One
My beach was not popular. It did not lend itself to swimming without being aggressively caressed by seaweed. Sand fleas were encountered in great abundance. It sometimes smelled like farts. Maine beaches are not for the faint of heart.
My beach – “owned” by my grandparents, as much as anyone is allowed to “own” a beach in Maine - was a place for scientific exploration and make believe for feral young children. Their house stood at the top of a long, gently sloping incline, at the bottom of which were the rickety steps down to the shore, surrounded by overgrown beach roses and long since turned gray from the sun and water, splinters poking into unprotected feet.
To the right was the sandier part of the beach, where occupants of the motels and little rental cottages that dotted the East Belfast seaside could stroll at sunrise or sunset. To the left was “our” area - big rocks, a brackish stream, and seemingly endless mudflats.
Those mudflats were the usual target of summertime investigation by me and my cousins, of whom I was the youngest. This generally involved overturning rocks, digging holes, poking at clumps of seaweed, throwing blobs of algae at one another, smashing hapless bivalves open and capturing crabs to serve as temporary pets. A wrong move, and sometimes you would sink into the slate-black muck, extracting your feet with an audible shhhluck.
Rarely, these investigations revealed something more exotic. A dead seagull. Jellyfish. And one time, the scariest thing I had encountered in person in my young life.
I was digging with my hands in a pleasingly muddy section of the beach. As I scooped up clumps of muck, I felt something solid touch my hands. I went back in for another handful of mud, and screamed – that piercing scream only a child can scream - in abject terror.
A long worm1 came out of the mud, like a wet, slimy rubber band from its subterranean burrow. It was a shade of white not unlike the pale-colored mucus one coughs up during a bad chest cold. To my eyes, it was longer than I was tall. It writhed and wriggled and undulated. I was terrified.
I threw the worm as far away as I could and ran, crying, back to my parents, who were sitting on folding chairs not far away. My dad said it was just a worm. I said it wasn’t just a worm. It felt alien, unearthly, impossible; something from the ocean, something not meant for humans. It was undeniably alive, but foreign and unsettling. A monster. I never went digging in the mud again.
Two
Through equal parts begging and negotiation on the merits of its educational benefit, I was able to convince my parents to acquire for me a variety of pets over the years. I was an only child. In many cases, I had the upper hand.
There were cats - a rotund, lazy calico, and a gray tiger who met a grisly end on Route 1. The aquarium was cool, even if I struggled to keep it clean and sometimes found fish belly-up; solemn toilet funerals were commonplace in our house. For a brief time we had a bird - a cockatiel who lasted less than a year before his constant noise drove my Dad to the brink of insanity, and he was rehomed with my Aunt Linda.
The gerbils arrived when I was in fourth grade. They were purchased from the pet store in Belfast, where we were told that gerbils do better in pairs, and were assured that they were two females, not a male and a female. As these were my pets, they would live in my room, so it would be me that dealt with the smell of small rodents in a cage.
I played with them, their weird little feet scampering up my arms and across my shoulder. I admired their beady eyes and wiggling noses. I changed their wood shavings. I gave them chewing sticks. At night, I would hear them rustle around, their squeaks barely audible.
One night, the squeaks became louder. I got out of bed and went over to find a pile of pink, eyeless babies laying in the corner of the cage, their tiny limbs no thicker than a strand of spaghetti. The happy gerbil couple had welcomed seven beautiful children to the world.
My mom and I marched over to the pet store to tell them that they were wrong, and had, in fact, sold us a male and a female gerbil, and that we would be giving the babies back to the pet store as soon as they were old enough to travel, as well as one of the two adults, to be swapped with another gerbil of the same sex.
We came home with - we were assured - another adult gerbil that was a female, the same as the one left at home. Not long after that, more nighttime squeaking revealed three more babies, birthed by one of our two gerbils, either through immaculate conception, or because she’d gotten pregnant a few days after having her first litter. One of the babies was dead, and the mother had partially eaten it. Hard lessons were learned.
We kept all four gerbils. Surely there would be no more litters - they wouldn’t inbreed, right? We assumed that all animals have some inherent understanding that, for the good of the species, they shouldn’t mate with their parents or siblings. How else could one explain thousands of generations of healthy gerbils, hopping through the Mongolian steppes, or running endlessly on an exercise wheel? Anything otherwise would result in the genetic collapse of gerbil society.
Later that year, another litter arrived squeaking in the night, with six little inbred gerbil babies clustered in a corner of the cage. Nature has little regard for what humanity thinks it should or will do. We managed to find homes for all 10 of them. Two years later, we got a dog, which was all I ever really wanted to begin with.
Three
The YMCA bus pulled into the parking lot of the public swimming area Megunticook Lake in Camden, and we all scrambled off, ready for another day of capture the flag, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and swimming. I headed toward the changing stalls, eager to get in the water. I closed the door behind me and hung my bathing suit on the hook on the door.
I had just finished shimmying into my suit when, as if out of a Disney cartoon, a squirrel darted into my stall from above and ran down the side of the wall. Stunned, the only way I could react was to reach out and grab it; to pet its thick, luxurious fur, mottled gray and white. I had been chosen.
The squirrel sunk its incisors deep into the meat between my thumb and forefinger and immediately scrambled out of the changing stall.
I walked over to the adult in charge of our day camp expedition and informed her that I’d been bitten by a squirrel. She grabbed my arm with the injured hand as if disarming a murderer and dragged me to the phone at the park office, angrily punching in the number of my mother’s workplace. It was decided that I would be driven back to the emergency room in Belfast to make sure I did not have rabies.
My mom met me at the hospital, where I sat, glumly, denied both a squirrel sidekick and a day swimming at the lake. The doctor said I didn’t have rabies, but that I would need a tetanus shot. They charged us $10 to put a bandage on my hand, and said that if I started foaming at the mouth to come right back in.
Four
“Phil, what was that?” my Mom asked. She had the extraordinary hearing of a bat, and could notice any unusual sound, even over the 7:30 p.m. broadcast of “Jeopardy.”
She grabbed the remote and turned the volume down on the TV. My Dad got up and headed for the back room, where the sound came from, with my Mom and I cautiously following. He peered out the windows, and then banged on the glass, shouting something unintelligible
“It’s a raccoon,” he said. “It’s in the garbage again. You have to keep the lid closed tight, Nancy, or they’ll get in there.”
While they argued about who was the one that hadn’t properly shut the trash can lid, I ran to the window and looked out. I’d only seen raccoons two other times - once, climbing a tree at the far edge of our property, and another time, again in a trash can, at my uncle’s house.
I saw no raccoon. Just the trash can, where it always sat on the back porch. The lid was off. I scanned the perimeter for any other evidence of raccoonery.
“Look!” I shouted. “Babies!”
Three pairs of shining yellow eyes peered up at us from the bottom of the trash can. They were alone, huddled together in the chill fall air.
“You must have scared their mother off,” my Mom said. “What do we do now?”
“Can I go see them?” I asked.
“Absolutely not,” my Mom said. “They carry rabies. You know that. You never touch a raccoon.”
She turned to my Dad.
“I think we should just leave them and hope the mother comes back,” she said.
“Well, we can’t let them stay in the trash can!” he said. “They’ll make a mess! They’ll think they can always get into the garbage. This is not a raccoon buffet.”
My father didn’t have much patience for animals, even the ones we kept inside our house. If it could be a nuisance, it would be a nuisance. Especially thieving, destructive, disease-ridden raccoons.
“Just give it overnight,” my Mom said. “If they’re still there in the morning we’ll call animal control. How much damage can they do? They’re just babies.”
I pressed my face to the window, gazing down at the interlopers. How could my Dad not be sympathetic to them? How could you not be charmed by their human-like hands, their bushy tails, their flair for fashion? They were so smart. They looked like dogs, but also monkeys. They lived so close to us - just in the woods behind our house. They were our neighbors.
We left them in the trash can. I spent the night checking on them, looking down at the porch from my bedroom window above. The next morning, they were gone, presumably reunited with their mother. For weeks afterwards I looked for them, hoping to glimpse shining yellow eyes in the trees. I would offer them access to the trash can. I would reach out and touch them. I would say I’m sorry my Dad scared you. I’m sorry we call you pests. I’m sorry we can’t be friends.
Five
The cat and I faced each other. She was lying under the Christmas tree, and I was lying flat on my stomach, freshly returned from candlelight service and surrounded by unopened presents. The overheard lights in the dining room were off, but the multi-colored string lights on the tree were on, giving the room the soft, rainbow glow that only a Christmas tree can. I had work to do. I had something magical to witness.
I spoke softly to her, telling her how much I loved her and how pretty she was. She was, on paper, named Tabitha, but we only ever called her Kitty, and her white fur was dotted with black and orange patches - a money cat, we called her. She was lucky.
I awaited her response. Someone - my mother, my grandmother, someone at church - told me that animals could talk on Christmas Eve. Why? Because the animals in the manger bowed to Jesus on the night he was born, and recognized his divinity even before most humans did. Thus, for one night only, courtesy of the baby Jesus, they could talk to humans.
To me, this made perfect sense. Christmas was when miraculous things happened. Wrapped, presumably empty boxes placed beneath a tree would, through the power of Santa, transubstantiate into books and toys and video games. You wouldn’t have to go to school. Your favorite foods would appear. And: animals and humans could talk to one another.
Many years later, I learned that the myth of talking animals on Christmas Eve most likely has its roots in Northern European mythology, an ancient pagan tradition absorbed into Christian folk beliefs. At age six, I didn’t even really understand Jesus, or God, or any of the other stuff they talked about at church. We went to church for fun, it seemed like, or out of obligation, or a need to find a social network in a small town; not because of any particularly ardent belief or overwhelming spiritual need. On Sundays, we sang songs and ate lemon squares. On Christmas Eve, we held lit candles and listened to a longtime congregant enthusiastically warble “O Holy Night.” It was just something we did.
What I did believe was that the world was magical, that nature was amazing, and that animals could talk - all the time, most likely, and they simply chose not to. Christmas Eve, then, was the day I would finally, finally get my deepest desire.
I whispered nice things to Kitty, and stroked her fur. My Mom had said that she heard that the animals would only talk after midnight, but that since I needed to be in bed before that, they might make an exception for me. She heard that they only spoke to people that were pure of heart, and that since I was kid, that also worked in my favor. She also said to not get my hopes up. It was a pretty rare occurrence.
I put my face close to her face, and she turned away, as cats are wont to do. I pleaded with her; I knew she could talk. I was a good person. I was pure of heart. One word. That’s all I wanted.
My Mom gently told me it was time for bed; we had a big day tomorrow. I shuffled upstairs, the excitement for Christmas Day muted. Why not me? Was I a bad person? What secrets do they hide from us? What thoughts went through their heads? Was magic real? Was Santa real? Was Jesus real? Was it all a lie?
I thought about dolphins. I thought about bears. I thought about chickadees. I thought about unicorns. I thought about cats. I fell asleep, dreaming of a world where magic exists.
https://downeastinstitute.org/research/milky-ribbon-worms/. I think so, anyway.