True Story

So we were driving out of Fran's Hamburgers when Lucy saw the goat. We'd been to Fran's to check it out because several of my nurse buddies at work recommended Fran's, along with Dan's Hamburgers. It seems that Fran and Dan used to be married, when they ran Dan's Hamburgers. But then they got divorced, so Fran opened her own place and so now there's Fran's and Dan's. And Dan's is supposed to be better, but Fran's is on South Congress, which is near to us and a super cool place to mosey around on a hot afternoon. South Congress's biggest attractions are Hey Cupcake! (one of the first trailer food vendors in Austin) and even better (because it's air-conditioned), Hill Country Weavers. HCW is the most amazing yarn store in Austin, and most likely Texas, and certainly among the best in the whole country. I can waste HOURS there, wandering around stroking skeins and comparing yardages and chatting to other similarly deranged people. Unfortunately, Jessica, Lucy and Fred and not nearly so fascinated, so I hardly ever go.

We'd eaten at Fran's, which, as described by enthusiastic nurses, was definitely a dive. Moderately amusing as dives go,  but even the jalapeno burger, which I gamely ordered, was not great, and definitely not a patch on P Terry's, our favorite Austin burger joint. So after lunch we climbed back in the car and lurched out onto East Mary street, because I didn't fancy trying to turn my enormous Ford Expedition left towards Congress and decided it would be easier to drive around the block.

"Goat!" Lucy exclaimed, from the back seat. Lucy and Jessica have a complicated system of determining who gets to sit in the front seat. I don't understand it because it never gets discussed. One child automatically climbs into the front seat while the other negotiates Fred into his car seat and slides in the back seat beside him. Sometimes they alternate, other times, by the mysterious reckoning,  one child gets two turns. I imagine it has to do with the length of the journey, but it seems much safer not to ask.

"I'm not kidding. There's a goat back there. Turn around, it's a big goat!" she said.  I was at the next interesection by this time, but the residential streets around south Congress are quiet with 1930s woodframed houses. The crossroads were clear so I made an ungainly u-turn in the middle and headed back up Mary street. "It was on the porch of a green house," she said. "At least, I think it was a goat, but even if it was stuffed, it's pretty big..."

And there he was, standing on the porch. A big, hairy goat with curling black horns. We parked alongside the house and admired him. He was much bigger than our 8-month old Labrador, with a long coat like an Afghan hound.  He had his head through the 1970s fake wrought iron bannister and was standing quietly. After a moment we realized that the reason he was standing quietly was that he was stuck. Somehow he'd got his enormous horns  through the railings and couldn't get out.  I got out of the car and walked up the driveway towards the little front yard, which was enclosed by a low fence. The yard was covered in junk--piles of old furniture, pallets, plastic bags -- and it stank, especially in 85F+ temperatures. And the house was decrepit and looked only barely habitable. But the goat looked well cared for and had a little doghouse in a corner and lots of straw laid around. And he was clearly stuck and couldn't reach any water.  I walked up towards the house very timidly and called out, but you could see that the window a/c unit was on, and no one would be able to hear me. The windows were covered too.

Now I like to think I'm confident and good with people, and I've been in and out of plenty of really unpleasant council houses in suburban London with the community nurses. But then I was generally dealing with older people and had the protection of a uniform. The owners of this place would have to be eccentric at best, and at worst-- what? Would drug dealers be likely to keep a goat on the porch? What if it was a crack den? Are there still crack dens or have they been replaced by something more nefarious? And this is Texas, where we all know that just about anyone can have a gun. I had three children in my huge, clearly suburbanite car with the air condition roaring behind me.  And I had no tool with me to bend the railing.

I wimped out. I went back to the car, and googled animal control on my Blackberry. I called 311, the City of Austin's information line, and asked for animal protection. The woman was very helpful and seemed surprisingly unfazed by the description of a large goat stuck in a porch railing and promised to get someone out there.

Then we saw one of the neighbors taking out her garbage. Her house was clearly a product of the south Austin gentrification occasionally bewailed in the Statesman and had children's toys visible in the back yard. I decided she was most likely not a gun-toting crack dealer and went over and explained the situation. "Oh poor Nick!" she said immediately (Nick being the goat). She walked across the street with me, opened Nick's gate, and picked her way up the porch stairs to the front door and banged on it shouting the owner's name. No one answered.  Nick didn't move either. She reached down and patted him gingerly on one horn. "You silly, goat. What were you thinking?" She turned to me. "They were definitely here earlier. But my boyfriend has a good crowbar, and we'll get him out." I was definitely ashamed of my timidity by this point and mentioned that I'd called animal control, wondering vaguely if that might antagonize the eccentric owner even further.  "Oh... they're okay really. I think they were trying to remodel the place and ran out of energy." We looked around at the mess and the flies a bit skeptically.

And they did rescue Nick. We got a follow up email from animal control thanking us for our efforts. And a week later we went back to see him.

Impressive horns, aren't they?