Outside the Dog Museum

by Carroll, Jonathan

  “Why do you think my house wasn’t touched, Syd?”

  “Luck of the draw, Bill.”

  I grabbed Sydney’s arm and pulled her close, like a lifesaver on the vast sea that was suddenly roiling all around me. “They’re the only real I know, Syd. The only ones I knew how to do well.”

  She nodded. Kept nodding.

  “What do I do when they disappear like this?”

  “You can build it again, Harry.”

  “But it’s not the same! It’s like cloning someone from one of their hairs. We can use the old plans, sure, build it exactly the same. But it’s not the same! This one’s dead. It’s gone. Put up a stone over it.”

  I started down the hill to the car. At the point where the ocean shows again after a thick stand of pine trees that perfume the dry California air with crisp northern smells, I turned and shouted back, “You know what the difference between tragedy and comedy is? Tragedy keeps reminding us how limited life is. Comedy says there are no limits.”

  PUT ON THE SEX Pistols.”

  I turned around and scowled back at her on the bed, naked, leering at me. She had on a black baseball cap with the word “Fritos” in yellow across the front. She tipped it at me.

  “Fanny, my idea of good sex is not fucking to a Sex Pistols album.”

  “No, you’d fuck to Hotel California if I gave you the chance.”

  “Those are Bronze Sydney’s albums.”

  “Which you’ve kept.” She accused.

  “Why do we have a fight about this every time we go to bed?”

  “Because we like music when we do it but hate each other’s taste.”

  “That’s true.” I took out a Simply Red album and put it on the turntable. When it came on, it hissed and sputtered terribly. “How come all my albums lisp?”

  “Because you don’t take care of them. I keep telling you to buy a CD machine.”

  I walked back to the bed, sat down on the end, and took her right foot in my hand. “CD machines and microwave ovens are too late twentieth century for me. I still need a record player where you load records on the spindle and they drop down on top of each other.”

  “How come you’re such a jazzy architect but conservative about things like that?”

  I started massaging her foot. “I’m not conservative. I simply believe soup should be heated on a flame and not shot full of radiation. Records should be black and full of scratches. You go to the record store and ask the guy for a diamond needle.” I put down her foot and picked up the other. She rubbed the free one up my back.

  “How come you’ve been such a pain in the ass lately?”

  The massage stopped. I didn’t turn around. “How have I been such a pain in the ass lately?”

  “Look at me. You survived the earthquake, you’re going to crazy Saru for one of the great projects of your career, women love you—”

  “Ah ha, is that what we’re talking about, Fan? All these women who love me? Is that why I’m such a pain in the ass? I just had this same damn conversation with Claire.”

  “Well I’m not Claire! She’s the tall one, remember?” She whipped off the hat and threw it at me. It hit my chin.

  I reached down to the floor for my pants. “She wanted to know what’s going on between you and me. She has that right.”

  “And do I have that right? What is going on between you and me?”

  “You have a really original way of getting on my nerves, Fanny: accuse and cringe. Point a stiff finger and then whine. Sometimes you have the backbone of a stick of butter.

  “Yes, you have the right to know what’s going on between us. I’ve always told you. But now it sounds like you want a life commitment, and that you can’t have.”

  “I didn’t say that. I wouldn’t want to live with you, Harry. Your car only has room for one person.”

  “I didn’t ask you to live with me. Where’s my fucking shirt? You know something? Life just dries up sometimes. Dries up and turns into a brown withered pod.”

  She grabbed my hair from behind but I wouldn’t turn. Seeing that, she came around and squatted in front of me.

  “You’re so full of shit, Harry. Your life didn’t ‘dry up.’ If anything, you grew up a little and saw that what you were doing was a bunch of baloney.

  “You designed all those exquisite buildings, ignoring the fact, beyond some calculations for space, that real live human beings lived inside them! That’s why you went nuts—for once you clicked out of the Ptolemaic universe of Harry Radcliffe and realized there were some brighter, more important suns than even you. Know what a couple of those suns are? Responsibility and love. That’s right!

  “I’ll tell you what’s making you so nervous these days: You’ve got the love of two damned good women but you don’t know what to do with us. You can’t just draw us as a couple of lines and make some estimates. Love is hard work! It breaks your bones. Stop getting dressed. I’m talking to you!”

  “Keep talking, Fanny. I’m sure the walls would love to hear your next soliloquy. Come on, dog. Time for a walk.”

  THE SPIDER CLUB MEETS every Wednesday for dinner at Rachel’s Restaurant in Santa Monica. Club membership varies between ten and twenty people depending on who’s in town, who’s feuding with whom, who’s still alive. The only requirement is invitation by another club member who’s willing to vouch for the fact you can tell a good story. Over the years there’ve been celebrities at the “conclaves,” but stars don’t like sharing a stage so they’ve had a hard time listening to the others. And generally, it is those others who tell the better stories.

  My last night in America was also Claire’s first out of the hospital. She insisted we go to the Spider Club meeting, which was a real surprise because she’d only been one other time. But when it was her turn, she’d told a long, very eerie story about the funeral of a close friend some years before.

  We were late getting there because she moved slowly and I didn’t want her going over any unnecessary bumps. When we walked into the restaurant, the whole club table stood up and gave her a loud round of applause. She sat down next to Wyatt Leonard, alias Finky Linky, infamous kid’s TV show hero. I liked Wyatt, but thought his “Finky Linky Show” one of the most overrated programs I’d ever seen. Unlike everyone else, I didn’t cry when it went off the air.

  When he was in town, Finky was the unofficial president of the club because he’d originally thought it up. After everyone had disgustingly stuffed their faces full of Rachel’s Chinese/Hebrew cuisine, he stood up and tapped his glass for silence.

  “Fellow Spiders, there are three things tonight that give me immense pleasure—seeing you all again and knowing you’ve survived the earthquake, eating Rachel’s food, and hearing that Harry Radcliffe is leaving town for an indefinite period. Just joking, Harry.

  “I’m also glad to see that Claire Stansfield is here and has asked to be the first up. Ready, Claire?”

  “When I was a girl, I knew only two things for sure: Love was pinkish yellow, and Romaric Jupien was the handsomest boy in the world. I grew up in Winnipeg. Winters there are so cold that the water on the lake freezes in perfect waves. Policemen wear buffalo-skin coats, and the place looks like a town of bandits because so many people go around wearing full face masks to keep the cold off.

  “We lived next door to a French family named Jupien who had three children: twin girls, Ninon and Prisca, and a boy, Romaric. He hated his name because he wanted to be as American as possible, so he expected you to call him Mark.

  “When this happened, I was eight and he was thirteen. I was at that age where you’re discovering love is not just your father’s lap or Mom’s pulling your jacket tighter before you go out. This love was eight years of innocence and energy and desire that’s finally decided to step out of the family and go looking for new ground. It just happened a marvelous older boy lived next door who didn’t have the slightest idea I existed, which made it all the more torturous and necessary.

  “I watched him
from behind curtains, standing in our driveway holding the hose for my father while he washed the car, and like a secret agent of the heart, sitting in Mark’s own living room while he watched television and I pretended to play with his sisters. I was so much in love that every time he was out of my sight I forgot what he looked like.

  “I was crazy for the Greek myths then and had read them many times. My secret name for Mark was Achilles because he was my Achilles’ heel. I was a tomboy, but when it came to him, there was no fist in my glove: I would’ve gladly put on a dress and given a tea party if it would have pleased him. A thing I remember so well was writing ‘Achilles’ heel’ on my school notebook twenty times in different scripts and colors. I came in from recess one day and found someone had added the letter W in front of every one of them so they all read ‘Achilles’ Wheel.’ I honestly think I would’ve killed the person if I knew who’d done it. It was as if they’d put that W on Mark’s face.

  “The strangest thing about my obsession was it seemed every time I looked at him, I saw this pinkish yellow aura emanating from his whole body. He was very masculine and I’m sure if I’d told him he would’ve had my head, but I couldn’t help it—if there was Mark, there was the aura.

  “My mother loved doing things with the family. She also liked the Jupiens, both because they were nice people and because they were French, which gave them an exotic twist. So we often had cookouts together or went swimming in the summer … . All of which was fine by me as long as Mark came.

  “It’s so cold in Winnipeg in the dead of winter that it often doesn’t snow much, but one January we had a real Manitoba blizzard that stopped the whole town in its tracks. There was nothing anyone could do but wait for it to end or have snowball fights. My mother decided we should go tobogganing and sent me over to the Jupiens to ask if they wanted to go. I walked across the front yards as slowly as I could, for what if I fell down and he happened to be looking out the window at that very moment? And if he wasn’t at the window, what if he opened the door and saw me covered with snow? You have to walk carefully in the beginning of love. The running across fields into your lover’s arms can only come later when you’re sure they won’t laugh if you trip.

  “I didn’t fall on the way over, which was just as well because Mark opened the door. And he was smiling! I thought, ‘Oh God, Oh God, it’s for me. He’s smiling because it’s me.’ But as I was about to say something, I saw he had a comic book in his hand and obviously wanted to get back to it.

  “‘Hi, Claire. Waddya want?’

  “His mother called from somewhere asking who it was and he said three words that almost cut me in half: ‘It’s only Claire, Ma.’

  “Luckily Mrs. Jupien came bustling to the door and pulled me into the house. She said something in French to Mark that sounded like a scolding, which only made things worse. What saved my visit from total catastrophe was that he stayed there and didn’t leave. He’d probably been cooped up inside the house all day and was glad in his own way to see someone new, even if it was ‘only Claire.’

  “In a blurt I said my mother wanted to know if they’d like to go tobogganing with us. The two girls came downstairs and instantly took to the idea. So did Mrs. Jupien, but Mark rolled his eyes as if tobogganing was the dumbest idea he’d heard. I wanted to protest and say it wasn’t my idea, but by then his mother was ordering them all around, saying bundle up and where’s the sled and Mark, go tell your father we’re going. With a big fake yawn he turned and went off to find Mr. Jupien while I stood there feeling love and failure in equal amounts.

  “Outside the snow was still coming down. Part of me wanted to crawl down into it and hibernate until I was older and beautiful and he would have to love me. The other part was excited—like it or not, he was going with us and I would get to be around him for the next few hours, no matter what happened.

  “Running back to our house, I kept wondering what I could do to impress him once we got there. Should I show off and try something dangerous? Be adoring and impressed when he did anything? I wanted to be older. I knew when you were older you’d understand how to act around people you loved. The boys I knew who loved me at school did things like punch me in the arm or call me names because they didn’t know anything else to do. But I was smart enough to know there was more to it than that. What was it though? How did you show a person you loved them without looking stupid? How did you do it so well that they started to love you back?

  “Half an hour later our two families met out on the street and started walking to the sledding hill. It was only midafternoon but already getting dark and the snow somehow made things darker. It was nice but too much. You walked with your head down and your face tight.

  “I walked with Prisca and Ninon, who bubbled on about things and people we knew. Mark walked with ‘the men’ in front and our mothers a few steps behind them. Everyone was loud and there was a lot of laughter. My father told Mr. Jupien a story about a storm he’d once experienced. I’d heard the story many times because it was a favorite of mine, but listening now, it sounded so long and boring and I was embarrassed.

  “Normally the walk to the hill took about ten minutes, but the snow and their leisurely pace kept us at it for a half hour. When we got there, I couldn’t stand it anymore and strode ahead for the hill with our toboggan. Why not? Everything else had gone wrong. Even more than Mark, all I wanted then was some speed around me and wind splitting across my face and that great safe fear in the heart that’s there when you’re doing something like sledding or jumping off the high board into a swimming pool.

  “The new snow was light and slippery under my feet and I slipped twice as I began to climb. But by then I almost didn’t care because he never liked me and never would like me and to him I was ‘only Claire’ anyway, so what difference did it make if I looked dumb climbing a hill? I just wanted to get away from them and him and be by myself in the wind and snow and falling dark. Maybe if I was lucky something magical would happen—I’d sled off into that dark and never be seen again. Everyone would be broken-hearted and they’d have to bury an empty coffin. Mark would stand by my grave and weep … .

  “‘Claire, wait! Wait up!’

  “I heard his voice, but couldn’t believe he was calling me. So in the first mature move of my life, I kept walking and didn’t turn around.

  “‘Claire! Willya wait up!’

  “I heard him coming and stopped where I was, out of breath and my heart pounding like a gong.

  “‘Jeez, didn’t you hear me calling? Come on, let’s go down together.’

  “How the hell I ever managed to climb the rest of the way to the top of that hill I don’t know. I got up there a little after Mark but that was because I was still pulling the toboggan. He might’ve wanted to go down with me, but he hadn’t offered to pull.

  “There were a few other people on the hill. Down below we could see our families working their way slowly up and having a good laugh when one of them fell down.

  “Mark and I stood there for a few moments watching them come. Then he turned to me and said, ‘You know that girl Alayne in the seventh grade? Long blond hair?’

  “I didn’t know Alayne, but was smart enough to know he was telling me a kind-of secret: that he was interested in the girl and wanted to know more about her without showing his hand. I also knew his interest didn’t help my cause any. But he’d not only recognized me for really the first time. He’d also taken me into his confidence in a way, and I was thrilled.

  “I told him I could ask around if he wanted, but he said no, that was okay.

  “Almost as if it had been cued, the snow suddenly stopped. Ding—just like that. Both of us looked around, as if it were somewhere else. But no, it really had stopped.

  “Because there was nothing else to do, I put the toboggan down and asked if he was ready to go.

  “‘Sure. I’ll get on behind you.’

  “I sat down and then felt Mark Jupien’s arms and legs around me. I died and went t
o heaven. What did I care about Alayne? She wasn’t here now, I was, and that was enough. Mark gave a push and off we went.

  “That hill, if you went a certain route, was very long and bumpy. We’d gone down it hundreds of times and knew it well, but once in a while if you weren’t paying attention or were being silly, you’d hit something and fly off. There was even one of those apocryphal stories we’d all heard again and again each winter, about the boy who, years ago, fell off and cracked his skull open on a rock. Nobody paid much attention to that, but at the same time you were usually careful when you went down this hill.

  “I can remember everything about the ride. I could probably tell you where every bump we went over was situated. About halfway through the ride, Mark started singing ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’ very loudly, and even though I didn’t know many of the words, I sang along with him.

  “Voom! we soared. Past our families, past trees full of snow, dogs jumping around, kids trying to make a snowman … I remember everything.

  “We curved and twisted and then … BANG!

  “Whatever it was we hit must have been sizable because one minute we were singing and the next flying through the air.

  “Until we hit.

  “God, how we hit! I came down on my bottom and although I was full of padding down there, I must’ve landed smack on my spine because for a time I was utterly paralyzed with pain. So much pain I couldn’t breathe.

  “When I began to come around again, I kept hearing Mark ask, ‘Are you okay? Claire, are you okay?’

  “I wanted to nod and tell him I was, but it hurt too much to do anything but lie there and feel it stabbing through my whole body. I couldn’t even open my eyes.

  “Claire, are you okay? Claire? Huh?

  “Finally, finally I got some of my breath back and felt I would live. I opened my eyes to tell him okay.

  “But when I looked up, Mark Jupien was hovering over me, more beautiful than ever, absolutely surrounded by brilliant, shimmering, angelic light.

  “At first I thought I’d gotten knocked out and was a little cuckoo. When his ‘lights’ didn’t go away, I thought, It’s his aura. Even here, he glows! Wrong again. Seen more clearly, there was no yellowish pink here, his normal colors. These were all blues and reds and silvers moving across the whole sky behind him like some great cosmic light show.