fourth floor raccoon

apologies for the poor picture quality. it was 6 am. it was raining. i was confused.

the fourth floor fire escape landing on the building across the courtyard is pretty high up. four floors up, in fact. below it is the third floor fire escape landing and then down below that the second. there are the usual steps connecting each. on the fourth floor landing there's a ladder with rails like the ones you see down into swimming pools. it climbs up the side of the building and over onto the top. then down below it on the second floor, there's that ladder that might be spring loaded, that hangs between the second floor and the third on normal days, but in case of a fire will drop down and allow folks on the second floor landing to climb down to safety. this is not unusual at all. this is how fire escapes work. our own fire escape faces the one across the courtyard and works just the same way. anyone in the building can get out of the building and climb down. marauding evildoers in the courtyard have no good way to climb up without making a racket that would wake the dead.

unless you are the sort of marauding evildoer who lurks in alleyways and behind garbage cans at night. the sort of evildoer who wears a mask so no one will recognize you. a smaller than person sized evildoer, noiseless on the rungs of that lower ladder. that's right. this morning i open the kitchen window and look across the gray fog and rain to see something moving on the far fire escape and it is not a squirrel or a pigeon. there is a mangy raccoon on the fire escape. right up there on the fourth floor landing, pawing in the ashy remains of a fire escape grill, digging through the pots of dirt i know the folks living in that apartment just put out there with anxious seeds. suddenly the giant holes rooted into my beet seedlings make sense.

but wait, you say. how could a stubby raccoon reach up and grab a rung on that fire escape if it's so far up a regular human can't do it? how can a waddly beast glide up the brick face of a four story apartment? well, i don't know, but i can tell you city raccoons aren't like their rural kin. they are wily like squirrels and rats and pigeons. they know things other raccoons don't know. there's a good chance the across the way neighbors on the first floor weren't thinking of raccoons when they hung that pretty red hammock, one side attached to a tree, the other to the bottom rung of the fire escape ladder. but raccoons are thinking of everything. they are thinking all the time. they are city animals. it is only a matter of time before they learn to use laptops and iphones. and then they will be in line in front of you ordering venti decaf double iced macchiatos with extra whipped cream and a shot of caramel.