Ill Nature

by Joy Williams

  The surgeon was of the type Thomas Mann was always writing about, a doctor out of The Magic Mountain, someone whom science had cooled and hardened. Still, he seemed to take a bit of pleasure in imagining the referring doctor’s discomfort at my messy wounds. People are usually pretty well cleaned up by the time Gary sees them, he said. He took X-rays and looked at them and said, I will be back in a moment to talk with you about your hand. I sat on the examining table and swung my feet back and forth. One of my sneakers was blue and the other one green. It was a little carefree gesture I had adopted for myself some time ago. I felt foolish and dirty. I felt that I must appear to be not very bright. The doctor returned and asked when the dog had bitten me and frowned when I told him it had been six hours ago. He said, This is very serious—you must have surgery on this hand today. I can’t do it here, it must be done under absolutely sterile conditions at the hospital. The bone could become infected, and bone infections are very difficult to clear up. I’ve reserved a bed in the hospital for you and arranged for another surgeon to perform the operation. I said, Oh, but . . . He said, The surgery must be done today. He repeated this, with beats between the words. He was stern and forbidding and, I thought, pessimistic. Good luck, he said.

  The surgeon at Lennox Hill Hospital was a young, good-looking Chinese man. He spoke elegantly and had a wonderful smile. He said, The bone is fractured badly in several places, and the tendon is torn. Because it was caused by a dog’s bite, the situation is actually life-threatening. Oh, surely . . . I began. No, he said, it’s very serious, indeed, life-threatening, I assure you. He smiled.

  I lay in a bed in the hospital for a few hours, and at one in the morning the hand was operated on and apparently it went well enough. Long pins held everything together. You will have some loss of function in your hand, but it won’t be too bad, the doctor said, presenting his wonderful smile. I used to kiss Hawk’s nose and put my hands in his jaws in play. People in the hospital wanted to talk about my dog biting me. That’s unusual, isn’t it, they said, or, That’s strange, isn’t it, or, I thought that breed was exceptionally loyal. One nurse asked me if I had been cruel to him.

  My hand would not be the same. It would never be strong and it would never again stroke Hawk’s black coat.

  When I was home again, I washed Hawk’s dishes and put them in the cupboard. I gathered up all his toys and put them away too. I busied myself thinking I would bury all his things. Meanwhile, he waited at the kennel for me to come and get him, like I always had. I was taking Vicodin for the pain and an antibiotic. In a week I would begin taking another antibiotic and an anti-inflammatory drug for my malady. I lay about, feeling the pain saunter and ping through me. My arms felt like flimsy sacks holding loose sticks. If the sticks touched one another, there would be pain. I went back to listening to Glenn Gould and reading about Glenn Gould, which is what I had been doing when Hawk and I were last together. I played Glenn Gould over and over. Glenn never wanted to think about what his hands and fingers were doing, but as he grew older he became obsessed with analyzing their movements. He felt that if he performed with a blank face, he would lose his control of the piano. Frowning and grimacing gave him better control of his hands. My mind said, You would not be able to defend or explain Glenn Gould to anyone who didn’t care for him.

  Hawk had to remain in the kennel for fifteen days for observation; it was the law. It was the same number of days we had spent so happily on Nantucket. My husband spoke to Fred. You should talk to Fred, he said. When I called, I got Lynn. She spoke to me in a sort of lighthearted way.

  She seemed grateful that I had held on to Hawk during the attack. I was too confused by this comment to reply to it. She said, After you left he attacked the noose, but then he calmed down in the cage after we washed the blood off of him. He ate some food. Some dogs get a taste for biting, she said, after they start to bite. Everything she said was wrong.

  Finally, she said, He seems to be in conflict. The word seemed to reassure her, it gave her confidence. I couldn’t understand a thing she was saying. I wanted someone to tell me why my beloved dog had attacked me so savagely and how I could save both of us. He’s just in a lot of conflict now, the girl said. Maybe he had some separation anxiety. He seemed all right for a while after we washed the blood off him. I don’t know what to tell you.

  Finally, Fred got on the line. He’s just not the same dog, Fred said. I know that dog, this isn’t him. When I had the noose on him, he was attacking the pole and looking right at me. There was no fear in his eyes, there was nothing in his eyes. I’m no doctor, Fred said, but I think it’s a brain tumor. I think something just kicked on or clicked off in him, and you’ll never know when it will happen again.

  I said, He was a perfectly healthy, happy, loving dog.

  This isn’t your dog here now, Fred said.

  I couldn’t bear to call Fred every day. I called him every other day. He has good days and bad days, Fred said. Sometimes you can walk right up to the cage and he just looks at you or he doesn’t even bother to look at you. Other times he flings himself at the chain link, attacking it, trying to get at you. Some days he’s a monster.

  I thought of Hawk’s patience, of his happiness, of his dear, grave face. Sometimes, when he slept, he would whimper and his legs would move as though he were walking quickly in a dream. What do you think he’s dreaming about, I would ask my husband. Then I would call his name, Hawk, Hawk, it’s all right, and he would open one startled eye and look at me and sigh, and then he would be calm again. I couldn’t bear the thought of him waiting in the kennel for me to pick him up. I was not going to pick him up. I was going to have him put down, put to sleep, euthanized, destroyed. My love would be murdered. I would murder my love.

  The days dragged on. Fred said, He’s unreliable. I have no doubt that if you told him to do something he didn’t want to do, he would attack you. Anything could set him off, he could turn on anybody. If you slipped and fell, if you were in a helpless position, he could kill you, I have no doubt of it. That’s a tough dog. Fred fancied German shepherds and had several of his own whom he exhibited in shows. He’s not the same dog anymore, Fred said.

  I did not really believe this, that he was not the same dog. I did not think that he had a brain tumor. I thought that something unspeakable and impossible and calamitous had happened to Hawk and me. My husband said, You have to remember him the way he was. If you just dwell on this, if this is all you remember from all the wonderful times you had with him, then shame on you. My husband said, I love him too, I miss him, but I’m not going to mention him every time I think of him. You can talk about him all you want and I’ll talk with you, but I’m not going to bring him up again, it makes you too upset.

  Upset? I said.

  On the fifteenth day, Fred would put a soporific in Hawk’s food, and then the vet would arrive and give him a lethal injection. His brain would die and his heart would follow. It would take ten seconds. So often I had sat with Hawk while he ate. He would eat for a while and then pick up a toy and walk around the room with it and then eat some more. Oh, that’s so good, I would say to him while he ate. Isn’t that good? Oh, it’s delicious. . . .

  Fred said, I know this is difficult. If he had been run over by a truck, it would be a different matter. You would grieve for him. This is a harder grief.

  If I talked about something else at home or if I ate something or if I had a martini again, if I took the time to make a martini rather than just slosh some gin in a glass, my husband said—You seem a little better.

  I tried to imagine that Hawk was attempting to reach me telepathically during these days. I went to all his places, for they were my places too, and tried to listen, but nothing was coming through. I didn’t expect his apologies of course. For my part I forgave him, but I was going to have him murdered too. We had loved one another and we would never meet again. He never came to me in dreams. I was granted nothing, not the smallest sign.

  We had to go to the vet to sign
the paper authorizing euthanization. The vet’s name was Dr. Turco. There had been Dr. Franks and Dr. Crane and Dr. Yang in my life in the last days, and now there was Dr. Turco. In the parking lot there was a young man with a pit bull in the back of his pickup truck. He was fumbling with the dog’s leash somewhat, and it was taking me awhile to get out of our car with my hand in the cast and my aching, crippling malady, my mysterious malady, whatever the hell it was. I passed the dog, sturdy and panting, cute in his ugliness, white and pink with dashes of black about him, a dog with his own charms. Hi there, I said to the dog. The young man seemed unfriendly, he did not seem as nice as his dog. They followed my husband and me into the vet’s waiting room, the dog sliding and scrambling across the waxed floor, his nails clicking.

  My mind said, The vet may have an explanation for what happened, an answer. Perhaps some anecdotes at the very least will bring you peace. Dr. Turco said, Fred tells me that Hawk has become quite dangerous.

  I said, It was an aberration, a moment’s madness seized him. Could it be a brain tumor?

  The vet paused, It’s possible . . . he said, indicating that it wasn’t very likely. He said, So sad. My sympathy and respect for your decision.

  It’s unusual, isn’t it? I asked. For a dog to attack his owner?

  It’s quite unusual, the vet said. I’ve never known a dog to attack its owner. Excuse me for just one moment.

  He left the room. My God, I said to my husband, did you hear that! He didn’t say that, my husband said in anguish. He did! He just did! I said. I’ll ask him when he comes back, my husband said.

  I’ve never known personally of it happening, the vet said, in the course of my practice. I’m sure it’s probably happened. I’m so sorry.

  I signed the paper with my left hand. My signature looked totally unfamiliar to me. Above it, printed by some other hand, was Hawk’s name and breed and age and weight. As we returned to the parking lot, the young man we had seen with the pit bull was coming back to his truck from the rear of the vet’s office. He was cradling a black garbage bag in his arms, his lips pressed to it. He placed it in the back of the pickup, got into the cab, and sat there for a moment. Then he rubbed his eyes and drove away.

  On the sixteenth day, my husband went to the kennel to pay for Hawk’s residency there and to pick up his leash. Then he went to the vet and paid for the euthanization and for the cremation that hadn’t happened yet. He brought home Hawk’s lavender collar from the vet with his tags on it and the St. Francis “Protect Us” medal. I said, That’s not Hawk’s leash. I wanted to bury Hawk’s leash with his ashes and his toys, but I wanted to keep his collar with all the photographs I had of him. That’s his leash, my husband said. They bleached it to get the blood out.

  Silver Trails is a pet motel, but it also has a crematorium and a cemetery where the pictures of beloved pets, made weatherproof in a silvering process, are mounted on a curved tile wall. The wall was supposed to be capable of withstanding freezing temperatures, but it has not and some of the tiles are cracked. All the dogs shown have been “good” and “faithful.” The wall is in a fragrant pine grove, and on the pathway to it there is a plaque, which the owners of Silver Trails are very pleased with. It says, “If Christ Had A Little Dog, It Would Have Followed Him To The Cross.” There is no devotion, it is known, like a dog’s devotion. Dogs excel in love.

  Hawk had been taken from Red Rock to the vet’s, but it would be several more days before he was brought to Silver Trails. Actually, only living dogs come to the place so named. Dead dogs come to Trail’s End.

  I was waiting for someone to call me and say, Your animal will be ready after four, which, when the day arrived, is what they would say. Hawk still did not come to me in dreams. I dreamed instead about worrying that I had not told my mother, who lived only in my dreams. She would feel so badly about Hawk. Surely, I must have told her, I reasoned, but I had forgotten if indeed I had. I wasn’t sure. Awake, everywhere I looked, I thought Hawk should be there. He should be here with me. How strange it all is, how wrong, that he is not here. My mind said, He wants to come back, he wants to come back to his home and be with you, but he can’t because you killed him, you had him killed. . . . My body was my malady, my tedious non-life-threatening banal malady, but my mind was like Job’s wife, whose only advice to him was to curse God and die. I felt that I wanted to die.

  I was utterly unhappy and when, according to Kierkegaard, one becomes utterly unhappy and realizes the absolute woefulness of life, when one can say and mean it, Life for me has no value, that is when one can make a bid for Christianity, that is when one can begin. One must become crucified to a paradox. One must give up reason.

  I listened to Kathleen Ferrier sing from Orfeo ed Euridice in her unearthly contralto.

  What is life to me without thee?

  What is left if thou art dead?

  What is life, life without thee?

  What is life without my Love?

  In the myth of the great musician, Orpheus played music that was so exquisite that not only his fellow mortals but even the wild beasts were soothed and comforted by it. When his Eurydice died, he sang his grief for her to all who breathed the upper air, but he was not able to call her back so he decided to seek her among the dead. It ended badly, of course, though not typically so.

  The lovely Kathleen died when she was forty-one years old. Glenn died when he was fifty-one. My mind said, You haven’t done much with your life, think of what those two could have done if they had lived on, you couldn’t keep your own pet from tearing you apart, or what do they call them now, not pet, companion animal. . . .

  There was no consolation. Hawk had been my consolation.

  When the phone rang, a woman’s voice said, Your animal will be ready after four. I arrived at Silver Trails, and I was directed to a building with a not unsubtle smokestack. I was told to speak with Michael. But Michael was not there. Michael? I called. I could hear a lawn mower in the distance, and over the sounds of the lawn mower were the sounds of the live dogs barking.

  I walked into the building, which had two rooms, then a larger room, open like a garage. There was a stubby, tunnel-like object there, the crematorium oven. There were twenty filled black garbage bags secured with twine on a table and a large sleek golden dog lying free. He was a big dog, lying with his face away from me. He looked fit and not old. One of his ears was folded back on itself in a soft, sad way. I walked outside and just stood there. I didn’t know what to do with myself anymore. Eventually, the lawn mower grew closer with the boy named Michael on it. I’ve come for my dog’s remains, I said. His name is Hawk. The boy led me into the building, but he closed the door to the big room. He drew back a curtain that ran along a wall and there were dozens of small black paper shopping bags on the shelves, a bag of a size that might contain something lovely, special, from a boutique. There was a label on each bag that said “TRAIL’S END,” and it had the name of a dog and then the owner’s name. Inside the bag was a blue-and-white tin with a vaguely Oriental motif of blue swallow-like birds flying. The boy and I searched the shelves for the proper bag. Here he is, I said. The boy pointed to another bag. There’s another Hawk, he said. He had a strange, half-smiling grimace. There was grass in his hair and grass stuck to his T-shirt. This is my Hawk, I said. There’s my name too. I gestured at the shelves. So many! I said. There’s so many!

  Oh, sometimes all four shelves are full, the boy said.

  At home, I sat on the porch and with great difficulty pried open the lid of the tin with its foolish scene. I used a knife around it. There was cotton on the top and beneath it was a clear bag of ground bones. Hawk’s ashes weighed more than those of my mother or my father. We all end up alone, don’t we, honey? I said.

  And then, in time, my little dream.

  Hawk and I are walking among a crowd in near darkness. I am a little concerned for him because I want him to be good. He can hardly move among the people in the crowd, but he pays them no attention. He is close to me
, he is calm, utterly familiar, he is my handsome boy, my good boy, my love. Then, of course, I realize that these are the dead and we are both newly among them.

  Autumn

  THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS TIME GOING STRAIGHT ON TO new things. This is an illusion. Okay? And clinging to this illusion makes it difficult to understand oneself and one’s life and what is happening to one. Time is repetition, a circle. This is obvious. Day and night, the seasons, tell us this. Even so, we don’t believe it. Time is not a circle, we think. Spring screams the opposite to us, of course, and summer seduces us into believing that we’re all going to live forever. Winter couldn’t care less what we think about time. But fall cares. Instructive, tactful, subtle, fall is a philosophy all its own. Occult, secretive, taking pleasure in sleep, in rest. Fall’s comfortless, honest rot. In the beginning in most places it’s showy, the better to mask its melancholy: raging leaves and spanking breezes, edgy with the real cold. And that special, solemn light. For fall is for melancholics and those in love. The torchy sort of love. Forget spring. Spring is nothing but promise, a reproach to melancholics. Spring makes us forget the deal, whereas fall is the deal. The unutterable, unalterable deal.

  Fall is. It always comes round, with its lovely patience. If in the beginning it’s restless, at the end it’s resigned, complete in its waiting, complete in the utter correctness of what it has to tell us. Which is that we’re transitory. We’re transient, we’re temporary, we’re all only sometime. We will pass and someone else will take our place. Our pursuit of living founders each time we remember this. Fall is the darkening window, the one Hart Crane had in mind in his poem “Fear,” the window on which licks the night.

  Why I Write

  IT’S BECOME FASHIONABLE THESE DAYS TO SAY THAT THE writer writes because he is not whole: he has a wound, he writes to heal it. But who cares if the writer is not whole? Of course the writer is not whole, or even particularly well. There’s something unwholesome and self-destructive about the entire writing process. Writers are like eremites or anchorites—natural-born eremites or anchorites—who seem puzzled as to why they went up the pole or into the cave in the first place. Why am I so isolate in this strange place? Why is my sweat being sold as elixir? And how have I become so enmeshed with words, mere words, phantoms?