Road Kill

Easter approaches, which means I'll be spending a lot of time in the car on Friday.

Five times a year, for all the major holidays, I drive 250 miles north along the New York State Thruway to visit my parents. It's a picturesque route though the Catskills and Adirondacks, past throngs of maple trees and crowded pines, cows loitering on hillsides, decrepit barns and peeling Victorian houses. But after the first 50 miles or so, the bucolic scenery starts to become monotonous, and I begin to notice a much less pleasant aspect of the landscape: the amazing amount of animal carnage along the highway.

At 70 miles per hour, the torn-up woodchucks, shattered porcupines and squashed possums are unidentifiable as specific creatures. They resemble shapeless, furry purses--split open, spilling their gunk onto the concrete. I always wonder: Where did these tiny beasts think they were going when they ventured out onto the rock-strip that interrupts nature from horizon to horizon? Where was it that they never got to?

The cars swish past, indifferent, maniacal for destinations. Some swerve to avoid the bodies, others allow their tires to pound them. And others, of course, commit these small atrocities, smashing and smearing without a second thought, toting up the death toll.

A childhood memory often comes back as I observe this impromptu butchery: being in the car on a dark, wintry day, my father driving, seeing a deer emerge from the woods, oblivious to us as it scooted for the other side. The road was icy, we couldn't stop, we hit the deer. I recall the dull thud as the body bounced off the front fender, then seeing the tawny shape by the side of the road--crumpled, staring upward in frozen astonishment. We drove off to find a phone and call the state game department. By the time we got back, 20 minutes later, the deer was gone. I assumed it became venison for some previously luckless hunter.

"Deer crossing" signs are frequent in Upstate New York, an official recognition of one aspect of the slaughter along the highways. The signs address a human, not an animal, problem: it's a matter of helping drivers to avoid the largest creatures, the ones that cause traffic accidents. Speed kills, the bounding deer on the wordless sign reminds us, without regard to beast or man.