Dog Tales
Abigail Thomas
Photo by Langdon Clay
What Her Body Remembers
Her memories of being young are infected with regret and disappointment; it seemed her sails were always either luffing or gale driven. She is happier being old but her body, which is coming up on eighty and probably even older when you figure in the cigarettes and alcohol not to mention all the crazy fucking things she did, that part of her, her housing, as she has come to think of it, is capable of its own memories. For example, the simplicity of desiring and being desired and, in service of that kind of wild, how often she took risks and never ended up dead or even hurt. The chance she is taking now is pathetic by comparison, but it occupies her mind as she drives because she has to think about something. The fact is that she had to sneak into the car before her dogs realized, her dogs who know the minute she reaches for her cane, or puts her shoes on, or does something about her hair, that she is leaving, and would have been through the dog door and waiting by the car before she had even reached the porch.
So she had scooped her car keys off the counter leaving everything else behind, except the plant, and gotten out with her dogs none the wiser. What was the chance of being stopped by a cop who would find out she had no license with her and no ID or registration or insurance card because the dogs would have jumped in to ride shotgun if they’d seen her take her bag. But that’s where she had to put the delicate plant she was taking to a friend, and what she would say to the cop about no license and if she should just tell the truth, or maybe burst into tears, as tears were always on hand these days, what with everything and also nothing.
And at moments like this, although there are hardly ever moments like this, she thinks back to that night on East 12th street near Avenue A, when she was with that tall beautiful Swedish man. She had been helping him carry the mattress they had found in the street on which they would later be banging their brains out if they survived, that is. The crowd of boys suddenly surrounded them, these silent boys who couldn’t have been much more than fourteen years old, whose eyes were dead, and who wouldn’t smile, and she remembers the warning from some young men in their twenties maybe, young men standing in a doorway who said don’t mess with these kids, we don’t even mess with them. And she and the tall beautiful man were saved by the car on fire across the street, and sirens in the distance coming closer making the gang of boys melt away. For the first time, she wonders how many of them are still alive.
God, in those days risks were actual risks, not just leaving behind her pocketbook and ID and driver’s license. When she pulls into the driveway, safe and sound after delivering the funny plant to a friend, what should come on the radio but The Stones doing Brown Sugar and she opens the window all the way, and she turns the volume up as high as it will go, and she cries until the song is over and when she has cried long enough, she goes back up the porch steps, no easy feat without her cane, and there are the dogs as if she’s been gone for months and she gives them each a big piece of chicken but doesn’t check on anything like messages or email because her body is still remembering the kinds of things her body remembers, she needs to sit down and stay still while she waits for it to forget.
***
WHAT THE DOGS AND I HAVE IN COMMON
The dogs and I wake when the sun comes up. I stumble into the kitchen to make coffee, they tumble down the porch steps and into the yard. Tails high, noses to the ground, following trails I can’t possibly see, they veer left, right, straight ahead, circle back around, occasionally stopping short to pay close attention to something I’d rather not know about, lifting their heads to bark, or howl, and they are tracing whatever wandered through the yard last night, or maybe some lingering scent from a week ago, who knows? They are getting old, my Sadie and my Daphne, but still excited by the morning grass smelling of news.
I’ve been writing something I don’t understand yet, and what I’m following (or being led by), might have laid down its tracks fifty years ago, or yesterday. If you could map my mind, it would resemble the zig-zagging dogs prints in an inch of spring snow: how I spent my allowance in New Orleans? The waterfall in Sneden’s? The boy in New Hampshire? It might be anything, but my whole life has brought me here. That’s what’s so interesting about writing. I veer left, then right, then straight ahead, stopping occasionally to examine something more closely. The only difference is that I do not then roll in it.
There’s no telling where I’ll wind up, or even if it will amount to anything, but right now, that doesn’t matter. Something very interesting might show up at any moment, as long as I keep at it, as long as I don’t boss it around, as long as my luck holds. It’s all about discovery, it’s all about the possibilities. Possibility is a physical sensation, and there’s nothing like it. I remember the first time I felt its thrill, listening to my father describe something that was going well in his lab, and although I had no idea what he was talking about, and it hadn’t happened yet, he fairly trembled with excitement and his voice contained a tremor I think of now as the awareness of possibility. Oh, I must have thought without thinking, that’s the way I want to live. On the brink! Right around the corner! Any minute now!
It’s like being a dog. The minute they wake up, when they jump out of bed, or slide off the couch, their tails are already wagging. They are expecting the next good thing. On the brink. Right around the corner. Any minute now.
Note: Abby Thomas’ father was the famed physician/poet and author of the seminal work, The Lives Of A Cell.
Abigail Thomas
Abigail’s books include Safekeeping; A Three Dog Life; and What Comes Next and How to Like It.