The billys

The billy goats stink with the smell of a hormonal middle school boy. It’s a terrible smell, that thick smell of musk and something pungent that I can’t name in the goat world; in the middle school boy world is Axe. The only difference between the two worlds is that when goats cast such a scent to the four winds, the lady-goats pay attention, but when the middle school boy coats his pits, arms, and shirts in Axe or Tag, the avalanche of ladies that the commercials promise do not come, though they may see a few while their camp counselor puts them outside while they apply the stuff.

Most of the billys are dear, though I try not to touch them (or anything they’ve touched), lest I smell like them. Mancha and Solomon, who are so small that Phil has to get a stepping-box for them in breeding season, are in the same pen and wait for me, their front legs dangling over their pen, like old friends who don’t mind being close. Monty is big and stands on his pen across from the goatshed braying with what can only be, “Lady! Give me a lady!” Standing where he is, he is framed picturesquely by the Irish countryside.

Major, on the other hand, is a miserable old cuss. He charges at me every time I come into his pen, just to see if he can make me flinch. Phil curses at him. I choose to act like a basketball player who has just ripped someone’s shot: “And what, Major?! And what?!” Major may not be, but I think Monty is impressed.

In other news, Cork city is flooded with the heaviest rain in decades, which caused the River Lee to burst its banks. Businesses and the hospital are flooded, but we are on a hill, and it reminds me of growing up in Florida and barely escaping flood after flood after flood, the backyard filling up with water, hermit crabs, and – if we’re lucky – the American alligator.