Paws and Reflect

by Neil S. Plakcy

  We started off. The fresh air was invigorating. It had an intoxicating touch, and the sky had a warm glow, and the trees were outlined in black, like sculptures. I’d never seen this combination of tough and delicate in the city.

  Jimmy had already climbed Camel’s Hump and Mt. Abraham. He needed to climb this mountain, Mt. Mansfield, to bag his Vermont 4,000-footers. (That’s how he talked, mountain-climber talk. )

  He said, “We are going to do around five miles, with 2, 800 feet of elevation.” I had no idea what that meant.

  The dog kept bounding along, totally unafraid. Nothing bothered him. He was so beautiful that I could see why my brother liked him. He had the incredible strength you can have with lots of exercise; he was like our guardian, and no matter how far he went, he always came back to check on us; and he had this incredible exuberance. When we saw him looking around for small animals to hunt, we saw his wildness, like at any moment he was going to strip off the veneer of civilization and attack a bear. I thought like that for about twenty minutes.

  Then the trail started to go straight up. I thought, How the hell am I going to manage that? We kept struggling onwards and upwards. Always in front of me, I saw this figure of my brother. Sometimes he was struggling, too, because it was hard.

  We got to a place called Smuggler’s Notch. There’s a small shelter there, and some park ranger had written up some more helpful advice: “Stay alert to the dangers of hypothermia and frostbite. Know the signs and how to treat them.”

  The sun came out, and it was warm on my face, so it didn’t look like hypothermia was going to be a problem.

  We hung around there looking at the great view. Jimmy said, “Let’s pick up the pace.”

  I wanted to murder him because I thought we had come up this far at a backbreaking, Olympic, Flo-Jo pace.

  Then we set off on the Profanity Trail. That made me happy. I imagined all the profanity that had been let loose on this damn trail by people dragged there by brothers or boyfriends. I started reciting profanity in honor of the trail: “Damn! Piss! Fuck! Shit! Whore! Asshole! Prick! Dickhead! Douchebag!” I tried to think up curse words in French and Spanish, too.

  My brother and the dog disappeared up ahead. I just couldn’t go fast in those damn snowshoes. I thought if I didn’t have the snowshoes on, I could jog for a few minutes and get caught up. The trail was hard as a rock. In fact it seemed to be some sort of cliff I was going along. If I just stayed away from the ledge, I should be OK.

  I unstrapped the snowshoes and stuck them into the rucksack on my back. They didn’t weigh much, but when I went to walk, it was like I had just taken a hundred pounds off my feet. I started walking real fast, then I broke into a jog, and then—wham! I didn’t see any goddamn hole, and yet there I was, fallen into a huge hole up to my shoulders.

  How the hell was I going to get out? I had pretty good upper-body strength, but while I was scratching and wriggling, trying to get my trunk up on the level ground, I realized something else: There was no mountain beneath me. I was on a shelf made of snow and ice that was sticking out from the top of the mountain.

  I had never seen an avalanche in my life, but it suddenly occurred to me how they happen. Shelves like this form, sticking out of the mountain, and then they crack off and tumble hundreds of feet down, taking all trees and humans and anything else with them. Funny, the things you learn in moments of complete panic.

  I was calling out, “Jimmy! Jimmy!” and then I switched to “Help! Help me!” But we hadn’t seen another soul. Who would be so crazy as to come out on a Christmas Eve morning to freeze their ass off trying to climb a mountain when they could be home with a warm breakfast?

  Who came? The dog. The Wooly Mammoth saw my situation, and he got this really serious look on his face. But instead of bounding up with his usual enthusiasm, he walked very slowly toward me, as if he knew he didn’t want to disturb this shelf or we would both die.

  When he got to me, he licked my face. I just wanted him to get me out. I grabbed him, and there was that leather harness. He waited till I got a good grip, and then he started backing up, pulling me. It went real slow, because I realized I didn’t want to kick around a lot and disturb the shelf. So I stayed still, and even when my body was out and I was flat on the ground, I let him keep pulling me until he thought it was safe. He stopped and put his nose in my face, saying, “Huh? Huh?”

  This dog weighed like, ninety pounds. I outweighed him by seventy pounds, and yet he had pulled me off that cliff. Something to think about.

  I threw my arms around him and noticed how warm he was. He wasn’t even breathing hard. There was still no sign of Jimmy; he was dancing on ahead, not even worried about me. I put on the snowshoes.

  I got to the next resting place, which is called Taft Lodge, and there were more warnings: “Those people who are not in great physical condition are advised to turn around and go back now.”

  Good idea. Only I wasn’t sure that I could find my way back. There were lots of turns and places where the trail disappears, and we had crossed over fields. And besides, I wasn’t hurt, and my brother was up ahead, and the whole idea was to get to the top. So I went on.

  The dog stayed with me, as if he had decided I needed watching. I came to a fork, and it seemed pretty obvious to me I should take the left. I went a couple steps, and the dog barked. He had stopped back at the fork. Then he turned his head and looked up the right fork. It couldn’t be more obvious. He was telling me my brother went the other way. So we went that way.

  We were so high up that there were beautiful views. That’s something you never get over, looking out over beautiful mountains that go on and on, and it’s just you and nature.

  We went a while longer and I fell again. This time it wasn’t so bad, because I had the snowshoes on, but I was beat and it was tough to get up. I felt like I had no strength left. The dog was right there, and he pulled me up. I had to go on; he just wouldn’t let me quit.

  Finally we got to the top. My brother was in the shelter, gloves off, sitting there, looking warm, steam rising out of his thermos, and he grinned when he saw me stumbling in, and offered me a cup of hot coffee. This warm, steaming, great-smelling cup of civilization. What did I do? I burst into tears.

  I was shaking. I couldn’t take the cup. I wobbled onto the bench, bawling my eyes out, and I said, “Jimmy, I’m gay.”

  He said, “What?”

  I told him again. I told him that I’m not the brother he thought I was, that I’ve been mean and rotten to him, that I wish I wasn’t gay so he wouldn’t have to have a gay brother, but I am. While I was talking, the dog started rubbing his body against my knees. I grabbed him like my lifeline.

  Jimmy said, “Does Stevie know?”

  I said, “It’s Stephen, not Stevie. Stephen.” I gave a little laugh.

  The dog moved over. He started rubbing against my brother’s legs. My brother looked uncomfortable. I was thinking it was because of me, and how awful that weekend was going to be. But then he said, no, he was sorry about making me climb the mountain, he only did it because he hoped I would fail. He said that I was always the older brother who could do everything, and he always felt like he couldn’t measure up. He said, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have made you come out here.”

  I asked him if he was mad that I’m gay. He thought about it. He said, “No, I’m more mad you’re a climber.”

  I told him about the climb, how I almost died and the dog came and rescued me, and we both started petting the Wooly Mammoth, who loved it of course. He sat between us, looking from one to the other with this dopey, happy look on his face.

  Then we started feeling the wind, and we decided it was time to go back down. The descent was easy and fun, and we glissaded most of the way. We had no problem following our snowshoe tracks down. We reached the car around two, just as snow was starting to fall.

  And I decided, right then, that I had to have a Wooly Mammoth of my own. Jimmy called a couple people, and he figured th
at if I came back in the summer, there would be some puppies.

  After a while, I realized I couldn’t have a Wooly Mammoth in my apartment. I started thinking about how the hair would shed and how the shelves behind the bar sometimes wobble if someone starts dancing hard. But I really wanted the Wooly Mammoth. It was a big dilemma.

  I talked to Jimmy about it, and he had an idea. We went to see a friend of his who had adopted a Greyhound from a racetrack. This animal was sleek and gorgeous, much quieter than the woolly mammoth. The way he sat around, posing on his pillow, he was more like a work of art than a prehistoric creature. But he had a lot in common with the Wooly Mammoth, including those big eyes that look right inside your soul and see everything.

  So I got a Greyhound and named him Lincoln. He is gentle and understanding. I’ve told him all about the Wooly Mammoth and how he outed me that weekend, but Lincoln is too kind to judge. Next summer I am going to drive him out to my brother’s house so he can meet the Wooly Mammoth and have a word with him. Lincoln would never out anybody. He’s not that kind of dog.

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  Edward Albee: OWNED BY IRISH WOLFHOUNDS

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  Edward Albee is one of the world’s most renowned playwrights, a three-time Pulitzer Prize winner and the master of bitter dialogue between battling couples. Audiences have been thrilled by his plays, from the first, Zoo Story, to the three Pulitzer winners, A Delicate Balance, Seascape, and Three Tall Women. His best-known work, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, was made into a thrilling 1966 film starring Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor and nominated for thirteen Academy Awards, winning five. But only his close friends know that beyond the sharp pen of the celebrated playwright beats the heart of a true dog lover.

  I first met Edward Albee in Miami in 1987, when he gave the keynote speech at the Miami Book Fair. We had gathered to listen to him enlighten us about his creative process, and what most caught my attention was his reference to Irish Wolfhounds: “Man thinks that he is the only species capable of feeling emotion, ” he said, “but anyone who owns an Irish Wolfhound knows that’s not true.”

  That reference went straight to my heart. All the dog literature I’d read up to that point claimed that dogs didn’t have emotions, and that people who said otherwise were guilty of anthropomorphism, the projection of human traits onto animals. Scientists and psychologists discounted the idea that a pet could return the love of its human. They argued that if animals appeared to express emotions, it was merely because they were reacting to hormonal rushes triggered by outside stimuli. An expert recently quoted by the BBC’s environmental reporter said that much writing today is, “leading people to suggest animals can feel sensation and emotion in the same way as humans. It is obviously nonsense.”

  That view contrasts sharply with my observations of my own dogs, who seem to stick with me through genuine affection, and not only because I’m a good provider of meals. These ideas were very much on my mind at the time, so I was thrilled that one of America’s most important playwrights was willing to speak about such feelings publicly.

  When I introduced myself as an owner and admirer of sighthounds and asked if I could interview him on the subject for the magazine Sighthound Review, he responded with an invitation to his home in the lush Miami suburb of Coconut Grove.

  I’ll never forget walking up to that house. I was nearly trembling with trepidation—this was the famous man who had his characters in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? bitterly taunt each other in games called “Get the Guests” and “Humiliate the Hosts.” I was certainly not up to a battle of repartee with Edward Albee. There wouldn’t be any dogs around to distract us; Albee had already told me that the Irish Wolfhounds were at his home in Montauk.

  The house was set in a grove of mature coconut palms, surrounded by ferns, plumeria and cycads; the light that filtered through was a shimmering pale green. It was eight-thirty in the morning. I’m not a morning person, but Albee is. He was dressed in a loose flowered shirt and light tan chinos. In the kitchen, his partner, Jonathan, was making pancakes for two guests wearing beautiful satin dressing gowns. Jonathan offered me breakfast, but I was too nervous to eat.

  Edward Albee and I spoke in a bright room in comfortable chairs. I asked how he had begun his love affair with Irish Wolfhounds.

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  I BECAME INTERESTED in Irish Wolfhounds because a friend had one. He was a painter. He had invited me over to look at his canvases, and this dog came up and leaned against me. I sat down to look at a painting, and he sat down and looked with me. We moved out to his studio to look at another painting, and this big dog sat down next to me again.

  We went to the kitchen to get a cup of coffee, and he stuck to my side. He had this big head, and wherever I sat, he put his head on my knee and looked up at me with his big, dark eyes. We became very good friends. He was the dog that introduced me to Irish Wolfhounds. They are the loveliest of creatures. I decided I had to have one. That was in 1969.

  I’d always been a dog lover. Whenever I visit someone who owns a dog, pretty soon the animal of the house has drifted over to sit near me. People are always telling me, “This animal doesn’t like anybody—I don’t know why he’s so taken with you.” Animals and I just seem to get along.

  I’ve had as many as three Irish Wolfhounds at a time. The Wolfhound breed is very special to me, but I like all dogs. At one time I had three Irish Wolfhounds, one Lhasa Apso, and one cat. Right now I have one Irish Wolfhound, one Norwegian Elkhound, and two Siamese cats.

  Irish Wolfhounds were originally bred to hunt wolves. We don’t have a lot of wolves in Montauk, so they’re not going after their natural prey. But their hunting nature is always with them. They are indefatigable. They can run forever.

  Back when the Romans first came to Ireland, they took some of the early Irish Wolfhounds back to Rome with them and paraded them around. I wanted to parade mine around in New York. I got big leather collars for them. We would go to Central Park and walk to a huge hill. The dogs and I would stand at the top. The hill sloped down before us for about 300 yards. If they saw a squirrel at the bottom of the hill, they would race down it, knocking over people and bicyclists on their way. They just had to chase the squirrel. It was inconvenient for the people, but the dogs loved it.

  But now I travel a great deal, so the dogs stay out in Montauk, where they have lots of room. It’s not the ideal twelve-months-a-year relationship. I used to bring them with me when I went into New York. They didn’t care for living in the city. I couldn’t blame them; there’s a lot an animal has to put up with: small spaces, lots of traffic, always being on a leash, strange smells, and all the noise. When you think that dogs’ ability to smell and hear is many times greater than ours, and hundreds of different smells and sounds are constantly coming at them—I could tell that they were troubled by all that. Being in the city, with its intense civilization, didn’t really suit these large creatures. And they like to stretch their legs.

  I missed their company, but it was better for them in Montauk. They get to be outside, with lots of fresh air, and grass, and sand to run around on. I take a lot of walks, and they always keep me company. Every day I go down to the post office to pick up the mail, and the dogs get to greet everybody and say hello to their friends.

  My current Wolfhound is a lovely girl, Samantha. My first one was Harold, then came Jane, Jennifer, and Andrew. There have been five altogether. I’ve never had a favorite. I have been deeply touched by all of them. Each one had a distinct personality, with their own likes and dislikes. It was a pleasure to get to know them.

  Harold, for example, was the dog that sighed. He lived the longest—twelve years, very old for an Irish Wolfhound. Toward the end he was clearly in great discomfort from terrible arthritis. When I say that he sighed, I don’t mean the kind of moans and groans he made when he stood up. I mean the sighs that he made in response to my comments. If w
e were sitting in Montauk watching the waves, and I asked him if he was happy, he’d look up at me and sigh, and I took that to mean yes, he was happy.

  And sometimes I’d see him staring off into the distance, and he’d sigh. Not in response to anything I’d said, just his commentary on his life.

  I’ve gotten each dog from a different breeder. I make my choice on the personality of the puppy: Accessibility—a dog that’s not frightened of people. Alert. Sensitive. My Wolfhounds, in particular, have always been thoughtful, generous and intelligent—qualities that really mark the breed.

  When I pick a dog, I want one that is both fully an animal, with animal instincts and one that relates to other animals, and one that is fond of being around people. I find that Wolfhounds satisfy both requirements.

  Andrew was shown by his breeder, one time, and won a prize. But I’m not really interested in that side of it. I like dogs. I find the bigger they get, the more I like them. I did have the one Lhasa Apso, a small dog, but he had a terrier personality—big.