The troopers went over to him, said something, handed him some paper.

  “I’m sorry,” said the farmer, still looking down. “Things got away from me. After a while, I just couldn’t bear to go back there. I couldn’t stand to see it.”

  The troopers said nothing; they just stared back at him.

  Walking back toward Simon, one trooper turned to the other and said, “I’ve seen it before. They just can’t ask for help, can’t admit when they’re so far down.” The other trooper nodded.

  They shined their powerful flashlights into the darkness. The bushes stirred and the boy came out, in his pajamas, barefoot in the mud and cold. The boy was short, thin, about ten years old, a mop of brown hair hanging over his face. His eyes were red and moist.

  “What are you doing in there, son?” asked one of the troopers. The boy edged forward toward Simon and the trooper moved to stop him. The animal control officer waved the trooper back and took the boy’s hand. She leaned over and whispered something in his ear, tousled his hair. “You’re the one who called.” It was a statement, not a question.

  “Don’t worry,” said the woman. “It’s our secret. Do you want to say good-bye?”

  The boy looked up at her and Simon, and nodded. “Please,” he said, looking anxiously back at the farmhouse. Simon’s ears went up; he brayed softly. Even the animal seemed startled by the weak, squeaky sound, more fitting for a mouse than a donkey.

  The boy looked at Simon, then at the troopers. “My dad is a good man,” he told the big sergeant. “It’s just hard now.”

  The sergeant nodded.

  Simon seemed so at ease with the boy that the animal control officer turned over the reins to the child. The boy, smiling now, took the lead and called out to Simon, “C’mon, let’s go,” and the procession resumed. He led Simon down the path and onto the road and right up into the trailer, although it took Simon a long time to get up the ramp on his painful and unsteady legs. When he did, helped along by half a dozen pairs of strong arms, the boy was waiting for him, holding a leaf of hay. Simon stood for a bit, taking the hay into his mouth, eager for its rich and warm taste, even with his painful gums and swollen jaw.

  The boy reached up and hugged Simon, kissing him on the nose. Simon watched him walk down the trailer ramp. He turned to follow but he could not, restrained now by gates and ropes tied to rings in the corners of the trailer.

  The boy turned and waved, then ran off. Simon’s plaintive bray echoed off the trailer walls and out into the meadow, and over that small and awful place that had been his home—the home he would never see again.

  Simon was tied firmly to the trailer sides, but it bumped over dirt roads and wobbled back and forth, and each bump and turn was like a bolt of lightning up his legs, into his jaw. They stood alongside him, talking to him, rubbing salve onto his wounds, telling him it would be okay. Soon the trailer came to a new place. Simon was led off to a large red barn. He heard horses neighing to him from the pasture beyond. He felt the jabs of more needles, then, drained and exhausted, he collapsed onto a bed of straw.

  They worked through the night to save him. They finished sawing the wings off of his feet. They pulled half of his teeth, the infected ones, from his jaw. He was bathed in medicines to heal the sore
s; powders were applied to kill the lice and fleas. They put braces on his legs to hold them, drops in his eyes to clear them, gauze poultices to reduce the swelling in his mouth. Wounds were wrapped and medicines administered to heal the rat bites. The rain rot, his blackened skin, would take months to heal. Simon’s legs would never be completely straight, but with luck, he might be able to walk and move around.

  Outside, the troopers sat in their cars, their engines idling, drinking their coffee, passing updates back and forth. People often get wrapped up in the fates of animals, and these men were no exception. They were invested in saving this beat-up old donkey, left for dead in his pen, even though none of them was likely to ever see him again. That was the nature of their work. “Will he make it?” one asked. “You have to admire him,” said another. “He never quit. Think what it must have taken to stay alive in that hellhole.”

  By the late morning, the troopers had left, and Simon was alone again. He looked around. He was under shelter, but the gates were open, and next to him was a small field filled with shrubs. It was early spring and the grass had started to come up. Simon staggered over to it, leaned his head down, and seemed to almost drink up the moist, fresh grass, the lifeblood of the donkey. Then he lay down.

  It was quiet; the birds were singing. Cars and trucks whizzed down a busy highway. He listened to the dogs barking nearby, was aware of horses in a pasture up the hill.

  There was hay all around him, and a bed of straw to lie on. His eyes were clearing; he could see again. A few feet down the hill, there was a creek with fresh water, and he gathered himself to get down to it to drink greedily and for a long time.

  His stomach ached, but he was not really hungry. There was nothing familiar around him. He brayed, calling out to the boy, but he was not there; he did not come.

  ONE

  My First Donkey