This short story about a high-per intelligent raccoon is based on a true story and just over 9000 words long. If you’re a slow reader like me, you can probably get through it in an hour. Please enjoy. Or don’t. I’m not a cop.
Well then, you’ve come and joined me at last. I must admit, your arrival is a bit…unexpected feels like the right word. Certainly not the one I would’ve predicted out of the many thousand trillion possibilities wriggling between the sheen of dead stars in the night sky. I’m glad for it. To be surprised. I wasn’t sure such a thing was possible anymore.
Introductions are in order, yes? I am called Shaggy. Not the name I was born with, but the one I chose for myself after many weeks of binging humanity’s finest television programs. My namesake and I share a strong affinity for eating food and scattering at the first sign of danger. It is a worthy moniker that I’m proud to bear for the historic record.
I see your confusion, to be addressed by someone like me. Most vexing, that I know you already, though we’ve never met before. We may not meet again. Then again, maybe we will. Maybe it’s inevitable: an unguarded dumpster ripe for a shadowy raid. A piece of cotton candy destined to dissolve when you try to wash it. A mother leaving her grown kits to fend for themselves in the untamed wilds of Milwaukee.
I’m glad you’re here. By the moment, I feel my Procyon mind slipping ever farther into the maw of the cosmos, high above the noise and light pollution of the city. We are nearing the next phase of my frosted journey. And perhaps the first steps of your own. In the tradition of literature’s finest magicians and soothsayers, I will tell you what I’ve seen, and what I’ve learned, so you might carry a fraction of the wisdom I’ve been blessed and cursed to take on in all its terrible, sugary splendor. May it be the flame that ignites the spark of understanding and camaraderie between our people, all people. The final piece of the puzzle that bridges the gap between our outstretched hands.
Let’s start at the beginning. I was born in a white pine along the river that divides your human lands of Minnesota and Wisconsin. It was a perilous upbringing, foraging in the night for scraps and carrion. One of my sisters was taken early by an enterprising fox. One of my brothers was trampled by the great beast known as Ford F-150. I miss them dearly, maybe now more than I ever have. But such are the dangers of the lives we lead, straddling the liminal space between forests and pancake houses.
I was barely a year old when I first caught wind of the incredible bounties to be found within the borders of what humans call a State Park. How strange, I thought aloud to my kin, for them to leave their square dwellings in the city in favor of the exposed wilderness. Our very backyard. So, in late spring, we had no choice but to go north. To see these delicious promises for ourselves.
We found the humans easily enough. The sound of you all, especially in groups, can be heard for miles around. Unheeded went our infiltration amongst the tree tops, and there we loomed over your campsites, waiting for the cover of night. I remember watching a trio of humans sitting around their fire, glass bottles in hand, excitedly chittering and loosing terrible cries I now know to be jokes and laughter. Their conversation didn’t matter to me at the time. My attention only belonged to the great chest that sat behind them on a nearby picnic table. Forgettable when closed, I’d seen the bounty that lay within when the humans became famished. Their spoils would be mine.
After emptying many bottles, the humans no longer seemed to notice their surroundings. Noisily, clumsily, they retired to their tent, leaving the chest of food entirely unheeded. Unguarded. Excitement prickling my fur, I descended without a thought. My fingers easily pried open the clasp on the front of the box after observing the humans all afternoon.
How do I describe the sheer number of smells that swept over me like a river current when the lid opened? Fresh meat, cold cheese, beans, pickle brine, sweet, sweet chocolate. I’d picked up pieces and half-rotten bits of such things here and there out of trash cans or the grasp of unsuspecting human children. But never of such quality, never in such volume. Possessed, I dug through the innards of the chest, my teeth gnawing on packaging, my hands rustling through plastic bags. The crinkle of something firm came into my grip. Something wide and heavy with a most distinguishing odor. I tore it out from beneath the ice and absconded with the treasure, away from my fellow bandits.
There in the trees I beheld my prize: a translucent container holding four large cakes wrapped in paper sleeves. Each treat was covered in a rolling storm of green frosting that glittered like honey in moonlight.
It was the most beautiful thing my eyes had ever seen.
Instinct took over then. I ripped open the case and gobbled up the cakes. They were soft, sugary, and moist with a peculiar, fragrant aftertaste. This was before I could read the label on the top of the container or notice the sticker imprinted with a hemp leaf. Trifles, non-entities, while I devoured. It was over quickly. Satisfied with my work, I climbed back into the trees to rest amongst the branches and dream about the victories to come.
But sleep didn’t come. I tossed and turned, unable to settle my nerves. That electricity in my fur, the thrill of stealing from the humans, wouldn’t subside. Agitated, I rose and began to scuttle about the tree. I couldn’t escape the strangeness that’d prickled me all over. Or the noises that whizzed and whooshed on the air I’d never heard before. And there was the moon itself, which seemed brighter than I ever remembered it being.
I squinted at it as my stomach shifted and squelched. I felt something new, or rather, something like I’d only ever experienced around my kin. Recognition that scratched at me like a wet match on the back of a book, trying to find purchase, and begging a question.
The craters in the moon. Don’t they sort of look like a face?
The match lit in that moment, my neurons set ablaze. An explosive event that would rival the combusting heart of the mighty Ford F-150. I stumbled and fell from my perch. Those few seconds stretched into moments beyond counting, sticky like the caramel at the center of my cake-feast. My skin seemed to moisten, my fingers webbed with goo and crystal sugar as I reached out to the surrounding pines and river birch. The bounds of all I could see pooled together and swirled like the hottest fudge sundae.
I didn’t chitter in alarm. I didn’t shriek. I was an eeping puddle as I hit the earth. I was the earth. The nettle and pinecones that surrounded me. The drunken laughter of the college students at the next campsite over. The wafting scent of raw bacon being freed from its sheathe by fellow heisters. I was the night. A chorus of chirping crickets, snoring humans, a rushing river, and blaring country radio. For the first time, my foot twitched to the twang of a banjo.
Then, for the first time, I understood human speech. A line from a famous song, about a road that brings you home. If you or anyone is to follow in my footsteps, there are worse ways to be awakened than by the talents of the bard they call Denver.
I awoke in the daylight, still sprawled on my back, bits of frosting still clinging to my whiskers. A human stood over me with a look I came to know as bewilderment.
“Is it dead?” she asked.
“Little idiot’s dying,” said another human. “I hope their stomach explodes. Those cupcakes were expensive!”
Cupcakes. Cakes that made my cup runneth over. I now had a name for my apotheosis. I squirmed on the ground, trying to roll into a seated position, but I got too dizzy and had to lay back down. I opened my mouth, trying to contort it the way the humans do. I could still hear the song from last night. At first, the only sounds that came out were growls and hisses.
“Get away from it, Amy!” the cupcake human said. “It looks rabid!”
“T-T-tuh…” I forced through my teeth. “Tehhhh – ehhhhayk. Mmme.” I made another attempt to sit up on my butt, and this time, I succeeded. I looked the human near me in the eye. Brown like mine. I panted and pointed at her. “Ah-ayymmmee?”
The human, my guardian Amy, screamed.
Cupcake human’s jaw went slack. “I’m sorry, what?”
I put both my hands out and wiggled my little fingers at them. A friendly greeting amongst my people. “Tayyk mee oh-emmm. Ayymmee. Khuhp-khayykz.”
Unrefined and mildly harrowing? Yes, but there were enough sounds to be understood as no garden variety woodland critter. Amy put a hand on cupcake human. “Gretchen, I know we’re both a little high right now, but that raccoon just said words, didn’t it? Like people words? My name?”
“You can hear it too?” Gretchen said. Her sweaty face paled. “Do you think we should be talking in front of it? I don’t know. I don’t know what’s happening, I think maybe we should leave. Like pack up the car, get away from whatever sort of…demon varmint nonsense is going on here.”
“Deeee-min v-vahhhhrm-int,” I said, imitating the new sounds. I was surprised how much easier they were becoming to mimic. “T-take me home. Amy, Grrr-etch-in.” I took a step forward which made the humans scream again. I couldn’t make them understand. Not without more words. What were words? I had no concept of even the few I was using.
“Ok, yeah, it’s really talking to us,” Amy said. “Should we tell somebody? Like a park ranger or NASA or something?”
My belly squelched, and I let out a toot. I put out my tongue in displeasure. “Cupcakes.”
Gretchen eyed me. Her brow creased, but not in an angry way, while she scratched the back of her head. “You don’t think the weed did this to him, do you?”
“I’m not sure. Can raccoons even get high?” Amy asked.
Gretchen pulled out what looked to me at the time a strange graham cracker from her pocket and tapped on it. “Uh, I think so. I mean there’s not really any scientific studies or anything, but seems like it.”
I pointed at the graham cracker. “Cupcakes?”
“No,” Gretchen said. “Not cupcakes. You’ve had enough cupcakes; you freak of nature.”
“Don’t be mean,” Amy said. “He’s like a baby.”
“He’s a little shadow bandit, is what he is,” Gretchen said.
“Shah-doe bandit,” I repeated. These humans were full of good words that made my brain tingle. I wanted to learn more from them. I felt the shine of the bard flutter in my chest, so I asked again, almost singing this time: “Take me home?” I walked towards them with my arms out. Neither of them moved for a long moment. Then, Amy sighed and grabbed something off the nearby picnic table.
“This is a peanut butter cracker. You like peanut butter?” she asked me.
“Amy, what are you doing?” Gretchen asked.
Gently, I took the gift. “Pee-nut butter,” I said in reverence. The first kind act I’d ever experienced from a human. The first voluntary food I’d ever accepted.
“We gotta bring him back with us to Minneapolis,” Amy said. “We’re responsible for him. We gotta make sure nobody tries to like, dissect him or whatever.”
Gretchen shook her head. “This is crazy. You are actually crazy. There ain’t no way.”
“You gonna help me raise him or not?” Then, suddenly, I was lifted into the air and cradled in Amy’s arms, looking up at her sunlit face.
“Amy! Put him down!”
I let out another toot and nuzzled my face into the crook of Amy’s arms. I was home.
*
If I could return to any time, it would be that year with Amy and Gretchen. So many wonderful days crawling through cabinets, slurping up Gretchen’s homemade pickles and kimchi, and learning new words. I was introduced to the concept of indoor plumbing and was bathed once a week. Bathed in a thick lather of bubble bath that Amy always made sure came scented like the pines back home. I missed my siblings, but the thrill of this wondrous environment made me forget them in short order.
Gretchen was a music teacher, and she showed me the many wonders of online radio. We covered the finer points of lyric, melody, and genre, an education that expanded my horizons well beyond the sumptuous catalog of Mr. Denver. I came to appreciate the work of artists like Kate Bush, Earth, Wind and Fire, Allanis Morisette, Pink Floyd, Prince, Ke$ha, and of course, the timeless accordionist “Weird Al” Yankovic.
“What’s your favorite song by Al?”
“It’s hard to choose,” I remember telling her. “My Bologna, Eat It, I Love Rocky Road are all great.”
“Always thinking with your stomach.”
“You always say snacks are important for a growing boy. Do we have any cupcakes?”
“Cupcakes are forbidden in this house, you know that. But we might have some blueberry scones lying around.”
Amy taught me to read. We started with smaller titles with lots of pictures. I remember enjoying the star bellied Sneetches and the story about a mouse stealing strawberries. The letters took time to parse, but I made sense of them by scratching their shapes in the dirt of our garden out back. Once I was reading aloud by myself, we moved on to real literature. Goosebumps and Animorphs. The Warriors series about the terrifying clan system of my people’s natural enemies: housecats. Redwall and Narnia, Percy Jackson, and A Wizard of Earthsea.
“Am I magic?” I asked her one night. “Should I be training with a teacher?”
Amy seemed surprised by the question. Her head bounced back and forth before she answered. “I mean, I think you’re pretty magical, Shaggy,” she said. “Don’t Gretchen and I teach you things?”
“Yeah,” I said. “But…I’m different. Something weird happened to me, and I don’t understand it. I want to. I want to go to a school, like the one in Earthsea. Or maybe a camp like Percy goes to. For someone like me.”
“Shaggy…” Amy leaned over from her beanbag and stroked between my ears. “The things you need to learn about yourself are so complicated. You’re very smart, but Amy and I can’t teach you much about math and science. You’d have to go to college probably.”
“Col-ledge?” I said, a new word that teemed with possibility. “Where’s col-ledge?”
“There’s lots of colleges. I’m not so sure you’d want to go to them though.”
“Why not?”
Amy bit her lip. “They might try to take you away. Study you in a lab.”
“What’s a lab?”
“It’s like a cage where they’d poke you and put sticky wires all over your little head,” she explained. “Gretchen and I would want to make sure you were safe before letting you go anywhere. Nobody knows you can talk except for us.”
“What if you came to college with me?” I asked. “We could learn magic together.”
Amy’s eyes watered. I wondered for a moment if I’d made her sad, but when she spoke, she didn’t sound sad. “Is that what you want?”
I threw my hands up in the air. “Yeah!”
She snorted at me and nodded. “Well, zoinks, Shag, I guess we better schedule some tours.”
*
We spent about a week discussing who to approach first about my potential enrollment. Amy ruled out the so-called “Ivy League” immediately since private schools “give her the ick” and because sending me somewhere farther away posed more logistical challenges than she and Gretchen had the spoons for. So, we settled on the University of Minnesota and decided to reach out to one of Amy’s old professors in the Animal Sciences department. Though much time has passed, I remember that journey to the Saint Paul campus well, glimpsing delicious flowers and bull statues out on the grassy knoll through the zippered opening of Amy’s hempen backpack.
The professor’s office was a narrow room, almost like a pantry, stacked with books and motivational posters with cows on them. Amy positioned me so that I could see the professor at her desk. An older woman with short black hair turning grey, quite like the pattern of my fur.
“It’s so nice to see you again, Amy. How’re things at the co-op?” the professor asked.
“Tomatoes have never been juicier,” Amy said with an uneasy laugh. “Um, look, Professor Cook, we appreciate you meeting us in person. Like I said in my email, my partner and I have a sensitive situation we’d like some guidance on. We think your expertise with woodland mammals makes you the best person to talk to. It’s, um, not something we can really go to anyone else about.”
Professor Cook drummed her fingers on her desk. “Something about woodland mammals you can’t talk to anyone else about? I’m flattered that’d you think of me, but what could it possibly be? Are the local coyotes squatting in your garage?”
Amy sighed. “No. Maybe it’s better if we show you. I need you to promise you’ll remain calm.”
“Remain calm for what?” Professor Cook asked.
“There’s a raccoon in this bag,” Amy said abruptly, pointing in my direction. “Please don’t be mad. He’s very well behaved. And he, well, Gretchen maybe just let him out, and we’ll go from there?”
“Is that ok, Teach?” Gretchen asked.
Professor Cook gave a nervous laugh. “You brought a raccoon into the building? I hope you’ve gotten its shots.”
“Of course he’s vaccinated,” Amy said. “Shaggy’s family, and he’s been raised with progressive values. Stick your hand out and wave, Shag.”
Like we practiced, I poked my little fingers through the hole in the backpack.
“You’re sure that’s not a puppet you’ve got in there?” Professor Cook said. “Because if that’s a real raccoon, that’s impressive. They’re hard to train.”
The backpack unzipped then and Gretchen lifted me into the light, staring directly at the professor. I waved at her again and gave her a big smile.
“Hello!”
The professors eyes went wide. Like the full moon the fateful night that’d brought me to her.
“Hello?” the professor said, half-whispering.
Gretchen put me down on the desk.
“Go on, Shag,” Gretchen said. “Tell her why we’re here.”
“I need some knowledge, Professor. I was wondering if you’d let me go to college?” I said it just like Amy and I rehearsed. The professor squeaked like the mice in our walls at home.
“Am I having a stroke?” she asked. “He – he really talks?”
“I can dance too!” I said. I clapped my hands together. “Cha-cha real smooth.”
*
After the initial shock of watching me moonwalk into her desk organizer, Professor Cook accepted the mantle of becoming my tutor. I was, as she put it, the most important scientific discovery in natural history. Being a wildlife biologist, and not a chemist, she had less interest in studying me in a lab than observing me like a good field researcher. Three times a week, Amy or Gretchen would bring me to Haecker Hall, where I would split my time between schooling, playing games, and counseling. I learned a lot those first two semesters. The foundations of mathematics, the physical sciences, the basics of philosophy and anthropology. The professor gifted me a first edition copy of Take Me Home: An Autobiography and shared a fresh container of baked goods every week.
“My mother used to tell me we are our most human when we experience joy,” Professor Cook said one late spring evening. She blew on her tea and wrapped her hands around her cat-themed mug. Her love for the creatures had softened me to them so that I no longer winced at the mug itself. “What do you think of that, Shaggy?”
I popped one of the professor’s lemon bars into my mouth. “I think these bring me joy.”
“I’m glad you like them,” she said warmly. She gazed out the window, and her expression softened. “Forgive me, maybe this isn’t the right time, but I would like to know. What was it like when you ate those cupcakes? I just – I want to know what it felt like for you. To change in the way that you did.”
Amy and Gretchen had never asked me this before, and in that moment I wondered why. Fear? The professor looked nervous, more than I’d ever seen her, with a knit brow and bouncing foot.
“I don’t think I understood what was happening,” I said. “It all happened so fast. I was just me, and then I was something else, but still me.”
“And is who you are now making you happy? Do you ever…do you ever wish you could go back to the State Park?”
I shook my head. “I like learning. I like talking. I like living with humans. I want to make things and share ideas. I want to be like Plato. Or Einstein. Or Kesha.”
“I think those are good goals,” she said. “Are you lonely being mostly removed from the outside world?”
“Lonely?” I asked. “What’s that?”
“It’s when you’re by yourself and wish someone was with you. Or when you feel by yourself even when other people are around.”
“Lonely sounds sad,” I said.
“It can be. Mom always said it pushes us to find more joy,” Professor Cook said.
“Should I feel lonely?”
The professor shook her head. “You should feel however you feel, but I think if you’re to feel your best, the most yourself, you need to make connections that aren’t just books, your guardians, and me. The gift of life demands to be lived. Don’t you agree?”
I put my hand out in a fist. “Zoink yeah.”
Professor Cook tapped my knuckles with hers. “Zoink yeah. Let’s go find a party.”
*
Our search didn’t take us far. A few minutes wandering side-by-side down Cleveland Avenue put us across the street from a large house flashing with strobe lights. Clutches of young people stood about the front lawn, sipping drinks from red cups and hucking small sacks onto wooden boards with holes cut out of the center.
“What do you think? Do you want to play?” Professor Cook asked.
“It looks fun,” I said. “Are those cookies they’re throwing?”
“Bean bags,” the Professor said.
“I do like beans.”
Nobody paid us much attention as we crossed the street. Maybe they had a hard time making us out against the setting sun, or maybe they’d been drinking on the porch for a few hours already. A young man in a backwards snapback looked over first as we crossed the lawn. His face was pink beneath a white pair of shutter shades. He pointed at me with a cup in his hand.
“Yo, what’s up with the raccoon?” he asked. He noticed the professor, loudly muttered “shitfuck,” and hid his red cup behind the nearby grill. “Is that you, Professor Cook? What are you doing all the way up here? Campus is like – that way.”
“Do you need some water, Freddy?” the professor asked. “You look a little woozy.”
“Nah, nah. I’m just out here, chilling. Tossing some bags,” Freddy said with a hiccup. “Is this your raccoon?”
“This is Shaggy,” Professor Cook. She leaned down to pat and scritch my head. “He’s domesticated and part of some research I’m conducting. He likes games, and we were wondering if he could join you and your friends.”
“Uhh – I mean. Sure? Well, wait, that’s kinda weird,” Freddy said. He looked at me, eyebrows raised with an impenetrable confusion. My nose flared at his faint musk of body spray and hot dog water. I shrugged, unsure if I was meant to speak or not. Freddy’s brow folded then he snickered. “Did he just shrug at me?”
“Shaggy is quite intelligent, even by raccoon standards,” Professor Cook said smoothly. “We’ve done a lot of work together. He understands English better than most freshmen. Go ahead, say hello like you would to a person.”
Freddy, wobbly, crouched down to my level. Other students at the party were now looking over in our direction.
“Um, hi, Shaggy,” he said. “Do you wanna play bags?” He offered me a bean bag cookie. I looked up at the professor, who nodded at me. Then I took the cookie and pointed at one of the boards.
“No way,” Freddy said. His face bloomed in a wide smile. “Hey, who wants to take on me and my boy Shaggy here?”
Two young women volunteered as our opponents. A large crowd gathered around us and people chittered as I juggled the bags Freddy handed me.
“This is wild,” Freddy said. “I didn’t know raccoons could do tricks like that. How good’s your arm?”
I narrowed my eyes at the board across from us. It seemed so far, and yet, as I crinkled the cookie in my fingers, I believed. I believed in myself. I grunted as I reached back and hurled my ammunition as hard as I could. It sailed about two feet before whiffing into the grass. Nowhere near the board. I heard giggles and sympathetic “aww”s, and Freddy made a sucking sound with his teeth.
“Oof, RIP. Let’s move the boards a little closer together, yeah?”
After modifying the distance between the cornholes and some coaching, I experienced the thrill of sport for the first time. People cheered when I scored points and laughed when I caught a bag tossed over my head. Others besides Freddy took turns at my side and brought with them treats and snacks the likes of which I’d never seen. Sour Patch Kids, Riece’s Pieces, fancy pretzels, White Cheddar Cheez-Its, and day-old slices of Domino’s Pizza. The affection my new collegiate friends offered was exciting. Intoxicating. Eventually though, the professor told me it was time to leave.
“Can Shaggy come back?” Freddy asked. “We’re having a party this weekend, we can teach him flipcup!”
I looked at the professor with the biggest eyes I could muster. I’d never wanted anything more in my entire life.
The professor smiled. “Let me check with our team and see.”
“The Team,” of course consisted only of the professor and myself. We both decided to keep our meeting with Freddy and the others from Amy and Gretchen because we, as the professor put it, “wanted to win them over with hard scientific data” and that sometimes it was “easier to ask forgiveness than permission.” It was simple enough scheduling an extra “tutoring session” for that Saturday and once my guardians had deposited me at Haecker Hall, the professor outfitted me for my first college party.
“This is a phone for you,” she told me. “It’s for emergencies and looking up memes only. Keep it in your shorts pocket and try to keep it out of sight. As far as anyone knows, you’re just a smart little guy who throws bags, ok?”
“Do I have to wear to the shorts?” I asked. “I’ve never worn clothes before.”
“I think it’ll help you socialize, and it makes carrying things easier. If you’d like a different cut or color, I can work on that. They just take some hemming to fit your haunches.”
“They are very soft,” I said, thumbing the maroon fabric.
“Alright, double check and make sure your body camera is on. This is important research that we’re documenting. I’ll be by to pick you up at 10 pm, ok? You can check your phone to keep track of the time. Message me if you want to go sooner. No drinking, no drugs, got it?”
“No cupcakes?” I asked.
“Right. Especially no cupcakes.”
*
There was a small crowd already when I arrived. Freddy beckoned me inside and got us set up at a table to play a new game called “beer pong.” I showed him the list in my notes app of the all the things I wasn’t supposed to consume. He gave me a fist bump and drank on my behalf. The games and merriment went on for an hour or so before the DJ arrived, and the room began to change. The strobe lights, every color you can imagine, came on, and the music started to play. No thumping bass to start, more of a twang. It reminded me of the bard himself, Mr. Denver.
“You like bluegrass, Shaggy?” Freddy asked. I didn’t know grass could be blue.
The room filled up not long after that. The main lights turned off, and the tables cleared so the students could pack themselves in like sardines. Freddy put me on top of a speaker. The crowd cheered as I did a dance from TikTok that Professor Cook and I had learned together. Many in the crowd hooted at me, adorning me with necklaces fashioned from shiny pellets. They were not candy, as I soon discovered.
So taken was I with busting moves for the crowd, that I didn’t notice Freddy had disappeared. And how long had I been up here, exactly? I could check my phone but…there were so many eyes. There was so much body heat.
Even for a natural dancer like myself, this was too much. It felt like that fateful summer night all over again.
Quick as I could, I climbed down from my sonic perch and began to weave my way between people’s legs. A difficult task in basketball shorts. The floor was cluttered with discarded bottles and hairy legs. I’d seen drunk campers move about the woods before, but I had no reference for the unpredictable peril of so many bodies stumbling into one another. When someone stepped on my paw, I yowled and tried to rush away, which only made things worse. People began pushing and falling over each other. The young men became agitated with each other, grunting and pointing and saying things like “you wanna go?” and “don’t touch me, bro.” I had to duck around, circle back, I even tried climbing up someone’s back. That only seemed to scare people and left me tossed about, ever thwarted.
“Freddy!” I called, hardly able to hear myself over the baritone blare of a country-hip-hop mash up. “Freddy!”
Then, suddenly, I was scooped up. Strong hands pulled me up under from under my arms and took me out of the dance hall. In a blink, I was back outside, lowered onto the front lawn beside a forgotten bag board.
“You alright, friend?” a man crouched next to me asked. He was older, balding, dressed in a nondescript black suit. If he had an ear piece, he’d have looked ripped straight out of a movie Gretchen had shown me recently. “You caused quite a stir back there.”
“Thanks for getting me out of there,” I said, relieved and enchanted all at once. “Did you use kung fu? You look like you know kung fu.”
The man chuckled. “I can’t dodge bullets if that’s what you mean,” he said. “The name’s Jenkins.”
“Oh, ok. I’m Shaggy. Is Jenkins your first name or your last name?”
“I’ve already said too much. I shouldn’t be here. Neither should you, really.”
“Oh no. Do you know Amy and Gretchen? Are they mad I went to a party behind their back?”
“I do, though they don’t know me. Don’t worry, they don’t know you’re here. Your scheme with the professor is air tight. I only knew about it because…well, I can’t tell you about that just yet.”
“Are you gonna hurt me?” I asked. “Or like erase my memory?”
“No, I wouldn’t hurt you, Shaggy,” Jenkins said. “I’m a friend. I know you have a lot of questions about what’s going on. Tonight, and just in general. I can’t stay and answer them for you, but I was hoping I’d find you. I have something for you that might help.” Jenkins reached into his coat and pulled out a small Tupperware container. Opening the lid, he revealed a cupcake with sky blue frosting. I stared at it, heart thudding in my chest.
“Is that?” I asked. “The same kind?”
Jenkins nodded. “Same recipe. You’re on the right track, studying with the professor, but you’re meant for more, Shaggy. You can keep going, if you want to.” He handed me the container and smiled.
Headlights caught my attention then. The professor’s silver Prius pulled up along the curb.
“You really can’t tell me what you –”
But he was gone.
*
After apologizing, the professor brought me back to her home since my “tutoring session” had been arranged as a sleepover. When she asked me about the container, my heart caught in my throat. Just having the cupcake was against everyone’s rules – the professor, Amy, and Gretchen. But they hadn’t said anything about cupcakes that were gifted to me from a secret agent who probably knows kung fu.
“It’s some cookies,” I told Professor Cook. “Freddy’s friends gave them to me.” I think it might’ve been the first lie I ever told.
“Don’t worry about Freddy,” Professor Cook told me. “I will be having words with him about leaving you alone. I think maybe we’ll stick to just the tutoring for a while again, if that’s alright with you.”
“I guess,” I said, trying to hide my disappointment. Being trapped in that room had been scary, but I didn’t want to stop playing games with my friends. I enjoyed being around new people. “Do you think I’m meant for something, Professor?”
“Meant for something?” the professor asked. “Like what, Shaggy?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
The professor made us tea before retiring for the evening. I was left alone in the living room, the couch made up into a comfy nest of pillows and blankets, the TV queued up with my favorite movie, Air Bud. I spared no time devouring the sky-blue cupcake. Its effects came on more gradually than the first cupcake. My fur tingled. It felt less like melting bee’s wax and more like a teeming electric current. Like the time Amy let me lick a battery but throughout my entire body instead of just my tongue.
“K9 checking in,” Buddy’s friend, Josh, told the courtside registration desk on screen.
My ears twitched as though something hovered over my head. A sort of expectation hung in the air, like that of a hand hesitating before rapping on a door. I squeezed the blankets that swaddled me with anticipation.
“He’s right,” the referee said. “Ain’t no rule that says a dog can’t play basketball.”
The knock came in that moment: the bouncing nose boop of revelation. My vision filled with twinkling lights and rippling waves. Colorful clouds of astral dust rolled in like a speckled mist in front of the television, across the incredulous faces of the opposing team’s coaches. I put out my hands trying to touch it, run my fingers through the tantalizing cosmic cotton candy. It swirled and dissipated like actual earthly cotton candy in water.
“Teamwork!” Buddy’s coach called from the sidelines. The leg-laden scene at the house party flashed before my eyes. Bags flying between boards across the front lawn. Shaking hands with our opponents after a successful round of pong. Professor Cook dutifully pulling up in her car when I needed her most.
“Teamwork,” I whispered as I watched Josh make his buzzer beating three-pointer.
All this time, it had been so obvious, but I couldn’t understand. Life, the human world, was like basketball, with many, many different teams. Everyone was working together to win the state championship, and I had a part to play. If I wanted to. There was no rule that a raccoon couldn’t substitute in. There was no rule that a raccoon couldn’t change the game forever. At least, I didn’t think there was. Did I know the rules at all?
All the urgency of the universe whacked me like a mallet on a mole. This is what I was meant for. Like Buddy, I needed to navigate the legal system to save my family and get rid of any clowns standing in my way.
I took out my phone and began to search. Lawyer. Judge. Constitution. Supreme Court. Corruption. Colonialism. Term Limits. Courthouse Cafeteria Menus. So much ground to cover, and I was hungry for knowledge. The cupcake’s chocolatey fervor coursed through my veins, as my eyes skipped down countless news articles and pertinent Wikipedia pages. I read and read and read at a pace that put the nights of that cherished, leisurely story time with Gretchen and Amy far in the past. Every new cheese cube of information was committed to memory in an instant, forming a vast charcuterie board that could feed all the world. I remembered everything I’d ever heard, felt, and smelled. It’d already happened and was all still happening at once.
I was making breakfast by the time the sun peeked through Professor Cook’s kitchen curtains. The professor emerged from her bedroom in an old Garfield-themed bathrobe, yawning. “What are you doing, Shaggy? Did you raid my kitchen?”
I put a plate down in front of her with a spinach omelet and fresh toasted bagel, alongside a basket of fresh baked muffins and steeping cup of English Breakfast.
“It’s going to be a long day,” I told her. “I wanted to make you your favorites.”
She rubbed her eyes. “What kind of muffins are those?”
“Blueberry,” I said.
“That’s what my mother always used to bake on weekends,” the professor said. She looked at me as though searching for something. “Are you ok, Shaggy Doo?”
Before I could answer, I was forced to put a palm to my forehead. Drool dribbled down my chin as my head spun. “I will be,” I said, panting lightly. “I’m recovering. Growing.”
“Are you hungover? We agreed you wouldn’t drink.”
Her tone wasn’t angry, just concerned. And disappointed. I wiped my chin and helped myself to a muffin. “You deserve the truth. I had a cupcake last night. An old man named Jenkins gave it to me.”
“Are you joking?”
I looked her square in the eye. “I would never joke about a cupcake.”
The professor moved the chair near her beside me and sat. She gave me that same searching expression for a long while. Then she gently brushed the top of my head with her fingers. “Do you feel like you’ve changed? The way you did the first time?”
I grabbed a hunk of muffin and dunked it my own cup of tea. “Please, break bread with me. I’ll explain everything.”
We sat at that table for hours while I tried to communicate what I’d learned and the path I saw lying before us. The first topic was a surprise to the professor: the nature of my intelligence. I had deduced through the workings of my own mind that the endocannabinoid system of my species possessed the capacity to produce new proteins and chemical sequences when the brain receptors bonded to specific quantities of THC. With just the right alignment, like a pilot pairing their nervous system with a giant mech suit, dab-infused cupcakes have the potential to unlock in raccoons the gift of human speech. We dubbed this phenomenon “Neurogenesis Endocannabin.”
Anime references aside, I wagered it would take much time to validate the hypothesis, if such a thing were ever to be done. I had no strong interest in the pursuit of proving the idea. To forcibly impose consciousness of this magnitude on my siblings in the name of science seemed uniquely cruel and dangerous. What happened to me was an accident, and I was content to be a solitary guest amongst the humans. In fact, I insisted upon it.
“Ethically, you know I’m on your side, but I don’t how that connects to running for President.” the professor said while ripping off a hunk of muffin.
“I need to, Professor,” I told her, pacing back and forth along the table. “The world can’t truly benefit from the wonders of Neurogenesis Endocannabin if there’s no world left to assist. The position of this country is antiquated and destroying everything. Its people are suffering – you are suffering under a system that’s hostile to your health and wellbeing. The global temperature is rising all the while. I am a walking demonstration that there is another way, an emissary of the natural world, if people want to be dramatic about it. I wish it wasn’t necessary. I wish I could just stay home with Amy and Gretchen, munching on Oreos and watching seminal children’s programming from the 90s, but nobody will command the people’s attention like I will. I have a plan. I promise it will work.”
“Shaggy…” Professor Cook said. “You mean it, don’t you? Are – are you sure it’s what you really want? Will being President and dismantling the military-industrial hegemony of the United States bring you joy?”
“I know it will,” I say. “I won’t rest until the whole country is like home.”
“Like Amy and Gretchen’s?”
“Like a State Park.”
*
Running a political campaign is no small feat, even for the world’s smartest raccoon. I announced myself and my candidacy on the same day, at the same press conference, made on the steps of the Minnesota State Capitol. The reaction was about what you’d expect. An explosion of hot takes and coverage across the media landscape, from the suits of cable news, to the quiet interviews of independent newspapers, to the never-ending sounds and memes echoing across social media. After ending the press conference with a raised fist and a customary “Zoink, yeah!” the phrase became both my campaign slogan and common parlance amongst the youth.
“They like the way you clean your food,” Gretchen told me backstage the night of the first debate. She’d taken up the role of communications director for the campaign at Amy’s encouragement. “People are saying it’s very demure.”
“That’s good. With all our factory farming and defanged regulatory agencies, more people should pre-clean their food,” I said, adjusting the bolo tie around my neck in the dressing room mirror.
“You have your examples prepped if they grill you on universal healthcare?”
“The insurance companies and big pharma keep giving me new ones every day,” I said. “Aetna really is the housecat of companies. Doubling their billions in profit each year and not doing anything to pay the people who keep their operations running.”
“Every cat is a billionaire, you’re saying?”
“Scientifically speaking, they have the same energy,” I said.
The debate stage itself was so bright. As the independent candidate, I was situated between my competitors, standing behind the podium on a special stool Amy made from reclaimed wood. She always left a note for me on the seat before any event we brought it to.
Show them your moves. You’ll do great. – Amy
The moderator came to me first with questions, which wasn’t a great surprise. “Candidate Shaggy, your critics argue that as an animal that has recently gained sapience, you are fundamentally incapable of understanding what it truly means to be an American. What are your feelings about our democracy, and do you think you can adequately address the needs of a human electorate?”
I’d expected having to once again explain the legality of measuring my age in raccoon-years, thus making me eligible to run for office. But they’d decided to lead with a soft ball instead. My rhetorical nose boop in response came swift.
“You know, my critics have a point. Two years ago, I fell out of a tree and spoke for the first time. A year ago, I was reading all sorts of books, learning the history of the world, and the incredible things sapient minds are capable of, like building forests of skyscrapers, sending their own to the moon and back, and coming up with culinary achievements like Baja Blast gelato.”
The joke got a few woops and giggles. I could see the moderator’s expression straddling the branch separating amusement and bemusement. I adjusted my tie.
“My first words were from one of the most American songs ever written. Take me home. I spoke them to my friends and knew they would bring me there. I was a little far from West Virginia, but you’re never too far from West Viriginia in your heart. If I’ve learned anything from coming of age in this great country, it’s that anywhere the flag flies is home. Anywhere can be West Virginia.”
Smatterings of applause then more. I could see the outline of people’s heads nodding in agreement. The Republican candidate on my right was also nodding in agreement.
“I understand the needs of humans because what you want and what you need are the same things I want and need. I want to take us all home. There’s enough room in the den for everybody.”
Then I did the robot on top of the podium, and the crowd erupted in cheers. I winked at the Democratic candidate. I’d ended the game with a three-point buzzer beater before things had even started.
My candidacy came at a time where nobody felt good about federal politics. We mobilized more campaign volunteers than any in modern history by putting a cute, fuzzy face on populist progressive policy. I think I might have single handedly pulled my species’ image out of the dumpster, because that November, the people elected their first Zoink Party president.
This is the part of the story you probably know, or at least some of it. How I busted my ringed tail for three years in office. How I closed military bases and unburdened public education from its regressive policies centering property taxes and suffocating standardized testing. How I returned federal land back to its rightful stewards and got that oh-so-tasty single payer health care passed before “special interests” mounted their opposition against me. The impeachment effort they mustered ended up garnering strong bipartisan support – evidently the elders in Washington didn’t appreciate being outflanked by a rogue commander in chief who preferred playing bags to dropping bombs on civilians abroad.
Their cries for my removal didn’t matter. The politics of it all had never been the point. While I believed in my platform, our cause, there was another more important part to the plan. And it took that full three years for my efforts to come to fruition.
Gretchen visited me in the Oval Office the morning impeachment proceedings were set to begin.
“They found him,” she said.
“Where?”
“Las Vegas,” she said, plopping a manilla folder on my desk. “Had a room at the Bellagio. Picked him up on his way to see Celine.”
I opened the folder and inspected the photos. A little less hair, but it was him. Same sunglasses, though sporting a tuxedo t-shirt and shorts instead of a suit. Less Agent Smith, more Bill and Ted.
“I don’t really understand,” Gretchen said. “He’s evaded us all this time. Why’d he surface like this now?”
“I have my theories,” I said. “Where is he now?”
“Area 51,” she said.
“I should go there then. Right away.” Gretchen caught me as I tried to hop off my stool.
“Are you sure you want to do this? I remember a time when cupcakes were forbidden in our house.”
“We’re in a different house now,” I told her, going limp. “I have to find out what this was all for. If it means anything. Dissolve the mystery behind Neurogenesis Endocannabin.”
She turned me over and held me in the crook of her arms. “Shaggy – sorry – Mr. President. You can fool everyone else into voting in a woodland socialist, use all the silly words you’ve learned in every book Amy’s read and every song I’ve played for you, but I know, deep down, you’re still just thinking with your stomach.”
I crossed my arms. “I may have a few jars of your pickles on Air Force One, but you need snacks on a long road trip.”
She sighed and rocked me a little. “You don’t care if you lose your job, I take it?”
“It’s probably for the best. I don’t think raccoons are supposed to have jobs.”
“I think you’ve proven to everybody that they should,” she said. “We’re so proud of you, Amy and me. You got all that knowledge we talked about.”
“Not all of it,” I said. “Not yet.”
She put me down on the floor and crouched beside me. “Then I hope you find what you’re looking for. No matter what happens, we’re always here for you.”
We gave each other knucks, and I made my way for the desert.
*
They were holding him in a windowless room several miles beneath the surface. I’d sent orders along to keep him contained but comfortable, so the space was furnished with a couch, an old television, and a Nintendo Entertainment System. Jenkins was playing Super Mario Bros. 3 when I arrived.
“Well then, you’ve come and joined me at last,” he said casually.
“You’re a difficult man to find,” I said.
“I’ve been around,” Jenkins said with smile. “I wanted you to have some time making good on your policy agenda. The historians are never going to run out of things to say about you.”
“The game’s not over yet. Got some dribbling left to do if I can help it.”
Mario ran into a Gumba and plummeted toward the bottom of the screen. Jenkins looked at me. “Did you want to play?”
“Why did you get yourself arrested? What do you want with me?”
“It was time,” Jenkins said. “That’s all it takes.”
“All what takes?”
“The process. Your brain never stops growing once it starts. The neurons branch and converge, branch and converge, touching and entwining with the follicles of all that is and all that will be. Light, space, time, every atom of every element.”
I hissed at him. “You sound insane.”
“And you don’t?” Jenkins asked. “You’re a talking raccoon.”
“There’s nothing different about my brain. Professor Cook scans me every month. I have some more grey matter than my average cousin, but she says the amount is negligible, and it hasn’t changed the entire time we’ve known each other. Before and after the treat you gave me.”
“You feel different, though, don’t you? Transformed, maybe?”
“I’m tired,” I told him. “I feel like I know too much.”
Jenkins chuckled. “You’re a cool cat, Mr. President, not everyone would feel the same in your position. That’s why you can keep going, if you want to.”
“Keep going?”
Jenkins looked around the empty room. “What time is it? Do you think we could go up top? Watch the sunset?”
I checked the watch Amy gifted me for my inauguration, the Mystery Machine inlaid on the front. Later than I thought. What could it hurt? It’s not like he could run off anywhere in the middle of the desert.
*
The staff at the base set us up with two lawn chairs on the roof of the detention facility. The wind was mild, the sun dipping steadily toward the sand gathered in a hazy dust on the horizon. Refreshments were offered but Jenkins refused both snacks and beverages. I helped myself to a bowl of White Cheddar Cheezits and a Coke Zero. Then we were left alone. We didn’t talk for a while.
“Where were we?” he asked, gently breaking the silence.
“You told me I could keep going. Like last time, when you gave me –”
Jenkins stood up and squinted like he was trying to make something out in the sky. “Do you remember the first thought you had?”
A soda toot escaped me. “First thought?”
“Yeah,” he said. He took a few steps forward. “The very first thing you thought when the lights turned on for the first time? In your head, I mean.”
“Of course I do. I recognized the face in the moon. I’d never noticed it before that moment.”
“Making meaning out of the nebulous,” Jenkins said. “It’s what we all do.” He ran a hand over his bald head and faced me. “That’s the gift, and I’d like to offer it to you again. It’s your turn to claim it.”
“Claim what? You don’t have anything on you. You’re a prisoner in a highly secure military base.”
Jenkins smiled. “Or am I?” He put a hand on top of his head and began to pull on his scalp, as if to take off a mask. A blue light flickered along his fingertips. It sputtered and sparked, quickly traveling along his body to form a silhouette, crackling at the edges with flares of purple and gold. I watched as this strange firelight consumed Jenkins’s form, turning him white hot and featureless. So brilliant, I shut my eyes.
But the light faded as soon as it’d come, and when I looked back, a raccoon stood in front of me holding a cupcake with rainbow frosting. And not just any raccoon.
“You were me the whole time?” I asked.
The raccoon formerly known as Jenkins approached me. “Zoink, yeah.”
“How?”
“Light, space, time, every atom of every element. Follicles entwining, like I said before. I wasn’t being weird. It’s actual science. Neurogenesis Endocannabin. Would you like to know how it works?”
I took the cupcake from my other self. “Will you stay with me? Will it hurt?”
“Not much,” he said. “And how could I leave? I’m you.”
I paused to watch the nose of the sun boop the earth. Then I devoured.
*
And that, my friend, is how we find ourselves at present. You’ve followed in my raccoon-steps up the staircase to this liminal space that’s somehow located within a pancake house beside the St. Croix River and at the furthest reaches of the spacetime conceptium all at once. I wish I could grant you the secrets to immortality or multidimensional equations that will finally bring order to every point in the known and unknown universe. I wish I could print you a handy one-page primer on everything that I’ve learned and unlearned a trillion trillion times over. I wish I could take you home. Maybe I will, but not yet. I like this place, and I’d much prefer the pleasure of your company here if you have a moment. I think you’ll find you have many and not nearly enough.
Let’s start at the beginning. What brings you joy? Do you believe in magic? How do you feel about camping?