The Standoff

Note: This was a homework assignment for my “Introduction to Writing Fiction” class. The goal was to describe a conflict between two people, build it up, and resolve it.

Albert Schnagelbocker lived a simple life and for the most part, a happy one. His house was small with a big yard with a big pond and with many trees. He worked for the county highway department and spent most of his days traveling county roads that ran between farms and forests and over the small hills of his rural county in his big white truck. He stopped as needed to clear some weeds, trim a tree, or dig out a clogged drainage ditch. Albert liked to be in nature, he never felt comfortable around people, and he found great pleasure in small things.

One of his favorite small things to do was to sit in his favorite chair on his back porch and eat half a sandwich and watch and listen to the way the wind rustled the leaves and the different noises the birds and insects and other local critters made in his yard as the day ended. On work days,  he would stop at Nancy’s sandwich shop and get a foot long that she would make special for him. Each day she chose the ingredients and wrapped each half separately. One for lunch. One for dinner. He never knew what he would get until he took a bite.

On this day, the day of the standoff, Nancy outdid herself.

At noon, Albert stopped what he was doing and took his lunch break and he ate the first half of the sandwich with a cold bottle of root beer. It was egg salad, which was not anything new. But Nancy had added extra pickle and some spice Albert didn’t recognize. It was wonderful and he finished his half-hour break with a big smile and a satisfied feeling.

That afternoon, he had a whole quarter mile of weeds to clear out. While he swept his big, industrial weed wacker back and forth and slowly marched downhill, he kept thinking about how good that sandwich would taste for dinner on his back porch. He thought of it safely in his cooler with that pickle juice making its way into the bread, turning it soft and filling it with flavor. It was just getting better.

After he got home, Albert started on his chores. He hosed a day’s worth of mud and grime off his truck, took a shower, started the laundry, and finished some repairs to the roof of the small shed he kept his yard tools in. While doing these simple tasks, he kept thinking about that sandwich sitting in the cooler on his back porch. It was just getting better.

Once he was done with everything he needed to do and a quick shower, Albert headed for the porch. The frogs were starting to make their racket around the pond and the sky was that deep dark blue that only a few of the brighter stars could peek through. The wind was just strong enough to rustle the leaves in the trees.

Albert took a deep breath and thought, “The perfect night for the perfect sandwich.”

Then he heard the scratching. Turning towards the cooler, he saw tiny black claws grasping the top. The simple, rectangular red and white plastic cooler with IGLOO printed across the side was moving slowly towards him.

He clapped his hands together and yelled, “GIT!”

The scratching stopped, and a small black nose and then a furry masked face appeared over the top of the cooler.

Albert lifted his right foot and brought it down on the porch’s wooden planks as hard as he could and shouted again.

“I said GIT! That is my sandwich and I’ve been waiting all afternoon to have it for my dinner.”

The raccoon didn’t move. It just looked at Albert, twitching the tip of its nose back and forth.

Taking a step towards the cooler, Albert clapped his hands over and over again, trying to get a reaction.

Startled by Albert’s sudden movement, the raccoon pushed the cooler over, knocking the lid off. Albert’s bottle of root beer rolled out, followed by his sandwich, which was tightly wrapped into a cylinder with white paper. Albert and the furry bandit both turned their heads as the sandwich and bottle rolled slowly across the wood planks. The sandwich stopped almost exactly halfway between the two of them, and the bottle rolled a few feet closer to Albert.

The raccoon sat back on its haunches and pulled back its lips, showing long, sharp canine teeth backed by rows of glistening white incisors. Instinctively, Albert stood as tall as he could, extended his arms out to either side and showed his own teeth.

He growled, “That is my sandwich, not yours. I’m not afraid of fighting you for it.”

Albert took a step towards the sandwich. The raccoon lowered itself onto its front legs and continued to show its teeth. Albert watched, weighing his options on how to get to the white package before his twilight visitor.

While Albert considered different plans of attack, the raccoon darted forward. Albert responded by stamping his foot and yelling “No!” as loud as he could. The masked bandit stopped, about a foot closer to the sandwich than Albert was.

At only five and a half feet tall, Albert was not a big man. He thought of himself as quick, but not when compared to his fur-covered adversary. He knew the only way he would end up with that egg salad sandwich was to outwit this raccoon.

They both stared at each other. Albert imagined the raccoon was working on its own plan. He risked taking his eyes off his opponent for a split second to look around the patio for some advantage. Then, he saw the brown bottle less than a step away.

 He locked eyes with the raccoon again and said, “I’ve got more root beer, you furry bastard. I can afford to lose this one.”

Albert slowly pulled his right leg back. He knew he only had one shot. He took his time to gauge the distance he would have to send the bottle. The raccoon watched silently, only its nose moving.

Albert shouted, “I said GIT!” and kicked the bottle toward the raccoon. When he made contact, it raised a few inches off the porch surface and headed straight for the raccoon’s head.

Or rather, where the head was when he kicked. In the blink of an eye, the furry critter darted to the left, out of the bottle’s path. It then launched through the air towards the sandwich. Albert lunged forward himself, ready to kick the raccoon the same way he had launched the bottle.

In a feat of acrobatic coordination, the raccoon landed on the sandwich, grabbed it with both paws, and then rolled head over tail under Albert’s swinging foot. Albert tried to stop his kick and turn to face the bandit, but he had too much momentum. He fell backward and landed with a loud thud.

Albert lay on his back and looked up at the underside of his porch cover for a long minute. He listened to the frogs and the wind in the trees. He also heard the raccoon removing the paper wrapping. He thought about the battle and imagined different tactics and different outcomes.

After a particularly strong breeze rustled its way through the trees, Albert stood up and walked over to his favorite chair and sat down. The chair where he had planned to eat that wonderful egg salad sandwich. There, in the dim light coming from his kitchen window, he saw the glint of tiny black eyes. The raccoon was sitting on his haunches, victorious, in the middle of Albert’s backyard. The shredded white wrapper scattered around him. Albert could just make out the white, pickle juice softened bread bobbing up and down in the bandit’s claws as it slowly chewed on the sandwich.

Albert felt disappointed for only a few seconds. Then he smiled. The truth was, he had enjoyed that standoff, even if he didn’t win it.

He said to the raccoon, “Isn’t that a great sandwich? Nancy really outdid herself on that one.”

The frogs were getting louder and the wind was picking up a bit. The stars were starting to come out and the owl that lived in the tree at the far corner of his property was hooting into the night.

Albert Schnagelbocker took a deep breath and smiled.

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