Luke, the other shelter employee, stepped into the room. “Need you up front, boss,” he said in his gravelly voice.
Luke was sixty-seven years old, with a pockmarked face, mischievous blue eyes, a long white ponytail braid down his back, and still-powerful arms covered in ink. At a quick glance, the tattoos appeared to be a meaningless jumble of colors and letters. But if you took the time and asked him a few pointed questions, you would learn that Luke’s arms were layered with the history of his life. On his right arm, the symbol of his marine unit in Vietnam mingled with the address of his apartment in Haight-Ashbury during the seventies, his prison inmate number, and a portrait of the Dalai Lama. On his left arm, the name of his daughter shared space with “God Loves Dogs and Brooklyn” and the word Empyrean, which Sam understood to be the name of a computer program Luke had been working on for years with some of his old war buddies but never spoke about.
“Can it wait?” Sam asked.
Luke shook his head. His face seemed particularly drawn and dark this morning. Sam’s stomach lurched. Despite his appearance, Luke was usually the most upbeat of their group.
When Sam arrived at reception with Luke and Greg, she immediately knew this was going to be a particularly bad day in her life.
Men in suits. They had never—not once—brought her good news.
The three men introduced themselves and gave their titles too quickly for Sam to process. After she heard “Office of the City Attorney,” her attention remained focused on the papers in blue legal backing they carried.
The one who looked like a turtle cleared his throat. “Can we speak someplace privately?”
“If this is about the shelter, it involves all of us.”
“Very well,” Turtle said. “As you know, Dr. Lewis, your final appeal regarding the lease has been denied.”
“Yeah, I just heard,” Sam answered. “I guess I’ll be filing another appeal.”
“There are no further appeals to file,” Turtle said, handing her the stack of papers. “I am sorry, but this shelter will be closed thirty days from today. You will need to place all dogs presently in the shelter by that date or they will be relocated to the general city shelter population.”
The papers trembled in Sam’s hand. “But that will put them on a fourteen-day adopt-or-euthanize schedule.”
“That is correct,” Turtle responded.
“That’s a death sentence for these dogs,” Luke said.
Turtle suddenly took a great interest in his own shoes. “I’m not happy about this either. You’ve had plenty of notice. We were all hoping you were making other arrangements for these animals. This result was inevitable. The city cannot sustain your use of this property.”
Inevitable? Sam thought she had been trying to manage the line between hope and denial, and only now realized that she had been traversing the artificially verdant land of the latter the whole time. “I’m going to need more time to place the dogs. Please.” She heard and hated the desperation in her own voice.
“I’m sorry,” Turtle said. “I really am. But the decision’s been made. I have no more time to give you.”
Turtle and his friends quickly retreated from the shelter in silence. Sam thought of undertakers leaving the grieving family to mourn in private.
“I’ll call your lawyer,” Greg offered. “Let’s get him over here and strategize. Maybe a new lawsuit.”
Sam shook her head. “I had to let him go after the last appeal. There’s no more money.”
“I have some money,” Luke said.
“Me too,” Greg added.
That was when Sam really wanted to cry. It was more than just losing the shelter and the dogs. It was the fact that they continued to believe in her when she knew how misplaced that belief was. “Thank you both for offering. Really, it means so much to know you’d do that,” she said, trying to swallow her misery. “But I think they’ve got us. We just need to admit that the city is going to do this.”
“What about the sanctuary then?” Luke asked. “Maybe this is an opportunity for you to—”
Sam cut him off. “Even if we found the right farm, we would still need to raise over half a million dollars to buy it and set up operations. All of us working full-time couldn’t raise that in five years, let alone thirty days.”
“Wow,” Greg said, and slumped against a wall. “You really sound like you’re giving up.”
“I guess I am.”
“You’re just having a bad day,” Luke volunteered. “It will pass.”
How could she make them understand that it would not pass? That this was where all of her experiences had brought her? That she was so angry at being tired and tired of being angry, of losing this fight every damn day, of expecting the people out there to care and being disappointed when they didn’t, of the flow of the unwanted and rejected, of all the goddamn cages? Maybe her ex-boyfriend Charlie had called it correctly after all. We are just schmucks and everyone out there is laughing at us because we’ve deluded ourselves into believing we’re making a difference. “If we can improve just one life, make one human-animal connection, then we will have accomplished real change,” she had always said. Such blah-blah. A rationalization to redefine success in the face of obvious failure. What a crock.
Still, there was no point in dragging Luke and Greg down to her reality. They would find out soon enough. In the meantime she would work to get them new jobs and confirm the continued viability of Plan B. It was the best she could do.
“Maybe you’re right,” Sam told Luke with as much of a smile as she could muster. “I’ll start making some calls and see what new options we have.” That answer appeared to satisfy them for the moment and they left her.
Sam locked herself in her office and placed the call she never thought she would need to make.
“Bill Ackerman, please,” Sam said into the phone. Bill was Sam’s counterpart at the only other city-supported no-kill shelter in Manhattan. Sam and Bill also had a little personal history together that made anything more than rare interaction uncomfortable.
After a few seconds, a deep voice came on. “This is Bill.”
“Bill, it’s Sam. There’s something I need to know.”
“OK, I am not currently in a relationship and yes, I still have the hots for you.”
“I’m serious.”
“Me too.” Sam didn’t respond and Bill dropped the banter. “OK, Dr. Lewis, shoot.”
“Do we still have our deal?”
Bill was quiet for a moment. “So it’s true? They’ve pulled your lease?”
Will not cry. Will not cry. “Yup. Looks like it’s final this time. Thirty days.” No cry. No cry.
“Bastards. Yeah, we’ve still got a deal. I’ll take whoever you can’t place. You can come and visit whenever you want. Do you have another job lined up?”
“Not yet.”
“I’ll keep my ears open.”
“Thanks, Bill. This is a big load off my mind.”
“You would do it for me. That was the deal… You maybe want to get a drink later to talk about it?” More beats of silence from Sam. “Can’t blame a guy for trying.”
“Maybe sometime soon. Just not tonight.”
“I won’t hold you to that. But it’s nice to know.”
Sam hung up just before the body-racking sobs she’d been holding back finally exploded.
7
Gabriel said an Our Father and unlocked the door at the rear of the sanctuary, directly beneath the hanging wood crucifix. He trudged down forty stairs, constructed with pride of prewar cement when they’d first built the church foundation.
The priest flipped on a light switch at the bottom step, illuminating the cavernous room. The only items in the entire space were a metal chair, a bookcase filled to overflowing, and an old wooden desk supporting an ancient table lamp and a large cardboard storage box.
The books, some of which were quite old, provided physical evidence of a decade-long search. Books on the kabbalah,
Ezekiel, and the Talmud competed for room with volumes on Sufism, Buddhism, Rosicrucianism, Gnosticism, and Hinduism. The writings of Rudolf Steiner leaned against those of Padre Pio, Francis of Assisi, Thomas Merton, and William James. Except for an incongruous first edition of T. S. Eliot’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, all the books were nonfiction. Most of them displayed well-creased spines. Post-it notes written in Gabriel’s hand jutted out of their pages. These volumes obviously were not for show.
The books had great personal value, not only for what they said, but also because of the journey through which they had been obtained. Gabriel could not look at the books without thinking about Channa Gold, the woman who had managed the used bookstore, and their conversations (debates, really) through the years over religion, purpose, and, eventually, the meaning and limits of platonic friendship. Gabriel now thought of the books as Channa’s living breath—the continuation of a dialogue ended years too soon. He needed that breath with increasing frequency these days.
After the books, the box on the table was now Gabriel’s most significant possession. The box contained his visual memory.
He turned on the lamp, pulled the lid off the box, and removed a handful of photographs. These were in no particular order—a photo of himself at his seventh birthday party, of his mother near the end of her life, of his dorm at the seminary, of a softball game he had sponsored a year ago against the temple three blocks away. He went through the photos very slowly, trying to imprint each memory into his failing brain.
The last photo in his hand had been taken at that game. Gabriel had been covering first base when Channa hit a clean single. They were both on the bag, leaning forward toward the camera. Channa had draped her arm casually around his shoulder. Gabriel was grinning like an idiot. Someone, probably her husband Sidney, had snapped the picture. Sidney, in addition to owning the local hardware store, was the neighborhood’s historian and photographer. He had taken more than a few of the photos in the box.
Gabriel traced Channa’s photographed features with his finger. “Am I destined to forget you too?”
He heard the gentle footfalls on the stairs and saw her just as she saw him. The cat ran to Gabriel and leaped into his outstretched arms.
“Oh, Molly.” Gabriel squeezed her tight. “Have you come to help save me from myself?” Molly purred and pushed her orange tabby head hard against his chest.
“Is that what you’re really worried about, Gabe?” Channa stood next to him, her hand on his arm. “Forgetting?”
Gabriel let the question hang.
“Tell me,” Channa pressed.
Gabriel lowered Molly to the floor and the cat rubbed against his legs. “Forgetting is better than never knowing. I just want to see His face, Channa. I want to feel His countenance shine down upon me before I can no longer recognize it. I want to look upon Him before they put me in the home for old priests where I can drool in my oatmeal and mumble incoherently without embarrassing anyone. I want to be sure He is not that leering voyeur from the broken window upstairs.”
“Surely you have seen Him before now,” Channa insisted.
Gabriel shook his head. “I’ve felt His breezes and shadows, but nothing more. That is not enough after forty-five years.”
“Perhaps not, but whose fault is that?”
“You of all people know that answer. I have never witnessed my reflection in my own child’s eyes. I’ve never seen the sunlight break through a bedroom window and touch the face of a woman I love sleeping next to me. I’ve never known anything more than a platonic touch or experienced the mind-numbing exhilaration of flesh in flesh.”
“Those are all just sensory stimuli, Gabe. Those feelings don’t last.”
“No! You’re wrong. It is in these things—the living things—where the face of God truly resides. He does not dwell near the stale wafers and sour wine I have dabbled in.”
“So you believe your vows have kept Him hidden from you?” Channa snorted. “Were you always such a self-pitying ass, Gabe? Or did the collar do that to you too?”
“For a mere projection of my own rotting mind, you talk a tough game. Why don’t you go haunt your beloved husband?”
Channa waved him off. “Don’t be petty. You really want to see God? Look closely and without blinking into the faces of the forgotten, the frightened, and the unforgiven. Bear witness. Get down on your knees with them, spend time in their presence, hear their stories however they are told. Otherwise it is far too easy to believe they deserve their hell.”
“I have tried. I search for Him in their eyes just before the needle, but He never arrives. All I see is my own pathetic reflection.”
Channa placed her finger on the spine of the Book of Practical Cats. “Do you still remember what I said when I gave this to you as a Chanukah present?”
“Yes. You called me ‘Old Deuteronomy.’ And I still don’t get it.”
“Because you choose not to. Just accept what you by now must know; you have helped others, you have eased their pain. For that you have His blessing.”
“I have done nothing!” Filled with a sudden rage, Gabriel grabbed the box of photographs and threw it to the floor at Channa’s feet. “I have helped no one! I have mattered less than one dust mote in God’s eye.”
Channa shook her head sadly. “Then you really are lost to me.”
“Hey, Father Gabriel?” Andy yelled down from the top of the stairs. “You OK?” Andy shouted Gabriel’s name two more times and was halfway down the stairs with the dog before the priest realized what was happening.
“I’m coming up,” Gabriel called back as he quickly stuffed the photographs into the box and closed the lid.
Gabriel led Andy and the dog to the empty sanctuary. “Who’s this?” He dropped a gentle hand to the dog’s head. “Not a face I know.”
“A friend I met in the subway. I call him Little Bro.”
“I’m guessing there’s a good story there?” Gabriel said kindly. This wasn’t the first time Andy had brought a “friend” to the shelter or into the church.
Andy grinned and Gabriel saw the young boy that remained within him. “No better than the others you already know,” Andy said.
“Was afraid of that.”
“I promise you no people were hurt in the rescuing of this animal.”
“Then I am comforted… slightly. What brings you by?”
“I heard shouting. Wanted to make sure you’re OK.”
Gabriel waved him off. “Just the television on too loud. Old ears,” he said, and pointed to the sides of his head.
“You don’t have a television in the church, Father.”
“Don’t call an old priest a liar to his face in his own sanctuary. Bad for business.”
“So let it go?” Andy asked.
Gabriel nodded. He and the boy had been through their share together and had come out of it connected in some comfortable way. “But it’s good to know that some shouting is all it takes to get you to stop by. Sam was also asking of your whereabouts.”
“I’m taking that as a question?”
“No offense meant.”
“And none taken,” Andy replied. “Classes, mostly.”
“Ah. ‘Mostly,’” Gabriel repeated wistfully. “One of my favorite words. I’m not trying to pry.”
“You are, but that’s OK,” Andy said without rancor.
“I actually call it caring.”
“I know and I appreciate it. But…”
“But you don’t want it. I get it.”
“It’s not that. I’m in a good place now. Working hard. Studying. You guys don’t need to worry so much anymore.”
“I think it’s more that we miss you.”
“Right,” Andy answered. “Me being such good company and all.”
“Compared to Greg?” They both had to laugh at that one. “I’m also more than a little worried about this virus.”
“You need to have faith, Father.”
“I believe in catas
trophic thinking.” Gabriel’s eyes darted to the broken window.
Andy followed the priest’s gaze. “Not every hill is Mount Moriah,” Andy said. “Besides, I’m not a kid anymore.”
“You’re all kids to a decrepit relic like me. At least just check in once in a while.”
“I will be more mindful. I promise.”
“That’s all I could ask for.”
“Nope, but that’s all you’re gonna get, old man.” Andy winked at the priest.
Little Bro lifted his leg shakily and peed on the edge of a pew before Andy could stop him. “Sorry, Father. I’ll clean it up.”
Gabriel didn’t seem to care. He focused on the dog’s face—the confusion, disorientation, and shame. Gabriel recognized the look from his own mirror and it scared the crap out of him. “No, it’s OK,” he said. “I’ll mop it up. You should get him to the shelter and have Sam check him out.”
“Thanks.”
Gabriel offered a silent prayer for both boy and dog as he watched them leave.
8
In the small room that served as her office, Sam examined a very young mutt—a cross between border collie, husky, and probably half a dozen other breeds. Sidney Gold, a seventy-year-old gentle bear of a man with Coke-bottle glasses and a gray buzz cut, looked on like a proud parent. The dog had arrived at the shelter a few days earlier. Sid saw him and it was love. Sometimes, rarely to be sure, but enough to sustain hope, it actually all worked out.
“I can tell you in my professional opinion he is one of the damn cutest things I’ve ever seen,” Sam said.
“Isn’t he though?” Sid beamed. “You know I always wanted one.”
“I know.”
“But Channa with her breathing trouble… it just wasn’t possible.”
Sam had attended the funeral and had never seen one human grieve so deeply for another. Certainly not her father. Not even herself. During the recitation of the kaddish, the Hebrew mourner’s prayer, Sid had collapsed to his knees and begged God for more time, screaming that “forty years together is not enough.” Sam still held out hope that one day she might find that kind of connection with someone who had hands and feet instead of paws, but the prospects were looking increasingly dim. “He will be good company for you between visits from the kids. Did you pick out a name yet?”
Just Life Page 4