Susan Israel: GOATVILLE • Cleaver Magazine

Flash by Susan Israel
GOATVILLE

Ambrose Bunch’s backyard was a tangle of weeds that his wife Florence kept harping on him about, so he went out, ostensibly to buy a lawn mower, and came home with a goat. “Flo, meet Jane Deere,” he chuckled, watching with delight as the brown and white pygmy goat devoured the grass lawns and sumac and crabgrass that had infiltrated their little square of land. Flo was not amused. “And where will you keep this… lawnmower, Brose?”

“The garage?” He shrugged. He hadn’t given much thought to Jane Deere’s upkeep, but soon his neighbors envied his immaculate lawn and asked if they could borrow her for the afternoon, at least until she started to dine on expensive flower beds and lawn furniture and steal checks out of mailboxes for her afternoon snack. Then she was all his again. Florence threatened to leave—“I won’t play second fiddle to a damn goat!”—whereupon Jane Deere collapsed.

“Now see what you’ve done? You made her faint! The least little excitement upsets them. She’s a fainting goat.”

Florence rolled her eyes and stomped to their bedroom. “I’m going to my sister’s house and when I come back, I want her gone. I won’t ever complain about lawnmowers and leaf blowers again.”

“It just so happens that we live in a section of town called Goatville. Goats and pigs used to roam the streets free.” At least that was what he’d once been told.

“I guess we’re lucky they didn’t call it Pigville then. You know where to find me. I’m out of here.”

Ambrose fed Jane Deere some pellets and held the door open for her. She climbed up on the couch and watched football with him. Such an agreeable companion, he thought, then thought about all the other benefits she could provide. Milk. Cheese. Soap. He began planning his website The Goat Bunch as she nestled against him, her horns digging into his ribs, uttering a very soft, “Maaaaa.”

Susan Israel’s work has recently been published in MacQueen’s Quinterly, Blink-Ink, 50 Word Stories, Flash Boulevard, Does It Have Pockets, Okay Donkey, Boudin, and several others. She lives in Connecticut with her dog who sometimes eats like he thinks he’s a goat.