Something had attached itself to my lower right leg in a most unfriendly way and was fully invested in what it found there. I was conscious only of the need to get away from “it” to get “it” off of me. So in that first moment, I flailed and thrashed and cursed, jerking my leg out and away and back again, like a berserk Garo Yepremian, or more accurately, one animal desperately trying to flee another.

It would not come off, would not let me go. And in those second and third and fourth moments, as my brain regained itself, and I became, not an animal after all but a man again, I saw the thing for what it was. A fox. A demented, corybantic, anti-priest of nature whose teeth had plunged into my shin and whose body flagged wildly behind it, pulling on me incessantly, into its domain, across my doorway and onto my own porch to some grisly end neither it nor I dared imagine. The tail (yes, I was regaining my senses), I will never forget - a full on, bushy grey, rabid fox-tail, jerking back and forth lustily. It was a fox. And then, pulsing through the appalling pain, the nauseating fear, came outrage. And realization: I was larger than the fox. And more determined, after all. Alarm gave way to instinct. I became stronger than the fox, more cunning, wilder than the fox. The advantage, in the end, was mine.

I shook him off of me, somehow. He landed with a thud further down the porch, surprised at losing the whip hand. I backed into my living room in a flash and slammed the door shut, locking it, my forehead head drooped against the jamb. But derangement is a powerful motivator; before I could collect my thoughts, the fox righted himself and rammed the door. You heard right. The noxious beast rammed the door, head on, straight I tell you, as God is my witness, into the stained glass door. That locked door being the only thing between the fiend, my leg and my perfectly upright Christmas tree.

To be continued.

==============================

Sometimes, because wisdom ultimately trumps courage, there is honor in retreat. I may not have been brave enough to push open the door and run after the culprit but I was smart enough not to. Besides, I was bleeding.

A closer inspection revealed the fangs had penetrated my trousers and, alas, my skin. I rolled up the pant leg to see two tiny punctures an inch apart in my shin and just enough blood to feel gallant. I cleaned the wound up a bit and, with considerable pluck, raced back up the hall to the living room where my teenage girls, having bolted up the staircase at the sound of my cursing, were at the windows pointing. “Dad! What happened? Look! A fox!”

The fox sat there on the short walkway from the porch to the drive, staring at the door. “Crouched” may be a better word, for as I slowly cracked open the door to snap a quick photograph (to prove my sanity at the eventual telling of this dreadful tale), the thing sprung to its feet, at first rapacious, then smug, and waltzed (entitled at this point) back toward the house.

I slammed the door again. What possessed this thing? What had I done to provoke it? Weren’t foxes preoccupied with hunting mice and evading gun-toting Englishmen on horseback?

I made a quick call to a nurse friend. Yes, I must go to the hospital at once “to be treated.” Treated? Treated for what? For rabies and tetanus and other unspeakable infectious diseases. But it was after eight and couldn’t I go in the morning? No. Wild animals carry all manner of incurable pathosis. No, not in the morning. At once.

Yet, the fox sat there, unmoving, back on its haunches, watching the door. Waiting. Yes, it is possible for a man to feel simultaneously incredulous and sheepish. What folly was this!?

We watched the fox for a time, captives peering through the dining room window. Finally, it slowly began turning circles, as if preparing a place to bury a bone or lie down, before turning like a shot toward my truck and viciously attacking its rear tire, furiously snapping its jaws, biting at the rubber again and again. A burst of brainless futility and it was gone. “Dad!”, the girls shrieked, “It ran next door!” And it had. Across the yard and next door. I looked at them. They looked down at my leg and back at me. “I’ll be back!” I bellowed. “Stay inside!”

And with that, I, a full grown man, flew out of the house and across the porch like a frightened chipmunk, dashing with all my might to the truck. I frantically fumbled with the keys, threw open the door and dove inside, slamming and locking it behind me, my heart pounding in my chest.

I slowly backed out of the drive, saw the girls faces pressed against the window, mouths agape, wiped the sweat from my brow and sped off, away from the house toward the hospital and away from the fox, finally, away.

I later learned they caught and killed the fox, tested it and determined (shock!) it was rabid - a conclusion I could have provided at less cost and considerably less trouble.

“Four rounds of shots over two weeks”, the doctor coolly declared, beginning with five that night “in the wound” - would “effectively prevent the otherwise inevitable itching, twitching, and foaming at the mouth followed by creeping insanity and death.” I heartily agreed and submitted to said treatment, valuing my remaining sanity and wishing to avoid carrying extra napkins in my pocket for my final days.

I gritted my teeth, took the shots and drove home. Things returned to normal. Christmas Day came and went and we were as joyful as ever. No further consequence came of the bite. All that is left in the end, is this story, the photograph certifying its credibility and piles of fox-themed gifts from well-wishers: trifles and trinkets, saucers and socks, plushes, libations, ornaments, and frocks, all of which I will treasure every Christmas to come and with every re-telling in between.

The end.