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sunset to eat the bark off my ancient apple tree. Because he was
a slow-moving creature with naturally weak eyesight, you could
follow him across the yard or make him stop dead in his tracks and
lift his needles in defense. I was always afraid my overzealous
dog, Jody, would one day get a mouthful of porcupine quills. It
wouldn't be the first time I'd have to use pliers while a neighbour
held a frightened dog still so I could pluck the painful spikes
from its tongue and cheek.
    Unable to persuade one
belligerent porcupine that he was unwanted on the property, I held
a big green plastic trash can beneath him while he gnawed away at
my once-healthy crab apple tree. A visitor with a broom toppled the
spiky beast from his perch into the garbage can and I quickly
slammed the lid shut. I duct-taped it well and proceeded to drive
him to the wilderness, only to discover halfway there that he had
somehow lifted the lid and freed himself. He scrambled around the
inside of my station wagon as I let out a scream of terror. I
hastily pulled over, opened all the doors by the side of the road
and waited while he clambered from the back to the front seat,
eventually to sit down behind the steering wheel, unwilling to
venture out into the sunlight.
    The engine was still running,
the radio was on. He stood up on his hind legs and sniffed at the
air. Anyone driving by saw me standing on the opposite side of the
road looking over at my car. While the radio played on, a porcupine
sat in the driver's seat, peering above the steering wheel, until
he grew confident enough to climb out the door and head for the
woods.

    I've always envisioned myself
a great defender of wild things. My whole family was like that. My
youngest daughter, Pamela, relocated frogs from dried-up puddles to
lush ponds for survival. My wife spared unwanted spiders from
destruction by collecting them and moving them outside. My older
daughter, Sunyata, retrieved injured sea gulls and pigeons from
parking lots or roadways and we ushered them back to health. And I
have been known to act as crossing guard to reckless mother ducks
with tiny ducklings crossing major highways at rush
hour.
    Certainly we were a family of
tree huggers, animal lovers and environmentally friendly folk right
up to the time of the calamity.

    It was a cold, damp, somewhat
snowy February of 1998. On the thirteenth of that month, the north
winds shook the house, lifted the shingles and made the walls creak
and moan in the usual way. I was asleep with my wife at about five
in the morning when I heard a neighbour's cat screeching beneath
the house. There was hissing and the sound of animals fighting. My
wife and I were awakened by the noise and waiting for the battle to
end when it struck. The smell. The unmistakable overpowering
horrendous stench of skunk.
    Terry noticed it before I did.
I was recovering from a cold and my nose was stuffed up. I couldn't
smell very well and therein was some luck. For me at least. I
rolled over and tried to go back to sleep. I was supposed to leave
for the airport in one hour for a flight to Toronto and I wanted to
be well-rested for a long day ahead.
    But my attempt to drift
towards dreamland was interrupted by an elbow in my ribs. “You
can't go back to sleep,” Terry said. “The smell is
horrible.”
    “But there's nothing I can do.
Whatever happened, happened under the house. I'm not going down
there.”
    “Oh great. And you're going to
fly off to Toronto and leave me with the problem.”
    “I'll take care of it when I
get back,” I said. Which was four days away.
    My wife pinched her nose and
stared at the ceiling.
    Sunyata had stayed at a
friend's house that night and was spared the morning skunk attack.
But not Pamela.
    By 6:30, the smell had reached
her room. I was reawakened by her shouting, “Oh yuck! What is that
smell?” She opened the door to our bedroom and I tried to calmly
explain that there was a skunk under the house.
    “This is disgusting!”