Later that night I sat and read Ovid and the first line that says, “I shall speak of how everything changes.” I saw that there was something else I knew about the world besides losing things. And it’s this. No matter what happens, everything changes. I thought, “Are you happy right now? Well just wait.”
The day after we signed the papers my air conditioner froze up. My mother was helping me clean and it was hot as shit and we turned the AC down too low. I called the air conditioner repair guy to come check it. I kept looking out the window for him and telling my mom how happy I was to be in the apartment and not hanging out in the Walmart parking lot with a bunch of drug addicts. There was a mosque in front of my apartment and I liked to watch the families arrive on Fridays. I told her it was a tender mercy in my life and it was better than the weirdos from the parking lot. My mom told me it was getting so bad in Rainelle that the pill heads were breaking into the houses of old women to beat them up and steal their pills. She said an old man died in town and somebody robbed his house while the family was at the funeral. I just shook my head and told her I was glad that dad had the home security system put in. Then I showed her the air mattress that I’d been sleeping on.
I said, “I mean who’d ever need a bed when they have a kick ass air mattress like this?” I thought I heard the repair guy outside but no one was there. I kept looking out the window through a little hole the previous tenant had cut in the blinds to see if anyone was coming to arrest them. My mom asked if it was a queen sized. I turned back to the air mattress and looked at my mom like “Hell yes, it’s a queen sized.” Then I said, “I’m not some cheap ass. This is the Cadillac of air mattresses.”
We both laughed and she said, “Oh Scott. What’s that?” Then she pointed down at the end of the air mattress where I’d taped it.
I said “What?” and she pointed again.
I said, “Oh that’s where I had to tape it because it has a hole in it.” Then I told her I had to fill it back up each morning because the air leaked out during the night. When I woke up in the morning I was always sleeping on the floor.
My Mom said, “And you’re going to have the kids sleep on this?” I told her not to worry about it. I told her it was just a metaphor for life and that it would all be okay. I told her it would be a great adventure. I told her I wasn’t having to live in the Walmart parking lot anymore and having to deal with all that crap. I told her I liked watching the families coming to the mosque on Fridays and it made me feel nice. So I nodded my head and Mom put her hands on her hips and said, “Okay” and then she gathered up all of her stuff and kissed me and told me she loved me. She told me it was going to be okay and she told me that when we’re at our lowest we’re not. It’s when we’re at the lowest that we’re actually in the arms of god. She told me that god shows us love through our suffering. That suffering is a hug from god, but we just can’t see. I didn’t tell her that she was ridiculous. I just told her not to worry and it was all going to work out and then I told her that Sarah would change her mind soon. I promised. I looked out the window and said, “Hopefully the repair guy will be here before too long.” Then I watched her walk out the door and get in her car. I waved at her from the window and she waved back at me.
A few minutes later I heard somebody else pull up. I heard a door open and then I heard a door shut. I figured it was finally the air conditioner repair guy. I went to the bedroom so I could change the old sweaty t-shirt I was wearing and put on a new shitty t-shirt that wasn’t sweaty. Then I took off my old pair of jeans with the holes in them and put on my new jeans which only had a hole in the knee. I went back to the window and I looked outside. But it still wasn’t the air conditioner guy. It was a really nice car and there were people outside and there was a woman in the front seat. And in the driver’s seat was a young guy who looked all muscular. In the back seat was another guy, but I couldn’t really see him. I thought, “What nice looking people. They must be coming to visit someone in the apartment building.”
I pulled away from the window, but before I did I saw something out of the corner of my eye. The pretty girl was holding a hypodermic needle and sliding it into a vial of something like you see in doctor’s offices. Then she pulled out a rubber tourniquet. And it swung in her hands like a dead snake. I watched her wrap the tourniquet around and around the arm of the guy in the driver’ seat. She went tap tap tap against his arm like she was trying to wake someone from sleep. And he just kept holding his arm out straight like a stick. I watched her poke with the needle and miss and then try again. I watched her put the needle down and I realized that they didn’t know anybody in the apartment building. They were just getting high.
I watched the girl finish the guy up. His head fell back like his head was now a concrete head and he needed a place to put it. I watched the girl do the same thing to herself. She wrapped the rubber band around her stick arms and then she stretched and then she tapped and then she poked and then she shot and then she watched the rubber band go limp. I watched the guy in the back seat take it from her. Then she started looking at her arm and there was blood dripping down it. She licked her thumb against her tongue. Then she wiped the blood away until her arm was bare. But the blood was still smeared there. So she started to lick at her arm until it was all gone and then she dabbed at her arm and she couldn’t see the blood anymore.
I turned away from the window and I went to the bedroom. I blew up my air mattress all the way. I watched it rise and fill full and become a bed. Then I decided to re-tape the electrical tape. I picked at the roll of tape with the tip of a finger until an edge of the tape came loose. And then I ripped it off with my teeth. I re-taped it and stretched the electrical tape thick and tight. I drew the blinds and I looked out the hole at the people in the car. They were still there and they were still high. I turned off all the lights and I walked to the air mattress. I sat on the air mattress and I knew there was only one lesson in life. Tonight I would start sleeping on air but by the morning I would be sleeping on the hard floor. I felt the air mattress beneath my butt and I heard the air escaping sssss and I felt all of the air in the world escaping from me, sss. I thought about all of the horrible things in the world.
I thought about Rainelle and all of the old women getting beat up for their pills and being left lonely with only black eyes and swollen skulls. I thought about the old man who died and who had his house broken into while the family was at the funeral. I thought about one of Sarah’s patients who was in the hospital for days and wasn’t getting any better and then finally Sarah found out why. The old woman had a bunch of fentanyl patches stuffed down her throat. I thought about all of the sad things in the world but then I thought about the families arriving at the mosque.
I stopped listening to the air escaping sss and trying to keep it from escaping behind the tape. I got up and I ran down the stairs. I wanted to say something to the people doing drugs in the parking lot. I wanted to shout something joyous at them. My feet made the stairs creak and then I put on my shoes at the front door. I made sure they were still outside. And they were. I laced up my boots and I walked out the back door and around the apartment building.
I left the door open and I noticed the air conditioner guy had pulled up and was getting his paperwork ready to come inside. But I didn’t say anything. I just kept walking and then I saw them. And they saw me. All three of the people in the car stopped and they stared and they looked scared of me. The girl in the passenger seat slapped at the arm of the guy who was driving like, “Let’s go. Let’s get the fuck out of here. That guy looks insane.” The guy driving gunned the car backwards and then he spun the tires and drove away. I watched them rip away and I chased after them and shouted. “Please take me with you. I’m so lonely here. I want to beat up old ladies and take their pills” I shouted at them just like I’m shouting now. “Will you be my friend? Will you?” Then I pretended I was an air mattress and said, “Ssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss.” I watched them disappear in the d
istance and all I could do was say, “I accept you.”
Four years earlier, Sarah and I got married, and then we got a dog. His name was Mr. King. He was this 18 year old pug who was blind as shit and who needed a home. “He looks fucking blind,” I said when I came home one day and Sarah was holding him in her lap. “It looks like his eye is missing.” I looked at the empty looking eye socket and it was all gooey and full of pus and empty from where the eye should have been. I told Sarah we shouldn’t keep him, but she told me it was okay. “Yeah he got one eye ripped out a few years ago, but it’ll be okay,” she finally admitted. “We can still keep him though because Mr. King is a good boy.”
Then she told me how he lost his eye. It happened years before over Thanksgiving when Mr. King was left alone with some other dogs. Mr. King was so good looking that the other dogs beat his ass because they were jealous and then ripped his eye out.
“Fuck,” I said.
“He’s a pretty boy,” Sarah said and petted him some more and Mr. King opened his mouth and panted ugh. His teeth were all broken and missing. They were weird ass barracuda teeth on the top of his mouth and then he started scratching and I noticed his pink lipstick pop out and pulsate every time Sarah petted him. Sarah kept telling him, “Yes, Mr. King. You’re a horny boy. You’re just a big ole horny boy.” I told Sarah we shouldn’t keep him.
Sarah told me it was okay and then she told me he was just a little bit blind. But then she put him down on the ground. She told me that’s what people like us are here for: To take care of the helpless things. So Mr. King cocked his head like he was listening for something. Then he took off running as fast as he could at full speed and slammed straight into the living room wall. “I don’t think he’s just a little bit blind,” I said. Mr. King bounced off the wall like a battering ram and fell onto his side. He sat there for a moment and then he stood back up on his legs and cocked his head like he was listening for something again. We couldn’t help but laugh. Then Sarah picked Mr. King back up and held him in her lap some more and petted him. I looked at his other eye and it was all blue and cloudy and it looked blind too. Then Sarah finally admitted Mr. King was really blind. She told me that the Thanksgiving after the dogs ripped his first eye out, the dogs jumped him again and this time they fucked him up and blinded his other eye. I told Sarah it was going to be a problem since we couldn’t train the blindness out of him.
I petted him a little bit too but then I noticed this white looking ooze coming out from his penis. I backed away and told Sarah that there was something wrong with his dick too. Sarah looked down and said, “Yeah the vet said he has testicular cancer. That’s the reason why he smells the way he does.” Mr. King got down on the floor again and started scratching. He scratched around his neck and he scratched around his arms. Sarah just looked at me and said it would be alright.
But it wasn’t. Later that night he was still scratching. He scratched around his neck and he scratched around his stomach and I told her he must have a bad case of the fleas, but Sarah told me that it couldn’t be fleas because she gave him a flea bath when she brought him home earlier. So Mr. King scratched his stomach and he scratched his ears. I told Sarah that maybe we should give him another flea bath and Sarah said okay. I picked up Mr. King and carried him into the bathroom and Sarah started running the bathwater.
The bathwater ran and Mr. King sat on the bathroom floor listening to us. He sat and scratched his ears and I told him it would be okay. Sarah put some flea shampoo in the bath and it got all bubbly and brewing suds. I was getting ready to put King in the bathtub, but then he walked over to the bathroom trash can and lifted his leg and pissed.
“He just pissed on the trashcan,” I said.
Sarah turned off the bath and said, “No he didn’t.”
I said, “Why would I make that up?”
Sarah turned to Mr. King and said, “You’re a bad boy, Mr. King. You’re a very bad boy.” The piss drops rolled down the trash can and onto the floor. I ripped up some toilet paper and wiped the piss off and threw the paper in the toilet. Then Sarah picked him up and put him in the bathtub. I sat and Sarah washed him up and she washed him down. Mr. King opened up his mouth full of his broken off barracuda teeth and breathed deep like he was loving it. He was saying, “Thank you o thank you so much.” Then Sarah lathered him up until he became a giant soap ball. She washed his stomach and his legs and his neck and his little pink lipstick popped out again. Sarah repeated, “O gosh Mr. King. You’re such a horny boy.” I felt jealous the way she was talking to him. Then Sarah rinsed him until the suds slid off and then she put him on the floor. I took a towel and dried him off and Mr. King went crazy. He bashed happy against the sink and then he busted his head against the toilet. “Damn King,” I said and finished trying to dry him. Sarah said, “Hopefully that’ll help.”
But it didn’t. The next morning we woke up and King was still scratching. He scratched his neck and he scratched his ear and then he scratched his neck some more. I rubbed my eyes and sat up and then I saw something streaking through his light yellow fur. “What’s that?” Sarah said and sat up too. I leaned forward and looked at his neck. It was blood. I said, “Please, Mr. King stop. Please stop scratching buddy. You’re hurting yourself.” I held his paw down to keep him from scratching but then he started up again. He scratched at his ears and he scratched at his neck and he was whining in this high pitched whine. Sarah got out of bed and started putting on her clothes. She said, “I think I need to take him to the vet.” So I sat on the edge of the bed and I felt my legs itching. I scratched around my ankles and Sarah said, “You’re not scratching now too are you?” I looked down at my legs and they were covered in bumps. “Fuck,” I said. “I have flea bites all over my fucking legs.” Then Sarah started scratching around her legs. She looked down and she had red bumps on her skin too and I just shook my head and I told Sarah again we couldn’t keep him. This was a disaster.
And this is what I kept saying the next day as I stood outside while Mr. King went pee pee poo poo. Sarah called me from work and I picked up and she told me she had just got a call back from the vet. There was a foot of snow on the ground and King was pissing all over it. Sarah told me that the vet said King didn’t have fleas. She told me that he had the mange. And then she told me that we didn’t have flea bites either. We needed to take antibiotics though because we had the human form of the mange and it was called scabies. I told her she needed to tell Rebecca that they had to take King back to her dad. I told Sarah we couldn’t take care of him, and Sarah finally gave in and said, “I know. I know. I agree.”
I told Sarah she had a good heart, but it just wasn’t going to work. So I watched King piss in the path I’d shoveled in the snow.
I hung up and when I turned back around I didn’t see King anywhere. I walked down the path on the sidewalk that I shoveled and looked for him. Then I walked back to the door and looked that way, but I couldn’t find him. Then I walked back down the shoveled sidewalk path and I saw Mr. King down below the house and he was struggling to walk through a snow drift. I walked beside the house where the snow wasn’t so deep. I saw him heading towards the hill behind the house and then falling over the hill. He flipped end over end and then rested at the bottom. The snow was blowing and I didn’t have gloves on. I shouted, “King. Just stop. I’m coming, King.” I stepped into the snow and I felt myself sink down in it and King sat at the foot of the hill in the snow drift and whined for me. “Don’t worry King,” I said and tried to walk through the snow but it was so deep and drifting that it came up to my waist in places.
I finally found my way to him though. I looked back at where my tracks had left a bunch of leg holes in the snow. I picked him up and told him he was okay now. He was shivering but he still breathed his hot breath and I accidentally swallowed a gulp of it and felt myself gag. He was saying, “Thank you. Thank you for rescuing me.” I tried to move forward in the snow but it was so deep and the hill was so steep that I couldn’t move.
I took a step but I couldn’t walk and hold King at the same time. I had to do something.
“Okay, King,” I said. “Hold on. I have an idea.” So I pulled him back and tossed him up high into the air in front of me. He landed soft in the snow and then I walked forward and my legs were heavy like tree trunk legs. I picked him up again and threw him a few feet in front of me in the snow drift and he plopped and landed safe in the snow. And so we did this for a half hour until we had made it all the way back up the hill and back to the path I’d shoveled out. I carried him back on the porch and he nuzzled his face against me like he was saying, “Thank you for being kind to me. I’m sorry I’m so blind. I know it’s hard for you and I try to be a good boy but it never works out because I live in darkness.” I opened the door and put King down on the floor and he shook his fur clean of snow. I kicked off my boots and King looked at me saying, “Please let me stay. Please.”
I said, “Why do you want to stay here, Mr. King?”
And Mr. King said, “Because you’re kind to the helpless things.”
I sat and brushed the snow off of him and I told him he could stay. I called Sarah at work and left a message saying that we needed to keep King and we just couldn’t give him back. Then I sat down and I watched him bounce against the walls. I watched him head-butt the couch and I watched him hit his head against the chair. I told Mr. King that he was a metaphor for my life. I told Mr. King he was so helpless and blind and then I told Mr. King that I was a helpless thing too.
The Sarah Book Page 8