Who Is This BUTCH?

BUTCH entered the lives of That Which Was Soon to Provide Food and That Which Was Soon to Provide Water and Change the Newspaper in February 1994. The latter That first became enamored of having an iguana, and the former was amenable to such an addition to the household. Just after Valentine's Day, the latter That arrived with what he had been told was a male iguana. The former That had compiled a list of possible names, both male and female, but the latter decreed that BUTCH should be "his" name owing to his having been the most aggressive of the many small, bright green lizards in the tank at the pet store.

BUTCH was no more than a foot long when he arrived. That Which Was Now Providing Food was able to carry him around, his diminutive front claws dangling over the top of That's fist as he cuddled into the palm for warmth. Back then, BUTCH lived in an open glass aquarium from which he would sometimes venture, seeking out new opportunities and a place to take a dump far away from his home; he settled on a corner in the office room, and paper was put down for him.

A year had passed, and BUTCH was growing larger. Then much larger. One day, That Which Had Been Providing Increasing Amounts of Food came home to find two eggs in the tank. BUTCH was writhing atop the heat rock like a queen ant, and what That had assumed was just her--obviously the correct possessive, under the circumstance--healthy growing bulk was actually seventeen more eggs, it later turned out. He called the pet store to let them know that their expertise at sexing iguanas needed some polishing and to find out what to do next. The answer: Get her to a veterinarian who specializes in lizards or she will die. Her antic wrigglings were an attempt to pass eggs that had bunched together inside her. She was eggbound. A call to a good friend with a car resulted in a ride to the city, where just such a vet took BUTCH in and removed the eggs; owing to internal damage, she had to be spayed. This completed BUTCH's gender journey.

A further problem, the vet pointed out when they came back to pick her up three days later, was that in an attempt to channel sufficient calcium into the embryos, her body had volunteered help from her bones. BUTCH was now a cartilage lizard. You could grasp her jaw gently between your fingers and bend it. She was unable to chew food, so they were advised to use a push-syringe and feed her baby food as well as a thick slurry used to treat osteoporosis in humans twice daily. For a month or so, BUTCH lay on the bottom of the aquarium, her eyes darting around where her body could not, to be picked up and nursed by That Which Provided Food and Medicine. She had huge stitches up the long scar on her belly. Follow-up visits to the vet resulted in blood tests and supplementary shots of various electrolytes and chemicals. But slowly she regained her strength. The day that she could be tempted with a fresh romaine lettuce leaf was a happy day indeed.

Her legs had compensated for the fragility of her decalcified skeleton by puffing up and hardening; she looked like a reptilian Popeye compared with most iguanas. As time went by, the swelling lessened but has never gone away entirely, although it does not seem to inconvenience her in the least. It merely adds to her panache. And it was added to daily. Her recovery was complete within a year, and soon she was more vigorous than ever. The vet had given specific instructions regarding nutrition and lighting that had been employed faithfully.

As she matured and developed, they noticed that two small horns were forming on the tip of her nose, revealing her to be a member of the rhinolopa subspecies of Iguana iguana. They also noticed that her perfect use of the papered corner of the office room was a memory. Her dumpings assumed an imperialistic tone. Once cheering visits to the kitchen took on an aura of scaly threat, and many times they would return home to find that BUTCH had assumed her Destroyer aspect: A trail of carnage would lead from the tank over the houseplants, which served as a salad bar, to the CDs, which would be strewn like minefield bodies across the floor, their jewel boxes shattered, glittering shards of plastic mute testimony to the insensate wrath of the beast. A large cage was purchased, and BUTCH became a truly kept lizard. Her force was now too hot and potent to be left unchecked.

In 1998 BUTCH first began to initiate communications with That Which Provides Food. At first, these took the form of typical iguana head-bobbing, most of which serves to convey various shades and flavors of "Get the hell out of my territory, you." Being a human, That of course interpreted her gestures to be friendly. A few days later, while staring at BUTCH from about an inch away, his eye to her eye, he was seized by a firm persuasion that in her every motion lay a cabalistic reference to language or meaning. A light shone from heaven and the room filled with glittering gold as precise instructions concerning the key to deciphering BUTCH's utterances poured into That's brain. Then the brilliance was gone, and he found himself standing about four feet away, his eye still locked with BUTCH's. She lifted her head, and his pen began scratching away, marring the silence. So it all began.

That Which Provides Food was horrified by much of what he read. BUTCH was not a friendly lizard after all. But that was why he and That Which Provides Water and Changes the Newspaper had decided that a name change was not necessary after her true gender was revealed. Her temperament was hardly news by this point, but seeing it articulated was still rather a shock. BUTCH was indeed just what her name implied. Her dislike of humanity is not universal by any means, but it is an abiding characteristic. The problem is that because her IQ is 523 as people would measure it, she is just way ahead of us. That Which Provides Food thinks that deep down she's not so much misanthropic as just exasperated, and although some of her critiques of the human race would imply a call for greater patience on our part, she demonstrates little of this virtue herself. Such may indeed be her prerogative.

BUTCH also seems to channel various human memories at times, specifically those of one or more drug-fancying North American adolescents from the late 1970s, gay men, and residents of the upper Midwest. That Which Provides Food merely takes dictation and does not dare to ask questions. Reading is enough.

She is also fond of poetry, claims to have been Nostradamus in a past life, holds distinctly libertarian views on some issues while verging on socialism and benevolent dictatorship in others, dabbles in literary criticism, and practices Santería. Although she is a vegetarian like all iguanas, she distinguishes herself by having a hamburger fetish. Jimi Hendrix has composed and performed the only music capable of soothing this particular savage beast. BUTCH once told That Which Provides Food that if it weren't for Hendrix, she would have alerted the seven-dimensional sabre-toothed iguanas from Orion's Belt and had us all shipped to labor in their watercress farms near Rigel.

That Which Provides Food hopes that you enjoy, or at least are edified by, your visit with BUTCH. If you should have questions, comments, or concerns about anything presented here at allhailbutch.net, you can send email to thatwhichprovidesfood@allhailbutch.net for a more formal or at least polite response or to butch@allhailbutch.net if you dare.