Evil Men and Veterinarians

If you don't want to know what happened on last night's Prison Break, or can't bear tales of suffering animals, you may want to skip today's post. You have been warned...

I'd be hard-pressed to consider a more despicable villain on any current television series than Prison Break's T-Bag. He's a rapist, a murderer, and a pedophile, and every word out of his mouth oozes, dripping with slime. It's a credit to the actor who portrays him, Robert Knepper, who has neither the drawling accent nor the sheer depravity of his character. I recently watched an interview in which he spoke quite cheerfully and crisply about the role, how his character consistently charms viewers before breaking their heart all over again. He’s a convincing devil. The first season of the show left us actually feeling slight sympathy for this monster, when one of the other escaped inmates took his hand off with an axe.

The second season opened with the convicts still on the run, and the wounded and alone T-Bag stumbling upon a campsite, where he put his severed member into a cooler of ice. He then sought medical attention from a small, inconspicuous clinic, one that turned out to be a veterinary clinic. Undeterred, he forced the vet at the point of a screwdriver to reattach his hand, and to do so without anesthetic. The trembling animal physician had no choice, and miraculously succeeded with the surgery. How much feeling and motion T-Bag will regain is yet to be seen, but after enduring such agony, his next step would be to kill the vet so he wouldn't talk. Strapping him to a table, T-Bag whispered a chilling speech about Indian warriors claiming the souls of those they defeat. He then jabbed a needle in the helpless man's arm, and euthanized him.

We've never put our pets to sleep. My mom doesn’t believe in it. She's had cats live as long as eighteen years, and she always sat stroking and comforting them in their last moments. I'd often wake up the next morning to find she'd stayed up all night. Only once was she not there, when we came home to find her Calico Cindy lying stiffly in the living room, my mom’s shrieking sob confirming my worst fears. She felt really guilty that she wasn't with her in her last moments. I've been awake with the last two cats we lost, and it's definitely an emotionally draining experience. The care of a good vet and the love of owners can only prolong the inevitable for so long. I tend to cringe at roadkill and hate to hear stories of animals suffering cruelty or untimely demises. I'm glad the dog always escapes the natural disaster/serial killer/collapsed tunnel/asteroid/alien invasion in 99.44% of the movies I watch. I was 31 the first time I saw Bambi, and I still haven't seen Old Yeller, or any movie about a horse because I’m sure the horse always breaks a leg and has to be shot. I watch people get shot, sliced, diced, crushed and worse all the time without flinching, but if an animal is threatened I really start to worry.

If someone starts to tell me an animal story that might end badly, I might cut them off. My mom usually talks faster to get the story out, because while she doesn't like it either I think she needs to share her pain. Last week she told me a story about her cousin's daughter bringing her four little boys to the arboretum where she volunteers, and poking at a frog with a stick. There wasn't more to the tale than the thing crying in pain and fleeing, the demon quartet finding it wherever it hid in the greenhouse, but I was afraid of where the story was going. Yesterday, one of my friends at work started telling me a story about a turtle crossing the road when he was driving. My brain immediately leapt to a sickening crunch beneath his tires, but I steeled myself for whatever came next. As it turns out, he pulled over and moved the turtle to the side of the road and, after calling to consult his wife, took the turtle to a local pond where it can potentially live happily ever after. There was hope rather than the tragedy I anticipated.

In spite of this, I was transported to the past on my commute home, recalling an incident from my college days. A group of us were at the university, meeting on a Saturday to catch a movie and waiting for our friend Rey, who was uncharacteristically late. We knew something was wrong when he appeared carrying the small plastic bin most of us were familiar with as a receptacle for art supplies. It seemed heavy in his arms, and there was a strange sound coming from it. He set it down, and in it we saw a small black puppy, whimpering and broken. He'd seen a car strike it on the expressway and keep going, so he pulled over to rescue it. Most of the gang thought it was sad but realistically there wasn't much to be done. Still, we set out in search of a vet, hope or mercy if not a miracle. Rey drove while I held the box in my lap, uttering ineffectual “It's okay”'s every time the wounded animal would cry. It was a high-pitched sound, a sound I'd never want to hear again, and can never forget. The sound is the sharpest part of the memory, the anchor point that can still draw me back to that day if something reminds me.

We found a vet and explained the situation. The woman at the desk was kind and sympathetic, and thankfully didn't offer a prognosis one way or the other. There was no collar, and chances are the wounded stray would simply be “put to sleep”, an expression I really hate. Indeed when we got back to school and related the outcome of our quest, one of our friends suggested as much. It was still better to try, and I still have the naive hope that the dog was saved, and went on to live a full and healthy life. One of my dad's friends had a cat that got hit by a car, and the man spared no expense in having the vet save him. Broken bones mended, fur grew back, and the cat lived out a natural life span. It's possible the same happened with the puppy Rey tried to save, but if they put it out of its misery instead, perhaps that was a better fate than leaving it in the gutter. All he could do was try, and in trying there was hope of a better outcome.

In elementary school, there were always kids who thought it macho or cool to talk about putting animals in the microwave. I pray it was all talk, and none of them ever attempted such an experiment. Their laughter infuriated me, made me want to hit them, but I was smaller, and usually the recipient rather than the dispenser of fists. There are a lot of twisted people in the world, and a character like T-Bag who'd put to sleep a doctor who just helped him isn't as much of an exagerration as he should be. Animals kill for food or survival, or act out of instincts for such behavior. There is no malicious intent. Is that why it's harder for me to hear about animal suffering? Are they more innocent than human beings? I wish I knew...