I came across a racoon just off the walking trail down in the Holy Boulders in Southern Illinois last Spring. Just laying there in the uncovered, wet wintered leaves. So camouflaged was the racoon that I didn’t notice the poor thing until I had nearly gone past. I jumped a touch and felt my heart skip when I realized that an animal lay there. Once a safe distance away, judged by my breath returning to normal after the jolt, I turned back to get a better look. I stood there for a minute or so wondering what had happened. The closer I looked, the more I saw.
The cliff band on the uphill side of the trail came right up to the trail’s edge. The racoon rested three feet from the trail’s edge on the downhill side and in those three feet a small clearing of the leaves so it looked as if the racoon had fallen from the top of the cliff band, hit the trail, and slid three feet down the hill before coming to a stop in a heap just close enough to startle an unsuspecting hiker.
I stood for a while more, glancing from the small animal to the top of the cliff and back, thinking about the scale of the fall and the shock the creature must have endured to fall such a relative distance. As I reached to my pocket to take out my phone to document the reality of nature, the racoon started shifting. Its head reared a little and the front paws moved almost like a napping cat stretching in a sunbeam. Though the difference between cat and racoon being the obliviousness of the racoon to my presence. As I watched, I came to realize that the racoon didn’t see me not because it was oblivious but rather because it was so injured that it faded in and out.
There wasn’t much for me to do except put my phone away without a photo and keep walking.
I commute by bike every morning. Well, most mornings. I drive on special occasions like going out to the location a thirty-minute drive away or the rare days when a morning thunderstorm rolls through. Most days my ride is under five minutes. An easy roll past our favorite dive bar across from the taco place, over the river with easy views of the sunrise and the expensive townhomes going up along the riverfront, then around to the right past the older townhomes across from the grocery store.
Those mornings are nice. There’s no rush, no hill, nothing to get the heartrate up. I like those mornings because not many cars are on the road at seven in the morning and sometimes there’s people out walking their dogs who say hello.
Then there are the days that I go to the third location. The one a fifteen-minute ride away. There are more streets, more cars, a bike lane on an arterial road with a favorite right-turn lane with a wicked blind spot for bicycles. That route takes me through the heart of downtown, past the public market, the historic Third Ward and into Walker’s Point.
There’s an intersection along that route where in these early autumn mornings the run hits just right off Lake Michigan and turns the entire city golden. The sudden warmth of sunrays and the sudden quiet that comes with those rays brings me back to my bicycle. I remember that I haven’t oiled the chain on my Dolan for quite some time. In fact, I don’t remember the last time. It might have been just before the Riverwest 24, the 24-hour bike race I did with some friends back in July. It might have been over a year ago, though.
Then the light turns green, and I ride away, with the memory of those rays at my back and the promise of a day’s work ahead.
The racoon was still there on my way back.
It didn’t look like it had moved at all from where it fell. I stopped a moment where I had stood hours earlier staring at the creature. Nature has a way of jolting us to awareness in those incongruous moments when we come across a moment that feels like we shouldn’t be there, that it should happen in private, away from human eyes. But there I was, standing vigil for a fallen racoon. I watched it move every now and then, a gentle paw curling and uncurling under and out from its breast. The nose lifting and settling on a pile of leaves. The tail rolling over a twig and back. The eyes didn’t move, though. The eyes stayed closed. Looking long enough, you might have been forgiven for thinking the thing already dead.
“Hey,” I called, “Little buddy, you alright?” And again the strange sensation that nature had granted me a entry into something secret and guarded, a privilege I didn’t take lightly.
With no response, I slowly trod along the trail past the poor racoon and continued my hike away.
I stood there for a minute or so wondering what had happened. The closer I looked, the more I saw.
On the first cool morning of August, I rode the shorter commute to work down the street with the older townhomes across from the grocery store. I passed a handful of folks out for pre-coffee strolls or to let the dogs out on the patch of grass between the sidewalk and the road. A few smiled, one muttered hello, most scrolled through their phones and tugged leashes when they didn’t need to.
As I slowed my roll in front of the doors to the building, I saw a woman pushing a strolled and let her walk before me. She wore the current uniform of the young mother: pastel purple yoga pants, a light fleece, form-fitting jacket, running gloves, and a beanie with a bobble on top. I smiled and held my “good morning” to a muttered affirmation and glanced in the stroller as she went in the hopes of catching a glimpse of the sleeping child. But the stroller sat empty. Just a woman pushing an empty stroller.
beast/savor
Craig Carey 
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