Teaching the Dog to Read

by Jonathan Carroll

  Unlike the first note which had been carefully folded in two, this piece of paper was crumpled up into a tight ball like something to throw away. Only later did he learn Lena almost did throw the note away because she was afraid of how he would react to its message. That explained the crumple.

  “Thank you for last night. It was tender and wild and beautiful. Like rearranging the clouds.”

  Tony read the note, blinked, re-read it and then read it again in rising wonder. Lena had written this? He looked up quickly but of course she was nowhere to be seen. In fact she was back at her desk far across the office hunched over some papers, pretending to work, but really only cowering in angst-y anticipation of what he’d think and say about what she had written to him. Or not say which would be even worse.

  Writing sexy notes to lovers was a breeze for Lena. She’d done it regularly in the past and the men loved them—yummy junk food for the mind; Doritos for the libido. But this note was dead-honest, like nothing she’d written before to any man she was involved with. It let her heart’s guard down and told Tony Areal the truth about how she felt. That was awfully scary stuff. Especially for someone like Lena who could wrap most of Earth’s male population around her finger simply by slinking into a room wearing too much eye shadow and attitude. Yet that morning while sitting on the toilet of all places, something in both her head and heart unexpectedly went clunk, like two railroad freight cars being joined together. Eyes wide with startled awe, Lena instantly knew that whatever fondness, fervor, or fuckiness she had previously felt for her new lover was way way back in her rearview mirror now and she realized for the first time she had crossed the border into a whole new state of mind re: Mr. Anthony Areal.

  How does it happen? What is the tipping point from fond to fervor? Surprisingly often it can be as simple as a gesture, their hand dropped onto your knee while riding together in a train, or the way they so seriously but sloppily brush their teeth in the morning. A small detail, trivial, that blossoms in an instant into the most important thing in your life. That innocent hand on the knee sealed the deal. Our mistake is to think love makes sense when much of the time it is, for better or worse, the most irrational thing we experience. Sometimes the biggest loves rise out of the shadows of our emotions like ghosts right in our face, but instead of hooting Boo! they say Now! Them!

  Sitting on the toilet that morning, the only thing Lena could think to say upon realizing she had fallen in love with Tony Areal was “uh oh.”

  Sometime later she took the note she’d written and re-read four times out of the wastebasket where she’d tossed it. She fretted out loud “Damn you—give it to him. It’s nice. He’ll like it.” But what if he didn’t? For Lena Schabort it was a large act of moxie and courage later that morning to actually drop the squashed ball of paper on his desk and hurry away so she didn’t have to see him read it.

  For the next awful hour Tony didn’t respond. Not an email, not a note, a drive-by smile on his way to the office coffee machine—nada. She didn’t even see him which was strange because their office wasn’t that big. Oh God, was he avoiding her? Lena’s inner weather roiled crazily in that hour. Maybe he read her note, thought it was sweet but nothing special. No response required. That made sense. She hadn’t said anything especially mushy or over the top—sweetly romantic and a little poetic, right? So, no response=no problem.

  But maybe he had read it and was horrified by what it said—“tender and wild and beautiful.” Why had she used those loaded words when she could so easily have written something typical like “Last night was so hot with you.” And top off that mundanity with a silly photo of, like, a wolf howling at the moon.

  Maybe his silence meant nothing…or everything. She was miserable.

  Lena Schabort was not used to these kinds of feelings for a man, any man. In the past several had loved her, but she only liked or lusted them back—never more. Until she got involved with Tony she was fine with that. She liked being squired and admired, really liked sex, and one of the few rock solid beliefs she’d carried all through life was a genuine faith in the idea that one day she would meet a man she’d want to wake up next to for the rest of her life. Lena was not a religious person but believed that religiously. And she was willing to wait however long it took, not for some unrealistic Prince Charming or Mr. Right-movie star-zillionaire, but a man she could honestly say “You are my home” to and mean it.

  Another half hour passed and still no sign of him. By then, Lena had nervously drunk so much coffee her bladder was the size of a ripe coconut and warned if she didn’t go to the bathroom soon she’d burst.

  To her surprise as soon as she sat down on the toilet, her eyes tear’d up and she started to cry. Because she remembered the big revelation about her feelings for Tony occured on a toilet a few hours before. But now look what was happening—for the first time in her life she’d put a whole foot in the deep end of love’s pool but from all (silent) indications, a shark was in the midst of biting it off.

  When she finished peeing, she took a while in front of the bathroom mirror bringing her face back to a semblance of normal before going back out and confronting the office world again. Then, to add insult to injury, who should be perched on a corner of her desk looking smug as an African dictator but the horrible Rick Olivier. She was so disgusted he was there at a moment when her heart was a nervous wreck, that she felt like clonking him over the head with a wastebasket.

  “What do you want Rick? Go away. You are the Ebola virus to me right now.” She tried to vaporize him with a glare of pure loathing but as usual Godzilla-Ego heard only what he wanted to hear and ignored both her venomous look and the insult.

  “Are you finally learning to cook, Lena? It’s about time. But we should cook together sometime.” He leered. “I told you before—If I cook you a meal it’ll be so delicious you’ll immediately want to elope with me, guaranteed. So let’s have a cooking date—how does that sound?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  She hadn’t noticed he had something in his hand. He held it up now and she saw what it was—a can opener. A simple metal can opener.

  Eyes widening, Lena recognized it immediately and could barely believe what she was seeing. It couldn’t be. But it was! It was! Her voice spilled out in a thrilled rush “Where did you get that?”

  Rick frowned “It was here on your desk. Why?”

  “Was there a note? Was there anything with it?”

  Shaking his head, dismay slid down his face like a slow dropping curtain as this conversation went south in a way he hadn’t expected. Lena snatched the metal opener out of his hand; kissed the damned thing, and without another word hurried away to who-knows-where.

  Offended, Olivier stood up, shot his cuffs, and made sure no one else had seen Lena Schabort bound away from him like he had cooties. “Fuck her,” he grumbled on his way back to his desk. Then sighing added mournfully, “You wish, Amico, you wish she’d let you in.”

  To Lena’s dismay, Tony wasn’t at his desk when she got there, can opener in nervous hand. On the way there she’d rehearsed what to say and even slowed a few feet from his desk so as not to be winded and unable to speak the carefully chosen words when she arrived.

  Her first thought had been to flat out ask him “Does this mean what I think it means?” But she knew that could easily come across as too aggressive and besides, what if Tony hadn’t put the thing on her desk—someone else had for some reason? Then she’d sound confusing and foolish, so scratch that line too. How about if she were to hold up the gadget and ask him “Was this from you?” Simple, straightforward, with no hint of anything else behind the question. But again, if that can opener on her desk wasn’t from Mr. Areal, the subject would end there and she’d be left with a useless piece of metal in her hand and a wincing heart.

  What she finally settled on saying was the question “Is this from Gorbog too?” and hope he’d remember what she was talking about.

  A few nights before, Ton
y had a dramatic dream that he described to her as soon as they woke up the next morning. “We were in the kitchen making a meal together. I don’t remember what it was, but that’s not important.” Lena wasn’t fully awake while he spoke but the eager, urgent tone of his voice said the dream meant a lot to him so she should listen carefully.

  “The front doorbell rang and I went to answer it. When I came back I was carrying a small box. The return address said only that it was from someone (?) named Gorbog.”

  Still sleepy-headed, Lena squinted at the wacky name, not sure she’d heard him right. “Who?”

  “Gorbog. I have no idea who or what that is. When I opened the box, the only thing inside was a can opener. The basic kind with two wings joined at the center you hook onto the lip of a can, close them, and then turn the key to open it?” Tony put his hands together and opened/closed them in an upside down “V” to demonstrate the kind of opener he was describing.

  Lena nodded she understood.

  “I took it out of the box and suddenly this light went on in my head. I knew exactly what it was for and why it’d been sent to me.” Tony sat up in bed and wiped his mouth. “I told you to take one side of it and I’d take the other. Then we were supposed to make a wish and pull it apart, like a regular wishbone on a chicken—”

  Lena raised one eyebrow and closed the other eye. “Make a wish and pull a metal can opener apart?”

  “Yes I know it sounds crazy, but let me finish—you’re going to like this next part, believe me. So we made our wishes and on the count of three, pulled like you do on any wishbone. The thing broke apart, but in the exact middle so neither got the short end. Neither of us won or lost. The opener snapped precisely in half.

  “You looked at me and asked what it meant. I said because we’d both made the same wish, now it was going to come true. You didn’t believe me and asked what I’d wished for. I said that our relationship would last. You started crying because that was your wish too.”

  Hearing this, Lena jerked up onto her elbows and stared at Tony, her eyes full of hope, doubt and a million questions. She didn’t know what to say while at the same time she was bursting to say so much.

  There are moments in any relationship which can come at the beginning, middle or end, where everything balances on a single word or sentence. Even one look can sometimes steady, or knock everything of importance onto its side, never to be righted again. Lena Schabort, who wasn’t often at a loss for words in her life, was terrified to say the wrong thing at this moment. Tony’s dream was so exciting in what it might mean for her future that perhaps it was better to remain silent and let his strange beautiful story simply breathe itself into life between them now like a just-born child, rather than if she were to say something that might spoil its promise.

  “It’s…lovely, Tony; like a mysterious perfume you smell only once but then it’s gone.”

  He smiled and looked down at his hands. Was he waiting for her to say more, to give a better (fuller, more coherent…) response that would seal their deal right there and then? Was recounting the dream his shy unique way of saying in real life his world was hers if she wanted it? Lena badly needed Tony to look up now so she could read his face for a sign. But to her dismay he said in a quieter subdued voice that he had to go to the toilet. Then to add to the disappointment he got out of bed and padded to the bathroom without looking back.

  Fists clenched tight with frustration, Lena sat in the middle of the bed fretting about what she should/would/could have done or said to make things right. Her frustration got worse when she heard the shower go on in there, which meant he wouldn’t be out of the bathroom for a while.

  When he did emerge an eternity later he smiled, told her he had to go back to his place to pick up his laptop, and would see her at work. When she asked lamely while he was dressing if he wouldn’t like some coffee first, the words were barely out of her mouth when she remembered he didn’t drink coffee, which made her sound like a complete ditz.

  “Hey, I’m the tea guy, remember? I’ll see you later.”

  Later she stood by the side of his office desk holding a can opener in her hand wondering where the hell he was because if he didn’t show up soon she felt she’d pop.

  It must have been something he ate. But he hadn’t eaten anything since the night before and that was only a burger and fries—nothing special or especially volcanic to cause the disturbing hot solid tightness in the middle of his chest that blossomed as he was walking in to work. It sat stolidly there like a fat woman on a bus taking up most of the room on the seat. He’d had heartburn before but nothing like this.

  Tony had lied to Lena earlier about needing his laptop. He left her apartment after showering so he could go to a hardware store and buy the can opener. Then get to the office and leave it on her desk before she arrived. He was able to do all that, but now this chest-thing became so dominant and worrying that he finally stood up and walked to the bathroom, hoping some physical movement would calm it or maybe even make it go away.

  No luck. The fat woman inside his chest stayed right where she was. While washing his hands at the bathroom sink, he remembered the warning signs of a heart attack were exactly what were happening to him at that moment: tightness in the chest, a heat radiating up to below his chin, shortness of breath…

  Uncle Bob. His Uncle Bob had died of a sudden heart attack. Oh God! Once that thought appeared he panicked. Without another word Tony Areal left the bathroom, left the office without a word to anyone, got in his car and drove fast to the hospital. He was terrified he’d die on the way over, minutes away from being saved. Please please, not that. Wait, I’m almost there. Please!

  He didn’t call Lena because on the drive over, the tightness in his chest increased and fear swallowed him. Not now! Not this! He was young, his health was good, and he had no real bad habits. All he could think about was sweet Uncle Bob and then dead Uncle Bob and he tried to breathe deep and normally but nothing did what he wanted. His breath came and went in short doggy pants. Then a thin wire of silvery pain slid down his left arm into his hand. He took that hand off the steering wheel and shaking it told it to wait, please wait till we get there.

  He made it to the hospital. Driving straight up to the ambulance entrance, he got out of the Porsche, waved at an orderly on the other side of the glass doors to come, and collapsed. By the time they got him on a stretcher and were racing him through hospital corridors while pounding him on the chest, Tony Areal had no pulse.

  “What the hell did you do?”

  “Nothing; I did nothing!”

  “I warned you about the chest pains.”

  “You did not! I would have done something if I knew. Do you think I’m stupid? Do you think I want to die?”

  “Looks like it’s too late for that now.”

  Tony Night looked at Tony Day with disgust. “Why are you giving up so easily? You don’t know if we’re going to die. We’ve got things to live for. At least I do, I don’t know about you.”

  The two Tonys sat in flimsy white plastic chairs on either side of the bed where the comatose body of their host Anthony Areal lay. The chairs were so low both men had to crane their necks to see over the body when they wanted to make eye contact with each other.

  “So what the hell happened, you keeled over?”

  “Yeah, as soon as I got out of the car it knocked me flat. Thank God I got as far as the hospital. What if I were still driving and crashed into something?”

  “Yeah well, it looks like you did crash into something—death.”

  Annoyed, Tony Night shook his head. How was he supposed to have known about the bum heart? Tony Day had never brought anything about a bad heart into his dreams. And anyway, who dreams about having a heart condition?

  “Who’s that?”

  Back to the door, Tony Day didn’t know who Night was talking about. “Who’s who?”

  Tony Night gestured with his chin toward the door. “Him.”

  Day turned halfway
around in his chair. Standing a few feet away was one of the handsomest men he had ever seen. Movie star handsome with long black hair combed straight back, sharply chiseled features like a 1930’s Fascist statue, and eyes that would make any soul sigh, male or female. The tall man was dressed in a gunmetal gray suit tailored so perfectly to his thin body that it looked like it had been poured onto him. In his hand he held a short fat lit cigar but strangely no smoke came from it, even when he took a puff and exhaled. The end glowed bright orange when he drew on the cigar but not one thread or curl of smoke came off it.

  The guy checked the time on his wristwatch. Tony Day recognized it immediately—a Lichtenberg ‘Figure’. Instinctively Tony looked down at his wrist but his Lichtenberg was still there.

  “Len Fischman.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “My name is Len Fischman.” Another puff on the cigar. Fischman squinted one eye almost closed, as if smoke had gotten into it. But there was no smoke.

  “Who are you? I mean, besides Len Fischman?”

  “Number 43 or 44, I’m not really sure which because I never checked. I didn’t care, you know what I mean?”

  The Tonys glanced at each other, as if one might know what this Len was talking about and could fill the other in.

  “What is—” both of them spoke this at the same time. Tony Day shut up and let his counterpart finish the sentence.

  Tony Night said, “What is 43 or 44?”

  “Incarnation. I came right before you. Sometimes it happens immediately after someone dies, sometimes it can be millennia. You came immediately. Don’t ask me why.”