Junk Shop: A Dog Memoir

by Jennifer Erickson

  He said it was for the stories, not the Stuff. People needed more stories in their lives.

  "Things with stories are security for some people," said Virgil. "Old things. Used things. Things that have seen it all and survived. But when I was a young man I didn't think about it much."

  I lay at the foot of Virgil's recliner and listened. It was one of the only times Virgil spoke philosophically to me. If only I had realized, I would have paid more attention.

  Virgil continued, "I just knew it was a way to make nothing into something. Buy a toy car at a garage sale for twenty-five cents. Hawk it in the shop for ten dollars. It was easy. And it was kind of fun snooping through other people's stuff. I was looking for something, I think. Some kind of...promise."

  My eyelids drooped shut, then sprang open when I heard the word: "Wife".

  "...and then after she passed away and Ashley showed up on my doorstep, I still didn't know where life's promise was. And did anyone ever have it? And if so, how? I still don't know, but it's okay. It's...okay."

  Virgil told me that I was his family now, that it felt like I understood him, that he didn't care if it was cuckoo. It wasn't paradise, mind you, but it was better than nothing at all.

  I assured him that I could indeed understand him, and that pretty much any dog could do that. The extraordinary thing, I said, was that he could Hear me.

  He said, "It's okay. You don't have to build me up. At my age, I've got nobody to impress."

  And then Virgil heaved himself out of his chair with a groan, knocking over the empty Fireball Cinnamon Whiskey bottle, and reeled off to bed.

  I thought back to that conversation many times as I shaped my theory of the Power of Stories. And afterward, as I re-inventoried the shop in the light of my discoveries, I began to see that each object spoke for itself. Each had a story as unique as you or me. No two books, no two horse-hair brushes or toy soldiers or 70 RPM gramophone records had comforted the same grief, had been flung in the same argument, had represented the same social aspirations, and therefore, organizing the merchandise was just as random as not organizing at all.

  The Snorkel to Puppyhood

  Of all the many things in that shop, one particular object called to me. It was an old wool Marine Corps jacket, and it smelled of sheep, of course, which was alluring in itself. But this one was special, and I would sit under the rack, with all the military sleeves and pant cuffs dangling around me, and I would stick my nose up the sleeve, and it was like a snorkel to puppyhood.

  "Why do you do that?" Virgil asked one day. "You're getting hair all over it. Nobody's going to buy it."

  Privately, I thought that was a good thing, because it was my jacket, and it loved me.

  He set his novel spine-up on the counter top and grunted as he got off his stool. The hangers squeaked as he shoved them aside. He unhooked the jacket, lay it on top of the rack to rifle through the pockets, searching, I expected, for food. As if that was the only thing that would interest me. As if I were that shallow. Plus, if there had been food in the pockets, I would have eaten it already.

  He eyed me. "So, what is it? What's so special about this jacket?"

  I gazed away from him over my shoulder in a dog version of a shrug.

  "Metcalfe," he said, and my ears jumped. "Who's Metcalfe?"

  "What do you mean?" I said.

  "The name." He pointed at the jacket lining. "Says Metcalfe."

  My ears jumped again. How strange. It didn't smell like Him, exactly. But now that I thought about it, there was a similar…nuance.

  "So?" Virgil asked.

  "I don't know," I yawned, and that was true. But I had an idea.

  "At least try not to drool on it, Sophie," said Virgil. He batted the jacket and hairs sprang off, then drifted in the sun slanting though the display window.

  After that, I started studying genealogy, which is the science of connection. People who are related to each other smell similar, as you may realize, but so do related things, places and events.

  This was comforting to me. I could stick my nose up the sleeve of a coat that had belonged, for instance, to His Dead Uncle Jack, and my heart would instantly be transported to a place where it could almost meet with Him. A place where His presence was near, like He had just left the room. As though He thought of me, too.

  The Necklace

  I had my favorite coat, my Snorkel to Puppyhood. Virgil had a favorite object as well, in the shop.

  In the corner with the bric-a-brac and military medals and old toys, there was a locked glass case, and on a worn pink velvet stand, a necklace was draped. Customers who saw it tended to be confused more than anything, because they couldn't figure out why anybody would wear a scrimshaw necklace with a drawing of a narwhal on it.

  On the rare occasions that someone did ask to see it, Virgil would tell them that it wasn't for sale. Once a week, he would unlock the case and take out the necklace, not to look at, but to hold, and then he would place it back on the stand gently, as though it could be hurt.

  One day, a woman walked up to the counter, drowning in a huge wool coat. "Mr. Rosenberger?" She sounded young, but her face was wrinkled from hard use.

  "Hang on," grumbled Virgil. At the end of his paragraph he set his novel down.

  "Okay. What?" he said, looking her over.

  "I'm Katherine Stoughton. I don't know if you--"

  "I remember," he said, and stood.

  When he finally met her eye, he didn't quite smile, but I could tell that he was pleased. She, it seemed, was just as pleased to see him. I could tell because their air between them was restful.

  There was a pause.

  "I'm in town for a--well, it doesn't matter. But I was wondering how you're doing. How Ashley's doing."

  "She's...fine. She's fine," he repeated. "Don't see her much. Suppose you want her address."

  Katherine shrugged.

  Virgil grunted and stepped out from behind the counter. "I'm glad you came in, because I had something set aside for you."

  I followed with interest as he wound his way to the corner with the bric-a-brac and unlocked the case there. I peered through the glass as he reached in and, with only slight hesitation, fumbled the narwhal necklace off of its stand.

  Fingers trembling, he glanced at it one last time, then thrust it at her. As she examined it, he returned to his novel behind the sales counter.

  Katherine pursued him. "Are you sure?"

  "Yup," Virgil barked, not looking up from his book.

  "But it's a family heirloom."

  He sighed. "I should have sent it right back, but I didn't. You know, it wasn't really stolen. Ashley would have inherited it anyway, and if she wanted you to have it..."

  "It is beautiful."

  "You like it?" Virgil's face brightened.

  She nodded.

  Then that settles it." He took the necklace from her, wrapped it in tissue and plopped it into a tiny bag. He rummaged in a drawer for a pen and sketched her a map to Ashley's place. In a spiky scrawl, he copied Ashley's phone number from the blotter on the counter top.

  "Would you like me to say hello for you?"

  Virgil thought. "Tell her...thanks for the dog."

  When she was gone, I circled three times and flopped onto my dog bed. "You surprise me," I said to Virgil.

  "Good. Keep you on your toes," he said, without looking up from his book.

  "What about not trusting women? I thought that was one of our core values."

  "What are you talking about?" he barked.

  I craned my head away and didn't huff. I sighed. Huffily.

  "You like her," I said under my breath. These things, a dog can see.

  "So? Every once in a while in life, you meet someone who's not an asshole, okay?"

  So I discovered that Virgil had secrets, even from me.

  As a dog, I disapprove on principle of secrets, but I had already learned that Virgil took offense when I pushed open the bathroom door, for example, while he fo
llowed his private toilet rituals. As though I didn't know what was going on. As though he gave me any privacy while I did my business.

  Also, Virgil was hiding things in the basement. Dangerous things.

  Virgil got touchy when I tried to investigate, and eventually I stopped sniffing at the crack under the basement door and trying to make him turn the door handle.

  So Virgil had some faults.

  But he did a lot of good through our shop. He just didn't want it to lead to hugs or confessions or holiday invitations. He was a hands-off kind of philanthropist. Not that he thought of himself as a Good person. Quite the opposite. And most people would probably agree. He was grumpy and rude and he didn't have any friends. As far as I could tell, he barely even tolerated his own family.

  In the shop, the phone would ring and ring, sometimes. And then finally Virgil would pick up the handle and bark, "What?!...Well I'm still alive, so you can stop hassling me."

  That's how he kept in touch with Truffle.

  Other times, a customer would call, and they would want to know whether we had a 1947 whatchamacallit or a certain kind of antique sock puller, or a first edition of On the Road, and he'd say, "How the hell would I know? Don't bother me, I'm busy."

  The day he slammed the phone down for the last time, and wrestled the cord out of the socket and threw it in the overflowing garbage can, I was glad. We were happier when he didn't have to communicate.

  A Calling

  Each of us has a calling in life, a certain passion or intelligence that no one else possesses. Whatever this thing is, it is meant to be put to use. If we ignore it or lock it away, it's like a monster in our chest. For example, Nelson's calling as a Car Whisperer meant that he was happiest walking the streets all day. Virgil's calling was to help people without being nice. My calling is for management.

  But the first time Virgil locked me in the apartment, I didn't understand about passion and intelligence.

  The TV sat silent. I was bored.

  First, I investigated the kitchen. I tipped over the garbage and sorted out the recyclables. After that, I was hungry, so I pulled half a loaf of cinnamon bread and a stick of butter off the kitchen counter, chewed through the wrappers and ate them (Virgil didn't know until the bread bag came out my other end the next day).

  Virgil still wasn't home, so I nosed open the bottom row of cabinets one-by-one and dragged out a greasy fryer, which I licked clean (see, I was doing housework). I climbed up on a kitchen chair, and from there onto the table. The table tilted dangerously as I tried to step across to the countertop, and I bailed out and landed with a yelp on the fryer.

  I limped into the bedroom and pulled all of the dirty underwear out of the clothes hamper and rolled in them.

  I lapped some water from the toilet, then climbed into the tub and fiddled with the lever, trying to turn the water on. When that failed, I pawed at the drain plug and got it spinning like a top until it unscrewed all the way and fell on its side.

  Then I couldn't think of any more projects, so I crawled under Virgil's comforter and fell asleep.

  At the time, it hadn't felt destructive. It had felt like busy work. But when Virgil got home from the grocery store an hour later, he called me a Bad Dog and whacked me with the TV Guide. As often happens in life, however, the destruction broke down old barriers.

  After that, Virgil took me with him to the grocery store. He wore dark sunglasses and carried a cane. Sometimes, a nice young woman would offer to push our cart. Nobody ever seemed to notice our car parked in the handicapped space. Maybe they thought I drove. I liked to think that I could have.

  As you know, I was always ambitious. I watched and learned, and I started to take more initiative around the shop. I developed a saleslady persona to communicate with the customers. Just talking wasn't enough. I had to put my heart and my will into it.

  Most people don't Hear me, or maybe they choose not to hear. That's one thing about people: You can't make them believe anything if they don't want to, but they're willing to buy into the craziest ideas instead: that granola bars are not cookies, that a gecko is a reliable insurance salesman, that large houses are more prestigious than the cheap hotels they resemble. People might not be very smart, but they are complicated. Fascinatingly, deliciously, tragically complicated.

  Virgil had been correct that our customers were looking for stories, but I learned that it was more complicated than that. For one thing, they didn't know they were looking for stories. Furthermore, not just any stories would do. They were looking for their stories: Lost or unfinished stories or new stories to help them move forward.

  Some people think that stories aren't important, but they are actually the ones who need them most. Stories are gentle teachers, places for imagination to grow. They are healers, companions and nourishment.

  Stories fill the empty, lonely places in people's hearts.

  Dogs--dogs don't need stories, not really. We live in the present, for the most part. People live anywhere but in the present. They resist the present with everything they've got. They want to live in the past or in the future, because here and now, what's to hold onto? No, humans need stories to nourish them, as they are starved of the present.

  My ambition was this: to heal the world by matching each individual with his or her perfect story, to give context and wholeness to a life spent ricocheting from past to future, future to past, never noticing the now.

  People usually don't know what's best for them. So of course sometimes, they have to be tricked. And people don't like that. They feel disrespected. They yell. But later, when they think we've forgotten them, they come back. Oh, yes, they come back. They can't help themselves. Their story-starved souls pull them back.

  The Trail of Pain

  All of this knowledge did not come easily. My first customer, which was actually two customers, nearly ended in disaster.

  First of all, it's very unusual for us to have two customers at a time. We draw a certain kind of clientele. Most people, when they pass by our display windows, shiver a little and walk faster. Maybe they sense all the potential there. Maybe it's the dust and the smell of despair and the thicket of Stuff you could get lost in. Maybe they sense what's in the basement. Or maybe they're just not ready for transformation.

  Anyway, on that particular day, there were two customers, and both of them loitered by the sales counter. The man called, "Hello…hello?" The teenaged girl seemed to be in a hurry. She had a sequined taffeta dress tucked under her arm and her wallet open.

  Virgil was in the bathroom. As I mentioned, he doesn't like it when I barge in, even to alert him to two customers. As usual, he was in there for a really long time. I could hear the pitter-patter of his uneven spray missing the toilet bowl. Who knew when he'd finish?

  So I heaved my front paws up onto the sales counter, which wasn't easy. My one good rear leg wobbled and hopped around behind me as I tried to stay upright, and I did my best Virgil impression: "Five bucks," I barked to the girl, then glanced at her wallet.

  She hesitated.

  I said, "Come on, I can't stand like this forever."

  The man behind her started to laugh, and the girl turned to him. "You think I should give my money to the dog?"

  The man looked me over, mischief in his eyes. "The dog seems to think so."

  "Woof," I said.

  He burst out laughing.

  "Well, I've gotta get back for trig class," said the girl. "She said five dollars, right?"

  The man looked at the girl doubtfully. She laid a bill and a quarter "for tax" on the counter.

  I wagged at her and winked.

  She glanced back at the man and hurried out.

  He reached to pet me, but changed his mind, lucky for him.

  Just then, the bathroom door scraped open and Virgil appeared, shaking water from his fingers. I pawed the girl's five dollar bill off the counter and shoved it under my bed as Virgil approached.

  "Your dog is quite the character," said the cu
stomer.

  Virgil cut his glance toward me. "Thinks she runs the place, she does."

  The man laughed.

  I sat on the dog bed with the money under it and feigned disinterest.

  "A young woman just walked out with a--" said the customer.

  "I charged her five dollars," I interrupted.

  Virgil glared at me until I pulled up the corner of my bed to show him the money.

  Virgil snorted, "You going to keep that?"

  "Excuse me?" said the customer.

  "Nothing. What do you want?"

  "There's a Japanese sword--"

  "No!" I barked. It slipped out.

  Virgil scowled.

  "--in the case back there. I was hoping I could have a look at it."

  "Sophie seems to think that's a bad idea."

  "Are you kidding me?" said the man.

  My neck fur stood up and so did I, and my tail stuck up like a giant middle finger, and inside my chest came the Silent Rumble from my days with Nelson. And while all of this happened, I could not have told you why. I mean, I had no reason to dislike him, other than his trying to pet me, but lots of people make that mistake.

  "Why is that?" the man asked. His voice was calm. Matter-of-fact, even.

  "Well, I, uh, don't know, really. But Sophie's sometimes right about these things..." Virgil trailed off, then rallied again under the other man's glare. "Some people, sometimes they get overstimulated, and if they have a weapon in the house, well...and then the police come asking me whether I sold it to you, and it could cause me some...inconvenience."

  "Too much information," I said.

  "Well, fine, Sophie, you talk to him then. Oh right, you can't, because you're a dog."

  "Are you really arguing with the dog?" said the customer.

  Virgil straightened up.

  "I don't like him," I murmured.

  "Don't bother me, young man. I'm busy." Virgil said.

  And then, while I watched, the customer transformed. He shouted a curse and heaved over the doily case and threw the hat stand like a javelin, and it impaled the military surplus rack, and then he stomped out and as the cowbell clanked behind him, I felt a trail of pain spill after him like blood.

  As Virgil swept glass into a dust pan, Robyn from Latte Love coffee shop next door peeked in.

  "What's all the commotion?"