Arnold the Skunk
This post was originally a part of the now defunct Somnaplegic blog.
I’m an only child. In elementary school projects were a family event. Early on we established a system where I was project director and my parents were the workers. While other kids came in with a diorama made out of construction paper housed in an old shoe box, I arrived with a 4 x 4 x 4 foot model of the solar system including asteroid belt, moons, and Haley’s comet. We did not do it for grades or to impress anyone. We just had fun building stuff together. Simplicity wasn’t my thing, so the solar system model was accompanied by a 10 page report modestly entitled, “The Universe: A Guide.”
I mention this only because we were working on one such project when “the incident” happened. We were building a farm house for the pioneer town my 5th grade class was assembling. My parents were putting the final shingles on the roof of the barn while I built a Calistoga wagon from an empty check box and coat hanger wire.
It was a warm spring evening and the big sliding glass door to the back yard was open. The dog was running in and out alternating between smelling the varnish on the farm house balsa wood and doing something in the back yard.
“What is with that dog,” my mom asked after he had run in and out for the 5th time.
Then the smell wafted in.
Skunks are native to the Americas and nowhere else in the world. Their body shape and coloration are impossible to confuse for any other type of animal. They come in a variety of base colors, but all have the distinctive striping. Skunks are crepuscular, which means they are active primarily around dawn and dusk. They live in burrows that they dig with their sturdy front claws. That bit will be important in the story to come.
Skunks do not have the best vision, which is one reason they are so often struck by cars. Skunk scent is every bit as terrible as it is described and just as difficult to expunge from skin, clothing and pets. Skunks do not spray lightly or without warning, preferring to hiss and intimidate potential predators with the threat of spraying. Dogs are among the few creatures stubborn and foolhardy enough to get routinely sprayed. The only serious predators of skunks are airborne such as great horned owls and large hawks. Humans, being generally smarter than dogs and less aerial than owls usually follow the same strategy as every other mammal when encountering a skunk, turn around and walk, or run, away from the stench and don’t look back.
Skunks smell bad, even when they haven’t sprayed recently. My husband’s boss discovered, to the later dismay of his family and coworkers, that a family of skunks had decided that rather than burrowing a fresh hole for winter, camping out under his house would be a fine choice. The pest control technicians trapped and removed no less than seven skunks. They had professional cleaners come out to shampoo all the carpets and furniture. They set of “anti-skunk scent” bombs under the house. They washed all of their clothes dozens of times. And yet, for many months afterward, my husband and his colleagues could still smell it on them.
West Highland White Terriers such as my childhood dog, Mickey, have been bread for centuries to take on large dangerous ground mammals such as badgers inside their own burrows. They are stubborn and fierce predators who do not back down, especially when their humans might be in peril. They’re also very smart. When my dog finally caught sight of the source of the stink he made the smart play and zipped right back into the house. No so much my Dad.
I hopped up as the dog darted inside and closed the sliding door. My mom went for the living room windows. We stood behind the glass watching as the skunk ambled about the yard looking for something yummy to eat or a way back out. No doubt it had wriggled in between the boards of our long cedar fence. We could just keep the doors shut up and wait for it to find a way back out.
That would have been the smart move, but interesting stories rarely involve good decision making.
I’m not exactly sure how my dad came into possession of a tiny .22 caliber revolver. Probably someone traded it for some automotive work he had done for them. Regardless it was a new (to him) toy and nature had presented him with an opportunity to use it [1].
We were not by habit people who shot living things. We sometimes would go out target shooting, mostly with small hand guns, but not hunting. I think once or twice my dad went hunting with a friend, but they never brought back anything. I think it was the redneck version of going on a hike [2]. Get outside, walk around for a while with a rifle slung over your shoulder, and enjoy nature with a vague intent to shoot a deer and then make your friends take the venison steaks your kids refuse to eat. In my mind dear tastes like liver. I think that’s because a friend once fed me deer liver. I imagine the hunter-hikers were all relieved when they didn’t find anything to shoot at. Or more realistically, they did see a deer but decided it was “too far away [3].” Carrying a dead deer back the car would be a huge pain in the ass.
Still, here was this tiny hand gun just itching to be deployed when it just so happens that a large weasel wandered into yard. The .22 is the smallest caliber of bullet. While it is true a longer variant of a .22 bullet shot from say, a long barreled rifle, can do serious damage to a small mammal, .22 revolvers are used almost exclusively for target practice. The rifles are commonly used for “small game and pests.” The typical list of animals they are used on includes:
Rabbits
Squirrels
Snakes
Rats
etc
You’ll note that nowhere on that list is skunk. Yes, I supposed it could fall under the “etc” but trust me. It doesn’t. Why? First, a skunk is actually quite heavy bodied and far more robust than a rabbit. You can take out rabbits and squirrels with BB and pellet guns, as I learned much to my chagrin while defending the honor of my corgi, Shorty. Second though, no one in their right, left, or tertiary mind shoots a skunk.
You can probably see where this is going. I’ll spoil the ending and tell you now that no mammals get sprayed by skunk in this story.
Over our protests my father retrieves his new toy from the garage, loads in some bullets and heads out to the patio.
We have the back floodlights on now and between the glass door and the giant picture window in the living room we’ve got an excellent view of what happened next. I hop up on the sectional couch which happened at that time to be positioned with the back in front of the window. Mickey joined me, hopping up on the back for a better view while I propped by chin on my hands and leaned forward into the cushions.
My mother stood by the glass door shaking her head and letting it be known that this was a very dumb idea.
The skunk didn’t seem to notice my father at first. It was wandering around in the flower bed, probably looking for some good bugs to munch on or perhaps an edible plant. The gun fired. It wasn’t all that loud at all. The neighbors probably thought it was kids playing with those little plastic Champaign popper fireworks. For a moment I wasn’t sure if the bullet had even hit, but the skunk pivoted and began looking around. It was about 20 feet from the patio and could probably only make out my dad as a vague shadow of movement. It started moving toward him. Dad fired again and I will never forget what happened next. The skunk appeared to stumble to the left a bit, it’s head lowered. It paused for a moment, and then just like the Terminator it’s head swiveled back up, it’s eyes fixed on my father and resumed walking directly toward him. Pop! The gun fired again, this time striking the right side. Again, the Skunk stumbled and again it’s gaze pivoted unerringly to Dad and it resumed the steady march to the patio. Three more time the gun popped. Three more times the skunk resumed it’s relentless march. By the time the last shot was fired, the skunk was nearly at the patio.
My father retreated into the house. Where before we’d had an annoyance now we had a full blown “problem.” The terminator skunk had absorbed six shots from a .22 and showed no immediate sign of stopping.
“Well, you’ve done it now. You’ve got to finish the poor thing off,” My mom said, not even remotely concealing her irritation at my father or her admiration for the terminator skunk.
Dad went back into the garage and returned with a .410 shot gun and slugs. It was by no means certain that this more robust, but still quite small weapon would be able to take down “Arnold” the Terminator Skunk before he had his ultimate revenge.
By the time Dad got back into the yard Arnold had made the very rational decision that whatever had lured him into our yard simply wasn’t worth it. He wanted out and he wanted out NOW.
Unfortunately, Arnold, quite understandably after being shot 6 times, was a bit addled. Instead of running to the fence he headed for the foundation of the house and began burrowing, right under my parents’ bedroom window.
He’d dug a sizable escape hole by the time he was taken out by 4 more slugs from the .410. So Arnold expired. He’d survived crossing a four lane highway and avoided numerous large dogs on his final journey into the night. I cannot say how he lived, but he died, if not nobly, at least like an action hero. We who were there that night will never forget him. Me, for his indominable determination, extraordinary stamina, and eerie terrifying ferocity. My mother, for the stench that lingered in her bedroom for months. And most of all my father who was forced to extract Arnolds corpse and about 10 cubic feet of tainted soil from the half dug burrow under the window and burry them out in the field on a 90 degree day while wearing protective black garbage bags.
Rest in peace Arnold you beautiful Mephitidaen god. Your story lives on.
On Monday morning, I strolled into school, arms full of balsawood homestead complete with farm house, barn, pasture and scale plastic farm animals. When my classmates crinkled their noses in equal parts disgust at the ludicrous extravagance of the model and the hints of Arnold that lingered, I brazenly passed it off as fresh varnish and jealousy.
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[1] This is the second time guns (if you count the BB gun incident) have featured in my blog. I really only have three stories that involve guns. It’s not like firearms are, or ever have been a big part of my life, it just turns out that when they have been the results have been particularly funny.
[2] Not that my dad really is a redneck, he’s from southern California originally.
[3] Deer are everywhere in Oregon. I was once stalked by a buck that hung out around an apartment complex I lived in in college. I would come around a corner and there would be this deer staring at me. It was creepy and didn’t give a good goddamn if I yelled at it to “f- the f-off.”
*This post was originally a part of the now defunct Somnaplegic blog.
