Dog Medicine (6 page)

E
ARLY
S
PRING
1996

In the midst of the heartbreak with Will, before I collapsed on the floor, I decided to get a dog. If Will wouldn't love me, I reasoned, a dog might. Our building allowed dogs and the landlord seemed unfazed by the question. Leah had reluctantly agreed that if the dog was my responsibility, we could get one. We'd already gotten a small gray rabbit—but she bit and didn't have a single readable emotion. I bought a leash for her and took her out to East 82nd Street. She froze in fear and then crapped on the sidewalk.

Leah was away for the weekend when I walked up to the animal shelter on Second Avenue, praying I'd find comfort in a dog the way I had as a child. I opened the door to the shelter and introduced myself to the woman at the counter, expressing my interest in adopting a dog. She was Latina with beautiful skin and a kind smile. She handed me a form to fill out, and we chatted politely as I wrote down my address, place of employment, and living situation. “I've always had a dog.” I said. “ Always. It just feels so strange not having one right now.”

She nodded deeply. “I know!” she said. “Walking into a house where there's no little wagging tail to greet you just feels plain wrong. I have three.” I nodded and laughed, tears brimming. The last thing I wanted was to cry here, now, so I pretended to sneeze and closed my eyes, then wiped them with a tissue.

I handed her the form and she looked it over. “Great,” she said, scanning the information. “You work full time?” She looked concerned.

“Well, I work from home a day or two a week.” Total lie. “I'm a writer so I work out of my apartment a lot.” Another total lie.

She smiled at me. “Jealous!” she said, laughing. “Geez, lucky you. Do you have any other pets currently?”

“No,” I said, shaking my head, completely, honestly forgetting about the rabbit.

“Well, looks great. Come on back. Let's look at some of these dogs.” She asked what size dog I wanted and I indicated that I usually liked bigger dogs. “With your handling experience, we could probably match you with one of our big guys. Oh! I know! I have the perfect big girl for you.” I stood blissed out by her confidence in me and shoved my hands in my pockets in an attempt to not appear weirdly enthusiastic.

She sent me to the space where they introduce dogs to potential owners. The room was all concrete, the floor painted purple, the walls a vivid orange. A heavyset trainer with short hair and royal-blue clogs entered and introduced herself as Rita. She told me a bit about a dog they thought might be good for me. “She's a total goofy love,” she said. “She's not at all aggressive, has some basic obedience training, and just needs a bit more time and a good home.” I sat there thinking,
She just needs a good home. She just needs love. I can give her love.

My front-desk friend opened the door and in came an enormous gray dog that looked to be part mastiff, part bulldog. I felt no immediate connection but was so happy when the dog came to sniff me, her tail twirling. I cooed, smiled, laughed, and let her lick my cheek before saying I'd take her. I quickly signed the papers, coughed up a hundred bucks and was soon walking down Second Avenue behind my new ninety-five-pound dog.

At my apartment door, I struggled with the lock as the dog yanked on the leash. I pulled her into the entryway, already worried that this was a mistake. It felt like I was walking a pony into my 750-square-foot apartment. When the door to the place swung
open, the leash went taut as the dog lunged straight at the rabbit's cage. She started barking madly, drooling, clawing the hardwood floor. I dragged the dog downstairs to the bedroom and tried to calm her. She continued to lunge for the stairs but eventually became interested in the scents on the pile of dirty clothes on my bedroom floor. She walked to my bed and jumped up, her dirty paws leaving dusty prints on my pillowcases.

“Shhhh,” I said. “Shhhhh, it's okay.” She looked at me, not with anxiety or fear, but with blankness. It seemed as if she'd gone into a shallow, shifty-eyed, fearful state. After all, I'd taken her into my nearly windowless bedroom and wouldn't let her leave. Who knew what she'd been through prior to meeting me? I turned on some quiet music, trying to get her to calm down and forget about the bunny she knew was just one floor above. I lay down and invited her to come onto the bed with me. She frantically sniffed everything, as if searching for more traces of edible animals.

“Come here, girl,” I said, in my sweetest voice. “Come on the bed. Hop up.” I patted the sheets and she obliged. I told her to sit, to lie down, and she half did. Rigid, she lay on the bed with me for about four seconds, and in those few heartbreaking beats, I realized that what I wanted, more than this dog, more than anything, was the weight of someone next to me in my bed. I wanted to be held. I wanted Will.

She never lay down. Instead she popped up and darted toward the door again, barking. I knew I'd made a terrible mistake. I couldn't keep this dog. I imagined that the whole world hated me for what I'd just done. I put the dog's leash back on, opened the door, and tried to keep my balance as she clawed her way toward the rabbit's cage, her hackles up, her lips flapping and spewing drool. “No!” I yelled, pulling with all my might. “Jesus Christ.” I dragged her out of the apartment and back up Second Avenue.

The shelter was preparing to close when I opened the door and walked back in with the dog. My front-desk confidante looked at me, surprised. “Forget something?” she asked.

I couldn't look at her. “I can't keep her. I'm so sorry.” The dog was panting, her bloodshot eyes darting around the lobby.

My front-desk friend looked at me like I'd just sprouted a second head. “What? Why not?”

“I forgot about my roommate's rabbit,” I said, another complete lie. “He practically ate it in one bite.”

“The dog is a
she
,” she said, snatching the leash from me.

“I'm sorry,” I said. “I'm so sorry.”

She sighed. “Let me call Rita to take her back to her cage
.
Now I've got to process your refund.” She looked at her watch.

“I don't want a refund,” I said, still not making eye contact. “Just keep it. I'm so sorry.” I ran out the door, back down Second Avenue, distraught. I shuddered at the thought of what I'd just done, tried to force an enormous, terrified, overly stimulated animal to lie down in bed with me. I panicked, thinking that perhaps living in the city this past year, I'd lost my connection to animals and the natural world. If that happened, nothing could help me. No animal, no person, nothing. The sadness swallowed me as I walked back into my apartment and went to bed alone. I lay there promising myself that I would never, ever tell a soul what I'd just done.

The sorrow on that lonely walk back to my apartment was like the strike of lightning that cracked the dam. I didn't know this then, but depression can be like a slow leak. Once the dam's hit, water starts to seep through and as the days and weeks go by, the crack grows bigger.

I tried to search for the moon when I lived in Manhattan as a way to orient myself, to stem the tide of sorrow. But I could rarely find it. Sometimes I would see a sliver of a crescent through the
crack of two buildings. I couldn't yet admit that I missed the wide-open spaces of Ohio, that I longed for a quiet night interrupted only by cricket song. In New York, I was mostly inside, underground even. Soon, I forgot to look up at all. And no matter how much you try, when the rising water starts to seep under your door, you can't keep pretending that your world is not flooding.

A
PRIL
19, 1996

The first morning back in Ohio, I woke at 11 a.m., once again disoriented from a deadened sleep. I had slept for twelve hours, but felt like I'd merely blinked. I couldn't fathom ever getting out of bed.

At 11:30, I still lay in bed not moving. I had no idea what to do. Every move I made felt off, wrong, awkward, strange. I had felt some version of this malaise my whole life, but now it had officially taken over. I craved stillness, silence, and darkness. I spent much of that first morning in Ohio with a pillow over my face. I could not bear that I had failed in New York and returned to my childhood home.

Eventually I heard the gentle click of my mom opening my bedroom door. She tiptoed in with toast and juice, placing them quietly on my bedside table. I craved solitude and wanted her to leave. Instead she sat down on the edge of my bed and put her hand on my hip. The touch made me flinch.

“Honey?” she said.

“What,” I mumbled. She pulled the pillow up a bit. I fought the urge to bat away her hand.

“I'm going out to lunch with Lynn Sears. I've had it planned for a while and I just can't cancel. Will you be okay?”

“Yes,” I said, both annoyed and grateful that she was leaving. I wondered if she was imagining me tossing a hair dryer in the bathtub. “I'll be fine.”

“So,” she paused, as if what she was going to say next needed careful phrasing. “So . . . what are you going to do today?”

In hindsight, I can see that she was doing all she could to be kind to me. A simple check-in. Just making conversation. But I picked up the pillow and threw it at her. She blocked it with her arm, but the corner of it smacked her cheek. I sneered and said, “Mom, just fucking go.” She stood up, turned, and walked away.

I rolled over, shaking. This was our pattern. She showed up, and I punished her. She tried tenderness, but her well-intentioned attempts misfired. She had the distinct dishonor of perpetually saying the exact wrong thing, no matter the words, and suffering the wrath of my pain and anger.

As was her custom, she left silently, carefully. I heard her car pulling away followed by the thud of the garage door closing. Her departure brought a swirl of guilt, relief, and despair, enough emotion to lull me back into a deep, black sleep. What relief sleep had become. As I drifted down I wished with clear, longing intention to sleep for an eternity.

 • • • 

If fate works the way I think it does, I am pretty sure that at this point, my puppy was sleeping a lot too. His mama was licking his ears clean, her warm, dry tongue a lucky blanket. He could only suckle and sleep. It's not easy, the hard work of being a newborn puppy. He got stepped on, squished, beaten to the last available teat. He needed his mother desperately, and she was exhausted. He was blind and hungry, aided only by his nose toward the scent of sustenance. He could clumsily crawl, his eyes couldn't open, but he knew that if he stayed safe and warm with his family, if he slept as much as he needed to sleep, he would be okay.

I believe that when Bunker and I were both helpless against the challenges of life, when we both needed unconditional love or would die, our mothers showed up and did what mothers do. They do everything they can to save their children.

1982

After Midnight died, my parents decided we should get a purebred puppy. We researched breeds and agreed that an Irish setter would be a good fit for our family. We brought Blarney home when I was about nine years old. She was a little nut-brown puppy, all legs and plate-wide feet, and she would curl up and sleep in the bend of my legs. In between random bursts of goofy puppy energy, she was quiet and timid, and I remember kissing her head, feeling the large bump on the crown of her skull as she looked at me as if I were an angel. I would brush her soft-as-down ears, the rusty orange fur turned rich maroon by her first birthday.

More than once, Clay noticed our connection, and in front of me, he would torment her—bump her, push her down so that her long, spindly legs splayed out in all four directions, her claws scratching the hardwood floor in resistance. But I also remember seeing him snuggle with her on the floor in front of the television when he thought I wasn't watching.

When we left the house, Blarney would sometimes try to escape and come with us. If successful, she would sprint to the end of our long driveway, then chase our car for a quarter-mile down the road while we yelled out the window, “No, Blarney! Go home!” She would lope through the grass, dodging mailboxes and trees, the whites of her eyes showing, her ears blown back, her body in a full sprint.

Once, when Blarney was two, my mom's station wagon pulled
out of the garage, idled down the driveway, heading for the grocery store. I was standing in the kitchen making a snack when I noticed the red blur of Blarney's body galloping past the kitchen window.

I raced to the front door. “Blarney!” I yelled. My mom turned out of the driveway and Blarney ran, full speed, toward the road. I marveled at her power, at the capacity of her lungs to gather enough oxygen to supply her pumping blood. It was a beautiful sight, an Irish setter at full speed, ears back, tongue relaxed and out. She should've been in a sunny, open field with wildflowers and scurrying mice. Instead she was chasing my mom's station wagon, hoping to never be left behind, exactly as a school bus barreled past our driveway the moment she so gracefully, quickly, tried to cross.

I stopped halfway down the driveway and watched the bus crash into her body. Her head thwacked against the bus's grill, her sweet soft ears flailing wildly. Her body fell to the road and the bus drove over her before slowing to a stop.

I held my hands to my mouth to feel if the screaming I heard was actually coming from my body. I began to run, full speed to the end of my driveway. The kids on the bus were clambering to the back window to gawk at my beloved dog. The driver stood up, opened the door, and walked down two of the stairs, but didn't step onto the road. I paused at the end of my driveway, twenty feet from where Blarney's body lay, and didn't realize my mom had stopped her car until she came up to me and grabbed my wrists. She yelled at me to stop screaming.

“Breathe, Julie,” she yelled. “Breathe!” All I could do was scream. I wanted to go to Blarney, but my mom held me back. She motioned to the bus driver to move on. When the bus pulled away, I screamed, “The bus is
leaving
! They ran over Blarney and they're leaving! Mom! Call the police! They can't just
leave
!”

Mrs. Rankins, the elderly widow who lived alone across the road from us, had come outside. She never liked Blarney, would
shoo her out of her yard with a broom. She stood at the end of her driveway, arms tightly crossed. She was small with cropped black hair, always looking out her window with a disapproving grimace.

“Mrs. Rankins,” my mom said, calling over to her. “Can you please take Julie while I rush Blarney to the vet?” I looked at my mom with shock.

“No, Mom! I want to go with you! I'll hold Blarney in the back seat. You drive.” I wanted to be with Blarney if she were in pain or were to die. I needed to be with her, to comfort her. She was hurt; I was hurt. She was scared; I was scared. She could not die without my telling her that the world was good, that she'd done good, that I loved her. I could not fathom being absent from her traumatic injury or death.

“Julie,” my mom said. “Go.” She pointed to Mrs. Rankins' house.

“But, I can't not be there!” I screamed. My mother wanted to protect me; she didn't understand that I felt that Blarney was
mine
. She was my love, my solace in this family I didn't understand. I couldn't let her die without me.

I wasn't given a choice. Mrs. Rankins held my forearm and led me up her driveway. “You can't see that, dear,” she said. I barely knew Mrs. Rankins. The image of Blarney's body hitting the bus and falling to the road looped endlessly in my mind. I found myself silenced. The tears stopped abruptly. My lips tingled. I stole a glimpse of one of the neighbor boys putting Blarney's limp body into the back of my mom's station wagon. Blarney's head dangled, inert, lifeless.

After my mom drove away, Mrs. Rankins took me inside her house that smelled like mothballs and disinfectant. Everything was dark brown: the carpet, the walls, the rug, the stove, the refrigerator. She offered me graham crackers and milk, and I took them without words and waited for my mom to return.

When the doorbell finally rang, I went to the door behind
Mrs. Rankins and knew immediately when the door revealed a sliver of my mom's face that Blarney was gone. She had died; I had missed it.

I remember watching my father cry that night as he played piano. Our whole family separated during the mourning. We ate alone, we wept alone, and we went to bed early. Later that night, I lay in bed reeling. Through the wall, I heard Clay crying. I held up my knuckle, thinking about knocking, if only to indicate to him that I felt sad too. Chances were he'd shout an obscenity through the drywall, but I took that risk and pulled my fingers down, then rapped them gently, three times. Silence. No longer the sound of our big, beautiful dog bounding down the hall. Then, when I thought it was past all hope, three knocks back.