"Barnaby?" I repeated after him. "That doesn't really sound like much of a name for a raccoon." He didn't look it, at least. This one was out on the road, on his own under the sun. He stared high up at me and murmured.
I thought about this video I had seen, of some man on a motorcycle stopping to carry a two-toed sloth that was crossing, and crossing, the road somewhere in Costa Rica. He took hold of its shoulders and when the sloth was lifted from the ground, all of its four legs stuck out straight and stiff until it was set back down again, safe on the other side.
This one came towards me now when I approached, surprising me. I had to scoop it up under its warm belly. But its fur was not soft as it looked, and its sharp toes tried to push off my light grasp. At first I put it back on the side of the road it seemed to have come from, but in the tall, thick grass of the ditch that must have offered no orientation. So I placed it further out, at the edge of the forest for distinction.
Once I returned home I told my father about it, and he recommended I had not touched it. They are night time animals, and to see them out in the open like that during the day could very well mean it has rabies. Looking down at the remote control I held in my hand, my mother furrowed and said, "I sure hope you washed your hands."
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