Creature Discomforts

by Susan Conant

  Quint and Effie were apparently engaged in fulfilling one of their duties as caretakers of the Beamon Reservation: Both had binoculars slung around their necks. If you work for a wildlife preserve, then birding isn’t just the relaxing pastime it is for everyone else, is it? No, it counts as work, not exactly as hard work, if you want my opinion, but work all the same, even though Quint was, of course, Gabrielle’s nephew. A cushy job gained through nepotism is still, after all, a job. Did I want the O’Brians to collect welfare instead? Furthermore, in contrast to most of the activities pursued by the guests at the clambake, looking at native fauna through binoculars at least didn’t violate any of the reservation’s multitudinous don’t-you-dares posted nearby.

  “I have to tell you,” Effie said breathlessly, “that if that bumper sticker of his is supposed to be a joke, well, violence is not my idea of a suitable subject for humor. And it’s not Quint’s either.” She’d stuck her head through the window of my car and almost into my face. Up close, she actually did smell of peppermint. Understanding the significance of odor is rather primitive, even doglike, but maybe I’d eventually progress to figuring out the implications of spoken language. My father? A bumper sticker? Violence as a suitable subject for humor?

  Quint looked embarrassed. “It’s more a matter of Opal and Wally. And the Pine Tree Foundation.” He had that stiff politeness of prep school graduates. You know what I mean? The kind that makes you think they’re lying and that the minute your back is turned, they’ll be running around committing all kinds of dirty, illegal proletarian sins, but with upper-class flair.

  Removing her face from mine, Effie turned to Quint. “Well, so far as I’m concerned, the foundation has nothing to do with it. This is a matter of principle. It’s not about Pine Tree Foundation politics. The point is, violence or nonviolence? And speaking for myself, I couldn’t care less if Opal and Wally are offended, and if they are, they’ve brought it on themselves. Nobody made them become developers. The same goes for Anita. If she didn’t want to be the butt of lawyer jokes, she shouldn’t’ve gone to law school. And if Wally and Opal wanted to be part of an environmental organization, they shouldn’t’ve become developers in the first place. So if they take offense, it’s a personal matter between Opal and Gabbi. As far as the Pine Tree Foundation goes, good riddance!”

  “Effie,” Quint said pacifically, “people can change. Malcolm is always saying that, and he’s right. He has Opal and Wally volunteering on the Homans crew, and if that experience isn’t enough to persuade them, there’s nothing wrong with offering an economic incentive to invest in the environment instead of to destroy it. In part, that is what the Pine Tree Foundation’s about. And I know you think it’s hypocritical to combine charity and self-interest, but the only rational approach, Effie, is to focus on the enlightened contributions people do make. Standard Oil is an excellent example. Now, there’s a history of extreme economic and environmental exploitation and violence, but if it weren’t for—”

  Effie cut him off with a warning glance.

  Shrugging off her concern, he persisted. “It’s because of John D., Jr., that this island isn’t covered with theme parks and blacktop and ticky-tack. Is that what you’d prefer?”

  “Of course not, Quint, but Opal and Wally are a far cry from being philanthropists, and you know it.”

  “So are the other investors,” he said. “Gabbi, for one. There’s no reason why Opal and Wally shouldn’t be invited, too. For all we know, they already have been.”

  “I know that Opal is an old friend of Gabbi’s! I’ve heard it a thousand times. And you’re right. For all we know, Opal was one of the first people Malcolm invited, after Gabbi, which is, if you ask me, a totally undemocratic and elitist policy, anyway.”

  I’d reached the limit of the bewilderment I could endure. “What is?” I asked.

  “Investment by invitation,” Effie replied. “Word of mouth. The old-boy network.”

  “Effie, among other things, Gabbi and Opal are not old boys. And Gabbi is no snob. If she were, she’d hardly—” Red-faced, Quint broke off.

  Tactfully ignoring what was clearly going to be a reference to my father, Effie shook her head. “Unfair is unfair. Privilege is no better if it’s based on class instead of sex. It’s still exclusionary. It’s the same old rich-get-richer.”

  “My wife, the radical,” Quint said amiably. “So if the Pine Tree Foundation is strictly a rich-get-richer scheme, why didn’t Norman Axelrod invest? The more elitist the foundation was, the better he should’ve liked it.”

  “Because even though he saw everybody else making money, and even though, yes, he would’ve paid to be able to say he was involved with the, uh, benefactors, he did not want to do anything to promote conservation and save the environment, that’s why! And since everyone else saw that the foundation was obviously a good thing, as usual, he had to decide that it wasn’t. You know how oppositional he was, Quint. Wasn’t he, Holly?”

  “I suppose so,” I said.

  “Speaking of opposition,” Quint began hesitantly. “It’s awkward, but…”

  “The bumper sticker,” Effie told me. “Is there something you can do about it?”

  “I don’t really know,” I said.

  “I was hoping he might listen to you. Not that we want to interfere with freedom of expression.” “Of course not,” I said.

  “Advocating violence,” Effie informed me, “is, uh, incompatible with the goals of the Beamon Reservation.”

  “And impolitic,” Quint added.

  After issuing a vague promise to see whether I could do something about whatever was upsetting Quint and Effie, I continued my interrupted drive to the guest cottage. Parked next to it I found a white Chevy van with a bumper sticker that proclaimed, KEEP MAINE GREEN. SHOOT A DEVELOPER! Pacing slowly near the trees at the edge of the lawn, as if preparing to browse on the vegetation, was a human moose.

  Chapter Twenty

  “WELL, WELL, WELL!” bellowed my father. “How’s my girl?”

  Kimi, memory intact, knew instantly which girl he meant. She gave him the reply he wanted. “Ah-woooo-wooooo!”

  My father then addressed Rowdy, who was already wooing an almost uncontrollably enthusiastic greeting. “And how’s my boy?” Buck demanded. “Hey, big fellow! How’s my boy?”

  Raising his arms to simulate a rack of antlers, he easily persuaded both dogs to leap up and rest their forepaws on his massive shoulders. With no visible encouragement, they scoured his grinning face with their big pink tongues.

  I might as well not have been there. Assuming—falsely, if naturally—that my father’s preoccupation with the dogs was temporary, I took advantage of what I imagined to be a brief opportunity to study him while his mind was elsewhere. Having since come to my senses, I now recognize elsewhere as the permanent residential address of Buck’s mind. What I observed then, however, in addition to his obvious wackiness about dogs and his striking resemblance to a moose, was… But perhaps I am taking a knowledge of moose for granted. Anyone who knows anything about moose will tell you that moose are always bigger than you expect them to be. Like camels and giraffes, they are improbable, ungainly, and fascinating, as if they didn’t turn out quite as the Creator intended, but got kept anyway for reasons no one has been able to fathom. In other words, although the recent crash of my biological hard drive had impaired my ability to expect anything terribly specific, my father was, paradoxically, bigger than I expected, with craggy features, an oversized head, and thick, dark hair. In fairness to moose, I should add that in their own way, they are quite handsome, as was Buck, whose face radiated boyish joy at the pleasure of fooling around with my beautiful dogs.

  “Looking good! Looking good, there!” His voice was deep and smooth, with a hint of a roar. He did not, of course, refer to me.

  “Thank you,” I said. With irony? Not at all! Given a choice of looking good myself or having my dogs look good, I’d go for the dogs any day. “You’re looking good yours
elf.” I really was glad to see him. He was, after all, my father, as well as a person with dogs on the brain, therefore someone in this untrustworthy new world of mine whom I plainly could trust. What’s more, my remark was perfectly ordinary; people go around saying it all the time without regard to its truth, falsehood, or immediate relevance. In other words, especially since I had no recollection of how Buck usually looked and consequently no standard of comparison, I was not actually complimenting him on his appearance. For all I knew, he’d aged ten years since our last meeting. For all I knew, he always dressed entirely in brand-new clothes.

  “Off,” he told the dogs, who obediently returned to the ground. “Drove to Freeport this morning,” he confided. He looked abashed. “Took a little detour. I was going to stop at the outlet in Ellsworth, but I didn’t want to take a chance of not finding the right kind of thing.” With an apologetic glance at Rowdy and Kimi, he brushed dog hair off his medium-brown jacket, which coordinated pleasantly with his plaid shirt and khaki pants. The gesture was awkward, as if he were performing it for the first time. “Not that Gabrielle cares,” he said defensively. “But she’s a class act. It wouldn’t be right to disgrace her.” He added proudly, surveying his finery, “Head to foot.” With that, he raised what I guessed was a size 13 foot to display a shiny hiking boot in brown leather. “Kicking up my heels lately,” he explained.

  “So I understand,” I said with a smile.

  Can moose blush? Yes. This one regarded me through narrowed eyes. “Met her at a show,” he said, without bothering to specify the variety. Addressing the heavens, he added, “What the hell’s happened to good sportsmanship these days? That’s what I’d like to know.” The demand didn’t seem rhetorical. On the contrary, my father listened and waited so attentively that I found myself sharing his hopeful expectation that God would then and there deliver a full explanation of what the hell had happened to good sportsmanship and how He or She intended to restore it. The Divine Restoration Plan, I now realize, would have hinged on the official appointment of Buck as God’s Emissary to the Dog Fancy, a position he already considers himself to fill, albeit in an unofficial capacity.

  “It was a disgrace to the Fancy,” Buck declared, making the capital letter audible: Fancy. “There was Gabrielle, the kind of fine, upstanding individual we should be knocking ourselves out to attract to the Sport, and what kind of welcome did she get? Worse than none! To begin with, Horace Livermore failed in his professional responsibility to his client. Left her to wander around looking for him! Hah! And until I straightened him out, he had no intention of taking Molly into the ring himself and every intention on God’s green earth of charging Gabrielle his top-dollar fee for the incompetent services of one of his damned lackeys.” He added definitively, “Nice bitch,” meaning—I think—Molly, not Gabrielle. He then launched into a history of the bichon frise followed by a description and critique of the breed standard with particular reference to Molly’s strengths in that regard, especially when compared with the deplorable bichons bred and shown by a woman named Yvette Sommerson, who turned out to be Gabrielle’s dragon, the villain in the humiliating episode of Molly’s eviction from the private canine restroom. “Horace and Molly beat the pants off her,” Buck concluded with satisfaction.

  I said, “Horace Livermore. He handled a mini poodle for Norman Axelrod.”

  “Course he did. He did until Axelrod fired him. Stupid thing for him to’ve done. Should’ve known what was going to happen. They all do it at that level, you know. I don’t know why he called you. He should’ve asked me. I’d’ve told him it happens all the time.”

  Yes. Who? What? And so forth. Greatly understating matters, I ventured, “I’m not sure what you’re talking about.”

  “Arsenic. Not that it’s right. Another instance.”

  “Of poor sportsmanship,” I ventured.

  Buck nodded. “But at that level, of course, it’s common enough. And at least it’s not new,” he said damningly. “Professional handlers’ve been using arsenic for years. You almost have to feel sorry for the poor bastards. Their income depends on winning, and the stuff produces luxuriant growth. Intense color. Beautiful to see if you don’t know what’s causing it. Axelrod shouldn’t have been surprised. The dog’s all right?”

  “Yes. Isaac. He’s fine. Gabrielle is taking care of him.”

  At the sound of Gabrielle’s name, my father burst into what I was somehow able to identify as an effort at song.

  “It wasn’t across a crowded room,” I pointed out sourly. “It was across a crowded dog show. And if Horace Livermore is that kind of handler, why were you so eager for him to handle Molly?”

  “Best there is,” Buck declared. “And that’s what Gabrielle deserves.”

  I remember the lone hiker’s graceful, athletic movement and his skill in baiting my dogs. “And Molly? Is that what Molly deserves? A handler who uses arsenic?”

  “Long-term low doses on the specials dogs he’s campaigning.” Buck said it dismissively. “Molly’s never out of Gabrielle’s sight. But you’ve known Horace Livermore for years.” If so, Buck looked less puzzled than my responses warranted. Who and what I’d known for years was a jumbled mess, at least to me, but at least I hadn’t revealed my weakness by asking what Horace Livermore looked like. Interestingly enough, the language-processing centers of my brain remained unimpaired: I retained perfect comprehension of my native dialect, which is to say, the jargon of the dog fancy. Specials: entries in the Best of Breed competition, limited to champions, as opposed to class dogs and class bitches, the ones competing in the classes—Open, Bred-by, and so on—for championship points, Bred-by, meaning, incidentally, Bred by Exhibitor.

  “Of course,” my father conceded, “you knew his sister Candace a lot better, back in the old days. That Border collie of hers, Finn, used to beat you and Vinnie on a regular basis. Candace hasn’t been around here for years, not since she came down with that chronic whatever-it-is. She still shows in Canada. Matter of fact, one of her dogs was in the last issue of Front and Finish. Young Border collie. Now that I think of it, that’s a breed you ought to consider.” And he was off again, this time on a sermon about Border collies in relation to the mental and moral benefits of what he called “a little healthy competition.” By this he meant, I soon deduced, placing consistently in the ribbons at the top levels of dog obedience, a sport at which I’d evidently excelled before switching from golden retrievers to Alaskan malamutes. Eventually, he said, looking hurt, “Some reason you haven’t asked about Mandy?”

  Because I have no idea who Mandy is? And find myself inexplicably unable to tell you so?

  “No reason at all,” I assured him. “How is Mandy?”

  “In season!” Buck was triumphant. You’d’ve thought that Mandy, whoever she was, had invented the estrous cycle. “Speaking of Mandy, you remembered not to mention the rest of the pack to the lilies of the field. Not that I’d ever ask you to tell a lie, Holly.”

  “The lilies…?”

  “That’s what I call them. The yellow-bellied pacifist granola nephew and his wife.” He quoted, “‘Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they toil not, neither do they spin.”’

  “Quint and Effie,” I translated. “But Effie does spin, doesn’t she? She’s a weaver. And a potter. I met them last night, at Gabrielle’s clambake. And in fact, I just—”

  “Sponges, the pair of them.” With yet another abrupt switch of metaphor, he said, “Parasitic tofu. Not that Gabrielle sees it that way. For a sophisticated woman, Gabrielle is remarkably naive. If you don’t keep your eye on her, she lets herself be used by people.” He then cited a canine example. “Take Molly. It’s a manipulative breed. Too cute for its own good. But that one’s conned Gabrielle more than most. Never walks on her own four paws if Gabrielle’s there to carry her. Picky eater. Spoiled rotten. Same goes for the nephew and the wife. Spoiled rotten.” He paused to survey his new attire yet again. “So, is the old man going to pass muster with the
m?”

  “Yes,” I said, “but given what you think of them, I don’t know why you care. Besides, it’s not your clothes they’re worried about. It’s your bumper sticker. Effie feels that violence is not to be taken in jest.”

  “Who the hell said it was?” Buck was outraged.

  “You, according to Effie. ‘Shoot a developer’?”

  “Nothing wrong with keeping Maine green,” Buck countered.

  With that, he bade prolonged goodbyes to Rowdy and Kimi, and then opened the door of his van. Prominently mounted on a rack inside was a deer rifle. He climbed in, slammed the door, waved cheerfully to me, and drove off toward Gabrielle’s.

  My father had, of course, failed to notice that there was anything wrong with me. I had to wonder what, if anything, I’d have had to be missing to make my father take note. An arm? A leg? The power of speech?

  The answer: a dog. If Rowdy or Kimi had been missing, he’d have noticed the absence right away.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  “MY FATHER,” I told the dogs, “may have been Gabrielle Beamon’s rescuer, but he’s obviously not going to be mine. Have you ever in your lives seen one human being more blatantly uninterested in another? Was I supposed to confide in someone who doesn’t even say hello to me? Was I supposed to trust a person who has known me for my entire life and fails to notice that all of a sudden there is something horribly wrong with me?”