Carmen Dog

by Carol Emshwiller

  The master has been notified and, it turns out, will not be coming to get his Pooch (Isabel) right away due to pressing business. Trusting her, he has told the keepers to put her on a Long Island Railroad train and to charge the ticket and the twenty-five-dollar fine to his Diner's Club card. He will, they tell Isabel, meet her at Wantagh and take her out to dinner and would she pick up a bottle of wine. Isabel, out of her cage now, is trying to convince the manager to let her go with the ticket money, but the more she talks, the more he wonders if she's capable of getting herself home alone.

  "One of two way,” she says, “so go now out and be in it. You say not go. I say fit to go. So do it in time and not for you to do it, too. But the money. Yes."

  "Are you sure your name is Pooch?” the manager asks. He is beginning to suspect something wrong here.

  "Is Pooch. You see me as I am. To be Pooch is to be me. To be me is to be Pooch."

  "But I seem to remember you coming in here last week fighting."

  "Not me.” Isabel gets so angry she snaps at the manager. Mostly she misses. Just scratches the back of his hand a bit. She had managed to hold herself in check just in time, or rather, almost in time.

  "To hell with you then,” he says. “I don't care who you are.” He charges an extra ten dollars to the master's Diner's Club card, hails a cab, and pushes her into it. “And I don't care what happens to you, just don't come back here or you'll be sorry."

  "Am. Was.” Isabel shouts back, and then, as the cab pulls out, “Ha, ha, not Pooch,” but the manager, glad to be rid of her, gives her the finger.

  Out of sight of the pound a moment later, Isabel takes off Pooch's collar and throws it out the window. Then she settles back, looking out with an elegant bored expression and picking bits of sawdust from her sleek black coat. “To the Pla ... to the Pla ... to the Pla ... za,” she tells the driver.

  * * * *

  In the nick of time, and just after they had discovered that this lineup was not a lice check, they are informed that a kind gentleman has paid all their fines and, regardless of the nature of their crimes, this day's batch is to be released into his custody later on that very afternoon. Meanwhile, they are to return to their cages and wait quietly until the truck comes back from its daily roundup. Phillip begs to be let go with them, for they are all hoping this means freedom. “I'll give you a wonderful afternoon,” she says to the keepers. It's her only bargaining power. “You will anyway,” they tell her and immediately take her upstairs to the stockroom and visit her one by one, or as the case may be, two by two, or three by three, all afternoon until they are tired and careless, so it happens that just as the creatures to be rescued are lining up behind the truck, they see Phillip come snaking naked down the drainpipe. She joins the line when no one is looking and Pooch lends her the baby's blanket to hide not only her nakedness, but her brilliant black, yellow, and red self. Phillip is clearly exhausted and in pain, but is determined to escape with them. They hide her as best they can, and when the time comes they help her up into the truck.

  Shortly after this, while they are riding along toward the kind gentleman's place, Pooch is delighted, as are they all, with the baby's first clearly distinguishable word: No.

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  Chapter 4: A New Home

  ...if that ointment really does turn me into a bird, I'll have to steer clear of the town; owls are such unlucky birds that when one blunders into a house by mistake, everyone does his best to catch it and nail it with outspread wings to the doorpost.

  —Robert Graves

  It's quiet and it's clean and, though a basement, what with the sun slanting down through the west windows, the red and white flowered curtains, the freshly painted walls, it's actually quite cheerful and, unlike the pound, it smells good. On the wall in a prominent place there's an old-fashioned sampler with mother in blue on a tan background. And on the couch an embroidered cushion with home is best. There's a large, lumpy, gray lady, plump and plain, who seems to be managing everything and who brings them all fresh water in brand-new bowls. They take showers and then sit down to a simple supper of kibbles and canned cat food (tuna flavored), with orange juice and carrot cake, additions procured by the doctor's wife who is, of course, the lumpy gray lady. When she hears that Pooch is a vegetarian, she brings her a nice salad and some nuts and, for the baby, some milk and later on some clean dishcloths to use as diapers.

  After that she takes all their names, “first names only, please,” (though of course some only have first names anyway) for the name tags to be put over the doors of their cages. Pooch doesn't dare say she's Pooch in case she might get Isabel in trouble or jeopardize her chances with the master in some way, so she says she's Isabel. “My, my,” the doctor's wife says, but mildly and without censure, “you have a very bad reputation. You were almost not allowed to come.” Pooch hangs her head, too ashamed to answer. It's hard enough, she thinks, accepting the name Isabel, without being saddled with Isabel's violent deeds as well. Besides, she loves her name. So simple and unassuming. She likes it also for the musical oo sound of it. Sometimes when alone she used to sing her name over and over: Pooooooooch, Pooooooooch. Her only consolation now is that the name Isabel does have a real operatic flair to it. “Isabel the opera star” sounds better than “Pooch the opera star,” even if less musical. But she has thought that, if and when she does become an opera star, she might Italianize her name and spell it Pucci.

  "You may call me Rosemary,” the doctor's wife tells them after learning all their names. Then she leaves them alone for the night, locking them into their cages—quite spacious ones compared to the pound, with cot and chamber pot in each, plus a little shelf and chair and bedside table. The doctor's wife locks the main door, and after that the laboratory door and finally the door to the basement.

  Even though at first they were disappointed because they had thought they would be set free, this is, at least for the present, the next best thing. They decide to go to bed early, feeling relieved to be alive at all and in such a nice place as this, though many have their doubts. “It's still very much a prison,” they say, “no matter how good the food or how clean and new the place is.” Before they settle down, they have a short discussion about several things: Shouldn't the treatment at the pound be investigated? Might the kind gentleman help them with that? Why is the pound only for females? What animal does Rosemary remind them of (though no consensus on this)? Some say, won't it be rather dreary if we have to spend spring in a basement? But others remind them how brightly the late afternoon sun shone in even through those high little windows. What about the lack of exercise? And, most especially, when will they finally meet the kind gentleman into whose care they have been released and to whom they owe their lives? (Pooch is hoping he will be someone as worthy of loyalty as her former master, though perhaps because of what he's already done for them, saving them from certain death, she will be true to him anyway, no matter what sort of person he is.)

  They are all too tired to talk long so, though the clock hardly says eight, they soon fall asleep. Little do they dream that the basement is bugged and that every word they said has been recorded, to be listened to by the doctor at his leisure. He is well aware that the creatures have, some of them, acute senses of smell and hearing, and he will not be so foolish as to place himself behind some sort of peephole.

  In the morning the name tags are all ready. The doctor's wife had painted them the evening before, with flowers around the edges in red, white, tan, and green to match the decor of the dayroom. She is obviously quite an artist, though, as she tells them, she has had very little training. They all help tack the tags up on the cage doors and then stand back to admire their handiwork: Mary Ann, Basenji, Isabel (Pooch), then Phillip (they had maneuvered to get adjacent cages), Arista-cat (called Arista for short), Doris, Lucille, Dodo, Myna, Chatchka, Tootsie, etc. The doctor's wife has also made little flowered tags for them to pin on themselves. This they immediately do, and set about ge
tting better acquainted with each other, the doctor's wife included, though she does seem rather the quiet observer. They have many questions to ask her, but she says she knows very little, that she really hasn't been paying much attention to the whole thing, but they suspect she knows more than she's letting on.

  Pooch is quite taken with Basenji (perhaps because she's so quiet and so young), and with Lucille in spite of her degeneration and stupidity, and with Dodo. Arista seems rather aloof, as might be expected, and Mary Ann is quite grotesque and unappealing, but Pooch knows appearances can be deceiving and that beneath the most off-putting exterior there may beat a compassionate heart. She is willing to suspend judgment until she gets to know her better.

  After becoming better acquainted with one another, they all take turns playing with the baby. Pooch is relieved to have some respite from caring for it, though of course she loves it dearly. This is the first real time she's had away from it almost since she began to take over the household chores. Luckily for the master and mistress, her capabilities began to manifest themselves at just about the time the baby was born. Pooch knows that, if it hadn't been for her, they would certainly have had to hire someone to come in to help look after it, since the mistress began to manifest the worst of her own changes at about that same time. Before the birth of the baby, Pooch had done only simple fetching and carrying, waited on the older children, also cleaned the bathrooms and washed the kitchen floor as soon as she was able to hold a mop. But then it became clear that she was able to do even quite complicated tasks and so the diapering, bottle washing, and nighttime feedings immediately became her special jobs. Now, here in the kind gentleman's basement, all the other inmates are virtually fighting over who gets to do what for the baby, even the washing of the diapers. To them it seems a privilege to take part in anything concerning the baby so that Pooch, though confined to the basement, actually feels freer than she ever has since being adopted by the master and mistress. Now she, along with the others, has plenty of time to examine the books in the small bookcase. Luckily, one is Stories From the Great Operas, and another, One Hundred Best-Loved Poems. Pooch immediately sets about memorizing the plots of operas and also poems that she had not known before.

  They read the old newspapers, those who can. They tidy up, wash out their underwear, water the plants, take naps, and of course discuss their situation, though they take care now to do so only when the doctor's wife is out, which is really a good bit of the time. And so the first day passes.

  Pooch, though grateful for the two books mentioned above and for the dictionary, is rather disappointed in the literature available. From the very first, or at least as far back as she can remember, she has always wanted to improve herself, yearning toward a life of the mind as well as a life surrounded by great music. Here the magazines are mostly True Confessions and the books mostly old romances. The others do enjoy them, though, and Pooch does not begrudge them these simple pleasures. She even helps them with the more difficult passages. Also, no one there likes the kind of music that Pooch likes best. (Yes, there is a small radio.) Sometimes the rock and roll nearly drives her out of her mind, though not when Phillip dances to it. Then it's worth the pain in her ears to watch that sinuous body twisting and turning to the harsh beat.

  As for the newspapers, so far there has been nothing about their own predicament, that is, nothing about the changing females, and the papers are not that old. It is clear that, for the time being at least, there will be nothing. There seems to be a blindness to the whole business on the part of most of those of the opposite sex. Not a blindness exactly, but rather some desire to handle it as though it were not happening. Of course there was that first tacit enthusiasm for taking on new and exotic sexual partners from among the changing animals, for trying new positions impossible before, and for dropping off old partners into the woods or zoos or oceans, and saying nothing about it to anyone ... going on as though all this were the most natural thing in the world. It was almost as though the men had at last found a world to their liking, in which they had even more control than before and in which relationships and responsibilities were less confining. After all, they merely involved dumb animals who were not worth consideration, politeness, time, effort, gifts. Of course some soon found out that this was not necessarily the case ... many who were involved with wolves or geese or other species that mate for life got themselves into more trouble than they bargained for.

  At any rate, most seem to be coping silently and, at times, desperately, trying to keep control of the situation in any way they can and, as can be seen from what is happening at the pound, many are involved in quite violent and deadly solutions. To be fair, however, one must admit that a small percentage of the men are trying to help out as best they can, both in bringing reason to chaos and also in bringing a little happiness or, at the very least, some small comforts, to everyone's lives—whether human or animal or half and half—inasmuch as such a thing may be possible.

  A few days of rest and recuperation pass and finally the time comes when the doctor's wife tells them they are to prepare for visitors and that they will soon meet the doctor himself. They are all eager to have the chance, at last, to thank the kind gentleman for saving their lives and perhaps to talk to him about their futures. Each has a plan of her own for the continuation of her life: to one it is to be dropped off in the wilds of Canada near some beaver dam, to another it is to be left near some barn. Phillip isn't sure whether she wants a job in a disco or not. Pooch, of course, will mention opera, but most of all she will ask to be of service in any way she can, regardless of how menial the tasks.

  From the doctor's log:

  —

  May 14: Windows closed off and quarters stripped of all frills except for the mother sampler and the home is best cushion. Most of Rosemary's contributions removed: newspapers, old magazines and books, plants, radio, lamp shades, curtains, cushions, etc. Also forks and spoons (had already vetoed knives). Had all name tags removed and subjects numbered instead: 101 to 119.

  —

  May 16: Entered dayroom for the first time with the grant committee. Am sure subjects did not know which one I was. They were all in their cages and wearing the new sterilized blue smocks I had purchased for them. Was told by examiners am sure to get grant money or most of it, and to go ahead and purchase computer and electrical equipment. Said it was already on order. They seemed pleased that no time is being wasted.

  —

  May 17: Interviewed each subject separately. Refused to answer any of their queries or to speak with them in any but the manner that I myself had outlined. Thought it best to remain entirely scientific. Asked each of them exactly the same questions and made sure to ask them in exactly the same manner. Then took pictures of them naked against a grid, front, side, and back views in order to chart their changes. Some could not stand up quite straight; but whether to write down, “as yet” or “any more” am not sure, but will soon find out. A good deal of nervous giggling went on during this, though a few seemed to find it painful and tried to hide behind their hands or hair or feathers. Many looked as ridiculous as Joshua trees, stiff in their embarrassment, but one or two flaunted themselves before me.

  When dealing with number 107, made sure to have cattle prod handy and that she was handcuffed before being brought in. Rosemary reported that she had no trouble doing this. 107 seemed anxious to please, even asked to be of help on the project in any way she could. She's up to something, of course. Probably can't wait to get her paws on these notes. I assured her that she was going to be of help and simply went on asking the planned questions in the prescribed way. She responded conscientiously enough, though I know her gentleness is an act. She could fool many people, but she doesn't fool me. What's she trying to prove, and why? Am sure she knows more than the others.

  —

  List of trick questions for the subjects at hand: (The doctor will explain to the grant committee that the questions are purposefully oblique and that this account
s for their rather cryptic and inadvertently poetic qualities, and that this can't be helped.)

  —

  Would you rather be a falling leaf or the branch from which it comes?

  If the scenery were drab, would you dress to match it?

  If you like men (or even if you don't), do you want to be like them or do you want to be different from them? If different, just how different?

  If you saw a sparkling lake and, behind it, a snowcapped mountain, what would you do to try to become one with that view? Would it involve a hat?

  If the lake, though very beautiful, were polluted, would you be inclined to change the lake or yourself to fit the lake?

  If you laughed at a hat in a store window, would you then go in and buy it? If so, at what point would a hat become too laughable to buy?

  What does the word mother mean to you? Is it funny?

  Are you laughable? If so, explain.

  The importance of these questions will be clear to anyone at all familiar with the situation.

  —

  The doctor resolves that, while remaining scientific in the strictest sense, he will strike out boldly with bold theories and with bold experiments, though he will be careful not to let his imagination take over in any way. We know now, he is thinking, the perils of that direction.

  —

  May 20: Computer, electrical equipment, and testing cage arrived and were set up by experts. Tested the levels of shock and the general efficiency of the set-up with subject number 106. Loaded the dispenser with cupcakes and fruit juices. Wanted something cheaper, but wife is insisting on good nutrition and I believe she should be catered to as much as possible, at least for the present. [The doctor blanks out this last when he remembers that his wife will be typing these notes.] All seems to be in order. Was quite an ordeal. Certainly a full day's work. Was at it with 106 for almost seven hours, not counting the hour or two I spent before bringing her in. She kept inordinately quiet through it all. Am wondering why! But have resolved, anyway, to concentrate on subject number 107 instead, the one called Isabel.