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James K. Baxter Complete Prose Volume 1

The Story of Butch

The Story of Butch

Not long ago there was a rabbit called Butch. During the week he worked in a carrot factory and on Saturday nights he used to put on a hula-hula tie and stand at the street corner and say, ‘Hot bunny!’ to the girl rabbits that went past. Before long he met a little girl rabbit with a pink nose and sensitive whiskers (her mother was an albino and she was rather proud of it) and he knew that this was the real thing. So he gave away the hula-hula tie and took up ballroom dancing and opened a bank account.

But the day after they were engaged, he was dusting the top shelf in the carrot factory, when the ladder went for a skate. He fell like a sack of greens and everyone thought his last hour had come. But halfway to the ground his waistcoat burst open and two furry wings sprouted on his shoulders. He zoomed round the factory like a jet bomber and crashed into the manager, a bald bad-tempered rabbit who had come to the office door to see what allpage 273 the shouting was about. He told Butch to take a week’s pay and get to hell off the job.

The little girl rabbit was very upset though Butch explained it wasn’t his fault and after all he was still alive, wasn’t he? She said she could never marry a rabbit with wings. She wouldn’t feel safe in bed because he might suddenly take off without meaning to; and besides the deformity might be transmitted to their children. Butch began talking loudly about albinos and they parted on very bad terms.

After this his character began to deteriorate. Instead of getting another job he hung around the pubs drinking applejack and saying his wings were really an example of mutation and an evolutionary jump forward for the rabbit race. When he was drunk he would give flying exhibitions in the town square, looping the loop and turning in figures of eight. A lot of rabbits knocked off work to watch him and the rabbit children started to play the wag from school. There were complaints to the police from the Chamber of Commerce and the Home and School Associations. A rabbit policeman finally took him in charge by lassoing him from a helicopter when he was sleeping off a bout behind the town hall clock. There were photographs of the capture in all the daily newspapers.

The next day Butch appeared in court. He was very defiant and claimed that there was no law in the statute books which forbade rabbits flying in the town square. The magistrate remanded him for medical examination. The psychiatrist’s report stated that Butch really thought he could fly, which was a plain case of manic delusion complicated with alcoholic symptoms. It recommended hospitalisation and shock treatment as a possible cure. So Butch, on the authority of two doctors and with the full consent of his relatives, was shunted quietly up the line.

Butch became very gloomy and depressed in the mental hospital and didn’t react at all favourably to shock treatment. He had to be put under constraint for socking an attendant who talked a lot about bunny-hops. A friendly doctor decided to humour him by pretending to examine his wings and was surprised to find that they really were there. From this point it was all plain sailing. A famous rabbit surgeon was sent for and Butch was given a shot in the rump. When he woke up again his wings were gone; and as he made no complaints he was soon released as a cured patient.

There were not many rabbits who were ready to employ Butch. Most of them knew of his record of mental instability and his anti-social behaviour in his flying days. But when he became prominent in the ranks of Moral Re-Armament he gradually got back his status in the rabbit community. The friendly rabbit doctor helped him to get a job in Drainage Disposal; and his albino girlfriend, who really had a heart of gold, forgave him and agreed to renew their engagement.

Alas, this is not quite the end of the story. Butch seemed very happy in hispage 274 new employment. He had completely recovered from his operation and put on a lot of weight. His marriage was scheduled to take place in three weeks’ time; the invitations bitten on lettuce leaves had all been sent out, including one to the policeman who had arrested him, one to the rabbit surgeon, and one to the friendly doctor. But then the tragedy occurred. His mother said later at the inquest that he had been sleeping badly for some time, even climbing out of bed and shouting angrily at no one. She had attributed this to the excitement of the approaching wedding. On the fatal evening Butch had gone out for a walk alone. Looking back, she could see that he had been unusually silent, unlike his cheery self. He had not come back. A rabbit postman hopping past a disused quarry on the outskirts of town had heard a rapid thudding on the ground above. He looked up and saw a large buck rabbit leap from the rim of the quarry. He leapt confidently, as if oblivious to danger; and twisted strangely in the air as he fell, like a sack of greens, to the rocky floor of the quarry. The postman rushed forward but found that life was already extinct. The rabbit psychiatrist also gave evidence of Butch’s commitment to hospital; and the friendly doctor, who wore a black band of mourning round his neck, spoke with evident feeling of the apparent fine recovery he had made. The verdict was Suicide While of Unsound Mind.

1956 (130)