Grotesque | Karalee Dearden

Every summer in high school, I worked at a Cub Scout camp in Salt Lake up Millcreek Canyon. We saw many a grotesque thing on those summer days. The severed heads of rattlesnakes, the many and varied disgusting things involved with cleaning latrines, vomit, and wounds of all shapes, sizes, and severities. But perhaps the most grotesque thing I saw up Millcreek Canyon was the roadkill.

The third summer that I worked up the Canyon, I had a friend named Graden. He rode his bike up the canyon to work every morning, and back down the canyon every afternoon. He lived fairly close to our campsite, and so had easy access to it by bike. Every day, I would watch Graden ride down the hill. And every day, I would see him stop to examine the newest squashed animal on the side of the road.

Now, most people are drawn to roadkill to some extent. I usually glance to the side of the road when I see something there. I just have to get an idea of what it is, and how mutilated it is. But Graden was never just satisfied with looking at the dead animals on the side of the road. He examined them. He would find nearby sticks and poke them, pull them apart. Many of them had been there for days at a time before he examined them, so they stank. But even this was not enough. The next day at work, Graden would describe his finds in great deatail to all the members of staff as we sat in our ritual lunch spot. Needless to say, most of us didn't eat much at lunch that summer. To this day, whenever I see a bloody carcass on the side of the road, I think, "I wonder what Graden would think of that one?"