This is the first recording I was able to transcribe fully. It seems to be a recording of a radio show, but I can’t tell if this is a recording of the actual broadcast, or if this was recorded in the studio, maybe for later release. I also haven’t found anything online about an oasis (085IS) radio station so it may be a pirate station. If anyone has any ideas let me know!
[start of recording]
Good night, and welcome to Oasis radio. I am your host and fellow night owl [unintelligible], here as always to fill the night waves with tall tales and musings. Tonight, I’d like to offer to the void a segment I recorded earlier this week, after I was shaken awake by some goings on.
I woke up right where I had fallen asleep, a few feet from where I sit now, hunched over the swing-down table in the middle of the RV. I do some of my best writing there, and a decent amount of my sleeping.
There was a crash from outside, the crunchy sound of something dragging on the ground, unmistakable if you’ve ever lived in the suburbs. It was the sound of an animal digging through the trash. Annoying, of course, if you imagine only the mess you’ll need to clean up. Unsettling, if you can’t say with confidence which animal it is.
My heart felt like it was trying to escape my chest. Familiar to anyone who has post-traumatic stress is the blending of dream and reality right before your subconscious forces you awake to face the external, almost as if it’s trying to ease the transition. This wasn’t fear so much as a massive bolt of adrenaline injected straight into my spine.
I had no advantage discerning the visitor; from my hermitage only slivers of desert landscape could be viewed. There were plenty of potential culprits, raccoons, foxes, stray dogs, cats, opossums, skunks, all divers if the opportunity arose. Even the odd bear or two might wander down from the mountain forests when times were tough, knowing they could always get fat off our trash.
But as I ran through my list of candidates a screech cut through the air, and I was afraid. My first thought, and the last thing I wanted to encounter out here in the perimeter, was another person. I believed I had driven far enough down one of the old roads to stay lonely, but belief protects you from reality. I had done enough dumpster diving to know anyone brave enough to steal trash and make that much noise was trouble, and this one sounded injured, or mad, or both.
I quietly slid out from the bench and crept toward the door. I moved slow to dodge crumpled papers and empty cans scattered on the floor. The irony being had I cleaned up in here last night there’d be even more crap being tossed around outside. I flipped on a tape recorder as I passed my radio equipment. As if on que the screech rose up, and became a chorus of cackles and yips. I stood straight up, grabbed the door handle and shoved, now knowing exactly what was waiting for me.
[recording of screeching begins to play]
Three brush wolves danced around the nearby overturned trash can, nipping each other and scattering my garbage into the creosote. I looked at my watch, it was just south of noon, they must have stopped in for an early lunch. Most people wouldn’t know this, but coyotes are actually diurnal. The prevailing image of the pack howling at the moon is no fabrication, but they only fully commit to the nocturnal lifestyle when forced to live close to people. In that way we had something in common.
I watched them for about a minute before one of the jackals made eye contact with me. Instantly the others quieted down, though I wasn’t fooled, they knew I was there the whole time. They weren’t afraid, perhaps mildly annoyed at my intrusion. The two on the outskirts turned in unison and slunk off winding between dry bushes and leaving clumps of fur. The leader followed shortly, but tossed a trailing glance back at me as she did. It wasn’t to check if I was following either, it didn’t feel like that anyhow. No, she looked at me as if to say, “we can wait.”
Looking at the trash scattered around my campsite it’s apparent why coyotes have been so hated by the civilized, yet remained for the length of the American experiment a symbol of resilience and freedom. Coyotes have survived in the American southwest for almost four million years. They are older than wolves, and by some estimates humans as well. And yet they don’t seem a pretentious species. They survive because they change. They are iconic because they embody the caricature of the untamed west. Wild, wily, waiting for humanity to wane.
And now that we have, the world is theirs once again. You could feel it even before the fall, the point where what happened next seemed inevitable. There was discord between what we felt, and the indifference of the wild world. Your dog may love you, it may not. But the birds were singing outside my window when the union fell. And after the upheaval, the coyotes were still here, ready to pick clean our carcass.