As for Sundays, I still go to Big John’s and Aunt Alfresca’s every week. Now that Stavros lives with us, he likes to go too and Helen rarely bows out.
So you could say we have an established pattern of activity, which I refer to as our routine. Sam calls it a rut.
Really, almost everything Helen and I do is joint, except occasionally shopping, which means that Helen keeps showing up with new things for our home. I’m not sure who is bothered by this more, Sam or me.
Here’s Sam on the first time it happened back in June with that clock:
“That’s kind of a big deal,” Sam said at the time. “She’s making changes to your environment without consulting you first?”
“What?” I said. “She has to ask me about every little thing?”
This, in fact, was pretty much what Helen said to me the morning after I discovered the clock and I raised the issue again.
At the time, my reply was, “No, but—”
I never got any further, because it occurred to me that she had a point. It was her house too. Why shouldn’t she bring home whatever she wanted?
“But would you ever do that?” Sam asked when I told her that. “C’mon, you’d never bring home something like a clock without seeing if it was a clock she liked too or even if she wanted one at all first.”
“It’s just a clock.”
“A clock is never just a clock, Johnny.”
“Hey, didn’t Freud say that?”
“It’s not funny. She should care what you think about these things.”
“Aw, what does any of it even matter? So long as she’s happy—”
“What about you being happy? Isn’t it your environment too?”
Over time, I simply stop telling Sam about it when Helen brings home surprise items that are not exactly to my taste. What’s the point in having Sam get all worked up? Especially after Sam coins the phrase “hostile purchases” to refer to them. Why have Sam get upset? After all, it really doesn’t bother me. It’s fine. It’s fine. So long as Helen’s happy, I keep telling myself, isn’t that the important thing?
And I go on telling myself that until one day Helen brings home something that’s a little too big to ignore, the first of two things that will jar us out of our routine—or rut, depending on who’s describing my life. That’s the day in October when Helen says she has a surprise for me, disappears for a few hours, and comes home with…
Woof
…a dog.
And not just any dog. It’s a really big dog. According to Helen, his name is Bowser. Me, I’m thinking Cerberus would be a more accurate name as the beast from hell strains against the leash Helen’s barely holding on to, drool dropping from his mouth onto the hardwood floor. The coat of the animal is a dark fawn color with black on the muzzle, ears and nose, and around the eyes.
“What is that thing?” I say, tempted to back away. “It’s huge.”
“Huge?” Her voice strangles a bit on the laugh that follows as she adds a second hand to what looks like it may be a futile leash-holding operation. “He’s still just a puppy.”
“A puppy? How big is that thing going to get to be?”
“It’s not a thing. It’s a he.” Then: “I don’t know.” She shrugs. “A hundred and fifty? Two-hundred fifty pounds?”
“Two…What is it, I mean he, an elephant?”
“Oh, no,” she says, quite serious. “Elephants grow much bigger.” She removes a hand from the leash just long enough to scratch under the dog’s chin. “Bowser’s an English Mastiff.”
“A Eng—” OK, I know I’m starting to sound like Little Sir Echo here, but honestly, I may not exactly be speechless over this, yet, but it’s definitely causing me to be speech-impaired. “But aren’t those, like, the biggest breed of dog in the world?”
“Not like.” More petting. “Are. They are the biggest dog breed in the world. The largest one ever weighed three hundred and forty-three pounds—I looked it up—but after 2000, Guinness stopped recording largest and heaviest pets, so who knows? The breed could be growing bigger all the time.” She looks at the dog, addressing him as she scratches under his chin. “You going to be a champion-sized dog? Who’s a good dog, Bowser? Yes, you are. Yes, you are.”
God, that’s annoying.
“But don’t you think,” I say, careful not to let that annoyance show, “that Fluffy might be, oh, I don’t know, traumatized by the size of this thing?”
Needless to say, there’s a lot of barking going on, because that dog wants off that leash, like, yesterday. Helen struggles to hold him. Despite her own slenderness, I’ve always thought of her as tough, strong, but that puppy must weigh at least sixty pounds. And what, by the end of the year, he’ll grow to be two and a half to four times that size? The mind reels.
At my own mention of Fluffy, I turn around. When Helen came through the door, Stavros and Fluffy and me had just been hanging in the living room, but now I see that Fluffy’s gone, Stavros too. Yup, the cat must be traumatized already, probably hiding out under a bed upstairs; again, probably Stavros too.
“I’m sure the cat’s fine,” Helen says. “Anyway, I got him for you.”
When did I ever ask for a dog?
“What,” she says, before I can point this out, “was I supposed to ask your permission first before getting myself a dog?”
Wait a second. Didn’t she just two seconds ago say the dog was for me? Now it’s her dog?
“So,” she says, bending down, “I’m going to let him off his leash now…”
“Excuse me for a minute,” I say, backing up, then I turn and head for the stairs.
“Where are you going?” she asks when I’m already heading up.
Below me, the dog’s already tearing around the living room.
“Bathroom,” I say.
“What’s wrong with the one down here?”
I give myself a hit on the side of the head to indicate, What was I thinking of? and say, “Well, I’m already halfway up,” and then continue the rest of the way. Once on the second floor, before proceeding to my ultimate destination, I check the bedrooms. Sure enough, the cat’s under the bed in Stavros’s room. Even though the spread goes to the ground, I know the cat’s under there because Stavros is down on all fours, his butt facing me as he tries to talk some calmness into the cat.
“He’s really upset, Johnny,” Stavros says.
Who can blame him? All that barking—it probably acts on him like that stupid ticking clock acts on me.
“I’m doing what I can,” I tell him.
“Don’t worry about it,” Stavros says. “We’ll be fine.”
I go to the bathroom, shut the door and call Sam. When she answers, I fill her in on what’s happened.
“That’s a hostile act,” are the first words out of her mouth when I’m finished.
“What? No. It’s not a—”
“Then how else would you describe it? This isn’t like her bringing home a clock without asking you first or picking out whorehouse colors for your bedroom without consulting your opinion. She brought home a dog, a big fucking dog. If that’s not a hostile act…”
“So, what,” I say, recalling something Helen said just a few minutes ago, “was she supposed to ask my permission first?”
“Yes. OK, maybe not that, but she at least should have discussed it with you before bringing home something that could wind up weighing two hundred and fifty pounds.”
“Wait a minute. How did you know they can weight that much? I never said anything about that part.”
“What do you think? I’ve been googling. Holy crap, I hope your dog doesn’t end up like Zorba.”
“Zorba? Who the hell is Zorba?”
“Three hundred and forty-three pounds, heaviest dog on record, at least according to Guinness, who stopped—”
“Yeah, I know all about Guinness and that guy,” I cut her off. “I just didn’t have a name for him before. Christ. Zorba.”
“It says here that due to th
eir massive size and need for space, the dogs are best suited to country or suburban life. Where does Helen think you guys live? You got a lot of space there, Squire?”
“Well,” I say, starting to feel offended on Helen’s behalf, “maybe it’s not the country, but Danbury is a suburb.”
“Try it’s more like a small city. You got some landed estate you’re hiding over there, Squire—”
“Stop calling me that.”
“—because last time I was there, it looked more like a patch of grass.”
“Yes. Well.”
“No two ways about it, it’s a hostile act.”
“And stop saying that.”
“It’s true, though. What else would you call it? Everyone knows you love that cat of yours. So what could Helen have been thinking? Did she somehow think that you and the cat and your barber would all be happy about this?”
I don’t know. I don’t know what Helen was thinking. I’m only sure of one thing: It’s not this ‘hostile act’ Sam keeps referring to, a thought I distance myself from as I realize this isn’t helping the situation any.
“I gotta go,” I say.
“Prior to today, did Helen ever profess some great desire to have a dog?”
Did she pro—
“I gotta go,” I say again.
“Oh, wait! Here’s some good news.”
“What?”
“According to the American Kennel Club, English Mastiffs have ‘a combination of grandeur and good nature as well as courage and docility.’ Who would’ve thought a monster that size would be docile? Think about it. If you can just get through the puppy stage, he might wind up a perfect companion for Fluffy.”
“If Fluffy doesn’t have a heart attack from fear or commit suicide first.”
“He’s not going to—Oh, more good news.”
“I can’t wait.”
“The breed is susceptible to a lot of health issues—hip dysplasia, allergies, hypothyroidism, etcetera—but you got a boy instead of a girl, so at least you don’t have to worry about vaginal hyperplasia.”
Yes, at least there is that.
As I exit the bathroom, I hear my wife calling from downstairs:
“Johnny? We got a situation here!”
When I hit the top of the stairs, there’s an odor and it gets stronger the lower I descend. At the bottom of the staircase, I look around and spot the source of the stench. It’s a pretty big source.
“Ah,” I say. “Not toilet-trained yet, huh?”
“He’s just a puppy,” Helen says defensively.
Never mind puppy. He’s huge and what comes out of him is proportionally so.
Well, this is new and different, I think, searching for something to clean it up with. I also think that even once the dog is trained, I’m going to need to get a shovel and a Hefty bag to follow him around the neighborhood with.
As predicted, by me, the cat is traumatized.
For hours, Fluffy won’t eat, won’t use the litter box at all, won’t even come out from under Stavros’s bed, let alone go downstairs. I look through my cat-psychology book, but honestly, there are no chapters on how to help a lone little cat adjust to having a huge dog in the house.
This can’t go on, I think. The little guy’s gotta be able to drink water and eat, plus, it’s not good for him to hold stuff inside for hours on end. So, eventually, I drag his furry little body out from under the bed and carry him in my arms downstairs like a baby. Helen’s watching pre-season basketball on TV and the dog’s sleeping on the area rug in the living room, which is a good thing, so I carry the cat to his litter box on the landing to the basement, set him down in it so he can do his business.
“It’s OK,” I tell him when he looks up at me with fear and a question in his eyes. “I’ll stay right here. I got your back.”
Once that’s done, the results neatly buried—cat’s are so much easier than dogs—I go up and grab his food and water bowls from the kitchen, bring them down. I encourage him to eat and drink, staying right beside him all the while. He seems better now, calmer and almost happy again, but when we leave the landing, the cat in my arms again, and enter the main floor, the barking starts.
Fluffy freaks out, struggling to get out of my arms, I’m guessing to run upstairs again. But here’s the thing: Yes, the dog is barking, but while he’s doing so, he’s backing up, all the while staring at Fluffy like the cat’s some kind of monster.
“Oh, geez,” I groan. “Not you too.”
Helen gets on the floor to reassure the dog, but he keeps backing up until he’s all the way in the corner with nowhere else to go.
I suppose now I’m going to have to get a book on dog psychology too?
“I will not have this,” I announce looking from the cat to the dog and back again. “I refuse to live in a house divided.”
Fluffy’s still squirming but I refuse to let him go as we approach the dog and I tell Helen to hold onto Bowser.
Then I thrust the cat practically in the dog’s face.
“We’re not going anywhere, pal,” I inform Bowser, who tries to shrink back. “This is Fluffy.”
Then I take Bowser’s head, move it closer to Fluffy’s.
“This is Bowser,” I tell Fluffy. “Yeah, I know, but you two are going to need to work this out because I don’t think either of you are going anywhere.”
Basically, I spend the next hour making the cat deal with the dog and making the dog deal with the cat. It’s hell on the knees, but seriously, I will not live in a house divided.
“You really think this is going to work?” Helen asks at one point.
“I figure it has to. Left to their own devices, they’ll just hide from each other forever. But if we just keep forcing the issue, they’re going to have to find a way to deal.”
Before too much more than an hour goes by, they get tired of resisting. First one yawns, then the other yawns, and before I know it, the beast is sacked out on the floor, the cat cradled in the crook of his arm like a toy.
“Nice work,” Helen says.
“Timely too. I didn’t think it worth waiting for Bowser to get docile, like he will be when he gets older, to try to work things out between him and the cat.”
“He’s going to get docile?”
I nod.
“How’d you know that?”
I wave the question away like Doesn’t everyone know the behavior patterns and temperament of English Mastiffs? In reality, it’s just not a question I particularly care to field at the moment.
Now that it’s finally quiet, Stavros makes his way downstairs.
He looks touched at the scene as he pets Bowser tentatively for the first time.
“Who’s going to train him?” he asks.
“I guess we’ll all pitch in,” I say.
“Yeah,” Stavros says, “but you guys work during the week. That’s a long time for a dog like this to be cooped up inside.”
He’s got a point there.
“So?” Stavros shrugs. “I’ll train him, take him for walks.”
Coming from anyone else, this would seem insanely generous, too much to accept, but since Stavros has been with us, he’s gone out of the way to pick up the slack on anything that Helen or I need doing.
“I don’t know.” I’m feeling skeptical. “That is one huge dog.”
“So?” Stavros shrugs again. “You forget, I’m Stavros…of Greece! Growing up, we had goats. How different can this be?”
The E-Cigarette Who Came to Dinner
The second thing to jar Helen and me out of our routine—or rut—occurs on Saturday night, at precisely seven P.M. It happens with the ringing of the doorbell.
Helen’s still upstairs, so I go to answer it, only to find:
Daniel Rathbone, leaning against the doorjamb.
He’s wearing a skinny suit and tie, the kind of thing you’d expect to see on Rod Stewart. In one hand, an e-cigarette is poised.
Somehow, I’d managed to forget about this guy.
<
br /> “John-O!” he says, straightening, the hand without an e-cigarette in it thrust out for a shake.
“Dan,” I say, accepting the shake, resisting the sudden urge to give him a bone-crusher.
“Actually,” he says, “I prefer Daniel.”
“And I’ll take Johnny, thanks. Come in.”
I shut the door and glance at the dining room table, hoping to see it fully set for eight or ten—maybe Helen decided to throw a party and forgot to tell me?—because if there are lots more people coming, maybe, maybe I can take this guy for a whole night; or at least the three-hour minimum dictated by etiquette. But all I see are three place settings. Crap. Not even Carla? I never thought the day would come when I’d say this, but I’d kill to see Carla right now.
“Nice place,” Daniel says, looking around, “and that is one big dog over there.”
“Thanks,” I say, “but Helen picked out the dog. He kind of goes with the kitchen.”
“How’s that?” Daniel looks puzzled. Then, seeing Fluffy, his pretty face gets a look like he’s got a lemon in his mouth. “Oh. A cat.”
He’s not bothered by Cerberus but he’s got an issue with the cat?
“Is that a problem?” I ask.
“Just a touch allergic.”
“Perhaps you shouldn’t be here, then?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I can always take a pill. Besides, I see his hair is extremely short.”
Indeed it is. Stavros’s work.
“It should be OK then,” Daniel says. “It’s really the dander I’m allergic to.”
Fucking Stavros.
“So,” Daniel says brightly, “how’s the painting business treating you these days? Paint any interesting rooms lately?”
Isn't It Bro-Mantic? Page 24
