Tricker #8 -Homecoming

   So John, in case you didn't know, never let the lack of a driver's license keep him from getting around town.  He was long distance cyclist from way back and patrolled a beat among various convenience stores, sporting goods stores, raspa stands, and most of all pet stores.  He was well known at all these locales and especially the pet stores, as he kept an aquarium, chickens, doves, quail, iguanas, turtles, well ----you get the idea.   One fine day in the spring of the year following the release of Tricker, Ruth received a call from the pet store just south of Lamar School on 10th Street (one of John's favorite hangouts) that someone had a raccoon show up a their house in Edinburg, that seemed very tame(the raccoon, not the house).  They wondered if it was ours.  Apparently the dogs had been giving it a hard time, but they had managed to get it in a cage and had the insight to contact area pet stores.   I can only imagine Ruth's eagerness to retrieve a varmint that she and her lovely home and garden had just began to recover from.  True love for her son prevailed and they took the short trip to the pet store and retrieved the animal.   No one was sure it was Tricker---this animal was much larger, more filled out and a bit beat up from the "dog rassling" but home they went.  All uncertainty was erased when this fat little beat-up raccoon jumped out of the Delta 88 as soon as it his the driveway and ran straight to the screen door and immediately began trying to let itself in.  Thus began a bit of a hiatus, in troubled relations between Tricker and parental forces as they were stuck with a sort of "Incredible Journey" awe,----- yes, a detante of sorts.  Not a hero's welcome, not a prodigal daughter scenario but an uneasy sort of "Wow, now what?"period.  The boy was happy, the coon was happy---what was one to do?