MY WILD NIGHT WITH PETE

I want it on the record that none of this was my idea.

I am a raccoon. I have a life. A real one. With routines. Favorite dumpsters. Cozy ventilation ducts. A community. I didn’t want controversy. I didn’t want headlines. I didn’t want to be the emotional support animal for a man committing legal self-immolation in real time.

All I wanted was to do was grab a late-night snack.

But fate — and Fireball — had other plans.

It began behind O’Flaherty’s, where I was fishing a perfectly good slice of pepperoni pizza out of a trash bag when suddenly Pete Hegseth burst through the door like a frat bro summoned by the words “keg party.”

He pointed at me with a can of beer he’d absolutely stolen.

“You,” he slurred. “You’re a truth-teller. I can feel it.”

I could not feel it. I felt danger.

Pete staggered toward me as if guided by a divine mission to ruin my night. He certainly did.

“Everyone’s so dramatic,” he said, swaying. “They keep saying stuff like ‘war crime this’ and ‘killing survivors that.’ Like… why is everyone mad at me? The water was already wet!”

I blinked at him. Hard.

Pete chugged the rest of his beer, crushed the can and dramatically against his forehead.

“Come on,” he said. “We’re going drinking.”

I tried to leave. He followed. I hid behind a dumpster. He tripped over nothing.

I ran up a fence. He tried to climb it and told me the fence was “probably Democratic.”

I accepted my fate.

THE ROOFTOP OF NO RETURN

Pete insisted we “get higher ground for strategic clarity.”

He pointed to the roof of the liquor store.

“Elevation helps decision-making,” he said, already slurring like a man testifying before Congress while blacked out.

Despite Pete’s lack of upper-body strength, we somehow got up there — mostly me climbing and Pete clinging to the drainpipe like a drunk, sweating possum.

We collapsed onto the shingles. Pete uncorked a fresh bottle of Fireball he’d brought “for emergencies.”

He took a long pull, wiped his mouth with his sleeve, and stared at the moon.

“I didn’t commit a war crime,” he declared.

The moon did not respond.

“I committed… decisive maritime problem-solving.”

He took another drink.

“People don’t get it. Boats? Boats are confusing. Survivors?Ambiguous. Sometimes people are in the water on purpose.”

Another drink.

“And anyway,” he continued, “the Geneva Conventions were written, what, like… 1400? 1600? Before boats?”

I blinked again. Very slowly.

“Shipwrecked sailors aren’t… like… a protected class, right? They’re just… really bad swimmers.”

He took another drink.

I moved away from him for my own safety, but he crawled after me.

“I’m being persecuted,” he said. “For being effective.”

Then the roof sighed — loudly.

Gravity took over.

We fell through the ceiling in what I can only describe as the most horrifying two seconds of my life.

THE CEILING INCIDENT

We crashed into a display of whiskey bottles, splintering them into a glittering, alcoholic hellscape. Pete lay flat on his back, blinking at the fluorescent lights like they owed him money.

Then he sat up.

Then he saw the broken liquor.

And then — God help us — he started drinking again. Straight off the floor.

“It’s fine!” he shouted at me. “Five-minute rule!”

He chugged from a shattered bottle, made a face like he’d licked a war crime investigation subpoena, and kept going.

“I didn’t order them to kill survivors,” he said. “I ordered them to eliminate… aquatic uncertainties.”

He staggered to his feet.

“That’s… that’s leadership.”

He drank again.

“That’s decisiveness.”

He took another swig.

“That’s—”

He tripped over a mop bucket and face-planted directly onto the linoleum.

THE TOILET SUMMIT

Pete dragged himself toward the bathroom like a dying man seeking absolution. I followed because I feared what would happen if I didn’t.

He burst through the door, dropped to his knees, and wrapped his arms around the toilet like it was a childhood friend.

“LISTEN,” he shouted into the bowl. “I didn’t tell anyone to kill anybody. I said ‘don’t leave loose ends.’ It’s not my fault…”

Then he vomited.

Powerfully.

Biblically.

The toilet recoiled.

I gagged. I backed up. The room spun. I vomited too.

We became two tragic creatures emptying our souls into a porcelain confessional.

Pete wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

“The media,” he slurred, “is twisting everything. They’re all like, ‘Pete, you said kill everybody.’ But I meant everybody metaphorically. Like when you say ‘break a leg.’ Nobody actually breaks legs.”

He slid sideways, collapsing onto the cold tile.

“This floor understands me,” he whispered.

I laid down beside him. Because I was exhausted. Because the tile was cold. Because my life choices had evaporated.

He continued rambling, eyes closed.

“I didn’t commit a war crime,” he said. “If anything, the survivors committed a war crime by… surviving. That’s entrapment.”

I wanted my life back.

Instead I was trapped in a bathroom with a man arguing with the toilet about maritime jurisprudence.

Pete mumbled something into the grout.

“Shipwrecked sailors should just… not be shipwrecked. That’s on them.”

He was drunk beyond reason now, voice slurred, logic evaporated.

“The ocean was the aggressor,” he whispered. “You hear me, raccoon? THE OCEAN.”

And then he passed out face-first.

I curled into a ball beside him, wishing for the sweet release of distance.

That’s how animal control found us: Pete unconscious in a puddle of his own denial, and me — a raccoon who just wanted a normal night — wondering how many lifetimes of karma I was paying off.

They carried me out gently. They left Pete where he lay.

As they loaded me into the van, I looked back one last time at the broken bottles, the shattered ceiling, the spinning room, the unconscious man.

All I could think was:

I never wanted any of this. I just wanted a slice of pizza.

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