Ruffly Speaking

by Conant, Susan

  Promise.

  Stephanie had seated me directly opposite her on one of the couches. The coffee table between us held, in addition to two delicate violet-patterned white cups and saucers, my little tape recorder, which Stephanie gave me permission to use before I even had the chance to ask. When I interview people who are self-conscious about their voices, I end up trying to scribble down what they’re saying instead of being free to listen. Stephanie said, “You want to tape this? Go ahead. Then you won’t have to bother writing, so we can talk." Ruffly stationed himself on the floor next to Stephanie. As she and I talked, his eyes darted back and forth between us as if following the ball in a conversational tennis match.

  Before I could begin the interview by making warmup small talk about Matthew, Leah, and the Avon Hill Summer Program, Stephanie took the initiative. “First,” she said, “I’m going to tell you why I have a hearing dog. Everyone always wonders. Here I am, the rector of St. Margaret’s. We spoke on the telephone. When you talk to me, I hear you. And I may sound slightly ministerial, but I don’t sound deaf. Did I cheat?” Her turquoise eyes watched me. I wondered whether she could hear me catch my breath. Ruffly could: Those waving ears held momentarily still. His owner’s smile widened.

  “I assume not,” I answered.

  “Well, the answer is simple, Holly. Virtually no one can manage hearing aids twenty-four hours a day. It’s unendurable, and you end up with ear infections. So you take them out at night, and the dog is your smoke alarm-Your burglar alarm. Your alarm clock. That’s literally true. I set the clock for Ruffly; it’s no good to me. When it goes off, he wakes me up. That’s part one of the answer, the simple part. The other part is that if I’m walking down the street, I don’t necessarily hear a car even when it’s right next to me, but Ruffly does, and if someone calls my name from a block away, there’s not a chance I’ll hear it, but Ruffly knows my name, and he knows every name anyone’s likely to call me, so if someone hollers “Mrs. Benson” or “Stephanie” or whatever, he lets me know. Or if my back’s turned. It’s... I don’t know how to explain it—it’s nothing he was specifically trained for— but he can tell if someone’s talking to me. Before Ruffly, people must’ve thought I was a terrible snob! Because I’d muddle along listening and lip-reading, which is mostly guesswork, you know, and then someone would start a conversation, and I suppose I just wouldn’t answer, or they must’ve seen me on the street and tried to say hello, and I’d just go sailing off ignoring them.”

  “Is that how you happened to get a hearing dog?” Stephanie laughed. “The precipitant actually was teakettles. I’d burned out something like twelve in a row, and then I really did it. One of them must’ve whistled itself dry, and then, well, it didn’t actually go up in flames, but the fumes set off the smoke detector, and, meanwhile, I was in my office merrily working away, and by the time Matthew got home, the teakettle had melted —well, melded, really—into the element on the stove. And also, before Ruffly, I was managing talking on the phone, but the problem was knowing when it was ringing. If I didn’t have my aids in, forget it, but the rest of the time, we had this bell rigged up that was so loud that it drove Matthew crazy. And the other thing was sirens.” I must have looked puzzled.

  “Fire engines,” Stephanie explained. “Ambulances. That’ s one of Ruffly’s sounds. Sirens. When I’m driving, he sits next to me, and when there’s a siren, he puts his Paw on my shoulder, and I know to look around and pull over.”

  I asked for Ruffly’s life story. Stephanie had mentioned lip-reading, and that’s probably the main reason she watched my face, but my knowledge of the practical Purpose didn’t spoil the flattering effect. She’d had Ruffly, her first hearing dog, for a little more than a year. He’d been rescued from a pound and intensively trained in basic obedience and in his specialty by the agency that had placed him with Stephanie. His exact age was unknown, but he was somewhere around three. “But we celebrate his birthday nonetheless,” she said. For the first time, Stephanie looked a little unsure of herself.

  “Yes?”

  “It’s ridiculous. Really, it started as a joke. Well, I might as well say it. If it’s too corny, just don’t use it.”

  I told the truth. “The chances of anything being too corny for Dog’s Life are pretty slim.”

  “July Fourth,” Stephanie said abruptly. “That’s Ruffly’s birthday.” She paused. I was too slow for her. Before I caught up, she said, “Independence Day. Is that too much?”

  I smiled. “My editor will love it.”

  “Actually, though, last year was his first year with me, and I didn’t think it out, and the choice proved a disaster. The problem was the fireworks. I was stupid enough to take him out, and, believe me, it was no hearing dog’s idea of a holiday. I assume this year will be better, at least right here.”

  I said, “He might hear something in the distance. There are fireworks on the Esplanade, and he’ll probably catch a little of The 1812 Overture. It’s at the Hatch Shell, in Boston, on the other side of the river, and it must be a couple of miles from here. It should be all right.”

  Stephanie shrugged. “Let’s hope so. Ruffly gets thrown easily these days. The move has been hard on him, I suppose, or that’s what they keep telling me. First we moved from the city, in April, and then here, just a couple of weeks ago, and the agency where I got Ruffly has been wonderful, but all they say is that it’s the transition. Let him get used to the new house, and he’ll settle down.”

  Ruffly, who’d settled peacefully on the floor at Stephanie’s feet, looked perfectly at home, at least to me, but Stephanie’s face was worried.

  “That makes sense,” I told her. “I suppose it takes him a while to figure out what’s just background noise he can ignore, and what’s new, something he has to tell you about.”

  “Exactly. That’s what they keep saying. And Ruffly is still working his sounds, the phone, the door. I burned some toast the other day and set off the smoke detector in the kitchen, and Ruffly certainly didn’t miss that! If he weren’t doing his work, everyone would be really worried, but he is. The problem is... Well, one problem is that he’s apprehensive. It’s hard to describe, but working with a hearing dog, you really do become part of each other.”

  For the first time ever, it occurred to me there were people who felt even closer to their dogs than I did to mine.

  Stephanie continued. “And a lot of people don’t understand. They think, oh, the dog’s trained to do this list of specific things. Listen for the phone, whatever. But it’s a lot more complicated than that, because, yes, Ruffly knows his sounds—the phone, the teakettle—but it’s impossible to train a dog to listen for every single sound that you might need to know about, and it’s unnecessary, because listening is exactly what a hearing dog does. But what makes the whole thing work is that you respond. He listens, I watch him, I check things out, and, believe me, if Ruffly wants something checked out, he won’t take no for an answer. That’s one of the things they drill into us: Watch your dog! Trust your dog! Really, it’s more like: Obey your dog!”

  “Tracking is like that,” I said. “When a dog is following a trail, you have to remember that he has this incredible nose that’s telling him absolutely everything, so most of your job, really, is to trust your dog. Trust his nose. And it’s easy to think, oh, well, no, the track layer couldn’t possibly have gone that way, so the dog must be wrong. But if you trust your little brain instead of the dog’s big nose, will you ever be sorry.”

  Stephanie smiled in recognition. “But with a hearing dog, you need both. I need his ears. He needs my brain. And my hands. He needs me. The word is bonding, of course, but that’s so au courant that it trivializes it, I think. But... Maybe you can understand it. Ruffly and I have spent all day every day together from the second he entered my life, and I am convinced, I am absolutely convinced, that something is bothering him now.”

  Ruffly continued to look—dare I say it?—completely unruffled. Sorry about that.

&
nbsp; “Is there anything, uh, specific?” I asked. “Any specific behavior?”

  Stephanie sighed. “Well, since you’re here, of course, he isn’t doing it now. For some reason, it’s usually in the evening. It’s almost a fit of some kind. An attack. A bizarre attack. He jerks his head. He winces.”

  “In pain?”

  “No! Not that I can tell. That’s what’s so frustrating about it. It’s very frightening, terrifying, but I have no idea what it is.”

  “Does he fall down?”

  Stephanie leaned forward. Ruffly’s eyes followed her. “No. It’s... It is not epilepsy,” she said emphatically.

  “If it were,” I said gently, “not that it is, but if it were, it wouldn’t necessarily be a big deal, you know. Seizures can be scary to watch, but—”

  “It’s not epilepsy. I’ve seen people having seizures, and that’s not what this is. I am positive.”

  Well, I’m not, I thought. “You’ve asked your vet?”

  “I don’t have one here yet. Actually, I meant to ask you about that. We saw our regular vet just before we moved, only a couple of months ago, and she did his heartworm test and a physical and all the rest, so he isn’t due for anything, but—”

  “Did she check for parasites?” Worms. Sometimes I think you can’t take me anywhere.

  But Stephanie Benson was unfazed. “She always does. Did, I should say. It was negative. No parasites.”

  “You might want to have it repeated.” I avoided stool sample. Fecal terms are like artichokes and oyster forks, best left to the hostess to touch on first. “In situations like this,” I added, “no matter how sure you are that it’s a behavioral thing, it’s usually a good idea to rule out the physical stuff, just in case.”

  Stephanie Benson nodded. “I was going to ask you,” she said again. “The truth is, I’m worried sick about Ruffly. I thought I understood everything about him, and these strange episodes have really thrown me. You don’t happen to know a good vet around here, do you?”

  “Do I ever,” I said. “I know the best there is.”

  13

  When I’d written down Steve Delaney’s name and the phone number of his veterinary clinic, I asked Stephanie Benson about photographs to accompany the article. Although my camera seemed to have survived my crash onto the hall floor, Stephanie spared me the need to use it. As a photographer, I’m barely adequate, and I’d have photographed Stephanie at home in mufti. The pictures Stephanie offered me had been taken in church, and she wore clerical garb. I selected two. One was a lovely close-up of Stephanie and Ruffly in which the two dissimilar faces had an identical expression of alert intelligence. In the other, Stephanie and Ruffly stood in front of an altar. Stephanie was raising her draped arms upward in what looked like an instruction to her congregation to rise in joy. The wonderful thing about the photo was the way Ruffly’s big, dark ears echoed the sleeves of Stephanie’s black gown. I was surprised and abashed to learn that the gifted photographer who’d caught the identical expressions and that repeated pattern of owner and dog reaching toward heaven was Matthew Benson.

  “Matthew has quite a good eye,” his mother commented, when I complimented her on the pictures. “It came as a surprise when I first noticed it. In most ways, Matthew is so scientific that it’s almost impossible to tell what he’s feeling, but I really do think that his photographs reveal a rather unexpected aesthetic sense.” Stephanie’s face was proud and puzzled.

  “These show a lot of feeling,” I said. “And, technically, they’re amazing.”

  “With Matthew, that more or less goes without saying. If it’s technical, he masters it. The question for Matthew is never about the machine itself. It’s whether there’s a spirit in there, too, a ghost, or whether everything is wheels and gears and microchips.” She gazed steadily at Ruffly as she spoke. I wanted to ask whether that was how Matthew saw Ruffly—as wheels and gears and microchips—but the unspoken question felt rude. In any case, Stephanie went on to answer it. “Matthew still hasn’t entirely reconciled himself to Ruffly. Before—before Ruffly—Matthew was a tremendous help with all the assistive devices, ghastly bells for the phone and lights here and there for this and that, and then I’d forget to look at the lights, and Matthew would be disgusted with me. And now, ever since Ruffly, I don’t need all that paraphernalia. Poor Matthew! I’m afraid he sees Ruffly as a sort of John Henry who’s beaten his machines.”

  If Rita had been there, she’d have said—or at least thought—a lot of far-fetched things about sibling rivalry and the Oedipus complex and the symbolism of men and machines. I felt happy to be a dog writer instead of a Psychologist. Stephanie Benson must have wondered what I was smiling about. “Dogs are stiff competition,” I said.

  “That’s what’s so funny about Matthew’s attraction to Leah.” Stephanie shook her head. “Although, of course, he doesn’t see it that way, and if you point it out to him, he is not amused. But she is such a darling! And with that big, beautiful dog? They’re adorable. How could he resist?”

  It was obviously my turn to say something flattering about Matthew. What1 “They seem to be having a good time,” I said. “And it really is okay for her to bring Kimi here? I was a little worried that Kimi would, uh, bother Ruffly.”

  “Not at all. They play little games together. Kimi is just as cute as she can be,” Stephanie added.

  Darling.Adorable. More than any other domestic breed, the Alaskan malamute retains the anatomical characteristics associated with the wolf’s powerful bite, including the broad muzzle and the sagittal crest along the skull. A malamute that bites your arm breaks your arm. I always expect the worst of my dogs; I never forget what the darlings could do if they felt like it.

  In lieu of a full explanation, however, I just said thanks. I also thanked Stephanie for talking with me. As she showed me to the door, I mentioned that I’d known Morris Lamb, the previous occupant of the house. To my surprise, Stephanie had met Morris. Off Brattle isn’t exactly a rental district; as I should probably have realized, a personal connection explained why she was in Morris’s house. Doug Winer’s cousin, Sheila something, who lived in Brookline, had been Stephanie’s roommate at Smith, and they’d stayed friends. In April, when Stephanie arrived in Cambridge, Sheila and Doug had taken her to have tea with Morris, who was one of her new parishioners. In referring to Morris, Stephanie used words like warm, interesting, and generous, and she said that Morris was one parishioner she could count on not to object to women clergy or to the presence of a dog in the sanctuary. She didn’t say that Morris never actually showed up in church; she didn’t have to. Morris showed his dogs all the time, all over the place. The only services he at-tended on Sunday mornings were conducted by the American Kennel Club.

  “I felt terrible about his accident,” Stephanie said. “Terrible,” I echoed, but accident hit me as a peculiar word for a fatal AIDS-related illness. I wondered whether Stephanie actually believed that trumped-up death-by-salad story, or whether Doug or his cousin had somehow persuaded her to promulgate it. If so, I couldn’t understand why. Doug obviously hadn’t come out to his elderly father, but if his cousin had known Morris, Doug had obviously come out to her. Morris was so outgoing that it was impossible to imagine that he’d ever gone in anywhere to begin with.

  “It must be odd for you,” Stephanie said. “To see us here? In his house?”

  “It’s a lot better than seeing it empty. That would be really strange.” We were in the front hall now. I imagined Stephanie buying a rug for the bare floor, closing the big windows in winter, arranging to have them washed, making the house her own. “And Morris would have been glad to have a dog here,” I went on. “I mean, I am, too....” I let it go at that. Without a dog, the house might not have felt like Morris’s, but it seemed unnecessary to say so.

  “It’s an unlikely house for me,” Stephanie acknowledged. “It’s not really my style, and I’m used to an apartment, but the location is perfect—a ten-minute walk from St. Margaret’s—
and the neighborhood was irresistible. After the city? I still can’t get over it.” Stephanie opened the front door, looked up, and smiled. “Trees. A real garden. We actually have a backyard. It seems like a miracle. It’s the most bucolic place I’ve ever lived.”

  I looked up and down Highland Street. Even by my rural standards, it was remarkably verdant. Furthermore, unlike the country, it was all ivy, flowers, and well-pruned shrubs and trees, and it lacked the dented mailboxes, discarded beer cans, and tom-open plastic bags of rubbish that are the garden sculpture of the average back road in God’s country, the beautiful State of Maine.

  “Highland is one of the prettiest streets in Cambridge,” I agreed. “And it’s so quiet.” As soon as I said it, I felt stupid. What did Stephanie care whether it was quiet or not? But maybe she did. I remembered the horrible roaring and buzzing that had assaulted me when I’d tried Rita’s hearing aids. I couldn’t reconcile that bombardment, which seemed to be defeating Rita, with Stephanie Benson’s poise and self-confidence, and especially with her obviously cheerful outlook. Although Stephanie was chatting and lingering, she was also ushering me out —we were at least halfway down her front walk. On impulse, I suddenly said, “Please tell me if this is an imposition or an intrusion, but I have a big favor to ask. One of my best friends has just started wearing hearing aids?” Why is it that women turn everything into questions? Rita had just started to wear the aids; there was nothing questionable about it. I rushed on. “And she’s having a rough time getting used to them. And I don’t know how to help her.” Confession. What are priests for?