Raccoon Part Three

Nancy Sherer

So there I was with a dead raccoon in the chimney, a chimney sweep in the living room who was talking to a pest control company on the phone- the exact same pest control company that I had tried to hire four days earlier- and Jerry standing at the kitchen table trying not to look smug but obviously thinking, 'I told her we should have bought a condo.' I was pacing around, my sanity hanging by a thread because on top of everything else, I hadn't vacuumed for almost an hour.

One thing Bellingham is shy on is houseflies. I've gone for years at a time without seeing one. Out-of-towners often mention that houses around here don't have screen doors. It's especially alarming to Southerners who have to strain them out of the air all year round. But flies just don't thrive here- even at dumps. Occasionally, I find a fly on a windowsill, dead from either starvation or loneliness.

Flies are so rare in Bellingham that when I noticed half a dozen house flies crawling on the living room window, I thought was that the campus biology lab lost subjects of a fly experiment. I dug out an unused fly swatter that the previous owners left behind in a closet, and started swatting. I put the swatter back in the closet, marveling at seeing that many flies at one time. A few hours later, another half dozen flies were flitting around the glass.

That was the day before Jerry and I returned home from the grocery store to the alarming odor and called the chimney sweep as recounted in Raccoon in the Chimney Part One.

After the sweep appointment had been made, I set to work on the problem of controlling the odor for the next two days and came up with a clever alternative to dumping cheap cologne on the rug. The fireplace, vented outdoors via the chimney. Heat rises. Smoke rises up chimneys. Why not utilize this happy coincidence? I lit a candle in the fireplace. It worked like a charm. Within minutes the odor wafted up and away. I smiled smugly at the flickering flame. That's when the horror came to my attention.

White wiggling maggots dropped like rain from the flue. I was mesmerized as they twisted and turned on the soot-blackened firebox floor, undulating their way toward the hearth. I couldn't believe that their little slinky-like twists would really get them anywhere, but instead of waiting for them to prove me wrong, I ran for the vacuum cleaner to suck them up.

After changing the vacuum bag, I thought the worst was over. The candle lifted the smell outside, and I had plenty of candles. The worst was over.

When I went back to check the candle, I found something worse. Not just more maggots. Hundreds of maggots. Some already successfully wiggling on the carpet. No, thousands of maggots. Fat and ready to metamorphosize.

I vacuumed constantly that afternoon, even late into the night. When I missed a few hours to get some sleep, I found some maggots had wiggled for yards on the rug and into the hallway. There was also a creepy big bug. I don't know what it was or what it would have become if it got away.

For the next two days, I kept the vacuum cleaner outside on the deck just in case maggots could crawl out of the vacuum bag between cleaning runs.

By the time the chimney sweep arrived, peered in the chimney, and remarked on the odor, I would have traded my first born to get that carcass out of my chimney so it's just as well that I never had any children. After the chimney sweep had several times repeated, “I don't know how you're gonna get that outta there,” Integrity Pest Control seemed like the last chance. This was the same company that had insisted that I call a chimney sweep.

When the truck with two men pulled into the driveway, I rushed out the door to greet them. obviously confused by my ebullient welcome. Maybe I didn't need to repeat, 'thank you for coming, thank you, thank you' quite so many times.

When I paused for a breath the pest controller who had been driving said, “Let's go have a look,”

“Don't you have a gas mask or something?” I asked as he got down from the cab.

“No,”

“You'll need a gas mask.”

“Why?”

“The smell is noxious.”

“It'll be okay.”

“I'm sure you will want a gas mask.”

Maybe the pest controller didn't realize that the human nose has retained the ability to detect toxic fumes for a reason. I was concerned about his health. And I was afraid he might change his mind about taking the job.

“We would have to go to Lynden to pick up that equipment.” He hesitated to give me a warning look. “I'm not sure we could make it back here today.”

“I'll show you where it is,” I replied.

At this point the sweep, who had climbed back on the roof, waved down and smiled. I showed the two men, who I eventually learned were father and son, to the ladder that I had set up on the back deck. They climbed up, and walked across the roof to the chimney, and looked in. To my surprise, neither one said anything about the odor. That didn't stop the incredulous sweep from asking if they had ever smelled anything like that. I would have pushed him off the roof if I had been up there.

The pest controller wasn't discouraged. He took a flashlight off his tool belt and aimed it into the chimney.

“That's a raccoon,” he said. “How did that get there?”

The raccoon fact, and the size of the fact, required a few more comments of disbelief before the pest controller, followed by his son, headed back for the ladder.

“Can you drop a hook or something?” I called from the deck as he moved away from the scene. “Like maybe you could fish it out.

“No. Can I see the fireplace?” was his only reply as he climbed down.

The pest controller visibly relaxed when he saw Jerry standing calmly in the dining room. They went to the living room, followed by the pest controller's son, while I sheparded the sweep off the roof.

“Do we have a big garbage bag?” Jerry asked from the door.

“He's going to do it? He's going to get that out of there? How's he going to do it?”

“He's going to pull it out through the flue.”

I won't go into the panicked conversation that followed. Just believe that I was completely opposed to having the rotten carcass from the chimney dragged into my living room. Jerry managed to calm me down with the question of “did I have a better idea?”

I watched from across the room as the pest controller's son held the lawn debris bag open. The pest controller had shimmied into place in the fire box, which, by the way, hadn't had a candle flame in it for several hours. I knew that at any moment he would emerge into the living room with a firm and understandable declaration that he didn't have the stomach for the job. We would just have to brick over the opening, and decorate around it or move to a condo. Incredibly, that didn't happen. He emerged from the firebox and shoved something in the bag.

“It's so rotten that it just falls apart,” he explained. “I'll have to get it out in chunks.”

“Save the tail,” Jerry said, “It'll make a great coon skin cap.”
I knew that Jerry was joking, but I couldn't understand why. Didn't he realize that at any moment the pest controller would come to his senses and leave? Incredibly, bit by bit, the nightmare in the chimney was moved into the bag while my angry looks made Jerry reconsider smart aleck remarks. When the last bit was in the bag, the pest controller felt around to make sure that the flue was clean. In those next few minutes, in my eyes, he changed from crazy pest controller guy to the white knight in that cleaning commercial. I couldn't believe his dedication, his determination, his commitment to a job well done. Integrity Pest Control. Yes, he deserved that title.

We all joined them, including the chimney sweep, as they carried the shrouded raccoon leftovers outside. My mood was improved enough to smile at Jerry's second wave of coon skin jokes. I guess the pest controller's son wasn't sure he was joking because he looked a little sheepish when he asked me if I minded if he took the bag back to Lynden for disposal.

It took a few seconds for me to realize that he wanted it as sort of a trophy, something that had to be seen to be believed. It was proof that a raccoon lived and died in a chimney. Maybe someday it will be a legend.