“You don’t suppose they’ve got an elephant stashed away somewhere, do you?” asked Weis. “I was expecting just cats and dogs, but this ”-He made a sweeping gesture of the Selection Area-“is like a traveling zoo. I’m not trying to be a wet blanket or anything, so please let’s not get into a discussion of my dreadful personality problems, but do you notice anything odd about the way the animals are behaving?”
“No.”
“Of course not- that would require actual powers of observation, and since you’re wearing mismatched socks, we can assume that’s a lost cause. So allow me to assist you: Take another look. See that pen of cats over there? Three times now the same bird has landed on the fence within easy jumping distance, yet none of the cats have tried to get at the thing. None of them are even hissing at one another. Cats are territorial as hell, yet all of them are getting along just fine. None of the dogs are fighting or growling at each other. And despite all the noise and the kids and the movement, the horses don’t look nervous. Ever spend time around horses? I love horses, hope I’ll be one in my next life. Damn nervous animals most of the time, sudden movement and loud noises are no friends to their nerves.”
“So the animals are well-behaved, so what?”
He looked at me as if I were drooling. “So it just doesn’t seem right to me, that’s all. The Peaceable Kingdom ’s good in theory, but this is just weird, seeing it in practice like this. You don’t suppose they drug the animals, do you?”
“I wouldn’t think so. Would they be this active if they had sedatives in their system?”
“Hell- I’m on sedatives half the time and you don’t see it slowing me down any, do you?”
“No, but then you’re freakish.”
“Pot. Kettle. Black. Fill in the blanks.”
“Me. Go. Bring women and dogs.”
“Here. Me. Wait. Air-conditioning. Bring adverbs when you return.”
Beth and Mabel were very matter-of-fact as they placed the dogs into the cubbies and closed the doors, each of them trying for the other’s sake to look strong, but I knew that on the inside they were crumbling. Mabel wrote out a generous check that she deposited in one of the boxes, and then I took her into the Selection Area. Beth said she wanted a moment alone. I wasn’t going to deny either of them anything they wanted today.
Mr. Weis had gotten us a couple of sodas and hot dogs from one of the snack stands, and as we ate Mabel wandered through the Selection Area for about fifteen minutes, shaking her head in wonder, stopping occasionally to pet a dog or pick up a cat, and she tried to smile and be happy and enjoy it, and maybe she succeeded to some degree, but her mind and heart were still stuck in the barred cubbies-which had been emptied while my back was turned.
“That was fast,” I said. If Mr. Weis heard me he gave no indication of it. I patted his shoulder and excused myself, wandering back out to the cubbies.
The steel door on the opposite wall was open just a crack. The breeze wafting through the crack wasn’t just cool, it was outright cold. Could this be some sort of refrigeration area where they kept food for the animals?
I reached out to pull the door open farther and it swung out toward me.
Beth was standing there, shaking, her skin covered in goose bumps, holding a wrapped package the size of a shoe box. She looked dazed.
“Are you okay?”
She blinked, looked at me for a moment as if she had no idea who the hell I was or why I was bothering her, then came out, closed the door behind her, and said, “Yeah, I’m… I’m fine. Damn it’s cold in there.”
I began rubbing her arms. “I noticed. What’s back there, anyway?”
She was looking at the empty cubbies where the Its had been a short while ago. “They don’t waste any time, do they? That’s good, you know? Get them out of sight as quick as possible. I doesn’t hurt as much that way. That’s important. For it not to hurt too much.”
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
She nodded her head, and even though she looked right into my eyes, her gaze was elsewhere. “I’m fine, I told you. Come on, let’s round up the troops and blow this pop stand.”
“What’s in the package?”
“Huh?” She looked at the box in her hand. “Oh, something I need to mail out, no biggie.”
I did not recognize the name of the person to whom it was addressed, but couldn’t help noticing that the return address was the same.
“Beth?”
“Huh?”
“You sure you’re okay?”
“Uh-huh.” Wherever she was, she still wasn’t all the way back yet, and I almost asked her if she’d snuck off into cold storage to fire up a joint, but then a burst of laughter from a couple of children in the Selection Area startled me and Beth sailed past to retrieve Mabel. I started to roll Mr. Weis out but he stopped me.
“Give me a minute, will you?”
“What’s wrong?”
“It’s all these women,” he said. “Look at how they fawn over the dogs and cats. How they hold them like they’ve been the family pet for years. They’re going out of their way to make the animals love them.”
I looked, and he was right; it’s one thing to pet an animal and play with it only briefly-most of the animals are happy for whatever little attention they get-but many of these women of the afternoon tea and white gloves were taking it three steps further: the more they played with the dogs and cats, the more their own tired beauty seemed to be revitalized, as if they were drawing a few moments of time-stolen youth back from the animals’ energy and affection.
“There was a fellow I once knew,” said Weis, “who was one of the ugliest men you’d ever laid eyes on-I mean, this guy had a face that would make a freight train take a dirt road. Used to get him work in horror movies all the time because he didn’t need makeup. Thought he might go on to be the next Rondo Hatton. Anyway, every time I saw this guy, he was in the company of the most beautiful women-real jaw-dropping traffic-stoppers. Women who’d make Sophia Loren envious. One day I asked him what his secret was, and you know what he said to me?”
“If I yawn it’s only in anticipation.”
“Funny guy. He said, ‘Regardless of how beautiful a woman is, there’s always someone who’s tired of her, who’s glad to leave her. And they’ll take any attention they can get, even if it’s from a mug like me.’
“Look at these women here. I’m not talking about the younger ones with kids, but the others, the forty and forty-five crowd, the ones who’re paying so much attention to the animals. They’re all beautiful, and they’re all here alone. You know why? Because someone is tired of them and was glad to leave them. Their husbands go off to the office, their kids go off to college, but they leave them alone, understand? They love their families, but their families always leave them in some way. Who’ve they got to leave? No one. So they come here. I’ve been sitting here listening, and every last one of them has at some point asked one of the attendants, ‘Will they go to good homes?’ But it’s not out of concern for the animal, it’s because they don’t want this on their conscience. They have no intention of adopting one of them. It’s the leaving that’s the important part. It matters that they have someone to leave, so they leave behind this dog or that cat, some lonesome little animal who’d never leave them if they had the chance to give them their hearts.”
Mr. Weis blinked, and for a few moments his eyes were every lonely journey I’d ever taken, every unloved place I’d ever visited, every sting of guilt I’d ever felt in my life; for that moment his eyes never focused on me, they brushed by once, softly, like a cattail or a ghost, then fell shyly toward the ground in some inner contemplation too sad to be touched by a tender thought or the delicate brush of another’s care. You’d think God had forgotten his name.
So that’s what lonely looks like, I thought. Mr. Weis caught my stare and for a moment looked humiliated; then he blinked and said, “I got snot hanging out of my nose or something?”
He was shaking so int
ensely I thought the arms would rattle right off his chair.
I touched his shoulder. “Why are you so upset?”
“Because!” he snapped. “Just… just because, that’s all. Christ-five minutes once a week, is that too much to ask for?”
“Not at all.”
He stared off at something only he could see. I let my gaze wander for a moment but stopped scanning when I saw something that seemed really, genuinely, seriously wrong.
In one of the pens sat a very chubby gray rabbit. Behind the rabbit was a large German shepherd. Next to it lay a cat. In front of the cat a duck wandered back and forth. A long, glistening snake slithered in, out, and around all of them, occasionally stopping to lift its head to flick its tongue at someone’s nose. And perched on a pile of straw beside the entire scene was a gorgeous brown marsh hawk.
The animals stretched, touched and groomed one another, but made no sounds. Even the hawk was silent. This did not seem right to me. Considering what I knew of the various natures of the individual creatures in this pen, most of them should have tried to attack and kill the rest by now.
Then, almost as one, all of them looked right at me: Something we can help you with, pal? Take a picture, it’ll last longer.
In theory, The Peaceable Kingdom; in actuality, an icy touch at the base of your spine-at the base of mine, anyway. This might be peaceful and happy and healthy, but something here was just… off. Definitely off.
Mr Weis tugged at my shirt and said: “How’s that new Spielberg movie sound to you, that one with what’s-his-name from that space opera?”
“Raiders of the Lost Ark?”
“Supposed to be pretty slam-bang, from what I hear. I think maybe I could use a little slam-bang, how about you?”
“Sounds good.” I didn’t have the heart to tell him I’d already seen it and that it left me with the mother of all headaches but had at least cleared my sinuses quite nicely, thanks very much. I knew Beth hadn’t seen it yet, which meant Mabel hadn’t, either.
It was a blast. I found the movie even more obnoxious, contrived, and over-the-top than I had the first time but, damn, was it fun. It took Beth and Mabel a little while to get into the spirit of things, but once they did, they went all the way with it, clapping and cheering along with the rest of the audience, and by the time the Ark itself was about to be opened, it was almost like the bad parts of that day hadn’t even happened; we were just four friends-scratch that-we were just a family out for a night of fun. Later we had a couple of loaded pies at Tammy’s Pizza and played every song on the jukebox while Mr. Weis regaled us with endless anecdotes from his glory days. Only once, at the end of the evening as we were driving home, did I give that package another thought. I knew damn well that Beth hadn’t had it with her when we left that morning, so the only place she could have gotten it was at the Keepers facility. In the cold storage area. But who’d given it to her, and why? And more to the point, why had she agreed to mail it out for them?
Mabel and I checked Mr. Weis back in that night. He hugged both of us before we left his room. The day had meant so much to him, it was so wonderful of us to take him along, did we think maybe we could do it again sometime soon? A movie and pizza again? He’d surely love that. I thought he was going to start crying. It was so out of character it seemed downright mawkish; as a result, I almost lost it myself, but Mabel-ever the graceful professional-assured him that we’d enjoyed his company, as well, and that, yes, we’d all do it again very soon. That seemed to please Mr. Weis-who gave me permission to call him Whitey from now on. I knew what that meant, and hugged him once more before we left.
Most of the truly significant moments of your life don’t come with a blare of trumpets and roll of timpani. Half the time you’re not even aware of their importance until well after they’ve tipped their hat to you on their way into the past. God knows most of the benchmark events of my life have only gained meaning through later reflection- why didn’t I realize this at the time? -but that day was different. As we went into the house that evening, Beth squeezing my hand with a hard, damp strength of feeling that told me she wanted to make love until we couldn’t breathe, I took a breath and filled myself with the night; the blackness above deep and comforting and nearly total, excepting a few distant stars that winked past the cold silver coin of the moon like children who’d succeeded in fooling “It” during a game of hide-and-seek. And I knew-with as much maturity and wisdom as I had within reach then, I knew -that something profound and irreversible had happened, that there would come a time decades from now when I would look back on this day, this night, this moment of her hand in mine as a smoky hint of autumn lingered under the summer night breeze, and I would be able to say with unbreakable certainty: This was it, right here. You can see it on my face. This time, this breath, this moment. It didn’t matter that I had no idea what exactly had happened or why it was so important, but sometimes you get a feeling in your core that is so clear and strong it can’t be anything but the truth in its most potent and undistilled form. Call it an epiphany if you want to be melodramatic, but I knew that this summer dimming into autumn as all summers must would be the last for me as I was right now; my youth was turning to look at me over its shoulder and smile farewell. Hope you enjoyed the ride, pal. It’s been a real kick, but you’re on your own now. Don’t make love with your socks on, never cross against the light, and don’t take any wooden nickels.
Right here. This moment.
This touch, this promise, this breath.
The last good night of my life.
A few weeks after our excursion to the Keepers facility, my father went into work drunk off his ass (which no one ever knew), fell into his press, and was killed instantly. When she hung up the phone after getting the news, my mother sat down as if every bone in her body had dissolved. She pretty much stayed like that for the next two months, with the exception of the funeral and a trip to the doctor for sedatives.
For my part, I wasn’t surprised. Dad’s drinking had gotten progressively worse over the last few years. It was only a matter of time before something terrible happened.
Don’t misunderstand, I loved him quite a lot, and I cried for three days solid after his death, all too aware of the empty spaces in the house and my life and the world where he should have been but was no longer.
Beth and Mabel were there every step of the way; from going with me to identify his body (what was left of it) at the morgue until I guided Mom’s hand to toss the dirt down on the coffin lid, they were there.
I walked out of the cemetery completely emptied of feeling. This was not the world I had grown used to. Dad wasn’t here, so this was another planet, an alien landscape, something out of a book or fantasy film. In the real world Dad would be bitching about dinner being overdone or the rain-delayed ball game or how I wasn’t doing anything with my life. Sure, he got on my nerves and embarrassed me sometimes and I don’t know that I ever much liked him, but I did love him and now would never have the chance to make sure he understood the difference. I should have said something to him sooner, should have found him the morning after I overheard him talking to Mom and asked him to tell me about his Downtown Sundays as a child, and I should have listened, and I should have smiled, and I should have been able to recognize my duty within those austere and lonely offices to tell him that I understood, and that I loved him.
The luncheon afterward was organized by a group of volunteers from St. Francis de Sales (the parish to which all my family belonged but whose church none of us had stepped into for over a decade until this day); the ladies had set up tables and refreshment stands in the new cafeteria of the grade school located right next door to the church. I was tired, I was sad, and I was hungry, but I couldn’t yet face the well-meaning friends and family members with their sincerely felt but empty-sounding platitudes, couldn’t look at the bowls of potato salad and platters of lunch meat and trays of homemade brownies, couldn’t stand the smell of the freshly brewed coffee, couldn’t s
it beside Mom and watch her try to eat while an army of mourners passed by the table, each of them compelled as if by holy proclamation to put a hand on her shoulder and then mine as they made their way over to the baked beans or that great-looking apple cobbler that was disappearing way too fast.
As we were driving back toward the church, Mabel mentioned in passing that she was out of cigarettes, and I grabbed the opportunity for a reprieve.
“Drop me off on the square,” I said. “I’ll run into the Arcade News Stand and buy you some.”
The Arcade-a small, enclosed group of shops and restaurants that has been part of Cedar Hill since before I was born-was perhaps a ten-minute walk from St. Francis. I could get Mabel’s smokes, then go over to Fifth and Main, cut up to Granville Street, and be at the church before the first pot of coffee was empty. Everybody wins: Mabel gets her smokes, Mom gets a few minutes without my moping at her shoulder, and I get fifteen or twenty minutes alone.
No one argued with me about this, no one said my place was at the church, or that I was being selfish, or that it might seem thoughtless to other mourners in attendance. I loved all of them even more for this.
I was dropped off across the street from the Old Soldiers and Sailors Building. I stood there staring at the structure for a moment after they drove away. It seemed to me now that, thanks to Whitey, I shared a little-known secret with this place; down there, somewhere, stood a wall with the names of some of Vaudeville’s Greatest written on it, and what was before to me just an old hulk of an abandoned theater now seemed so much grander. I wished I could have gone in and seen that wall. Maybe I’d come back and try sometime.
I went to the Arcade and got Mabel’s smokes, but as I was getting ready to head on over to Fifth and Main I realized just where I was and what I had a chance to do.
On Downtown Sunday my dad went to the movies (either the Midland or the Old Soldiers and Sailors Building, they were right across the street from one another); then he’d get some candy or comic books afterward (the Arcade News Stand had been in the same place for fifty years); and then the old men sitting on the steps of the building on the corner.
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