Keepers

FOUR

The dismal bitch lay on her side in the dry gray October twilight in my front yard, her black wrinkled teats lumped beside her like a cancer growth far too large and malformed for her body to hold inside. Her sides shivered as she labored to pull in air, and the sound of her breathing-wet, thick, ripped-raw painful-was too close to another sound I’d already heard once today and did not want to hear again.

I climbed out of my car and slowly approached her, all the while looking over my shoulder, halfexpecting to see the black mastiffs from the highway.

It appeared this was my day to deal with dogs.

Her coat was patchy with mange, her eyes bloodshot and mad; when I came closer, they narrowed into slits and a low growl came from her throat. I could smell her from ten feet away, a ripe, sick, sweetrotten smell. Underscoring the smell was a moist kneading sound, soft but persistent; as I reached out toward her she jerked to the side and a flap of flesh held in place by the thinnest thread of tissue fell back. Beneath it, maggots teemed in an open wound whose too-bright blood seeped outward into her fur like the ever-expanding strands of a spider’s web, some of it dribbling onto the lawn and trickling toward my feet, forming rivulets in the grass.

I couldn’t help but think of the old man on the highway, and it almost cut me in half.

“It’s okay, girl,” I said in what I hoped was a tender voice. “It’s okay, shhhh, there, there, just let me take a look so we can make it all better, okay?” I continued on like this for what seemed like an hour but was probably less than a minute. Once I thought she might let me touch her long enough to see if there was a tag on her collar but she made a snap for my hand at the last moment, startling both of us.

I’ve never done well when it comes to ministering to sick or wounded animals. I guess it stems from an incident that occurred when I was a high-school sophomore, one of those “It Happens” incidents that you think you’ll eventually get over but never really do, even though admitting to it some three decades later feels embarrassing… but the sight of this pathetic animal on my lawn caused this particular instance of “It Happens” to happen across my memory once again.

(See there, pal? You can remember things if you want to. If you’ll just go a little further back…)

Go away, please.

After school I had a part-time evening job at Beckman’s Market, a local neighborhood grocery store, one of those mom-and-pop operations that had been in the area for as long as anyone could remember. I was cleaning the beer cooler one afternoon-it had been defrosted the night before or something-and there was this big puddle in front of the side entrance door. It was the first thing that the customers saw when they used that entrance, which a lot of them did, so the boss wanted it to look nice.

One customer came in and accidentally pulled the door’s spring off its hinge and the thing slammed shut like a vice grip. I started messing around with it but the boss told me to leave it alone, he’d fix it himself in a little while.

A few minutes later another customer came in, followed by this little gray cat. Cutest thing you ever saw, all furry and friendly… and evidently hungry; it kept darting over to the produce section, trying to get at the apples and oranges. I thought whoever owned it must keep it on one hell of a diet.

My boss told me to get rid of it. I picked it up, kicked open the door, and threw it out. I threw it quite hard, on purpose, so maybe it’d get the hint and go back home.

No such luck.

The door started to slam shut just as the cat was making the feline version of a mad dash to safety back inside.

It never had a chance.

The door slammed right on its neck. I was only a foot away and heard something crack. Then another customer came in and the cat did not so much fall back out as… spasm.

I opened the door and saw the cat choking to death. It just kept kicking and coughing and spitting, making horrible, heart-sickening sounds… and it never once closed its eyes, just kept staring at me the whole time like it was my fault. It spewed blood and vomit from its mouth while its other end evacuated all manner of pained foulness.

It had to have been a horrible, agonizing death. And all I could do was stand there and watch it happen.

My boss made me toss it into the trash out back. God, I was sick about the whole thing: I didn’t mean for it to die, but now here I was, scooping this dead cat into a shovel and dumping it in the trash. It should have been on its way home to a bowl of milk or a can of tuna. It should have been rubbing up against strangers’ legs, purring in that warm, please-love-me way that almost no one can resist. But it wasn’t lapping milk or rubbing someone’s leg; it was lying on top of a trash pile, flies already swarming over its still-warm body, and I was the one who’d put it there.

I dropped the shovel and picked up the cat’s body, my thumb brushing blood from the silver tag on its collar, whispering “I’m sorry, kitty,” over and over as if the thing were suddenly going to rally and whisper its forgiveness. For some reason, I wanted to wipe all the blood from its tag, I wanted to know its name; it seemed to me, at that moment, that something should be done to make its body more presentable-but to whom or what I couldn’t have said. I just wanted to give this poor thing some kind of dignity, I guess, before I tossed it in among the empty egg crates and tin cans. I knew how silly this would look to anyone passing by but I didn’t care, I just kept apologizing again and again, wiping away at the tag (which refused to come clean) until its ass began leaking something dark and thick down the front of my shirt and apron.

I spent the rest of the day crying. My boss sent me home early. I was depressing the customers.

(Let’s hear it for Mr. Recall, folks. One memory down, one to go …)

Are you still here?

(Three guesses, and the first two don’t count…)

I shook my head. I would not stand here and watch this dog suffer. I didn’t need that on my conscience.

I went inside to call the pound, who instructed me to contact Animal Control, who told me to get in touch with the nearest emergency veterinarian service, who in turn told me they had no one available to come and collect the dog, could I possibly get her into my car and bring her over? They would have someone waiting to take her right away.

Your Cedar Hill tax dollars at work.

I said I’d call them before I left, hung up, and went to look for something in which to wrap her. It seemed the right thing to do, the decent gesture, a last act of kindness before we parted ways.

I didn’t bother changing my clothes; my pants and shirt were already ruined with blood and the fetor of fresh death was still all over me.

I dialed the number of the group home and got one of the on-site habilitation specialists who works there, told her that I was running late, it was unavoidable, and to please tell Carson not to worry, that “UncGil” (his nickname for me) would be there in time for us to make the next showing of the movie.

Standing now in the supposed safety of my home, I realized the blanket I’d selected from the linen closet was far too big for the dog in my yard… but just the right size for wrapping an old man’s broken body. I put it back at once and selected one of more appropriate size, all the while knowing that something in the back of my memory was trying to wake up and get my attention, but I was moving now, moving right along, and it was important that I keep moving at all costs and not stop to think about anything for too long, so I shut the closet door and made my way outside.

The dog had disappeared.

I didn’t panic. It had obviously been in a great deal of pain so it couldn’t have gotten very far. Altogether I’d been inside no more than five minutes.

I was just starting around back to look for her when a delivery van pulled into the driveway. It was from neither UPS nor FedEx. I didn’t think I’d ever heard of this company-Hicks Worldwide-before, but I wasn’t certain. I went to meet the driver, who handed me a parcel the size of a carry-on shoulder bag and asked me to sign for it as he scanned the shipping label.

If he was wondering why there was blood on my clothes, he gave no indication.

“Did you happen to see a dog wandering nearby as you drove up here?” I described the dog and her condition, hoping that would satisfy any curiosity he might have about the state of my clothes. The driver adjusted his wool cap, wiped some sweat from his face, and shook his head.

“Nope, I’d’ve noticed a dog in that kind of shape. You call the pound?”

“Of course,” I said. When it became clear to him that no further details would be forthcoming, the driver thanked me, returned to his van, and left. I carried the package inside and dropped it on the kitchen table and probably would have let it go at that if it hadn’t been for the way it was addressed.

The package had been overnighted to me, had a tracking number, and required a signature on delivery. It had my name and home address in order, nothing odd there, but the return address was also mine.

Someone wanted to make damn sure I got this right away. This same someone also (or so it seemed) did not want me to know who’d sent it until after I’d opened the thing.

We live in anxious times; terrorist attacks, mailorder anthrax, letter bombs, all sorts of unspeakable horrors delivered right to your door-or so say the paranoia-mongers who know a populace kept on edge is a populace easily manipulated. I try not to buy into the fear, because once it’s got a hold on you, it grinds your voice under its heel until your spirit is mute.

I put down the blanket and opened the package. I only wanted to find out who’d sent it, if it was some kind of practical joke, then I’d go take care of the dog and hopefully get to the group home in time to take Carson to the movie. Just a few extra moments without the blood of another living thing on my hands or clothes. It didn’t seem unreasonable.

Inside was a large, well-taped and well-packed cardboard box that revealed two layers of bubble wrap and packing peanuts before finally unveiling the first of its treasures: five record albums, sleeves undamaged, LPs in perfect condition. Steppenwolf 7, Yes’s Fragile, The Best of Three Dog Night, Neil Young’s Harvest, and the masterpiece of masterpieces, George Harrison’s All Things Must Pass.

I stared at the albums in wonder. I’d long ago lost my copies of the records, had replaced them on (in order) reel-to-reel, 8-track, cassette, and CD. Who the hell would be sending me mint-condition copies of albums in a format no one listened to anymore?

Beneath the albums, each in a clear plastic protective sleeve, were several 45 rpm records: “Brandy (You’re a Fine Girl),” “Join Together,” “Don’t Want to Live Inside Myself,” “Ode to Billy Joe,” “They’re Coming to Take Me Away (Ha-Ha!),” “Cherry, Cherry,” and at least a dozen others I’d heard on the radio while growing up. God, the memories that were brought back just seeing the titles on the old record labels-Decca, Dunhill, RCA, Cotillion and Reprise… a shorthand history of 1970s popular music, here in my shaking, blood-tinged hands. Growing up, I’d become something of an expert on the various changes made to their labels by record companies over the years-the loss of the multicolored lines on the Decca label, the way the Reprise logo got smaller and smaller, how Capital went from black to the coolest green with its circle-within-a-circle to just a boring shade of pea-puke that shamed my turntable’s aesthetic. I was the only person I knew of who noticed or even cared about trivialities such as this – except for Beth.

Beth.

I looked through the LPs and 45s once again, my arms shaking more and more as it began to dawn on me that these records were not thrown into this box at random; they were selected with a great deal of attention, a private meaning in their arranged order, chosen as she’d choose them.

Or would have.

All of these had been among Beth’s very, very favorite albums and songs. Beth, my first and truest friend; Beth, whom I’d loved more than anyone else before or since; Beth, whom I’d last heard from one sweltering summer night over twenty years ago; Beth, who’d been missing and presumed (later officially declared) dead for a majority of my adult life.

For a moment her face superimposed itself over the old man’s, and why not? I’d been the last person to see either of them alive.

Over the years I had managed to convince myself that Beth wasn’t really dead, she’d just run off to some exotic foreign place without telling anyone and was living there under an assumed name, maybe as an artist, or underground writer, or something just as gloriously bohemian. That would suit her; just say, “Fuck you!” to the world at large and vanish into a new country, a new identity, “finding herself” until she was confident enough to come back and say, “Ha! Fooled those complacent smirks right off your faces, didn’t I? Boy, have I got a story to tell you! ”

I gently placed the records aside, making sure to stack them so they wouldn’t slide off onto the floor; already I was planning on pulling my Gerard turntable out of its box and hooking it up to the stereo so I could listen to them until I hit the city limits of Sloppy Nostalgia (our motto: “Wax with us or wax the damn car!”).

Underneath another layer of bubble wrap were books, hardcover and paperback; Judy Blume, Kurt Vonnegut, a first edition of Stephen King’s Carrie, The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, a bunch of old comic books- Spider-Man, Prince Namor: The Sub-Mariner, Hawkman, Ghost Rider #1.

Heaven; I was in heaven.

There was a 9? 12 clasp envelope sandwiched between two of the comic books. I opened it and dumped the contents onto the coffee table.

The first thing to spill out was a present I’d gotten Beth for her twenty-first birthday-a thin gold necklace with a small cameo that opened to reveal a photograph of me and her standing in front of a King’s Island roller coaster, taken at one of our yearly summer outings when we were still young enough to believe such trips were what made living worthwhile; next were two condoms, still in their sealed packets (the empty third packet was taped to them); a pair of crescent moon-shaped earrings; a half-empty pack of Benson amp; Hedges Menthol 100s; a program from a community theater production of Pippin ; and, most telling of all, a pair of tattered Valentine’s Day cards: the first one I had given Beth when she was eighteen and I was twelve: “I Love You Best of All!”; the second was one she had given me shortly before I turned eighteen: “Just wait until you’re legal!”

I could still smell a trace of the musk oil with which she’d doused the card, the same musk she used to daub behind her ears and on her neck. It was still the sexiest aroma ever created. At least that’s what memory had me now believing.

If I’d had any doubts about who’d sent the package, this card erased them.

Beth was alive.

I suddenly remembered a quote from the poet Oscar Wilde: “One can live for years sometimes without living at all, and then all life comes crowding into one single hour.” God, how true that was.

Beth was alive.

So much had already happened today that I couldn’t fully absorb the meaning of that, and so much was still happening that, for the time being, I didn’t have the time to absorb its meaning.

I folded the envelope and was about to toss it among the other goodies when I felt something else inside, wedged into a corner at the bottom. I reached in and scratched away with my fingernail until the object came loose.

I opened my hand and looked at what lay nestled in my palm.

At first, nothing registered; there was only a vague – grabbing my shirt and pulling me toward him, blood seeping into the cotton of my shirt as I lifted the bowler and showed him that it was undamaged, looking into my eyes, his lips squirming in a mockery of communication, sounds that were a burlesque of language, but there was something there, something that drew him to me or me to him, and he turned his head ever so slightly to the right and I saw – impression of memory, a needling sense that this thing was supposed to mean something to me. I felt I should recognize it-perhaps the part of me that did recognize it hadn’t gotten to the light switch yet (No, not yet, but I’m making my way there, pal, you can count on that.)

– but there was nothing.

Wait, scratch that.

There was something but it was ether for all the good it did.

I stared at it for a few more moments, and then was suddenly so… weary. That’s the only word that even comes close to describing what overtook me. I was at once so exhausted and drained that the idea of making it to a chair or my bed was as fantastic to me as the Fountain of Youth must have seemed to the critics of Ponce de Leon. I didn’t think I’d ever be able to move again. It was the first time in years I’d felt so completely emptied and done.

The stillness in my center was cold and without affection. I felt divided, alone, and dissociated from everything-surroundings, thoughts, sensations; even my body was just so much fodder, a too-fragile, too-temporary, carbon-based cosmic joke of dying cells and memories that would vanish into humus once it was placed into the ground and left as an offering upon which the elements could feast.

(Mayday, Mayday, we’re losing contact with you, pal, can’t let that happen…)

What brought me back was the soft, muffled whine of a ghost.

The dog; I’d almost forgotten about the poor thing.