I.
I could make my stand here, he thought to himself. I could make this my own kingdom; I could befriend the guards, earn their trust, and the respect of the warden, gather up as many privileges and as much power as I can, and before the other inmates arrive, I’d be established as their de facto leader. He walked the halls of the prison, pausing every now and then to survey his would-be domain, and he imagined the cells filled with prisoners, and every one of them showering him with respectful greetings as he passed by. He waved his arm in acknowledgment, and he closed his eyes and drank in that phantom respect.
“Hey, Tucker,” the voice of the guard interrupted, “we better get you back, man. Boss won’t like it if we let you wander around too much. You understand, right?”
“Of course, I wouldn’t want you boys to get in trouble on account of me,” he responded, and he noted in his head the polite tone of the guard, almost apologetic, as if he generally cared about Tucker’s opinion. It was the same with the other guards; they all showed him unusual deference. And why not, they were all from other towns, so they weren’t tainted by the provincial prejudice against the Tucker name. He’d have the guards in his pocket soon enough.
“By the way, you got a package just came in. Folks at mail were giving it a looking over. If you want, we could go walk over and pick it up. What you got coming, Tucker?”
“Not a clue,” he said with sincerity. He’d lost hope that Carl would be coming to his rescue. Two weeks had passed since they’d last spoken. No message from his friend had come back to him. The only thing he’d heard was that Carl had skipped town to elope with some Temple girl—and a Jewish one at that. Tucker nearly choked from laughing so hard when he read the story in the paper, which noted the disappointment on the part of the Lemon family and quoted Carl’s father, who said, “Well, all I can say is I hope the Lord has blessed him, because he’s ruined the Lemon Christmas.” The next day, Mr. Lemon issued a clarification, noting that it was Carl who’d ruined Christmas and not the Lord.
“If it’s something good, like whiskey, you gonna share it with his, huh, Tucker? We’re gonna have a party, huh?”
“Oh, absolutely,” Tucker said through gritted teeth. Earn their trust, humor them, he thought to himself. In time, I’ll be the one in charge.
In the mail room, they were enthusiastically greeted by the mail trustee, a goblin of a man about the size of an upright vacuum cleaner, with teeth the color of dried corn kernels, and a red baseball cap that covered the grotesque wound from where his scalp had been ripped away by the father of the toddler he’d allegedly raped. “Oh, Mr. Tucker,” the goblin squealed, “guess what it is, guess what it is, oh, you’ll never guess.” He saved Tucker the trouble of finding out for himself, greedily unwrapping the loosened paper, and pulling open the already-opened box. “It’s a duck, Mr. Tucker. Oh, boy, I haven’t had duck in a long time. Can we eat it, can we?”
The sight of that duck laying dead in the box struck Tucker dumb. He felt faint, as if he were about to collapse. It had to be him, but he couldn’t trust his instincts, so lunged forward and tore through the packaging. “Hey, whoa, there, Mr. Tucker,” the goblin cried, “we got regulations, please, Mr. Tucker, I could get in trouble.” And then he found the note. It read, in neatly lettered black ink, A special gift for you and me and Bobby. Enjoy your revenge. Your friend, C.L.
“No, boys,” Tucker said, “I’m afraid this feast is just for me.”
“Aw, now, see, that ain’t right, Tucker,” said the guard, “We’re you’re pals, ain’t we, and that ain’t the way you treat your pals. No, sir, why, it’d be a shame you have to lose some of them privileges on account of not sharing with your pals.”
“It’s all right,” Tucker said, “you do what you gotta do. I understand. But, just this once, this one last favor is all I ask.” He held out the bird, his arms trembling. Perhaps it was the manic look in Tucker’s eyes that pressed the guard to assent; whatever the cause, the duck was taken away to the kitchen to be prepared. The goblin looked dejected, like a starving man denied a crumb. He’d just have to go on licking his lips in vain, for this was Tucker’s feast.
The feast, though, was long in coming. He paced his cell for what seemed like hours. He kept thinking he should have some sort of ceremony to commemorate the profundity of the moment—that he was finally having his long-sought, and final, revenge—but his mind was disturbingly blank. He wanted to feel something—pleasure or joy or satisfaction—but nothingness prevailed.
What they brought him resembled a plate of dried, boiled rags. “You know, I’m suddenly not so hungry for duck,” said the guard, “but you go ahead and enjoy it, Tucker.” He sat alone with his dish. He stared at it, that gray mash wrapped around pallid bones. This was McGonigel, he thought, this was the duck that caused all my problems. And it seemed to him almost sacrilegious to eat his flesh, as if he owed his mortal enemy more than simple mastication. He even felt a little nauseous at the prospect. Sitting in that cell, enclosed by the cold walls and the sounds of heavy doors locking, he certainly didn’t feel victorious. The one thing, however, that came to override whatever other notions he may have had in his head, was the sense of duty to his own vow of revenge.
He inhaled deeply of the rank steam wafting from the dish. And then he abandoned all thought and tore apart the duck with fingers and teeth, swallowing whole chunks, and choking on bones and gristle. He dug into that bird until nothing was left but a plate of greasy bones. Only after he’d been laying on his bunk for awhile, with that bird working its way through his digestive system, did he reflect on the implication of what he’d done, and what he’d finally accomplished. And then his thoughts were colored by the realization rising from his palate, that the duck he’d just eaten right down to the bone, was in fact mostly raw, as if only the outside, the skin of the bird, had been touched by heat – perhaps a blast from a blowtorch by the look of things. Maybe the undercooked meat, then, was the cause of his stomach’s fits, and the escalating throb in his head that escalated into a pounding, and the sweat that soaked his sheets, and the chill that crawled through his skin. Whatever its source or cause, this was a malady that had put him in a very bad way.
Paralyzed in this way for some time, with no one coming to knock on his cell door, or to offer him a seat in front of the TV in the guard’s lounge—a privilege revoked, no doubt, on account of his greed—Tucker was left with only his own thoughts and the cacophony of his digestive system at war. It felt to Tucker like the duck was fighting one last skirmish, this time the battlefield being within his bowels, where he could not scratch or scrape or fight back. Clever duck, he thought, to try and cook my goose long after its own demise. He fought back the only we way he could think of, by heaving himself off the bunk and crawling over to the toilet, thrusting his fingers down his throat, and releasing in one mighty stream, the maximum amount of undigested fowl his body would bring forth. And when he was done, and nothing more would come out, he collapsed there on the floor, and fell into a delirium, drifting in and out of spiritual consciousness, until finally sliding into a deep, uneasy, physically-taxing slumber.
In his dream, he was sitting in a chair in the Tucker living room. All the animals of the farm sat on various chairs. In one corner, on a pedestal sat a statue of Bonnet, her wing outstretched, pointing in the direction of a duck perched motionless atop the television. The whole room was dark, and so faces and shapes were obscured, but Tucker had a strong sense that it was McGonigel. A young girl—who looked about nine years old—came running down the stairs, and she jumped into Tucker’s arms, and announced herself as Mrs. Lemon, Carl’s wife. “Carl couldn’t make it, but he sent me to give you a message. He says he hopes you were happy with his gift. Oh, and he said he was going to send you a bill for the cost of his little murder, but he figures you’re probably broke, so consider this homicide as a belated Hanukkah gift. Isn’t he nice? Personally, I’m more of a chicken gal. That’s all we have to say to you. Goodbye.” And she took one of the chickens from the living room, tucked it under her arm, and walked out the door. The next figure to descend the stairs hobbled his way over to Tucker. He saw that it was Bobby Timmons, who, upon seeing his old friend, said, “You shouldn’t have done that, J.T. What’d that duck ever do to you?” He pointed to the immobile bird on the television, which, upon being recognized, appeared to flinch ever so slightly. Wondering if the figure of McGonigel was indeed sentient and alive, Tucker moved closer to it, pushing aside the other animals that stood in his way. A chicken poked his ankles, a goat chewed on his shirt sleeve, a row of ducks stood in his path and hissed in a polyphonic chorus. He stood before the television, and he reached out to touch the bird atop it, and then it seemed to explode, all the feathers flying off and outward, away from the duck’s body, and what was left behind was a trace outline of what had stood there before, like chalk written on the air. He looked down at his hands, and he saw on each of his fingernails the image of McGonigel staring back at him, and they spoke to him in unison, saying, “Oh, sure, blame me for all your troubles.”
II.
When he awoke, he felt as if much time had passed—days, perhaps even months or years. He looked up and saw faces staring through the window of his door, and he heard whispering, of which he could hear someone saying, “I don’t know, since yesterday afternoon, I guess. Think we should go in?” And another voice responded, “I got no problem if he wants to sleep in. We got other worries, with those new inmates coming tonight. He ain’t dead yet.” They left him there, perhaps to die, and he heard their footsteps echoing further and further away. And he thought, laying there beside the toilet, that those echoes would soon be muffled by new bodies. And he’d blown his chance to be top dog by giving in to his desire for revenge.
He sat up, with the jackhammer still pounding his skull, and the sickness blanketing his taste buds. He was still in a bad way, but he was sure now that he wasn’t going to die. The duck could do him no more harm. He felt that deep to his core.
Now that part of his life—which had come to define so much of how he saw the world, and, indeed, had led to his present predicament—was over. He had to go on, without ducks to stand in his way. Tucker would have to define Tucker. He looked at his fingernails, but he saw no McGonigel on either one. No, he thought to himself, that’s McGonigel rumbling in my stomach, and that’s McGonigel wafting from the muck in the toilet. He thought of how, in that act, he’d taken the duck into himself, and though the physical flesh may have come back out, he still held within him the psychological, even spiritual, essence of McGonigel. He was at once the murderer and the murdered, the victim and the victimizer, the criminal and the vigilante – he was, in essence and in spirit, the duck and the farmer.
And this was the realization that carried him forward. Just as he’d absorbed the duck into his system, so, too, did he absorb his sins, and make them his own. The realization of this was fairly easy. He simply contacted his lawyer, and instructed him to accept a guilty plea, and to give the prosecutor everything he wanted. Tucker was told that he shouldn’t expect any mercy, that through these actions he’d be purchasing a direct ticket to the death house. Tucker said that, Yes, he understood, he knew what he was doing, and the sooner it was done the better. What could his lawyer do but accept his client’s wishes?
The trial went on for weeks, mostly due to the posturing and histrionics of the prosecutor, who wanted to make it clear to the jury and to the press and to the voters that, as long as he was in office, there’d be no mercy for mother-murderers, no mercy for cold-hearted killers like the smug man who stands before you today. Every sentence of his was a reiteration of this point. Tucker almost felt sorry for the man. Clearly, he’d expected the accused to put up a better fight, and here came Tucker, surrendering before every argument. He was asked, did you do this and that, and Tucker answered, Yes, I did everything you’ve said, and given the chance, I’d do it all again, and do it happily. No mention of vengeful ducks, but in the back of his mind, he said to himself and to his companion, Here’s what I’m doing, McGonigel, now that you are within me, I’m paying for all the sins that you and I’ve accumulated, and now we’ll both perish, together as one.
Finally, after the prosecutor had given the last of his voice to righteous indignation, and he was reduced to a quavering hoarseness, the unsurprising verdict came in, but the prosecutor was too tired to rejoice at his victory. The judge, too, seemed exhausted from the trial that had gone on far too long. The end came with a sputtering whimper. They read the verdict, then the sentence, said that justice had been served, and that was that. Tucker thanked his lawyer, assured him that he’d done a fine job, and they said goodbye, the lawyer walking away in a dispirited funk.
The curious thing about death penalty cases is that they rarely end rapidly. Even in the case of an eager and cooperative inmate like Tucker, it can take years to put a single individual to death. Tucker, though, made the best of his time. He cooperated in every way, waving his appeals, petitioning for a speedy execution, writing multiple letters attesting to his evil nature and his readiness to repeat his crime. He wanted to be as much of a nuisance as possible, so that perhaps they’d kill him just out spite. And each time, they assured him that he’d get his wish as soon as possible.
In the meantime, he busied himself with a new project. He decided to tell the story of his war with McGonigel. He titled it “The Duck and The Farmer,” though he certainly never considered himself, at any point in his life, to be a farmer. It sounded to his ears better than anything else he cold think of, like, for example, “The Duck and the Underappreciated Genius.” He wrote in a linear order, beginning with the Lemon family’s gift of a single female duck to the Tuckers. This was Bonnet. He wrote of how his mother loved this duck, and how she bought a male duck so that Bonnet could know the joys of motherhood, and so she’d have another mother with whom to gab. He wrote of Father Tucker’s disapproval, his insistence that ducks were good for nothing but roasting – unproductive, worthless beasts is what he called them. He wrote of McGonigel’s birth, and how he got his name. As he remembered it, McGonigel was Mother Tucker’s maiden name. She was, alas, the last of her family to carry the McGonigel name. When she married, her father begged her to retain the family name, or to at least pass it on to her children, But she was old-fashioned, and so surrendered to her husband’s wish, which, considering how much he hated the McGonigels, meant that the name would die, along with the family line. Her heart softened, though, when Bonnet produced her first ducklings. Right away, there was one special duckling that drew attention. Fresh from the shell and already he wanted to take flight, as if the farm wasn’t big enough to contain his ambitions. She knew that this was the one creature most worthy of the McGonigel name. Tucker wrote of how his mother took such delight in the duckling, and neglected her own son, and the feelings of jealousy and resentment this inspired in him, though he was only eight years old. He wrote of how he’d hated the duck from the beginning. His hatred grew as the attention of the whole town was focused on that peculiar duck. They were so easily amused by McGonigel’s antics – his ability to carry oddly shaped objects on his head for long stretches, his ability to solve simple mathematic operations by tapping his beak against the ground, his uncanny detective skills, demonstrated in dramatic situations, such as the time he found a missing infant in a ravine two miles away. He was an extraordinary duck in just about every way. Admitting this in his writing surprised Tucker, as if, in exorcising his hatred, he found the astonishing nature of McGonigel laid before him, uncontaminated by his childish, petty prejudices. But he stuck to the mission of his project, and so continued with the truth as he remembered it. He wrote of his childhood bitterness, and the loneliness of his bitter feelings. The only person who shared his feelings was his father, but even then Father Tucker had other preoccupations; for example, he was spending an inordinate amount of time apprenticing the neighbor’s young farmhand, leaving the work of the Tucker farm in Jorge’s hands. Jorge was indifferent to just about everything except the attentions of Mother Tucker.
In writing all this, he realized that he was remembering things in a different way, different, at least, from the way he’d lived them, as if hazy patterns were now made clear, and the lines he etched on the paper were the connections to all the scattered dots that comprised his memories. By the time he reached the part of the story where he and McGonigel went to war, he was so astonished and transfixed by the long-suppressed or long-dormant details of his life, the richness and verve that had passed him by, that he forgot the bitterness of his youth, and, indeed, he nearly forgot the war itself. He, nonetheless, carried on, his fidelity to his project taking precedence over all else. He wrote of Bobby Timmons, and the mysterious nature of his death, and he wrote about the years in exile, when he had a family of his own, and how he’d screwed up and gambled and lost them all. This, though, was a painful memory, and he wrote of it only briefly, promising himself that once he’d finished the tale of the duck and the farmer, he’d return to exorcise the pain of that aspect of his life.
But then he came to the morning of his mother’s death. He wrote about the lunch he’d prepared for her, and had set out on the table, and how she’d complained that the bread had gone stale. And then he stopped writing. His mind went blank, and the words stopped coming. The day of his execution was approaching. Three months away, then two months, then a month, then a week – and still his writer’s block stood obdurately in his path. And as the hours approached, he realized that his project had ended. He stayed there on the morning of his mother’s murder. Nothing more could be said. He could not confess on McGonigel’s behalf. And he could not lie and take the blame for the duck’s crime. He bundled up the finished pages and left instructions to have them mailed to Carl Lemon, or whatever his old friend was calling himself nowadays.
They led him to the chamber, in front of an audience comprising less than a dozen people. Not a familiar face among any of them. They asked him if he had any final words, and he assured them that everything had already been said. So they strapped him in, and left him there to await the chemical mixture. He found himself oddly at peace, as if he’d finally found his way in the world. He hadn’t conquered the universe, which had always been his dream, but he felt as if he and the universe had signed a mutually acceptable truce. He had slain his bitterness and hatred, and left to the world a cautionary tale. He even hoped to have seen Jorge—the second most hated figure in his life—in the audience, so that he could nod to him, and in so doing, apologize for any of the bad blood that may have come between them.
They stuck the needle in Tucker’s arm. He breathed in and breathed out. He felt his skin tighten, as if it were clinging desperately to his bones, afraid to let go. And he felt a strange sort of pain shooting through his bloodstream. He turned one last time to the audience and he saw something peculiar. Peculiar and familiar. And he saw this familiar figure grow taller until it stood above the other figures, who all seemed oblivious to the stranger rising behind them. He saw the familiar white head now held high, and the curve of orange beak pointing upwards, and the wings outstretched. He thought this was a hallucination accompanying his exit. But then he heard the quacking that filled the chamber, and he saw the people scrambling in confusion, and he heard a woman scream. He wanted to stare into McGonigel’s eyes. And he wanted to smile, and convey to him his congratulations. He wanted to say, Well played, you clever bastard, well played. But all Tucker could do is let out one last gasp, and then he was no more. So ended the war between the duck and the farmer.
