I was pretty much fed up with the wannabe fence charger I had purchased from a wannabe livestock store.  It claimed a 5 joule output and a 2-5 mile fence length.  Our calves kept getting out by calmly walking through the fence.    

I took myself over to Country Feeds with the purpose of having a visit with Doug to see what his recommendation would be.  You could say I might have walked out of there with a bit of a swagger.  I had in my hands the largest fence charger they sold.  20 Joules.  Powerful enough, Doug said, that some guys didn’t even bother with insulators on their corner posts; they just wrapped the wire around and let it short to ground as much as it wanted.  There was still plenty of juice left to carry on with the task farther down the wire.

I began to suspect something when I heard the dog squealing and saw him marking his territory for a solid 100 feet in a line straight away from the fence, all while moving at an extremely high rate of speed.

I had an out of the body experience a couple of months later.  It’s quite common in these parts for a deer or coyote to break through an existing fence and pop it off the insulators.  I happened upon a situation just like this, some two or three miles of fence line from home.  I grabbed a screwdriver and pliers and got ready to sneak the wire back into the insulator with the charger still on. 

I don’t recall so directly what I was meditating on at the time, but I do recall the exact moment my elbow left my body for places unknown.  I even looked down at it, expecting to see a smoking stump of what I figured would be left of my arm.  Surprisingly, it was all still there, but it ached all the way through Sunday School and on into the preaching service.

Judging from certain darkly furrowed brows and muttered epithets coming from the boys, I guessed that their experience with that beast crouched in the shadow, sending its reptilian clicks out along the wire had not been so entertaining either.

So, it was with extreme caution that I began stepping over the wire, one Sunday afternoon a couple of months later, to close a gate I had left open earlier in the day.  I was still in my Sunday duds, you know, the kind of ultra-thin slacks that snap like flags furled out behind your leg on a windy day.  The wire was a little higher than most places, so I steadied myself by resting one hand on the t-post and gingerly hiking one leg up and over.

I don’t remember ever passing out in all my years of living and breathing.  And I don’t think I passed out then.  But something must have happened during a little space of time there, and I have a hard time really recalling what all transpired. 

The first thing that I became aware of, as I came out of that gray haze, was that I was crouched way down, hands on my knees, and sort of duck walking, or swaggering, take your pick, rather blindly to a point hitherto unspecified.  Some few seconds later, I heard, and it seemed from far away, a peculiar moaning sound.  Trying to identify the sound while continuing my aimless journey was difficult.  But eventually I recognized the sound and voice as my own.  I gathered what was left of me back together in a semblance of one piece and limped my pitiful person back to the house.  Because of my earlier precaution of resting my hand on the t-post, all 20 joules had routed up from the middle of my upper right leg, through my torso, and out my left hand resting on said post.  My heart did a strange tango for several minutes, but after fewer and fewer sobs and shutters it eventually sorted itself out back to its normal routine.  

Two hours later, when changing out of my Sunday clothes, I noticed a very bright red and angry looking welt where the fence had made contact.

I respect that old beast crouched in the shadow like the rest of my family does.  So does the dog.