LL Cool Cal II: "In Her Story, I was Already Dead"
LL Cool Cal Week Continues
Yesterday, I gave you the saga of the fake horse—an equine illusion that somehow made perfect sense in the Coolidge White House.
Today, we turn from phantom hooves to real claws. In 1926, a raccoon named Rebecca arrived from Mississippi. What followed was less “pet ownership” than “hostage situation with photo ops”—and what follows here: “memoir,” history, listory.1
“In Her Story, I Was Already Dead: My Life with Rebecca”
An Excerpt from the Never-Published, Recently Discovered Memoir By Reuben the Raccoon2
by Reuben the Raccoon
I arrived at the White House in chains. I was nothing more than a pet for a pet—but my intended, Rebecca, only collected enemies.
Her name stitched in gold, her scent of damp fur and spoiled fruit drifting down the marble halls. She smiled like a trap.
They told me she’d been spared the carving knife. I soon realized that she just played the long game.
Over the next week, her affections proved conditional. A shared egg. A bath if she was in the mood. My feet, if they smelled just right. But she ruled by her darker appetites.
The lightbulbs she unscrewed were warnings. Every cabinet she pried open was a search for leverage.
I tried to leave quietly. The first time, after just a week at the White House, she dragged me back. The second, I ran into the street, splitting traffic like a state funeral, ready for it to be my own. The horns followed me for blocks. I thought I’d made it out, but they brought me back in.
One night I slipped away for good. No one came after me because, in the end, Rebecca didn’t need me. She only needed a story, and in hers, I was already dead.
About the Author:
Reuben briefly lived at the White House. His family never knew about Rebecca or his memoir until his timely death, after which this manuscript—and a half-eaten cob of corn—was discovered. He once mentioned a brief liaison with a “crazy raccoon in D.C.” to a human colleague, but he refused to discuss it further—partly out of shame, partly out of fear.
The Furriest National Security Problem in American History
In 1926, a box arrived at the White House from Mississippi containing one live raccoon—intended for Thanksgiving dinner. Raccoon meat was a regional delicacy, but Grace Coolidge intervened, named her Rebecca, and elevated her from entré to pet. 3
The reprieve was the start of a national security problem in fur.
