| FALL 2002 |
flashquake Nonfiction |
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From across the wooden deck, some ten feet away, he stares at me with black, half-crossed eyes. It is an unwavering stare: fixed, slightly unnerving, and full of suspicion. I am not The Man. He has not seen me before. His mother, who is hiding in the darkness, has not sounded her alarm growl, but he is still unsure of me. I am a strange figure with a different smell, who appears to be offering him some bread. He likes bread, especially soft slices such as the one I'm holding out to him at the moment. And so he stands, roughly ten weeks old: hungry, uncertain, wondering what to do next. "Come on, Little Coon." 
I speak softly to him, more softly than The Man, my father, and not in the "baby-talk" voice he uses; I feel silly doing that, even if the 'coons relate to it. All the raccoons in the vicinity know my father's voice. He has put food out for them nearly seven years now, and is as trusted as any human can be. Little Coon's mother, Joan, knows him well, for he has fed her through three litters, including the second one when she lost her right forepaw to a trap. Before that happened, her young grew so tame that they stood on two legs to pat my father's trousers; once or twice, they tried to wrestle the plastic plates of dry dog-food from his hands. Now, though, they are mostly like Little Coon: wary and watchful. So we wait, regarding each other. It is a cold, clear, Mississippi night — New Year's Eve, as it happens — and the moon is magnificently full. I hadn't planned on feeding a baby raccoon; after all, it's nearly midnight and I've only a dressing gown between me and the January chill. But while in the kitchen, I chanced to look out the window and there, sitting expectantly on the deck, were Little Coon and his mother, and thus, here am I. Little Coon has two brother/sisters, but they've retired for the evening, as I discover when I look up at the cleft in a nearby oak and see two round, furry backs cradled there. Neither Dad nor I has ever been able to sex a 'coon until it's obviously pregnant or suckling: the grey pelt is too thick for prying eyes. Which is why Little Coon's mother was originally christened John the Baptist, due to a passion for washing food. Once the truth was revealed, my mother recast her as a female prophet, and Joan the Baptist she has been ever since. Joan was skittish and shy, even before the encounter with the trap, and she has stayed that way — a good thing, as she is an urban raccoon and not everyone in town shares my father's enthusiasm or patience. We're fairly certain the trap was set by a neighbor up the street who is well-known for protecting his rubbish bins. The coons ignore Dad's bins, for he has wired them shut. Besides, The Man feeds them regularly and well, except for the few times a year he disappears without explanation. When he returns, it is to find the empty food plates flung off the deck in disgust, and the gutter grates pushed aside, the legacy of a hungry night-time hunt for cockroaches, crickets, and other leggy delicacies. Because they keep such undesirables in check, The Man does not feed the raccoons all they can hold. He knows they benefit from a varied diet, just as he benefits from their impromptu pest control. Once, when the coons decided to take the plates as well as the food, The Man stopped feeding them altogether. "They need to learn some manners," he explained. After several days, the plates reappeared. They have been dutifully filled, more or less constantly, since then, and just as dutifully emptied. Apart from this one faux pas (obviously a misunderstanding), the diners are quite well-behaved: we have counted as many as 13 raccoons on the deck at any one time, but they leave little mess — only the four empty plates and a bit of sludge in their large watering bowl. "Much neater than the birds," my mother observes. The only things they do leave behind, it seems, are tomatoes and endless fascination for my family. But as I crouch in the cold moonlight, tempting him with bread, I worry about Little Coon and his kind. Their arrival is a mixed blessing — if indeed, blessing is the right word at all. His very presence here, in the middle of town, is only the latest in a series of changes that shock me every time I return. Like so many in recent years, this town has grown at an alarming rate. What was my meadow playground in 1970 was a mall by '72. During the last decade, two-lane highways have turned into four, complete with a network of under- and over-passes. The Tennessee-Tombigbee waterway, an effort to revive commerce on the Mississippi River's tributaries, has either reduced or flooded completely many of the nearby swamps and pine forests. They are gone, and Little Coon has come to town. If "Mama," his grandmother, had chosen another house to visit all those years ago, she could easily have been shot: this is hunting territory, after all. As it is, grey, ring-tailed bodies have joined those of the opossums, squirrels, and armadillos which litter the sides of the local roads. The cold makes me shiver. Little Coon is within two feet of me, now. Were I ten years old, I would wait — until dawn if I had to — for him to eat from my hand. Tonight, however, marks a New Year in many ways. I throw Little Coon his bread; he scuttles away, relieved to consume his prize in a dark corner. He is wary and watchful, and he needs to stay that way. For both our sakes.
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