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The Alibi offices are in a box canyon with boulders and scrub brush. Chris Johnson has left me a stack of forms to sign; I sign them with colored felt-tip markers that are running out of ink, and I’m frustrated by the appearance of my signature. The forms authorize the construction of sand walls which will turn our office into an open-air market place. I look down the canyon and see Neal Ambrose-Smith working in the production office.

Oh, to be washing some food in a cold brook.

I just got back from Bob’s farm in Minnesota. I have lots of boring stories to share, and this will be the first.

When I visit, I stay in Bob’s Sauna Hütte: a detached building with a sauna, kitchen, bedroom, office and wine cellar, which is pretty cool except it didn’t have any power this time and there was a family of raccoons living in the ceiling. I listened to the raccoon family scurry around above my head all night, and I could hear the babies snarling and fighting with one another. It was all very cute and I didn’t get a wink of sleep. (Or it didn’t feel like I slept. I’m pretty sure I didn’t meet a guy from Dee-Lite at a wedding.)

State’s Exhibit A: Urine Stained Ceiling

I told Bob that he had raccoons in the ceiling.

“Well, Nick,” Bob replied, “I’m sure you heard something, but I’m willing to bet it’s not a raccoon. I suspect there’s a squirrel up there.” Yeah, ok, but that’s a big-ass squirrel and I guess I was the only one who heard the babies growling while we were drinking a bottle of wine the next day.

The Montauk Monster

The last time they had raccoons in the ceiling, Bob said, they discovered it because urine soaked through the ceiling and stank. I call your attention to State’s Exhibit A, inset.

We set a trap, first in the attic and then on the roof. The morning I left, there was a big-ass raccoon in the trap, snarling at us.

A Viking’s Funeral

We drove her to the Red Eye Valley, about 15 miles north and turned her loose. I’m sure she’ll find her way back; raccoons have a homing sense, and can find their way back to a nest from 100 miles away. I’ve understand they can’t breathe under water, though.

Which brings us back to the curious case of the Montauk Monster, a strange cryptid that washed up on a beach, then turned out to be a burned and decomposing raccoon. Finally, this case has been solved. Some dudes found a dead raccoon and decided to give him a Viking’s Funeral. They set him out to sea on a burning raft, and the rest is history.