The Transformation of Rod - Part 1

Rod loved his job.  Others might find picking up road kill along Arizona's highways to be offensive or boring but Rod knew better.  He saw himself as providing a public service - doing the work that few others dared.  Plus, he got to spend most of his days outdoors enjoying the beautiful sights and sounds of the Phoenix area.  The one thing he could not enjoy was the smell.  A childhood accident had left Rod with a severely distorted sense of smell.  Everything smelled about the same to him - "purple" is how Rod described it.  This shortcoming was actually an advantage when picking up carcasses in the Arizona heat.  Just another thing to love about the job!

It was the start of his shift, but already it was warm.  The blazing morning sun gave notice of a hot day ahead.  As Rod meandered down the highway, a dispatch came through about a possible coyote pickup.  Rod had only picked up a couple of coyotes in his career and he was anxious to see this one.  The location given was not real specific, near the limits of Rod's coverage area.  The adjacent area was covered by Roy, Rod's nemesis at the department.  Rod and Roy often vied for top monthly honors in the "most pounds" and coveted "species diversity" categories.  Rod raced toward the pickup, knowing that Roy was likely doing the same.

As Rod neared the end of his area, he saw the coyote, just beyond his boundary.  Rod stopped his truck at the mile marker denoting the edge of his coverage area.  The animal was another twenty yards away, well into Roy's domain.  So close, thought Rod.   Close enough that he could see the flies crawling over the tongue that hung out between fierce fangs.  Rod looked up the road, still no sign of Roy.  Rod chuckled. "Well, well.  The early bird gets the dead coyote, I guess," he mumbled to himself.

Rod took one more look down the highway and then jumped out of his truck.  He moved to the coyote in short, quick steps keeping one hand on the waist of his pants lest they succumb to gravity.  Rod had gained quite a bit of weight and his pants no longer fit properly.  Rod had adjusted for this by wearing his pants lower and lower.  This interfered with his stride and had resulted in one unfortunate exposure incident during a raccoon pickup near a very busy rest stop.  Since then, Rod had been mindful of any detected slippage while out on the job.

Rod reached the coyote, took one last look for Roy and then grabbed the animal's tail.  Rod proceeded to drag the coyote along the shoulder back toward his truck.  This was not an easy task given the weight of the animal, the warming Arizona sun and the slipping pants.  Rod could feel the sweat growing on his face and the smell of purple intensifying.  Still, he carried on and eventually crossed the mile marker into his territory.  He dropped the tail and waited.

When he saw Roy's truck on the horizon, Rod set about the task of picking up the coyote and putting it in the truck.  He wanted Roy to witness him making the pickup.  Roy pulled up his truck at the opposite shoulder and climbed out.  He stayed over by his truck, in his area.

"Ya need any help with that?" Roy asked, watching Rod pick up the animal.

"No, I think I can handle this fella," Rod responded confidently.  He enjoyed seeing the envy in Roy's face.

Roy looked down at the spot where Rod had picked up the coyote.  "Looks like he was just barely in your area," Roy observed.  Roy looked back up the road into his area.  What was that smudge on the shoulder?

Rod noticed Roy looking at the spot where the coyote had originally lain.  He tried to think of something to say to get Roy's attention.  Roy was looking a little more intently now - first at the smudge and then at the lack of smudge where Rod had made the pickup.  Rod needed to do something.  The coyote was in the truck.  It was his.  He was not going to let Roy ruin this.

"I guess I'll be seeing you, Roy," Rod said.  As Roy turned to look at him, Rod let his hand slip from his waist.  His pants fell in heap around his ankles.  "Darn it!" Rod shouted in mock anger.

The distraction worked.  Roy started laughing at Rod and momentarily forgot about the smudge.  Roy's dispatch radio squawked to life and Roy climbed into his truck to get the details.  Rod hiked up his pants, climbed in his truck and headed back deeper into his own area.

The rest of the morning was not nearly so exciting.  An armadillo here, a road runner there - hardly worth the trouble, really.  As lunchtime approached, Rod looked for a place to pull over.  He usually brought his lunch and ate in the truck.  He preferred to park away from any developments, where he could enjoy some nature.  There were a few places he frequented.  He headed toward a favorite stretch of road near White Tank Mountain Park.  Rod pulled his truck far over onto the shoulder and stopped.  Because of the heat, he left the windows up and the truck running.  Definitely a day for air-conditioning!

As Rod looked across the open plain, he reached into his lunch bag and pulled out a large object wrapped in foil.  The foil was imprinted with the image of a plump woman with long black hair and the text, "Nina's Original Frybread - So Good, You'll Want More".  Rod paid little attention to the foil; he'd seen it many many times before.  Because of Rod's olfactory shortcomings, most foods tasted the same to him.  For most of his life, Rod had regarded food as necessary for survival but not particularly pleasurable.  With Nina's Frybread he discovered one of the few foods that could cut through veil of purple and stand out.  This was largely due to the incredible amounts of sugar and saturated fat used in the recipe.  For Rod, it was the one food he truly enjoyed eating.  It soon became a staple of his diet, serving as breakfast, lunch and dinner.  He reached under the seat and found the plastic bottle of honey he kept there.  He drizzled a little honey on the edge of the frybread and took a satisfying bite.  And so Rod ate his lunch, alternating between drizzle and bite, drizzle and bite.  He washed it all down with a warm can of Diet Coke.  The whole process took less than ten minutes.

Rod still had twenty minutes left of his lunch break.  He put the time to good use, trying to burp the word "coyote".  It proved too difficult a task for him but he was able to burp out "dog".  He reasoned that this was close enough.  Rod looked at his prize in the back of the truck.  This was turning into a stellar day.