When your lowly job is to feed on the dead, upon your own demise the rot you embody leaves your corpse alone to turn to dust as the other scavengers avoid your stench. Along the roads of Arizona, it is not uncommon to see the buzzard snarfing morsels off a rabbit pelt left parched and flat after a good tenderizing from the passing trucks. That shriveled dead coyote that was there yesterday will be but a tuft of fur in a day or two. Snakes and other birds disappear in hours, but this ugly malcontent who while alive used to belly up and chow on the fetid remains of mystery roadkill meal du jour cannot find takers on a hot summer day, its shriveling head baking all day into the night. I passed this bird in the desert for the first time more than five days ago, today it looks much the way it did then. I must surmise that even buzzards have standards and won’t stoop to cannibalism. I wonder if its meat tastes like chicken.