by Steven Wolf
In the early days of our return, George, the security guard for the area, would get phone calls from residents who noticed a striped coyote on the beach. His investigation of our lake’s version of a Loch Ness monster introduced him to Comet. By then I knew she had no desire to wander into trouble. “Comet never goes farther than the two-story house at the end of the canal,” I told George.
“How dare they call you a coyote,” said George, squatting on his haunches to look into Comet’s eyes. “I can tell you’re very refined.”
But weren’t greyhounds supposed to run away? Weren’t these hounds supposed to mindlessly chase any wild animal that moved? Weren’t these rescues supposed to be skittish about the post-cage world? Maybe Comet was pleasantly clueless about her own breed’s instincts. Even as I quizzed myself, I could feel a faint tickling at the base of my skull telling me that something strange was going on with this dog. Maybe it was the brain marinade of pain and drugs, but I couldn’t quite define what I was seeing. It was like air—I could feel that something was there, but I just couldn’t touch it.
AS COMET BECAME more comfortable with Cody and Sandoz, my daughters became more comfortable with Comet. One June morning, as I made my way down to the lake, I heard shouts of laughter coming from the beach. The goldens were swimming after some ducks while Comet lagged far behind.
“Give her A for effort,” I heard Jackie say.
“And F for form,” Lindsey added.
But it wasn’t long before the girls’ giggles about Comet’s breaststroke turned to loving favors. To give her a fair shot at retrieving a tennis ball, they’d fake-throw a ball for Cody and Sandoz, then quickly fire the real thing into the water near Comet. When Comet was tired, they would help her dig deeply enough into the sand so that the “poor dog” had a cool place to recover while watching the ongoing festivities. When Cody and Sandoz approached, expecting the same treatment, the girls just patted them and nudged them back to the lake.
It was Comet who permanently cemented these new bonds of friendship late one afternoon. Because dog hair magnetically attracts sand and water, each of the dogs gladly submitted to a rinse and a towel rubdown before reentering the house at the end of the day. Cody and Sandoz unquestioningly allowed any warm body to perform this ritual. But Freddie or I needed to be present for a total toweling-off of Comet. The greyhound’s experience with muzzles around her snout had been a nightmare that left scars, literally and figuratively. After I adopted her, it was several weeks before Comet allowed me to so much as place my hand on her snout. She still turned her head away when anyone other than Freddie or I tried to touch her there. It wasn’t an aggressive move, but it was pointed enough so that many people were left with the impression that she was afraid of them. A towel over her head or near her face was totally unacceptable.
On this afternoon, the three girls were busy with the dog wash. Freddie had been called into the hospital earlier and had not yet returned. I was not having one of my better days, and it was difficult for me to grip the towels. “One of you is going to have to help Comet. I just can’t,” I said.
At the beginning of the summer, the girls had been offended when Comet averted her head from them. Then I had explained her past. I gently lifted Comet’s ears, displaying the numbered tattoos that still made my stomach lurch a little. The girls’ expressions had been solemn as I talked about Comet’s early life and how racing greyhounds were routinely mistreated, then abandoned or destroyed. My daughters were now acutely sensitive to Comet’s feelings.
“Dad, she’s going to have to be a little wet when she comes in. I’m not going to force her to let me dry her head,” said Lindsey. The rinsing commenced, shrinking the dogs down to their skin. The girls dried Comet’s body but left water dripping from her head and neck. Comet walked over to me, but I couldn’t bend down. I tried to drag a towel over her face from an elevated position, but that was useless. Comet turned in frustration. Spying the towels dangling from the line of girls who had just finished with Cody, Comet walked over, shoving her head under the towels and walking through like it was a car wash. Everyone was quiet, afraid of breaking the spell. Almost simultaneously, all three girls began to rub towels gently over Comet’s face. Jackie beamed at me. “I think she really likes us now!” The girls’ burbling baby chatter told me that they had fallen for Comet, too.
Although she was now a full-fledged member of the family, it didn’t take a Holmes to conclude that Comet’s primary focus was on me. The most obvious example was at the lake. Comet had perfected the rules of duck chasing and keep-away and was a spirited and entertaining participant. But even though these games could last for hours, she would bow out long before the activities wound down. After thirty minutes of play, Comet routinely found my chair and rested at my feet. At first I encouraged her to continue with the festivities. “Go ahead. You don’t have to babysit me.” Invariably, my companion would arch the inside corners of her brows, partially squint her eyes, and stare at me much like an exasperated daughter who questioned my sanity. Instead of rolling her eyes, Comet would slowly lower herself to a haughty resting position.
I thought that maybe her physiology demanded a break. With their low body fat, greyhounds were susceptible to exhaustion when exposed to extreme heat or cold for long periods. At the lake, every summertime movement was smothered by boiled air. By midseason, skin was steamed into a tanned leathery consistency and the goldens’ coats were bleached to a dirty white. Even with relief from the cool lake water, maybe the heat was just too much for Comet. But she didn’t seem tired as she positioned herself apart from the activity, reserved but not unfriendly. She would lift her head when Freddie and the girls called her to come join the water fights, but she would not budge. She seemed preoccupied, not fatigued.
Because of my declining health, there were days when I couldn’t even go sit by the water. If I was trapped inside but not in bed, I usually sat in a recliner near the beach level exit. When I sent Comet outside to play with the other dogs, she would stand by the glass door—muscles taut, ears at attention, eyes unblinking—and sternly demand to be let back in.
“Is this dog becoming codependent?” Kylie asked as she opened the door yet again to let Comet inside.
“You noticed?” I felt slightly embarrassed. “What makes you think it has anything to do with me?”
“Duh,” said Kylie. “No matter what she’s doing or where she’s at, Comet wants to know what you’re doing and where you’re at.”
“I don’t think she’s that bad,” I replied, perhaps a bit defensively.
“You must feed her a lot of treats. Nobody wants to spend that much time with you,” Kylie joked.
“Very funny. I don’t give her any treats. Comet has appointed Freddie to that department.” I struggled daily to articulate what I observed in this dog. Now I said, “At first I thought it was her reaction to the heat and activity, that maybe she was tired and confused.”
Kylie coughed a short laugh and said, “Confused she is not. I’d say that she’s made herself right at home, even sleeping in the master’s bedroom. ‘Smart’ may be the word you’re looking for.”
It didn’t take long for Comet to lovingly insinuate herself into almost every aspect of my day. Her constant presence was seldom demanding. It was more like the sound of waves—a shushing that I barely noticed after a while yet found deeply soothing. Except for my morning wake-up call.
I had pigheadedly ignored Freddie’s advice that I move my personal headquarters to the bedroom on the lower level, insisting that treading up and down the stairs was good exercise for me and good practice for Comet. Plus, by keeping my sleeping arrangements in the master bedroom on the main floor, I could still pretend that I was adequately soldiering on as a good husband. During the night, Comet slept on a dog bed within my arm’s reach. As dawn approached she would leave her lair, waking me with a light leap onto the bed and an intense stare that poked at me like a stick. Through the open window I would catch the musical note
s of dogs splashing along the shore, a lovely sound but not one I needed to hear so early. I’d open my eyes to see my face reflected in cinnamon-rimmed black orbs that sparkled above a pointy-toothed dog smile. An extralong tail rotating in slow circles backstopped the expression. Short, whining trumpet notes were directed at my irritated expression: It’s time to get up, time to get up, time to get up in the morning!
My response was always in the nature of a cotton-mouthed stutter: “Comet, it’s still early. Lie down. We’ll go in a minute, okay?”
In return, Comet would lower herself onto the blankets and promptly twist onto her back. One front limb was raised to the ceiling while thighs plopped open. From chest to tail, her tender underside was completely exposed, inviting my light scratching strokes. Her inverted head rubbed on the bed coverings. The belly rubs continued for a few minutes, erasing my reluctance to face the day. “All right, I’ll get up.”
Magic hovered over the lakeside in the early morning hours. Nighttime smells lingered, and creatures still mingled at the edge of darkness. Comet’s curious ears pricked at rustling sounds in the riparian grasses, and her eyes roamed the shadows for the slightest ghostly movement. The hound nose inventoried each and every scent dropped on wildflowers growing in the sand. All this was conducted with unbridled enthusiasm, as if she had never experienced these sights and smells, much less done so just the day before. After all, something could have changed! I’m convinced Comet pitied my inability to notice.
Regardless of the enticements, Comet would not yank on the lead. She would not sprint ahead to a neck-jerking stop but instead loitered at each scent. She pounced at fleeing rabbits with no forward motion and allowed ducks to swim unimpeded. In short, despite her excitement, Comet refused to instinctively hunt the morning in normal greyhound fashion.
Occasionally I stumbled and tripped to the ground, losing the lead. I was sure Comet would flee, as her ancestral genes ordered her to do. Yet she simply wandered nearby and glanced at me as I strained to lever myself upright. After one such mishap, I grunted, “You’re probably just scared, aren’t you, girl? That’s why you don’t take off, isn’t it?” Comet answered with a reluctant lift of her nose from an animal hole near a decayed cottonwood stump. Scared, indeed.
Then there were the days I was unable to rise at all—sometimes as many as fourteen hours of bedpans and banality before somebody got home to help me up. Despite my regular cursing at fate and the unceasing boredom, interspersed with my screams of pain from spasms, Comet would gently nestle next to me, place her head on my chest, and act as contented as a farm dog on a sunny porch. This was not normal canine behavior. Even more mysteriously, in our unspoken communication I detected wisdom that seemed to say, It’s all right. I understand.
Then I’d chide myself. Am I losing my mind? This dog was kept in a cage most of her life. She hasn’t had a chance to understand her new surroundings, let alone my stupid situation. She’s a dog. Don’t try to humanize her, because that’s just cruel. Let her be the greyhound she was meant to be! Yet over those long summer days I couldn’t help but feel that by any standard, Comet was far from ordinary.
These jumbled thoughts were emblematic of all the issues swimming around in my head. I didn’t have a job and didn’t know if I ever would. How long could we afford two houses? How long would I have to live away from Freddie for part of the year? Would that even work? How could I keep current with the girls? Now that I had spent the summer with them, I was officially up-to-date on their lives—Kylie was looking forward to her third year at the University of Nebraska, Lindsey would be applying to colleges, and Jackie was starting her sophomore year in high school. I asked them questions about their plans, but even as they answered me, I often lost focus, lulled by medications or distracted by an endless mental loop of worry. Once I returned to Arizona, I knew I might once again fall out of touch with them.
Consumed by these fears, I grew more introverted and cranky with each passing week. I was alert enough to notice that my conversations with the girls seemed to peter out after a few sentences but not to ponder the possible reasons. The specter of Lindsey’s hero, He, haunted me, yet I never reflected on the words in that childhood ode. Lindsay had spelled out why she revered that man—he made her smile, encouraged her, brightened her day. There was nothing in the poem about being as strong as Tarzan or able to win a triathlon. But I didn’t think about that. Instead I obsessed about my failure to live up to my personal code of valor: if I wasn’t the mightiest, kindest, smartest, most driven man in all of Nebraska, I was shirking my duties as a husband and father.
The issue wasn’t only my health, or the lack of it. My spinal problems had been a splinter in the family body for some time. But in years past, fueled by massive quantities of denial and stubbornness, I had somehow convinced Freddie and the girls that the light in the distance was not an oncoming train. It was this assurance, buttressed by my continued professional successes, that had encouraged them to believe in me. Now nobody knew what to think or say. The whole situation reminded me of an ancient Japanese poem, a copy of which I used to keep in my office:
I have always known
That at last I would
Take this road, but yesterday
I did not know that it would be today.
My daughters were confused. Freddie was scared and frustrated. Every day I was fighting to pull myself out of a sadness that threatened to drown me.
Fortunately, I had my own personal lifeguard. Whenever Comet rested her head on my chest, I felt as if I were lying on a blanket of soft grass in a forest of Ponderosa pines. Every day was a good day for Comet. In her contented presence, I found enough peace to sustain myself through the summer.
Part II
6
SEPTEMBER 2000—ARIZONA
September arrived with all the charm of a turkey vulture. Dark clouds dripped with chilled mist, and a moldy stench hovered above mounds of decomposing leaves. It was time for me to return to Sedona. As Freddie backed the SUV out of the driveway, she said, “Wolfie, you have to promise me one thing. You have to promise that if you get worse, you’ll get some help. You can’t keep trying to do it all by yourself.”
For me, the journey to Arizona was like going to band camp when all I really wanted was to end the summer playing sandlot baseball. Sure, it might have been good for me, but it wasn’t nearly what I had in mind. Even in my childish funk, though, I vowed to myself that I would relieve Freddie’s stress by finding people to assist me with things like food shopping, cleaning, and keeping healthy.
Freddie stayed in Sedona for a few days to help me settle in. Her smile became increasingly plastic as the time drew near for her to drive back north. The logistics of our separation were more familiar than they had been the previous year, but my health was becoming such an increasingly black hole that its gravity was crushing Freddie’s attempts to act unconcerned. I tried to reassure her by repeatedly telling her, “I’ll take better care of myself than I have in the past. I’m not going to tough it out. Promise.”
In late September, Sedona’s clean, dry air brings out a whole new range of vivid details on the surrounding red monuments. It’s a season of caressing daytime comfort punctuated by a light cotton-blanket chill at night. Pearly dawns dissolve into deep, flawless sapphire skies. The nights are so clear that the naked eye can spot moonlight sparking off the solar panels of the passing space station. The first time I saw it, I had to check the morning paper to see if the station was losing altitude.
As soon as we returned, Comet eagerly resumed her daily routine, filled with new confidence and a puppylike curiosity that had emerged during her sand-baked summer. Her mood was contagious and I found myself looking forward to our regular walks around the neighborhood. It didn’t take long for me to realize that people noticed something different about Comet.
“Hey, Wolf, how’re you doing?” My neighbor Bill was leaning against a low stucco wall next to his kitchen garden.
“How are you
guys?” I replied, avoiding his question. Jana, stooped out of sight watering her flowers, popped up when she heard my voice. “It’s great to have you back in town.”
I duck-walked in their direction, two canes stamping the pavement and Comet’s leash looped over my right wrist.
“Comet, how have you been?” asked Bill. Excessive tail wagging is a waste of precious energy for a greyhound. Comet stayed glued to my side, but her long tail looped twice in hello.
“We knew you were back when we saw the two of you walking,” said Jana. “Why didn’t you call?” Again, I let her question hang in the air, choosing to assume it was rhetorical. She continued, “When I saw you I couldn’t help noticing how happy Comet seems. Her coat is so shiny! It doesn’t look like it has all that nasty dander anymore.”
You know you’ve bonded with a dog when a simple observation makes you swell with parental pride. “She really does look better, doesn’t she? She’s come a long way from this spring, both physically and mentally.”
Jana nodded. “I was telling Bill last night that I would never have believed this kind of dog could be so patient.”
My eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”
“Oh, the way she walks so slowly to stay by your side. I thought they liked to run, so I expected her to drag you down the street. And she watches you so closely when you stop to rest. It looks like Comet’s telling you to take your time, that she’s in no big hurry.”
“I think she takes her time because she investigates every little thing that catches her eye. A lawn ornament at that corner house was moved yesterday, and Comet dragged me into the yard to check it out.”
Bill laughed. “Then what about that rabbit this morning? I was sitting at the kitchen table having coffee, watching you two. I thought for sure I was going to have to pick you up off the pavement. But Comet never even hit the end of the leash. She just jumped and spun in those funny circles.”