What's Out There

Night before last, meaning Thursday morning about 1:00 AM, I was sitting in the dining room eating a snack before bed (blueberries in cream, if you must know).

A minute or two earlier I'd reprimanded Gwenith for using an armchair back as a scratching post. So when I heard Llewellyn's claws precipitously scraping over the fake Pergo, I thought, she's at it again: he's upset because she's being naughty.

I turned around, and Gwenith was nowhere in sight. But the dog was still dashing frantically here and there, jumping at the windows, running into one room, then another, whining, manic, unwilling to listen when I told him to sit, desperately urgent about something.

I looked out the front door, nothing stirred. And Llewellyn wasn't barking, as he would if a person or another dog were walking by. Still, he was sure there was something out there. He wanted to go see; of course I didn’t let him.

But it was time for his nightcap walk to the alley, so I leashed him up and took him out the back. Immediately, he pulled towards the side of the porch, towards the screened openings and the walkway below.

There definitely was something there: I could hear it rustling in the hostas.

Back in--with dog-- for the flashlight. Turned it on; I could still hear the rustling, but saw nothing.

Got Llewellyn out to the alley all right, and happily he didn’t yank and pull me to get at whatever was at the side of the house. A stray cat? Skunks . . . ?

Oh, I hoped not! I've never had skunks in the yard, but I've seen them in my neighbors'. Their gates don't fit as well as mine. Though something's been digging a hole under my front gate lately . . .

That was last night. Tonight, at dusk, I was taking out the trash. I came out the back gate, and there, across the alley, was a group of six or seven black and white-- I wish I could say cats, but no, it was Pepe LePew and all his clan. What would you call it-- an odor of skunks?

They sped up and moved away down the alley when they heard me. But when I came out again with the next bag, there was one still lingering . . . on my side of the alley . . . just at the end of my property. I spoke to him nicely and asked him to move away, please . . . And instead, he came closer.

Nope! Back inside the gate!

Eventually, by dint of whistling, chattering, and working away at the squeaky gate latch, I frightened off any black and white children that were hanging about and got all my trash in the barrels without mishap.

But. Tonight, that is, Thursday night, Friday morning, at about 12:40 AM, I was again at the dining room table, eating a very late supper, when again the sound of Llewellyn's claws against the plastic wood floor ripped through the house; again, he began frantically to leap at windows and hunt from one room to another; again, he whined and was in a world of his own as he searched for whatever it was that was out there.

Nothing out the front door, again.

Nothing rustling in the hostas in the side yard tonight, thank God.

Nothing even in the alley, when I took him out to do his business.

But unless my dog is bewitched, there's something lurking around our house, something he's determined to catch or drive away.

Something that makes its presence felt in the witching hour between midnight and 1:00 AM.

And if it's furry, black with a white band down its back, and possesses distinctive and projectile scent glands, I'm just as determined that my dog shall leave it the hell alone. There isn't that much tomato juice in the world.