by Mary Miller
“What do you mean? Do you zone out?”
“Sometimes,” I said. “Sometimes I do.” Sometimes when I was driving—actually, frequently when I was driving—I felt like I shouldn’t be on the road, was surprised to find myself at my destination alive and intact. A chunk of time missing. There was something wrong with my brain; my brain was a different brain from the brain I’d once known. I remembered how, as a young man, I’d had a nearly photographic memory, or someone had called it that once and so I had believed it to be true. For years I told my brain that it was photographic, the brain of a goddamn genius.
“Are you getting enough sleep?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” I said. “I sleep okay.”
“Lucky called me the other day and I went by his office. Have you heard from him?”
“Not recently. That son of a bitch doesn’t return my phone calls.”
“You should call him,” she said.
“I’ll call him right now,” I said. I thanked her again for the cheese and told her someone was at the door. It would buy me a few more days, at least.
I saw Maxine three or four times a year—about once a season—even though she lived less than twenty miles away. I could drive there right now and knock on her door, shake hands with her nice-enough husband and see my grandchild. The child was a girl, which I hadn’t been thrilled about when she was born and still wasn’t thrilled about. Maxine named her Laurel Maxine—that was the baby’s name—a name that set the kid up for problems. What was a laurel—a tree, or a bush? And naming a child after yourself? What an ego! In my head, a lot of the time, I still thought of my daughter as Margaret. Margaret should have been her name, such a wholesome classic name, after my grandmother. Things would’ve been different if she was Margaret.
I imagined sitting on the floor with her, moving plastic eggs around a plastic skillet in a make-believe kitchen. Taking orders like we were running a diner.
The Maxine I’d known as a girl was gone. I could hardly remember the child that had liked to fish and sit for long hours in the woods. She’d been blond then, quiet but peaceful; she had loved me better than anybody in the world. She’d reach for my hand, take it and hold it until I couldn’t bear it any longer and had to let go. But for all of the time we spent together, my memories are generic and unspecific. The only girl I remember in any detail was seventeen years old, when my thoughtful child turned reckless overnight. When I was convinced she’d kill us all. She left the doors wide open and the stove on, snuck out of her bedroom window at night. I put locks on the windows, painted them shut, and she’d walked right out the front door while we slept. She ran away. Came back. Ran away a second time and stayed gone five days. Her mother had a migraine the whole time and for weeks after.
She crashed two cars that summer.
The second accident occurred a month before she left for college. She broke both of her legs and cracked her pelvis and knocked her head pretty good, and I wasn’t sure, from that point on, whether her brain was forever damaged. She spent a week in the hospital, her mother sleeping up there with her, and me alone at the house thinking of them and what I had done wrong and if there was any way to fix it. Trying to do the routine tasks that seemed to keep a household going—buying groceries, washing clothes—wondering if all of the hope and love that had existed in the beginning, and there really had been a lot of hope and love, of course there had to have been, was gone for good.
Our small family, a family of three. It would have been easier had there been more of us. Had Ellen and I had other children—additional chances, friends for Maxine. If we’d tried harder or loved each other more or been willing to sacrifice ourselves for the good of the whole. Those were the darkest days of my life.
Maxine looked different when she came home, something about the eyes and a slight limp she has to this day. We watched for signs that she was different, that she’d changed.
In the end, we decided she was the same and also somewhat improved by the injuries, possessing a caution she hadn’t had before. She stayed inside, watching cartoons and eating bowl after bowl of cereal, like she’d regressed a dozen years, but she was pleasant. Agreeable. She didn’t seem unhappy—on the contrary—she laughed more than she had in years, but it was a kind of frantic, nutty laughter. We had a small party to celebrate her eighteenth birthday, just the three of us and a boy she called her boyfriend that we never saw again, and then we sent her off to college. After that she was gone, really and truly, and there was no way for us to keep track of her. I had no idea what we’d been trying so hard for—all of the time spent worrying, the alarm system and the locks, the efforts we took to keep track of her comings and goings only to buy her new clothes and send her halfway across the country. She didn’t visit once that year, not even at Christmas.
CHAPTER 4
I AWOKE FROM A dream in which Maxine had run away. This happened whenever I spoke to her; everything got stirred up. She was a grown woman now, in her mid-thirties and by all accounts a responsible wife and mother, but I couldn’t forget the Maxine I’d lived with that final summer, the one who had cost us so much before vanishing altogether.
It was my fault that I couldn’t get past it. Maxine had left that girl behind. Ellen had, as well, and the two of them were closer than ever. Why didn’t I want to see my grandchild? they asked me. Why didn’t I want to be a part of their lives? It was too late and I wanted to tell them to forget about me, to move on. Ellen wasn’t coming back, and Maxine called and asked me to come by out of a sense of duty. When I was gone, she didn’t want to have regrets. I was old enough to know you always had regrets, no matter what you did or didn’t do.
I imagined running into Ellen at Rouses wearing a dress I hadn’t seen before, with a haircut I hadn’t seen before, and tried to imagine how I would feel. I liked the idea of fighting for her affections—bringing her flowers, showering her with gifts that this money would allow, finally, after all these years. I still loved her—that was the problem. Ellen still loved me, too, or so she claimed. I’ve always loved you and I always will, she said, signing the divorce papers. But you never could accept my love. You were never happy and there was nothing I could do to change that. She always knew the best way to hurt me. That’s what a good relationship teaches you. I would provide for her once the money came through, though, would take care of her, regardless. And I would take care of Maxine. I had told them this and it wasn’t just something I said because I hadn’t seen the money yet. People are willing to make all kinds of promises before they see the money.
In the dream, I was standing in the doorway of an unfamiliar house calling out to my daughter, yelling her name as she moved about the yard. She wasn’t hiding but changing locations, disappearing from one place and popping up in another. She couldn’t respond, or wouldn’t, as my voice grew louder and more frantic. It was horrible to call to someone without any response, especially when they could see you, when they knew you were there. But the dream wasn’t so bad. It was nothing like the ones I used to have in which she would die; over and over again she’d die and I’d convince myself they were premonitions, that I’d have to bury my daughter and the dreams were my brain’s attempt to prepare me for her death.
The dog had heard me moving about, her tail thumping against the nightstand. Swish, swish on the carpet and thump against the nightstand. Swish, swish, thump, swish, swish, thump. I wondered whether I should write Maxine and Ellen lump-sum checks—a one-time deal sort of thing, or send the money in installments. I didn’t want to have to mail checks every month, though, or even every year. That was a lot of trouble and I might forget or find I wasn’t the generous man I’d figured myself for after all. I leaned over to look at Layla and her tail wagged faster: swish swish thump swish swish thump! And then I was singing a little ditty that went swish swish goes the tail! Swish swish thump goes the tail, the taily taily tail!
I hoped to God it didn’t happen when people were around. I might have to broach this subject with
other pet owners or find this information on the worldwide web. Surely there was a forum for this kind of thing: do you break into song uncontrollably? Do you forget the song as soon as it’s over?
I patted the spot next to me and called her up. She licked my cheeks, my lips, my forehead. She especially liked to get me on the mouth. I tried to block her but she really felt the need because she’d missed me so much in the hours we’d been apart. I was the bologna man, the foot man. Lived in the house where fajitas were spilled. But then I got the image of Bruno, the saddest dog in the world, in my head so I got up and started the coffee. After that, we went outside to get the paper and I walked slowly so she’d have time to do her business. The lovebugs were still out but they’d be gone soon. It was like that every year. There’d be millions of them clogging up everything, all over your car and messing up your paint job, flying into your eyeballs and up your nose and then not a single one anywhere.
While Layla licked the pavement, I looked at the sky, the moon faded and halved. I had a headache but it wasn’t terrible. I’d grown accustomed to feeling bad all the time—or if not bad, exactly, certainly less than good. I knew I should feel ashamed but shame was mostly relegated to nighttime, to the darkness and the old mattress.
I poured myself a cup of coffee and went to the bathroom; the dog followed me in there to watch. I picked my nose. She didn’t take her eyes off me. I wondered what the hell was going on in her head, but it seemed like it was only I love you I’m happy what are we going to do next? I put the words into her mouth without realizing I was doing it: talking in a voice that wasn’t my regular voice and attempting to articulate the thoughts she couldn’t speak for herself as accurately as possible. I would act as an interpreter, I thought, as if she were a foreigner or a mute.
I switched to my regular voice to tell her I had to go to the doctor. “I won’t be gone long,” I said. “You can relax here until I come back. Your bird friend’ll keep you company.” I explained where the doctor’s office was because I was worried about the parking situation. “What kind of doctor’s office is downtown?” I asked her. But when I got there the parking was fine. I found a spot easily and didn’t have to walk too far. If I could be reimbursed for the hours spent worrying about nonevents, I’d be the richest goddamn man in the world.
The waiting room was nice and clean and there were plenty of magazines, ones I might even like to read if I weren’t in a waiting room. I sat and did nothing. The room was full of blind people, people in wheelchairs, people with patches over their eyes and missing limbs. I got up to fill out some additional paperwork with a spring in my step. Pushed out my chest. The diabetes hadn’t affected me too much. I was still able to fish and drive and cook my own food and cut the grass, though I’d recently hired a neighbor boy to do the yard work.
This was a new doctor, a doctor I’d been referred to because my old doctor moved to Pensacola. I’d liked my old doctor, who had generally seemed pleased with me, with my numbers, complimenting me whenever I lost a few pounds. And there had been regular types of people in the old doctor’s waiting room, normal people with all their legs and arms. I thought of my brother in a hospital bed in Vietnam, though I hadn’t seen him there, had only imagined it. He’d been wounded, his leg in one of those white casts suspended from the ceiling like a cartoon—in traction. He could’ve come home after that, to Pamela, the girl he said he loved, the girl whose picture he carried in his wallet, but he’d chosen to go back. It had been so close to the end, too. If he’d been injured even a few months later he would have come back to us.
Where was Pamela now? Did she think of him? I wished I had her picture so I could carry it for him.
I was reuniting with Pamela, lovely nineteen-year-old Pamela, when the nurse called my name twice before I managed to stand—a question, always a question, as if this were the kind of place folks up and walked out. She was pretty, short and shapely. I used the voice I used when I talked to pretty ladies. I knew I was using a different voice, much higher than my usual one, similar to my dog voice, but I couldn’t stop myself. She weighed me, took my temperature and blood pressure—it was high, she said she’d try again in a few minutes, that I should relax and take some deep breaths—and asked me the usual questions. Then I waited some more in a different room, sat in a chair because I wasn’t sick.
The doctor knocked as he opened the door. He was white, about my age, and had done a lot better for himself than I had. We had some people in common but they were people I didn’t know very well, people Ellen had known.
He tried to scare me with numbers, said I needed to lose twenty to thirty pounds yesterday, and prescribed new medication, which he explained was more serious than the medicine I had been taking. I still hadn’t picked up my other medicine, had run out—when had I run out? I told him my knees were bothering me, particularly the right one, and extended them a few times to demonstrate, but this just gave him the opportunity to talk about how fat I was again. We went back and forth until I indicated that I appreciated the gravity of the situation, and then the pretty nurse led me to a woman behind glass where I was to pay. There were signs everywhere: If God brings you to it, He will bring you through it; If God is all you have, you have all you need; When life gets too hard to stand, kneel. She slid open the door and gave me the total and I tried to make a joke about the kneeling one, how I guessed I’d have to continue standing because of my bad knees, but she didn’t think it was funny. Or I hadn’t explained it well enough.
I drove home thinking it was the last time I’d ever go to the doctor.
Layla was thrilled to see me on my return. This was a good incentive to go places without her. I petted and kissed her and the corn chip song came back to me just like that. I was afraid to stop singing it for fear I’d forget it again.
“I thought we might check out the dog park,” I said. I had charged my iPad and Googled it and found one four miles from the house. There were a few reviews that said it was pleasant and the people friendly. One cited a lot of mud. Another said it was full of dog shit and this was why we couldn’t have nice things.
I poured a beer into a go-cup, got the dog in the car, and we cruised with the windows down.
There were a few other cars in the lot, seven in total, two of them obscenely yellow hatchbacks parked right next to each other.
“We can do this,” I said, observing the people gathered in clumps. It looked like a social club. But that was why we’d come, wasn’t it? Otherwise I’d just walk her around the block or sit with her in my own yard. Layla was wary as well, so I explained to her that we were at a place called a dog park and it was where dogs ran free, etcetera, etcetera, and I’d be with her the whole time and it wouldn’t hurt us to be friendly and we didn’t have to stay long. We’d pop in and out and be done. That’d be that.
I opened the door for her and she hopped out. She immediately found a bone of some kind and chomped it up.
“Parking lot trash,” I said. “Nice job.” Her tail circled round and round. She was already having a grand time.
We stopped at the gate to read the rules, which were numerous, so many rules wherever you went and so many of them unnecessary, a test to see if you would follow them. Well, I wouldn’t follow them. Or I would follow some of them but not others. I would pick up Layla’s business, if she did her business, but I wasn’t going to put her on a leash to walk the twenty feet to and from the gate. That was ridiculous. Nor was I going to hop up and down on one foot or touch the latch three times and do a spin before opening it.
There were two gates. We were inside the first one and standing there sort of trapped because a group of dogs had come over to check her out, including a Rottweiler with an aggressive bark.
“He’s friendly,” a girl yelled, and then she had a hand on the dog’s collar and was pulling it back. She was saying that the dog just had a mean-sounding bark. I opened the gate and all the dogs sniffed Layla’s ass and Layla sat; she walked, sat, walked, sat. The Rottweiler tr
ied to mount her. The woman went on explaining that the dog’s bark sounded the same whether he was happy or defensive and his body language was how you could tell the difference.
“I don’t know your dog’s body language,” I said.
“Of course you don’t,” she said. “Of course not. Anyhow, he’s fine. See?” He was slobbering all over the place. What a goddamn mess. “My dog’s Bruno,” she said. “Like Bruno Mars.”
“I don’t know him,” I said, but the sad dog was named Bruno, or I had named him Bruno. How odd to meet another. I was still thinking about the two Brunos when she started singing the song she was sure I’d heard—terrible, awful sentimental shit. “It’s on the radio all the time. What’s your dog’s name?”
“Layla.”
“You love that song?” she asked.
“I do not.”
She looked a little confused but held out her hand. “I’m Beth. I haven’t seen you here before.”
“Louis McDonald, Jr.,” I said, thinking that I was this person, this Junior, which made more sense now that my father was dead. No—it made less sense. I was the only one. I felt like a new person, though, or newish. Junior had a dog and a different diabetes doctor. He was single, a man-about-town. He could buy and sell this dog park if he wanted, if it didn’t belong to the city. If his money ever came through from the original Louis McDonald, deceased.
A couple of loose children chased each other around a bench. “Leave me alone!” they yelled. “Stop!” Why weren’t they at a park for dogs and children? And then one of them let out a piercing scream and a woman walked over to them screaming her own head off.
I had to watch every step as I navigated the piles of shit, as Layla and I moved in and out of an open circle with a bunch of other people and their dogs and it became clear that I was uncomfortable with the people but okay with the dogs and Layla liked the people alright but was uncomfortable with the dogs. I should have been a dog and Layla a person. And the whole time I was smiling like a lunatic. They were friendly enough, though, like this Beth, a few years out of high school with her dog called Bruno. I watched her, how she let the dogs smell her hands. I put out my own hands for the dogs to sniff, petted a few of them. Wiry-haired, dirty.