I don’t think it’s particularly awful to vigorously defend one’s back yard, gardens, pet food or other outdoor possessions from marauding creatures, which apparently puts me in the occasional minority around here.
Like around 10:30 Monday night, when I went out back to feed Bosco before going to bed. Only Bosco was further back in the yard, crashing through the big fig tree trunks and banana leaves, half growling and half howling like he does when he’s chasing something down. This was the third time in the past five nights that he was after something back there.
Bosco wouldn’t come up for his dog food, so I grabbed an ax handle and went back to see what’s been giving him fits. I figured it was either a tom cat messing with him, or a possum trying to break into the garage.
There was enough moon out to see pretty clearly as I ducked under some banana leaves and headed toward the back of the garage. I’d just cleaned up back there the day before, pulling up all the weeds and hauling them out of the five-foot space between garage wall and neighbor’s fence. Snakes sometimes hang out in there if you leave the weeds too long.
I’d pulled a length of 2.5-foot-high wire fencing across one end of the cleared-out space, specifically to keep the dog out, because I have a scheme to turn the space into another plant-growing area. Yet here he was howling and crashing right through the fencing. Not jumping it, mind you, just powering over the top of it without it even registering in his canine consciousness. That’s how he is when he’s chasing a possum, which is what it turned that he was chasing.
The possum was running along the top of the neighbor’s 6-foot-high wood fence, with Bosco running alongside and leaping up to snap at its legs every three strides or so. Then the dog would trip over the wire fencing and the possum would turn around and start running the opposite direction along the wood fence top, and Basco would howl and follow along, just missing with his teeth.
The dog kept running over the wire fence, and I was afraid he’d cut up his legs. Plus if he’d pulled the possum off the fence, they’d end up in a fight and there was a slim chance the possum could have rabies. Possums really will play possum, but after Bosco chews on them for a minute or so, they eventually snap out of it and start fighting back. And then I have to put an end to it, which usually means killing the possum and becoming the proud owner of a dead possum. I particularly don’t like having to take responsibility for possum carcasses.
So this time I ran alongside Bosco, with the possum on my right, holding the ax handle up in order to get a good swing in. I caught it square in the body and launched it from the fence up to the base of one of my neighbor’s sheds. Only about 8 feet away, but definitely a ground-rule double. Not bad for a rightie batting left.
Or so I thought. The kids and their mama didn’t express any exuberance at all when I mentioned it upon returning to the house.
“I’m not sure how I feel about that,” said mama.
Well, you could be thrilled that Bosco won’t contract rabies tonight and there will be no surprises in the garbage can. You could feel like there’s not going to be any worrying over vermin coming down the chimney this evening and cleaning out the refrigerator, because the brave little tailor killed seven at a blow and his reputation proceeds him in the wild.
But no. Instead it appears that heretofore any time I’m forced to bat a possum, I’m going to have to display a grim and apologetic demeanor over the sad but necessary and traumatic impact that wood and gravity may have upon Didelphis virginiana, when Didelphis virginiana can’t manage to mind its own business down by the river.
I swear, I am not a serial possum abuser, OK? And it really tears me up to have to knock them silly every so often, even though you’d never know because I try to wrap my grief inside a little humor foil. So please don’t call PETA’s marsupial hotline because I am remorseful, already making restitution and scheduling an impressive number of community service hours.
