I Would Like To Buy a Duck

March 30th, 1998 Posted in Essays

Through circumstances beyond my control, I found myself camping this summer.

Usually I can enjoy camping. If given the choice, certainly, I’d take air conditioning and the ability to refrigerate things over sitting on a stump in the wilderness in a heartbeat. In the absence of a choice, however, I can take camping, because I’m under the mistaken impression that it makes me manly—and because it gives me an excuse not to clean myself in any way for a few days.

There’s something about waking up in the middle of nowhere, covered in dew, opening your tent flap, fiddling with kindling in a half-asleep stupor, then finally getting a fire going so you can make lumpy, tasteless instant coffee — something so inherently awful and unappealing— that it must, reasonably, be intensely macho and flex-worthy.

There’s something about the tranquil yet brute power of nature that can calm your thoughts and scare hoary hell out of you—when a sudden storm picks up out of nowhere and you don’t have any windows to shut; when you hear a stick crack outside your tent at three in the morning,and you know both of your feet are inside the tent and sticks don’t crack themselves; when wolves howl in the darkness, and there’s no way to tell from the echo if they’re miles away or about ten yards off, thinking up the sorts of truly awful things that only wolves can come up with. Outdoor camping, when done well (i.e. miserably) is an adventure.

This was not my luck for this trip. The camping I had to endure this particular day was of the sandlot variety—more mall parking lot than outdoor experience, this sad little oasis was little else but wall-to-wall trailers, with small patio lanterns decorated in that haphazard yet thorough manner accomplished only by the hands of the elderly and the blind. And entire herds of fat, awkward children sprinting about, eager to smash to splinters anything their gummy hands could grasp.

Good Jesus, what was I doing here? Bad judgment had led me to this place, and poor circumstances had led to disaster — too far North to travel home, too tired of the road to find a better place. I quickly found myself with little else to do but drink whiskey and build big fires. Stranded to the confines of my sandy ten-by-ten prison, surrounded by two trailers, a dirt road, and a boggy moat, I felt boredom and depression creeping in.

This is when the ducks came to me.

I had already seen squirrels hop over and chew at my sandals. Robins had flown down and inspected my whiskey drink with bemused and progressively uninterested headbobs. It would appear that years of constant over-feeding and attention had dulled the little things’ fear of humankind, and I soon found myself all but beating the plump little bastards back with sticks, so intent were they for a handout.

But not all scavengers were woodbound; the boggy moat that wove through the campground like some fetid copperhead sustained its share of fish, a few frogs, a badger…and two ducks, as it turned out. The pair waddled bravely up to me out of the moat, wavling their wings around and poking their heads at me.

I was fascinated. Drunk as well, of course, and so doubly fascinated. Squirrels and crows are as common as heart attacks— but how often does one see ducks? Never or rarely, and in either case, since I’d gotten bored of taunting the fat children, worth my interest for the time being.

I grabbed a few hamburger buns off my rotted picnic table and aimed for open beaks. This was exactly what they’d been gunning for all along, the cunning little waddlers. Fed and contented, the ducks started quacking loudly. Those of you lucky enough to have heard a duck quack nonsensically for long periods of time — and luckier still if drunk — would agree that it is one of the funniest noises on this earth.

The ducks stayed — what loyal, noble beasts they were to stick with the bread-throwing human for that far-too-long evening. I briefly toyed with the idea of dipping the bread into my whiskey—to “get the party started,” as it were—but quickly abandoned it on the grounds that it would kill them instantly.

No matter. I soon discovered the cathartic release inherent in getting drunk and quacking at ducks. Maybe even with them— I had no idea what I was saying, but hopefully I managed to make some kind of sense during my long, indulgent monologue. They wobbled about and showed me their impressive wingspans. I in turn offered them silly names dregged from the whiskey puddles of my frontal lobes, like Sir Quacksalot and Lord Duckwald von Quackington, which they acknowledged with no interest whatsoever.

And all the time we quacked. Quacked like wild savages, bent on retreating from the shoebox conformity of apartment-style camping; quacked like mad hermits, birds of a feather eager to seize the confused glare of some elderly passerby or lardy seven year old; quacked simply to quack, and bring with it the laughter that would pour from our beaks faster than whiskey could drain from the bottle; quacked, I dare presume, like ducks.

In short, to hell with your relaxation drugs and sounds of the ocean and all of that other zen nonsense; just gimme a duck, brother, and I’ll be on the floor in a minute, cackling like some crazed Russian monk in the throes of an absinthe high. And who, I ask with some confidence, wouldn’t like that?

I would like to buy a duck, and here is where you must lend a hand. How does one go about getting a duck? Could I possibly keep one in, say, a bucket in my living room? Would it be possible to adhere some sort of oversized novelty cigar to its beak? Do ducks fight?

If so, how does one go about getting two ducks?