Cool, Calm & Contentious

by Merrill Markoe

  Hopefully there is a learning curve to living through these “annual fire and wind events” and their specter of loss and devastation. Maybe next time I will know how to pack more carefully, remembering to at least take socks, bras, underwear, and shoes. But the experience still coalesces for me in a haunting question: Why don’t I go through my house and throw away the things I know I will have to leave behind when this happens again?

  It’s a good question. And one to which I will give some thought, as I turn, clap, and jazz-walk to the back line.

  Selfishness 101 (for Dogs)

  I GOT UP EARLY, TOOK ONE LOOK AT THE FRONT PAGE OF THE newspaper, and went right back to bed. A short day, but a satisfying one.

  The next time I woke up, two hours later, I was so filled with dread and a sense of foreboding that it felt like waking up in the middle of the night, only brighter. Even surrounded on all sides by four large dogs—a relaxation technique lauded the world over for the many health benefits derived from breathing in big lungfuls of pet dander—I was overwhelmed by anxiety. That’s the kind of bracing start a perusal of the morning news can offer a person.

  Today I was fretting about how the BP oil spill had not just officially become the worst environmental disaster in our country’s history, doing untold damage to an exacting and fragile ecosystem via massive quantities of both oil and toxic dispersant, but also had the ability to corrupt the whole food chain and lead to international environmental contamination, social chaos, governmental collapse, and, eventually, an empty-eyed thug with a tattoo that he’d carved into his own forehead busting down my front door and forcing me to turn my house into his special Malibu breeding farm for morons. I was furious at the way yet another bunch of jowly white men in overpriced casual wear had been in too big of a hurry to devise a worst-case-scenario plan before they’d drilled in the only Gulf of Mexico the planet would ever have. I was also so pissed off and terrified of their plans to drill in the future that I felt envious of the pleasure religious people must take in imagining the bunch of them writhing eternally in the torments of hell. Damn! Something was actually making me wish I believed in hell!

  I rolled over and pulled the covers over my head, drowning in terrifying images: me, in a faux-leather Mad Max outfit, my arms and face covered with mud, roaming through a landscape of frenzied mutants and rubble, armed with nothing but a grapefruit knife and the remaining two-thirds of that huge container of flashlight batteries I bought at Costco.

  I decided I wouldn’t get out of bed until I could figure out some concrete way to be helpful. Should I write a piece about human greed and shortsightedness? Just thinking about the cronyism, the lobbyists, the payoffs at the Minerals Management Service, and the aggressive stupidity of that awful animal-murdering Sarah Palin and her Bible-quoting drill-baby-drill buddies made me breathless with rage. But the only fresh angle I could come up with about it all was imagining the adventures I would have in prison after being arrested at one of her rallies for screaming, “Keep your big mouth shut until you know what you are talking about, you sociopathic simpleton!!” That would probably take place just before I was hauled away in handcuffs for swatting at her with a rolled-up copy of the issue of the US magazine that had her daughter and Levi Johnston, reunited, posing on the cover.

  Here it was, only ten A.M., and I was already beside myself about the way that selfish, ego-driven people throughout history always seemed to drag the idea of God’s approval into their motives. How come these people, who believe that God created everything in a week, are never bothered in the slightest by the fact that He, like Steve Jobs with his “revolutionary” iPhone 4, clearly rushed the human being to market too early? Both were products overflowing with design flaws. But in God’s case, what excuse could He have had? Who insisted that He put Himself on such a tight schedule? Did He have shareholders to please? Was some underpublicized Mrs. God bugging Him to hurry up, the way she might have if He’d kept putting off something unpleasant, like cleaning out the garage? And that whole episode in the Garden of Eden—one lady’s bad fruit selection was a pretty poor excuse for moving ahead with a line of creatures so full of bugs and malware that they ended up poisoning and devouring their one and only habitat. Come on, God: even hyenas don’t go around ruining everything for everyone in their neighborhood.

  Tired of my own petulant sermonizing, I returned to the task at hand: trying to come up with one concrete thing I could do to help. A charitable contribution wouldn’t make much of a difference, not on my salary. Of course, I could go to Louisiana to help clean oil off of pelicans, but unless I committed to moving there, I’d feel like a fickle hobbyist. Or … now, this was a long shot, but … what if I could just bring some of the oily pelicans back here to live at my house, where I could clean them and tend them and protect them from further harm until they were out of danger and feeling much better? I could probably fit about five hundred birds into my house. They could nest on my chairs and couches! And since I live only a half mile from the ocean, we could take frequent field trips to the beach!

  It wouldn’t be an easy transition. I would probably have to invent a group pelican leashing system. But I was up to the task.

  Only one hitch: the new resident birds might have a problem getting along with my dogs.

  But in this case, too bad for the dogs! Their lives weren’t being threatened, unless you counted their testy relationship with the equally spoiled dogs on the other side of the fence.

  No, until the birds were steady and able to get on their feet, I would lock the dogs in the back of the house. Sure, after being catered to their whole lives, they’d be pissed. But in this time of crisis, we the fortunate ones needed to put ourselves second. We’d all have to look at the bigger picture

  “Okay, you guys,” I said as the four of them gathered around me on the bed, staring at me as a way to pressure me to get up and feed them. “There are four-point-two million gallons of oil a day pouring into the Gulf of Mexico. It’s a horrible disaster for more reasons than I think your attention spans will allow me to enumerate. So here’s my point: we cannot all sit calmly by and watch as the world is destroyed by selfish, greedy people. We have to help out wherever we can. Are you with me?”

  No one said a word.

  “I’m going to take that as a yes,” I continued, “because we all need to pitch in for the greater good. I want you to remember what I just said when a bunch of pelicans from Louisiana show up at the house.”

  The dogs kept staring at me.

  “So, you all understand what I’m proposing?” I asked. “While I am finding out if I need to get a sanctuary permit or what, I want the four of you to readjust how you feel about birds. I know you find them irritating for some reason, but under these circumstances I will expect you to behave. Even though sacrifice is a concept with which you are not too familiar.”

  Hedda yawned. “We’re more familiar than you think. What do you call hanging around watching you for hours on end?”

  “I always wondered why we did that,” said Ginger.

  “She apparently needs an audience,” said Puppyboy. “No one knows why.”

  “That’s very insulting,” I snapped. “I don’t need an audience. And if I did, you guys are the last ones I would pick. But even if what you say is true, how is that a sacrifice? I’m far and away the most entertaining thing in your lives.”

  “You don’t think we’d rather be out running in traffic?” Hedda snorted.

  “Well, maybe, but you’re forgetting: you have it pretty easy around here. Not one of you ever helps out. And you’re all middle-aged now, which is much too old to be so selfish.”

  “And by selfish you mean … what exactly?” said Ginger.

  “The act of placing one’s own needs or desires above the needs or desires of others,” I said. “I don’t suppose that rings a bell with any of you?”

  “Yes! It does with me,” said Puppyboy. “I invented that!”

  “You didn’t invent it,” said Jimm
y. “I was doing that way before I knew who you were.”

  “No, you’re both not understanding,” I said. “Selfishness is not considered a good thing. I am talking about being oblivious to anyone’s feelings but your own. The only thing the four of you care about is yourselves.”

  “That’s some serious bullshit,” said Puppyboy. “Every creature in all of nature knows that putting yourself first is pure instinct. If I’m not thinking about myself, I am not running at full capacity. Therefore I am endangering the species and putting the ecosystem at risk. Now, that is my definition of something bad.”

  “I guess the problem is, these instincts of yours work better in the wilderness than in a domestic setting,” I said. “Like it or not, we live not by instincts but by human rules. And since this is my house, I get to say which rules apply.”

  “So you’re the selfish one?” said Ginger.

  “No, the word ‘selfish’ doesn’t apply in this case, because I go out of my way to make the four of you extremely comfortable,” I said.

  “You ignore me a lot,” said Puppyboy.

  “I can show you a perfect example of selfish, thoughtless behavior right this very minute,” I went on, ignoring him. “Look at Ginger. She is standing on top of a newspaper I’m reading.”

  “I’m not doing anything,” said Ginger, flinching as though I were going to hit her.

  “Yes, you are. And stop flinching. I’m not going to hit you,” I said. “All I’m asking is that you take a moment to think about where you’re standing before you decide to stand there.”

  She looked at me with the uncomprehending eyes of a chicken.

  “Ginger, listen,” I said. “I am very important to your survival. To frame it in terms of this whole BP oil spill scenario, in this household I am the ocean and you are the pelican. If we want to share our environment, we must live in harmony with each other. Therefore, you must constantly ask yourself, ‘Am I standing on something that is important to Merrill?’ If the answer is yes, then you must stop standing on whatever it happens to be: the front page of my New York Times, the manuscript I am writing, my freshly laundered shirt, my head.… And that goes triple for my laptop.”

  “I never stand on your newspaper,” said Pup.

  “True. But you, Puppyboy, are selfish in other ways,” I went on. “For instance, the way you think we’re all supposed to stop whatever we’re doing whenever you show up with a ball.”

  “What?” said Pup, so angry he was now avoiding my gaze. “That is pure generosity of spirit! I look around and see that you’re sitting there, bored out of your skull … doing absolutely nothing …”

  “You mean like when I’m taking a bath?” I countered. “And you are dropping balls into the tub? Or when I’m watching a movie and you are piling balls onto my lap?”

  “Exactly,” said Puppyboy. “And, I would like to point out, I bring the balls right to you. You don’t have to move even an inch. For instance, right now, I see you lying there by your newspapers, intending to go back to sleep. So … very quietly … I will drop a ball on top of your chest … a pre-emptive strike that will turn your boring, monotonous life into a Technicolor 3-D videogame!”

  “You don’t seem to comprehend that when I am sleeping, I am not bored,” I said. “And when I am reading, I am not bored. Well, sometimes I am. But the important thing here is that for you to insist that I change my whole orientation to the one that interests you makes you selfish. Not me.”

  “Hold on a second,” said Pup. “You have it backwards. When you are just sitting in a container of water, doing nothing, you are placing your needs ahead of everyone else’s. Everyone else probably wants to go for a walk, which is about survival and hunting and marking territory. And there you are, for no good reason lying down in a container of water.”

  “Wrong,” I said, sitting up, finally realizing that going back to sleep was not going to be possible. “Bathing is part of survival. And, Ginger, I have asked you twice now to get off of my newspaper. I haven’t finished reading all of today’s horrible stories.”

  “I’m still not sure why you aren’t grateful that I do this,” said Ginger. “Why do you even want to read about things that are horrible?”

  “By the way: BREAKFAST!” said Hedda. “I just thought I’d put that out there. For discussion or whatever.”

  “I read about horrible things, Ginger, because it’s part of my responsibility as a member of society to keep abreast of what is going on, no matter how upsetting,” I said. “In today’s world we are all part of one big ecosystem that connects us to one another. So to honor this I need to know about the confusing and horrifying things that people are doing all over the planet.”

  “Ah. I see,” said Ginger. “And once you know about these things, are you going to bring them all here to the house to live so you can fix them? Like you want to do with the pelicans?”

  “Well, no …” I said. “Usually I just sign an online petition or something.”

  “What does that do?” asked Ginger.

  “Gives a bunch of spammers my email address,” I said. “But my only other option is to donate money to a charity where I have no way of knowing if it goes to pay for environmental cleanup or to buy a case of Mountain Dew Code Red for some teenage volunteer.”

  “Then why bother at all?” said Puppyboy. “Especially when there is a satisfying and rousing game of ball directly in front of you?”

  “Because I would feel selfish if I didn’t,” I said. “That’s what I’m trying to teach you guys today. We all need to be out there on the front lines, telling the truth about evil. We should be in the Congo and the Sudan protecting the innocent, bringing food to the children of Darfur or aid to the earthquake victims of Haiti, and when we’re done with all that, there are oil-soaked pelicans to clean … the very ones who I hope will soon be living with us here at this house.”

  “Which reminds me: breakfast!” said Hedda. “Just throwing that out there again.”

  “And also: you can’t leave,” said Ginger. “Who would be here to open the cans for us?”

  “Believe me, I’ve used your total dependency on me as an excuse for staying home far too often,” I admitted, rolling over onto my other side so I could avoid their needy stares. “We’re all very selfish. And we live in a selfish, amoral world. The implications of this stuff are so far-reaching and upsetting that right now I’m going back to sleep for the rest of the day.”

  I had no sooner pulled the pillow over my head than I heard the loud tearing and crunching sound of Ginger digging a hole in the center of my carefully folded New York Times. In seconds she had made herself a comfortable nest of shredded paper.

  “For the last time, Ginger: Get off my newspapers. NOW!” I shouted. “Have I been talking to myself? Have any of you even heard a single word I said?”

  “Calm down,” Hedda snapped at me as Ginger jumped off the bed, kicking a trail of torn index-card-sized pieces of paper into the air behind her. “No reason to get hysterical. Ginger’s a little slow.”

  “Oh, but you’re the big genius,” said Puppyboy. “Miss Barks-at-Anyone-Who-Comes-in-the-Door-Wearing-a-Hat.”

  “I just want to make sure that the rest of you understand what she is saying,” said Hedda, staring at me. “That we all have to work together for the good of the group. A group, as I understand it, of which she is the self-appointed leader. Which also means that she needs to get us some breakfast right now since the group is in total agreement that everyone needs to eat.”

  “Fine,” I groaned, heaving a big sigh as I came to terms with the fact that my plans for additional sleeping had been hijacked. My newspaper was destroyed. My bed was covered with filthy tennis balls and torn shreds of paper. “I thought I might try to sleep a little longer, but to hell with me.” I hoisted myself out of bed and put on a sweater. Then I headed into the kitchen, gathering dog bowls from the floor as I walked, the way a movie theater janitor gathers empty popcorn boxes.

  “Obviou
sly, if I want to save the world, I will have to do it alone,” I heard myself muttering out loud as I opened the first can of dog food. “The four of you have proven that you are all too self-absorbed. There’s nothing I can depend on you to do, ever—”

  “Except to hang around you, wherever you happen to be,” Ginger interrupted, staring hard at the can of food.

  “And always act thrilled to see you,” said Jimmy, drooling.

  “Whether we feel like it or not,” Hedda added, thumping her tail lazily as a way of asking me to hurry up. “Whether you look good or bad. Or have done anything worthwhile.”

  “Who else would sit waiting, staring, ecstatic whenever you come in the door?” said Puppyboy. “Even when you’ve done nothing that I can see to deserve it?”

  “And despite the fact that the mere sight of you reminds us of food,” said Hedda.

  “So you’re not really even happy to see me,” I said, hurt. “It’s just an act because you associate me with food?”

  “Well, yes,” said Ginger. “But there’s more to it than that.”

  “Even in an environmental catastrophe or a financial meltdown, we will still act glad to see you,” said Hedda. “This house could be coated in oil and toxic solvent. We will act like you’re totally great.”

  “Name someone, anyone else, who guarantees that kind of service,” challenged Jimmy.

  “Not occasionally, but twenty-four hours a day,” said Hedda.

  “Even after we have thrown up on every surface we could,” said Ginger. “We may have ruined your wood floors and your rugs. We may have pissed on your comforter. Even then, we will seem so happy to see you it will be like it all never happened. Or I will, at least.”

  “Don’t pretend it’s just you,” Hedda chimed in. “I do the same thing but much better.”

  “Neither of you is half as good at it as me,” Jimmy interrupted.

  “That all counts for something, doesn’t it?” said Puppyboy, who was hard to understand because his mouth was entirely filled with a deflated basketball.