Short Circuits

by Dorien Grey

  A large city is not conducive to a dignified burial beneath a tree, or deep within a flower bed. But I’m sure Crickett didn’t mind. Were I one to believe in the Pathetic Fallacy, which ascribes human traits and feelings to animals, I would have felt more guilty than I did. And were I to go down that mental path, I’d have truly grieved at the thought that for her entire 18 years, she may have been outside a total of less than a dozen times, and was terrified each time. To be in a box in a dumpster on a cold winter’s day in Chicago....

  I got Crickett when she was a kitten, and she was a strange cat, even as cats go. Yellow-orange and white, she was very pretty, and must have had some sort of genetic disorder because her eyes were always fully dialated, never slitted. I don’t recall ever having seen another cat with eyes like hers. Like all cats, she loved attention, but only on her terms. When she came into my life, I already had Thomas, a huge black male with the disposition of a saint. Thomas was everybody’s pal. Crickett wasn’t much into having pals. She largely ignored Thomas, and they never became friends. She was the same with my dog, Samantha (Sammy), and the several other cats that came and went over the years. She remained aloof from it all. Up until the last month of her life, the only time she ever got on my lap, it was on her terms, not mine. And even then she would sit down, get up, circle around (swatting me in the face with her tail), sit down, get up turn around again, etc. until I’d get exasperated and put her on the floor. Occasionally she would climb on my lap and move up to drape herself over my left shoulder (never my right) as she had done when I would hold her as a kitten. Toward the end, she spent a lot of time calmly in my lap. She seemed to need me more, and that broke my heart because I felt she knew something was not right.

  While I have had animals all my life, I have not been present at their deaths more than a few times. When Thomas, who I had found as a kitten in Los Angeles, died in Pence, coincidentally also at 18, his decline was rapid, the result of old age and a good life. I found him lying on the basement floor one morning and knew he was dying. I carried him upstairs, where I put him in my lap and sat petting him until he died…I hope peacefully.

  Crickett was not so lucky. She developed cancer at the site of a rabies shot she had received more than two years before. The vet said this is far more common than anyone realizes, and she avoids giving rabies shots to indoor house cats for that reason. At any rate, Crickett’s death was neither quick nor easy. She did not appear to be in pain, and the vet prescribed two different medications which appeared to be very effective in keeping her comfortable. But she lost the use of her leg, which she dragged behind her.

  I know, I know. I should have gone along with that infuriating euphemism of having her “put to sleep.” But it is not putting her to sleep. It is killing her, and I could not bring myself to play God. I wanted her to die as comfortably as possible in her own familiar world. (I did, on Friday, call the vet, who said she would come over and kill her at home, but I still could not bring myself to do it, though I felt both remorse and guilt as, over the weekend, I feared she might be in pain. She’d stopped eating or drinking, and just laid there. When she tried to stand or move, she’d fall over. The one medication required being put on her food, but when she stopped eating and refused to be fed, I was left with only the second medication, which I could put into her mouth with a small syringe.

  I was sure Saturday night she could not possibly last until morning. But she did. And Sunday night.

  Finally, at about 2:15 Monday, she died.

  I know…she was “just a cat.” But she was a part of my life nearly every day for 18 years, and one more link to my past. And I miss her.

  And why am I telling you all this? You never knew Crickett. But if you’ve ever lost an animal who was a part of your life, you know the need for catharsis. Writing this is mine.

  * * *

  A CAT’S TALE

  When my cat Crickett died recently, after 18 years, I determined I’d not get another. Losing any living creature, human or animal, with whom you’ve shared a life leaves a sizable hole in the roof of one’s soul, through which the cold rain of sadness can too freely enter.

  But then Gary mentioned that he had gone to PetSmart, a large pet supply chain, with his friend George, who was thinking of adopting a cat. PetSmart gives space to local animal shelters as adoption centers, a fact of which I’d not been aware, but which certainly elevated them in my estimation.

  Gary said they’d seen a beautiful 2-year-old named Billy, who was pure white except for a black tail and two small black smudges on his forehead. George had wanted it, but was in the process of moving and thought perhaps it might be too difficult both for him and Billy, with all the confusion.

  Well, that set me off, and I went to PetSmart the next day. I truly hate going to animal adoption places, since my heart goes out to all the animals there, and want to bring them all home with me, which is very nice altruistically, but somewhat lacking in practicality. At any rate, on a whim I filed an application for Billy on the spot.

  Having done so and given the paper to an employee, I went back to the viewing area and saw there was a section I’d not noticed, and in that area saw a pure black, 1-year-old male named Spirit. I have always had a very soft spot in my heart for black cats, so I asked for the application paper back and wrote in “Billy OR Spirit.” I knew I couldn’t take both, and have always hated making decisions like that, since I never want to hurt anyone’s (not even a cat’s) feelings by rejecting them in favor of someone else.

  But the more I thought of it, the more I favored, on a practical level, Spirit. My love of black cats goes back to my beloved Thomas who was with me from the moment I found him abandoned as a tiny kitten in a parking lot in Los Angeles until he died in my lap 17 years later in Pence, Wisconsin. Shortly after Thomas died, I looked out the window one snowy day to see a large black cat in my yard. I learned from neighbors who had been feeding him, that he’d just shown up at their house one day. They called him Sheba, and I took him in.

  I’d had Sheba (at the same time as I had Crickett, though Crickett never wanted anything to do with him) for almost 15 years when I decided to move to Chicago. Sheba I’m sure thought of himself as a panther, and he loved prowling the forest across the street from my house. I was always worried about him, what with the predators which roamed the forest, plus his crossing the street to get back and forth. But he was very street-smart, and there was never a problem.

  But when the time came to move, I knew I could only bring one cat, and I knew that Sheba could never be happy cooped up 24 hours a day in a small apartment, so with a great deal of regret, which I feel to this day, I gave him to a friend who lived, with her husband, in the middle of the forest, a quarter of a mile from the nearest road. I’ve not checked to see if he is still alive. The chances are very slim, but I simply don’t want to know. That way, he will always be young and sleek, stalking wild mice through the tall grass.

  Which brings us to Spirit. When I mentioned my plan to adopt him to a friend, he pointed out that a black cat named Sprit was wonderfully fitting in light of my new Elliott Smith mystery series, which deals with spirits. So back again to PetSmart with considerable guilt to change my application from “Billy OR Spirit” to just “Spirit.” After considerable back-and-forthing and will-they-or-won’t they, they called yesterday to tell me I could come pick Spirit up. He is, thus far, a sweetheart, who craves attention (something we have in common), and who insisted on sleeping with me last night...something Crickett never did. I do hope Crickett won’t mind.

  Oh, yes, and when I went to pick up Spirit, Billy was gone; adopted by someone else, which greatly reduced my guilt.

  So I have embarked on a new adventure, albeit a small one. But adventures, even small ones, keep us young.

  TO SOOTHE THE SAVAGE BREAST

  MARCHING ON

  A march is playing as I type…a march I played as part of the Naval Aviation Cadet band at a time, it seems now, both
only slightly after dinosaurs roamed the earth and yesterday afternoon. And instantly I am back on the parade field at Pensacola Naval Air Station, sweating in the Florida heat, but almost euphoric with the sense of being part of the music and something much larger than myself.

  I played the clarinet, and I did not play it particularly well. In fact, I dreaded the very thought of actually being heard as other than a part of the whole band. But I also know that I played far better when I was one of many than I ever could alone.

  The need to feel we belong is an elemental but…other than, perhaps, during our teenage years…seldom considered part of being human. Few things promote a sense of belonging more strongly than patriotism, and patriotism is nothing but an awareness of unity and, underlying it, the human need to feel that we belong. There are, of course, both visual and visceral symbols of patriotism and unity: the flag being most prominent of the visual, music…and especially march music…being the most visceral.

  Marches convey a sense of power, confidence, boldness, exhilaration, and inclusion which resonate strongly with something deep inside us all. It is not coincidental that the rhythm of march music has been proven to increase the heart rate. (Drums, the very first musical instrument after the human voice, echo the heartbeat. You can’t get much more basic than that.)

  To stand on the curb along a parade route and hear the approaching staccato of snare drums and the flourish that leads into the start of the next march…or even better, to be in the band…never fails to create an almost out-of-body experience in me. I love it, and I am not alone…literally.

  It has frequently been suggested that “The Stars and Stripes Forever” should be made our official national anthem, and I agree wholeheartedly. Can anyone listen to it without being infused with a deep sense of patriotism? “The Star Spangled Banner” evokes patriotism, I think, largely through a form of osmosis: we’ve been simply programmed for that response. But it doesn’t grab us with anywhere near the power and force, or provide the euphoria of “The Stars and Stripes Forever.” No need for programming there; it just scoops us up and carries us away.

  I think those of us who have spent much of our lives being made to feel like we are outsiders, like we do not belong, take perhaps an inordinate degree of comfort in anything which tells us that we are not, indeed, alone. Music…almost any kind of music…provides this comfort, this escape from the world. Some find it in opera, others in symphonies or string quartets. But for me, play me a march, turn the volume way up, and I’m gone.

  * * *

  DANGLING WIRES

  I sometimes think of my head as a large, unfinished attic with two windows through which I look out at the world. When it came to the wiring of the attic, however, the electrician(s) must have been in a hurry to move on to a more important job. Rather than neatly color-coding each wire and making sure that each went from point A directly to point B, they apparently left hundreds of exposed live electric wires just dangling from the ceiling, so that when the breeze of thought stirs them, they brush against one another randomly, effectively short-circuiting any attempt at linear thinking.

  The breeze that comes with music must be especially strong, since it almost always sends me off in random and totally unrelated (on the surface, at any rate) directions.

  Yesterday I heard music from one of the great documentary TV series of the early 50s, Victory at Sea, composed by Richard Rogers, and when the main theme came along, I was instantly transported to August of 1953 and to Broadway’s Majestic Theater. It was my first trip to New York, and the first Broadway show I ever saw…Rogers and Hammerstein’s Me and Juliet. The one hit song from that show was “No Other Love,” which was taken note for note from the Victory at Sea main theme.

  But once a short-circuit has begun, it tends to set off a string of other sparkings, as this one did. Another song from Me and Juliet was “Keep it Gay” (a song by the same title was used in the more recent Mel Brooks movie, The Producers). I was 19 years old, gay, and in New York on my own for the very first time. Not knowing exactly where to go to find other gays, I went down to Washington Square in the Village, and remember standing in front of the New York Public Library whistling “Keep it Gay,” in hopes that someone might get the message. No one did, alas.

  So now we’re short-circuiting on New York/gay memories, and sparking to 1960 when my mom and I went to New York…her first time. I’ve probably mentioned these two memories before, since I tend to repeat my favorite stories. Anyway, we saw The Sound of Music the night Oscar Hammerstein died, and all of Broadway dimmed its lights in tribute.

  For some unknown reason, whenever I was with my mom and unable to do anything about it, I would find myself being cruised by guys I’d have given anything to be able to respond to. I remember we were at the top of the Empire State Building and a really nice looking young man took an interest in me. Utterly frustrating, but I couldn’t very well say: “Wait here, Mom, I’ll be back in a couple of hours.”

  When it comes to my writing, my mind’s odd wiring has taught me never to try to plot things out too far in advance. I’ve become rather adept, I hope, at making use of these little electrical “pffffffftzzzzzzzzzz” reactions in my writing. (Well, this blog is a perfect example, obviously.) The best I can do is, when I start a book, to do a stick-figure drawing of the plot, and perhaps, at the very beginning, point to a spot on the horizon and say “let’s try to end up over there.” Writers who can and do draw intricate treasure maps of their books before they ever start writing (“three paces due north from this specific event, turn SSE and go exactly six paces to something else specific,” etc.) is fine for them, but I cannot comprehend how they do it, or why they would want to tie themselves down so securely. Part of the fun of writing, for me, is never knowing what comes next. It’s all up to the dangling wires.

  * * *

  THE SOUND OF MUSIC

  I grew up during the time of the big-bands (Glenn Miller, Tommy Dorsey), patriotic war songs (I still get a lump in my throat hearing Kate Smith sing “God Bless America,” and “Stars & Stripes Forever” grabs me by the heart and hoists me into the air) and songs with intelligible lyrics that spoke to situations to which most people could relate.

  I wasn’t exposed to much classical music at home, and am not sure how I first came across it, but when I got my first record player, in high school, the first record I bought was Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring,” followed by Tchaikovsky’s “Romeo and Juliet” and “Swan Lake.” To me, Tchaikovsky was—and is—the epitome of musical power and unabashed romanticism. Definitely my kind of guy. That he was also gay didn’t hurt. In some strange way, I feel about his music the same way I and millions of other gays feel about with Judy Garland. They both had had it rough, but still gave you 200 percent of themselves: you never have to wonder where they’re coming from…they turned pain into pride, which is what gays and lesbians have been doing forever.

  I’ve never been all that much into popular music, especially since about the time after Glenn Miller died. I like songs in which one can actually understand the words, and in which those words make some sort of sense. I honestly don’t think that my inability to appreciate the endless repetitions of “Yeah, yeah, baby, baby, baby” and stupefying idiocy should brand me as an antiquated fossil.

  In classical music I vastly prefer orchestral over choral. I love it no-holds-barred, all-stops-pulled, and the fuller, the better. The overture to Wagner’s “Tannheuser” and the storm scene from Ferde Grafe’s “Grand Canyon” suite are for me the absolute epitome of musical power: in both, the brass and deeper instruments stride powerfully forward while a goosebump-raising shimmer of strings cascades over them. If you doubt me, try listening to them.

  I have never learned to appreciate opera, mainly because I can’t understand what they’re singing, and partly because the memorable parts are smothered in the non-memorable. If I can’t hum something after I hear it, I’m not interested. True, you can do that with a lo
t of opera, but again it’s like looking for the slice of pickle in a sub sandwich…you have to wade through too much other stuff to get to it.

  I do hate stereotypes, but I have to admit a deep love of Broadway show tunes. In one of my books—The Angel Singers—the plot centers around a murder in a gay men’s chorus. As part of the story, I had to come up with a program for the chorus to sing and, when I asked a friend in the New York City Gay Men’s Chorus what he thought of it, he said they couldn’t have done better themselves, which delighted me no end.

  Songs can encapsulate the human spirit, experience, and heart: the entire experience of being gay can be found in “I Am What I Am” from La Cage aux Folles, and “The Impossible Dream”; the power of its unity in “Consider Yourself” from Oliver and “Somewhere,” and “What I Did for Love” from A Chorus Line pretty much sums it all up.

  Songs make me cry (“Memory” from Cats) or make me absolutely giddy with delight (“Consider Yourself” from Oliver) or overwhelm me with their sheer power (Edith Piaf’s “Je Ne Regrette Rien”; “The Battle Hymn of the Republic”).

  What moves me most about music is its power to unite; to make us all feel part of something much larger than ourselves, to make us feel as though we belong: patriotic songs do this particularly well. Who can listen to “This is My Country” or “America the Beautiful” without being moved?

  Unfortunately ninety-nine percent of “popular” music leaves me either totally puzzled or furious. I have listened (not through choice, you can be sure) to any number of “popular” songs any number of times without being able to understand a single word. I find it difficult to comprehend the rationale of those who defend much of today’s music. I’m not a prude, really I’m not. But with 250,000 words in the English language, does every other word have to be scatological, demeaning, or unintelligible? After 10,000 years of struggle to advance ourselves as a race, this is the best we can do?