Joint Custody

by Lauren Baratz-Logsted

  The Man and The Woman were standing inside of his front door, The Woman having just dropped me off at the end of the weekend. On our walk over there, the rain had finally stopped, but the weather was still moody, as the tail end of March is wont to be.

  So, yeah, we were standing in a doorway again, but this time, unlike at the commencement of the weekend, when The Woman had looked sad and wistful, now she looked like something resembling content. I hadn’t missed the change, and The Man, while never a great one with the old social cues, couldn’t help but note it too.

  “Wow,” he commented, “you look so much happier than the last time you were here.”

  “That was just two days ago,” she pointed out.

  “Still.” He paused. “Have you . . . met someone?”

  That was quite a leap for anyone to make and especially for someone who missed social cues on the regular, but he did know her.

  No! It was just a business dinner! How could she meet someone? You’re The Man! You’re THE Man!

  “Maybe.” She paused. “I don’t know.” Pause. “It’s too early to tell.” Longer pause. “It’s complicated.” Ridiculously long pause. “Why? Should I not meet someone?”

  Maybe these two crazy kids couldn’t see it, but I could see it: there was still a spark between them, however small. All he had to do was say, No, you shouldn’t, because I want to try again, but it won’t be the same as before, it’ll be better, I’ll be better. All he had to do was say it like that, in that awkwardly hurried way he could have sometimes—like how, even though he was this brilliant writer, on paper, when he tried to say important things out loud they came out jumbled like he was verbally illiterate—that I knew she once found so charming and still could again, and she’d say yes. She’d give it another go. I was sure of it.

  I thumped my tail to try to get their attention as I tried to telepathically transmit my thoughts to The Woman: You shouldn’t! You shouldn’t ever meet anyone ever! Not unless it’s to have a meaningless affair! MEANING-LESS good! MEANING-FUL NO!

  But it was all to no avail. No one could hear my silent screams. Or my soft whining. For once, no one even paid heed to my thumping tail, too caught up were they in their human determination to screw everything up.

  “No, of course you should,” The Man said. “I mean, we’re not together anymore . . . right?”

  But you should be! You should be together! The three of us should be together forever and ever!

  “Right,” The Woman said.

  NO!

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The same afternoon . . .

  The Woman had looked a little less sparkly as she left.

  The Man had looked even sadder than usual.

  Me, I knew what I had to do.

  I leaped a few times until I caught the sleeve of The Man’s windbreaker in my mouth, tugging it down from the coatrack, and looked up at him. He nodded down at me.

  Sometimes, a guy’s just got to get out of the house to beat the ol’ depression, before he goes mad.

  I figured we’d go to the park. Is there any better cure for depression than the park? The smells of nature, so much nicer than exhaust fumes. The sounds of children laughing. The breeze ruffling my fur as I chased after a stick.

  But The Man had other ideas.

  “How about the bookstore?” he said.

  Oh, that never helps! You’ll get more depressed there. You’ll be annoyed there aren’t more of your books on the shelves or more copies of the books that are there. You’ll be annoyed that the ones that are there are displayed spine out as opposed to the far more preferable face out. Then you’ll rail against the literary establishment. Happens every time.

  Still, I have an optimistic nature. So while I’m familiar with the theorem that states that doing the same thing over and over while expecting a different result is the definition of insanity, I have a different take: Why not hold on to hope? Why not hope that things and people can be different? That’s not insanity, my friends. That’s optimism.

  So I maintained my optimism as we walked into the bookstore. Plus, I’ve seen all the same rom-coms everyone else has. I know bookstores are considered to be a primo place for a meet-cute. And while we weren’t looking for romance, it could at least be a better-lit and therefore less-depressing locale than the watering hole for picking up chicks.

  I maintained that optimism as we passed by the front tables with their endless selections. Sometimes, it feels like there are too many selections. I always think that if I owned a bookstore, it’d just contain endless shelves of the greatest novel ever written, The Great Gatsby. That, and The Man’s books, of course.

  And I maintained that optimism as we passed by several prospects on our way to the place in the alphabet where The Man’s books are shelved and held on to a tattered shred of it right until the moment the manager caught The Man moving his books to a more prominent place, asked The Man what he thought he was doing, The Man railed against the literary establishment, and we left in disgrace.

  I worried, then, that we’d just go back to the apartment.

  But The Man surprised me.

  See what I’m talking about? Live in hope. Be aware that you might not get a different result. But live in hope.

  “How about the park, Gatz?” he suggested. “It’s where we should’ve gone in the first place.”

  The park! YES! He was right! And yes, we should have gone there in the first place!

  OK, here’s something I don’t know how to verbally categorize. If insanity is supposed to be that other thing, what do you call it when you do a thing you always do and you don’t get the expected result?

  What I’m trying to say is that on that day, for the first time in the history of the Universe, the park let me down.

  Everywhere we looked, humans of all ages, shapes, and sizes were paired off, holding hands. Romance was in the air, far as our eyes could see. I guess springtime in the city can have that effect on people. But did they all have to be doing it? Did there have to be so much PDA? Did they all have to be so obviously in love? I felt like we were being assaulted . . . by romance!

  “Is it just me, Gatz,” The Man said, “or is this even more depressing than the bookstore?”

  It’s not just you, pal. And please, don’t even think about throwing a stick for me. Sure, I’ll chase after it, because I’ll have to, but it won’t be any fun. Not really.

  Sometimes, The Man can read me like a book, because he did not pick up any sticks to throw.

  “Should we just go for a drink?” he suggested instead.

  Which was how we found ourselves back at our neighborhood watering hole.

  We surveyed the options together, and I started to nudge him in one direction, when The Man stopped me, looking completely the other way.

  “I got it this time, buddy,” he said.

  He seemed strangely confident, so unlike his usual self. But then it occurred to me: After the debacle at the bookstore and the fiasco at the park, maybe he felt like he had nothing left to lose? People with nothing left to lose are always strangely confident, at least in my experience.

  So, I watched The Man go off to a different lady, who seemed to get a kick out of all of his awkward motions. Dejected, I slumped my snout down against the bar. I saw The Man point across the bar and the lady he was talking to give me a nod.

  “Can I get you a drink?” my tatted bartender pal offered.

  I wondered: Did I want a drink? Did I really want to accept sustenance, carrying on in a world in which love didn’t work like it should? Maybe I should just let myself waste away and . . .

  Oh hell. There was no need to get extreme about it.

  Still dejected, however, I managed a weak nod.

  My special bowl appeared before me, and I lapped at the water, all the while thinking: I don’t understand how he thinks he
can do this without me. Doesn’t he know I’m the greatest wingdog ever? How can he do anything but strike out without me?

  I looked down and saw the bowl was empty.

  Huh. How did that happen?

  I looked up at The Bartender.

  “Hit you again, buddy?” he offered.

  I woofed and watched as he topped me up.

  And hey, don’t call me buddy, buddy. Only The Man and The Woman get to do that!

  Across the bar, I could see that The Man and the lady he’d picked for himself—let’s just call her Bar Woman—were playing darts. Since this was an activity I’d never seen him engage in before—the bar previously being a place we came to in order to take a break from writing and the tyranny of the blank page, except that last time when we came to pick up a chick—I hopped off my stool and trotted over to check out the action and maybe see if he needed my help.

  Bar Woman only gave me a perfunctory greeting. It was polite enough but by no means the usual gushing I was accustomed to. But that was OK. In my current state, I wasn’t in a mood to be gushed at. As for The Man, he appeared to be doing all right for himself, even without my assistance.

  Oh, not at the darts. It soon became apparent that he sucked at darts.

  Bar Woman hit a bull’s-eye. The Man tossed his dart, and it hit the wall, barely missing the Miller High Life clock. Well, at least he almost hit something.

  Bar Woman laughed good-naturedly.

  See what I mean about him doing all right for himself? Even without my help, he was garnering a good-natured response.

  “You’re not so good at this, are you?” Bar Woman observed, not unkindly.

  “It might not be my game,” The Man allowed.

  Well, that was obvious.

  Soon, Bar Woman had cleaned his clock and they were off to the pool table for what she referred to as “a game of stick.” Not my idea of a game of stick, for sure—no one even threw anything—but hey, I get it. Not everything is about me.

  From what I could gather, they were playing solids against stripes. And before I knew it, there were only a few solids left, while all the stripes remained.

  Bar Woman sized up a shot, tapped her stick against three different banks, bent over the table, and took aim. I gotta admit, she came close to pulling it off, but no cigar.

  Yes! Now, The Man would stage an impressive comeback. I was sure of it.

  The Man leaned over the pool table with his own stick, only knocking some of the balls slightly out of position with his elbow. He looked up at her apologetically, but she waved a dismissive hand. Even though his unintentional jostling had caused some of his own balls to be more fortuitously situated near pockets, she didn’t appear to be bothered by that fact. This, to me, seemed to be a mark in her favor, since I tend to detest sticklers, unless I’m the one doing the stickling.

  The Man went back to his shot, focusing all his attention on propelling the white ball into his stripe, hit the cue ball, and . . . it popped up and sailed right off the table.

  “You’re not so good at this either,” Bar Woman observed, still good-naturedly; maybe even more good-naturedly.

  “Can’t say that I am,” The Man admitted, clearly not bothered, which was strange. The Man usually hated being bad at things and especially hated having other people see him being bad at things.

  From darts to pool to the ancient pinball machines. No Black Panther or Wonder Woman for this joint, no sirree. It was Mata Hari, Space Shuttle, Playboy (like the bunny), and Kiss, like the rock band with all the makeup and the giant tongue hanging out.

  She chose Kiss.

  Well, who can blame her? I thought, distractedly sniffing the butt of another dog on the premises. The Playboy one looked so sexist to me. I know sometimes I refer to women as chicks and I encourage The Man to have meaningless affairs, but that’s just me getting my macho on and trying to be helpful. But come on. I do have my standards.

  Bar Woman proved to be as adept at pinball as she had been at darts and pool. Before I knew it, having been too distracted by dog butt to pay much attention, she had a high score on the machine— high score!—and she was only on her first ball.

  When that ball finally guttered down the side, she hit at the flippers like she could make it unhappen, yelling at the machine.

  Wow, some people are competitive.

  Realizing that hitting and yelling wasn’t achieving the desired effect, Bar Woman gestured to The Man to take his turn.

  The Man gamely bellied up to the machine, tugged on the knob, and then let go of it so that the spring coil could propel his little silver ball into the upper reaches of Kiss, where it completed a stunningly slow arc, occasionally pinging against a buzzer or two before falling down straight toward the center gap between the two flippers.

  “You’re supposed to . . .” Bar Woman started to say.

  But there was no point, as The Man, with no effort to stop what was happening, watched the ball go right through.

  “That’s amazing,” she said. “I didn’t think it was humanly possible to get so few points out of a ball.”

  The Man shrugged, not bothered.

  “Well, now you know,” he said.

  “You’re not so good at . . . any of this,” she said.

  Again with the shrug. “I guess I’m not really a . . . bar game kinda guy.”

  “Is there anything you are good at?”

  “Well, I’m told I’m a pretty good writer . . . and I have a few other talents . . .”

  It’s at this juncture that I should point out that between all the attempts at games, The Man had made regular forays to the bar to get them more drinks, and these were not his usual beers; these were real drink-drinks, with the hard stuff in them, which maybe explains why, at his mention of his “few other talents,” she abruptly grabbed him by the lapels of his windbreaker, smashing her lips against his.

  I’ll say one thing about Bar Woman: everything she did, she did with great conviction.

  As for The Man, he smashed his lips right back, even though conviction was much rarer for him, which is how we found ourselves stumbling out onto the sidewalk and then stumbling our way home, some of us stopping to smash-kiss along the way.

  The two of them crashed into the apartment, no one even taking notice of me or the fact that my food bowl was perilously close to empty as they crashed their way across the floor and into the bedroom. As they crashed, I followed along as best I could, looping in and out of their legs. Bar Woman almost tripped at one point, but The Man quickly righted her, and soon they were smash-kissing some more on the side of the bed. But then . . .

  You know how you can just sense it when someone is staring at you?

  All of a sudden I noticed that, while still lip-locked with The Man and with one eye closed, Bar Woman had the other eye locked on me. It was like she couldn’t take her eye off me, and not in a good way.

  For my part, I suppose I was glaring at her from where I sat on my haunches, doing sentry duty from the doorway.

  “Um,” she said, unlocking her lips. “I hate to say it, but your dog is kinda freaking me out right now.”

  With a sigh, The Man made his way to the bedroom door.

  “Sorry, Gatz,” he said. “I guess not everyone likes an audience.”

  Then, gently, oh so gently and yet somehow still it hurt, The Man eased me out of the doorway, gave me a soft shove in the direction of the living room, and then quietly clicked the door shut behind me.

  I suppose I could’ve remained just outside the door, listening in. But I knew what I’d hear: the mattress bouncing, sighs, and cries. Did I really need to hear all that? I did not.

  I made my way to the couch, hopped up, and collapsed.

  Not. Happy.

  Sometime later, I roused to the sounds of people talking. Opening my eyes, I saw the early-morning
light streaming into the room. Wow, where had the night gone?

  I looked over to see The Man and Bar Woman standing near the front door. She looked pretty pleased with herself. He looked like, well, his usual awkward self. But it was a pleased awkward.

  “I would do that again,” Bar Woman said.

  Immediately, The Man looked less pleased. “Uh . . . uh . . .”

  Perhaps sensing his energy, as I was, she hastened to add, “Yeah, just so we’re clear, I’m really more interested in meaningless right now. That is, assuming you are too.”

  The Man perked up at this, and I did too.

  Now she was talking our language: Meaningless is our middle name!

  “Meaningless would be ideal,” The Man said with a relieved smile that I suppose she could’ve taken offense at but didn’t.

  “Great,” she said. “Maybe I’ll see you again then.”

  “Great.”

  She left, The Man shut the door behind her, and then he turned to me, eyes wide.

  I could tell what he was thinking: Wow. She was going to maybe be a repeat offender!

  Still, as I tried to be as excited as he was, feigning enthusiasm for his sake, my heart just wasn’t in it.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Three weeks later . . .

  It was the weekend, so I was, of course, with The Woman. And not only was it the weekend, it was also Book Club night, which is always exciting. And even more exciting than that, The Woman had told me there was going to be a special guest that evening.

  I was beside myself with giddiness—The Man may not like to socialize, but I can be a total people dog when I let my inner social bee fly—but then the doorbell rang well before the appointed time and I saw that the “special guest” was New Man.

  Oh joy.

  Weren’t these two supposed to be keeping it in the office until they finished editing his stupid book? Which would be, hopefully, never.

  You’d think he’d sense my antipathy. And he seemed to, a bit. OK, maybe more than a bit, as he gave me a wide berth. But soon he was making himself at home in the kitchen as she calmly shuffled through her vinyls in the living room.