Traps

It isn’t legal to keep rabbits, but it is legal to trap, shoot, or bash them. Laurie dispatched thousands of rabbits throughout his childhood and teenage years using all of these methods. Nineteen now, he is losing interest, though he promises me a good weekend in the country; he says rabbit will be on the menu. I have never seen a rabbit in the wild, or, for that matter, outside a zoo or laboratory. I have eaten many at French restaurants around the world. I am a bit of a foodie.

The first rabbit he shows me comes as a surprise—a grey rabbit in a cage, limping gingerly over fresh straw. Had him for a year, says Laurie— old already by rabbit standards. No idea how old he is, but when I found him in a trap he was pretty small. Spent his whole life rootless, he laughed. A virgin male rabbit—now that’s one for the cards, he said.

He opened the hutch, took the rabbit gently out and stroked it; then, holding it snug under his chin with one big hand, reached into a bucket and took a piece of lettuce, which he fed to the hungry, interested, twitching rabbit. I know what they’re thinking, he said. Yeah, I replied: “I’m hungry.” Laurie laughed, They’re always hungry. Nah, I mean I really know what they’re thinking, especially this one.

Laurie’s father had been a professional roo-shooter. When Laurie was a small boy, his father took him out on his first shoot, had him pull tiny joeys from the pouches of shot mothers, and then showed him how to “snuff ’em” by crushing their heads with his sandshoe or bashing them with a rock. Like all roo-shooters, his dad told him it was the kindest thing to do. Wiping foam from his mouth, and saying, Bloody good beer, he explained this in an intelligent, almost self-analytical way. Fwoot fwoot went darts into a board next to him.

Laurie’s father had died two years back; was found on the fence-line of a station in the north-east, slumped in the front seat of his ute, next to his rifle. Heart attack. Laurie hadn’t shot a roo since then but was still after foxes and rabbits. Vermin, he said, and they’re not native, though he didn’t sound convincing. Still, I’ve got a soft spot for the bunnies, he said, tracing the black and red squares of his cotton shirt with a neatly manicured fingernail.

He was telling me all this the first time we met over a beer in the M. Hotel. I was there as producer-director for a touring youth-theatre production of As You Like It. Laurie was happy to yarn about anything. He said, You look a bit wet around the ears for a mature gent! He had zest about him. He was wry and funny. I found his good spirits infectious.

By closing time we were dancing to Sweet’s “Fox on the Run” and “Ballroom Blitz” (last drinks, folks, last drinks!), which Laurie told me he had specifically requested be loaded onto the juke box. Some of the codgers at the bar grunted at us, but in an affectionate way, as Laurie was clearly an honoured son of the pub, if not the whole town. He could do no wrong in that establishment. He paid for his drinks on a tab, the same one his old man had; keeping up the family tradition.

After closing, we sat in his ute and pulled cones from his “mini bong.”

Should come out to my place and have a puff, he said. You’d be welcome.

Sorry, mate, got to get back to the motel; we rehearse tomorrow morning. You want to come to the show?

Nah, mate, rabbiting for the rest of this week. But he gave me his number and said, If you ever want to drive out bush, give me a call. Bring some mull!

I was attracted to him, though I wasn’t sure in what way. Maybe I just saw...