Charlie Sheen

On Wednesday, May 25th, we got a goat.

Unfortunately I wasn't woken at six to go to the market and witness the actual purchase, but I'm told it was quite the experience. The vendors were apparently quite adamant about showing off the (huge!) testicles of the various goats to prove that they were male and in-tact. He was very vigorous and easily-spooked. He would jump and flip in his attempts to get away from us, which due to his rope meant that he ended up doing barrell-rolls and 360s all the way home. Inspired by his evident crazyness and the white speckles around his nose, we decided on a name that morning. We tied up Charlie Sheen beside our house, and started giving him fruit and vegetable peels and other kitchen scraps.

His name turned out to be apt in another way: he was loud. The first place we tied him was right outside the bedroom I shared with two others, and he had a habit of bleating loudly at about five or six in the morning, waking us all up. This was the source of some frustration with him at first, but we'd been waking quite early already, and I soon found I was enjoying the early starts.

In the first few days, I started to work on countering his skittishness by bringing him leaves and branches, which I'd read that goats much preferred to grass. Before long he'd gotten used to me to the point where he'd eat them out of my hand, though he'd still shy away if I tried to scratch his ears.

That Sunday, we brought him around to the back of the house, which isn't faced by any bedrooms, and re-tied him to our tree. While he'd seemed calmer while tied up, as soon as he was untied he began to spaz out once again, trying so desparately to resist that he ran face-first into the side of the house as we rounded a corner. Those efforts were in vain, but he didn't give up; that night, Sarah looked out a back window and saw that he was gone. He'd chewed through his rope and lept the wall surrounding the house.

We all rushed outside to look for him, but quickly realized we wouldn't have any luck in the near-pitch-dark. Some farmers who lived next to us assured us that he wouldn't go far, and we resolved to search for him first thing in the morning. Four of us went out at about seven and searched widely accross the surrounding farmland, but to no avail. We kept our eyes open for Charlie whenever we went out, and our neighbors had promised to do the same, but by the end of the day I'd begun to give up hope. I was toying with the idea of getting a second goat when, Wednesday morning, two of the older boys from the HCC brought him back to us with a new new goat-proof rope around his neck. They'd had to chase him quite some distance; "This is a very stubborn goat," they said. "We know", I said.

A few days later, Bismarck, one of the two who'd recaptured the goat, was visiting us when he heard Charlie's bleating, which had only intensified since his return. Bismarck told us that it meant Charlie was hungry, and that we should get a longer rope for him so that he could move freely around the yard to graze, rather than being stuck within a few feet of the tree. At first this seemed surprising given all the scraps we'd been leaving for him, but on a closer inspection it was clear he'd barely been touching them. It seemed our western perception of goats as being agressively omnivorous was at least partly mistaken.

It wasn't until the next Sunday that we bought a rope at the general store in town. I tied the new rope to the tree and was going to tie the other end around Charlie's neck, when Solomon, a boy from the HCC who was about eight years old, offered to tie it for me. Assuming that he would have more experience of goat knots than myself, I agreed, and he tied Charlie's neck with what looked like a secure knot.

The improvement was almost immediate. Ten minutes later we hadn't heard another peep out of the goat. I was so surprised that I went outside to check on him. I found only a rope. The knot around his neck had simply come apart, and he'd escaped again. Fortunately, it was midday, so I set out immediately to search for him, knowing he couldn't have gone far. Indeed, he hadn't - I found him a five-minute walk down the road from us, beside the small lake and near the HCC building. Seeing me, he bolted down the path between the road and the lake. I was a faster runner on the road and quickly overtook him, but just as I did he turned sharply and crossed the road to the grove of trees on the other side. Fortunately there were some men relaxing under those trees. I shouted to them for help as I ran after Charlie, and three of them jumped up and joined the chase as well.

Charlie led us some way from the road through trees and over scrubland, before stopping in another grove amongst some female goats. My three helpers moved slowly around the grove and I pointed him out to them, and the four of us formed a moving cordon and herded him and a female back towards the road. Finally we managed to isolate and surround him on a small dirt path. We slowly advanced, shifting to block his path as he feinted left and right. When we got within two or three meters he made a break for freedom, and almost made it. But the closest hunter reached out and grabbed one of his back legs as he ran past. Charlie's momentum carried him into the air and through a full circle, but not out of the hunter's grip. He was ours once again.

One of my fellow hunters tied a new knot around his neck, which was rather more expertly done than the last, and did not slip as I dragged him back to the house and secured him once again in the back yard. Charlie Sheen would not escape again, but the ordeal seemed to have broken whatever trust I had before earned. Over the next week Charlie remained much quieter than before, complaining only when he got his rope so tangled around the plentiful debris that he couldn't move freely (which happened at least once a day), but whenever I got within fifteen feet of him, he'd return to madly throwing himself around the yard. Perhaps he knew what was coming.

On Sunday, June 12th, two weeks after his first escape and one week after his second, we ate our goat.

I brought Charlie Sheen out of the compound on his long rope for a walk in the early morning, one last taste of something approximating freedom. He was as crazy as ever, wrapping his rope around trees and getting into fights with the smaller goats we met on the way. To prepare him, we had the help of our friend IB, a local police detective. IB came over in the morning around ten, and after lunch, we lit a brazier full of coals and set up a rack over it. We siezed Charlie beside the house. Holding him down, IB and a few of the boys from the HCC untied his rope and bound his feet together with string. Then they lifted him by his feet and carried him, upside-down and screaming all the way as only a castrated goat can scream, to his final resting place.

They laid him down in a clear space, near the brazier. A long, wickedly curved knife was brought out, and the deed was done. When his body stopped its spasms, the carcass was hung from a tree by its front legs and was skinned, gutted, and butchered. The head and organs were given to the HCC to cook, while the meat was spiced and roasted over a small coal stove. We invited all our friends from around town over for dinner that night, and ate Charlie Sheen with jollof rice. He was as delicious as he had been crazy.

Rest in peace, Charlie. Though we knew you for but a short time, you'll always be a part of all of us.