When Harry Met Minnie

by Martha Teichner

  Carol had warned me that Harry often slept till noon. I generally get up between 5:30 and 6:00 A.M. He seemed a bit put out when I rousted him to go for a walk. When I emailed Carol a picture of him at 7:35 A.M., awake but still on the bed, she replied, “HARRY got up at 7:35?!?!?”

  At noon, I took Harry and Minnie to be blessed. October 4 is the official feast day of St. Francis, patron saint of animals, but churches can be a little loose about scheduling their Blessing of the Animals services on a Sunday around that date, St. Peter’s Chelsea included. There must be some sort of rivalry between St. Peter’s and the church associated with the General Theological Seminary, a block away, because the seminary held its own Blessing of the Animals a week before the one at St. Peter’s. Both are Episcopal churches, although St. Peter’s doubles as the nondenominational Chelsea Community Church in order to pay its bills. Both churches were built on land donated by Clement Clarke Moore, who wrote the poem known as “’Twas the Night Before Christmas.” St. Peter’s, completed in 1838, is a little like an English country church with Gothic pretensions or the pride of a small village, which Chelsea was in the 1830s.

  It always feels like a secret. Once, I suppose, it was considered imposing. It is, after all, built from stone, Manhattan schist, New York City bedrock. You can climb on great hunks of it in Central Park and, if you look hard, catch glimpses of it out the windows of subway cars as you pass through tunnels blasted through it. Manhattan schist held up the city’s early skyscrapers. Whoever built St. Peter’s Chelsea did it by hand, sorting through piles of stones, tons of stones, laying big ones next to small ones, gray ones next to tan ones, in no particular pattern. The stonework is a wonder. The stones are weathered and dull now. The church seems to be peering out from behind a curtain of leafy old trees and is guarded by a tall wrought-iron fence, as if it’s hiding. But its tower gives it away, a stack of stocky squares rising above the treetops, containing a bell and, on each side, a clock, best seen from Ninth Avenue, where you can look up and check whether the visible faces agree on what time it is.

  As long as I’ve lived in the neighborhood (it’s hard to believe, more than twenty-five years), St. Peter’s Chelsea has been on life support, crumbling, leaking, barely hanging on while its members look for the millions of dollars needed to restore it. Money dribbles in. Repairs never seem to begin or end.

  But at Christmas, St. Peter’s celebrates by candlelight, its pews garlanded in greenery. Its flaws are hidden and softened for an evening of carols. Shadows dance on its vaulted ceiling obscuring patches in the plaster. The dark woodwork with all its intricately carved points and pinnacles makes the church look theatrical, almost spooky. The organ pipes gleam. Someone from the neighborhood reads the Clement Clarke Moore poem from the pulpit, and for a couple of hours “all is calm, all is bright.”

  On the rainy, mid-October Sunday of the Blessing of the Animals, all was not calm, and the place seemed dim. Light leaked in through the Tiffany windows, but the church felt chilly, damp. A bucket of dog treats donated by the Barking Zoo, the pet specialty store around the corner, sat at the entrance. The two elderly parishioners handing out programs looked a little ghostly in the gloom as people arrived, mostly with dogs, but a few with cats or birds. The large lizard who had previously attended was absent. There was lots of barking, lots of tail wagging and running around. The small dogs, especially, wriggled and strained and tried to escape their owners’ arms instead of sitting quietly.

  The blessing at St. Peter’s is not one of those extravaganzas where people bring llamas or giraffes. It is an unassuming, do-it-yourself event, although not without intrigue. A member of the choir, Otto, a plumpish occasional actor with a thick brush mustache and a fine tenor voice, who had a hound named Bucky, usually put together the event. Once a police officer brought one of the sniffer dogs who had searched for bodies at Ground Zero. Another year, a woman wrote a poem about dogs. Pet owners from the neighborhood are enlisted to find and present readings about animals. The year Otto talked me into reading, I realized that I had to convince my friend and former dog-walking buddy John to come along, so that he could hold Goose and Minnie while I went up to the lectern. His Australian shepherd, Finny, my dogs’ best friend, was still alive then. We all sat together on a tufted velvet cushion, safely shut in behind the kind of latched wooden door often found at the entrance to pews in old churches. We sat there together; that is, until the dogs figured out that they could crawl under our pew into somebody else’s pew, where other dogs were waiting.

  Eventually, John moved out of the neighborhood, but for today’s Blessing of the Animals, Otto had asked him to write lyrics to a song about loving dogs. Otto planned to sing it. John spent weeks working on his song. Finny had died a few months before, so he poured his grief into it. Otto had paired him with a composer, who wanted to go off and write the music on his own, with little regard for John’s words and no interest in collaboration. A recipe for trouble. By the time John arrived at my apartment to help me convince Minnie and Harry to walk in the direction of St. Peter’s Church, John was no longer speaking to the composer. He was also furious with Otto, although Otto might not have been aware of that. It was John’s first time meeting Harry, but even falling in love with him instantly did not improve John’s mood, as we nudged and tugged and begged the dogs to follow us. They clearly had zero desire to be blessed. They were cranky. John was cranky. We found ourselves a pew and helped the two dogs up onto the seat. Minnie strained and tried to jump out, over the latched door. It took all my strength to hold on to her. Somebody came along and took her picture squirming and pulling. Harry, mystified by the goings-on, decided he preferred the floor. People ranged up and down the aisles checking out what sorts of animals had shown up, exclaiming how cute they all were.

  Finally, the service began. We stood and sang, “All things bright and beautiful, all creatures great and small…” and other animal-related hymns. People read. People prayed. The animals were all agitated. When Otto sang his first solo, his hound, Bucky, bayed loudly. The church erupted into prolonged laughter. When Otto sang John’s song, I thought it was lovely, the music, the words, Otto’s voice, but John muttered under his breath. When people applauded, and Otto introduced John and the composer, John stood and smiled a smile that was closer to a sneer.

  At the end of the service, two priests positioned themselves at the back of the church. People wrangled their animals into what was too chaotic to qualify as an actual line up the center aisle, more like a swirl of tails and ears and leashes and arms and coats. This moving mass lurched toward the spot where the priests made the sign of the cross and laid hands on furry foreheads, a benediction the dogs didn’t appreciate nearly as much as they did the handful of treats they got from the bucket at the door on their way out. When it was Harry’s turn, I asked the priest to give him a special blessing because his owner was dying. He looked at me, then touched Harry’s head, closed his eyes, and prayed silently. As we left, John avoided Otto.

  Carol’s reaction when I emailed her about the Blessing of the Animals was “Glad they were blessed,” then a lips emoji and a heart. As much as could be expected from a Jewish atheist.

  I delivered Harry and his air force helmet bag back home late Sunday afternoon. Carol’s door was unlocked when we got there. She was in bed. Harry was overjoyed to see her and she him. She struggled to get up, slipped her swollen feet into the Gucci slippers she’d worn to tea, and held the edges of her oval table with both hands as she sat down across from me with a gasp. I told her there was no longer any question, I would take Harry.

  I had been rehearsing how I would say what I told her next. I was worried that she would take it the wrong way. I explained that from the very beginning of the journey we were on together, what we were sharing seemed special to me. I said that after Harry’s first visit, I started keeping a diary because I didn’t want to forget anything that happened. On Sunday afternoons, on airplanes, in hotel rooms late at night, I wrote, racing to
get down the previous week’s events before they were overtaken by something else, before I got too far behind. As I did, it began to dawn on me that this was a good story, and I should maybe try to write a book. I had never written a book, so who knew what would happen, I said, but I would only attempt it if I had her permission. If she felt I was in any way intruding, infringing on her right to a private death, I wouldn’t do it, I told her, but telling the story would mean that something of who she was would be left behind. She would have to trust that I would get it right.

  It was getting dark. Carol hadn’t turned on any lights. I stopped talking. She just sat. Then she bent her head, covered her face with her hands, and took long, deep breaths, probably for thirty seconds or so, but it felt like days. Finally, she looked up, straight at me, took another breath, and said quietly, “I would be honored.”

  I suggested she might contribute to it, too. She said she would and asked if there could be pictures. Having no idea whether publishers, readers, anyone at all, would have any interest, I replied, “I don’t see why not.”

  * * *

  ON MONDAY, MY emails went unanswered. Early Tuesday, I tried again, asking Carol whether she’d heard from Stephen about his dog, Teddy. I said that I’d been trying to reach him but had gotten no reply.

  At 9:34 A.M., she wrote:

  Teddy is improving!!! But poor STEPHEN put through the ringer so he slept all day yesterday. Am sure he will answer you today. I will write later-just getting up. Yesterday was a bad day for me … but saw the Dr. so hopefully improvement on the way. Xc

  What did that mean? What kind of bad day? A painful day or a sad day? Or both? What had the doctor given her to make her feel better? Her suffering was a mystery to me, only imagined, hinted at. Unseen but upsetting.

  And then at 3:53 P.M., I received this, in a typeface that was supposed to look like hand printing. It was superimposed over Harry’s armorial:

  DEAR MARTHA AND MINNIE,

  I HAD SO MUCH FUN WITH YOU OVER THE WEEKEND.

  THANK YOU FOR INVITING ME. I HOPE YOU WILL INVITE ME BACK. I PROMISE … NO HUMPING … EVEN THOUGH I BLAME MINNIE FOR TEASING ME INTO IT.

  BUT, WE HAD SOME FUN!!

  YOUR FRIEND,

  HARRY FERTIG

  At 3:56 P.M., I replied on Minnie’s behalf:

  Dear Harry,

  Minnie is very eager for a return visit. She’s a tease, you know, but she told me she likes you and hopes you think she’s very beautiful and glamorous … she likes wearing your Aunt Violet’s lovely collar.

  Martha

  At 3:58 P.M., I got an email with the subject listed as “From Harry”:

  I think she’s beautiful, but I am not sure what glamorous means … will ask Carol. Harry Fertig

  At 4:04 P.M., I wrote him back:

  Harry, my boy, you’ll need a Tiffany’s charge account to understand … Carol will tell you …

  At 4:06 P.M., Carol helped Harry with his response:

  Subject: Re: FROM HARRY

  I’ve been cut off ever since the Petco “incident.”

  At 4:07 P.M., I wrote:

  Unless you’re keeping the details secret for fear of prosecution, I’d love to hear THAT story … Minnie will just have to get a few film roles to keep her in jewels … but she does prefer her men to have a “past.”

  At 4:13 P.M.:

  Subject: Re: FROM HARRY

  Nothing racy, just a few treats-(I couldn’t help myself they were down low). I’ve matured since then.

  At 4:14 P.M., I pressed:

  But admit it, the urge still comes over you, right?

  At 4:23 P.M.:

  Subject: Re: FROM HARRY

  I can’t say in an email for fear of being hacked..…. .

  At 4:46 P.M., I admitted:

  Confession … Even Minnie has entertained notions of shoplifting when confronted with low-hanging treats at the Barking Zoo. With my intervention, she has, in the end, restrained herself.

  Her uncle Piggy, however, had a taste for pies at the farmers market. Once, while I was bent over selecting flowers from a bucket of water, he had a glorious two-pie morning, blackberry. By the time I stood up and noticed him gulping them down, a small crowd had gathered to cheer him on. I always had to take extra money with me to pay for his thefts.

  Don’t tell Minnie I told you about her temptations.

  Martha

  At 5:17 P.M., from Carol:

  HARRY once took a $25 stuffed sheep from Duane Reade … I paid for it of course. He shook it wildly all the way home. RESTRICTED!

  I sat at my desk in the office staring out my window into the dark laughing and then thought, Oh Carol, how can you hurt so much and bear to be funny.

  But it was this email that got me in the gut:

  Martha, first of all I want you to know how grateful I am to you that my most precious beast will share the second act of his life with you and Minnie. I couldn’t be happier. I can only wish for you that he brings you (and Minnie) as much joy and love as he has brought to me.

  I also wanted to thank you for proposing your “project” to me. I am kind of overwhelmed with emotion about the suggestion of it, and also the doing of it.

  I look forward to discussing more about your vision of what it should be (mostly structure) so I can begin on my end. I thought that a good way to start for me is to do a kind of “prologue” (just what I have told you about wanting Harry to come to you and the magical way it came for us to meet). If this sounds good to you I’ll try to get it on “paper.”

  Harry is looking forward to his next weekend with his girlfriend.

  Xc

  Below Carol’s signature, her armorial.

  The following Saturday, Stephen dropped Harry off and took him home again Sunday. His visit was uneventful, normal. I sent Carol lots of pictures. What she wanted to know was whether Harry had slept with me. I told her he had indeed.

  nine

  THE TIME COMES

  The ringing of my phone startled me. It was Stephen, in his car as usual, on the Wednesday after Harry’s second sleepover, talking too fast, his voice panicky above the traffic and engine noise.

  “I’m really sorry. This is really sudden. Carol isn’t feeling well. She’s wondering whether you could take Harry for a few days, till Sunday, maybe. I’m headed down there now. I can drop him off tonight.”

  It was as if I’d been underwater and was suddenly sucked back up to the surface. The call broke my concentration. I was writing a script, immersed in it, coincidentally about dog behavior, and it had to be finished that day. The story was scheduled to air the next Sunday, in four days.

  “Uh, what?” I was not quite ready to hear and comprehend.

  “I’m sorry,” Stephen said again. “Carol says she doesn’t feel well enough to take care of Harry right now. She apologizes for asking you to do this so soon after his last visit, with no warning. If you can’t, she’ll understand, but…”

  “It’s fine. It’s fine. It’s okay. Please, just bring him over fairly late. I’ll need his medications and more of his food with the rest of his stuff.” Harry’s three kinds of prescription diet. His phenobarbital, sertraline, Tylan, metronidazole, Rimadyl, and trazodone. His giraffe rug, his bowl and balls, and who knows what else would arrive. For his second sleepover, the air force helmet bag had been replaced by a much bigger bag to accommodate everything he’d brought before, plus a few extra toys. I’d laughed when I saw it. Every street vendor in Central America, Africa, the Middle East, and, for that matter, New York City has bags just like it, every farmer hauling produce to market on the back of a donkey. A couple of feet square and a foot or so deep, with a zipper and straps long enough to fit over your shoulder, they’re cheap and roomy, coarsely woven out of some sort of cheesy, slightly shiny plastic yarn. They’re always plaid. Harry’s was red, white, and blue. If plastic had been invented at the time of Christ, Joseph and Mary would have carried their belongings to Bethlehem in one.

  I expected the ba
g to be full to overflowing, just as the one before had been. Unfortunately, something would be missing.

  Around the middle of the afternoon, Carol emailed me that as she was packing Harry’s things and putting his medications in a pill caddy, she realized she had run out of his phenobarbital. She said she would ask the vet to call in a prescription. She wanted to know the name of a pharmacy near where I lived, since it made no sense to have me traipse all the way down to her local Duane Reade. I gave her the address and phone number of my local Rite Aid and said I would stop there on my way home.

  I said that Minnie and I were happy to have Harry. I teased Carol about the street-vendor bag:

  From: Martha Teichner

  To: Carol Fertig

  I hope he doesn’t intend to start selling stuff on the street. Then I’ll have to get him a storage facility for his wares at Manhattan Mini Storage, and then what will Minnie think?

  From: Carol Fertig

  To: Martha Teichner

  He won’t be startin’ any street vendor business (he uses that bag to travel incognito. He’s a rock star worthy of Miss Minnie.(emoji face wearing sunglasses).

  My response:

  He’s handsome enough to model.… I sense that he sings quite a bit, but not sure about guitar cases all over the apartment.