I’ll be honest with you now—I’ve always been a night owl. Always have been. If I got up at 9 in the morning, I find the day’s too long, because there’s not much I can do to fill the day in. For me, it’s off to bed early in the a.m., sometimes sun’s already coming up. Just me, the foxes, and the empty streets. Those hours—when the lights go out in the windows down the block till when the sky starts to lighten—those feel most natural to me.
As you may have guessed, going to sleep so late and all, I’m usually not up and running till round noon. I’m well aware that some people may misunderstand this and think I’m lazy, think I’m wasting the day. But to them I’d say, you’re wasting the night. No reason everyone has to stick to the same old tired schedule. Someone’s gotta do the night shift.
Anyways, the point I’m trying to make is that I’m usually sleeping past noon, and I think it’s perfectly reasonable to expect some peace and quiet till then. So I don’t think my annoyance was at all unwarranted when I was jolted awake at nine that morning. Don’t get people coming round often, so I thought the noise was in my head at first, a leftover of some forgotten dream. But after a brief pause, the knocks returned with more impatient force, and I groaned.
You should know that the blinds in my room are always shut, so its pitch black no matter the time of day. Only way I can manage to sleep past sunrise. Always hated alarm clocks, always have—never understood why someone would choose to submit themselves to such a racket every morning. Figure it’s healthiest this way, letting my body decide when it’s time to get up. Of course—as I’m submerged in total darkness without a clock—it’s nearly impossible to tell the time until I’m out of the room. That being said, that morning, judging by the foggy state of my head and the dryness of my eyes, I could tell I’d only caught a few hours of shut-eye at most.
I didn’t bother throwing on a shirt and dragged myself, bare-chested with pajama trousers, past the kitchen and up to the front door. I took in a deep gulp of air, steeling myself for the encounter, before finally unclasping the hatch and opening the door.
It was one of those early autumn days when the sky is a gray slab of clouds but you’re still feeling yourself squint away the sunlight, and it took my eyes a few seconds to adjust. The man who’d disturbed my sleep was surveying my front yard with a vague look of disapproval. When he caught sight of me, he turned to me abruptly, as if he’d been in the act of some private crime. I recognized him as a neighbor but wasn’t sure which house he belonged to. His face seemed anxious, almost like he’d been hoping I wouldn’t show.
“What d’you want,” I asked with more of an edge than I’d intended.
The man avoided my eyes and cleared his throat. “Well the wife’s been yammering ‘bout the garden. Saying those foxes been digging it up in the cover of night, the little devils.” He gave a small chuckle as if we were sharing in a private man-to-man joke. “Just thought-“
“What’s that got to do with me?”
“It’s just that, well, everyone knows that you feed ‘em, keep them coming round. You know, make ‘em dependent.”
I had a hard time concealing my distaste when I said: “those foxes have just as much a right to be here as you and me. More of a right in fact. So it’s about time you get used to them.”
By the time the man had thought up a response, I had shut the door and locked it, feeling like I was unquestionably in the right. Wasn’t till hours later that some doubts began to creep in.
Fact is, this wasn’t the first time a neighbor ambushed me regarding my treatment of the wildlife. 43 years. That’s how long I’ve been living in North Barnet, gainfully employed, paying my taxes. Used to be people would mind their own business. I mean, they’d say “you okay?” while walking the dogs and you’d exchange pleasantries at church but nobody was nosing round your property, taking the liberty of harassing you before breakfast. These days—the younger folks—they’ll pretend they care, they’ll put up a chicken coop in the garden, convince themselves they’re farmer Joe up in the country, then get all “I can’t believe the foxes took my poor rooster Betty,” rather than admitting that they forgot to fence their chickens in, or what have you. Next thing you know, they’re at your door, blaming your for their negligence.
First time had nothing to do with the foxes. Probably over a decade ago at this point, before I had the bum leg. Back then I could spend hours after work roaming the streets. All I’d need was a pair of binoculars and a keen sense of hearing to keep myself occupied. You’d see auburn flashes in the trees and bushes, the birds teasing you with their whistling and chirruping and clucking, and before too long you’re winding through the back-roads, hot on the trail of some robins. The winter would be chock-full of magpies, blackbirds, sparrows, crows. But the real treat came in the spring. With the emergence of the sun and the flower buds—if you knew where to look—came the reds and yellows of the goldfinches, high up in the treetops, building their nests, foraging for their young. Sometimes, if you got real lucky, in the twilight hours you’d see massive shifting plumes of starlings making their way toward the horizon.
These expeditions often kept up long after sunset. I’d spent a killing on these military-grade night-goggles that I’d found at a yard sale, and once the last traces of sunlight had left the sky, I’d reach into my rucksack, and swap the binoculars for the goggles. From then on out, it was all owls and bats and foxes and hedgehogs and badgers. The night may seem still and empty to you, but if you’ve got the right equipment, the right senses, you’ll soon see that it’s just as alive as the day. Sometimes I’d get so absorbed in that green-and-black world of night vision, that I’d skip supper altogether.
Anyways, after bout a month of this, a cop shows up at my door. Before I can offer him a cuppa, the cop’s notifying me that some neighbors filed a complaint, said they saw me creeping round their houses late at night, peering in. Didn’t know if I was some kind of lech. Said they felt their kids were unsafe. Said I was encroaching or trespassing or whatever near the bedroom windows. Who knows, maybe I did step onto their lawns every now and then to get a better look at an owl that had caught my attention. Not exactly manslaughter is it? Cleared it all up with the officer, told him I’d been bird watching, but the whole affair left a sour taste in my mouth.
After that, I retired my nighttime strolls. Didn’t mean I had to stop interacting with the wildlife altogether though. That’s when I started feeding the foxes. Mind you, I doubt I was the first one to feed them. It’s the natural thing to do when you see them skulking around, scrambling about in the bins, and I’m sure plenty round these parts had already taken them in, so to speak. But that’s not how the neighbors saw it. One tosser after another, trying to talk me out of it. Your foxes are tearing up my garden Nobby, your foxes are making noise when I’m trying to sleep. Threatening to call the counsel. Was one particularly dreary old bat who warned me that her niece married a man who happened to be chums with an investigative reporter at the Daily Telegraph. If I didn’t stop feeding the “miscreants”—yes she actually used that word—this instant, she’d be going to the press, and that would be the end of me and my foxes.
I’m telling you all of this so you understand that by that morning, I had been nearing the breaking point for some time. That’s the reason I may have been short-tempered with the man at the door, even though his appeal was on the tamer side of those that I’d recently fended off.
I don’t feel guilty often. Not the type to ruminate on and on. When I can keep to myself and do what I want to do, there’s no one around to say hey you shoulda said this or you shoulda done that. It’s my version of domestic bliss. Ever since I was a kid, I couldn’t really tell what people expected of me. Seemed like every interaction with a classmate posed dozens of questions about how to respond, which role to play. And I knew there must be a solution, if I could just work it out, then I’d say the right thing and everyone would be happy. But more often than not, it would end in angry fits or awkward silences. At a certain point I stopped caring. It is what it is, as my dad used to say. Less I cared, the more people avoided me and the happier I was. Domestic bliss.
When the thought hit me—in my mum’s voice strangely enough—that maybe you shoulda been a bit more patient with that nice man Nobby, the day was already stretching on intolerably. To be fair, late afternoon was fast approaching and my early wake-up had tacked on a number of unwanted hours to the day.
Thankfully, it was only a half hour till the evening feeding session would arrive. What you have to realize is that foxes are just as fussy when it comes to their food as you or me. Course if they’re starved they’ll eat almost anything, but I make sure to keep em well-fed, so naturally they demand only the finest. It’s gotten to the point where I’m spending 2 quid a can for tuna. They especially appreciate the light tuna in olive oil. Don’t know why, but they gobble that stuff up like it’s been days since they’ve caught sight of anything edible. Try to give them the regular cheap tuna or the solid tuna in water and they’ll just sniff it and scamper away, as if they’ve got plenty of better options just round the corner. Forget about the cheap Sainsbury’s cat food, that’s just downright demeaning. You gotta go the specialty pet store and hope they’ve got the posh cat and dog food in stock, or the foxes’ll move on to the next house. I’ve heard that Ron and Kathleen down the block give them leftover steak and salt beef and the like. That’s the type of service I’m struggling to compete with.
My kitchen is probably not tidy by most folk’s standards, but to me everything is exactly where it should be. Most times the dishes are stacked up to the brim of the sink, sometimes spilling over onto the counter. Never saw the point in constantly cleaning and cleaning—wait till it needs to be done, then do it—that’s my motto. When I run out of dishes, I’ll clean what’s in the sink and, voila, I’m set for the next week. Also have the tendency to keep shopping bags and odd items like can openers, scissors, duct tape, you name it, scattered cross the counter. Course there’s a method to this madness. Find it makes everything I need more accessible. Take the tuna, for example. Rather than hunting for the correct cupboard, reaching behind the baked beans, and so on, I can simply grab it from the shopping bag and be on my way.
Once the supplies were gathered up—three opened cans stacked on top of one another, to be exact—I began my nightly feeding routine. Was a bit after six, and the sun had already settled below the jagged line of rooftops. The day had cleared substantially since morning, and the moon was bright, even in the peak of the twilight glow. I carefully squatted while balancing the stack of cans in my left hand, my right hand clenching the railing for support—and dumped the tuna, dog food, and cat food onto the front steps, placing the empty cans off to the side. Then, still kneeling, I clanked the empty cans with the end of a fork I had fished out my trouser pocket. “Mrs. Fox, do you want your dinner?” I said, in my best impression of a Victorian houselady. I gave the cans one more rattle for good measure. Time to tango.
I find if you talk to the foxes, approach them as equals, friends even, they’ll respond quite well. Otherwise they’ll be skittish and, before you know it, they’re likely to be dining on Ron and Kathleen’s leftover ribeye steak instead of your treats. Anyways, things were pretty slow that night. Only had two or three foxes saunter by in the next hour or so. Nothing you can do really, it’s up to the foxes in the end of the day, and if they decide to take a break that night, you just gotta grin and bear it. Course, the night was still young, and I was sure more foxes would show eventually.
I’d gone back in to take a piss when I first heard the noise. It sounded like a mixture of rummaging and footfalls coming from near the shed. At first, I was sure I had imagined it, but the same scraping and scampering sounds resurfaced a few seconds later. I quickly flushed the toilet and made my way toward the back of the house. The noise had grown louder and more frequent. There was something measured and routine about the footfalls and something desperate, almost frantic, about the rummaging. An image sprang to my mind of the man who had woken me that morning spraying the garden with pesticides. It was then I knew. The neighbors were meddling. This conviction tumbled over me like an avalanche and sent me stamping furiously through the backdoor.
What I saw next confirmed my most cynical suspicions. Smack in the middle of my back garden, illuminated only by the moonlight, a small fox was suspended by the scruff of its neck from a middle-aged man’s grubby right paw. The poor fox’s body was strangely still underneath its matted chestnut coat. Its triangle ears stood erect and its puffy tail laid helplessly limp. In what appeared to be a gesture of submission, its legs curled up towards me. A sickly smell filled the air, leading me to believe that the fox had pissed itself when the man had trapped and abducted it.
Now, I hate to say this, but my memory always seems to go a little hazy at this point. I’m told that what happened next was outrageous, even for you Nobby. Every time the man recounted the story later on, he said that “I charged at him like a bull.” Course, that seems a little melodramatic to me, seeing as I was quite overweight and nursing a noticeable dragging limp at the time. My guess is that I swayed violently at him, baring more resemblance to a disgruntled man on his way home from the pub than a powerful animal. Either way, the fact is that we ended up engaged in a sort of wresting match over the fox. I was grabbing whatever I could—the paws, the legs, even the white puff at the end of the tail—and the man was pulling from the skin round the nape of the neck, shoulders, and back. Needless to say, the fox was squealing throughout this little tousle, probably afraid that we were gearing to tear it straight in half.
Eventually the man pulled the fox free, stumbled backwards with the unexpected shift in momentum, and shouted between heavy breaths, “The hell is wrong with you!” The fox’s trembling had become so intense that an untrained eye could’ve mistaken it for a miniature seizure, and it soon demanded the man’s full attention. “Shh, Shh, it’s okay” the man crooned, almost cradling the feeble thing. The fox securely in his arms, the man stepped gingerly to the front of the yard, where a small black cage rested on the ground. I was surprised I hadn’t noticed it earlier. In one swift maneuver, the fox was nudged into the cage, and swallowed underneath a thick blue tarp.
I don’t get much exercise these days, so it took me a good minute to catch my breath and orientate myself to the unfolding situation. Finally I said—and I may have shouted the question, as I hadn’t followed the man to the cage after the altercation and remained a good distance from him—“What’re you doing with my foxes?” The question came out as an accusation and when the man turned to answer, anyone could tell that he was on his last tether. For a second, he looked on the verge of bursting with rage, but then something came over him and his face softened. “Didn’t you call me here?” he asked, suddenly confused.
“I did no such thing. Must have been the damn neighbors.”
“Well whatever the case, it’s a good thing someone had the sense to give us a call. This fox is in a bad way.” He removed the tarp from the cage to reveal the fox, who had balled itself up in the back corner, its tail wrapped around its side. “Little guy’s suffering from a pretty nasty mange mite infestation. He’ll need medical attention for a few weeks at least.” It was only then that I noticed the shoddy state of the animal’s fur. The coat was ratty and patchy, ridden with scabs and lesions.
“So why’d you cover him up with that tarp?” I asked. The action had seemed plenty suspicious, if not outright criminal.
“They like the dark. Takes them a while to settle down, but eventually they’ll get comfortable while we transport them to the vet. It’s all we can really do to alleviate the stress.” The man talked matter-of-factly about the foxes and their habits.
As you may have guessed my thoughts were pretty muddled at this point, and I wasn’t really sure how to react. On the one hand, the man was purportedly helping the fox, but on the other, he had almost definitely been rung in by the neighbors and was whisking my fox away at odd hours. For all I knew, he was planning to put the fox to sleep.
Anyways, by the time I had a chance to chip in with my two cents, the cage had already been covered up again, and the man was hauling it back to the front of the house. I followed him to a large white van emblazoned with a children’s book drawing of a small fox, topped by the words “The Fox Society”. Underneath was a number printed in bold and a message urging passers-by to call anytime if a fox is spotted in distress.
After fastening the cage into the backseat, the man seemed to finally notice that I had been hovering behind him. He pulled a small card out of his wallet and offered it to me. “Call this if you ever want to get in touch or volunteer. We could sure use some more folks who care about the animals to help out.” He stopped to consider his next words. “Our sole mission is to help foxes in need. To give them a second chance at life. We do the best we can.” A few seconds later, the van was gone. The only proof of the strange encounter, the card in my hand.
I spent the rest of that night sitting at the top of my front steps, looking out into the halo of street lights, watching the houses go dark as the neighbors, one after another, turned in for the night. My eyes kept returning to the empty spot where the van had been. I thought about animals. How, as far back as I can remember, I’ve just liked animals. You name it, I’ve had it. Used to collect butterflies and stuff like that. Bird’s eggs. All my life it’s all I’ve done. And work. I mean, I do the lottery occasionally and if I ever won millions, I’d just buy as much land as I could and put a big fence around it and turn it into a nature reserve and kick everybody out.
These thoughts chased their tails in my head for a while. Eventually all the houses had been put to sleep, and the only remaining sounds were the hum of the streetlights, the odd hoot of an owl, the drone of crickets, and the shadowy scurrying of small mammals and rodents. I reached into my pocket and found the man’s business card underneath some coins. There was a bite to the air now and I could see the skin of my hand drying up. Didn’t much mind the chill though, even though I was only wearing a vest and khakis.
There was a feeling in my gut—like I’d been holding my breath too long—but I couldn’t quite put a finger on why. With the help of the streetlights, I could just about make out the writing on the card. The name, Edward Mccarthur, was scrolled above the number, with the title, Head Volunteer for the Fox Society. As a breeze fluttered the corners of the card, a thought came to me that I couldn’t quite shake. Or maybe it was more of a feeling than a thought—the conviction that fate had had a hand in bringing this card to me. That the number printed on it was not simply a number, but a door, and if I could just make my way through that door, there would be a whole different sort of life waiting for me on the other side. But with the next breeze, the feeling receded. Why invite a needless hassle?
I carefully wrenched myself up by the railing, ignoring the groans of my knees and hips. The man’s words from earlier echoed in my head. “Our sole mission is to help foxes in need,” he had said. “To give them a second chance at life.” With a heavy sigh, I returned the card to my trouser pocket. I’ll have plenty of time to decide tomorrow.
Jeremy Koloski 