“Heh – I’m just this little kid, maybe around 10 years old, and maybe it’s, like, the early 1980s, and I’m stuck down here in the New Jersey Pine Barrens, where my parents forced me to go to this real sissy, faggy summer camp, some stupid place called Camp Pine-Away, where we live in barracks and sing stupid songs and make stupid art, and wear these stupid camp t-shirts that make us all look the same, but learn nothing practical about real life and killing and survival – heh…
“It’s not even the Boy Scouts, or anything like that, and I kept yelling at Pop, telling him he was really cheap, even though he’s a doctor, because I wanted to go to a Ukrainian Nationalist scout camp, up in the New York Catskills, and learn real Ukrainian Cossack sword-fighting skills, and he says to me, ‘Son, it’s not that, but a lot of those Ukrainian and Polish patients back home owe me money, because they’re poor, or something, and a lot of times I just let them go without paying…’, and I answer him, like: ‘Yeah, some doctor!’
“I hear people in Church say he’s a Jew, but that’s just a lie and a nasty rumor, but it makes me really mad – maybe they’re jealous – heh. I speak Ukrainian!
“So, at this camp, they demerited me for something, whatever that means, and wouldn’t let me eat lunch, so I got really sick of the whole stupid thing, because, like, who gives a shit, and I ran away! Heh… heh…
“Turns out the camp is just a few hundred yards away from where my parents have their summer bungalow, which is just outside this small town I don’t even know the name of, but who cares, and it’s got like this little corner store where you can get potato chips and candy and soda, and different little tops, penknives, magnets, other cool little toys and Hot Wheels cars I can paint different colors if I want, and compasses, and other things, too, heh, and there are some pretty nice houses, though not that many, with people and cars and pickup trucks, and a sheriff and a few other things – but not that much.
“But it’s still better than being stuck in Camp Pine-Away, heh. At least I get to do what I want!
“My parents were really upset to see me, but I yelled at them and beat up my little brother bad, and told my sister, who’s pretty hot (because I’m beginning to really understand about these things), that she’s a whore and was just asking to get raped by Russians in the Soviet Union when we all go on a trip there that we’re not supposed to know about yet.
“And I yelled at my parents even more, especially Pop, because I told him I wanted to go to a real Ukrainian Nationalist scout camp, up in the New York Catskills, but he wouldn’t let me, because he was too cheap, where they give you real hunting knives so you can go into the woods and kill animals and bring them back and throw them on a fire at night, but he wouldn’t listen, and just went into the kitchen and made himself a liverwurst sandwich.
“The Ukrainian kids back home, like in Church and Saturday Ukrainian School, told me that at this camp they have like these competitions – you break up into teams and make Cossack regiment banners based on pictures in Ukrainian books and carve your own flagpoles from wood and then you play wargames, like ‘Catch the Moskal’ [Ed. Note: Muscovite, Russian], or maybe ‘Polack’, or ‘Jew’, heh-heh, and then you think up the best ways to torture and kill them, without even giving them a fair trial, because of all the crimes they did to Ukraine – imagine – heh! And the best teams win and get prizes! Like, dude! Shit! Like, really, really cool! All these things you can learn that will serve you for a lifetime, plus, you can make friends and have lots of fun, too!
“Anyway, I got so upset, I ran out, into the woods, heh, not that far from our little bungalow, and there’s this trail and it goes down to a pond, and I just wanted to sit there on a rock, or something, and skip stones and just be by myself and left alone, when, before I even make it all the way to the pond, I see this guy, who’s one of our neighbors here and lives in another bungalow, like two houses down – see him every year – and he’s a real jerk I hate him, carries a hunting rifle all the time and everyone tells him it’s dangerous and not to do it, especially with little kids everywhere, and he only says, he’s got a right, heh, but I don’t think so, and he’s got this black dog, who likes me, but I don’t like it coming up and sniffing me every time, know what I mean, stupid dog, barks all the time, but overall, like, okay, I even pet him sometimes, and they’re both coming down the hill along the trail up on the other side of the pond, kind of opposite where I am, and…”
… the dog starts barking, feverishly and somewhat beyond its usual lack of control, on top of which, it suddenly launches into a mad-dog dash around the pond, crashing through branches and brush toward the Boychild Ferret, who freezes in place on the trail, thinking the dog does not recognize him and is about to attack. The dog’s master, Carl, does not yet see the Boychild, nor what his dog is really bounding after.
“Sparky, Sparky – you better stop now, Sparky-boy, or you ain’t get no damn kibbles in gravy tonight! I’ll kick your damn ass, dog!”
But Sparky heeds not the call of his master’s voice, tearing ever forward, ears flapping back, eager tongue flopping and slobbering out, through the muggy, pond-watery air.
To his great relief, the Boychild relaxes, as he now sees what the dog sees – and what the dog, stupidly, wants…
For there, crouching right before the Boychild, just some yards away at the edge of the pond, a fluffy, quiet, and apparently well-mannered raccoon is rinsing its opportunistic forepaws… No! Wait! Amazing! The masked creature is actually diligently pulling apart and cleaning a meal of crayfish it has decided to bring to the pond from nearby Broken-Bone Creek; a place where it could have easily remained to enjoy the sating savor of its catch – almost as if to entertain the Boychild Ferret himself, the latter thinks.
And here is the dog, now almost behind the raccoon, about to lunge, his master still hollering at it, futile the strained effort of Carl’s Southern Jersey hick throat – wasted upon his dumb and undisciplined canine beast; all his own fault, really, he is momentarily reluctant to admit. Yet, Carl has not moved forward to bring the dog to heel, hoping, being lazy, that Sparky would end his precipitate nonsense, and just as quickly snap to and rejoin his master back along the path.
Does the raccoon not know, not hear, that the dog is yapping hysterically behind him – ready to pounce, to kill? Well, yes, heh, how could he not know, how could he not hear? Of course he hears! But then why so calm, so seemingly unperturbed and nonchalant, so sans souci and nonplussed?
But the raccoon spins around! The Boychild does not really even register the pivot and motion. It opens its little mouth and bares its sharp little teeth at the dog, growling and hissing, and then is somehow upon the stupid dog, so suddenly, the move is again practically imperceptible, and grabs hold of the mutt’s collar with both its paws.
The dog is shocked, puts on a brave jowl, and tries to bark valiantly all at the same time, but the moment of the raccoon’s ascendancy and savage grip and strength break the dog instantly into a black-haired sack of pissing, shitting cowardice and whimpering distress.
Fearful, upset, Carl pitches forward toward his angst in a worried and lumbering kind of overweight clodhopping, without yet seeing the configuration of creatures on the pond’s other side.
Meanwhile, the Boychild is transfixed, almost as if in reverent awe of the raccoon, who, with little mouth open, digging in hind claws, is systematically and quickly pulling and dragging the hapless dog into the pond; and now the dog, helpless and shocked out of its senses, is forced to silently depart from the stupid, goofy dog world he’d so loved, through horrific drowning. The raccoon is entirely in the water, fiercely pulling the collar, and the whole damn dog, down – down, down, and under; where he is keeping him, and now the dog’s hind legs kick and flail up, and now the bubbles come up out of his mouth.
And now the horrified man Carl is upon the scene, catching the tail end, as it were, of the gruesome and calamitous sight, and seeing the man raise his rifle in a desperate frenzy to shoot the raccoon, who appears so absorbed in his murderous act that this time he truly is unaware of the man, the Boychild Ferret raises his arms and waves them frantically at the racoon, shouting, “Hey… hey… HEY!!! Heh-heh-heh…”
A shot rings out, into the water, and then another one… and then a third. But thanks to the Ferret’s timely warning, the raccoon had let go the dog, dove under, and swam away – unseen…
The man wades into the water to retrieve his drowned dog. The Boychild Ferret runs away…
Filed by Saint Stephan, August 16, 2025