my name is elmer j. fudd >> by viki reed >> *spark-online issue sixteen

I was raised in New Jersey. One thing I learned in those nineteen years was that hunting season (portrayed in Elmer Fudd and Bugs Bunny cartoons as being in the fall) actually lasts all year long.

There is no downtime for the mighty-hunter. Fall is the most active time, but there's never enough preparation. My father shopped for nifty, neat-o, hunting accoutrements all year long. Particularly so in the months that he could not actually pick up a gun and go shoot something.

Just as Thanksgiving is more than eating until you puke, hunting is so much more than lying in wait with deadly weapons for helpless animals that will starve or freeze if you don't kill them. Novices take note: all the following are firm and traditional aspects of hunting. Do you have a killer instinct or not?

Hunting is:

Fox piss: Just a splash here or there and it attracts horny deer for miles around. Don't be surprised if a deer suddenly comes up to you and gives you flowers.

Self-heating seat cushions: The accessory that's good all year long. It's camouflaged, like most hunting paraphernalia. Thanks to NASA, ass-friction is now a verifiable heat source that can be stuffed and peddled.

Call-whistles: Not every mighty hunter can imitate a duck, pheasant, deer, wild turkey, or goose. For the impersonation-impaired, a variety of devices have been created. The only skill you need to operate them is the ability to believe that the fauna and fowl have no idea that they're actually listening to stupid humans who are trying to kill them.

Flannel shirts: except for the smell of 'dead guy or thing', no one would ever know that you're wearing a 30-year-old shirt. Conversely, a new flannel shirt looks just as old. Who's the wiser?

Electric Socks: You'll need some thick, gray socks powered by a nine-volt battery. Just try not to get them too wet in the snow--you wouldn't want to awaken from an electrical shock and find yourself surrounded by a herd of hysterical deer.

Huntin' Cap: Vital. Nothing less. You should opt for something bright orange or red. Drunken poachers and rednecks mistake everything else for deer and you wouldn't want the last words you hear to be: "I told you they wasn't antlers, Bubba!"

Thermal Underwear: It must've been invented by a man-repelling women. Nothing makes beer-gut, inverted pear-shaped turtle-butt, or spindly legs more unappealing to women than waffled white tights with stitched jock cup.

Boots: Well, as any hunter can tell you, the deeper the treads in your boots, the better for catching beagle shit. What's a camping trip without the wives or the smell of dog crap everywhere you go?

Tree seat: You may not know this, but hunters don't just squat behind bushes or in trenches for hours, they also perch in trees. The vantage point is unbeatable. Just remember to secure your tree stand solidly. There's no reason to compromise your safety or let anyone see you hanging upside down trying to save all the hard candy falling out of your flack jacket.

Transportation: A Winnebago with your nickname painted on the driver's side door will do. All the better if you do the stenciling yourself--free hand. When a stranger saw my dad's camper with the giant retard scrawl saying: 'BIG BEAR', they could assume that an actual bear wrote it. Other than that there are only a few sure things to remember: portable-toilet, beer, microwave. Remember to have a CB radio in all vehicles. This way you can broadcast "I have to take a leak" in CB lingo anonymously, to other mighties when good and skunked-up.

Food: contrary to the obvious assumption that the mighty hunter would eat his kill, he does not. It is important to bring lots of bacon, eggs, bread, potato chips, cheese-puffs and candy and, of course, alcohol. It should be said that the most voluminous alcohol intake happens at backwoods bars on your way up the mountains.

*Make sure you bring your sons, nephews and their friends. Teach them how to look older so they don't get carded. You haven't had a real hunting trip until you've been tossed from at least one pub.

My middle brother was hazed thusly: all my kin and his buddies are at a bar.

Big Bear overturns a table trying to avoid his best buddy who wants to plant a big wet kiss on my brother. He spills a dozen screwdrivers and drenches the waitress bearing the tray. Dad gets thrown out of the bar and leaves one of my under-aged siblings behind in the bar. Not afraid to be a man, he demanded that the bartender pour at least one drink from every letter in the bartender's dictionary.

Whiskey isn't something you want to drink after drinking anything from A-to-N in the mixology guide. Upon downing a shot of Old Granddad (a particularly nasty whiskey appropriately named after the smell of an old man's hangover breath) my brother loses it. "It" being everything in his stomach, his memory, and the rest of the night. A guy who actually lives in the mountains offers to take my brother home. Because my brother is now strong like a drunk Hulk, he has to ride to this guy's cabin in the below-freezing night in the back of this mountain man's pick-up truck.

He doesn't remember falling asleep or returning back to camp in any real detail; but it certainly must've been after he vomited on this kind stranger's walls. Hazing completed, Big Bear gives the boys an extra big and hairy piece of back bacon for breakfast. He may not have sex for several years, but that night, he was a man.

Staking Your Spot: in case you've never hunted, killing is actually the smallest component of hunting. During daylight hours, you hike miles away from your base camp. You tag your trail with yellow plastic ribbons on trees along the way. This is so you can find your way back to camp the following morning at 3:30 a.m. This takes fifteen minutes, maybe a half-hour. Returning to your permanent mighty hunter perch in the dark and cold now runs a good two hours each way. Somehow little yellow ribbons don't seem so glaringly obvious before dawn. You must be very quiet (as Elmer says) when retracing your path, so you must move slowly. Slow movement combined with a complete lack of direction equals two or three hours.

The Kill: Well, this is where the pussies jump ship and the mighty hunters forward-ho-forward. It's all well and good to prepare, camp, haze, puke and stake your sight. But can you kill? In addition to having the guts, the true mighty hunter must be able to shoot straight and only when he knows he can kill. The last thing a real hunter should ever do is take crazy wildfire potshots. Train your gun-site on the "kill spots": the heart, the aorta in the neck, between the eyes, or any visible road sign. You don't shoot to maim. You never shoot to mutilate or relive "Platoon".

Psycho Hunters: you have a huge number of mighties who aren't out to shoot at an overpopulated herd of deer. They're just looking for ways to channel their need to beat their wives, drag race or outrun state troopers.

Armaments: My oldest brother Willie is a huge gun fanatic. Not just your standard .22 rifles or .38 revolvers. I'm talking semiautomatics, vintage WWI and WWII firepower. He's studied, collected, maintained and mastered all sorts of weapons. I heard a story about my brother coming upon a herd of deer. Many females. You're not supposed to shoot does or fawns. But my brother took his automatic firearm and virtually blended into thin air these poor bastards.

I repeat, I'm related to this person and the military would not take him because of his history with guns. I share genetic information with this person, who now finds killing animals boring. As I write, and later, as you're reading this, some grown man is defecating in the woods and wiping his rear-end with crunchy leaves because he doesn't want to lose his spot. There's also a man sitting on the toilet, drinking beer and browsing a gun magazine. Both men are in a quiet place far away from their wives. I think that's what hunting is all about.

Viki Reed is a mother and a writer.