The Marble Years – Skunks

This blog is a story I wrote from my childhood experiences.  If you would like to understand more about what life was like for us then you can go to my page about understanding the Marble years here http://wp.me/P5gHw7-e

If you love skunks this story is a tragedy and it will not hurt my feelings for you to see it that way.  If you have even an ounce of redneck in your blood, you will probably laugh heartily.  Either way, this is just another true story about my crazy Dad.

 

Skunks

It was during one unseasonably warm fall in Marble that I awoke before the sun had risen with a sense that something was not quite right.  We had just moved out of the canvas tent we had lived in throughout the spring and summer and into a little rental home that would keep us warm for the long winter ahead.  I was sleeping in my attic room with the window still open.  It was typically getting cold by September and we were all celebrating the Indian Summer that had come with balmy afternoons and not a hint of snow.  I was happily leaving my window open in exchange for an extra blanket on my bed and sleeping to the sounds of the trees in the wind and the smell of dewy ground in the morning.

However this particular morning I was not greeted with the refreshing smells of the pines and the damp ground.  Instead it was the piercing smell of skunks that seemed to slap me in the face all at once.  It was not in my nature at the age of fifteen to wake up before ten in the morning without violence or threats from my mom, but the stench pouring in through my attic window woke me suddenly and fiercely.  I ran to my window and shut it hoping it was not too late to salvage the rest of my night’s sleep.

I got back into bed and covered my head with my blankets.  You must understand that there is a big difference between passing a skunk on the road and catching a whiff, or the smell that wanders on breezes from a neighbor’s yard to yours.  Those are the sorts of smells you mention to one another in the house in a format much like “Did you notice that skunky smell this morning?”  The aroma that I awoke to was the smell that did not brush by you, it lingered and filled the home.  I would not be able to go back to sleep.

When the sun came up I fumbled down my ladder and into the kitchen where I found my dad drinking coffee and looking at an old worn out Field & Stream magazine.  I poured myself some coffee and sat down next to him.   We sat their silently for a while, dad sipped his coffee noisily and turned pages in his magazine casually.  I kept my coffee under my nose where I could drink in the smell of anything but the skunk.

Around the time my coffee was losing its steam, I looked up at my dad.  I cleared my throat, “So….” I said “sure does stink today.”

My dad looked at me with his crooked smile “Yep.”

“Did the dog get sprayed or something?” I asked.

“Nope.” My dad went back to his magazine but added “There is a whole family of em’ living under the house.”

“Oh okay, so do we trap them or something?” I said.

My dad looked at me again with his sparkly mischievous eyes.  “I’ll take care of it.”

My dad was never very bothered by things like smells, animal pests, infestations, anything that was rotten, broken or carrying disease.  Based on my experience, his claim that he would ‘take care of it’ meant that he would do nothing.  The skunk family might as well take our last name and get real cozy for the Winter.  They had found the perfect house to bunk under.  Dave Hamby was unlikely to make any real effort to get rid of them.  Or, so I thought.

That morning I went back to my room and tried opening the window to air out the attic but it only made it worse so I shut it again and tried dumping a bottle of old cheap yellowed Avon perfume I had on the floor and blankets.  To this day I cannot catch the scent of ‘Sweet Honesty’ without smelling skunks.

All that week the smell of our stow away friends beneath the house plagued us incessantly.  It made the food taste funny and it gave me a headache.  I don’t recall my dad ever saying a single word of complaint about the very obvious nuisance, but I was mistaken to think that he did not notice or care.

It was a crisp morning when my dad’s promise to ‘take care’ of the skunks occurred.  In his usual classy style, my dad plotted a scheme against the skunks that would both get rid of them and fulfill his endless desire for mischief.  Thusly, one brisk morning before the sun rose he donned a thick flannel shirt over his sweats and gathered his 22 shotgun, a folding chair and a cup of coffee and went out on the deck.  He set up his chair and with his gun in one hand, coffee in the other, he waited.

This was unbeknownst to anyone inside the house including my mom.  We were sleeping soundly while dad was scheming against the skunk family.  When the sun cast a tiny sliver of yellow glow on the mountain crests that surrounded our house, I awoke to the sound of gun fire.  I was not alarmed, gun fire was a common sound in the mountains. Curiously, I looked out my window.  It was still too dark to see much but I could make out a small creature scampering around on the ground rather sluggishly below my window.  Then more gunfire rang out.  Three, four, five shots.  Then the smell.

My dad had shot three skunks in our yard and in their final moments they released a powerful stink unlike anything I had known or have experienced since.  It did not even smell like a skunk, it was too pungent.  It smelled like garlic and burnt rubber and something else that is indescribable.  The smell hit me in the face like a fist.  It made me literally heave and gag.  My eyes burned and watered, my nose ran and my throat hurt.   I hid under the blankets on my bed but it was too late.  My flowered sheets were thick with the stench and my pillows could have just as well been stuffed with skunk tails as cotton.  I felt dizzy and sick and tried drinking some water from the glass on my bed side table.  My mouth was so full of the smell that the water tasted rotten.

I stayed in bed until the sun came up and then I crawled down my ladder to find the rest of the family already in the kitchen moaning and groaning over the irreversible events of the morning.  My brothers sat staring at the table unable to wrangle up an appetite under the oppressive smell.  My mom was in the kitchen looking dazed and even the dog was curled up in front of the fire, too lethargic to show interest in anyone or anything. My dad was sitting at the table holding his cup of coffee in one hand and perusing a shiny new Cabela’s catalog.  He seemed unbothered and perhaps even unaware of just how awful our house had suddenly become to live in.

“Dad,” I said with the back of my hand pressed to my nose, “What happened?”

My dad looked up at me and put the back of his hand to his nose to mock my ‘silliness’.  “I shot the skunks” was all he said and then he chuckled and went back to his magazine.

I went to the great big picture window over the couch in the living room and looked out on the large field that was our yard.  There were two dead skunk bodies lying a few feet from each other and just a stones throw from our front door.  “Gross!” I said and then turned back to my dad.  “Do you think that is all of them or are there more?”

“There is another dead one, but it got itself under the house before it died.  I think our skunk trouble is over.” My dad seemed very proud of himself as he began eating some toast and starting his second cup of coffee.

“What are you going to do with them now?” I asked.

“Throw them in the woods, after they air out a bit” Was his response.

I don’t believe anyone had created a real protocol for ‘airing out skunks’ before Daddy came along.  I soon learned that this process took about three days or at least that is what I gathered since the skunk carcasses remained where they had fallen for a good 72 hours.  It wasn’t long before swarms of flies gathered around the bodies and with the heat of the high elevation sun pounding them, the skunk bodies quickly bloated to twice their normal size.

I distinctly recall some of the town’s people stopping by for one thing or another during those three days and my dad, as casually as ever, inviting them in or chatting with them on the porch, well within eye shot of the bloated reeking skunk bodies.  I would like to imagine that my dad explained the situation to anyone who came by, but in my heart, I know that dad said nothing about it.  I am positive that on the outside he discussed the price of eggs and milk with all sincerity and concern. While inside he laughed to himself knowing that whoever it was that was visiting was mortified and disgusted by both the dead animals and the stench that loomed over our house like a cartoonish green fog.  He loved to shock people, even if it cost him the respect and pride that he clearly did not care about.

Several days after the shooting, my mom and I felt that we had cleared the stink out pretty well.  We based this feeling on the fact that we could no longer smell skunk in our house.  So one morning we headed to town to meet up with several friends for a morning outing.

While we sat visiting with our friends we noticed that people kept commenting on how there must have been a skunk that sprayed nearby recently.  My good friend’s mom Patty said “It does smell like skunk, I noticed it when I walked in.”

Jan, a short round fifty year old chum of mine nodded in agreement, “Yes its really quite bad. It is making my throat itch.”  She took out a tissue from her purse and blew her nose.  My mom and I looked at each other with a silent understanding.  Then Jan continued, “I did not smell it when I first got here but it just seems to be getting worse every minute.”

My mom and I made up some weak excuse as to why we had to go home and left as soon as we could.  As we drove the thirty miles back home we started discussing the strange and unorthodox ways of my father.  Who else would handle a skunk problem like this? Who leaves dead animal bodies out in plain site for days at a time?  Who gets up before dawn to shoot skunks?  And brings their coffee with them?

We began to laugh at the whole situation as we often did.  It was ludicrous and bizarre and so completely typical of life with my dad.  We laughed heartily off and on over the next few days as we washed every stitch of clothing in the house, scrubbed furniture, cleaned curtains and wiped down walls.  We took long hot baths and scrubbed head to toe with baking soda.

The smell eventually went away, but the story has caused a ripple of comedy that can be felt even today when I retell it to my kids or my husband.  I can so easily picture him, my crazy dad.  Sitting there on the porch before that first light of a dark Autumn morning, wearing his old flannel shirt, cup of coffee in hand while he eagerly waited to shoot skunks in his own front yard.

G.R.