“Let’s just say it separates its sexualities obviously. So do Willows, Poplars, Aspens, and Hollies. Girl flowers on girl trees; boy flowers on boy trees.”
“I get that. But can we go back to the subtle: that is sexualities joined in one tree?” Clutch asks. He is uneasy about the shapeshifting Sugar Maple. But Slypaws has a further surprise:
“The Red Maple holding sway over the thicket. That’s a very subtle Tree. It can keep its sexualities together in one body or apart in two bodies. In extreme situations, she-he-they can switch from boy to boy-girl, and from boy-girl to girl.”
“!”
“Are there raccoons that want to be They?” Clutch asks suddenly.
“Uncle Wily, maybe. But each of us is they, aren’t we?”
A thoughtful pause …
“It’s interesting,” Clutch says, “that most of the Trees escape from the fight-or-flee contest by concentrating their differing sexual energies in the same body.”
Touchwit comes back into the conversation. “Would that we could simply cast our seeds to the wind like Trees and not have to worry about territories and child-raising.”
“You’d be a non-stop sneezing station,” Bandit says.
“I’m sure Trees worry about territories and child-raising too,” Slypaws says. “I’ve often felt that they sort everything out underneath the ground where their roots mingle. The Lilacs: are they a one tree or a family? And how do the Silver Maples plan it so that they each one gets their share of sunlight without obstructing another’s branches?”
Bandit has an idea: “Maybe a reason trees are so sexually inventive is because they have to stay in one place. They can’t just pick up their roots and migrate to a new location. But us Raccoons tiptoe around on our roots, so our sexualities need to be portable. Sexualities need to be portable to compute the size of our families in relation to the size of available food resources.”
The silence of unanimity.
But no, Touchwit sees things differently: “Tree People migrate on the back of the wind. Then where they find a place to settle, they burrow in headfirst. Trees are upside-down people. Their minds are in their roots. Their legs kick the air.”
“So what are their minds thinking about all the time?” Clutch says, cutting in.
“That is all for tonight,” Slypaws says. “Let’s do some dreaming.”
I wondered what she meant by do some dreaming. Do raccoons dream their own separate dreams like us, or do they all dream the same dream? The way the raccoon mother invited her cubs to dream suggested their dreaming was like watching the same home movie together.
8
“Here’s the plan. Clutch and Touchwit – you’ll lollop up the street and pop lids. Bandit and I will follow and tip over the containers. We won’t start eating until you double back. Our job will be to watch for droolers. Bandit can see best of all of us. He’s got his father’s dark mask. It cuts down glare from the street lights.”
Mother Slypaws is organizing a raid on the Green Bins. In the morning, the organic waste truck will lurch along the street, picking up what it can from a battlefield of coffee grounds, tea bags, egg shells, rice, pasta, apple cores, squeezed oranges, uneaten salad, potato peels, pasta, samosas, nachos, sushi, bacon fat, hot dogs, and peanut butter and jam sandwich crusts.
But my bin will remain untouched. I like to think the raccoons make a courteous exception in my case in exchange for free rent for my chimney, but the truth may be that they don’t molest bins in the vicinity of their den so as not to give away its location.
“Precisely what are we sniffing for?” Touchwit asked.
“Turkey, red meat, tuna fish, the usual delicacies.”
“Anything but pizza crusts,” Clutch said.
“Okay, what are we not sniffing for?”
“You just asked a good question.” The raccoon mother pauses to let a teaching moment gather. “In the old days, there was good raccoon food in every bin. So we just tipped the first one over and gorged, then moved on to the second, then the third until our tummies were full and we staggered home. And in those days, the lids were simple snap-offs so we didn’t waste time analysing how to open the bins.”
I thought I heard Ma Slypaws sigh at the memory of the old days.
“But today we can’t find what we like to eat in every bin, and we lose precious seconds trying to outwit the cunning new locks. It has become a colossal fluster.”
“The Primates aren’t eating our kind of food anymore?” Like many of Clutch’s interjections, the remark hung between an observation and a query.
“No, they’ve altered their diet. Only a few diehards are eating normal city raccoon food. That’s why there’s a problem.”
“What are they eating, then?”
“Most of them aren’t eating meat.”
“Great Raccoon Spirit preserve us!” Clutch exclaimed.
The family waited for Clutch’s piety to ascend the chimney and join the constellation that inspired it.
“They’ve become vegetarians or vegans – especially in Raccoonopolis to the south. Does that tell you something?”
“It tells me why a city raccoon wanted to come up here and marry Aunt Pawsense,” Bandit explained.
“Precisely. He migrated here because his people had nothing to eat in the city but veggie burgers.”
“Now he gets to eat fresh Clams and Crayfish with Cranberry sauce, surrounded by his fat daughters,” Bandit said wistfully.
“We shall have to return to the Old Ways of living off the land,” Clutch said.
“The Old Ways require a lot of effort now because you can’t just enjoy them; you have to protect them. You have to defend your hunting ground against intruders who want to eat the nourishing food. Your Aunt can afford to live the Old Ways because her partner assists with the defense.”
