I was having a cigarette on the stoop when Rocky and I met.
“Hey you,”
I said. “I heard about you when I first moved here. I didn’t think you were
still around.”
“Yeah, I’m
around,” he said, raising his head from the trashcan.
“You want
to go get a drink or come inside for a cup of coffee?”
“I’ll take
a coffee,” he said, thick rings of black around his eyes. “I could use it. It’s
cold, thank you.”
We went up
the stairs. He remarked that the hallway was nice and warm, to his liking. I
mumbled something about the old man on the second floor and his low blood
pressure and overall laziness.
I hung my
coat behind the door and Rocky had a seat on the sofa.
“Cream and
sugar?” I shouted from the kitchen.
“Just
black, please.”
I saw
Rocky’s reflection in my mirror, scanning the room.
“I always
see you coming home late. Do you work real late?” He laced his thumbs together.
“Yeah, I
uh…work pretty crazy hours.” I wrapped myself in my black cardigan and sipped
my coffee.
“I thought
so.”
“I didn’t
even realize you were around. The old ladies, the ones who are at the diner all
of the time, they used to talk about you constantly. They thought you had
rabies.”
“Rabies?!
Oh Heavens no!”
“Sorry…I
didn’t mean to offend…you….”
“Not at
all, not at all. I’m a raccoon, it’s to be expected.”
It was
true. Raccoons. Rabies. Seemed to go hand in hand.
Rocky sat
balanced upon his tail. He teetered left to right as his small paws clasped the
Neil Young coffee mug.
“Sometimes
I see you through the kitchen window,” he said.
“Oh really?
Doing what?” I asked.
“I see you
looking at your phone a lot. The bright blue light goes off and you look at it
and look away and look at it and look away. Then you finally answer it and you
nod your head. Then you hang up and sometimes you cry. Actually, you cry a
lot.”
“I do?” I asked incredulously, my legs
tucked underneath me and my shoulders leaned forward with utmost curiosity.
“Oh yes.
Most people eat in their kitchens but you are always crying.”
I felt
embarrassed.
“I guess you
don’t have one of those do you?”
“A phone?”
“Yeah?”
“No.
Raccoons have no need for such things.”
“How do
your friends know where you are?”
“I don’t
really have that many to be honest.” The whites of his little black eyes
sparkled in the din of my living room. He was black and gray against a bright
blue bookshelf.
“I often
wonder why you have so many…” His voice trailed off as he made a small note of
the fox painting on my wall.
“Friends?”
I asked, putting down my mug. “Oh, I don’t really know.”
“Who is
that pretty girl?” He looked toward a picture frame.
“Oh…she was
my best friend. She died a long time ago.”
“So sorry.
So terribly sad. So terribly sad….”
“Yeah. I
wish she were here. To see all this stuff. She wasn’t like all the other friends.”
“The ones
who make you cry?”
“Well, I
didn’t say that.”
“I heard
sometimes you break their hearts, sometimes they break yours.”
“Who told
you that?”
“The old
ladies from the diner.”
“No
kidding.” He was pretty resourceful for a raccoon.
“Sometimes
I see in your window at night, to your bedroom and you are looking up at the
stars you shine on your ceiling. I wonder, what is that girl thinking?”
“Oh…all
sorts of things. Sometimes I just wish I knew what everyone else was thinking.”
“Like I
wonder about you?”
“Sure,” I
smiled.
“You’re so
different from all the other ladies in the neighborhood,” he said.
I wasn’t
sure how he meant.
“They all
have babies and go to the grocery store a lot more than you do.”
“Oh
that…well.”
“Do you
ever get lonely?”
“NO! Do
you?”
“I’m a
raccoon. I’m a solitary creature.”
“Right…”
“I’m
surprised you have so many Jimmy Stewart movies.”
I asked him
why.
“Because
you are always wearing black. Why would someone who wears so much black like
Jimmy Stewart so much?”
“Why would
a raccoon know who Jimmy Stewart is?” I retorted.
“Touché!”
He raised his paw and spread his tiny mouth into a smile.
“Are there
many of your…species…here in New York?”
“I just
know of Ralph.”
“Oh yeah –
what’s he like?”
“Ralph…he
just wants to be an actor. He’s always running onto movie sets and getting
chased by deranged production assistants.”
“You know
deranged production assistants?”
“I didn’t
say I did, personally. Ralph does, though. That’s what he says. His big thing
is he wants to be in movies like the raccoon from that John Candy movie.”
“The Great Outdoors?”
“That’s the
one!”
The fact
that I just used “species” in a sentence disturbed me and it finally occurred
to me just who I was dealing with.
“Well, it’s
getting late.”
“I’m sure
you have lots of work to do.”
“Always,” I
replied, spinning a finger in my lukewarm coffee.
“You really
shouldn’t let it get to you, your work like that.”
“Easy for
you to say. You’re a raccoon.”
“Yeah but
everyone hates me.”
“Hates you?
I wouldn’t go that far.”
“Well I would,” he turned his thumb to himself.
“They are always trying to poison me like those grotesque rats. And someone is
always calling Animal Control on me. They should wrangle that racist neighbor
of yours, not poor old me! Hmpf!”
“Agreed,” I
said.
“Did you
ever have any imaginary friends?”
Of course,
I nodded.
“When was
your last?”
“Oh…in
college. I used to think I had a little demon friend who convinced me to do bad
things. But I guess they weren’t that bad. But when I was little I had a white
Husky called Snowflake and he helped me to do my math homework.”
“That’s
nice,” he mused, his petite paws patting his stomach.
“Well,
thank you ever so much for the coffee. I best be going. I may just head down to
the East River to catch myself a nice fresh fish.”
“Fish, huh?
Sounds good.”
“You have
no idea,” he smiled and walked on all fours towards the door.
“See you
around?”
“See you
around.” I was beaming.
“I’ll let
myself out,” he said.
And with
that, he and his bushy black tail were gone.
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