By GEORGE SMITH
The pigeon was dead before it hit the ground.
It had a long fall from the roof of the neighbor’s house.
“Four for four,” Gaven Fields proudly told his uncle as he was entering through the backyard gate.
“You shouldn’t be shooting at the neighbor’s house,” his uncle Felix warned him.
“If it flies, it dies,”Fields shot back.
Being quarantined in a small town isn’t exactly what Fields and his uncle had in mind when Fields decided to move in at the beginning of the year.
Usually Fields would be out in the country hunting turkeys or coyotes, but living with his uncle has its ups and downs.
Ups: basically rent-free housing aside from being asked to pay the water bill from time to time and paying for the internet bill.
Downs: his uncle has heart and health problems that make him more susceptible to dying if he contracts the corona virus.
So, Fields compromises by shooting the pigeons and Eurasian dove that land on his neighbor’s tin roof while he cooks out on the grill in the backyard.
“Dealing with being on house arrest because of the disease isn’t much of a choring task,” Fields said, “but it is a boring one.”
Fields said his uncle lets him out of the house on the weekends, but that he isn’t allowed to go out with more than a few friends.
“I understand that I’m not just putting my own health at risk,” Fields said, “but I am also risking the health of my family. So, I don’t mind being cooped up so much, as long as I get to go fishing on the weekends and shoot the birds on the roof.”