Fido’s Fado

Despair is ugly. An ugly word in my mouth, I hesitate to use it. I hesitate over so many things nowadays. Mid-life. The gray spreading on my jaw. My limbs aching unaccustomed to the work - I had just finished burying a handsome bone before the autumnal chill turned the ground to stone, and was steeped in the satisfaction of my accomplishment when suddenly I found my mood inexplicably reversed like a glove pulled inside out. Doubt. Existential doubt pierced my being. What was dog after all? I teetered on the edge of despair until thrown into a frenzy of barking at a man in my yard. He turned on me shouting rebukes in the same harsh  tones and gesturing wildly. We were intractable. You can hardly imagine my embarrassment when I realized it was my man Trench. 

Yes, I call him Trench. I toyed with the name Fierce when we first met – before I realized I was projecting something that really wasn’t there. He’s not a physical specimen at all, tending toward withdrawal, sunk within – which is why I call  him Trench. He calls me Boodles, another source of embarrassment, I almost prefer his frivolous moods when he calls me Woofers. Atta boy, Woofers. Taciturn by nature he barely talks to his family preferring to ruffle and rub my coat as they bubble on about him. I fill some deep need for touch and warmth that he is unwilling, or unable, to share with them.  I can feel it in his hand, I can smell it on him. I earn my keep.

About the house I wander room to room trying to recall my purpose. What am I searching for? The lost scent, the architecture of meaning. Smells once a palette so broad and subtle I could articulate the meanest desire. But now. Now reach and grasp and … ah! My tennis ball. These days it seems every call to action is forestalled by a frantic search for my ball, my talisman - I’m quite lost without it – and then the hunt itself becomes a quest overshadowing whatever triggered it. Some trivial distraction is turned to  a major obsession. The road leads nowhere, it’s the same coming back.

I’ve tried to understand, in long hours staring at the wall, what hold the ball has over me. I was happy in my dogness. A respected member of the pack without responsibility for food or shelter, I was oblivious to the passing years.  To say nothing of that ridiculous dog years math. Seven years to one? No wonder we leave it alone. Was I in denial? I think not, simply unaware until Saint Swithins day in the park when that coquettish Pomeranian bitch showed up at the run. I sauntered by, nothing threatening, no territorial baring of teeth, just idle tongue lolling, how’s it going, come by to rub my back against her windows, sniff her resume. But the look on her face when I approached. She couldn’t have made it any plainer. You old dog. You old old dog.

I  shrank away, jostled out by a pair of youthful Labs and found myself on the periphery by the chain link fence talking to Rufus the Rottweiler about his hip operation. Now I find myself in comparative mode, unsure, constantly checking Snoopy, on his house, or toying with his dish. What age is he now? And Lassie, still chasing the bad men with a vigor I’ll never see again. I have to remind myself that they are media creations, airbrushed celebrities, portrayed through friendly filters with all the clever tricks and ploys of fiction. Should I compare my life? Such creaking joints. I notice Clifford the big red dog never has to double up to lick his big red balls. 

And sleep is not easy. Gone the carefree days of giving chase to a squirrel then throwing myself down anyplace to snooze. Eighteen hours a day was not unusual, sprawled expansive, supine in the dust like pornographic milf. Hour upon hour of distant bliss. Light, interrupted sleep I grant you – a distant bark, a passing car, the nudge of a food bowl – such things needed my attention.  But now this middle of the night storm of anguish – racing out to the yard and howling at irrational fears hidden in the pitch. And the peeing, the endless endless peeing. My leash!

Yet having slipped, though not seamlessly, into the contemplative life I reflect on the compulsive, instinctual, nature of much that I have done. Chasing cats, cars, mailmen in retrospect proved to have been a ridiculous waste of time. A cliché devoid of compensation, I rarely caught anything and when I did I didn’t know what to do with it. Watching them eat is another fallacy whose only rewards are insults. Sitting here staring at the broken rake revisiting that Pomeranian slur ‘Old Dog’ I wonder was I always truly myself. Could I have misread my own inclinations through the insistence of the culture. Did I restrain myself out of fear? Was I really a mad dog, or gay dog? A sly dog, a lap dog or a salty dog? A shaggy dog or underdog? Should I, sleeping, be let lie? What then, dead dog? Oh, how the mind gambols, so sleek the coat and deft the paw.

Now here’s Trench come out on to the porch looking very pleased with himself. An unexamined life marching flat footed through this veil of tears. He’s not so young as he thinks, there’s gray here and there and an obvious twinge as he bends to pick up my ball. I sense a desire to entertain.

Dare he throw it? Dare I chase it?