The Dog That Talked to God

by Jim Kraus

  I guess. I know it’s not good theology, but at times I grew too tired to recast my worldview.

  I ordered a half of a chicken salad sandwich and soup, and figured that I probably couldn’t even finish that. I have been eating less recently. I would like to lose a few pounds before the holidays. Maybe Brian is also part of that desire. Not that I’m going to let him see the end result of any weight loss on my part. Well, I guess he could tell if my clothes fit better and all that—but nothing more than that, and I’m sure you know what I mean.

  Ava ordered a hamburger and fries and soup and a salad. She claimed that Dr. Tom liked women “with a little meat on their bones.” I hated Ava for having to consciously eat more to add a pound or two to her already too-skinny frame. I could accomplish the same weight gain by simply thinking about a milkshake.

  Beth ordered a bowl of soup and a grilled cheese sandwich—“hold the fries, please.”

  We all sort of settled into the booth, relaxed, leaned back, drank coffee (decaf for Beth, of course) and tried to empty the coffee mugs before one of the waitresses sloshed more coffee on top of a mixture that had been sweetened and milked to perfection. It was hard to keep them away from your cup at the Good Apple.

  “So, Mary, does Beth know all about your new beau?” Ava asked, not with obvious nefarious intentions—well, maybe just a little.

  I had told her about Brian, a little about him, rather than have her hear it from her mother, who had talked to my mother, or the keen-eyed Lena at Bible study. None of that would do, so I had told her straight out that I had seen Brian a few times, that he was nice, and that I don’t think I was actually dating him, just seeing him as a friend.

  Beth took the news without visible alarm, or even arched eyebrows, but she had looked as if she had been expecting such news for some time. She reacted like you would when a parent goes into hospice—that it’s just a matter of time before the inevitable occurs—so you’re not really surprised, just taken a little bit aback by the timing of it all.

  “I do,” Beth answered, nibbling on a bialy. She may not order much food, but she also made good use of the free bread basket. “I think it is fine. It has been some time, you know—a respectable amount of distance and time. Dating a nice man is not inappropriate at all. It is nice to have a man to talk to.”

  It was interesting to watch my two friends talk about me as if I had just happened to slip away to the restroom, or had been kidnapped by Australian terrorists. Maybe I could learn something. (Please, I am not disparaging Australia. It was the first country that came to mind. It could easily have been Armenia. Now I’m stuck wondering what Australian terrorists might look like. Would they carry boomerangs? Or didgeridoos, like Scots marching into battle with bagpipes?)

  “I know for sure that Mary needs a man to do more than just talk . . . if you know what I mean,” said Ava.

  I am sure Beth knew what Ava meant and didn’t like her implication one bit.

  And I know that I have, up to this point, been just as adamant about abstention and morality as anyone else when it came to men and dating and sex. Up until Brian, I had no reference point. In the linear path of my life, at first there had been no one, and then there had been Jacob, and now there was no one again. I definitely liked the Jacob part of my life the best, but he was gone. And now I had Brian, sort of. And now temptation entered my life—again. Before, when it was Jacob and me, temptation existed, but I did not know what I was avoiding. Jacob knew a bit more than I did, but had never risked being drummed out of the church or anything. But now I know. I am aware. I knew full well what was missing from my life. I keenly felt the absence of being close to a man . . . in more ways than one. Now it became harder. Now the temptation loomed, more real, and visceral, and, well, alluring and tempting.

  I remained steadfast. I told myself I would remain steadfast. I told others that I was steadfast. But . . . maybe I wasn’t so steadfast. Or maybe the gates were weakening. Maybe the flesh was becoming more willing.

  I was fascinated to see how the discussion before my two friends would end up.

  “A woman doesn’t need that . . . like a man needs that,” Beth replied, crossing her arms lightly.

  Ava appeared to be in pain.

  “That’s just not true. There’s the same desires and needs for both. It is for me—as you well know. And our Mary is not getting any younger.”

  “So? And since she’s a little older now, that means that she should have more self-control, more power to resist things that she shouldn’t do. And she knows to avoid putting herself into situations where she might be too tempted.”

  Ava bit into her hamburger, the size of a small house pet, and chewed with great gusto.

  “And how is that accomplished? Does our poor, sex-deprived Mary join a monastery?”

  “You mean a convent,” Beth inserted.

  “Whatever. But she’s a normal woman. With normal desires. A woman needs to be with a man. For completion. For satisfaction.”

  Beth chewed at her grilled cheese like a rabbit with a carrot, nibbling at it as if it were going to be pulled from her hands by some unseen force.

  “Perhaps. But Mary knows that would be wrong. Outside of marriage, all that is wrong.”

  Ava slashed a fry through a large puddle of ketchup and inserted the entire piece into her mouth.

  “So, tell me, how far can she go without risking thunder and lightning from above?”

  Beth almost wandered into the trap, but at the last moment, backed away from providing a list of what I could and could not do with a man. At least in my unmarried state. I wish she hadn’t stopped. I would have liked to learn what my parameters were to maintain my “good girl” status.

  “That’s not the point. Mary knows full well that without a wedding ring, all such . . . shenanigans are off limits to her.”

  Yes, she used the word shenanigans. I never once considered any of “that sort of thing” as shenanigans. Maybe it depended on the way “those things” were done. That I had not considered. I know that I never once pictured Beth and her husband, Todd, as engaging in shenanigans. And I sure did not want to start today.

  Ava chewed another large bit of her hamburger, which was rare, with raw onions.

  Perhaps the red meat infusion caused it. Perhaps a nearly full stomach had mellowed her. Ava softened, at least a bit, and pulled back from the confrontation.

  “Okay. Mary knows what’s good and bad.”

  Beth’s face showed a small smile of triumph.

  “But if she knows what’s good for her, she’ll be bad. It does the heart well to exercise that way every once in a while.”

  Beth’s smile turned flat. I saw her hand reach toward the Bible in her purse, but she hesitated, and brought her hand back to her grilled cheese sandwich. I saw it in her eyes. She had no hope for Ava’s soul, but would be praying, in earnest, for mine.

  And perhaps she had good reason for her fervency.

  Ava drove me home after our lunch. She didn’t talk much, not until she pulled into my driveway.

  “Mary, I know you’re a good person.”

  “A good little girl?” I asked.

  “You know what I mean.”

  I did. I was a good person. I followed the rules. The rest of the world didn’t, for sure, but I stuck with the rules.

  “I just think you deserve some happiness . . . after everything that’s happened in your life. I just think it’s time to loosen up a little. Have some fun with Brian. He seems like he would be really kind and gentle and considerate. There aren’t many men who I could say that about.”

  I couldn’t be sure how she expected me to respond. I guess I didn’t know how I thought I should respond. So I just listened.

  “You’ve suffered a lot these last few years. You’ve lost so much. You’ve been alone. You deserve some fun. You deserve to have a good time. Relax, Mary. Have a good time with Brian. You’ll be amazed at how much better you’ll feel once you get over that hurdle.”
>
  She looked like she might be close to tears, and she reached over and gave me a hug.

  “Have a good time, Mary. Of all the people I know, you most deserve to be happy again.”

  Again, how do I respond to that? Or should I even try?

  I didn’t. I waved as she backed out of the driveway.

  I looked up to the sky. A thin wind knifed in from the west—not bitter, but still cold.

  I shuddered.

  It felt a lot like snow.

  And all of a sudden I have become a shaman and soothsayer, predicting the snows based on my feelings.

  It made me happy to think that, and I went in and gave Rufus an extra serving of dog biscuits.

  “So, Rufus, what I am supposed to do? I really liked kissing him. I never thought I would. I mean . . . I thought that having been married to Jacob would prevent me from ever feeling . . . you know . . . sexual with a man, ever again. But that’s not true now.”

  I was pretty sure that Rufus did not really understand kissing—or the reasons behind it. I tried to explain that to him a few nights ago. He understood the mechanics, but I do not think he grasped the implications that lay beneath the action.

  And sex, well, he understood that—in the basic, mechanical way—but was pretty much in the dark to all the layers and levels of meaning that accompanied the physical act between humans.

  And why did I talk to him about sex and kissing in the first place?

  It wasn’t like I was going to do anything about it. After all, I am a good girl, and despite the urgings of Ava, I intend to stay a good girl—regardless of the deep and powerful urges that have begun to sweep up and down my body, like miniature tsunamis, hormones and urges and desires, roiling along with no breakwater or dikes to stop their mad rush onto my sometimes willing, sometimes not-willing flesh.

  “What do you want to do with him?” Rufus asked. He had stopped to chew out a clump of snow from his front left paw. He did not like snow all that much. I tried to keep his paws closely trimmed, but to no avail. He still wound up with clumps of snow between his paw pads that I would sometimes need to remove by placing him in a few inches of warm water in the laundry tub, which he hated because then he thought I would be forced to give him a bath—despite the fact that I never did and reminded him every time.

  “What people do with other people, I guess. I mean what a woman does with a man. Be with him. Hold him. Kiss him every once and while.”

  “I don’t think dogs have the same sort of warm-up activities, do they?” Rufus asked.

  “They do not.”

  He watched several Cubs games with me this past summer and afterward asked why the one man threw so many balls to the other man when no one was swinging that big stick. I told him it a new pitcher had to “warm up” before he started to pitch for real.

  Rufus understood warming up.

  “Do you think God has some say in this? Dating and all that, I mean,” I asked Rufus when he finished chewing at snow on his other front paw. Some snows—wet and damp—stuck more tightly to his fur. This snow fell quickly, wet and damp. “Or do you?”

  “I’m sure he does,” he replied. “I don’t. I don’t have any dog sense about this.”

  “Nothing in your dog DNA or instinct that speaks to this?”

  Rufus stopped a moment.

  “I don’t know what DNA is. Instinct I know. They talked about it on that show with the big dogs. Remember? The white ones that swim.”

  “You mean the polar bear show we watched?”

  “Yes. The big white dogs that eat seals.”

  The narrator had spoken about the bear’s powerful instinct for survival. We walked in silence for a moment.

  “What does seal taste like? Could we get some of that?”

  “I don’t think we can. I don’t think people are allowed to eat seals.”

  “But big dogs can?”

  “I guess. Nature takes care of nature, Rufus.”

  “Oh. Okay.”

  Maybe I should go on my instinct as well. Maybe. Since there isn’t just one special person available to me. Maybe I should muddle through this situation on my own. Maybe I should listen to my body and my heart and my head.

  “Don’t bother asking God about Brian on my behalf, Rufus.”

  “Brian? Who’s that?”

  Rufus had never been good with names. He called Ava Beth sometimes and vice versa.

  “The man I am dating. The one who stopped at the house. With the deep voice.”

  “Oh, him. Was I asking God about something?”

  “No, you’re not,” I replied. “I think I’ve made my own decision.”

  “Okay. Instinct?”

  “I guess,” I replied and we walked the rest of the way home without talking.

  After our walk, Rufus stretched out at the corner of the bed. I had the TV on mute with the subtitles on. I disliked the incessant chatter that TV provided, but I did like the company.

  I would not talk to God about Brian. Really—what would be the use? To let him snatch away someone else who I cared for? I think I would try and figure this one out on my own. I’m an adult, capable of making my own decisions with my own life.

  Ava is right. I do deserve some joy and happiness . . . and excitement in my life. Some satisfaction. I lived by the rules in the past. And where did all of that get me? Pain and loss.

  What could be worse than that?

  A little guilt?

  I could handle a little guilt. I could definitely live with a little guilt if I had more moments of pleasure and joy.

  I suspect I stood at a crossroads. When the time came, I wondered what road I would find myself on.

  Time would tell.

  10

  Two weeks before Christmas was a tricky time—for both Brian and me.

  Do I buy him a Christmas gift? Will he buy me a gift? How much do we spend? Neither of us could be considered rich, with unlimited capital, but we probably both needed to do something for the other in this time of gift giving and gift receiving.

  And what do I get a man whom I don’t know all that well? Cologne? Seems like a pretty adolescent gift selection. A shirt? Too intimate. Some electronic gadget? Too expensive—and geeky. A book? I know he reads some, but what genre? I could give a gift card to a bookstore, but that presents two problems: one, he knows how much I spent, and two, I don’t like giving gift cards. They’re just like money, only a lot stupider. They have to go to the store where you bought it, and I have no idea why a piece of plastic with money on it is more personal than actual money. The gift card industry did a great job of selling a concept.

  All that to say, I had no idea what to do. I seriously considered a nice, small gift book of some sort, and a tin with homemade cookies. I wasn’t Martha Stewart, but I could make a good batch of chocolate chip cookies.

  We had had dinner—at Carols—and afterward had returned to my house. Snow began to fall as we ate and snow made me a nervous driver—almost as nervous as being a passenger in a car in the snow. So this evening, I asked Brian if he wanted to come in for coffee. The snow did not seem to bother him, and he owned a large four-wheel-drive car—as big as two of my small Toyotas put together. It seemed asking a man in for coffee could be considered a symbol or a subtle request for more than just coffee . . . but we were both older, both wiser, and both a bit more removed from snickering innuendoes that the request to “come in for coffee” carried.

  This time, Brian had no early operation or doctor’s appointment to keep him from saying yes. As I entered the house with Brian, Rufus barking for a moment or two until I scolded him to stop, I felt something new, something not exactly electric—but I felt something. A charged atmosphere, for sure.

  It was weird. I never really expected to feel that way again . . . since the accident. Rats. I said I was going to stop that. And I mean it this time. I had felt that way with Jacob—a lot. Before we got married, there were some snuggling sessions that left me jangled and frazzled for hours. An
d after we were married, the same thing happened. Only then I was jangled and frazzled for different reasons. Better reasons, but still . . .

  And the nervy, jumpy feeling was like a warning siren being sounded well before the tornado struck. I could feel the charge in the air, a faster heartbeat, a slight dilation of the eyes, a general tightness in anticipation.

  I liked the feeling. I liked being almost electrified.

  I made coffee. We talked at the kitchen table. It was early.

  He saw the fireplace in the family room. He asked if I had wood. I said I didn’t, but I had a box of fake logs in the closet that I have had for over a year because I was too lazy to light a fire on my own, or did not want to appear to be indolent, enjoying a fire all by myself.

  Brian laughed at my sweet neuroses, took two logs out, opened the flue, set the logs just so, and lit them with the long-necked lighter I kept on the fireplace mantel—just in case.

  Soon enough, the logs were burning nicely, crackling like they were real logs. I poured a second cup of coffee for each of us and brought them into the living room. I turned off the lights in the kitchen. The fire filled the room with flickering, romantic light. Brian sat at the end of the sofa. He would allow me to adjust my seating to him. Did I mention that he acted the perfect gentleman?

  I took a seat close to him—not on his lap or anything, but close enough. I could barely feel his leg against my leg. We were both wearing jeans, as if that offered some insulation from the electricity.

  Rufus positioned himself five feet away from the fire. He looked at the flames, then at me, then back at the flames. They may have made him nervous. I don’t think I’ve had any fires in the fireplace since Rufus became a member of the family last year.

  Brian moved his arm—the one closest to me—out and around and it came to rest behind me, above me, not really touching me, but it was there, nonetheless. For a long moment, I didn’t know what to do. Then I gave up thinking about it. I would enjoy myself tonight. I would experience things. I would just go with my feelings. I would just . . . let myself do what I wanted.