Raccoons



Walking home from a meeting with students
for a group project, I saw two dark, cat-like
shapes moving in the shadows under a tree.  Cats
are solitary animals, preferring to skirt around you
as you walk by.  Not a single cat has come to my calls,
whether vocal or mind-thought.  Not since the one
that we sent off to die in a park when I was young.
(Perhaps they can sense this.  "Cat Killer!", they say).
I stood perfectly still, in my long black coat, bare legs, 
and white athletic shoes.  These cats ambled slowly 
out of the dark as I called, in my mind, "Come!"  The light 
fell on their bodies, and they revealed themselves 
as ring-tailed raccoons.  Three of them, actually, 
poking around for something novel, something 
to play with.  Their gait was like crawling and tip-
toeing at the same time.  The first one I'd seen
wandered toward me, in front of the other two.  He, 
or she, approached with an amazing amount of bravado
right up to my shoe, without a pause or a start.  He
placed his nose over the tip of my shoe, then gave it
a mild bite.  "Hi, there," he seemed to be saying, "what
are these white things?"  He hovered near me for a second,
before I took a large step, backing away.  He leaped back, 
too.  Startled, he still stared at my shoes.  Did he know 
that my whole body grew up from these shoes, like 
a tree from the ground?  I began walking, but he was 
not satisfied yet and began following my shoes, accompanied 
by his siblings, racing behind me at the same speed.  I stopped, 
stared down, and projected a sense of looming fear, my own.  
Did they carry rabies or some other disease?  I should
have trusted they would know me, but raccoons are terribly 
curious.  Perhaps they would've tried to bite me 
to see what I tasted like.  Instead, they stopped 
in their tracks and agreed to leave me alone.  As I 
looked back over my shoulder, they were moving back and forth 
in the wet grass, the trio.  Probably wondering 
what to do, now that their friend had gone.  I felt
guilty for all of the media stories I'd fallen prey to -- 
"Don't Touch Wild Animals", "They Have Sharp Teeth and Claws 
that Can Take Your Fingers Off", "If You See One, Back Away 
Slowly" -- the same sort of mentality that tears up forests,
displacing thousands of raccoons to build concrete and steel 
forts.  Perhaps the signs should read, "Don't Approach Any
Humans, They're Quite Afraid and Might Inadvertantly Kill You."
I smiled.  Next time, I thought, I'll wear some jeans.



--jennifer crystal chien