Several years ago, just after Christmas, I was grocery shopping at my neighborhood Kroger when I saw a flowering red amaryllis plant. It was marked down to just a few dollars so I bought it, bedraggled blooms and all. Ever since, it has blossomed every other spring or so, rewarding me with three vibrant red flowers that last about ten days before they fall away and the plant, once again, goes dormant. All I have done for it is trim its dried leaves back and water it every several days or so. And each spring I am surprised when its flowers appear, feeling blessed to have such a beautiful, undemanding plant.
You might imagine my surprise one morning a couple years ago, when I came to the front room of my apartment and saw a squirrel - A SQUIRREL, dammit! - breakfasting on Amaryllis's defenseless bulb! "Hey, you little fucker! How'd you get in here?! What the hell are you doing?" And the squirrel, henceforth referred to as Little Fucker, made a mad dash for the kitchen, where it shape-shifted into something about as thick as a floor tile and escaped underneath the cabinet baseboard.
Of course, I immediately called maintenance who came over with a humane trap, baited with peanut butter, that they put in the cabinet where Little Fucker was last seen. The next morning, as I lay in my bed, I heard scurrying sounds behind the wall. It was Little Fucker, who apparently either kept work hours or was sufficiently aware of human routines to think I had gone to work. I waited ... Sprong! and much squeaking: Little Fucker had been seduced by the peanut butter lure and was hurling itself around the cage, unable to escape. A maintenance man came to take away the cage and the captured squirrel. Ah, over and Amaryllis had
not suffered additional injury.
Two days later, however, I again heard the telltale scurrying sounds inside my bedroom wall. This time I found Little Fucker nibbling on an avocado. "Well, shit!" and again, "Hey! You with the tail!" and Little Fucker scurried for the safety of the kitchen baseboard. The maintenance man came with another trap and, since it had liked my avocado soooo much, I put it in the cage. The next day, the maintenance man and I peered between the green wires of the cage where we saw a small, bright-eyed gray squirrel. This time, I will say, he seemed smaller than he had earlier. Once again, it was taken away to be freed some distance from his territory.
Two days later, scurry-scurry-scurry and, again, I chased Little Fucker through my small living room into the kitchen where he fled to the safety of the walls inside my apartment building. The maintenance men return, just as frustrated as I am. Certain that they had captured not just one, but two squirrels, I had some convincing to do but we again baited a wire cage, put it under the kitchen sink, and waited.
The next morning, as regularly as if he had punched a time clock, Little Fucker reported to my kitchen, lured by the promise of Amaryllis's sweet bulb. And Sprong! waylaid by the temptation of more avocado, the little gray scavenger found himself stuck inside the trap. Maintenance men took him away, to a large field about two miles away before he was freed.
You might think the squirrel was stupid, or so entranced by the promise of Amarylliss's bulb that he became a stalker. The maintenance crew and I discussed it some time later as we tried to figure out how he'd gotten in. That's when I found out one of the men had also captured a squirrel in the apartment above me. We figured it must have been a family of furry thieves; my flower had been assaulted by Little Fuckers I, II, and, maybe, III, each of them a serial nibbler who'd learned of the temping red flower and was determined to try her flesh for themselves, only to be carted away from home in a cage. Amaryllis is still sitting in her vase in the window, none the worse for wear, working to show me a few new blooms over the next week or so. And I get to see golden morning light on her beautiful petals and stem.
