skills grew, he was discovered by Dr. Babril Tsupalensky, Rector of Bustard University’s Linguistics Department, who offered him a full linguistic scholarship.
With new funds available, Attila rented a mountain cabin. He spent the next four years surrounded by glorious pine trees, bears, skunks, and birds. Hoping to improve his fluency in ancient languages, he spoke Akkadian to passing bears, using phrases like “How Ur you?” or “Give me Ur hand.” The bears observed him strangely, and their blank response convinced him that better communication skills between bears and humans were needed.
During this “cabin period,” he wrote Grammar of Ursaline Linguistics, which became a best-seller among forest rangers and environmentally conscious Coloradians. Page 16 of the book, filled with action verbs, was adopted by leaders of the “Free the Bears” movement. By assiduously studying its contents as their guide, Podunk Sleswick, Joe “Pebbles” Podushevsky, and Ellen Estretch organized an Ursine March on Washington. Attila’s ursaline verb forms enabled them to speak directly to bears. Alas, the march failed to materialize after the two leaders were clawed to death during a bear consciousness-raising session.
Attila, having spent most of his four college years in his cabin, asked himself one month before graduation, “Where do I go from here?” Answers to this question along with his story of personal transformation can be found in his autobiography, A Bustard Among Men:
It started during my last year at Bustard. What I would do after I graduated? What path would I take? Self-discovery was my goal; I wanted to understand the Me inside me.
One day, in a meditative mood, I took a walk on one of the many mountain trails outside town. Pines, sedimentary rocks, sparkling granite beauties, sprinkled and popped on the marked trail. The rising sun threw spears of flashing light across my path.
Suddenly, a heard a gunshot! Running further up the path, I heard another. I spied a man sitting in a tree, rifle in hand, aiming at the ground. Bang! When he saw me, he aimed at me. Bang! A bullet whizzed past me. Then another and another. Luckily, he always missed.
We soon became friends. That tall, slender man, balanced precariously on a branch, wore a buckskin shirt, leather pants, an Indian feather behind his ear, and heavy work boots. A red beard covered the right side of his face, and a gray cowboy hat, with a plastic eagle perched above it, sat on his head.
He lowered his gun. “Who are you?”
“Attila Zany.”
He raised his gun, pointed it at my chest, and looked me over. “Sounds Hunnish to me.” The man squinted, waited a moment, but eventually lowered his weapon. “The only Zany I know is Brunhilde Zany. She lives down in Cleaver Creek.”
“That’s my mother.”
“Your ma?”
“Yup. After I got into Bustard, I left New Jersey. Ma wanted to be near me. So she moved to Colorado to keep our relationship close.”
“You’re a Bustard U. guy? Out here we call them U Bustards. Four years ago some Bustards from the Animal Rights Department hired me as a wildlife lab technician. I like animals. They said to me, ‘Bob, we’re doing a study of rattlesnake bites. You’re a winner with a gun. Want to kill snakes for us? I said, ‘Sure, why not?’ That’s why folks call me ‘Rattlesnake.” ’
“Fitting.”
“Right. I’m an aural kind of guy. I like sounds, rattling sounds—tin can rattle, coconut rattle, snake rattle, death rattle, anything that rattles. I like killing things, too. When my lab job ended, my life wasn’t going anywhere. I looked into my heart and decided to pursue my deepest interest. So I bought a gun, came to the mountains, sat down by the roadside, and shot rattlesnakes. Been doing it three years now. A good life until six months ago . . . . I ran out of snakes. The peace and quiet nearly killed me. Then I decided to take control of my life. I took my money out of the Denver bank, headed for Toys R Us, and bought out their baby rattles. I’ve been shooting rattles ever since.”
“Expensive hobby.”
“Hobby? Shooting isn’t a hobby. It’s a calling! When I realized the importance of it, and the pressure it put me under, I could hardly stand it. I even thought about killing people! I tried a few times, got arrested, ended up in prison. But after a year, the warden gave up on me. ‘You’re too violent for prison,’ he said. ‘I’m putting you on the street where you can do some good.’ I’ve been out ever since.
“But my interest in shooting people evaporated. No one smiled at me when I shot them. I like a good reception. I like smiles. If folks don’t appreciate you, life’s no fun. So now I only shoot snakes, when there are any, and rattles when there ain’t.”
“Did you ever meet my ma?”
“Sure did. She’s some babe. What a sombrero! Does she ever take that thing off?”
“Hasn’t for years. She’s ashamed of her cerebralectomy. The doctor started but never finished . . . .” I shifted to one leg. Reflecting further on my childhood, I added, “Rattlesnake, you’re making me homesick. Maybe I’ll visit her.”
“Mothers’re like that. Mine sure was until I shot her lemon pie full of holes.” Rattlesnake raised his gun, aimed at one of the broken toy rattles lying under the pine tree, and pulled the trigger. The pop of the gunshot rattled and ricocheted throughout the canyon. “It’s always good to visit your ma. To my knowledge, she’s still living in Schizoid House.”
“ . . . She took that name from her sorority house. I’ve never liked it. It demeans her talents.”
“Well, maybe, but as I said, it’s always good to visit your mother.”
“Okay, Rattlesnake. I’ll do it.”
“Good boy.” Rattlesnake smiled. “Here, take this.” He handed Attila his weapon. “It’s a present.”
“Oh, I can’t do that. What about your—your calling?”
“Someone else is calling. I’m tired of killing. I’m retiring. No rattlesnakes left. Even the baby rattles are nearly gone. Shooting has run its course. I don’t need it anymore. I’m passing it on to you. Here’s some advice: Never hurt a human soul. Hurting is mean, real mean. I never hurt anybody. Kill them if you like, but don’t you ever hurt them.”
Rattlesnake got up from his rock, brushed off his pants, and walked down the mountain.
4
ATTILA VISITS MAMA ZANY
ATTILA KEPT HIS WORD. He visited Mama Brunhilde Zany at her mountain hideaway, a log cabin high in the Tetrahymenic Peptide Chain, a group of mountains in the backyard named after her favorite chemicals, which served as her residence and research laboratory.
Mother and son took a seat on the sofa in the living room, facing each other. Mountain air ruffled the curtains as it blew through the open window. The aroma of fresh pine filled the room. Attila leaned his gun against the armrest. Offering him a cup of cold tea, Mama Zany explained, “Attila, you were always my favorite chemical experiment. I named you just as you popped out. I named my mountain the same way I named you. Seize the moment! That has been my motto ever since you were born. Whether it is life springing from my womb, or the Peptide Chain bubbling up from the womb of God Herself, creation is the point. Creation! That’s the key word: Create, create! Build, build! As soon as I moved here, I built the lunar laboratory of my dreams.” She pointed to the back yard. “I built it behind the kitchen