Clay Pigeons

John likes Manchester United and Barack Obama.  He also likes green, or I think he does, he wears green sandals.  Angel likes beer.  That’s all  I know about him, except that he has a kid and raises pigs or something.  This other guy, the loud one, he likes everything I say, so I keep saying amazing things like “Chickens are superstars!”  See, worked again, he’s laughing and shaking his head, now wagging his finger at me.  

How long have I been here?  Two hours?  Forty minutes?  Hard to tell, I spend so much time looking at the plastic tablecloth,”Safari Lager”, and I can’t see the moon over the glare of this florescent light.

I have to pee.  

The toilet is outside the wooden shack, around the mud-walled series of huts, and through an alley.  In the alley you can’t see shit, literally, so I’m walking in the LED glare of my iPhone, side stepping over random broken bricks, puddles, trash and shit until I get to the toilet. It’s not a toilet. I am a liar.  It’s a pit. I pee into the abyss watching piss backsplash off of bricks onto my feet.  I wonder what it would look like down there.  I wish I had two iPhones so I could drop one down with the flashlight app on, and then Instagram the fucker - “Apple gone to shit.”  Upload to Tumblr.

Walking back to the shack now.  “Do they have rufeze in the villages?”  What an amazing idea.  Rufeze in these bars? For the same price per dose you can just pay the girls to go into the guestrooms with you. I wonder if the laughing guy really thinks I’m hilarious or if he’s going to rob me.  I don’t have anything to steal, except this broken iPhone.

“Gentlemen, what the fuck?”

Laughing man is at it again with the wagging finger, and John smiles a huge grin, then shouts “The fuck!  Go to the hell man!”  These guys don’t need rufeez, they’re already robbing me. Wait til the bill comes and I’m sitting alone at the table for the first time all night. 

“Naongeza?”

“Ndiyo sweetheart.”  Another drink is exactly what I need. I wish she would leave the empties on the table so I could better assess the damage.  But then again, so could everyone else and I’d be a marked target.  As if I’m not already a marked target, the only white man in the entire Ward.

“You are thinking?”

“Yes John, I am thinking.”

“I am thinking too.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yes sir. I am thinking to have another beer?”

“Please do.”

John is the only one who asks first.  That makes him trustworthy.  Or more dangerous.  Hard to tell.  My plastic chair is broken, it is always broken. The back leg is cracked, so when I kick back it buckles and now I’m sitting on the floor and everyone is laughing.  I get up and bow to applause, and assure my place in village theatre hall of fame.

“Fuck this, I’m outa here.  John, you take care of the bill OK?”

I hand John a wad of cash and duck under the Tusker banner into the darkness. The guesthouse is four buildings down, then a right turn, then past another two buildings, then a left turn, and then the third building on the left with the big Zain advert painted next to the door.  I make the first right turn, then a left and am lost.  A village dog follows me into an alley, then darts away as I reach the deadend.  Shuffling feet and then a shadow blocks the alley entrance.  This can’t be good.

“Hello?”

“Ah, yes sir, you are lost?”

“Hi John, yes I am lost.”

“I thought that maybe you would need some help.”

What kind of help I wonder.  Not like I have any choice.

“Let us go to the guesthouse.”

“OK, asante John.”

John and I walk through a series of turns, down a dark winding corridor, past a grain storage building, and into a small courtyard and then I see the Zain advert.

“Thanks John.”

“No thank you sir.”

John hands me a wad of cash.

“Your change.  I did not get a receipt because they did not have the pen.”

“No shit John, this is amazing. Thank you sir.”

“Usiku mwema.”

“Na wewe mypiya.”

Jacob is making paste, a brown vitamin and protein rich paste we bake into hardened semi-sweet biscuits to supplement our meals. They taste like dog treats, but are palatable when dipped in tea. 

My mom was a pastry chef, her kitchen a laboratory of equipment, mixers, blenders, processors, jars of labeled ingredients, sacks of flour and sugar. I would sit at the table and watch her make a mess of things, dabs of flour in her hair and on her face, her apron so dusty it bore more resemblance to the apron of a miller than a baker, and she would sing. She didn't have the prettiest voice, more of a bird song's radiance and energy. I would do my homework and watch her make a mess, then wait for dad to come home, kiss my head, remove his beret and gaze in wonder at the disarray of the countertops.

I miss her cupcakes.

"TB, I need more acorn flour."

"There's more in the store room, I'll bring some up in a few minutes."

I was home schooled for awhile, dad was not impressed by the quality of education in northern Sonoma. Instead, he took me on long walks to learn from life. We watched birds, collected wild flowers and edible plants, tracked small animals, caught fish, and learned traditional navigation techniques.  It was as much a school for him as for me. When I was 11 we moved to San Francisco, and I went to real school as an anthropologist.  Dad called school fieldwork, and would ask me to analyze the behavior of my class mates and work through basic ethnographies of each class, team, and club. I had friends, but was happier volunteering at the Marine Mammal Center in Marin, helping vets rehabilitate seals and sea lions. Dad and I would do fictional ethnographies of the marine mammals and draw comics of their dialogues and conceptual diagrams of their belief systems while we waited for pastries. 

Sometimes mom would be outside on her potting wheel in the sunspot of the yard, and I would listen to the heavy stone disc rotate and the sounds of her hands on wet clay while I dreamed. I dreamed of being back in school in Sonoma with dad, building snares and checking our traps for rabbits and possum so we could take their pictures, and then write their life stories together while mom heated up the outdoor pizza oven. 

I went to college and finished early, and began working with the Department of Fish and Game on wildlife population surveys, fisher reintroduction projects, and general small mammal monitoring and disease surveillance projects. Dad would often volunteer to come along, and mom would pack us a large basket of delicate french pastries and deserts to enjoy in our field camp. It was like home schooling all over again.

Where is the fucking brown sugar? The store room is a mess right now, there is shit all over the place. Cardinal must be stoned again, he hates our biscuits. Ah, there. 

"Cardinal! Get down here and clean this shit up OK?"

Cardinal laughs, then winks and nods at me, headphones blaring as usual.

We did a study looking at radiation exposure of prairie dogs and field mice around one of the original cold war uranium mines in the early 2000s. It was on Navajo land, and we set traps around old mine sites and other areas targeted from aerial photographs as hot zones for yellow dirt. We lived in canvas tents on sheep ranches with some Navajo families, and for the first time dad started working on a real ethnography and a book on environmental justice. He was so happy then, so excited and full of life. That was the last time we camped together.

"Here's the brown sugar, not too much left though, I hope it's enough."

"Thanks TB."

"I'll radio base and have them update the supply inventory so we get some next delivery."

"That's fantastic TB. Hey try this."

"OK."

The biscuit tastes like a dog treat, or like that strange unleavened honey-sweetened Catholic eucharist you get at Easter mass sometimes.

"Tastes like Jesus. You nailed it Jacob."

"Amen sister."

I'll have to write mom and ask her to send another box of pastries.  Jacob is forgetting how real food tastes.

At the station Jacob pours me a cup of hot tea. We've been back for a few hours now, but no one has said a word about the wolves. McMahon and Alonso simply parked their ATVs and hauled the dryshipper and carry cooler off to the lab for processing. Jacob and I briefed Cardinal on the assessment, about the marker reading, the missing collars, the doe carcass, but not the wolves. It's as if we are all in disbelief.

"I'm going to catch up on some stuff TB."

"OK."

I watch Jacob leave the mess haul and head towards the communications room. He looks so tired. The light in the mess hall is not a warm glow, more like a cold flicker. One of the fluorescents is dying and the light pulses, burning my silhouette into the wall in front of me, a grotesque swollen mutation of my head. 

Wolves. For two years now we've monitored the forest, capturing, collaring, and sampling any wildlife that remained, collecting plant specimens and analyzing isotopes. No one expected this place to rebound so quickly. Last September, Jacob completed a data characterization analysis, including some meta-genomics. His preliminary results were impressive, we couldn't believe the bacterial mutation rates. But no one expected such rapid changes in mammals.

My hand shakes as it grasps the tea cup. Wolves. I close my eyes and see the tree line in the fading grey light of dusk.  It is standing up, drinking in our scent. I have to mentally restrain myself from running off to check the camera trap footage. There is still a report to write, field notes to compile, samples to process, the cages to visit. I must look ridiculous sitting here under a flickering light grinning from ear to ear at my own shadow. 

The cages. I put down the tea and walk out to the holding pens. Acorn greets me with his blue ring, while his little hands grab the chain link. I stroke his face through the fence before entering the pen to fill his tiny food bowl. He jumps into my lap as I sit on the edge of his tree system to look over his chart.

"We're not alone out here anymore little guy." I look out over the fence line towards the trees.  For the first time in the cages, I realize I'm afraid.

Sometimes I pretend to sleep. I don't want them to know I'm excited, I am in no hurry to wake up.  Instead, I wait for Cardinal to roll out of bed, perform his characteristically weird stretching and yawning routine, take forever to find his slippers, and somehow bang and smash his way around making noises no one ever dreamed possible in such a spartan room.  No one sleeps past Cardinal.

"Morning Cardinal."

Jacob is also awake.

"Jesus Cardinal, you're a one man band."

Cardinal is dancing around now smashing together invisible cymbals and stomping his foot, a gigantic musical troll. The others slowly begin to emerge from dreams.  I stretch, pull on some wool leggings and the grey tunic, and pull my hair back into a topknot. Jacob and I leave the dreamroom and head towards the mess hall.

"You ready TB?"

"For what?" I know exactly what he's talking about.

"To rock out this assessment, you amnesiac." 

"Sure, whatever Jacob. I need some tea."

Jacob and I always have tea together. He's a sweet guy really, calming, funny, but easily frustrated. We avoid emotional conversation. Really the entire station does. This is not an emotional place. I notice a dried white and tan mushroom pinned to Jacob's tunic.

"Is that a deathcap?"

"Sure is, thought it was appropriate for today."

"You're an odd one Jacob." He is beaming, clearly he prides himself on his little eccentricities. He would be crazy tie guy in the office. Out here, he's crazy pinned mushroom on a grey tunic guy.

We drink bark tea with honey every morning. We used to drink pine tea, a citrusy light refreshing beverage packed with vitamins. Then we analyzed the pine needles and found that they concentrated several isotopes to a potentially toxic dose. Tree bark on the other hand was radiation free, though it has an earthy flavor, almost like steeped mushrooms. I am sick of bark tee and honey.

"What time are we setting out?"

"0900."

"Great, I'll see you in a little bit TB. You sure you're ready? You're looking a bit pale."

"Thanks Jacob, you really can turn on the charm."

Jacob laughs as he walks out of the mess hall, his laughter echoing off the curved hangar walls.  It's time to visit the cages. Behind the hanger but within station confines is area A-7. We call it the cages because we are just that creative. A-7 consists of 24 holding pens, each pen containing animals trapped and collected during Baseline. These are my babies. 

"Hi Acorn, how are ya sweetie?" Acorn is one of my favorites.  A grey squirrel with a tendency to act very dog-like. I throw his green plastic ring into the corner and he fetches it back to me, dropping it into my fingers between the chainlink.  "Good boy.  How are you today little fella?" He is eating, the food bowl is almost empty, eyes are clear, has good energy and is making eye contact, which for Acorn means he wants to play.  I unlatch the door and pick him up, slipping his little leather harness over his shoulders and attaching the red nylon leash.  "Come on buddy, let's check on your family."

Acorn is an anomaly. Sometimes I think he mutated into a dog during the sun storm. At any rate, he is a definite improvement for squirrel-kind. The others all seem OK, today, well except Snarly but he's always been a challenge.  What badger isn't. After his morning show of aggression, he circles the pen, climbs up his little treehouse and then settles down for his morning post breakfast nap.   I check the rest of the charts, do some quick examinations, administer the meds, and then walk Acorn back to his pen.

"Alright buddy, I'll come see you later OK?" He sniffs my knuckles in the way he shows affection, and then bolts up his tree system and curls up into his tail.

Showtime, I say to myself. 

In the garage McMahon, Cardinal, Alonso, and Jacob are loading gear onto the ATVs.

"Gassed and good to go TB."

"Thanks Cardinal." He's an oaf, but a great mechanic.

I strap on my leg guards, gloves, kevlar jacket, helmet and goggles, and double check the setting on the GPS. Jacob is testing the battery on the geiger, and Alonso is loading the rest of the gear into hardshell cases.

"Tyvek?" 

"Yeah, I'm on it." We keep a few cases of PPE in the garage for quick access. Tyvek suits, gloves, boot covers, N95 respirators, and face shields. Two months ago, Johnson found a freshly dead doe near marker L74 and decided to do a necropsy sans PPE. He found lesions in the lungs, a strange hyper infectious form of Mycobacterium, and a month later we had to med-evac him to base in the Hudson. PPE is now standard protocol, even the microbes are mutating.

Cardinal has head phones on, as usual.

"What you listening to big guy?"

"Huh?"

"I SAID WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO?" 

He smiles. "Wolves in the Throne Room, check it out!"

I put on the headphones and immediately hand them back. "That shit is terrible." Cardinal laughs, sticks out his tongue and dragon-faces me. 

"Alright big guy, hold down the fort. We'll see you in a few hours."

The garage door opens as Jacob and McMahon rev the engines of their ATVs. It is cloudy, with a fine mist blowing horizontally over the meadow in front of the station.  Alonso edges his ATV onto the dirt path leading to the tree line and we follow one by one.

It's good to be out of the station. No, it's great. Even on noisy ATVs. Our little pack rolls along the meadow trail past wildflowers, wildflowers that bloom strangely out of season, their biological clock on haywire after the storm.  Alonso slows down just before disappearing into the trees, followed by Jacob, then McMahon.  When I hit the tree line my eyes take a few seconds to adjust, scattered daylight fragments through the sentinel pines and shadows dance as if from some conjurer's trick. The noise of the ATVs is deadened as well, I crank the throttle and gradually pick up speed over the rolling forest trail until I catch the others. 

We reach marker G34, and Jacob checks his GPS, then the handheld geiger.  Each marker has its own geiger that relays data back to the station at hourly intervals.  G34 has been going berserk lately, even after McMahon swapped the battery.

"What's the reading?" No answer. "Jacob, what's the reading?"

"6.6Gy."

"Jesus! What about on the marker?"

"Marker reads 6.4Gy."

No one speaks. We simply stare at the silent forest. At Chernobyl there were cases of individuals surviving exposures over 10Gy, but the exposures were not uniform. 

"McMahon, have you recorded any telemetering data from this marker?"

"Quite a bit actually TB. Two or three collared-deer, but they went static about a week ago."

"What do you mean they went static? They're still transmitting from a fixed location? You know we want immediate investigations on all mortality events, so why didn't this come up at the lab meeting?"

"Sorry TB, must've spaced on that detail."

"Damn right, sound like you spaced on the entire fucking protocol. So what's your gut, radiation poisoning, disease, or a case of extreme human negligence?"

"Ah, radiation seems obvious boss given that marker reading. Is she serious right now?"

"Come on McMoron, lead the way, we're not going back to station until we have those collars."

We file out away from G34 westwards, following McMahon. Some people can be so irresponsible. For two years we've investigated every single case of telemetry static, measuring exposure, recording cause of death. The number of recorded mortality events and subsequent necropsies have considerably diminished recently though, a trend we've all been associating with stunted population growth. One thing's for sure, we'll have no shortage of radio collars in the stock room this quarter.

I pull up alongside of Jacob.  McMahon and Alonso have dismounted, and are checking out something on the trail.

"What is it?"

"I don't know TB."

"McMahon!"

"TB, you gotta have a look at this."

I dismount and jog over to them. Alonso is scooping some fresh feces into a whirlpack.

"Carnivore."

"No way!"

We haven't seen carnivores besides our badger since we set up the station. This has been a predator-free forest since Day 1.

"What do you think TB?"

"Well, looks like dog scat, maybe a feral pack, maybe wolves? Put it on ice, we'll do the DNA analysis at the lab."

"Sure TB." Alonso packs the whirlpack into the carry-cooler.  McMahon is tracking something through the pines.

"TB, if that's feral dog, it's a big mother fucker."

 The tracks McMahon are pointing to are indeed huge. Mastiff huge, and heavy, deep set into the mud of the forest floor.

"Yeah, no shit right?"

We've been conducting sentinel surveillance of wildlife in these woods for two years now, and until today have not seen a trace of top-level predator. No bears, no wolves, no dogs. Nothing. This is a watershed moment, this is a Nature paper. McMahon looks like a little kid, ear to ear smile, wide eyes.  Jacob is literally beaming.  When Alonso bends down to look at the print, I can feel his heartbeat as if it is pounding through the forest floor and up through my boots to the soles of my feet.

A second later Jacob is hugging me, and we are weeping.  Weeping with joy over dog shit.

"Let's go get those collars TB, it's possible it's not radiation."

We mount up and head on down the trail.  An hour and a half later McMahon halts the group and we dismount.  

"They're here TB, or somewhere around here."

We divide up and start combing the surroundings.  Minutes later Alonso shouts out.

"Got one!"  My phone buzzes, and a picture appears on the screen: the collar on the forest floor, but no longer around the doe's neck.

"That's a kill TB."

The entrails are spread away from the carcass, legs are severed, head is severed, and the bones show signs of abrasion. Definitely a kill, or a lucky scavenger.  We set to work sampling what we can, putting intestinal tissue, some muscle, a bit of brain tissue into cryovials, and fill the vials with Lysis buffer.  Back at my ATV, we put the specimens into liquid nitrogen and seal it up.  

McMahon finds another collar, but no signs of the animal.  The third is no longer transmitting.

"Well hell TB, that's one hell of a goddamn day!"

"Thanks McMahon." I can't help but smile and hug him, even after his fuck up.  "We better get back.  Light is starting to fade."

This far north there isn't much daylight, maybe 5-6 hours at most.  We've already squandered the majority of it tracing these collars, and we're still an hour plus away from the meadow where moon and starlight can suffice.

We mount up, and the whiny ATVs head back the way we came.  Over the tight windy trails my mind starts to wander. I can see my sister at home with her kids, a birthday cake for Joanie on the table and candles lit. Party hats. I can see my dad in San Francisco, strolling down Columbus through North Beach, wearing his signature beret and stopping for an expresso. It's been so long since I was in San Francisco, so long since I've seen the coast.

Jacob stops short and cuts his engine, and I slam on my brakes.  I pop up my muddy goggles.

"What's up?"

"Listen."

All the ATVs are silent now. There is nothing but the wind rattling the pines.  Then I hear the howls.

"Holy shit!"

"I know!"

"There must be like 4 or 5 of them!"

While we are listening I suddenly wish we had taken the rifles. Still a half hour to go, and not 15km from a wolf pack.

"Are they howling at us?"

"They can definitely hear us, they know we're here."

Excitement and fear are like whiskey and hangovers.  I am suddenly very hungover.

Jacob is fidgeting with something on his jacket. I see him throw his death cap pin onto the pine needled floor.

"Come on, let's go."

We crank on the ATVs and pull out, the light slowly fading by the minute.  McMahon up front has his lights on, and I do the same.  The lights bounce off trees and add to the shadows, and I turn them off again. I remember my dad telling me about magic hour, when dragons would hunt in the fading light, when cats become bewitched, and when wolves howl. Magic hour.  Then I realized he was just fucking with me.  Or was he?  The world is hazel now and the wolves are coming.  I am seeing gremlins in the woods, shadows running, dancing, wolf eyes glimmering. My hands are sore from gripping the bars and my back aches from tension.  I see a wall of gray up ahead and pray for the meadow.  McMahon emerges first and brakes to wait for the rest of us.

"Holy shit TB, what the hell is happening out there?"

"I have no idea. Let's get back home."

As we file out onto the meadow road, Jacob turns around and looks over my shoulder at the pines. He stops.  He points. My goggles off, I turn around to gaze at where the meadow road turns to forest trail.  Two wolves lope at the edge of the meadow, dancing towards the station.  But there is something odd about them.  We pull out, and watch them over our shoulder as they shadow us from the tree line, growing distant as we near the road to the garage.  As we hit the gravel, I see one of them suddenly stand on hind legs and sniff the air.  Seconds pass and the wolf is still standing.  I shake my head in disbelief and promise to check the camera trap records from the meadow this evening. As Cardinal hits the flood lights and opens the garage door, fear turns back into excitement, and my mouth waters for whiskey.

I just bought a Barbie.  I don't know why I keep buying Barbies, I'm addicted.  I don't play with Barbies, I just buy them and then I add the package to my stack in the corner behind the couch.  I think the stack must be waist high now.  Yeah, definitely waist high. I have lots of Barbies.  Barbies and Rolling Rock.  Rolling Rock rolling all over the hardwood floors.  Has this hill always been this steep?  It's making me thirsty.  Good thinking brain, I'll stop at Eureka Market and get more Rolling Rock.  Old Latrobe! Just another block.

Rolling Rock, Rolling Rock, oh where art thou Rolling Rock.  These Arabs better have some, it's like three whole blocks across market and Castro to that creepy market by the Muni and I'm way too tired for that.  Oh, wait, is that it, a full sixer? Holy shit yes! We're in business Barbie!  

I hate transactions.  I downloaded Google Checkout the other day hoping I could just scan my own item from the shelf, and then just walk away with it, but nope, you need to use a special scanner they mount to the actual register.  Total waste of a download, you still need to deal with a human.  OK, here it goes...

"Hey."

"Hello, how are you?"

I don't know, how am I? I'm thirsty should I tell him that?  No, he can see that stupid, you're buying beer.  Oh well, too  much delay, now it's just awkward to say anything.  Is he still looking at me? Who knows. I don't like eye contact. How could anyone, it's just something mom's tell you to do. I wonder if the Arab thinks it strange that I'm wearing my sunglasses in the store. He definitely thinks I'm strange.  I'm just buying Rolling Rock and Marlboro Lights, what's his problem? Jesus, what a crazy person. OK, finally the receipt. Come on Barbie, let's go have a drink.

When I reach the building I pause for a smoke in the shadows of the garage across the street.  I can see the front door illuminated perfectly from here, and the entire staircase. This is a great spot to watch people come and go.  For a second I wonder why I'm hiding in the shadows outside my own building drinking Rolling Rock and smoking and holding a Barbie doll. Because its awesome! Thanks brain, you're always there when I need you.

No one seems to be coming down now. OK Barbie time to man-up you little sweetling. When I reach the door I look up and see the gold flecked sign San Miguel and make the sign of the cross as is customary.  It's reassuring to live inside an archangel.  God bless you San Miguel. I should get one of those Mexican prayer candles sometime, that would be neat.  The building smells like burnt cookies, stale cigarettes and moldy carpet. Ah home. I like to take steps two at a time, but on the first landing I hear a door open and laughter.  Shit! I'm outside again in no time back in the shadows. The young girl from 2B comes out with her cute asian friend holding hands and giggling. I bet she's a lesbian now. That explains why the little shy boy moved away. Good old Castro, turning the world gay one tenant at a time.

Time to try again. Buck up Barbie! So much effort just to go home, it's a wonder I ever leave. We make it to the first landing, and I turn to the side table, the San Miguel gift exchange.  Some paper plates, a red plastic clock, napkin holders, hmm these figurines are interesting. Victorian, would make a nice tea party. Want some company at your tea party Barbie? Of course you do. I am putting figurines in my pocket, holding a Barbie doll and wearing sunglasses inside my building. I am so awesome, call the paparazzi. Yes it is Coach, thanks for asking. Just don't ask where it came from you paparazzi pissant. 

Second landing now, alls well that ends well.  Just a few more steps.  Should I go the backway, up the wood private wood staircase? It's more private. Nope, then 2B, 2D, and 3B can totally see you, just carry on, home in no time. Rounding the corner I can almost taste home, only a few more seconds and.... Yes! At the door now, jingling these damn keys. So much noise. Shut up keys! Stop shaking hands, body behave! Only brain is my friend, oh and you of course Barbie.

Something is strange. Something is not right. Something is tacked to the door. An eviction notice. An eviction notice? I hear Barbie land on the floor and some Rolling Rock clinking and rolling into the baseboard, another into the door of 3C.  Eviction notice?  What does that even mean?  The revelation guts my nerves and I am shaking, my teeth chatter.  This is no good, this is no good at all.  I unlock my door, tip toe around the mail, bottles, and futon, and put Barbie away on the waist high stack. Eviction notice.  

I open a Rolling Rock and tear the notice from the door.  Am I crying? Boys don't cry, except maybe when they're evicted. Fucking hell I can't handle this right now.  I can't be evicted.  This can't be happening, not to me, not now.  I light a cigarette with a shaky hand and make eye contact with my pipe.  So much for the archangel.  Looking around I realize there is nothing in this apartment, just a futon, a pile of clothes, a stack of records but no turntable, empty bottles, trash, a pile of Barbies, and now an eviction notice.  Fucking hell.  

I'm getting high Barbies. We'll deal with this tomorrow.

Get out, get outta here, please!  I always shut my eyes and look at my feet when I hear the crack of a bat and the arching white ball head towards center field. Clapping and cheering engulf me on the bleachers.

"What a catch!"

"Yay!" I find myself saying, eyes open, wondering what kind of catch it was.  The boys are jogging into the dugout now, the inning over. Only two more to go.

"David's on deck, he's really coming along this spring."

"Thanks, he's been working very hard at the batting cages." He has, since November. He spends all his free time there. Why is something that comes so naturally to him so difficult for me to watch?

Two pitches too soon, Tony singles and is on first. David strides to the batter's box and starts his ritual.  He digs his right foot into the clay three times, twisting on the third, arcs the bat from right shoulder to left twice, adjusts his helmet visor, and bends his knees twisting his back slightly towards the catcher, his left foot raised and resting on toes, the posture like a heron in a rice paddy. My stomach is churning and signals me to stop watching. I close my eyes, tense with anxiety. The familiar sound of leather cuts through wind and cracks suddenly in the catcher's glove.  When I look up there is a strike.

"Oh shoot." The words escape me.

"It's alright, he always takes the first pitch." His father is a stranger to tension.

"I know." I feel embarrassed, as I always am when anxiety is mistaken for ignorance. I am too nervous to care.

The heron is back so I shut my eyes again. This time there is a loud aluminum crack, and I wait until the bleachers are calm and know it is foul. Two strikes. He is going to fail. I want to leave. I want to run away. I want to wrap him in blankets and take him home and read to him, make cookies and watch Indiana Jones. He is so hard on himself. He is going to fail.

Another crack, but this time I feel the bleachers rise. When I look up David is rounding first, and Tony is sliding into third. I listen to familiar baseball applause: "Way ta go Davy-boy!", "Alright big hitter!", and other strange sounding outdated fraternity banter erupt from the bleachers and dugout.  My stomach settles a bit until I see the third-base coach signaling and David signaling back.

"Oh shoot." I am looking at my feet again when he steals second. The bleachers clap, and I know he is safe.  Thank god he is safe.  Someone bring him home... Please let him come home now.

"Which one do you want?"

"The green one."

"Cool, here you go."

"Thanks."

It is raining, so they are sheltering under some wooden benches that wrap around the hot tub.

"It's cold!"

"I know.  We could open the hot tub cover."

"No, that's a pain, and then we'd have to sit in the rain."

"True."

"Are you O.K.?"

"Why?"

"You look miserable."

"I'm tired of this."

"Tired of what?"

"This."

"O.K. great. Still not sure what you're talking about."

"It's just that, I don't know. Is this it, is this all there is?"

"The hot tub? I'm still lost."

"The scavenging. Every day we root through trash or break into houses."

"We are raccoons."

"We weren't always like this."

"No we weren't. We used to be wild animals without pizza."

"We're still wild."

"Maybe, but look at us. We're keeping warm and dry next to a hot tub and you're eating an advocado."

"Let's move to the country."

"Really? What would we eat? Where would we den?"

"Insects, plants, tubers, roadkill, what we used to eat. We could build a house."

"We never ate that shit. I've never eaten a bug."

"You ate those maggots!"

"That was a dare, and they were in leftover General's chicken from Confucious."

"Oh yeah, right."

"You really think things would be better in the country? I'm not much of a builder."

"So what, we'd figure it out. Besides, we wouldn't have to hide from things anymore."

"Yeah, hiding sucks."

"Every time we think we've found a home, like that garage with the brown cat, some asshole kicks us out again."

"Yeah, can't believe they shut the window after two years."

"I don't get it. We're smarter than cats, cuddly like dogs, and act like little bears. Why are we never invited inside?"

"Maybe because we act like little bears?"

"You know what I mean."

"Yeah, totally. But the country? There's coyotes and lions out there."

"There's coyotes and lions here too."

"Sure, but here they have food, in the country we're food."

"Scaredy-cat."

"Shut-up!"

"Pussy."

"I said shut up. I'm going to the Marten's and see if they left out their compost. I really want a banana."

"Fine, bye."

"You're not coming?"

"I'm fine right here." 

"The country huh? There's no people out there you know."

"So what."

"So you'd never meet someone."

"What are you talking about?"

"Petting. We both know what this is about, you want someone to pet you."

"I do not!"

"All that talk about going wild, all you really want is to be loved and pet like some pathetic whiny kitten or sniveling puppy."

"You're such an asshole."

"Well, it's true isn't it? That's why we're here. That's why we always start at the Walkers."

"It is not."

"That Walker boy will never pick you up again. We're no longer kits, we have scary claws and everyone says we're rabid."

"Shut up."

"Just accept it, we're fat and we scavenge and we can't go wild because we're soft. We can't be loved because we're dirty."

"That's just it, we're too wild to be domestic and too domestic to be wild. It's a freaking curse."

"It's a niche."

"You're a niche."

"You're so immature. Let's go to the Martens."

"Fine."

Enough. Basi. Fin. I will not communicate with acorn killers. This was my home but it has become a den of thieves. 

On the 20,843th Sun I looked down upon the valley and noticed the fresh shoot of a stranger. My bark still blackened by the flames, I was happy to see some familiar green. But it was not alone. Slowly at first, then more rapidly they emerged, each new shoot ensuring an eventual dominion of firs. So quickly they matured, militant soldier trunks spearing upwards into the sun. My gnarled twisted limbs strained to shade them out, but it was in vain. What sun they steal now is nothing compared to the energy the mine from beneath my roots.

On the 40,764th Sun they made first contact.  It was the Douglas, the one who boldly rooted under my canopy and grew upward through my drying limbs. The signal came suddenly, an electrifying pulse from the mycorrhizae. A threat. I rained acorns in response, rained away my children and watched as each rotted and failed to sprout. Then the beetles came. A blessing at first, as the firs began to fall. Now a curse, as they rise again in greater numbers, a sea of young evergreens.  

On this 80,005th Sun I cut all mycorrhizal ties.