There's No Skunks 'Round Here

There’s No Skunks ‘Round here

You know that smell; awful and sweet.  Well, maybe not sweet, but putrid sweet.  Ooof!  Awful is all you can say.  Usually you’re drivin’ through a bad moment in the skunk’s life, when it comes upon you, but not this mornin’.  It’s a warm Saturday mornin’ in Windsor, Virginia in Willie B’s Trailer Park. 

The sun is bright n’ shinin’ hot without a shade tree to be found.  A trailer is a God-awful hot thing it the warm months.  Makes you appreciate the dark spot under a spreadin’ oak.  Heck, I’d give my eye teeth for the shadow of a persimmon tree.  Anyhow, that smell came through the windows an’ walls like they weren’t there.  It passed ‘bout as quick as it come, but in 15 minutes, it come back again; only stronger an’ longer. 

I have not a clue where, but there’s a skunk runnin’ amuck, an’ too close to me.  Outside, there’s no trace, so I figger, maybe he’s under this palace on wheels.  I go ‘round to the kitchen side and beside the air conditioner where the smell was the worst, an’ take out a piece of skirting from underneath the trailer.  Willie B. had standards; I’ll give him that.  You can’t just park a trailer there without puttin’ nice lookin’ skirting around it.  Anyhow, I work the first piece loose, up and out….Holy Sapphire Mackerel!  I’m squatin’ on my haunches lookin’ in, and there’s sit’s Pepi LePew on his haunches lookin’ out!  Hello Aunt Diana, blow that whistle, blow!  Needless to say, we both turned tail an’ run!  Just knew I’d be hit with that “stuff,” but I got away quick.  I run down to the office for some desperately needed assistance or moral support; I didn’t quite know which, but more’n anything, I needed to drop back an’ regroup, ‘cause from where I was then, it was third an’ ten, an’ I need a miracle. 

“Willie B, you got a gun? I need to git rid of a skunk.”  He said, “We don’t have any skunks ‘round here.” 

“Willie B, what you Don’t have, is a sense of smell.  Just bring your gun, an’ come with me.  I got a plan!”  An’ he does.

We return to my trailer with one or two more tag-a-longs from his office.  I commence to takin’ down a piece of skirting in the front of the trailer.  I couldn’t get the corner piece out, ‘cause it was screwed in place.  But that one piece was of sufficient size…just about skunk high and skunk wide.  I went back to my first openin’ and pulled out a couple more pieces of skirting, which were just about Phil high and Phil wide.  Then I went to the other side a bit more to the front, an’ pulled some more out my size, which I’d planned as my escape route.  No way was I follerin’ that skunk through the hole I hoped he’d use, an’ I needed an’ openin’ closer than where I crawled into this “rabbit hole!” 

Willie B’s got a 410 shotgun, which at point blank range oughta do the job!  So I posted him at the front openin’, while I go back toward the rear, and follow Alice into that rabbit hole.  I’ve a long handled shovel with me, which is about as big an’ long a stick as I could find.  Not sign one of that skunk.  I didn’t have a clue as to where it was, so I worked my way forward.  Perhaps it crawled up into the framework, but I couldn’t hardly see how.  Past the air conditioner duct, I went.  That must have been it, I think.  When that air conditioner kicked on, it scared the beJesus outta Pepi, an’ he did the natural thing an’ turned loose a scent.  You could say he messed his britches, but as it was, I was livin’ in those britches, an’ it weren’t exactly tolerable. 

As I crawled past, I kept lookin’ an’ found him not…till I looked back, an’ there he was, back behind the duct!  Oh crap, I’m the one cornered now!  I talk to him nice as pie.  I’d say I was recitin’ scripture, but it was out of a different Book.  The Gospel of Phillip didn’t quite make the cut for the Canon.  “Willie B, are you ready?  I’ve found ‘im.”  I slowly retreat just a tad, then I ease that shovel toward Pepi, givin’ him good directions toward the front, an’ coaxin’ him best I knew how.  You’d have thought I was his Momma the way I was sweet talkin’ that li’l bastard.  What does he do?  Turns an’ runs to the corner, but not out the hole. He backs up in the corner, an’ tries to stare me down.  I hadn’t planned this.  So…slowly I crawl…inch by inch, foot by foot an’ then he starts talkin’ to me.  Yes Honey, an’ loud!  English wasn’t his first language, but I did understand!  Yessiree!  Every word.  He’s sittin’ there all hunched up and slappin’ those hind feet on the ground, an’ I’m listenin’ to this one-way conversation like the sermon it was.  The Gospel of Pepi reads just about as well and mine. 

“Willie B, cock that gentleman, for I’m fixin’ to push ‘im through that hole.”  I glanced at the openin’ at the first inch of the gun barrel.  Willie B was ready! 

“Here he comes!” an’ I threw that shovel into the corner, Pepi turned toward an got half way through the hole, an’ BAM!  There’s a skunk doin’ the death rattles, but I only see that outta the corner of my eye.  As soon as I caste the shovel, I turned toward my own hole…an’ half way through is all I got too, when that cloud came over me!  Lord have mercy, an’ bring me a towel… a great big’un.  Thick?  I coulda cut it with a knife.  Gag a maggot, it would.  I hurried best I could, but from that point on, I coulda walked or run, it was of no use.  I was tagged.  When I did come out, there were no less than 20 people runnin’ in all directions!  I thought is was just me an’ Willie B, an’ a couple of his helpers, but I suppose the excitement was a brewin’ when word got out about Willie B carryin’ his shotgun down to Brown’s trailer!  They were wise though.  Heck; even Willie B was runnin’. 

I got my shovel and loaded Pepi in it, an’ carried him over to a nearby field where I held last rites an’ put him to rest.  Amen an’ amen.

But whenever it got real hot with the sun beatin’ down, I could still smell the scent there at the front of that trailer.  Also, I learned what happens when you get sprayed by a skunk, besides stink. The scent causes your blood vessels to constrict, and you get a headache.  Serious.  I had a hangover that afternoon, an’ hadn’t touched a drop.  Woe was me!