One of the biggest surprises upon moving to the city was that people thought it would be odd that I would know how to spot a goatfucker.

This is a weird thing to find odd. It’s not so much the part of my story about the man/goat sex that perked their sharp questions of authenticity. It was the fact that I knew about it. As if these things were kept secret.

But they’re not. At least not in small towns. If I were to take you on a tour of my small town in some asinine corner of Minnesota, I would introduce you to people (from a distance) in the following way: there’s Dan the dentist, Jenny the Kwik Trip clerk, and Tom the Goat Fucker. It’s like a dirty paperback version of Billy Joel’s “Piano Man.”

Anyway, so, as it were, my hometown has a bon a fide goatfucker. And upon reaching like the 5^th grade, this fact is made well known to every single kid within a 25 foot radius of the back of the school bus. Visual evidence was, of course, never produced. But, it didn’t need to be. Our guy had all the markings of what you think a goatfucker should look like. So, either, the guy did, in fact, have sexual relations with a goat. Or, whoever the sophomoric brains were behind the rumor had an uncanny ability for matching up old codgers living in the woods and lewd tales involving livestock.

So, anyway, I wasn’t ever certain who this guy was (his name shall be given just as Tommy). But, upon curious inspection of the likely culprits, I pointed in the direction of one lonely bastard, and whispered to my 5^th grade friend, “Is that Tommy? You know, the guy with them…um…goat girlfriends?”

Of course it was. And how did I know? Because I could spot him. Anyone could spot him. It doesn’t take a witness protection agent.

This goatfucker drove an El Camino (pick-up truck shoved into the back of a regular automobile, which is actually maybe more of a sexual metaphor than I originally anticipated).

The goatfucker wore shop-glasses, a flannel rug, and loose-fitting denim jeans.

The goatfucker farmed. By himself. About 10 miles from town.

The goatfucker had a skinny neck that bore a vivid resemblance to that of the bleating goats.

The goatfucker always, always, always sat in the back of the gymnasium at high school basketball games. By himself. And the games were always the girls games.

The goatfucker always ate popcorn and a diet Dr. Pepper.

And when you looked into the dark, hollow eyes of the goatfucker, right before penetration, they say you see nothing. Just absence. Or chaos. One of the two. The same look of total mystic confusion you see in the eyes of a goat, when it’s staring at you, intently, through the wooden fence at the state fair, munching on a tin can.

-Dunstan McGill

Photo courtesy Malingering