Carmen Dog
Page 3
This is Pooch's first night away from home (though not away from the family, for she has often been left alone in the house for several days with nothing but a huge bowl of water—plus, of course, the toilet bowl if worse came to worst—and enough dry food for only one day in case she might overeat. No matter how much she protested that she had outgrown such excesses, they never did trust her not to make herself sick by eating the week's rations the moment they were out of sight. (Actually, she tried to make that one meal last as long as possible.) Those times were hard, but Pooch guarded the house very effectively while they were gone in spite of being half starved and feeling rather weak. And anyway, she could sing all day long if she wanted to, and did, and could play the music she preferred and listen to the Saturday afternoon opera.
Oh, the sweet smells of home, Pooch is thinking. Oh, the sweet, sweet, sweet smells of home! The socks, the running shoes, the familiar crotches. And the states of mind, all so well known. Predictable emotions coming around in their predictable cycles. No rages not raged before under similar circumstances. But now, here, nothing but the unknown. Even the master. What will he do? Probably take the baby away and leave her here to be kibbled at the end of the week or to meet a fate like Phillip's, whether she consents to it or not (for she has seen that look in the eyes of the keepers; and the way she had been helped up to her cage was, to say the least, rather lewd). To distract herself from her depression, she tries to think up a Japanese poem of her own and finally, after some effort, comes to this:
—
Willow by the stream leaves fa two by two two by two
Oh, will I ever love such a love?
—
She is glad she gave herself formal artistic limitations; otherwise, she is sure she would have put too much sentimentality into it for any real resonances, especially in her present state of mind.
Just then more yawn sounds from the cage below.
"Isabel's having one of her angry fith again,” says Phillip; but to Pooch, who has always read between the emotional lines, so to speak, the sounds, while distinctly roars, seem more like cries for help.
"Shut up,” says Phillip, “and let uth get some rest."
"Rest for what?” This from the top tier across the room. “Does one rest up to be in good shape to die in the morning?"
"Me. Was one of. Beautiful people,” Isabel is saying.
"Look at yourthelf.” Phillip.
"Had a waist. You'd not believe. Had a coat. Of wolverine."
"Now you have a permanent coat of wolverine. Nice and shiny, too."
"My heels, three inches high. Hairdresser said, never so fine a head of hair."
"Isabel, you committed dreadful crimeth and you know it. I wath here when you were booked.” Phillip. “And I thaw your whole methy attempt to ethcape."
"If I hurt. Never meant to. Not before either. With all my wealth and beauty. Lots of times all I wanted was to die."
"Well, now you'll get your wish."
Incomprehensible animal sounds from below and, “Let her be,” from across the room. “We all feel the way she does. All except you."
"I want to go on loving. I mean live. All the better now. I wanted to die. Not really, though. Now live on. Be. Be! I only just realize. One more change is all. One change! Once chance at it. I mean chance."
Pooch, as is frequently the case, is in the mood for a sacrifice. And surely her master will understand the gesture and appreciate her kindness ... her humanity. Most of all that. Understand, at last, what she's capable of and love her all the more for it. And besides, would any creature who makes such a gesture as she is about to make ever have been able to bring herself to bite anyone, least of all a baby? Of course not!
Pooch takes off her collar and dangles it down from the bottom of her cage door so that it hangs in front of Isabel's cage. “Can you reach this?” She feels long, sharp fingernails scratch her hand and she can see, as they reach up, the half-worn-off red enamel.
"Hmm. Hmm.” Then a triumphant, “Got it!"
"I'd suggest,” Pooch says, “Th, th, th, that if he doesn't know what changes are which. I mean if he thinks you're me, stick with him for a while, but if he suspects something right away, then I suppose there's nothing for it but to tell the truth."
"Can do it,” Isabel snaps back at her. “Let me out and I can do it. Always have. Will."
"Be ... be ... be kind to him. Promise me that. Remember, he's saving your life at least as much as I am."
"Will do."
"Promise."
"Did."
"You'll find him strict and a little bit domineering sometimes, and other times rather distanced—in fact off-putting until you get to know him. Stern, but usually fair. I must admit the mistress is difficult, but things are hard for her right now and the psychologist says be patient, so you must. You'll sleep on the doormat."
"Hah."
"Sometimes the bigger children pull ears, but they're young and...."
"Oh, shut up. I'm tired. Big day. Tomorrow."
"Me too.” From Phillip. She starts to say, “lots and lots,” but changes it to, “a great deal to do,” in order to avoid the esses.
But all the others are feeling sadder than ever for, though they have not heard all of the above conversation, which was carried on as quietly as the two could manage, whispering back and forth between their cages, the others know that Isabel is somehow saved. Now the room is full of talk and moans and howls, and Pooch is feeling herself more and more one with them. And who could sleep with such anxiety? What will the keepers make of her now? No collar? No home? Not belonging to anyone? As far as they can tell just a stray? She's hoping they will remember that they only just arrested her last night and not for anything serious. And that she's supposed to have a whole week to wait for possible adoption. And anyway, who would look after the baby for them? But what if they put the baby in with Isabel because of the collar! Pooch begins to whimper along with the others. What has she done! Perhaps her generous, self-sacrificing, humanitarian gesture was the worst thing of all. Yes, she is thinking, at times like these one really does need a physical release, just as Isabel was doing with her roaring out. The psychologist was right. It all must out, one way or another. Pooch wants to cry, scream and roar, or better yet, sing. Yes, sing. Perhaps she could help them all with a song or two. She had been listened to at the opera. Only for a moment, but actually taken seriously, the whole audience, held fast by her voice. Her voice alone! She could feel it. She would try that now. It might help them all. She begins rather tentatively with “Elle a fui, la tourterelle!” gaining confidence with every note, for the others become silent almost instantly. “Ah! souvenir trop doux. Image trop cruelle. Hélas.... Mais elle est toujours fidèle.... “Now their only sounds, little mews of appreciation. She goes on to Massenet's “Pleurez, pleurez, mes yeux,” singing out louder, filling the whole room, the whole pound in fact, with her song. Even the night man wakes up and listens.
"Then weep! O grief-worn eyes! And flow, sad shining tears. No ray of sun shall ever dry your flood so clear. If a hope yet remains, it is that death is near."
It's hard to say if it is her voice or her sensibility that holds them spellbound, the rise and fall from almost whisper, to wail, to deep-throated growls of sadness and pain. Whatever it is, it reminds them of home. Home, in its many and various forms—burrows, beaches, tops of trees, all kinds of homes—and they forget for a while the dirty bowls, the smell of urine, and their fate. Soon a few begin tentatively and then all join in (some are quite good; others can't sing even a little, but they join in nevertheless), a chorus of wails, with Pooch, as at the opera, in obbligato, her voice soaring out over all the others. But it's too much for the night man, finally, and one can't exactly blame him, for, though at first the sounds were strange and wondrous, in the end they degenerated into a cacophony wherein one could distinguish, though barely, what seemed like clucks, hisses, moos, rusty gates, hastily applied brakes, rattles, clicks, almost as t
hough of joy, and almost lost in all this, the faint cries of a baby.
The night man rushes in, slamming the door and using quite dreadful language. Some that Pooch—though now and then kicked and sworn at but never so as to raise any real bruises—some that Pooch had never heard before.
It takes a moment for the singing to die down completely, many, in their enthusiasm, not hearing the night man's shouts, but at last there's silence, except for the baby's cries, that is.
"Keep it this way,” he says, “or I'll have you all dead right now."
"Tho what, now or later,” says Phillip, who is not afraid of anyone, or at least pretends not to be.
"I'll show you, bitch,” the watchman says and then goes to get his radio, which he had not been using anyway, being asleep—though he'd brought it to keep himself awake. Turns it to a rock-and-roll program. Leaves it fairly loud, but not loud enough to bother him two rooms beyond.
Now they will certainly be up all night, though there's not much left of it, and perhaps the baby would be keeping them up anyway. But the baby seems to like rock and roll and soon quiets down.
Pooch apologizes, but almost everyone is very kind. “It's not your fault,” they say. “Our fault, too,” and, “It was good while it lasted.” It's hard to talk above the music though, and they're all tired now, so, covering their ears as best they can and in their own individual ways, with bits of their clothes, their little fingers, or by burrowing into the wood chips, they return to their separate miseries. Pooch and the baby lie with their heads in the far corner of the cage, Pooch's right hand covering the baby's top ear and her left arm curled under her so that her left hand covers her own ear. She lies, half dreaming, thinking of someday instigating sweeping reforms.
[Back to Table of Contents]
Chapter 3: In the Nick of Time
"Women are the greatest enemies of science, and the wise man ought to keep himself aloof from them."
"In legitimate marriage also?” inquired my father.
"Especially in legitimate marriage,” replied the philosopher.
—Anatole France in the morning the day workers come in—an entirely different set of men. The lights are turned out and the radio is taken home by the night man. All the inmates are exhausted, of course. They lie, drunk on lack of sleep, too tired to care what happens to them, grateful only that the music has stopped at last.
* * * *
The doctor has also been up all night. He's been trying to write his grant application. He has decided to start off with a quote from Marcus Aurelius:
—
"Think often of the bond that unites all things in the universe. All are, as it were, interwoven, and in consequence linked in mutual affection; ... That is the way in which the universe has all things to its liking."
—and to proceed with an analogy ... a sort of warning:
—
Gentlemen, look up at the night sky and imagine the whole Milky Way sliding sideways, out of kilter. An equally dramatic loosening is occurring.
That should scare them (as if they weren't scared already, as they should be).
—
Let us, for a moment, imagine the earth as a living being. What sort of being would it be? Consider the fickle forces of nature ... the fluctuations wherein the very platforms of the continents are not to be counted on to stay in place from one era to another. Surely you must grant, then, that the earth is unquestionably female: the tides, the seasons, the moon, the changing courses of rivers, the erosion bit by bit by bit ... And what is this earth up to now? What small hold it had on rationality in the past, it seems to have lost altogether. And they, being of the same sex as their planet (would that it were otherwise and that we had a truly rational planet less subject to moods and bad temper), they have surrendered to the changes. They have let themselves go.
—
In order to stress the confrontational aspect, he goes on thus:
—
Remember that the female has always been a formidable enemy both of society in general and of man in particular, as well as a formidable enemy of the rational. And now they are blundering onward, a menace not only to civilization and to life as we know it, but even to themselves. What, one wonders, are their ulterior motives? What are their objectives? And, most important, what is their plan of attack?
—
He already has the ending. It goes as follows:
—
I propose to build a sort of two-part cage connected to a computer, with electric shock plates on the floors of each side that can be used simultaneously or alternately. Also a dispensing machine from which one may receive either a reward or a chit of some sort to be saved up and used to purchase small necessities of which I plan to keep a stash. The experimental activities will take place in basement rooms that will be heavily shielded from contamination by the outside air and particularly by the moon.
—
It has occurred to the doctor that perhaps just a set of thumbscrews would be adequate for his purposes. They would be less expensive and take up much less room in the laboratory, but the cage would be a nice piece of equipment and would show the grant committee that their money had been well spent. Also he would have a nice control board with lots of dials and little buttons so that he could manage everything from his desk, quite like the pilot of a 747.
He rounds off the grant request with this last:
—
I shudder to think what the world might degenerate into if studies of this sort are not carried out by qualified people such as myself—and quickly. In fact, the thought of what might become of us is so horrifying to me that a soft coo or the flutter of wings at my office window is enough to throw me into a deep depression.
And what, gentlemen, tell me, what of motherhood!
—
The doctor attaches his curriculum vitae and sends the application out.
* * * *
And now shouldn't he be taking a good look at his own wife? Been too busy to think about her for quite some time. House clean. Food good. Very good, in fact. Laundry always done. And over all these years, too. Really quite remarkable once one thinks about it. Perhaps ought to praise. Yet, perhaps better not to cheapen his praise on the everyday—on jobs that should, in fact, be taken for granted. Two reasons: one, she may no longer take her work for granted herself simply from the praise, which might make her think she was doing something unusual so that she would question it and perhaps stop. And two, she may come to expect praise—even daily praise—for doing her daily duties. That would be more than he could manage, especially in the midst of this most important research. (Actually there is a third reason, which is that the doctor would feel uncomfortable and rather shy doing something he hasn't done for such a long time.) But, he thinks, must keep an eye on her. Here is one of their kind close at hand, available for immediate study. Could even start today. But could get the others today, too. Where find them, those average, homeless females in their various states of change? How most cheaply round them up and with as little fuss as possible and without chasing after them in an undignified way in the streets with a net?
He has already spent several thousand dollars of his own with the expectation of being reimbursed by the grant committee. He has a cattle prod, a horse-nose-twister, several sets of handcuffs, an ear-splitting siren. If force is called for, then force there will be. We cannot afford long years of negotiations. He has actually seen three grown women in what were clearly their best hats, playing in a tree house. They were so sparkling and lively in their feathers, even in the midst of this chaos, that it seemed to him monstrous, unforgivable that they allowed their bestiality to take over so completely. Also, as part of his researches, he has been to Macy's, or rather, tried to go, but that store, with twice as many guards as usual, has become a haven for any strange creature with money to spend. He left quickly. Later tried Bloomingdale's. Found it somewhat better. At least they only let in those who were presentable and who had a modicum of digni
ty, though he noticed they had added the most outlandish clothes to a department on the third floor, and their lingerie department was so upsetting that he lost his scientific detachment and hurried through it with eyes averted. On the way out he found the jewelry department full of masks and feathers and necklaces of sharks’ teeth or claws, plus a few shrunken heads. Clearly, haste in his research is called for.
His wife, at least, is subdued through all this, somber actually, as well she should be. No, he will not take her down to the basement as his first experiment. She can be of help to him in other ways, typing reports and tidying up the dayroom and the cages. She has already re-covered an old couch for the basement, contributed cushions, made curtains for the high (and soon to be closed off) windows, though all these frills, or most of them, must certainly be removed when the grant people come to inspect the place. It wouldn't look scientific. But it's obvious she's trying to help. He will let her.
* * * *
Meanwhile, back at the pound, Pooch, under the name of Isabel, is wondering if she will live through the morning. Several of them have been lined up, including Pooch with the baby, but they are confused as to whether this is to be a lice check or death in the back room. Pooch asks Phillip if she will take the baby if this turns out to be “it” for the rest of them. Phillip says she hates babies, but that she will if nothing else can be found to do with it. Isabel says, “Love baby. Love it. ok. See to it. Love it,” but Pooch feels that it would be better to leave the baby with Phillip, who hates babies, rather than with Isabel, who keeps talking about love and who, probably because of the difficult night, seems to have degenerated to little more than three-letter words. This is not really so surprising since every single one of the inmates is rather the worse off mentally at this point, even those who are on their way up the evolutionary scale.