Steady Hooves at Clear Skies
by Stace Budzko
Inside of a week, Rudolph tells me he was flying again. Delivering mail and prescription drugs to the other reindeer patients - that sort of thing. He lifts his two front hooves. "See," he says. They are as steady as a toy maker's.
It's summer, and the two of us are reclining in sun chairs watching the glaciers float by. Red (as we like to call him) is telling me about the daily injections - the ones he gets in the tail, for his addictions.
He goes, "Dash, man. I miss the action."
I lick my coat then go, "I miss our sleigh rides around the aurora borealis."
When I first brought Red to Clear Skies, all color was drained from his snout. By all accounts he had hit bottom. This was some time after our last Christmas shift. Nick, our boss, placed Red on leave but assured everyone his job was safe. We took the old man at his word. He's solid like that.
As another ice sail floats by, Red sprawls across a hay pile next to a life size chimney model made complete with wreath and painted snow. His brown fur, I can see, is starting to grow back over his legs. Gone are the tall wool socks he wore to cover the spike marks. He confides he might not be ready for the next big Christmas ride. Tomorrow the doctors pull back on his medicine and he doesn't know what will happen then. He's scared. In his room, he admits, he keeps a map and has marked the communities with colored pushpins where he used to score drugs.
"South America's out," he explains.
I nod.
"Central Asia too."
"Red," I point out. "That's a lot of presents."
Before long, he's written off the half the globe.
But I understand what Red's getting at. The pressure. As first pilot he feels it most. These summer months are the slow times. Come fall we're in the air everyday practicing in all sorts of weather. And the loads get heavy.
"Buck up," I say
Red snorts then smiles. He tells me he's been giving lessons to the new arrivals. After lights out the other reindeer gather under the pine tree on the main lawn to go over the day's notes ? night flying, unmarked houses, friendly fire ? the like. The evening before a gas huffer asked for Red's autograph under the healthy glow of his nose.
"He's not going to make it, Dash."
Back on all fours, the ice is slushy under my hooves. Red asks when I will be back to visit him again. I tell him soon while taking in the rest of the campus. Really, it's pleasant. Everything is accounted for. There is wild grass and low growing flower. Not far away seals bark like dogs.
Before leaving I hand him a new list. It's from a kid living in Northeast Kingdom in Vermont looking for his first bicycle. "He's thirteen, Red."
Miles north of the Queen Elizabeth Islands, I picture Red reading the list back in his room. Maybe he's lying in his hay bed suite and looking over that map he keeps tacked on the wall. If Red feels like it, he should think about those colored pushpins. He might want to take a few off the map. Without him we could get lost and miss North America altogether. He should do that, and soon.
Stace Budzko has been published in The Southeast Review and Carve Magazine (Raymond Carver Short Story Award Finalist). He has work forthcoming in Norton's Flash Fiction Forward Anthology, Rose Metal Press' Brevity and Echo, Smokelong Quarterly, and The Binnacle.
