Being Mean

by Patricia Eagle

  Without delay, I find a bus to the busiest train station in Paris. I wander around the packed station looking for Bill, wondering where so many people are going on a Sunday. I realize I have no earthly idea where we are supposed to meet. He was so shocked when I informed him on Friday that I was flying out the next day, and I was so relieved to finally hear from him, that we forgot to arrange a meeting place at this huge train station. Shoulder to shoulder with the crowd, I feel myself continue to unwind despite the circumstances. My heart is thumping with anticipation while my mind clicks ahead and my hastily packed bag rolls behind. I strain to see above the jostle of heads of so many people who seem to know exactly where they are going. I take a deep breath and try to calm down, even though my heart is pounding.

  A noticeably white-haired man standing taller than the crowd hollers across the tops of everyone’s heads, “Darlin’!”

  Darlin’? I haven’t heard that term of endearment for over a decade, but every last cell in my body responds with warmth and longing simultaneously. Muscling our way through the masses, Bill and I finally connect, hugging awkwardly, huge grins stretched across our faces. He looks so dramatically different—bigger and white hair. He lets me know we only have a few minutes to get to the last afternoon train to Lannion. We’ve both been searching for the other for well over an hour, and this isn’t the time or place to get reacquainted. He grabs my bag and we run to our departure.

  Settled into our seats, words still don’t come. Our eyes keep meeting, looking at this other person whom we saw daily for years, then suddenly never saw at all. What can we really say at this point? It is as if we are both out of breath, not from racing to our train, but from that precipitous drop of a thousand feet when we separated and then divorced so long ago. Bill softly slips his arm around me and I lay my head on his heart—that surviving precious heart that I had been told experienced a serious heart attack only a few years earlier. I find that familiar place where my head fits on his shoulder and feel my own heart relax in a way it hasn’t for years.

  VELVETY EARS

  2004 (age 51)—Denver, Colorado

  Pookie, my old white lab, rests uncomfortably beside me, wrapped in a worn wool blanket I picked up at a garage sale during my sabbatical year. She shivers, twitches, and has a dark look in her eyes. I believe she is ready to die but hate the responsibility of taking action. Two days ago, she tried wandering off, unsuccessfully, at her slow pace. Often, I must help her stand up, her hindquarters a distant memory. Only three days ago, I bought her a large dog door to replace the one that cracked and fell off at ten degrees below zero. An entirely new back door became necessary, furthering an increasingly complicated situation.

  Letting go. My animals have given me much practice, over and over. I don’t seem to get any better at it. Each time, grief arises as if I’ve never done this before. Each time, I find myself saying goodbye, not just to the dog, but also to the years and what those years held while we were together. A new beginning is forced upon me whether I’m ready for it or not. The next era may again be with Bill, but without Pook. At least he got to see her on a recent visit to Denver.

  Pookie wasn’t a year old when Bill, Shawn, and I moved to Mississippi, living in two homes there. Pookie, Dancer, and I walked circles around the state park at the end of our road. Pookie swam in the lake until we realized a renegade alligator homed there. This was humid, mosquito-ridden swampland. I was so proud of her when one afternoon she responded in a flash to my sharp, “No!” and dropped the sleepy water moccasin she had picked up. Life number one.

  Her fourth home was with me, newly single in Houston. Temporarily, she resided in a skuzzy little apartment with a tiny patio instead of a sprawling Mississippi backyard where she could run in circles, chasing balls and leaping into piles of raked leaves. In Houston, Pookie learned patience, knowing that when I got home she, Dancer, and I would head to the nearby levee and walk the sun down.

  Soon we moved to her fifth home, an upstairs garage apartment with a window the perfect height for a big dog. The three of us ran at the nearby high school track, then walked frequently to friends’ homes on lonely nights, especially after Dancer died. The nearby canal became our regular walking ground, watching the water fill and recede depending on Gulf Coast storms.

  Right now, Pookie is resting as I recount her life story to her. Her eyes are only partially open. She can’t stand up without great difficulty. I have called the vet to come tomorrow to put her to sleep. She licks me every once in a while, as if assuring me that I’m doing the right thing. I lie beside her, stroking her ears, crying, and talking to her.

  “Pookie, remember the big, overweight guy that always sat on the hillside by the bayou, waving and laughing at us when we walked by, tossing sparks of joy our way? And the angel that mysteriously slipped in to save you the day the high canal waters almost swept you away when you jumped in after a stray tennis ball and couldn’t get out? Where in the world did that guy come from, and where the heck did he disappear to after he pulled you out? I was delirious with panic, then relief, dragging your exhausted, wet seventy pounds to dry ground, while weeping and blubbering thanks. Clearly, this was life number two.

  “Then came the walk along Barton Creek trails in Austin with Shawn. Who was that strange man who spoke incoherently to us while polishing a fish filet knife back and forth on his trousers? Was it he, not five minutes later, who sliced your face open after Shawn and I had cautiously hiked on? I’ll never forget your piercing yowl, then how you came running when I called, the side of your face flapping with blood in the sunlight. Your eyes held such fear, but you came straight to us and let me hold your quivering body as Shawn and I struggled to carry you back to the car, and then later as the vet stitched your face. For weeks you learned so much trust with three surgeries and the daily flushing of the wound I did through a tube that was placed in your face. This was our ultimate bonding time, your beloved Dancer long gone, don’t you think? And perhaps, life number three for you.

  “Then your days became so lonely in our sixth home, my sweet one, as I worked and went to graduate school. I walked you in the mornings before leaving at seven, had a dog walker come once a day when I was able to return at four in the afternoon, and twice a day when I didn’t get home from classes until late at night. And you greeted me each day with love and energy and enthusiasm for whatever time we had to spend together. Every time. You deserved the year I took off from teaching, when we spent all day every day together in your seventh home, and even welcomed a stray heeler, Zorro, into our family.

  “During that year there were skunks, coyotes, copperheads, and longhorns, though none of these landed you in as dangerous of predicaments as you had already been in. How you fared in the pasture milling about momma longhorns with their newborn calves is beyond me. They eyed you warily as you lazily strolled under the fence and limped through the grasses, but soon learned you were apparently of no danger. It still made me sweat, and I would breathe deep sighs of relief once you were back on our rickety old front porch there in north Texas. Life number four?

  “Colorado is the end of the trail for you, Pookie. I can hardly bear to think that you won’t be in my life anymore. Over thirteen years, we have been together in nine different homes. And you have been the best part of every one of those homes. Wherever you were became home to me.

  “Patience is what you have taught me, my big white dog. After leaving Shawn-bo, whom you loved, you have been my constant through a divorce, four jobs, four relationships, and God knows how many long and exasperating school days. Despite my extreme fatigue and headaches, you were always full of love. And now, here at the very end, you have even welcomed a new dog, Gavroche. You have been supremely tolerant, letting him clean your eyes and ears lovingly, then allowing him to lunge playfully at you, all while you remain steadfastly immobile.

  “But your ultimate patience, my precious girl, has been with me. This last day you haven’t left the room, uncomfortable with my weeping,
but you’ve stayed, allowing me to sob in the folds of fur on your neck, slobber all over your face, and kiss your incredibly soft ears. I don’t know how I’ll live without those ears and the comfort of their velvety touch.

  “If you must go, Pookie, please be my guardian angel. You’ll be seeing John, Dancer, and Zorro. You’ll meet Bebe, Bandi-Lune, and Dabb. I loved them all, Pook, but with you, our time covered so much ground, so much heartache, so much joy, so much growth.

  “So go on. Find the comfort you deserve. And once you feel up to it, chase a gazillion tennis balls. Jump in all the puddles, lakes, and canals you want. Drink the salty ocean water and don’t get sick. Roll in dead fish. Wander amongst the longhorns. Eat pizza off the counter. Win every tug of war. Hump all the teddy bears and pillows you see. But check in on me every so often, Pook, and let me remember the comfort of those warm furry folds on your neck. And if it’s possible, my sweetest, please help me learn to feel life as soft as your velvety ears.”

  FLYING HOG SALOON

  2006 (age 53)—Blanca, Colorado

  “You can always get married in the Flying Hog Saloon,” Karla suggests. “They are definitely open!”

  Everyone laughs and our laughter echoes against the four fourteen thousand-foot peaks looming behind us, careening upwards to distant stars, spreading as much warmth between us as the blazing campfire. We are sitting around crackling logs with dancing flames this early March evening as temperatures slip into single digits here at “Graceland,” where sits our twenty-five-year-old twenty-five-foot trailer on six magnificent acres in Colorado’s San Luis Valley. The Flying Hog Saloon, the local Harley bar, is six miles down the mountain in the little town of Blanca.

  We have Karla on speakerphone as we all discuss where Bill and I can have our wedding ceremony tomorrow. We had planned on using the Catholic Mission, a beautiful white adobe structure at the top of a steep hill in the little town of San Luis. Since we aren’t Catholic, our plan was to slip in and state our vows in front of these few friends and any random visitors that might happen in, using the sacred, sun-filled center of the quaint chapel. In Colorado, it is legal for a couple to officiate their own marriage, so Bill and I have thoughtfully written our vows and carefully charted a meaningful ceremony that doesn’t require an officiant.

  Nancy decided to drive over to the site earlier today to check on a few things, since I have asked her to be the “keeper of the ceremony,” and, alas, the church had a sign hanging out front: “Closed for the season.”

  Closed for the season? For God’s sake, it’s almost Easter! Apparently, the simple structure isn’t equipped to heat sufficiently during the valley’s cold weather, and the temperatures are definitely dipping this March. Hence, we have circled up to brainstorm a place bigger than our trailer where Bill and I can hold our ceremony. Karla and her wife, Lisa, are driving down from Denver; Nancy and Malcolm came in from Durango; Petra and Andy also came from Denver; and Michael and Kelly trekked all the way from Houston. This is who is gathering with Bill and me around our fire-pit that overlooks this valley with a view that stretches past the sixty miles to New Mexico, and hundred miles east to the Sangres and west to the San Juans.

  The Milky Way is blasting out above us, spraying stars and planets in a fantastical swirl of energy as fire flames lick the crisp desert darkness. Faces are aglow with laughter, wine, and that precious sense of community that occurs uniquely around a fire. Although Bill and I are disappointed the church is closed, we take in the news with the sense that this, too, is part of our marriage adventure. Confident with our carefully prepared vows and the loving, supportive witnesses that have gathered, the location of where we state our commitments feels immaterial to us right now.

  Graceland’s environment is raw and rugged, more like camping out but inside an old trailer. I’ve been coming to this valley regularly for over six years, after rolling in this fine little trailer to perch here on raw land. With stellar views every direction, Bill and I tagged the spot “Graceland,” because that’s what it is, graced-land, and also because Bill loves Elvis. Twenty-five feet hold a double bed/living area, a small kitchen with a booth/ single bed, bunks that serve as both storage and a dog bed, and a tiny bathroom. With three solar panels, there’s just enough juice to read and recharge a laptop and phone. Propane allows us to cook, bake, keep the fridge humming, and run a tiny heater. Hauling in all necessary water helps us stay aware of what a precious resource it is, and how a little can go a long way. Using porta-potties, acclimating to the below freezing temperatures and frequent winds, lighting candles and lanterns, and even getting here via the rough and rocky mountain roads can be a hugely uncomfortable stretch for many. We did not want to inconvenience others with our choice of venue for a wedding or worry about their comfort or cars during this occasion. We could not conceive of gathering for celebration anywhere other than in this valley that has become our most cherished grounds for re-creating and refreshing.

  But we still want something a little more spacious than our tiny trailer for the ceremony we have planned.

  The search begins the next morning after brunch. Piled into two cars, we caravan first to the church, just to double-check that the doors are locked, and to consider the courtyard there. Yep, locked tight and the courtyard is knee deep with snow. Driving through Fort Garland, we stop at the Fort’s museum and consider a fort wedding, briefly. Maybe a field amidst mating sand hill cranes hopping around? No long-legged birds in sight on this windy valley day, or a field that feels welcoming during these very icy temps of March. Back in Blanca, we poke around the abandoned, crumbling, adobe schoolhouse, then step out back into an old stable/garage that would at least shelter us from the biting wind. Our own manger-like gathering! A mile down the road, we explore the skeletal structure of one of the original cabins in the desert flatland at the base of the ascent to the peaks that tower behind our land. In the midst of it all we chuckle, joke, and feel the warmth of the sun’s rays while the relentless wind reminds us that it is, without a doubt, still winter.

  Karla won’t give up on the saloon, so we finally drive over and wait in the car while she strolls in to check it out. Exiting, we can tell by her shameless grin that the Flying Hog Saloon it will be. The owner/bartender was giddy with the proposition, promising a smoke-and-TV-free environment and offering to help create whatever space we wanted for our ceremony. It’s the best entertainment the bartender could hope for on this football-free Saturday afternoon.

  Thus decided, I head off to Nancy and Malcolm’s room at the nearby lodge for a little bride preparation while Bill and the others head back to Graceland to change and gather candles, bells, music, and our vows before returning to the saloon to set up. Meanwhile, Lisa is finishing up her chef preparations in the pop-up trailer she and Karla installed outside our own trailer, concocting an after-wedding feast for ten, the maximum seating possible in our tight little space.

  As I shower, always more appreciative of such a privilege during or after a stay at our off-grid abode, which is without running water, I bask in the delight of the day thus far. Perfect, I think. This time around, Bill’s and my union, despite its seeming lack of concrete plans, has been approached with so much more intention than our previous marriage to one another in 1982. After reuniting in France in 2003, we dated a year, then lived together another year, before discussing what we wanted our recommitment to look and feel like. With secrets spilled and the seams of our beings split, a stitching together has begun, with an acute awareness of how we want to be in the world—together and individually—in the manner stated in the Laguna Pueblo prayer we are using in our ceremony: that we shall know ourselves each as individuals, and that we shall know ourselves together as one.

  I slip into a long, soft blue wool skirt and beige silk turtleneck. Pulling on my comfortable, broken-in cowboy boots, I’m reminded of Bill and I considering how everything about our old love could continue to create new love this time around. We explicitly put into our vows that we will always
encourage each other to wake up, and to open our hearts without being afraid of feeling what’s going on. Without being afraid, that’s the key. Feel what’s going on, not shut out the experience and emotions. I stand and smooth my skirt down, giving my butt a loving pat in the process. “Git ‘er done,” I announce aloud with encouragement.

  Running a hand through my hair, I look closely in the mirror and remember when we added that we will serve as mirrors to each other. What does that take, I wonder? It must mean not being so preoccupied with myself that I can’t reflect to Bill some truth he is searching for. We also included vows for being patient with and kind to one another, promising to not give up on ourselves or each other, and to give chance after chance to the other to change whatever doesn’t offer peace or clarity. Peace and clarity, there are two solid goals to which to aspire. Glancing in the mirror one last time, I put my palms together, take a deep breath, and bow respectfully.

  Ahhh, time to slip on the white, waist length, faux-fur hooded coat I purchased especially for this occasion—my “Julie Christie in Dr. Zhivago” coat. I knew it would be cold in the church, and now I hope I can bear to keep this on in the bar. It is so soft, sensuous, and cozy. I’m reminded of the pledge we placed at the end of our ceremony that our passion may always warm us, and that our relationship stay full of laughter.

  Tibetan bells chime as I walk into the dimly lit bar past the sweetly reverent afternoon patrons, toward Bill and our friends standing in the luminous glow of a mass of candles. Behind Bill is a gigantic mural of a huge hog on a Harley. Bill tenderly pulls me in close as Nancy reads a prayer Bill and I composed to the Spirit of Creation. Nancy explains music will now be played in preparation for the sacred vows that are about to be offered and to allow everyone to become quietly present for our ceremony. As delicious Lakotan music fills the thankfully cool space, I imagine what our motley group looks like, lovingly and attentively gathered around a tall bar table replete with gorgeous glowing candles against the backdrop of those gruff-looking pigs on Harleys, the flying hogs of the Flying Hog Saloon. In the background, the bartender and her patrons sink into the moment in a beautifully gracious way. I’m reminded of the Harley crowd who sat on yonder grassy knoll and respectfully watched our first wedding in 1982. We must be members of this club by now despite our lack of motorcycles: the Harley Owners Group, otherwise known as HOG. A Harley crowd or a Harley bar, either one can contribute toward a hallowed space for a special occasion.