Funeral for a Dog: A Novel

by Thomas Pletzinger

  From the roof you can see the island behind the bridges and the smokestacks of the empty factories on the riverbank. We’re sitting on the edge, behind us two Russians are playing Ping-Pong. We’re drinking gimlets, and the girl with the red hair puts down the rusty birdcage on the tar paper, fuck off, will you, says one of the Russians, her search for hope is interfering with his serve. Lawyer, says a long-haired guy in a white suit and metal tie, Morgan Stanley. Illustrator, says a guy named Christoph, and the ice cubes clink in the vase he’s drinking from, New Yorker and New York Times and this and that, he says. The Mexican guy pees off the roof, the red wine stains on his shirt look like my fashion statement. The guy with the Super Soaker gives him a whack in the face, order must be maintained, he yells, cha-cha-cha, shouts the Mexican, and the two of them dance over the abyss. The roof trembles, Pierre weaves a wreath for Kiki out of hanging geraniums and says, Morgan Stanley has been flattened, they were in the South Tower, at which point the long-haired guy in the white suit loosens his metal tie and says, everything’s going to be okay. My telephone vibrates, Svensson Home, to answer would be too simple, it would be too easy. I sit on the edge and think about what the metal-tie man said. What exactly is going to be okay? I think, and how, I wonder, and where is Tuuli right now, I’m always wondering where Tuuli is. Kiki gives me a book, writes “646-299-1036 Kiki Kaufman!” in it, and I put it in my jacket pocket.

  I drink another glass and lie down on my back, I look into the sky, into the clouds, I haven’t been this drunk in a long time, I’m smoking one of Tuuli’s cigarettes, I notice that I feel my feet less and less. Why does Tuuli always have to call when they’ve finished fucking surrounded by my books, I wonder, can someone that pregnant still fuck, or is it only Felix on the phone, wanting to know what Tuuli’s favorite breakfast is? Tuuli eats cold pizza with capers for breakfast, she drinks her coffee with milk and no sugar, she hates nail scissors but tolerates nail clippers. She feels at home when she eats snails. Her father has a snail farm in Lapland. I know how she folds sheets and that she sings the Finnish national anthem when the weather’s bad and seriously believes that will make it better. I know that she thinks Felix kisses like a rock and I like a cup of tea. She told me that, definitely didn’t tell him. I know all this and also that we miscalculated, we’re three, we said, we’re not alone. A hand gives me a light. If Felix only knew that he kisses like a rock, but I won’t tell him.

  It smells like autumn, it is autumn, I hear people talking, I see people dancing, the music is playing far away, Kiki with the geranium wreath and the camera is holding my hand, I close my eyes. How long it’s been since everything has spun like this! Kiki lets go of my hand, the dog lies down between us, I plant a foot to stop the spinning. Take it easy, says the dog, everything all right? Yup, I say, today the thorn is getting taken out. Do you like pizza? asks the dog. Yes, please, I say, with capers, then I can save a piece for Tuuli. The dog licks my ear. Mr. Dog, I say, how I’d like a slice of pizza right now, how I’d like to be somewhere else right now. Then let’s go, says Lua, licking my face, the taxi’s waiting below, he says, and when he takes my hand and the telephone vibrates and I open my eyes, when the Chinese girl in the suede coat suddenly flicks her tongue in my ear, nothing is spinning anymore. I’m Svensson, by the way, I say. Grace, says Grace. I’m going to get some pizza, I say to Kiki and Lua, but Kiki and her geranium wreath are nowhere to be seen, and Lua under the Christmas tree doesn’t wake up until I’m climbing in my socks down the fire escape behind Grace and getting into the back of a taxi. West Eleventh and Greenwich, Grace says to the driver, Lua performs his taxi trick, Grace kisses me, and the girl with the red hair buckles up the birdcage next to us as if it were a person. Okay, I think. The taxi is crossing a bridge to Manhattan, I’m hungry, the telephone is ringing, and I don’t answer, have you found hope? I ask. In the front the girl with the red hair sings her reply, and Grace tastes like smoke.

  My pizza is called Earth Mother, and I take it to go. The girl with the red hair and her cage got out along the way. I was asleep on the edge of the roof longer than I thought. I have to piss. In the bathroom of Two Boots in the West Village, I put my shoes back on, check my teeth in the mirror and tense my abs. I hold my telephone over the toilet bowl, but then just turn it off. Grace and Lua are waiting outside with the pizza. We turn the corner onto Waverly Place, it looks like something out of an American film set in Paris. Small trees are growing out of the sidewalk, the street is a miniature boulevard, the garbage truck is blinking orange and collecting the black bags from the sidewalk in front of the cafés. Under a streetlight Grace stops and asks, my place or yours, and I ask, where do you live? Here, she says, and points to number seven, and I’m not wearing anything underneath. Grace puts down the pizza box, lifts her suede skirt and takes my hands. She really doesn’t have anything on. Grace kisses me, she bites my neck, she pushes me past the streetlight and against the glass door. I’m hungry, I say, the pizza’s getting cold, but as Grace breathes heavily in my ear I notice I’m getting hard. She breathes directly into my ear, makes soft squealing sounds and fumbles with my pants button. Lua is standing under a streetlight, the garbage men are watching us, I say. I just wanna fuck you right here, Grace says, and sounds like an actress. From an upstairs window comes “Downtown Train,” Tom Waits’s voice and the French scenery get mixed up, I take my hands off Grace’s naked ass under the suede skirt and her hands off me, let’s go upstairs, I say, and Grace jiggles the key in the lock.

  In the hallway she briefly lifts her skirt again and looks me directly in the eyes, I have to decide and vacillate as quickly as possible between eyes and shaved patch, which is narrower than Tuuli’s. I come to rest on her mouth and kiss Grace against the elevator door, this time longer and deeper. My hand searches for her narrow butt, finds it and conforms to it. The elevator’s out of order, says Grace, her fingers above us clawing into the elevator grate. Okay, race you, I say, okay, carry me up, says Grace, and Grace is calling the shots here. She bites and then clings to my neck, until on the fourth floor I can no longer breathe. I put her down. Lua is already there, yawning. Grace points to a door and says, that’s where Moby lives. Who’s Moby? The singing vegetarian, she says. Does Moby want my cold pizza? I ask, and take the box from Grace’s hand, or does he only eat plankton? Plankton? Grace takes back the box, that’s the sort of thing you find funny, is it? Yup, I say, and pound the artichoke-shaped doorknocker against Moby’s door. Ist Moby dick? I ask, and bound up the stairs, Grace runs after me, but no one opens Moby’s door. Moby is on tour, says Grace, and tries to take off my T-shirt. Then we can listen to loud music, I say, opening the pizza box. In it there are a garlic shaker and a very small pair of orange underpants. I hold the underpants in the air. When did you take these off? I ask. Outside the pizzeria, says Grace. And no one saw? I unlock Grace’s door. Maybe, she says, there’s something to drink in the fridge.

  When I enter the bedroom with a container of milk, Grace is standing in the middle of the room between her suede skirt and her white shirt. In the corner stands a giant porcelain greyhound, Lua is lying next to it and sleeping, Grace is posing like a ring card girl. I meant the vodka, she says. Milk is good for you, I say, and give her the container. She sits down on the bed and as she drinks the milk, her nipples get erect. She’s taller than Tuuli, I think, but just as thin. She sits cross-legged on the bed, her labia are unexpectedly dark, three stars are tattooed under Grace’s left breast, one red, one yellow, one green.

  I stand with the pizza box in the room, and Grace says, get undressed, you idiot! She puts the milk on the floor and ties her hair back with a rubber band. Nice stars, I say, standing on one leg, and kick my pants over to her clothes. One for each love, says Grace. Where are they now? I ask. Not here, says Grace, pulling me onto the bed and between her legs. She does that much too soon, the pulling me between her legs, she kisses me, she almost devours me, she swallows me, she clings to my shoulder, and I can’t stop it or help it. I kiss
back, but I don’t kiss big enough for her, things aren’t moving fast enough for her, fuck, let’s get this going, she says, pushes me off her and turns me on my back, she lets down her hair. Faster than I can think she has my cock in her mouth, her hair brushes against my belly. Grace, I say, putting my hand on her forehead to stop her brushing and breathing and squealing and her up and down, even though I’m not supposed to object to it, even though it should sound good. Grace, I say, but that doesn’t sound right either. Bullshit, says Grace with my cock in her mouth, and keeps going. Stop, I say, but she doesn’t stop until I take her head in both hands and stare into her eyes, maybe a bit too dramatically. My wet cock lies cold on my belly. The pizza, I say. I hear myself talking and don’t like what I hear. Grace ties her hair back again. You’re weird, she says. The pizza, I say, all words fail me except “pizza,” and so we share her slice, then Grace goes into the bathroom and gets an Advil. Want one too? she calls out, and once again she’s faster than I. She comes back, draws the curtains, turns around, and strokes herself between her legs, I’m still wet, she smiles. No, thanks, I say, meaning the headache pills, and Grace turns away and washes down her Advil with milk, before long she’s asleep, her mouth slightly open, her stars in the dawn.

  I OPEN MY EYES and for a few seconds don’t know where I am. Grace turns her back to me, from the nape of her neck to her tailbone seventeen Chinese characters. Get out of here, I think, just get out, because I want to think this thought, and I take the milk and what’s left of the Earth Mother, take my T-shirt and shoes and run into the porcelain dog in the dark. I close the door softly and get dressed only once I’m in the stairwell. It says Grace Chan on the door of apartment 4F. I feel my pulse in my hand again, my ankle hurts, I have a headache. I walk along Waverly Place and want to hail a taxi, want to go home, but where is my home? I think. It should be with Tuuli and Felix, that’s what we said, but it’s not there anymore, and no taxis are stopping. Fucking cabbie bastards, I shout. That’s right, says a woman in high heels standing outside the pizzeria, and I walk uptown toward Chelsea.

  In front of a French bakery a Chihuahua barks at me as if I were a bum. Someone has tied him to a streetlight. I talk to dogs now, I remember, and say politely, bonjour, Monsieur Dog, but the Chihuahua doesn’t reply, he just barks. Nothing is simple, I say, just look at all this shit: things can’t go on like this, you should have seen this woman, she takes off her panties in the pizzeria, and I make stupid jokes and forget Lua in her living room. I kneel down on the ground next to the Chihuahua, he looks at me and growls. You know, I say, Tuuli and Felix are fucking their brains out in my apartment, even though they’re expecting a child, and I’m accomplishing nothing here, nothing at all. The dog tilts his head, he’s wearing a green collar. Things can’t go on like this, can they? I ask, and feel my tears coming. Nice collar, by the way, I say to the Chihuahua, offering him some of the milk, he doesn’t drink. You know, I say, I want to get rid of this feeling, I want nothing more to do with the two of them, I don’t want to always remember them, I don’t want to think of Tuuli every fucking minute and of Felix every other one, I want, I want, oh, I have no idea. I’m kneeling in a blood-smeared T-shirt next to a streetlight in the West Village, talking to a Chihuahua and wiping away my tears when a little girl holding two baguettes comes out of the bakery and says, you talking to my dog, mister? and the ring of the bell when she opens the door feels like a slap in the face.

  ON A PLAYGROUND at the edge of the West Village, I’m sitting on the end of a metal slide and finally eating the pizza when two guys climb through the hole in the fence, hey, Yo-Yo, what do you think of Bird? says the first one, a short, stout Mexican guy. Yo-Yo snatches the basketball from his hands and bounces it twice through his legs. He looks me in the eyes, I chew the pizza. Hey, Yo-Yo, says the Mexican guy, what do you think of Larry Bird? Yo-Yo dribbles two more times and says, he got nothin’, Eduardo. Yo-Yo shoots and scores, and Eduardo in baggy pants comes over to me. Hey, white boy, what do you think of Larry Bird? He doesn’t look at me, he looks past my eyes at my left ear. Larry Bird is the best player of his generation, I say with my mouth full. What? asks the Mexican guy. Yo-Yo is standing behind him, spinning the ball in his hands. You’ve got to be kidding, I think, drinking the rest of the milk, you’ve got to be kidding, the short, stout one is talking, and the tall one is waiting and playing, and in a moment the short, stout one will threaten me, and the tall one will want to play me for honor or my nuts, I think, putting the milk down between my feet. Afterward I’ll be told never to show my face on this playground again, because this is their turf, those are the rules in the ghetto, those are the rules on television. What? asks the Mexican guy again, what did you just say? and his voice makes a small leap. Listen, kid, I say, not meaning Eduardo or Yo-Yo, but rather myself and that I’m sitting on a metal slide and eating pizza while Grace is asleep upstairs. Okay, I think, I have a headache and blood stains on my T-shirt, I’m drunk, and Tuuli and Felix are playing by their own rules in my apartment, under my roof, and if this is all a game, then I’m up for it, I’ll play along. I say, Larry Bird was the most complete player of his generation, and your mother saw it on television and cried with joy, I say, since she definitely can’t read, so shut up and play. Eduardo laughs and spits on the pavement. Yo-Yo stares at me, now he’s spinning the ball on his finger. What are you doing here, white boy? asks Eduardo, as if he didn’t hear me, he’s not talking to me, he’s just talking, wasn’t that your mother calling you a minute ago to come home and fuck her? Is your father shitfaced again? Shut up and play, I say, taking fifteen dollars out of my pants pocket, your mother, your father, your sister, if I win, the money stays here along with yours, and you do a job for me tonight. I put the money on the ground between my feet and place the milk container on top of the bills. To eleven, says Eduardo, throwing fifteen dollars in the pot. Rule one: whoever scores keeps the ball, two: it’s a foul when I say so, and three: if you lose, you fuck off. Got it, I say, and Yo-Yo asks, you drinking milk, pansy ass?

  Yo-Yo and I play in jeans, Eduardo sits on the slide and smokes, foul, he says. Yo-Yo has a good inside game, Yo-Yo can jump, but Yo-Yo has no outside shot. I have the ball and fake Yo-Yo out with a crossover, the first shot goes in from the free-throw line, a moment later one from outside, two points, then I score again from the left, I’m winning three nothing, crybaby, I say, wimp, pussy, come on! I say to Yo-Yo, come on. I drive past Yo-Yo with the ball through my legs, seven nothing. Yo-Yo grins at me and throws the ball at my knees. I catch it and am about to drive past him on the right, I think, today the thorn is coming out, tonight these two will carry my sofa out of the Lorimer Street apartment, they don’t look like movers for nothing. I see them carrying the boxes of books, the records, and for a brief moment I know I’m going to win, but on the very next offensive possession Yo-Yo’s hand comes down past the ball on my arm. I miss my shot, I shout, that’s a foul, asshole, and Yo-Yo snags the ball from the backboard. Ref didn’t see it, says referee Eduardo, and Yo-Yo keeps the ball, streetball, white boy. Yo-Yo can jump, Yo-Yo weighs ten kilos more than I do, all in the upper arms. At nine in the morning Yo-Yo throws his T-shirt on the ground and boxes me out so I tear my pants and my knee on the asphalt. Eduardo calls fouls that aren’t fouls, Eduardo rolls a joint and smokes, traveling, he says, as I make a clean drive past Yo-Yo. Yo-Yo has a good inside game and pushes me under the basket with his broad back, Yo-Yo dunks on me, Yo-Yo is fast, Yo-Yo makes a midrange shot, and now Eduardo is shouting “in your face” and “pussy” and “yo mama.” Seven to five, then seven to nine. I roll up my sleeves, I gasp for breath, I’ve used up my vocabulary and my strength, because for weeks I’ve been preoccupied with other things. I feel my twisted ankle, there’s a hole in my shooting hand, and when two other people are making the rules, you’re outnumbered. Once again the calculation is off. Good work, Svensson, I think, as Yo-Yo leaves me in the dust and the ball rattles through the chain net, seven to eleven, it’s over. Larry Bird�
��s a bitch, shouts Eduardo, your girl is a bitch. She is not, little man, I say, I don’t care about Larry Bird and I don’t care about basketball, but don’t talk about Tuuli, man, don’t talk about Tuuli! My knee is bleeding, Yo-Yo puts his T-shirt back on, and Eduardo takes the money from under the milk container. I take one of Tuuli’s cigarettes out of my jacket and offer one to Eduardo and Yo-Yo. Eduardo gives me a light and my money. Keep it, white boy, he says, you look like you need it. And what now? What now? I limp to the hole in the fence, nothing can come of this, I think, enough is enough, and Eduardo calls after me, the rules of streetball, brother.

  Because I forgot Lua, I go back to Grace’s apartment. At the bakery where I was kneeling a short while ago, I buy coffee and croissants, and because in the West Village there are convenience stores everywhere and Grace meant the vodka and not the milk, I buy a bag of ice cubes and walk up to the fourth floor. Breakfast, I say when Grace opens the door, and give her the coffee and croissants. Lua wakes up and barks, I stand soaked with sweat and still covered in blood in front of Grace. I hold the dripping bag of ice cubes behind my back. You’re weird, she says, and climbs back into bed. I hop in the shower, that’s enough, I think under the cold water, things can’t go on like this, and because I’m now faster than I was two hours ago, I mix two martinis in water glasses and, wearing Grace’s purple bathrobe, go back to the bedroom, where she’s still lying on her side. I can pick up where I left off. I let a drop of condensation drip from the glass onto Grace’s hip and kiss her on all seventeen characters one after another. At the thirteenth she wakes up, or at the thirteenth she reveals that she’s already awake, and when she takes the glass and drinks, a shiver runs over her skin, as if we’d stopped and turned back time. Grace puts her glass on the windowsill next to the bed, then mine too, forces me directly onto my back, or I let her force me. And because we’re playing by other rules here and now, she at first keeps her mouth off my cock and takes a big bite into my face again like last night by the elevator. Then takes the cue “breakfast” and has me for breakfast, I think, and the word “cue” is right on cue, because between kisses Grace immediately breathes in my ear again, directly in my ear, and reels off her squealing sounds like the actress she is. She lets down her hair and brushes it across my face, and I reach around her narrow waist with my left hand, grab her ass too far down and too far in, pull it too far apart to be going for her ass and end up with index finger and middle finger directly on her pussy. But she can’t be that fast, and she isn’t, so I bring both hands up to her head, and with my hands on her ears I tell her without many words that this is the time and place for kissing and drinking martinis. I take a glass and a sip and warm the vodka, then I turn her over and plunge between her legs and spit her full to have something to lick, and lick her empty. Does vodka burn? I ask myself and her, but Grace is caught up in the wordless script she’s still rehearsing. I come up and now she drinks from the glass and disinfects our tongues, because pussies are the dirtiest places in the world, she’s read, she doesn’t like her own taste, so it’s a good thing the vodka’s there. Grace’s tongue dipped in vodka, and still, to my amazement, she kisses and breathes in my ear at the same time. She does that for a long time, her hand holding my cock. Eventually she straddles me and leans her head back, she does what she has to, she goes berserk and tosses her head back and forth, her hips roll, her bed on rollers moves through the room, and I think about Vonderlippe, about Lua, and watch my hands, see how they do most things right, how Grace and I go through the motions, how she loudly and ardently comes and scratches and claws and notices that I’m not coming, and then keeps going and going and getting louder. How she fulfills her expectations and I don’t stop her, how I close my eyes and concentrate. And suddenly Tuuli is there, not only the thought of her body, but also how she sounds, and it’s her name that fills my head. As I explode behind my closed eyelids and then open my eyes again, I’m surprised to be in Grace’s apartment, in Grace, at the end of the night on which I wanted to remove the splinter. The porcelain dog and Lua look at me.