The Possum

JUNE 27, 2001

Tonight Norm and I trudged up to Mount Archer with a knife and a long handled net. We were dead set on catching ourselves a possum. After building a windy fire and putting a left-over cabana on the barbie, a female possum appeared on the scene. She was after the bread we scattered around on the ground. I couldn’t watch her until Norm had her securely caught because I didn’t want to think of her as an animal we had fed.

I helped Norm to extract her from the mesh and held her legs as he took the knife to her throat. I will not soon forget the feel or the look of that night. A giant wind howled through the hardwoods as the insufficient lamplight tried to hold the darkness at bay. We were two shadows spilling blood on the cold ground before an angry wind-whipped fire.

It wasn’t until her head was completely severed, after she had put her mouth through Norm’s heavy glove, twice, and broke his skin with her teeth, and Norm had turned what was left of her, onto her back, that we discovered that she was a female. With one swift thrust of the large vegetable knife, from the belly to the neck, Norm proceeded to cut her open. As the life drained from her violated flesh, Norm and I discovered together that the animal was with child. Horror shoved me to the side and I could no longer hold the torch against the darkness. I walked away.

After a time I returned to watch Norm as he dug out the entrails with all the vital organs, one by one, plopping them into the plastic bag alongside the severed head. Then I tied up the bags and took them to the car: One with the female’s carcass and the other with all of the rest.

When we both returned to the fire we sat down to roast marshmallows and have a swig of homemade brew, but I was not the same. The sight of that fetus curled up so comfortably within the fatty walls of its mother’s womb would not leave me.

Before long, we rose to our feet and gathered up all our equipment. We left the fire to a slow death on the barbie as the wind kicked the flames up into the air, carrying them across the ground where the splattered blood still stained the ground where a now dead possum had once romped, seeking an easy meal for herself and the young she had carried secretly within.

The ride home was a nightmare. As the smell from the campfire simmered within the fabric of our jackets, jeans, even our hair and skin, the stench of our dead catch permeated the car. As we drove the Ford down the winding hill, the headlights touching everything in its path, we could hear the whimpering, the breathing, and the sound of the plastic bag crackling as the fetus fought to save its already waning life.

Every sound that creature made shot through me like an explosion and I was forced to wonder who I am.

When we returned home, Norm swiftly killed that tiny being and buried it with all its wild lifelines under the grumachamas tree in the front yard. The carcass of the female made its way into our kitchen where Norm dropped it onto the counter and began to carve it up.

I watched in horror as the bloody foreign object lay like a sin upon that now unfamiliar surface. The horror grew as I watched Norm wield his knife. Off went the feet, first, one by one, as the headless form lay with limbs extended. Expertly with years of skill behind them, Norm’s hands moved over the carcass. He pulled the hide off the animals’ body, yanking and extracting it like a jacket, peeling it away from meat and tendon like felt that had been fastened to a hard object with glue that had been given years to set. Pieces of fur flew into the air, argent tendons shone in the kitchen light like silverfish, and the putrid air stung like smoke.

I held the feetless legs as Norm tore the fat away, and as the blood stained my gloves and splashed the counter and the walls, Norm took the pelt from the once breathing body that now laid stiff and cold before us. In one entire piece he laid it out, furry side down, and proceeded to salt it from end to end. Once sufficiently covered, he placed both hands upon it, and moved them like irons, pressing salt over every inch of the drying pelt. When he was satisfied, I followed as he tromped down the back stairs to the makeshift clothesline and hung the thing over the line to dry out overnight.

Back inside again Norm took up the remains of the now skinless animal that still lay in a speckling of blood, poked the knife into its anus, and ejected the stool that still lingered there. All that was left to do was wash the meat off, stick it in a bag, and refrigerate the whole thing until morning.

Norm disinfected the entire counter and all his tools. I took the gloves and the guilty rags to the washing machine and once they were all clean, I pinned them to the line beside the already soft and drying pelt of what was once only hours before a strong and vital possum.

JUNE 28, 2001

Before going to bed, at 1:00 0’clock in the morning, I hopped into the shower to scrub off the filth and evidence of what we had done.

In the morning we woke up to the slosh of rain under the passing traffic. Norm and I thought the same thing; that the rain will wash the grass where we left the blood of our deed upon the night ground.

Norm put the possum in the oven and cooked it under a blanket of whole onions for an hour or more. After a short jaunt downtown, the smell of a roasted possum met us at the door upon our return. We cut a piece off to taste. The flavor of the rubbery tendons and tender meat was very mild. I tried not to close my eyes for that would have instigated the memory of a furry animal that I had seen only the day before in various stages from life to death to what I now held in my hands and I did not want to go there.

I added more salt to the drying pelt, pulled off more of the fat and lining that still clung relentlessly to the hide, with a pumice stone, then layered it all one more time with salt yet again before hanging it back up on the line.

My palms were worn smooth after pressing the first layer of salt into every inch of that small pelt. I felt as though I was a part of that animal; as though I was living in its place, as if I had a right to living ‘half’ of the Ms Possum I helped to kill, and was eating, and still preserving, for I smelled like that wild beast as I carried its scent upon my own hands and I sympathized with its death.

When we came home, later in the day, we entered the house with dinner staring us in the face. I pulled the meat off our possum before warming it up.

Possum meat is a light non-gamey tasting meat. I think I would recognize the flavor if I ever had it again. It’s very mild, and discovered that while greasy when handled, it’s not greasy to taste.

In the evening we played a game of squash and on the way home a cat jumped out of a tree and we ran over it. Norm turned back and we watched it die in our headlights, writhing until it was still. I thought about the possum in me and how everything smelled like possum, and I wanted to throw up.

JULY 2, 2001

I took the possum pelt off the line under the house and put it in the backyard sun to dry. I placed a table and a chair on either side so neighbors wouldn’t see it. Later, I rubbed more salt into the already leathery hide and then hung it on the line under the house again.

JULY 3, 2001

I put the salted pelt back out to dry some more in the early sun. Salt keeps the ants away that would otherwise climb the clothesline in single file to get to it. Once again I used a table and chair as a fence.

JULY 4, 2001

I put the pelt back out to dry in the sun. When it was dry and stiff we washed the fur with dishwashing detergent, disinfectant, and fabric softener. Then I rinsed it out and wrung it out. Much to my dismay, some of the fur fell off. I hung it back up to dry on the line under the house overnight.

JULY 5, 2001

I hung the still-drying pelt up on the clothesline outside in the sun with the laundry.

JULY 6, 2001

I put the possum pelt in the washing machine with laundry detergent after it filled up with water and agitated a little. I soaked it in there to get the grease off. Then I lay it back out in the sunshine for another day.

JULY 10, 2001

The pelt got washed in the machine again. Then I soaked it in detergent and fabric softener.