Gwen, in Green

* Hugh Zachary died in 2016. All quotes by him are from a 1998 interview with Sherman Hayes, University of North Carolina–Wilmington, Archives and Special Collections, and are used by permission. – W.E.

1

She knew about being ugly and unloved. The knowledge made her a soft touch for four-­legged beggars and created a housing problem in a small development home of two bedrooms, one bath, combination kitchen and dining room, and a small living room. With the house a way-­station for appealing strays, she skimped on grocery money to pay for mange treatments for a cowed mongrel pup and often passed up her own milk to nourish transient tomcats and the house regular, a great, black ex-­tom named Satan. She hoarded every table scrap for the two outside dogs, Sam, a happy, funny part-­Airedale, and Mandy, a doleful part-­hound. In return, all animals loved her immediately, recognizing open, adoring gentleness, and the neighbors laughingly called her Marsha, the Enormous Mother. Although she was childless, her kitchen was open house for kids, with cookies always available on demand. Birds had a permanent feeding station in her back yard. Squirrels spoke to her by first name, barking from the oak trees, and took peanuts from her fingers.

So she was puzzled by the behavior of the ugly animal. His actions, she knew, were quite uncharacteristic.

George and the real estate salesman were ahead of her, pushing through dense second-­growth brush to the bank of the tidal creek. On a by-­path, she was threading her way along what seemed to be an animal trail when she came upon a small clearing where a mossy air plant had taken advantage of the sun to cover the ground. A dead, fallen longleaf pine showed its gray skeleton of resin-­rich dead wood which, when split, burned torchlike and made excellent kindling for a fireplace. From the distant shore, across the wide marsh and the Intracoastal Waterway, heavy equipment growled like distant thunder, the low mumble-­rumble coming and going on the shifting breeze. In the woods around her birds dug in the leaves and made a dry, crackling sound.

An opossum is a housecat-­sized marsupial. What hair it has is dirty, gray, and always seems to be threatening to molt, to leave an even uglier creature, bald, graceless, vaguely repulsive. A needling snout contains a set of fifty sharp, tiny teeth, six more teeth than in the closest competing placental mammal, teeth which gnaw and tear at anything from insects to carrion, teeth which almost never threaten, however, except when shown in a hissing, cringing snarl when the animal is cornered.

“I won’t hurt you, fella,” Gwen said, in the voice she used to cajole squirms of delight from her adopted do­mestic pets.

The small, dirty, gray beast made a zigzagging advance, a few staggering steps ­to the right, a swaying movement to the left. Indirect as the course was, it closed the distance between them. In a sudden hush, she heard the hissing sound, saw saliva drip from the white, dead-­meat mouth, opened wide.

The opossum is considered by many to be the leper of the animal world. Not by Gwen. She knew. She had empathy for any dumb beast.

But was she being menaced by this small, usually timid animal?

Perhaps she had stumbled near the animal’s den and it was driven to unusual bravery to protect its home and its young. She looked around for a hollow tree, saw only low-­growing brush and runted oaks. The area had been burned over not too many years past. Here and there a fallen log told of once proud, huge trees, but the new growth was young, weedy, dusty hot in the sun.

With awkward movements the opossum came closer, hissing wildly now, glaring at her with small, dull eyes. She backed off a few steps, saying softly, “All right, it’s your turf, guy. I’m leaving.”

To fend off a foolish, vague sense of threat, she laughed.

Brush closed around her as she left the clearing. The heat of the August afternoon seemed suddenly oppressive. Sweat beaded on her neck, ran down to dampen her blouse. George and the real estate man were out of hearing. She felt very much alone and very much ashamed to be frightened by a small, harmless animal, but a noise behind her caused her head to jerk around, sent a stiffening through her body. She turned casually and began to walk back along the twisting animal trail. The opossum began a lumbering run, overtaking her rapidly.