by Mark Doty
Which is a viral infection—some quasi-living bug we all carry in our livers crossing the barrier into the brain. First tiredness; then a loss of visual perspective, so that stairways become dauntingly strange; then more tiredness; and then the legs don’t seem to work right, and one day don’t work at all.
A procession of people into the house, home health aides, visiting nurses, volunteer assistants, social worker, occupational therapist, all of whom the guardian must consider, assess, admit. He tolerates everything except being asked to leave the bed. If the home health aide wants to administer a bath, or the nurse to give a shot or an exam and would prefer not to have canine witness and company, they’re met with a growl, a glare, and, when the objection is defeated, an annoyed sigh, a slinking into the next room, but only for a while. Perhaps he’s not so much the guardian as he is the already bereaved; he’s been so attached to Wally, who has been there beside him all his life. I’ve loved Arden dearly, but Wally’s been the most available, Wally has been his lodestar. And now he’s barely there, and sinking further into the warm, motionless dream of the bed.
Whatever occupies Wally’s brain may have paralyzed him from the waist down, but it’s not harmed his appetite—which is, if anything, heightened, a yearning for fats and salt. The home health aide makes lavish breakfasts, frying up huge amounts of bacon; it isn’t discovered for a while that at least half the bacon strips are going straight into the grateful mouth of the attendant retriever, who grows wider with the winter’s waning days.
I was walking down the single aisle of cages—dogs coming up to greet me, barking a bit, or holding back, eyeing me to see what I was up to, all manner of sizes and colors, ears and tails—when I came to a pen in the middle of the room, where a very skinny and very calm golden retriever sat sphinxlike on all fours, serenely looking up at me. He eyed me, and began to thump his blond tail on the concrete floor—a gesture I couldn’t know I’d come to love, a greeting and declaration that could be prompted simply by looking at him and beaming the psychic equivalent of “Hey you” in his direction. That thump always seemed to me the physical version of a laugh, a little goofy, a bit dumb, entirely delighted.
But who was he? If he was a golden, he was the skinniest one I’d ever seen, a very narrow head, and his chest so thin that the bone at the center stuck out sharply, the prow of a slender blond boat, and his waist was even narrower. The label on the cage read: BEAUCEPHUS, PART SALUKI? MIX, THREE YEARS OLD, TOO MUCH FOR OWNER.
Awful name.
Saluki? An extremely narrow North African breed, something like an elegant, ethereal cross between a greyhound and a delicate yellow rat.
Three? Too much? Well, if he was full grown, he was a gangly fellow, all sharp bony edges, and if this was too much, I couldn’t imagine what calm would look like. I knelt down, and he rose and walked to the cage door, bringing his face near to mine, then he unrolled a long tongue, splashed with purple spots as though he’d been eating blackberries. He lay down again and gazed at me with what I can only describe as an absolute openness, as if each new thing that came into his attention were greeted with the same cheerful equanimity, a curious and cheerful regard. He extended a paw in my direction. My body—heart? impulsive head?—said Yes.
What on earth was I doing in the animal shelter, thinking of adopting a dog at a time like this? I hadn’t planned it this way. We’d heard through a mutual friend about some fellows in the city who were dealing with some of the same crises we were, and could no longer keep their cocker spaniel. That was all Wally needed to hear; was it because he was becoming increasingly childlike that he wanted some small, encompassable creature to sleep next to him and lick his face? (I couldn’t say to him that it was clear that Arden was far too depressed for these duties. I don’t think I could even see that myself, in the crisis of those days, when I was trying to hold a collapsing house together.) We agreed. I went to pick up little Dino, but on the front stoop, Jimmi and Tony told me they’d changed their minds, and, of course, I was glad for them that they couldn’t let their animal go. But I knew how disappointed Wally would be, and on the way home I found myself pulling off the highway to the shelter, and before I knew it, here I was, on my knees on the concrete floor by the pen, in over my head.
He was, of course, much bigger than a cocker spaniel, but he seemed the calmest, dreamiest dog, the perfect candidate for the required sleeping and licking duties.
He gazed at me steadily, still thumping, and then rose again, walked back over, and put the beautiful weight of his head in my hands.
That did it.
On the way out, I’d learn that this admirable tranquillity was the result of sedation; Beau had been neutered, as was the shelter’s policy, and he was just waking up. Never mind, I said yes anyway, and was told the next step would be to bring Arden over to meet him; the shelter wanted to be sure they’d get along.
Back home, I’m ablaze with the news: Wally’s excited, if a little bit uncertain about the size of the new arrival, who isn’t going to be the cuddly small thing he’d anticipated. My friends think I’ve lost my mind: You’re taking care of a man who can’t get out of bed and you’re adopting a golden retriever? They do have a point, but there’s a certain dimension of experience at which the addition of any other potential stress simply doesn’t matter anymore. Oh, say the already crazed, why not?
Arden, as ever, is happy to go for a ride, and sits in the passenger seat taking in the landscape, turning to me from time to time, while we drive the half hour to Brewster. It occurs to me that I should be a little nervous about taking him to a shelter, given his history—does he remember the smell, the texture of animal anxiety in the air? If he does, he doesn’t indicate it. He waits in the car while I go in and, with an attendant, bring Beau outside, to a small, grassy corral where the two can run around together. The attendant, sturdy in her jeans and hooded sweatshirt, watches from just outside the gate; she wants to see that the two dogs get along. Which they do, just fine, racing around on the grass, greeting and tussling, though I can tell that, in fact, Beau’s high energy—he’s just been let OUT—is a little startling to Arden. And playing with a stranger in a neutral, outdoor space is quite another thing than said stranger actually getting into your car with you, but I tell the attendant all is completely well. Arden waits in the front seat while I sign the papers and pay the twenty-five dollars, and then I bring our new dog to the car, where he leaps inside and begins merrily bouncing about. Arden commences a quiet, throaty growl, far more threatening than any louder demonstration. I drive out of the parking lot very quickly, my family suddenly one member larger.
Wally’s just about to eat his lunch when we arrive. Nancy, the home health aide, has made him a bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwich with mayonnaise, and when we come hurtling into the room, Beau jumps onto the bed in wild greeting, licks Wally’s face exuberantly while Wally laughs and laughs, and then the untutored creature simply consumes the lunch off the plate, every last bite.
Some things I learn about Beau immediately: the pads on the bottom of his feet are pink and soft as human skin, and seem hardly to have touched the earth. He has been living in a crate. He lacks, almost entirely, what psychologists call “impulse control.” He doesn’t know his name, or any other word. He is no Saluki mix but a starving retriever, and if he’s three years old, he certainly hasn’t been fed much, as he immediately begins a process of doubling in size. His appetite is prodigious, boundless. Most days, we walk along the town beach. Off-season, especially in the morning or early evening, when no one’s about, dogs walk there off-leash, taking delight in waves and wrack line, splashing into the water. Beau is unnervingly interested in the backs of the houses that front the water, sniffing out more to eat. One day, we’re walking past the back of Saint Mary’s of the Harbor, where an early church supper has just ended, and the leftovers are being tossed down onto the sand for the squawking seagulls. Who would have thought that a retriever would love baked beans? Vast amounts of beans, poun
ds of them. I know I should intervene, but I’m so startled by his ardor, by the prospect of this neglected youth suddenly having enough, a rich, steaming demonstration of enough, that I can’t help but just let him go.
Arden is visibly stunned, albeit too gentlemanly not to be accommodating, and I am consoled in knowing I haven’t just displaced him or made him feel put out, because he is clearly, beneath a certain level of mature exasperation, interested in Beau. Who is this obstreperous thing? Taking up a great deal of space, socially clueless, but even to Arden, it appears, charming. I know, because on his first day in the house, Beau commences a game with Arden, the sort of head-wrestling Arden used to do as a puppy, years ago, with his pit bull pal in the weeds back by the railroad tracks. Arden and Beau lie on the floor, heads close to one another, and their teeth flash as they lunge and nip and make horrible noises, a pair of wolverines in heat; they more or less playfully attempt to bite each other on the neck, each trying to deflect the other’s teeth, so that often the big ivories click against each other—if teeth could spark, the house would have burned down. Sometimes the matter gets out of hand, even for them, and there’s a yelp and retreat, then in a minute they’re back at it again till neither one of them can hold their eyes open.
When we have to rent a hospital bed, I push an old single iron one up against it so we can still sleep together. If some of the people who came to help us out are quietly horrified that both beds are full of retrievers—well, so be it. We’ve made an island, a small, very full home.
Beau’s never really still until he simply keels over, usually in bed, and curls himself into a ball like a golden hedgehog, tumbling headlong into sleep. If I’m worn out with him, if I’m entertaining the notion that maybe I’ve made a big mistake, all such thoughts vanish when I look at that face, awake or asleep. I have never thought of myself as a patient person, but some new reserve seems to be appearing within me; I can sit with Wally and talk about nothing, remind him gently when he’s watched the same episode of The Golden Girls three times in a row and found it equally funny every time, tease him about his appetite, laugh with him when he can’t find the words he wants.
And I have a bottomless reserve of tolerance for Beau. If he wanders out onto Bradford Street, where in the off-season people drive a ridiculous number of miles per hour, I’m terrified, but it happens so many times I have to begin to negotiate with the panic I feel when he runs; this is part of his wildness, I tell myself, part of who he is, and if he does get hurt, I’ll have done everything I can. But, in fact, he seems to have a charmed life, though once or twice cars must slam on the brakes for him and for me right behind, chasing him across the middle of the road. When I catch up with him, I try to firmly communicate that this was a terrible idea, but, in truth, that wagging tail dissolves both fear and anger. When we go out the back door for a walk, or come in from one, whenever he’s off his leash, he’s fond of leaping the stockade fence—no mean height—to head for the garbage cans behind us at a little rental compound called Julia’s Cottages for Two. I look for him until I find him, usually in Julia’s trash, gobbling some old chicken bones, and then he looks up at me and starts swishing that plumy tail back and forth like crazy, all happiness. He looks at me with the plainest, pleased gaze, and what’s to be upset about?
This is all a bit like a famous old joke. A man goes to a rabbi for help. I’m miserable, he says, my life is unbearable. What’s the matter, asks the rabbi? I have a tiny house, an angry wife, six children, almost nothing to eat, my feet hurt, what can I do? The rabbi says, without raising an eyebrow, Get a goat. This sounds crazy to the man, but this rabbi’s reputed to be very wise, so he does it anyway. The next week, he comes back to the rabbi. Help me, he says, the goat is a disaster! The goat eats our clothes, takes up all the space in our little house, my wife is furious, it steps on my feet, what can I do? The rabbi says, absolutely calmly, Get rid of the goat. Next week, the man comes back and says, Oh, rabbi, thank you, my life is wonderful now!
The difference is I love the goat.
One day, when he’s sacked out next to Wally, his back close to Wally’s hips, I see my lover lift his right hand—the hand he can’t use to feed himself anymore—and bring it through the air, with intense deliberation, to rest on Beau’s golden flanks. I take a picture of that gesture, because that’s the way I want to remember him. Maybe the last thing he ever did with that hand, I don’t know. The gesture perhaps not so much for Beau himself—the bounding, confused, happy thing—as toward all he represented: possibility, beginning, potential sweetness, vitality. Dear man reaching to the world: how I want to go when I do.
Entr’acte
Graveside
The night Wally died—that wind, from Emily Dickinson’s poem, blowing through our bed—Arden had been sleeping with him all day, except for a couple of quick, cold walks. He was entirely gone into his sleep, until maybe fifteen minutes before the end of Wally’s life—then, suddenly, he jumped, fell off the bed with a loud whunk on the old wooden floorboards, and slunk off into the next room.
In truth, I don’t know where he and Beau were for a while, for several hours. Until, in a diminutive hour of the deep winter night, the couple arrived from the funeral home to take Wally’s body away. That was the one thing, after all of this, I could not bear to see; I couldn’t let him go without me, not that way. So I took the dogs down to the frozen bay, in the pitch darkness. We wandered around awhile by the swelling dark of the harbor-water, under black sky pricked with the fierce script of January stars, and when we came home, his body was gone.
What is it, to a dog, when a person dies?
Beau was still out of focus, and, in fact, hadn’t known the laughing, benevolent, aching presence in the bed in the front room long enough to have much connection to him. But Arden? I’m remembering a batch of photos Wally took, at Herring Cove Beach. Wally’s wearing his old scarlet winter coat, holding a tennis ball in the air, and Arden is leaping up to seize it, a liquid black shape twisting in the air. The series is carefully staged so that each part of Arden’s leap is captured, almost like a flipbook, though Wally didn’t have that rapid-clicking shutter device fashion photographers use, so he must have done this in the most painstaking, careful way, playing the game over and over, setting the shutter for an automatic click. It probably took hours, an emblem now for all the time they played together.
But then that person, with the strength for such elaborate games, was long since gone.
I don’t know how Arden was, not really, because I was, of course, blindsided myself, barely putting one foot in front of the other all the rest of that endless winter, with its long snows and frozen ponds, drifts in the dunes. Maybe it was for the best for Arden, to have a new companion then? Realignment of the pack may be the biggest thing that happens in a dog’s life—the rearrangement of social terms, the syntax of the world recast.
Which will be revised again, in seven years’ time, when Paul and I bury Beau in the deep sand, in the front garden in Provincetown, under the gravel pathway beside the now-towering forsythia. Arden sits by the side of the grave, lying in his favorite spot in the shelter of the branches—bare, because it’s January again—paws crossed in front of him, head down a little, studying what we do: Beau’s body wrapped in an Indian bedspread, interred in the ancient way with things he’ll need: a tennis ball, biscuits, a special small stuffed toy to carry into the underlife. I keep remembering, who knows why, one afternoon in the park in Iowa City, how Beau’d found a small stuffed animal and lay on his back, keeping it in air with all four paws, with such a look of complete absorption on his face. Michael had been with us that day, with his dog Cowboy, and when he saw Beau’s transported face, he caught my eye—a look to say, you see that utter delight, too, don’t you? What startles me at the graveside is that he is so beautiful. His illness had swollen his face and his chest with fluids, but that’s all gone now; now he looks exactly right: the delicate, ruffled pink of his jowls beneath the plum-colored rubber er
aser of the nose.
I’d be lying if I didn’t report that there was a side of Arden then that enjoyed being the only dog in the family; no more being jostled aside, no more sharing space or taking turns at the water bowl; had he always wanted to be an only child again? But there’s nothing visible of that now; he is motionless, beside the open grave, with his paws crossed before him, his tongue slightly extended, a look on his face I can’t begin to read.
Chapter Seven
A walk is a walk and must be taken; breakfast and dinner come when they are due. The routines of the living are inviolable, no hiatus called on account of misery, spiritual crisis, or awful weather. Well, my routines were thoroughly violated; when it came to taking care of myself, I never felt so completely incapacitated. But somehow it was exactly right that I had someone else to take care of. Here was the golden anchor—steady in terms of need if not of behavior. I thought when I brought Beau home I was giving a gift to Wally, but in truth the gift was his to me, or mine to myself, or both. If I’d planned it, I couldn’t have done a better thing to save my life.
It wasn’t just that he was needy; there was more than that. We’d go out to the Beech Forest, a sheltered tract of woods and dunes that provides a kind of respite, balance to the unboundedness of the high dunes and the immense horizontals of the Atlantic. Beau would race the paths with his paws thundering; he’d lift his head to sniff the wind, taking in all it carried: evidence of snow and, someplace in these woods, a fox; the salt and fish oil tang of the bay. I’d watch him breathing in the world with such delight, and as he did so, his body seemed to be expanding—as if he took the air into his chest, inhaling his new freedom and excitement, and his frame began to flower. There was, indeed, nothing of the saluki about him—maybe a hint of chow, expressed in the genes that splotched his tongue violet—but the body was all golden retriever, slowly growing more muscled, the chest expanding while his shoulders solidified.
