Process

Have you ever had a relationship with a skunk? A real skunk? This is my first, and I'm a little shaky.

He looked prettier the first time I saw him in the shadowy area between the glow of two floodlights in my driveway. Our second spontaneous encounter ended with me driving him off by beating my steel bar against a nearby cement block. He looked smaller, shabbier, as he ran away down the driveway. 

I heard him scratching last evening after I had eaten my supper. I was sitting in the kitchen. It had been a hard day. The house had to be cleaned and then I tacked up wire mesh around the base of the deck and adjoining porch. I'll admit I wasn't in the mood for company.

I threw back the slider and stepped out onto the deck. He was there in the corner between the deck and the main house. He was trying to excavate his way past my complex masonry work, done to keep him out. He had found the one twelve-inch span which was not solidly meshed, due to the way the porch meets the deck.    He was crunched into a ball between garden implements I had stacked there as obstacles. Crafty bugger!

I had a big flashlight. It was twilight, so the beam was not stunningly strong. He didn't even notice it or me. I cleared my throat in my practiced pedagogical manner, which always worked with my pesky high school students forty years ago. He looked up at me. His triangular face held no expression. He went back to trying to dig. His claws screeched annoyingly on brick and tile. I winced.

My steel bar was nearby. I fetched it and poked him with it gently. He looked up with an expression which I would guess was puzzlement. After all, few humans are stupid enough to stand their ground with a big skunk.  His face seemed to say, "You still there?" I poked him harder with the bar. This led to a complicated maneuver which enabled him to back out from the nest of tools which surrounded him without knocking one of them askew. I was impressed at his limberness. He seemed impressed with my quiet stance. We stared at each other for a few moments. 

"Well, buzz off! I don't want you living under this house." My voice was deep, firm and unequivocal. 

He gave what looked like a shrug. I was the kind of shrug a panhandler gives you at a stop light when you don't roll down your car window. The nothing-ventured-nothing-gained shrug. Then he turned slowly. I watched his huge tail closely for any sign of lift. It hung limply. I relaxed and watched him waddled past the bulkhead to the corner of the house. He rounded the corner and stopped. Just the very end of his tail was visible to me. I knew he was trying to fake me out. Make me believe he had gone, so he could get back to work. This really annoyed me.

I took pole and flashlight and walked off the deck, into the yard and up to the corner. He must have heard my stomp. He moved along in the narrow space between my house and a high fence. I followed. As I looked around the corner of the house, I saw he had stopped again and was listening. It became obvious to me that this is no kit. This is a wise old one. He looked over his shoulder and saw me. Then he waddled slowly away to the sidewalk in front of my house. 

"Phew!" I was relieved. I didn't want to be sprayed, but I knew he had to be told to leave. 

My mind and attention were focused for the next few minutes on bringing a concrete block from the driveway to the excavation site. I piled that on and eliminated the cozy nest of garden tools. I brushed my hands together with some satisfaction. It was as secured as I could conceive. 

I returned to the driveway where I had set down my flashlight and steel bar. I briefly admired my mesh work from the afternoon. I stood and turned to discover the skunk behind me. He was under my car watching me. This creeped me out. A stalker! Before I could finish saying, "What the fu...", he was waddling down the driveway and up the street. 

So, what have a learned in this process? Well, I learned that skunks can be incredibly compulsive and persistently so, not unlike certain humans I know and have even seen in my own mirror. I learned that even a skunk responds well to relatively nonviolent assertion without responding aggressively in retaliation. This really impressed me. He never once twitched his tail in my direction. I also learned that a human and a skunk relate together on somewhat basic animal terms. He was an aggressor in my space. I defended my space. I had the size advantage, but he had the long-distance weaponry advantage. Neither of us crossed the line to violence. 

I won't say this skunk hasn't been a nuisance. He has, but not intentionally. I won't say I feel a God-given right to expel him from my property. I don't. I simply have to be the animal I am within my territory with the least amount of conflict or violence. This is all the process of humanist practice, as I see it. It takes time and often unpleasant work. The rewards are commensurate to the toil.