Lily and the Octopus

by Steven Rowley

  As the shaking slows, I’m aware of a growing warmness underneath me. A wetness that spreads like a drop of food coloring in water. The warmth quickly cools. Lily has wet the bed and her urine seeps across the sheets. I don’t try to remove either of us from the puddle until the seizure fully subsides, and even then, we lie there unwavering as my alarm clock ticks off several more minutes.

  I think of all the nights when Lily failed to pee on our bedtime walks. How much stress this would cause me. How difficult it was on those nights to fall asleep, to stay asleep, frustrated that I might have to take her to the yard in the darkness of predawn. So many arguments this caused between us. I always thought I knew better when it came to her needing to pee, but until this night she had never once actually wet the bed. And now that she has, we just lie there in the accident and the minutes on the clock keep changing and the love I have for her keeps growing and we both keep drawing breath.

  What was so horrible about it?

  Why had I always been so angry?

  What was with my need to be right? To win every argument with her? To outstubborn a dog?

  And just like that, all of the anger is gone. Released, like the emptying of a bladder, into soft cotton sheets as we lie in the wetness.

  Lily tries to regulate her breathing, but it quickly turns to panting.

  “Do you want water? You can drink mine.” I indicate the glass of water I always keep on the nightstand.

  Lily shakes her head no.

  “I’m so sorry,” I say. “For all those other nights.”

  “Wh-y-y-y-y?” The panting continues.

  And this makes me cry even harder. All those nights she had no idea that I went to bed angry at her. Or if she had known, she has forgotten. Because dogs live in the present. Because dogs don’t hold grudges. Because dogs let go of all of their anger daily, hourly, and never let it fester. They absolve and forgive with each passing minute. Every turn of a corner is the opportunity for a clean slate. Every bounce of a ball brings joy and the promise of a fresh chase.

  She wants to know why I’m sorry. I don’t want to tell her about my anger. I don’t want to tarnish my image in her eyes. Not now. Not with the octopus listening.

  So when I respond, I lie.

  “Because I’m going to have to give you a bath.”

  A Complete List of Lily’s Nicknames

  Silly

  Little

  Lil

  Monkey

  Bunny

  Bunny Rabbit

  Mouse

  Tiny Mouse

  Goose

  Silly Goose

  Mongoose

  Monster

  Monster Dot Com

  Peanut

  Penuche

  Pinochle

  Sweet Pea

  Walnut

  Walnut Brain

  Copperbottom

  Crazy

  Baby

  Puppy

  Guppy

  Old Lady

  Crank

  Cranky

  Crankypants

  Squeaky

  Squeaky Fromme

  Tiger

  Dingbat

  Mush

  Mushyface

  Hipster

  Slinkster

  Slinky

  Bean

  Dog

  Saturday

  The sun rises with a surprising intensity, a sign that June gloom has cleared the runway and July is on approach. We’re both tired, and it would’ve been easy to return to the bed after our morning walk, read from a book maybe, drift lazily in and out of sleep. But the sun beckons with a blazingly confrontational message: There is darkness, but there is also light. To stay in bed would be to embrace the darkness, the seizures, the octopus. To go outside is to embrace the light.

  “How about we go somewhere?” I suggest this as we eat breakfast. Kibble for her, Kashi—per usual—for me.

  Lily doesn’t answer until she finishes her meal and sniffs around the kitchen floor to make sure no additional kibble has escaped the confines of her bowl. “I’m fine staying in.”

  “I know you’re fine with staying in. But I think we should take a ride and see the ocean.”

  Lily thinks about this, and I wonder how much she remembers the ocean. If she misses it. We used to go there a lot. My hope is the octopus misses it and will take one look at his home and crawl back into the sea.

  The car is warm from the morning sun, and I open the sunroof. Lily lasts about thirty seconds in the passenger seat before she climbs into her customary perch on my lap. She turns around three times and I wait at a stop sign until she settles because it’s hard to drive when your dog is stepping on sensitive bits that she shouldn’t. As always, she quiets herself with her chin in the crook of my left elbow, and we turn down the street heading west.

  We hit the Pacific Coast Highway in no time. Where is everyone? It’s almost like an entire city has been so lulled by the gloom and the haze that they’ve all given up their identity as early risers. Their loss, our gain. The sun is even shining as we emerge off the 10 and through the tunnel that gives us our first glimpse of the Pacific. This is a hard one to explain to visitors, the weather differential between most of Los Angeles and the ocean. The beach is often the last part of the city to see sun. But not today. Today, the sun sparkles majestically off the water.

  I stream some music from my phone and crank it loud, but this seems to bother Lily—she has the look of someone with a crippling hangover, the thumping bass going right through her—so I turn the volume down until you can just make out the music over the sound of the air that whooshes over and past the open sunroof. We pass a string of familiar landmarks: the restaurant where Jeffrey and I had our first date; Paradise Cove, where I had lunch with my father the last time he visited; Trancas Market, where in my twenties I used to buy bottled water and snacks before hitting a Malibu beach. I see a younger version of myself at each and it’s all I can do not to wave; I wonder what my younger selves would think of me now, if they would recognize me or even care to wave back.

  We stop at El Matador, ten miles or so north of Malibu, a beach that’s always brought solace and a certain clearheadedness. There were days after I first moved to the city when I would grab a friend or two and a towel and sunscreen, and we’d go to this beach and you’d have to drag me away under protest at sunset. Now, it always seems there’s too much to do to indulge in whole days of such leisure, but that’s probably just an excuse. What is there to do, really?

  Despite the early hour, there are only three open spots in the tiny parking lot and I grab one of them. The rest are taken by surfers, no doubt—their internal clocks align with the tides. The lot sits maybe 150 feet up on a cliff above the beach, and the views from the parking lot alone are spectacular. You can easily see the other pocket beaches, El Pescador (the fisherman) and La Piedra (the rock). I’ve wondered why El Matador is thusly named. The bullfighter. Perhaps it’s the craggy stone formations that emerge from the sea. But they are less like bulls to me than sea monsters. Like the octopus. El Pulpo, as a name, is probably less inviting.

  Lily and I get out of the car and stroll a bit to the cliff’s edge. I pick her up and we survey the horizon together.

  “So, do you remember the beach?”

  “Is this the beach?” she asks.

  “Yes, yes—down below, it is.”

  Lily looks down. “I remember.” Then, tentatively, “Are we going down there?”

  “Not today. Dogs aren’t allowed on this beach.” There’s a sign that says as much, but I think about breaking the rules. What is anyone going to do? Call a park ranger? The police? But Lily looks content, and there’s a picnic table that’s not being used, so I decide not to ruffle any feathers. “I thought we could just sit here for a while.”

  Lily agrees, and we sit on the table and listen to the ocean, to the sound of the pounding surf that, because it is so far below, sounds farther away than it is. The muffled cackle of people laughing in the
water and the distant cries of soaring gulls add layers to the symphony.

  “We have some decisions to make, Monkey.”

  Lily mulls the weight of this for a moment before asking, “Why do you call me that?”

  “Why do I call you what?”

  “Monkey.”

  “Why do I call you Monkey?”

  “And all those other names.”

  “Those are terms of endearment.”

  “I don’t understand.” Lily squints as she stares out into the sun.

  “Terms of endearment are names or phrases that you use to address someone that you feel great affection for.”

  The wind picks up and we sit quietly for a moment.

  “You have a lot of them for me,” she observes.

  “That’s because I have a lot of affection for you.” And then, almost as an afterthought, “Do you have any terms of endearment for me?”

  Lily thinks about this. “Mostly, I think of you as That Guy.”

  I could let that bother me, but I don’t. Terms of endearment are probably a human thing. They’re certainly not a dog creation. They have other things—tail wagging, for instance—instead. To her, I am That Guy. The guy.

  Her guy.

  In the water, a pod of dolphins breaks the surface and we watch them as they dive up and down over the forming waves. Part of me wishes we were not high on a cliff; part of me wishes I could swim out to the dolphins and enlist their help in prying the octopus from Lily with their bottle noses and returning him to the ocean depths.

  “Can the octopus hear us now?” I ask.

  “No.”

  “You can tell?”

  “Sometimes. He gets bored with us a lot and tunes out.”

  “If he’s so bored, then he should leave.” I scratch the back of Lily’s neck while trying to choke down my offense. Bored with us? Really? He’s not exactly a master of witticisms and repartee. Who the hell does he think he is?

  Lily does this thing where she lifts her snout in the air, and I can tell that the backrub feels good, so I continue. I’m more comfortable snuggling with her when I know the octopus isn’t going to interfere. “We have some decisions to make, Goose. Hard ones. About how to get rid of …” Instead of saying the octopus, I point at it. I don’t want his curiosity piqued by his mention. “And to be blunt about it, all of the options suck.”

  I continue stroking Lily’s back. I’m not sure how much of this she grasps. Sucks for the octopus? Sucks for her? Sucks for us. I think of what Doogie has told me, as well as what I’ve read in my own research, although my own research is limited—if you Google “octopus on dogs,” most results you get are about making an octopus out of a hot dog by cutting the bottom two-thirds the long way into eight sections to look like arms and leaving the head of the hot dog intact. Apparently the Japanese add these to bento-type lunch boxes for children. This makes me think less of the Japanese.

  “There’s surgery, where they’ll try to cut him off. That’s perhaps the most obvious thing to do. But the doctors won’t know if they can get all of him until they put you under and see what kind of grip he holds.” Lily looks confused, so I remind her, “You had surgery once on your spine.”

  Lily recoils and I feel her tremble. “I don’t like surgery.”

  “I don’t think anyone does.” Maybe only surgeons.

  “What else?”

  Her reaction confirms what I already know, but surgery in many ways would be the most satisfying. The idea of stabbing a scalpel into the octopus and starting to cut is so appealing, I almost want to do it myself. To bring about his demise at the violent end of a knife. But there’s no way for even the most decorated surgeon to do this without also stabbing a knife into Lily. Neither of us can abide by this, if it’s even a worthwhile option at all.

  “There’s chemotherapy and radiation.”

  “What do those things do?”

  “They would try to shrink the octo—him, I suppose.” It’s a funny visual, like a cartoon. The octopus getting smaller and smaller in front of our eyes until he has only a high squeaky voice and croaks something along the lines of “I’m mellllt-t-t-ting,” like the Wicked Witch of the West.

  “Do those hurt like surgery?”

  I try to imagine putting Lily through either. What they would both do to her already subdued spirit. Her voice would be lost. I can’t imagine ever hearing her exclaim I! JUST! CAME! BACK! FROM! CHEMOTHERAPY! AND! IT! WAS! SO! MUCH! FUN! LET’S! ALL! STICK! PEANUT! BUTTER! TO! THE! ROOFS! OF! OUR! MOUTHS! AND! LICK! FRANTICALLY! UNTIL! IT’S! GONE!

  I can’t imagine ever hearing her exclaim anything again.

  “Neither is pleasant,” I say.

  “Next,” she says dismissively.

  “They can put you on steroids to try to reduce the octopus that way—reduce the swelling he’s causing on your brain—and start you on anticonvulsants to lessen the frequency of seizures. But those do a lot of damage to your kidneys.”

  Lily has already had several courses of steroids on occasions when swelling returned to her spine. I used to find the idea of her on steroids funny—that I might come home and find a dachshund-shaped hole in the wall and half the cars on the block overturned in a Hulk-like rage. But only funny because I was so scared. I needed to think of the steroids as superhuman, supercanine. There could be no surgery for her again on her spine. The steroids had to be powerful. They had to work.

  “Harrumph,” Lily scoffs, summing up her feelings on all the choices.

  She’s not going to help me make this decision. She’s a dog and has other concerns, and what about any of this can she really understand? Or maybe she’s made her decision, and what I need to do is listen. Maybe she knows what the vet says, what may seem obvious to anyone who thinks about it. That there is no true cure for canine octopus. Not any that has been discovered yet.

  Lily stands on my lap and raises one of her front paws in her best guard-dog stance.

  LOOK! THE! DOLPHINS! ARE! BACK! AND! THEY’RE! JUMPING! I! WANT! TO! JUMP! IN! THE! WAVES! LIKE! THAT!

  I look up and the pod has returned, and sure enough, they are jumping and twisting and flipping and flopping playfully in the rising tide.

  And yet even more enchanting is Lily’s voice. The one I can’t bear to dim or silence. It’s older, and her exclamations are fewer and farther between. Her puppyish enthusiasm is gone. But it is still her voice. It is still her.

  “You don’t like to get wet,” I say.

  “Oh, yeah,” Lily says. She settles back down in my lap.

  “It’s a fun idea, though, Mouse. Splashing in the waves.”

  After a pause Lily looks up at me. “Sometimes I think of you as Dad.”

  My heart rises in my throat.

  That’s the only term of endearment I need.

  Ink

  1.

  It’s late, past the time I usually go searching for Lily to bring her to bed, except tonight I don’t have to search for her because she’s creating such a ruckus in the hallway, barking and growling and carrying on. When I catch up to her, she’s staring into the corner between the bedroom and bathroom doors, in her offensive low crouch, hackles raised, clearly startled and upset.

  “Goose? Goose! Mongoose! What is it?”

  She doesn’t miss a beat or move to back down or acknowledge my presence in any way. She just barks at the damned corner like it’s an advancing battalion. I’m already leaning down to grab her when she stops me cold in my tracks.

  THIS! LLAMA! BEACHBALL! SEVEN! PARLIAMENT! CASSEROLE! ANTARCTICA! PAJAMAS!

  What the …

  We both stare at each other, frozen. It’s like being in a horror film when someone starts speaking in tongues and the whole room falls silent. I’m almost waiting for Lily’s head to rotate like an owl’s and for her to start vomiting pea soup. But I know for a fact she’s not possessed by demons—just one demon, a squishy, eight-tentacled prick. I scoop her up and squeeze her tight to soothe her, but she wriggles left, then right
, then nearly out of my grip altogether. It takes a moment pressed against my chest for her to snap out of whatever trance she’s in, and when she does she begins to shake uncontrollably in my arms.

  “Guppy, what was that?”

  Lily turns from me to the light, then from the light to the dining room, then from the dining room to the bedroom.

  “I can’t see,” she says.

  This startles me. “Can’t see what?” I turn on the light, hoping it will help.

  There’s a long silence. “Anything.”

  I look at the octopus. “What have you done?”

  The octopus looks annoyed. “Have you noticed there’s an emerging pattern in this household? I’m always the first to be blamed.”

  “What have you done!”

  “To her?”

  I’ve resisted doing this previously, but since Lily is in a state anyway, I swat the octopus. Hard. I immediately regret it, but Lily remains oblivious.

  “Ow!” One of his arms reaches up to soothe the spot where I hit him. “I released my ink sac. Satisfied?”

  “She can’t see!”

  “That’s really the whole point of releasing an ink sac.” The octopus’s ability to stay calm in the face of my rage is one of the things I hate most about him.

  “And you wonder why you get blamed.”

  “Oh, hey, look at that. Yeah, I guess this one is on me.” I loathe his epiphanies.

  I wish there was a way to punch him, really deck him square in the jaw, but there isn’t. Not without also risking further harm to Lily. So instead I kiss her on the neck, on the far side, away from the octopus.

  “Get a room,” the octopus says.

  I imagine grabbing that arm of his and wrapping it around his neck and choking the life right out of him, much as Princess Leia did to Jabba the Hutt, until his obnoxious tongue hangs limply in death. But I don’t. I set Lily down on the ground and continue to stroke her back in a way that calms both of us. After a moment or two she gathers some initiative and takes three steps forward straight into the wall.