Nature had cursed the rascals with exceptionally beautiful fur, doing
them the tragic disservice of making them valuable to the human
species, which was ceaselessly engaged in a narcissistic search for
materials with which to bedeck and ornament itself. This one had a
particularly bushy tail, ringed with black, glossy and glorious.
“What’re you doing out and about on a sunny afternoon?” Eduardo
asked.
The animal’s anthracite-black eyes regarded him with almost palpable
curiosity.
“Must be having an identity crisis, think you’re a squirrel or
something.”
With a flurry of paws, the raccoon busily combed its facial fur for
maybe half a minute, then froze again and regarded Eduardo intently.
Wild animals–even species as aggressive as raccoons–seldom made such
direct eye contact as this fellow. They usually tracked people
furtively, with peripheral vision or quick glances. Some said this
reluctance to meet a direct gaze for more than a few seconds was an
acknowledgment of human superiority, the animal’s way of humbling
itself as a commoner might do before a king, while others said it
indicated that animals–innocent creatures of God–saw in men’s eyes
the stain of sin and were ashamed for humanity. Eduardo had his own
theory: animals recognized that people were the most vicious and
unrelenting beasts of all, violent and unpredictable, and avoided
direct eye contact out of fear and prudence.
Except for this raccoon. It seemed to have no fear whatsoever, to feel
no humility in the presence of a human being.
“At least not this particular sorry old human being, huh?”
The raccoon just watched him.
Finally the coon was less compelling than his thirst, and Eduardo went
inside to get another beer. The hinge springs sang when he pulled open
the screen door– which he’d hung for the season only two weeks
before–and again when he eased it shut behind him.
He expected the strange sound to startle the coon and send it scurrying
away, but when he looked back through the screen, he saw the critter
had come a couple , of feet closer to the porch steps and more directly
in line with the door, keeping him in sight.
“Funny little bugger,” he said.
He walked to the kitchen, at the end of the hall, and, first thing,
looked at the clock above the double ovens because he wasn’t wearing a
watch. Twenty past three.
He had a pleasing buzz on, and he was in the mood to sustain it all the
way to bedtime. However, he didn’t want to get downright sloppy. He
decided to have dinner an hour early, at six instead of seven, get some
food on his stomach.
He might take a book to bed and turn in early as well.
This waiting for something to happen was getting on his nerves.
He took another Corona from the refrigerator. It had a twist-off cap,
but he had a touch of arthritis in his hands. The bottle opener was on
the cutting board by the sink.
As he popped the cap off the bottle, he happened to glance out the
window above the sink–and saw the raccoon in the backyard. It was
twelve or fourteen feet from the rear porch. Sitting on its
hindquarters, forepaws against its chest, head held high. Because the
yard rose toward the western woods, the coon was in a position to look
over the porch railing, directly at the kitchen window.
It was watching him.
Eduardo went to the back door, unlocked and opened it.
The raccoon moved from its previous position to another from which it
could continue to study him.
He pushed open the screen door, which made the same screaky sound as
the one at the front of the house. He went onto the porch, hesitated,
then descended the three back steps to the yard.
The animal’s dark eyes glittered.
When Eduardo closed half the distance between them, the raccoon dropped
to all fours, turned, and scampered twenty feet farther up the slope.
There it stopped, turned to face him again, sat erect on its
hindquarters, and regarded him as before.
Until then he had thought it was the same raccoon that had been
watching him from the front yard. Suddenly he wondered if, in fact, it