The heat came on in the house Friday night for the first time since spring. Sarah put a pot of beans on, and the whole place smelled like a summer of dust burning off the vents. Out in the garage, something else was getting decided.
The duck has never cared for the garage. Too much concrete, nothing left in there it has not already gotten into. All summer it slept wherever it was standing when the light quit, which most nights was the foot of the porch steps or the gravel by the spigot.
Saturday morning it was sitting in Crank's bed. Not on the edge of it. Square in the middle, settled down with its feathers out, like it had signed something.
Crank was on the bare concrete next to it. Flat out, head to the wall, asleep like nothing in his life had changed.
That bed has been in that corner most of his life. It is the one thing on this property nobody has ever argued about. He has spent eight years breaking it in to the exact shape of a lazy dog, and as of Friday night it is the shape of a duck.
Figured he would sort it out by Sunday. He did not. Sunday afternoon he walked in out of the sun, looked at the duck, looked at the bed, and lay down in the same spot on the concrete a foot away. The duck watched him do it and did not move either.
Here is what I keep coming back to. Crank outweighs that duck by most of a dog. One nudge and it's over. He has not tried. He looked at the situation, did the math on getting up, and decided the concrete was close enough.
Most of what I have held onto out of principle, I could not tell you the principle now. Crank skipped that part.
Last night I folded an old moving blanket on the concrete where he had picked. Took him about four seconds to accept it. The duck watched that too. I give it a week before it wants the blanket.
Seniority is worth about what you are willing to get up for. Crank has known that for eight years. The duck figured it out in one night.