An American Lion

Professor Skeever

A sad day here at the house. A sad day, indeed.

The king is dead. Long live the king.

Professor Skeever, alpha male of my son Byron’s mink habitat, passed away this morning. He was 10. In human years, that means he was at least 90, I believe.

Byron maintains a mink habitat, which means that he keeps the mink in a swimming pool surrounded by enclosures and fake grass (not the cheap stuff, the expensive stuff you can only get at Michael’s, which is an East Coast arts and crafts store). I don’t mind ceding the swimming pool to him, but I do mind the fish smell. Of course, we could clear that up with chlorine, but that would kill everything, including the mink, so we have banned chlorine on the property. The swimming pool is a dingy brown and green color now, but, after two years, why wouldn’t it be? The back yard has never met with the approval of our neighbors or our homeowner’s association, but why would it? Common people have no understanding of how to build a humanely husbanded mink habitat.

If it wasn’t for our money and our ability to avoid answering the phone and opening the mail, we’d be on our way to the nearest hick town without a zoning board. Look, I don’t care how many times the mink have escaped (seven or eight this month so far) and I don’t care how many little brats have been chased and bitten (five since Sunday), these mink are special. They’re a wonderful reminder that rich people should do whatever they want and to hell with the consequences. I’m sorry to be so blunt, but there it is. I make no apologies.

Professor Skeever was just a kit (that’s what you call a baby mink) when he first asserted that he would rule the habitat. He did so by biting several older mink, and then scurrying away. I can appreciate this kind of business—mother once said that I was a biter, a biter of anyone who tried to keep me from doing whatever it was I wanted to do. I felt a kinship with Professor Skeever. Certainly, he nipped at me when I would feed the mink or take him out of the habitat and check him for fleas and worms. We alpha males never mix well with one another.

Professor Skeever kept all of the other mink in line. He kept the kits organized, he kept the females where he could monopolize their intentions, and he tolerated only two other males at any given time. The reality is, if mink don’t like one another, they’ll go crazy biting each other. We have one male that we suspect has a form of mild retardation and one that appears to be a European mink and, thusly, submissive, and willing to let the American mink do everything. Around our house, we yell “Perfesser Skeever’s Got a Jail Break Happening” when things go south. If the toilet backs up, we yell “It’s a Perfesser Skeever!” If the pizza delivery man goes to the abandoned house on our row, we yell “Perfesser Skeever’s using the phone again!” A Professor Skeever jail break happens when he knocks down the enclosure and leads everyone into the field by the elementary school (that’s where the whiny brats can’t run that fast, I’ve noticed).

The male mink that we suspect has a learning disability, Mr. Puddlebuns, is a rather gregarious fellow and won’t bite quite right when you pick him up. He nips more at his own flank than at anyone or anything else. Professor Skeever had a mentoring kind of relationship with Mr. Puddlebuns, always trying to keep him in the water and off the cement block that holds down the enclosure and he always seems to be teaching him how to properly fish in the pool, so that he uses his teeth, not his ear. I don’t know who needs more comforting this afternoon—me, Byron, or Mr. Puddlebuns.

The European mink, Herr Widdlebeans, is subdued but triumphant right now. That son of a bitch knows that Mr. Puddlebuns is no match for him, in terms of asserting dominance over the females in the vicinity. Having three males in an open enclosure has been difficult, to be certain, but there was no way it would have worked if it hadn’t been for the personalities of these three fellows. Think of the Mick Taylor era of the Rolling Stones—a delicate artistic environment where three masters of their own destiny could mesh with the also rans and make some of the sweetest rock and roll (in this case, mink scat) that the world has ever heard (or thrown into the sewer system). The balance of power has shifted. Herr Widdlebeans is on the ascent. The only thing that stands between him and all the mink sex he can have is our wits, and our wits tell us to begin looking for a replacement alpha male to keep this group intact.

Professor Skeever was found in his den, which I had dug for him myself with a small garden shovel when we first arrived here in Maryland (mink do not build anything; they are like white trash, actually—they just live wherever someone else has done all of the work). He was found on his back, clutching his chest, dramatically baring his teeth like a defiant statesman. Byron and I revived him, but he coughed and spluttered and refused to eat. We took him to the veterinarian, but there was not much they could do. The old fellow passed, but not before he bit the girl who was trying to clean up his urine.

How we are ever going to find an alpha male mink who can tolerate a male mink with a learning disability, an unfocused and opportunistic European mink, and seven slatternly females and their various kits, I’ll never know. We called them the Triumvirate for a reason—they brought order to a chaotic world.  It’s a tough time around here. I’ll do what I can to keep blogging, but if we go silent around here, it’s because we can’t cut through the tears and put on a happy face to the world.