Just Life

by Neil Abramson

  Kendall had no choice. This was his training. Human life over animal life, even if it meant killing your own partner. Even if it meant killing your friend. Even if it meant a lifetime of guilt.

  He fired. Phoenix yelped and slumped to the floor.

  Kendall often wondered whether, given what he now knew, he would again pull that trigger. He had spent the last six years attempting to outrun that particular appointment in Samarra, but he knew it was out there, just waiting for the right confluence of events.

  Suddenly weary, Kendall climbed the cracked concrete steps to his precinct station house. At the front door, he turned and surveyed his neighborhood. He promised those faces he would help them get through this. Then his eyes shifted to the rooftops, summoned by movement on an ancient six-story apartment building. A figure in full department of health protective gear peered over the side at the street below.

  “And so it begins,” Kendall said to no one, and stepped inside the building for morning roll call.

  5

  Father Gabriel O’Connor, a gaunt seventy-year-old with a once-handsome face creased by cigarettes and alcohol, stared out at his morning congregation. The word congregation was an embarrassing overstatement—just eight of the diehards who had stopped in for a quick Mass and a few words of inspiration before starting their workday. On a good Sunday outside of football season, he could maybe get up to thirty people, but rarely double digits on a weekday morning these days. He couldn’t blame those who had stopped coming; he would have liked to join them.

  And, Gabriel was certain, he soon would.

  Gabriel stretched his back. He had almost made it through another Mass without any incident. He just needed to deliver the homily and he would be done until evening. As a precaution against a repeat of the day before, he brought his notes up to the chancel with him. That was a significant concession to his condition; he had never before used notes. But so what? A few notes, a few naps. Maybe he was just making too much of the lapses. Perhaps the doctors were being alarmist. He had been doing this for a very long time, and everyone got tired, didn’t they?

  “Have I ever told you about the legend of the Just?” he asked. The congregants shook their heads and settled in for one of Gabriel’s stories. Of all the many aspects of being a priest, Gabriel had always loved this part the most—trying to establish a connection between God and the everyday lives of his faithful. He felt that if he could do that—keep it relevant, bring God beyond the doors of his church—then perhaps he would have left something positive behind.

  “The legend, which dates back to the Old Testament, states that a small number of completely righteous beings are chosen to be born into every generation to maintain the balance between good and evil. They bear the burden of the world’s sins, hold back the darkness, and serve as physical and personal proof of goodness in the world. The Just must always share this burden for the world to continue as we know it. If even one of the Just stumbles, the balance will be lost, the souls of even the unborn will be forfeit, and humanity will suffocate under the weight of its own despair.”

  Gabriel took stock of his house of worship as he spoke. The sanctuary of Riverside Church was large—too large for the level of service he now provided—with twelve pews on either side of a narrow aisle and a simple altar on a low chancel. A modest wooden sculpture of Christ on the cross oversaw the room from a spot just below the ceiling. Gabriel kept the sanctuary extremely clean and organized in the hope that this created a sense of the peacefulness he could no longer personally project through his words.

  One of the stained glass windows—the Old Testament story of Abraham and the sacrifice of Isaac at Mount Moriah—needed repair because a carefully thrown rock had shattered half of it.

  “They are sometimes called the Lamed Vov, the Hidden, the Pillars of God, and a hundred other names in a hundred other languages. These chosen are unknown to themselves and to each other because their humility prevents them from understanding their own significance. They act not because they are aware of their responsibility to the world, but because they see and hear what the rest do not; our need moves them in ways we are now too broken to understand. And when they scream in anguish at what we have become, we hear only whispers or, worse, nothing at all.”

  Most of Abraham and some of Isaac were now gone, boarded up in anticipation of the repair that had never come. Still, enough glass remained to see that the scene depicted was awful—Isaac looked backward in terror at the elaborate dagger held by his tormented father while the glowing face of an approving God watched the act of sacrifice.

  Gabriel stared at the window and shivered, recalling other faces he had seen at that same dark moment when realization and helplessness combined.

  “The Just could be anyone, anywhere, and, at this moment, doing anything or nothing. Their actions define what they are—not their occupations, their incomes, their education, or their voice—if, indeed, they even have a voice at all.

  “And what are those actions that according to the legend have saved the world from the abyss time and again? The simplest of all actions: the offer of sanctuary. From the Latin sanctuarium—a holy place. But make no mistake; the meaning of sanctuary is not limited to this room or any church or temple or place of worship. What makes a place holy? What creates sanctuarium? The answer is so obvious that it often remains hidden in plain sight.

  “Intention. Your intention to imbue the space between you and another being with the spirit of God. Your intention to care. That is the stone and mortar, the architectural drawings and the building permits all rolled into one. It is the only required ingredient. That is the definition of a just life.

  “This is why we must never ignore an opportunity for unlikely friendships; why only at our great peril do we numbly walk past an outstretched hand: anyone we meet might be one of these beings upon whom an unimaginable burden rests. A burden you can ease by creating a sanctuary simply by accepting that outstretched hand in kindness and with an open heart… simply by being present.”

  Gabriel’s gaze dropped back to the waiting faces of his faithful. They shifted uncomfortably in their seats, coughing nervously into their hands. A few spoke to each other in hushed tones. Why weren’t they listening? Were his words now so meaningless that his congregation couldn’t even afford him the courtesy of their attention? That was the whole point of his sermon! Pay attention because hands are reaching out for you all the time. Opportunities for sanctuary… presenting themselves and then dissipating into the ether because you are lost in your iPads and iPhones, your Kindles and BlackBerrys… your judgment and gossip, your distractions… your inability or unwillingness to remain present…

  “Excuse me?” Gabriel finally asked his congregation irritably. “Is there some problem?” He heard his powerful voice reverberate in the beams above and knew with heartbreaking certainty the answer to his question even before one of his congregants meekly raised her hand.

  “Um… Father? We were sort of… um… waiting for you. You asked us if we had heard about the legend of the Just and then you just sort of stared back at the broken window. Are you all right?”

  Gabriel grabbed his notes. He could feel the flush of embarrassment bloom in his cheeks. “Yes, thank you,” he said. “Just collecting my thoughts. But please forgive me. I see I have kept you good people too long.” He forced a smile. “I will offer my remarks when next I see you.”

  Gabriel dismissed the congregation with a quick blessing. They could sense his discomfort and were happy to leave as the priest, his eyes never rising from the floor, retreated to his office.

  6

  Sam passed Riverside Church and walked another thirty feet to the cheap laminated sign screwed beside the entrance of a squat concrete building: “Finally Home Animal Shelter—A Safe Place.” She glanced down at the body in her arms and recalled how much she hated irony.

  Sam shoved open the door and Nick trotted inside, following the sound of human voices and muffled barking. After a few
deep breaths that didn’t make her feel any better, she followed him.

  Finally Home was one of only two city-assisted no-kill animal shelters and adoption centers in Manhattan. And Sam knew that if she didn’t figure something out with the city, soon there would be only one. In her case the city assistance came in the form of a meager stipend for personnel costs and a very valuable no-cost multi-year lease. Morgan had ensured that the lease prohibited Sam from offering outside veterinary care and, thus, any competition—a battle Sam had fought and lost.

  Sam was at the very end of the lease period and so far, all efforts to convince the city to renew or extend it had been unsuccessful. The worth of the shelter property in these days of fiscal restraint simply dwarfed the importance of keeping some dogs alive.

  The shelter currently housed twenty-four dogs of various breeds (often within the same dog) and varying sizes. Most of the dogs had been with her for months and a few for over a year—drop-offs, rescues, or leave-behinds.

  Sam was long past believing that she would ever find loving adoptive families for most of her shelter dogs, but she still said a little prayer every time someone came into the shelter to look—and held back tears and anger when they left empty-handed. Her dogs were too old and too damaged—physically and emotionally—to compete with the beautiful and energetic puppy mill traffic. The whole situation was all the more tragic because she knew those same cute puppies that now inspired such oohs and aahs likely would walk through her door—or that of a less compassionate shelter—a few years from now. She just prayed the city would let her continue to be present for them when that happened.

  Sam had been living on the hope that she would be able to start an animal sanctuary. She dreamed about buying an abandoned farm someplace where these and other creatures who had seen the worst of humanness could live out the rest of their lives in safety and peace, beyond the ever-present shadow of cages. Cages sucked. They were better than the needle these dogs certainly would have faced at the other city-run shelters, but in the world of a no-kill shelter, cages were an unacceptable ending.

  The promise of a sanctuary was starting to look more and more self-delusional. The equation was straightforward. A sanctuary required land. Land cost money. After Sam was done paying for those shelter expenses the city didn’t cover, there was precisely enough money left over for absolutely nothing. Frustrating did not quite capture her situation. Sam knew she had become a vet and started this shelter for good and honorable reasons. It was just that, as of late, she found it hard to remember those reasons at all. And when she did remember, those reasons more often than not simply failed to overcome her feelings of inadequacy and failure.

  Two of the shelter’s longest-term residents greeted Sam, their tails wagging so hard that their entire back ends shared in the movement. Blinker, the golden retriever, had come to Sam a year ago with one eyeball lost to infection. Kendall had brought in Scrabble, a shepherd-Rottweiler mix, at about the same time. Scrabble took his name from the letters someone had carved into his back. Sam was always a bit pragmatic when it came to naming her charges.

  Sam usually gave Blinker, Scrabble, and a handful of other dogs free range of the shelter during the day. This was a poor antidote to the cages and an inadequate remedy for the guilt that came from knowing she couldn’t bring all the shelter dogs home with her. Daily time out of the cages was simply “the best she could do”—a phrase that Sam had grown to hate. Sam gave the dogs rubs, scratches, and hugs until they calmed down.

  Greg Wright, a tall black man in his forties with the lithe body of the professional dancer he had once been, threw Sam a distracted wave from the reception desk. “I understand, sir,” he said into the phone. “Yes… The moment I see her… I said I understand… English is my first language, sir,” Greg snarled. “And my hearing is fine, so you don’t need to repeat it a third time.” Greg slammed the phone down and turned to Sam. “Wow. You look like shit.”

  Greg had come to Finally Home from Morgan’s hospital as Sam’s only full-time employee—part vet tech, part office manager and accountant, part protector, part therapist, and constant reality check. Sam thought of the news of the dead child as she lifted the bundle in her arms. “Bad morning. Don’t start.”

  Greg’s tone softened. “Sorry. Anyone you knew?”

  Sam shook her head. “Can you call to have him picked up? Round trip, OK?”

  It is illegal to bury a dog body in New York City, so Sam had the shelter animals cremated once they passed. The ashes came back to her in little colorful metal canisters that would have been more appropriate for jelly beans than for the small discarded envelopes of enormous souls. She kept all these stacked on a shelf in her office and their collar tags around her neck with a promise that she would bury the canisters and the pendant in a meadow at her imaginary sanctuary. Until then, the ever-growing pendant and line of canisters provided a stark and constant reminder of her promise.

  Sam stared at the pile of papers sitting in front of Greg.

  “You want to know?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “Overdue invoices, nasty-grams from the city followed by super-nasty-grams from the city, your insurance payment must be wired within twenty-four hours or it will be canceled, and a denial of your appeal of the appeal of your denial of a hearing before the city council. Oh, and Morgan’s lawyer just called.”

  “I thought I said no.”

  “Sorry, but here on earth”—Greg grabbed a handful of papers and waved them in the air—“they don’t seem to take no for an answer.”

  “It’ll work out.”

  “Really? You’re going with that?”

  “Why not?”

  “Because you always say that, and it’s never true.”

  “Never?”

  “Never,” Greg confirmed.

  “Then think of it as aspirational.”

  Greg shook his head. “I met all my own aspirations as of last week and I’m not due for any more until the next decade.”

  Sam knew she couldn’t keep up with Greg this morning. “Is our new community service assignment here yet?”

  “Mother Teresa? Oh, yes.”

  “Let me guess. You had words?”

  “Just one word. ‘Fuck you.’”

  “That’s two words.”

  “Not the way I say it. Judge Allerton’s little con enrichment program didn’t do you any favors this time.”

  “Where is she?”

  “Look for the large mass of white flesh with the evil attitude in the break room. And please find us some money, dear child.”

  Sam carried the dog’s body to the small room toward the back of the shelter that functioned as the staff break room, television lounge, kitchen, and emergency bedroom for those nights when someone got stuck because of a sick dog. She was far beyond annoyed even before she saw the handwritten note on the closed break room door: “Do Not Enter. Absolutely No Admittance. Procedure in Progress.” And under that, in large block letters: “THIS MEANS YOU!”

  Sam ripped the note off the door and pushed into the room.

  Beth Cohen’s generous form, enrobed in a New York University sweat shirt and sweat pants, was flopped on the lounge couch. The television blared some news channel, but Beth ignored it; she was plugged into her iPhone, reading People magazine and making her way through a box of Dunkin’ Munchkins and a can of Tab balanced on her sweat shirt. She looked at least ten years older than her real age of thirty-four. From the amount of crumbs and powdered sugar on her chest, Sam guessed Beth had been at this for a while.

  “Is this yours?” Sam shook the crumpled sign at her.

  Beth removed an earbud, but didn’t look up. “Yep. I see it didn’t quite work, though.”

  “And what procedure exactly are you referring to?” Sam asked, each word separated by a hostile beat or two. If Sam had been a dog, she would’ve flattened her ears and drawn her lips back over her teeth.

  “Eating,” Beth said. She grabbed another Munchkin and
popped it into her mouth. “You have to be very careful when you eat these round things lying down. Don’t you think—and here I’m asking you as a medical professional—they should’ve made these square?” Beth eyed another Munchkin. “That way they wouldn’t be able to roll away from you when you stick your hand in the box. Little bastards.”

  Sam yanked open the refrigerator door and tossed old ice cream cartons and frozen pizza boxes into the trash, clearing a spot in the freezer section. She gently placed the stiffening shrouded body into an open spot between two of her microwavable frozen dinners. The little bundle looked so pathetically alone in the makeshift morgue, just like…

  Sam slammed the door and spun on Beth. “Clearly you don’t understand the terms of this arrangement.”

  Beth finally met Sam’s glare. “My understanding, Doctor, is that it was this or cleaning garbage off the side of the highway in an orange jumpsuit. Not a flattering color for me. Makes me look like a pumpkin. So here I am.”

  “I expect you will act as professionally here as you would in front of your own clients.”

  Beth laughed.

  “That’s funny to you?” Sam asked.

  “Hysterical, actually. My clients walked into my office on Park Avenue and held their hand out to be kissed by the doorman. They carried Prada bags and wore Christian Louboutin shoes. They wouldn’t even get their dry cleaning done in this neighborhood.” Beth put the bud back in her ear and closed her eyes.

  All of Sam’s anger from the morning’s events suddenly had a single focus and it was personal. Before she knew what she was doing, Sam had yanked out both of Beth’s earbuds.

  “Yeow!” Beth’s eyes flashed open.

  Sam lowered her face to an inch above Beth’s. “You’d better be prepared to do your job or explain to Judge Allerton why you violated the terms of your probation. If you screw up, you’d best go home and pack your toothbrush, because I’ll be sure he gives you back your time. Now, you’ve got five minutes to get off your butt and be useful.”