I was walking through our yard after putting the garbage can out at the curb when I noticed a sliver of light along the edge of the crawl space cover under the house.
Ugh.
I had left the light on days earlier when I was down there looking for the cover for a backyard sofa that my girlfriend was giving to a friend who had been visiting.
I jumped down a couple of feet into the well at the entrance to the crawl space. I unlatched the cover and was setting it aside when I noticed a frog at my feet. I lifted it out of the well. When I looked down again, there was a baby bunny sitting just outside the crawl space entrance looking in. It must have gotten stuck in the well, and I hadn’t seen it in the shadows.
I leaned over to grab it, hoping it would stay still. It jumped into the crawl space.
I stuck my head through the opening, and before I could reach out, the bunny hopped off into the darkness. I knew I was in trouble. The crawl space ceiling is 4 feet tall, at best, but much lower where there are HVAC ducts.
My cellphone flashlight did little in the large, black plastic-lined space.
I briefly thought, sorry, bunny, you’re out of luck.
I couldn’t tell my girlfriend, Moira, until I caught the rabbit. She wouldn’t let me sleep knowing it was down there. And if I didn’t find it, I would have to take the secret to my grave.
She would never know, I thought. But I knew I couldn’t just leave it down there to die, even if nobody else knew.
I imagined that if the bunny died down there, it would be like the conclusion of author Edgar Allan Poe’s, “The Tell-Tale Heart.” I would be up in the house and hear that tiny bunny heartbeat growing louder until I went crazy.
So I grudgingly climbed outside to look for something to catch the furry trespasser.
I walked around front and had opened the garage door when I heard a voice in the darkness. “Hey, Kevin.”
It was my brother, John, who had been walking his dog past my house. He lives a few doors away.
I told him about the bunny. I said I was going back down to look for it.
“If I don’t show up for a couple of days, you’ll know where to find me,” I told John.
I went back to the garage, found a small blanket and headed back to the crawl space.
I was searching around with a flashlight when I heard a rustling sound behind me in the darkness. It was my brother climbing through the small access door with a flashlight.
We separated and continued the search. I finally found the bunny cowering in a corner and called John. We approached from different directions and I threw the blanket on the rabbit. I tried scooping it up carefully, but it slipped out and ran to another wall. We tried again, this time with John holding the blanket, but we had the same result.
The bunny darted across the basement into the shadows. We followed and caught up again along another wall. This time, John managed to engulf the rabbit in the blanket and I followed him to the hatch. We got it outside and he opened the blanket.
The rabbit lay there on the grass. I took out my phone to take a photo, but the bunny hopped off toward the road.
“It better not get hit by a car, after all that,” I said as it disappeared. There was no sound, so I figured the rabbit was safe.
When I went into the house, my girlfriend asked me who I was talking with. She had heard John and me through the vents. I started to explain about the bunny in the basement.
“It’s not still down there?” she asked, sounding alarmed.
She was relieved to hear that the bunny was freed. So was I.
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Working It Out is the reincarnation of a column by the same name that reporter Kevin Conlon wrote weekly for more than six years for the Cortland Standard newspaper, where he worked as city editor before joining the Cape Gazette staff.
Kevin Conlon came to the Cape Gazette with nearly 40 years of newspaper experience since graduating from St. Bonaventure University in New York with a bachelor's degree in mass communication. He reports on Sussex County government and other assignments as needed.
His career spans working as a reporter and editor at daily newspapers in upstate New York, including The Daily Gazette in Schenectady. He comes to the Cape Gazette from the Cortland Standard, where he was an editor for more than 25 years, and in recent years also contributed as a columnist and opinion page writer. He and his staff won regional and state writing awards.
Conlon was relocating to Lewes when he came across an advertisement for a reporter job at the Cape Gazette, and the decision to pursue it paid off. His new position gives him an opportunity to stay in a career that he loves, covering local news for an independently owned newspaper.
Conlon is the father of seven children and grandfather to two young boys. In his spare time, he trains for and competes in triathlons and other races. Now settling into the Cape Region, he is searching out hilly trails and roads with wide shoulders. He is a fan of St. Bonaventure sports, especially rugby and basketball, as well as following the Mets, Steelers and Celtics.
