I deliver newspapers for a living. Yes, with three years of college, in which I read Kafka and Mann in German, and snippets of Plato in Greek. I studied the criticism of Walter Benjamin and the poetry of Yeats, and the logic of language. Which is why I drag myself out of bed at 3:30 in the morning to roll a hundred copies of the Medford Mail Tribune. I may live to write, but I deliver papers to eat. It’s now late November, so those mornings are cold. And this is the time of year when I see the most wonderful things.
The other morning, my husband was driving me. A raccoon and a cat scurried across the street. My husband braked quickly. A second coon waited, while his companions chittered at him from the other side. I leaned out the window.
"Come on, sweetie. It’s okay."
The coon looked skeptical, as if he thought my husband were fully capable of squishing him beneath the tires (he probably didn’t care for the ‘sweetie’ either). He ran across to his comrades; with his great bowed back and his huge plume of a tail, he looked a bit ungainly, but he was as swift as a gray hound. Then all three disappeared into the bushes.
This isn’t the first time we’ve seen raccoons, or even seen them with house cats. A few years ago, I was crossing an intersection on my bicycle when I saw a neighborhood cat sitting placidly next to a storm drain. A raccoon’s head was visible above the level of the pavement, and he and the cat were having what looked like a cordial conversation. Think of it, people. House cats and raccoons, working together. Be afraid.
This job certainly gets me my exercise. In the summer months, I can eat a pint of Ben and Jerry’s for lunch without worrying. It isn’t ice cream weather now; it’s time for longjohns and fleece gloves and my bright blue jacket (no yellow boots though). People sometimes ask me how I manage in the cold. I just do.
Sometimes these fall mornings are Gothic to the point of corniness. Clouds scudding across the moon, leaves blowing across the yards. Today it’s foggy. Mercifully, it isn’t too heavy. Everything looks soft and slightly blurred; there are halos around the street lamps and the almost-full moon. The fog acts like a prism on the moonlight; the colors are muted pastels. The blue is the brightest. I stop the bike and watch for a moment. It’s maybe 4:30, 4:45. A few houses have lights in the windows, but outside it’s totally quiet. No traffic, no wind, no barking dogs. The yards and walkways are full of leaves, but right now they don’t rustle. It’s as if the whole world is asleep, except for me. It’s beautiful. The air is cold, damp rather than crisp, because of the fogwet.
Sometimes I love this job.
I have thirty papers to go, and about ninety minutes to deadline; I’ll be done in twenty.
Done for another day, I turn back onto my home street, which is an incline. Too shallow to really be called a hill, but enough to get the bike rolling with no peddling. I coast home, through the fog. Now there are some cars around, a few front doors shutting. The world begins to stir.
Tags:
bicycling, newspapers, november, raccoons, writing
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