I was a weird kid. Well, I guess everything started out pretty normal. Like most kids, I was drawn to wild places, even if they were no further than my backyard.

I lived for the days when my dad would bring me to”the woods” – hiking in state parks, exploring waterfalls, or exploring in the tangled mess of overgrown tobacco fields and scattered turf plots at the end of my road that we called the turf farm. Located in a dead zone in the center of the suburban sprawl outside of Springfield, Massachusetts, it was constantly encroached upon by new housing developments. It was my sanctuary, and where I really grew up.

I began my own adventures here as soon as I was old enough. I’d feel like I was sneaking into a different world when I hopped the guard rail and disappeared into the thick woods. I found an abandoned canoe and spent countless hours floating on the irrigation pond, stalking herons, chasing turtles, normal kid stuff. And then I found the dead raccoon.

He was in the washout from a drainage pipe, the same spot I found my canoe. His hair was matted, and clung in tufts to skin taut over arching rib bones. It was grotesque. I was horrified….and entranced. There was a strange beauty to the reality of it, that I’d been sheltered to for so long. I remembered finding a dead deer, just a few hundred yards from this very spot, with my dad years before. Wounded by a hunter who’s aim was better than his tracking skills, she died alone and was rotting when we found her, still untouched by the coyotes. I remember a similar feeling, a draw, yet was ushered quietly away. There was no one but me and the raccoon now.

So, obviously, I grabbed a kid’s favorite improvised tool – the Poking Stick. I gently brushed hair off in sticky mats, tested the elasticity of the drum-like skin, and made his paws curl up. I felt really sad, like I had some kind of strange connection with this raccoon and I wanted to honor him in some way. My best idea? To bring home his perfect skull, with the tiny sharp teeth and graceful curves. I decided to let a bit more of the brains rot out before bouncing into my house with my treasure to terrify my poor mother. I planned on coming back for it in a week.

I remember riding the school bus home, thinking that today was the day I would visit my little rotting friend. My neighbor Mike, whom I hadn’t spoken much to since stealing his pterodactyl kite years earlier, randomly asked me if I wanted to hang out. I felt a smile twitch across my face as I figured out a way to politely say, “fuck no”. I shrugged and told him he could come with me to retrieve the skull from a rotting raccoon. I still can’t believe he said yes. We’ve been friends ever since.

I still have the skull, dried bleached by the sun after curing to perfection. This small act changed everything. Somehow, I had crossed a line. And I felt pretty damn good about it.

I became more bold. Driving home from church on Easter Sunday, I spotted a roadkilled beaver from the backseat of my parent’s car. Upon arriving to our house, I borrowed my sisters ’91 turquoise Camero and returned to the murder scene, lovingly scooping up his remains, carefully peeling up several feet of entrails that were spilling out of him and drying quickly on the pavement. I’d never skinned or tanned anything before, but I decided that I wouldn’t let his beautiful hide go to waste. I owed it to him to make something beautiful from his senseless death. I felt strange mix of emotions, wonder, sadness, the weight of a huge responsibility. And lets be honest… I was scared shitless.

I grabbed my sister, dragging her into woods for moral support. I carried his body, my dull knife, a pick axe, and a pickle jar. I managed to cut most of his skin off in a ragged chunk, and as my horrified sister watched, removed his brains to use in the tanning process. I remember feeling surprised that I wasn’t grossed out, and how I somehow instinctually knew how to peel the layers of fascia from flesh, leaving most of the meat behind. I covered his naked body with ferns and knew that the coyotes would make use of the rest of him.

And that was that! I took what little information I’d read in books on the process of braintanning and began to experiment, repeatedly spreading brains on the skin side of the hide, stretching and manipulating it until it dried a little softer each time. It wasn’t perfect, but it was beautiful.
I started stopping at every dead animal I found. Some of them were too far gone, and all I could do was move their decaying body off the road so whatever scavengers were feeding wouldn’t end up a secondary casualty.

And it just got crazier from here on out…