by Preston Trombly
Beevo unlocked the front door of the cottage, an annual rite of spring that has taken place since 1951. He was greeted by eight months of stale, unused cottage air: that same collection of odors that has accumulated each winter for almost fifty years.
Betty and Wally looked around and inspected the place. They found the usual collection of cobwebs, spiders, dead flies, crumpled towels in the bathtub, and coffee cups with strange things growing in them left over from the previous summer. Betty was quick to notice that the living room looked different from the way she had left it.
There was a piece of old plywood that had been put in front of the fireplace that was slightly ajar. Shreds of newspaper were strewn all around the living room, and a few had somehow gotten up on the seat of Aunt Ameda's 120-year-old rocking chair (or was it 120-year-old Aunt Ameda's rocking chair? I guess it depends on how you think about antiques). Some chewed up bits of wood were over by the TV, there were pieces of rag strewn about, and some old cinders from the fireplace covered the rug.
Beevo looked at the mess and said, "Jeeesus!."
Betty said, "Good God, Beev, whatta we gonna do now?"
Wally, the naturalist that he was, sniffed the air and replied in a knowing, self-assured, and confident tone, "Coons." It seemed as though some sort of animal had gotten inside the cottage through the chimney, pushed the protective plywood aside and had the run of the place during the winter.
Now this wasn't the first experience with animals nesting in the chimney. In fact, last fall Ed LaFleur, a second or third cousin who owned the cottage next door, came over and installed a heavy screen on top of the chimney flu to keep small animals or anything else out of the fireplace. There had been a brief encounter with coons then, that no one wanted repeated. Ed did an excellent job, probably because he was being supervised at the time by Uncle Art, Aunt Barbara, Betty, Lisa, and Cousins Babs, JoAnne, Zippy and Jane. Supervising projects has been a family trait ever since 1949, when the original builders of the cottage, Betty's parents Preston and Priscilla Sage, along with their daughters and their husbands and children all supervised Karl Sunderland and his brothers-in-law unload two truckloads of 2 X 4s, knotty pine, oak flooring and other miscellaneous building materials. With as many opinions as there were supervisors about where to store the material after it was unloaded from the truck, Karl's crew finally dumped the whole load in a pile next to a big sassafras tree, hopped back in their truck and drove away.
In the living room, Betty, Beevo and Wally started cleaning up the foul mess. Betty was startled to hear a faint scratching sound behind the plywood piece that was ajar in the fireplace.
"Good God, Beevo, whatta we gonna do now?"
Beevo lit another Pall Mall.
Wally said, confidently, "Coons are still in there." He was a naturalist and knew about these things.
Beevo took a drag on his cigarette and said, "all right, I know what to do. We'll start a small fire and smoke 'em out. Now I'll crumple up these old newspapers and, Wally, go get that old ladder out in the garage and go up on the roof." He was Beevo's son-in-law, so he did what was asked of him.
The fireplace had an iron heat-a-lator that had rusted from 40 years of disuse, and the damper was stuck in the closed position. Chances are that the coons, or whatever they were, had nested there.
Betty maintained a life-long, primal fear of four-legged, eight-legged, or anything-legged creatures. She ran outside under the pretext of supervising the operation from the front lawn.
Wally got the ladder out of the garage, leaned it against the cottage in front of the picture window, and headed up on the roof. This was the same ladder that one of the original builders, Betty's brother-in-law Art Gustafson, had fallen off of 25 years ago in an attempt to put up fifteen-foot clapboards on the place by himself, while sipping a gin-and-tonic. Wally made it up on the roof, and being the most acquainted with the ways of the wild, he felt right at home. His qualifications as a naturalist and for this particular job included the fact that he had made two visits to the Forest Park Zoo, bagged seven lawn moles, three of which are mounted on his workshop wall, and in 1978 - as he has so often reminded everyone - caught a 7-inch largemouth trout (at least that what he called it, anyway).
He shouted down to Betty on the front lawn, "O.K., have Beevo start the fire!"
Betty interpreted Wally's message and then relayed it inside. "O.K., Beevo, you can start the fire now!"
Beevo lit the small bundle of rolled up newspapers he had placed in the fireplace. Smoke started to rise up the chimney, just enough to flush out whatever was in there. Both Betty and Wally could see the smoke now, and they waited for the invader to leave.
"Good God, Beev, here he comes!" shouted Wally from up above, all of his reserve gone by now.
Sure enough, a big old lumbering raccoon poked its head slowly out the chimney top and surveyed the situation. As it did, Wally tried to grab it, but the coon simply climbed back down the chimney.
"Jeesus, Beevo, did 'ya see that? This thing's the size of a small bear!" Remember that Wally knew animals, and once even saw a bear at the Forest Park Zoo.
In the meantime, Beevo is beefing up the fire, lighting more newspaper.
Betty, still out on the lawn, said, "Did 'ya get it, Wally, did 'ya get it?"
"Na, I missed it", said Wally.
By now, Beevo's fire was smoking up a storm. Back on the roof, the coon poked his head out again, but this time Wally was ready. He had his hands around either side of the top of the chimney so that the animal couldn't possibly escape. But before Wally could grab it, the coon once again headed back down the chimney, somehow got himself turned around, and reappeared seconds later, back end first.
By the time Wally actually got his hands around the coon, all he got was the rear end. "I got it, Betty, I got it!" he yelled. Grabbing the coon by the tail and swinging it over his head a few times to gain momentum, Wally flipped it up in the air, let go of the coon and shouted, "Jeesus, will 'ya look at that! Holy Shit!"
And that's just what the coon did, as it sailed out over the roof and landed right smack on top of Betty's new silver Chevy. The coon, having left a winter's worth of hibernated food on top of Betty's car, waddled off into the neighbor's yard, and ambled under the porch.
"Good God, Beev, whatta we gonna do now?" asked Betty.
Wally was still up on the roof but had composed himself by now, his adrenaline level back to its normal higher-than-average state. He brushed the palms of his hands together and said in a self congratulatory tone, "Well, I guess we took care of that one, didn't we, Beev? Yes Sir!"
Meanwhile, Beevo was still in the living room stoking the fire. He hadn't seen any of the action up on the roof, and shouted out, "Did 'ya get it, Wally?"
"Thank God, we got it, Beevo!", shouted Betty, from the front yard
Beevo, came out on the front porch, brushed the palms of his hands together and said in a self congratulatory tone, "Well, I guess we took care of that one, didn't we Wally? Yes Sir!"
Betty and Beevo headed back inside the cottage and Wally climbed down from the roof and went out in the garage for a beer from the collection of last summer's leftover supply. The coons had left quite a mess inside, which was obscured a bit by some of the smoke that had backed down the chimney into the living room.
With a handkerchief covering her nose and mouth in one hand and a broom in the other, Betty started to clean up. Beevo was taking a well-deserved rest on the couch, and had lit up a Pall Mall. Wally said that Beevo smoked the unfiltered ones because there was no confusion about which end to light.
As Betty was sweeping near the fireplace, she heard a faint scratching sound and a whimpering noise.
"BUUURRRP" exclaimed Wally as he returned from the garage, slurping his beer.
"Good God, Beevo, whatta we gonna do now?" said Betty.
"Gee, do you think there's another one in there?" asked Beevo.
Well Jeesus, Beev, it ain't a bluefish" said Wally, his basic instincts as a naturalist and his awesome wit honed by the beer.
"OK", said Beevo, "Here's what we'll do. I'll just stoke up the fire again and we'll smoke out this one too! Better get up on the roof again, Wally!"
Betty and Wally headed outside. Wally (which was short for Walter) climbed back up on the roof while Betty (which was short for Elizabeth) stationed herself where she could relay messages between Beevo and Wally and generally keep an eye on the entire operation. She was careful not to step in the leavings of the first coon that had splattered her car and the driveway. By this time, Beevo (which was short for Horace) had the fire roaring, and smoke was now pouring out of the chimney like some demented Indian's smoke signals.
Just as Wally positioned himself by the top of the flu, the second coon poked his head out of the chimney. Wally was a bit more brave and sure of himself after his first successful encounter. He confidently reached down to grab the creature and yelled out, "I got him, Beev!" and started to pull the coon out of the chimney. But the coon was to quick for him and wriggled free. He slipped back down the chimney so fast that his claws couldn't grip the flu tiles and he fell all the way down through the rusted out damper and landed - "PLOP" - right on top of Beevo's now raging inferno.
From inside the cottage Beevo screamed, "Jeeezus, its a coon! Look at the size of him! Here he comes!" As soon as the coon hit the fire, he let out a god awful yelp, jumped out of the fireplace while Beevo, scared out of his wits, bolted out the front door, all out of breath. By now the coon, also scared out of his wits, had run in a frenzy from the fireplace and bumped into Aunt Ameda's 120-year-old rocking chair, past the kitchen and into the bathroom, where the first coon should have gone, and hid behind the toilet bowl.
"Where'd he go? What's goin' on?" shouted down Wally from the roof.
"I dunno!" yelled up Beevo, while looking for his cigarettes.
"Good God, Beevo, whatta we gonna do now?" screamed Betty.
Well, by now you can just imagine the state that the three of them are in.
Wally has climbed down the ladder and was on the front lawn. His instincts as a naturalist were so shaken to the core that he had begun thumbing through his copy of Euel Gibbons' "Naturalist's Guide to the Behavior of Wild Animals."
Beevo is anxious over what seems to be the loss of his last pack of Pall Malls in the fireplace.
And Betty has completely lost her long developed capacity to supervise any situation.
Beevo scratched his head in consternation, which had started to sunburn. The reason his skull is susceptible to overexposure in the first place is a story in itself. Rumor has it that in 1939 he was trying to hear a very weak Armed Forces Radio broadcast of Benny Goodman's band and he got too close to the short wave set, thereby doing away with his long waves. But, as you can imagine, that's another story altogether.
Remember that the second coon was still hiding behind the toilet bowl in the bathroom. Beevo scratched his head, thought a moment and said, "I'll just have to take the broom and go in and flush out that old coon." He headed into the living room, looked under the couch and around the chairs, in the dining room and under the table, in the two bedrooms, and then had a brief recollection of seeing the coon go into the bathroom, but he was so shaken that he didn't remember for sure. In fact, the whole episode by now had become a blur to him. Beevo eased his head into the bathroom, broom at the ready, and spied the coon cowering behind the toilet. "Jeezus, its a big one!" shouted Beevo. As he told it later, it was about the size of a large collie dog. He gingerly prodded the coon with the broom. It scampered out between Beevo's legs into the back bedroom, finding shelter under the bed in the far corner.
Wally now was reading aloud from his naturalist's guide, either to reassure the others or to calm himself down, it was not clear which. "Raccoons have dark rings around their eyes like a mask, and have long claws. They can be dangerous when frightened or cornered."
"Good God, Beevo, whatta we gonna do now?" asked Betty.
Beevo shouted, "Open the front door, Betty, and get out of the way. Here he comes!" Betty not only got out of they way, she ran outside and down the steps as fast as she could, jumped inside her car and rolled up all the windows, and then locked the doors. Meanwhile, Beevo had managed to flush that old coon out from under the bed, back through the kitchen and into the living room, where it was headed straight for the door Betty had left open.
Wally was still reading. "Raccoons are foragers, and in populated areas are known to ransack garbage cans looking for food, especially near dusk. Furthermore, it is best to seal off access to uninhabited areas of a house, cabin, or garage as coons have been known to nest in these places, away from the winter elements."
The coon was in a real panic now, as Beevo, broom in hand, gave chase. It ran past Wally who was still reading aloud, scooted out the front door, waddled down the steps and onto the driveway. As the animal passed in front of Betty's car, she screamed out at the top of her lungs, "Jeezus Beevo, look at the size of that coon!", echoing his earlier observation. Of course no one could hear her because all the windows were rolled up. The second coon continued past where the first coon had left its mark on the car, and headed straight for the neighbor's cottage and joined its mate under the porch.
"Whew, that was a close call!" exclaimed Beevo. He put down the broom, brushed the palms of his hands together and with an air of self-satisfaction said, "Well, I guess we took care of that one didn't we, Wally?"
Wally the naturalist closed his reference book, brushed the palms of his hands together and with an air of self-satisfaction said, "Well, I guess we took care of that one, didn't we, Beev?"
By this time, Betty had rolled down the windows of her car, climbed out and had joined the others in the living room. "This is terrible! Just look at the mess in this cottage. Good God, Beevo, whatta we gonna do now?"
.
Beevo was rummaging through his coat and had found another pack of Pall Malls and lit up a cigarette. He took up the broom and started to sweep around the fireplace. Wally went out in the garage for another beer, and Betty started to vacuum up the mess that the coons had made inside the cottage during the winter months.
Beevo quickly lost interest in sweeping, so he put down his broom and joined Wally out in the garage. Together they found a piece of wood left over from the door of the old 1949 outhouse along with two cinderblocks. The two of them went back up on the roof and put the wood on top of the chimney flu and the cinderblocks on top of the wood, in order to keep coons, or any other strange critters, out of the cottage. The two of them were confident in their handiwork, as they so often were, and sure that the coons were gone for good - never to return to GLADIMERE.
GLADIMERE was the nickname given the cottage by Betty's mother and father who built the place. There was even a sign over the front porch that said GLADIMERE. It was an example of the original builders' droll New England humor. Humor so droll, in fact, that it wasn't until I was twenty seven years old that I realized that GLADIMERE was short for "Glad I'm Here."
As I sat in Aunt Ameda's old rocking chair listening to the events of that day being recounted to me, which have been recorded here word-for-word, moment-by-moment, the only trace of the incident still remaining is the strange scent in the air; that faint yet unmistakable odor of cottage coon.