The Raccoon Wars of '06

“Hurry, Hurry, Hurry! You’re gonna die pretty soon!”

Every morning, during that magical transitional time between sleep and awake – that place where creativity flows, visions waft, and feelings weave - this is what I would hear in my head. My stomach would clench, my heart would race. “Hurry, Hurry, Hurry! You’re gonna die pretty soon.” I’d bolt out of bed and start my day – in a panic.

This subconscious morning ritual began while I was “going through the change”. Going through - as if it was as simple a task as going through a door, a car wash or the motions. Now wouldn’t that be nice?  Well, I can tell you, it’s not nice. It’s not even polite. It’s like going through a brick wall. It’s like going through the gauntlet. At it’s worse, it’s  revisiting the journey through the birth canal - dark, wet, warm, and scary as hell. That bridge to menopausal change didn’t lead me to a world of wisdom, understanding or spiritual enlightenment. It dumped me off in a world filled with irrational fears, insecurities, heart palpitations, hot flashes, night sweats and a complete and utter lack of self purpose. I understand now why my mother was a complete psycho during her mid 50s.

The “Hurry, Hurry, Hurry! You’re gonna die pretty soon”, wasn’t about dying. It was about not living – not having a mission. It was waking up every morning with a sinking feeling in my gut that I had failed. I failed my people ... my parents, my grandparents and everyone who had known me as a passionate person. I was failing myself. I knew passion at one time. I had skills. But a back injury combined with a variety of unchecked hormones hijacked it all. I was a 47 year-old menopausal woman who desperately needed a mission, a purpose. And, I found it.

I’ve never killed anything before. Yes, I’ve killed spiders, slugs, flies, fleas and bees (Nooooo! Not the bees! I know, but I have). I may have killed a robin once when I was 7 years-old. I say may because I’m not sure. I did aim my brother’s BB gun at the bird as it sat peacefully perched on a telephone line and I did pull the trigger. I knew I would never, ever hit it, but I did. It fell to the ground in an awkward flip-floppy spiral. I was horrified. Too afraid to look at it, I dropped my gun to the ground and ran inside bawling, “I didn’t mean to hit it!” I’ve never killed anything with a face - a face like ours. A face with a stick out nose, curved ears, a set of canines and eyes that can, if they choose, look straight through you.  

My mission in life became apparent to me during the summer of 2006. Raccoons were murdering our cats. Ten were killed in our neighborhood within a two week period. This particular gaze of raccoons was more than just a bit abnormal. They were a different breed. They were urban raccoons and they weren’t afraid … of anything. Oh, they looked normal with their cute little bandit faces, tiny black paws and bushy striped tails. But, make no mistake, they were diabolically evil.

One attack took place a block away late one night. Three raccoons worked in unison as they attacked a cat on its own front porch. The owner and several neighbors tried their hardest, but were unable to get the raccoons off the cat before it was seriously injured. When they finally got the cat away from the crazed raccoons they took it inside their house. What happened next was right out of a 1950s horror movie. The raccoons began to head-butt the front of the house, still in kill mode, trying to get at the cat. Shocked witnesses said, “They were throwing themselves up against the outside of the house.”

It was bizarre behavior, even for a raccoon.

My neighbors across the street found their cat dead near their front porch. She was torn apart in the way raccoons with sharp claws are known to do. The cat’s stomach was zippered open and mutilated. If you’ve ever heard the bloodcurdling shrieking of a raccoon attacking your cat, a beloved member of your family, you will never forget it. It’s terrifying.

I pleaded with the city to help us, but their hands were tied. Now, if it had been a bear or a mountain lion roaming the back alleys of West Olympia – then they could help - but not raccoons. They were just nuisance wildlife. I tried to tell them, “Are you nuts? These raccoons are bloodthirsty bionic bastards! They frickin’ carried a little dog away!” It didn’t matter to them. All the city could do is give me a list of animal trappers, so I hired one.

Trapper Tom, a good ‘ol boy from Arkansas, in his Filson tin cloth duster jacket and ten gallon hat, taught me everything you’d ever want to know about raccoons. He taught me how track, trap, and think like a raccoon. I patrolled the neighborhood late into the night, sometimes staking out a particular spot to determine the beast’s travel routes. Yes, I had found my passion. I was going to save the cats, no matter what it took.

We set live traps throughout the neighborhood. I’d get up early every morning to make my rounds. We caught opossum, rats, cats, and squirrels, but no raccoons. They were just too damn smart. They knew all about traps and how to use their opposable thumbs to get out. Trapper Tom and I even watched as a mother raccoon taught her kits how to maneuver in and out of a trap successfully. More cats were being killed and our plan of action, live trapping, was not working. It was time to up the ante.

Tom came to me one day and said, “There is another option, ya know.”

I looked at him perplexed, “Whadda ya mean?”

He stared at me for a moment, “Dispatch ‘em, ma’am.”

I stared at him. What the hell did dispatch mean? Was I supposed to just tell the raccoons, “Move along, now. You’ve overstayed your welcome. Here is a map to get you to Tumwater. There’s plenty of room over there for you and your gang of barbarous murderers. Move along.” 

“Ma’am, if I could, I’d dispatch ‘em myself, but I’d lose my trappers’ license – seein’ you live in the city limits. It’s illegal.”

I still didn’t get it. What the hell was he talking about?

He realized I wasn’t catching his drift, so he leaned into me and whispered, “You shoot ‘em ma’am.”

My mind swirled. Could I do that? I don’t believe in killing.

A neighborhood meeting is organized to brainstorm raccoon options. The neighbors disagree on everything. The solutions range from continued trapping, to spear guns and pepper spray, to complaining to the city. Most can’t bear the thought of killing the little furry ball of cuteness. Folks who have lost cats cry. Some folks complain about no governmental support. I felt like I was in the middle the Clint Eastwood movie, “High Plains Drifter”. Brazen outlaws are taking over our town, making life hell, and no one had the balls to stand up and fight back.

As I sit silent, listening to the group’s sincere angst, Trapper Tom turned to me and said, “Ma’am, if you do this it’ll have to be a clandestine operation. You have two, maybe three, friendlies in this group.” I nodded. After hearing all the sadness, fear, and anger – I no longer had to question anything. I was a hormonally imbalanced, mission-seeking, crazed menopausal woman who was ready to do whatever it took to save our neighborhood cats and save myself from sinking any further into a life that lacked purpose. I felt as though I had no choice. It was my destiny. With Tom’s help I would train, track, stalk, bait and shoot the devil raccoons – all within the dark shadowy clandestine corners of our neighborhood.

Trapper Tom and his buddy Blenn took me to the shooting range for some target practice. Like Tom, Blenn was a good ol’ boy. He was a rotund fella who always wore a t-shirt, jeans and suspenders. At times he looked and sounded like he’d just stepped out of the remote Georgia wilderness. But, the guy had a heart of gold and would do most anything for you.

My water-soaked pink and white cowboy bandana was tied around my neck. The plastic safety glasses slipped down on my nose from the sweat on my face. It was damn hot!

I looked over at the Range Master and in an unsure voice said, “Range Master. Is the range hot?”

The Range Master replied, “The range is hot!”

I push my protective glasses up on my nose, steady my .22 pump rifle, and looked down the barrel of my gun. The bead of the front sight wobbles in the cradle of the rear sight. The last time I shot a gun was when my ex-boss took me out in the boondocks to target shoot at some abandoned gravel pit in the 1980s.

Trapper Tom watched as I steadied my rifle and took aim at the target 50 yards down range. I pulled the trigger. Crap! The shot is at the very edge of the paper – off target.

As the afternoon wore on, I began to reclaim my gun prowess. Tom and Blenn gave me some pointers, corrected my form. Relax, breath, gently squeeze the trigger, don’t pull it.

“Range Master, is the range hot?”

“The range is hot!”

I set the bead steady in the rear sight and quickly shot off five rounds. Tom looked through his target telescope. Blenn looked too and turned to Tom, puzzled.

“What? Did I totally miss it?”

Without much expression, Tom says, “Ah, no ma’am. You hit it.

I looked in the scope. All five shots hit the bulls-eye dead center. I looked at Tom, feeling pretty puffed up and damn proud of myself.

Tom gave me a little grin and said, “You’re ready.”

Blenn hollered out, “Raccoon stew!”

Tom said I was ready and I felt ready - ready to kill my first raccoon. It felt like I was living I an alternate universe. I’d always believed in not killing – and here I am gearing up for a kill. I felt ashamed and excited at the same time. I remember wearing the Army uniform my mom bought me when I was seven. It wasn’t the camo fatigues of today, but the olive drab green uniform of the war I watched on TV every night – the war in Vietnam. I’d put on all my gear - helmet, boots, canteen, BB gun – and head out into the acres of Scotch broom that covered our five acres of property. It was the best thing in the world for playing Army. If you belly crawled into a big patch of it you’d eventually be enveloped in a cave canopy of broom. My mom and dad looked at the plant as a weed. To me – it was Nazi Germany and I was on a mission to destroy the enemy and save the world.

I had a strong background in “having a mission”.  All my heroes as a kid had missions. Of course there were no bonafide female heroes to emulate when I was growing up – only male ones and my mom made sure I had outfits for each one: Neil Armstrong, Robin Hood, and the American soldier. When you lack purpose in your life one of the quickest ways to find it is to go back to when you were 8 years old. Kids have purpose in their pretend world. I did. I think the raccoon war took me back in time to how good and exciting it feels to be on a mission – a hero’s mission.

It was July 4^th and it was still hot. Trapper Tom had decided it would be a good day to commit the crime of shooting a gun off within the city limits. The popping and blasting of all the fireworks would provide excellent cover for the sound of a .22 rifle. We set the shot up at a neighbor’s house that was surrounded by trees. Her back deck was converted into a bait/kill zone. I hate saying words like this, but there’s no other name for it. We laid a couple of hard boiled eggs out and waited. We waited just inside my neighbor’s house with the two French doors open to the deck. I sat in a hard back chair, rifle ready. Tom sat right behind me in another chair – looking over my shoulder. I learned later that Tom had questioned my partner as to if I could handle killing something. My partner wasn’t sure, but knew I was committed to doing the job nobody else wanted to do.

My heart raced as we waited for a coon to show up - my gun at the ready. It was 94 degrees out - sweat dripped down my face, neck, and back. We sat for two hours in the heat and then heard the alarm. Crows – lots of crows squawking frantically. Crows hate raccoons, especially when they encroach on their territory. Their squawking is how we knew a raccoon was approaching. My adrenaline surged. I still wasn’t sure I could do this. I knew I could shoot a gun, but could I kill? I found out soon enough. A raccoon poked it’s head up in one of the 4 inch spaces between the deck railing. I nestled the butt of the rifle into my shoulder, released the safety and aimed the sight right on the raccoon’s forehead, right between the eyes – so it would take only one shot. I sat there frozen – with my aim on the target. I had a perfect shot, but I couldn’t move. All I could see was the raccoon’s eyes looking straight into my eyes. Neither of us moved an inch.

And then from behind me I hear a whisper, “Miss Tami, if you can’t do this – I can do it for you. Can you do it?”

Tom’s voice snapped me out of my stare down with the coon. I thought to myself … there is no way I’m going to let you do this for me. Without saying a word to Tom, I took a deep breath, released it and gently pulled the trigger.  The gun BLASTED, the bullet hit it’s mark perfectly. The raccoon dropped to the ground and I dropped my rifle on the floor in a panic - just like I did when I shot the Robin off the telephone line.

My adrenaline was running so high after that it took until later that evening to begin to feel the ramifications of killing an alive being. It didn’t feel good, but I did kill four more raccoons in the same way… to save the cats. It never got easier – it only got harder. After my fifth kill I couldn’t do it anymore. The devil coons killed a few more cats that summer. The Associated Press picked up the story and gave it the title, “Psycho Killer Raccoons Terrorize Olympia, Washington”. I was interviewed by radio stations across the country, in New Zealand and the UK. National Geographic came to our neighborhood and filmed a special about the wacky Olympia raccoons and then ... the killing stopped. It just stopped. No goodbyes, no nothin’. We found out a year later that some guy in our neighborhood had been feeding the raccoons pot and steroids just to see what happened. He moved away and our raccoons went back to being less evil and less deadly.

What will remember most about the Raccoon Wars of 2006? Just one thing – the eyes of the first raccoon I shot - staring straight through me. I found out that killing those five raccoons broke a part of my soul. If I have to do it again to protect myself or my family (even if its “just” my cats) I’ll do it --- but it will hurt.

California Nightwatch Blue

Yeah, that’s me – the tough lookin’ one. The one with the Eastwood squint that says, “You got me now, but you ain’t holdin’ me long, Copper. You just try and make me talk. You ain’t gettin’ this jail bird to sing, Copper.” Huh, maybe it’s Cagney more than Clint.

The other gang members in the photo? That’s my family, or what’s left of it. Mom? She’s there, along for the ride … moving in and out of something akin to the “fog of war”, wearing an internal Thousand Mile Stare. Next to her, my brother Bill, the middle child. He’s given up and just wants to go home. You can see it in his eyes. The other brother, Jay, the tall one with the George Hamilton tan and Valentino bedroom eyes - he’s dreaming about California girls on the beach and wondering why the hell he was appointed man-of-the-house at the age of fourteen.

It was the summer of ’65 and my Pop had just shot himself, well … killed himself more precisely, in the driveway of our house seven months earlier. So, what’s a family to do after something like that? Well, mostly not talk about it and pretend that nothing had happened. It was the 1960s you know.

But something DID happen. In that millisecond it took for that bullet to travel down the barrel of my Pop’s rifle and into his chest - our family motto went from “All for one and one for all”, or a mildly dysfunctional version of that, to “Every man for himself”. And because of that new family motto each one of us saw the world, our family, and our tragedy through four different sets of eyes.

Take my Pop’s funeral for example. We’re all sitting behind that magic curtain at the parlor. We can see out, but no one can see in. My brother Bill, 11, sits next to me bawling his eyes out. Jay, 13, sits straight and detached. Our mom, though terror-stricken inside, sits strong and stoic with light overcast weeping. And me, I’m fixated on the box with my dad in it. I knew, without a doubt, that that coffin was going to open and my Pop would sit up drinking a bottle of Coke. No tears from me. Honestly, I don’t think my 6 year-old brain I had any idea what was going on. One thing I did know - I felt embarrassed and ashamed that I shed no tears when all those around me were. My Pop never did sit up and I never did drink another Coke – only Pepsi.

Another thing that changed was that my mom was left alone to deal with raising three kids with no job, all the while feeling anger, guilt, denial, and more anger. What was the answer to all our problems, in her eyes? Move to Spain!! Even as an adult now, I have no idea where this came from except I know she loved Anthony Quinn. Maybe that was enough. He was pretty damn sexy in Zorba The Greek. In the end though, more balanced heads prevailed (probably grandma and grandpa) and there we were – a fractured family making our way down I-5 to California – the other Spain – for a summer-of-fun road trip. 

We motored from Washington State through Oregon and into sunny California in a brand spankin’ new Pontiac LeMans convertible – thanks to my Pop’s life insurance policy. It set us up fine and dandy with a stylin’ ride down the Coast. Not quite the GTO muscle car version of the LeMans, but man … it was sweet. It was Nightwatch Blue with a 328 V8 engine and a black rag top. People who live in the Northwest normally don’t go out and buy convertibles, it’s not weather conducive.  But, my mom did and in my mind we were the coolest family on the road, despite the fact that I knew, with every fiber of my being, that every towering eighteen wheeler that passed us was destine to topple over and kill us all.  And, if that happened we wouldn’t be like the Kennedys anymore. President Kennedy was assassinated one year and one month before my dad killed himself. So, of course, I believed the Kennedys and the Keetons were kindred spirits. But, if a fifteen foot high semi-truck flattened us on I-5 in our bitchin’ new car we’d then only be akin to all the other millions of U.S. Highway death statistics and that’s just not quite as awesome as living life in Camelot.

In a weird way, life was good in my version of Camelot. I was just young enough not to understand the tragedy that had befallen our family. I don’t know exactly when my mom started drinking too much, but I would guess it wasn’t too long after the morning she found her husband lying on the ground in his skivvies with a bullet in his stomach and a second in his chest. That day in October was also the day mom disappeared. She just went away and never ever seemed to come back - not the way she was when Pop was alive.  But that was then - not now! Now we’re a family of four touring in our new Pontiac down Pacific Coast Highway. I’m in the backseat, my short cropped Spock haircut blowing in the breeze. It’s California! It’s the Beach Boys, Jan and Dean and Eric Von Zipper in Beach Blanket Bingo. It’s Mustangs and Woodies, surfboards and sand and doing the limbo. It’s quintessential young America in the 1960s and it was breathtaking! This was my version of our trek to California.

My brothers? I’m sure they have a different version. Bill was five years older than me and Jay seven. They were old enough to understand the enormity of our catastrophic loss. I found out later in life that Bill was scared to death during the entire trip and just wanted to go back home to the stability of grandma and grandpa. Being alone with our mom was always an adventure and also most likely a little terrifying. One time she downed a bit too much Jim Beam, got in the car (with us in it) and took the pedal to the metal. My brother, Billy-boy, wrestled the wheel from her and we got home safely. Jay’s version of our California trek is yet to be determined. He was the oldest and it took its toll. With being the oldest comes high expectations and high guilt. Jay-bird, as our grandma would call him, never did find his way out of the maze of guilt that was placed on him by our mom. I hope he makes it out some day.

What was my mom’s version? What did her eyes see? What did her heart feel? I have no way of knowing. Mom died in 1987. Lung cancer pummeled her to death before I grew up enough to understand about regrets. How was I to know that twenty years later my heart would ache for one more conversation, one more birthday, one more Christmas, just one more summer afternoon on the back patio surrounded by her glorious hanging fuchsias. But wait a minute, have I forgotten how many fights we’d been in or how many times we’d go months without speaking to each other? No, I haven’t forgotten. I’m only five years shy of the age she died, 62. I’m old enough now to understand. She was a human being, just like everyone else.

When she was lying in bed at the nursing home dying I asked her if she had any advice for me. All she said was, “A girl’s gotta do, what a girl’s gotta do.” Pretty sound advice, though definitely in a tad bit different category as her “last words”. I’ll set the scene – mom is in a propped up hospital bed. Jay is on one side of her with his hand on her shoulder. I’m on the other side of the bed holding her hand. All she can say is, “Jay! Get me out of this God damn place, you hear me? Get me outta here!” Remember, the woman is hooked up to a morphine pump. She thinks Ted Turner is trying to murder her and knows for a fact that the nursing home is a front for a Chinese drug ring at night and then there’s the fact that the docs believe the cancer has gone to her brain. Mom keeps begging Jay to spring her outta the joint. We tell her everything is okay and we’ll be back tomorrow to visit. My mother turns and looks at Jay - turns and looks at me and then looks straight ahead and delivers the best, most rich (as far as a writer is concerned) last words ever, “You two make me sick.” Just imagine the way Bette Davis would deliver that line. That’s how she delivered it. Both my brother and I had to hold back from laughing. It was so mom. As Jay and I took leave I asked her if I could give her a kiss and in the very same Davis infection she said, “I don’t think so.” I left the room and as Jay and I giggled over mom being mom something tugged at me inside. I poked my head back in her room and said, “Can I give you a kiss, now?” Her response, “I suppose so.”  Those were the last words my mom spoke to me ….. and they were perfect. You know why? Because sometimes, a girl’s gotta do, what a girl’s gotta do.

I think that’s exactly what she was doing the day she packed us all up, shoved us in that Nightwatch Blue Pontiac and headed out on her “my husband just killed himself, I’m scared to death, what do I do now” fun and sun road trip to California. She was doin’ what a girl’s gotta do. She was trying to make sense of something that was impossible to make sense of.  It still doesn’t make sense to me 51 years later. Our family was never the same after that bullet entered my Pop’s chest. Every man for himself stayed with us for a long time.

In the end, all the life evidence, all the family evidence … it all points to the fact that there really is no such place as Camelot. But, I am my mother’s daughter and this girl’s gotta do what she’s gotta do and there will always be a place for my dear tormented, angry, sweet, loving, tap dancing, dysfunctional, singing mom at my Round Table. She’s earned it.