The Totem 1979 (10 page)

The dog was not around, it seemed, although he could see the chain quite clearly, stretched out from the dog house, lying in the grass, reflecting moonlight. No dog barking, nothing coming after him. He held his breath and hurried past it. Then he felt relieved. Maybe they had let the dog in. Maybe they had taken it away. He didn’t know, but he was feeling even better as he passed the last few houses on the lane. He had never been out on his own this late before, and with his fear now gone, he felt exactly as he’d thought he would, happy and excited, thrilled to be out doing this. He came to where the lane stopped and the park loomed up before him. There were trees that shut away the moon, a few thin silver streaks that filtered down upon the grass. He didn’t mind the darkness, though. This was one place where he always felt at home. He played here often, coming here with his mother nearly every day. Over to his left would be the swing sets, although he couldn’t see them. Down there straight ahead would be the swimming pool and tennis courts. And over to his right would be the stream that wound its way through town and then through here to meet up with the lake. There were ducks and fish and turtles in the lake, and sometimes he would walk there with his mother, eating lunch beside it.

That was where he went, not directly toward the lake, but toward the stream that met up with it, toward a bend that they had walked along. They had gone there Wednesday and then yesterday, and each time they had seen it, the little animal that lived down in the reeds beside the stream. He had been the one who’d noticed it first. “Look, there, Mother, at the cat down by the water.” She’d gazed where he had pointed, and she’d said that it wasn’t a cat. ‘The bushy tail and pointed face and mask around the eyes. That’s a raccoon.” It stood there in the water, staring at them, and then slowly walked up on the bank and disappeared within the reeds. They waited, but it didn’t show itself again. It looked so soft he wished that he could touch it. “Better stay away from it,” his mother had said. “It might be wild. It likely is.” That night they had told his father what they’d seen, and he had nodded. “Sure, there might be coons still living in the city. Look at all the rabbits, moles, and possums. There’s no reason why it couldn’t. But they hardly come out in the daylight. Chances are nobody else has even seen it.” That had been exciting, the only ones who’d ever seen it. Warren had thought about it all night, and the next day he had made his mother take him there again.

And he had seen it again. It was standing high up on the bank this time and staring at them like before, its head cocked, sitting on one hip. It had stayed there quite a while. Then it had crawled back into the reeds. His mother said there was a hole in there. That was why they always found it in this place. And Warren was even more excited, thinking he had come upon a secret. But today when he had walked there with his mother, it was gone. It hadn’t shown itself at least, and he’d been disappointed. He remembered what his father had said, that raccoons didn’t like the daylight, and he guessed that, if he’d ever have a chance to touch it, he would have to go at night. Even if he saw it in the day again, he knew that his mother would never let him touch it. So he’d have to wait until dark and go there on his own.

At first, the thought was scary. After all, he’d never gone out by himself like that, and what was more, he knew his parents would be angry. But the thought kept working on him. He remembered what the raccoon looked like, how he’d wanted to reach down and touch it. He remembered how he’d often been tempted to sneak out when things were dark and learn what happened in the night.

Soon the thought quit being scary. He would go on his adventure and one day announce, “Mother, by the way, do you remember that raccoon we saw? Well, one night I went down and touched it.” She would look at him, and he would smile, and then she’d know that he was bigger than she thought.

Maybe he would even catch it. That was what really made him go ahead with this. To catch it, bring it home, and train it as a pet. Then his Mom and Dad would surely know how big he was. But even as he thought of that, he knew that he was wrong. His parents wouldn’t let him keep it. They would just be mad at him. The thing to do was catch it and then let it go. Later when he’d grown a bit, he’d tell them what he did, and they’d be proud. For now, though, he would only hold it and then let it go. That would be almost the same as having it for a pet. Plus, he’d be out on his own at night, and thinking of that prospect, he was so excited that he started making preparations. All through supper, he’d been half-scared, half-eager, his heartbeat so loud he couldn’t believe that his parents didn’t hear it. After eating, he had tried to play a game of catch with his father, but he kept dropping almost every pitch his father threw him, fearful that his father would ask him why he was so nervous. He had fidgeted through several shows on television. Then at last the sun had gone down. His mother took him in to bed.

Now, his sack of crackers in his hand, Warren walked among the dark, looming trees, sometimes coming on a silver strip of moonlight and then moving into darkness again. He felt more nervous than when he’d left the house. As much as he was used to coming here, the park at night was quite a different thing. Shapes that should be friendly he could hardly recognize. Others even scared him. That dark object over there. Was that something lurking for him? He didn’t think he’d ever seen it. What about that crouching shadow by that tree? Looking toward it, Warren bumped past the water fountain, stumbling back before he realized what he had hit. Then he looked to see the shadow, and it wasn’t there now, and he didn’t know which way to go. Sometimes he heard noises far behind him, and he turned to figure what they were. Other times the noises were quite close, and he was forced to run. Then he slowed. Then he ran again. And then he heard the trickling of the water, came around a clump of trees, and saw the silver pool of moonlight on the lake, and knew that he was too far to the left. Even so, he’d managed to get here, and the light was better, and he felt a little more at ease. He stopped to eat a cracker, but the brittle, biting noise he made unnerved him, and he dropped it. Then he took a breath and left the lake to walk along the stream’s edge, looking for the bend.

There it was, directly ahead. He saw the wide curve in the stream, the reed tops sticking up from down there on the bank, and he was walking closer. The moon was gone a moment, off behind a cloud, making him stop. Then the moon was back, and he started walking again. He was almost there. He looked down at the reeds and hoped that he would see the animal, but he didn’t. He strained to notice some sign of movement, but there wasn’t any. Then he glanced around him, up and down the stream. There was just the silver-tinted water, shallow, rippling on the stones. For sure if the raccoon were here, he would have seen it. Then it must be hiding in the reeds.

But how to go about this? First Warren walked a distance back and scrambled down the bank. The slope was steeper than it looked. He ended with one sneaker in the stream. The water shocked him, and he lurched back onto the shore. He had no socks on, and the water sloshed within his sneaker, cold and faintly greasy, draining out. He shook his foot, and then his skin adjusted, and he put the foot down on the shore. It sank into mud as had the other. He revolted, and the sneakers made a sucking noise as he stepped onto firmer ground. Now he’d really fixed things. He had mud upon his sneakers, and his mother couldn’t help but see that. Surely she would know. He almost panicked. Then he thought of water-he could wash them-and the image of that drinking fountain came to him, and he knew that he could wash them there. He began to feel relieved.

He stepped a little closer to the reeds, worried that the noise he’d made had scared the raccoon into its hole. He had almost dropped the bag of crackers, and now he clutched it to him, drops of water on it and on his hand. He crouched, peering in through the reeds, but there was nothing he could see. The reeds were thick and dark, and he would never find the hole. All the same, he peered as close as he could manage, his face up even with the reeds. Still, he couldn’t see. For all he knew, the raccoon was right there in front of him, and if it didn’t move, there wasn’t any way for him to know. Then he thought that where the raccoon went down into the stream and then turned back and went up to its hole, there had to be a little path, a kind of tunnel within the reeds. He stood and looked down at the stream and made his choice. Bracing himself against the shock, he stepped with both feet into the stream, waded, then turned to face the reeds.

At first, Warren didn’t notice it. Then he did. A little burrow in the reeds, a kind of channel where the raccoon came and went. Somewhere up inside would be the hole. He stooped and opened the sack of crackers, reaching in to grab a few. “Here, coon,” he was saying softly, but he didn’t like the noise, and so he switched to whistling, short and low. He didn’t like that either, but he liked it better than his voice, and so he kept on whistling, pulling out the crackers, throwing them. They rat-tied up the passage in the reeds. “Here, coon,” he was saying and then caught himself and started whistling once again. He threw a few more crackers, listened harder, but there wasn’t any movement.

What to do? Warren crouched a good deal closer, the crackers in his hand. He thought that he would throw them like the others. Then he thought that he would reach in with them. Maybe it would take the crackers from his hand. He held them at the entrance. He reached his hand up in there, watching the hand disappear, And that was when he heard it over to his right. He looked. It was coming down the bank. It seemed to be off balance. “Hi, coon,” he was saying. “Here’s some crackers for you.” But it didn’t stop. It just kept coming, and it made a hiss. He had never heard a sound quite like it, something like a cat, but not exactly, and it kept on coming, hissing, and he had his hand out with the cracker, thinking it was going to eat, already knowing how he’d reach to grab it firmly behind the ears, just the way his father had shown him how to grab a cat, and it was past the cracker, its teeth sunk into his hand.

“Aaiieee!” Warren jumped up, stumbling into the stream. The raccoon was attached to him, its mouth sunk into his hand, its weight suspended so it dragged him downward, almost falling into the stream. He couldn’t bear the pain, the sharp teeth biting, tearing, scraping on a bone, his flesh now ripping from the weight of what was hanging on him. He was struggling for his balance, flailing, grabbing at the raccoon to free it, swinging, jerking with his arm, and then he swept around and flung the arm, and he was free of all that weight, the raccoon flipping through the air, thudding on the other bank. Warren didn’t have a chance to marvel at his strength. The animal was bigger than he’d thought, almost half his size. And heavy-he’d expected he could lift it like it was a cat, and here it felt like someone he was wrestling with.

The force of flinging it away had toppled him against the bank, and he was scrambling to his feet now as the raccoon came for him again. It must have hurt itself when it had landed. It was limping, listing to one side as it surged across the stream. It hissed, and Warren was scrambling with his back against the slope, staring down and kicking with both shoes. The raccoon snapped and bit and got one shoe and wrenched its head from side to side as if to tear a piece away, and Warren felt its teeth go into his foot, and he was kicking at it with his other shoe, ramming down against the raccoon’s nose, and then Warren’s foot was free, and he was scrambling farther up the slope. That pointed nose, those bandit eyes, he had thought that they were cute, and now he couldn’t stop from screaming at the terror of them. He was at the top now, feeling where its breath was at his ankles, jumping up to run, and he could hear it hissing there behind him as he ran with all the power of his fright. He had never run so fast before, his legs stretched out beneath him, his chest on fire, gasping, choking, crying, and the thing kept on behind him, and he kept on running, and he turned to see how close it was and rammed against a tree.

He fell back, his shoulder smarting, and sprawled across the grass. He didn’t know how long he’d been there, blinking, straining to move. He fumbled to his hands and knees. The thing was very close. He couldn’t see it, but he sensed that it was near, and he was stumbling to his feet. He turned and lost his balance, reaching for the tree. He shook his head and heard the hissing behind him, turned to kick at it, and there it was, but it was nowhere close, out there in the moonlight, turning in a circle, limping, lurching in a circle. He had never seen any animal behave like that. But he didn’t stay to watch.

He suddenly was running again, his legs unsteady, his breath an effort, stumbling, his arms out to keep balance, and he didn’t stop until he was almost to the lane. He limped along it, his hand on fire. Then he started running once more. He didn’t even think to watch out for that family’s dog down there. He just kept running. Then he crossed the side street toward the last part of the lane, and he was limping again, looking back to see if it was after him. It wasn’t, and he looked down toward his house now, walking slowly toward it, his injured hand oozing blood, warm and sticky, making him wince from the pain. He realized that he had dropped his sack of crackers at the stream. He didn’t know why that should seem important, but it was, and he couldn’t help sobbing. Then he started across the backyard toward his house.

He worried, not just because his wound hurt and he didn’t know if it was bad but as well because his mother couldn’t help seeing it. She’d be angry, knowing what he’d done. I have to hide it, he thought. How he didn’t know. Keep his hand in his pocket. Stay away from her. Even if she didn’t find out until tomorrow night, that would give him time to say it had happened in the afternoon. A dog perhaps. A cat. He couldn’t decide. But for sure, he couldn’t let her know the truth. He reached the porch, thinking he would climb up, but he didn’t have the strength, so he walked around the front and went up softly onto the porch. In the glow of streetlights, he saw his hand, and it was ugly, caked with dirt and blood, the flesh all torn and jagged. He was frightened by it, put his good hand over it, and quickly looked away.