Roxie, p.3
Roxie, page 3
“What about Mommy?” I ask.
“She’ll be sleeping,” Jessie confides, obviously having given this issue some thought. “She has go to work tomorrow, Daddy. Remember?”
One day, coming home from daycare, NPR is giving details about a Mars probe that’s being quickly reconfigured. With less than perfect equipment, it is going to be launched early and sent on a near-collision course with Shelby, skimming low over its surface while snapping a few thousand pictures that will help us aim a nuke mission that may or may not launch in August. Or September. We need milk tonight, and pulling up in front of the local grocery store, I turn off the car and listen to the rest of the story before getting out and unbuckling my daughter.
A man is walking past, his German shepherd striding beside him.
I don’t often see Tony during the day, and rarely up close. Watching Jessie more than him, I say, “We don’t cross paths much anymore.”
The man holds his dog leash with both hands. I sense his eyes even as I hold my daughter’s hand. This isn’t easy, but I thought I should tell him my news. A few years ago, when Tony’s original German shepherd was failing, he would share updates while working through the usual emotions.
I explain, “Roxie’s walking earlier and earlier. And she’s starting to lose strength, I’m afraid.” That’s when I look up, staring directly at the man’s face, and I honestly don’t recognize him.
The man says, “That’s too bad,” with a voice that I don’t know. Tony’s voice is thick and hearty—an FM radio voice—while this man has a faint, almost girlish tenor. He is also quite skinny and overly dressed for what isn’t a terribly cool afternoon.
“Are you Tony?” I have to ask.
He smiles and nods, saying, “Yes.”
He says, “It’s the chemo. It does this to me.”
I feel silly and lost, and I am quite sad.
“But I’m still vertical,” he adds with a ramshackle pride.
I wish him all the luck in the world, and then I take my daughter into the store, for milk and a little tube of M&Ms.
A few mornings later, well before five, Roxie stops a few feet short of our usual turnaround point. She gives me one of her meaningful stares, and when she has my undivided attention, she glances at the big white stairs. She isn’t tired, at least no more tired than usual. But she tells me that she isn’t in the mood to climb those stairs, which is why we turn and start back home again.
It is a starry chill morning, with Venus and the remnants of the Moon.
I don’t know why I’m crying while I walk. But I am, blubbering myself sick, hoping to hell no other dog walkers come by and see me this way.
* * * *
My hope was to someday invite Roxie to a road race. A small town five-miler seemed like the perfect candidate—held in February and named, appropriately, the Animal Run. But one year proved too warm, while the next winter left me in the mood to run a serious, undistracted race. But eventually a timely Arctic front arrived, ending any thought of racing; before bed, I told my dog to sleep hard because we had a very busy morning coming.
But the cold was even worse than predicted. Digging out from under my blankets, I discovered it was ten below, with a brutal wind sure to cut through any exposed flesh. Being rather fond of my nose, I didn’t want to lose it for fifteenth place in some little survival run. That’s why I stayed home, telling myself and my dog that maybe next year would be our year.
Except soon after that, Roxie quit running long miles.
She told me her wishes by various means: She wouldn’t come when I called. She would feign sleep or a limp. Or if another runner visited the house, she would greet him joyfully and then make a show of diving into the window well, hunkering down in the delicious shade.
My wife says it’s crazy how much I talk to my dog.
Leslie hears my end of the conversation, and with a palpable tension, she’ll ask, “How do you know that’s what she wants?”
“The eyes. The body. Everything about this dog is talking. Can’t you see?”
Not at all, no.
For more than a year, Roxie would run nothing but little, lazy-day runs. Then on an autumn afternoon, while I was dressing in the basement, she suddenly came to the side door and gave me a long look. When I returned the stare, she glanced up at the leashes hanging from the hook on the wall.
“No, hon,” I said. “I’m going long today.”
She knows the difference between “long” and “little.”
Yet those blue eyes danced, and again she stared up at the salt-crusted six-foot running leash.
I told her the course I wanted to run.
She knows our routes by name.
“You’re sure?” I asked.
She stepped back into the kitchen and stretched, front paws out ahead while the body extended, teasing out the kinks.
“Okay then. Let’s go.”
Until the following spring, she ran twenty miles every week. And then the weather got warm, and she quit again. For good.
But in that final youth, one run stands out: A different Arctic front was pushing through. We began by heading toward the southeast, letting the bitter wind push us along. But then we had no choice but to turn and head for home. For some reason, I was using her twenty-foot leash—probably to let her cavort in the snowdrifts. Roxie was as far ahead as possible, nose to the wind and her leash pulled taut. We eventually reached that place where the path split two ways. To the left was home and warmth, while straight on meant adding miles in a numbing cold. When Roxie reached the intersection, she looked back at me, making a request with her eyes. I said, “No, girl.” I told her it was time to finish. But she trotted ahead anyway, stopping only when I stopped. And then she turned and stared stubbornly back at me, making absolutely certain that I understood what she wanted.
“I’m cold,” I confessed. “This isn’t fun anymore.”
“Are you sure?” she asked by lifting her paws and putting them down again.
“No, girl. We’re heading in.”
And this is why that one run is my favorite: Just then, Roxie gave me a look. A disappointed, disgruntled glare. Those pale blue eyes spoke volumes. Behind them lived a vivid soul, passionate and secure. And to my dog, in ways that still make me bleed, I was such a fucking, miserable disappointment.
* * * *
I really don’t know what to do about Shelby.
For now, we do nothing. When our daughter is elsewhere, my wife and I will have to talk about the possibilities. The practicalities. And the kinds of choices we must work to avoid. The latest guesses claim that if the asteroid strikes, the hammer blow comes either to the western Atlantic or the East Coast. The President promises that the government will do everything possible to help its citizens—a truthful statement, if ever there was, and full of ominous warnings. We probably won’t run far from home, I’m thinking. Two years from now, California and New Zealand will be jammed with refugees. But most people would never think of coming to Nebraska. If it’s a wet March, with ample snow cover and rain, the firestorm won’t reach us. At least that’s what these very preliminary computer models are saying. There won’t be any crops that year, what with the sun choked out by airborne dust and acids, but by then we’ll have collected tons of canned goods and bottled water. Leslie’s family farm seems like a suitable refuge, although I can’t take comfort imagining myself as only a son-in-law, surrounded by strong-willed souls who feud in the best of times.
Chances are, Shelby misses us.
Vegas odds say that nothing changes on this little world.
Not for now, at least.
It is a warm perfect evening in early May, and my dog needs her post-dinner walk. A baby gate blocks the basement door; if Roxie wanders downstairs, she won’t have the strength to climb back up by herself. She waits patiently for me to move the gate and clip her six-foot leash to her purple collar with the tags. The metal pinch-collar sits on a hook, unnecessary now. The prednisone makes her hungry and patient, sweet and sleepy. I had a rather tearful discussion with the vet about dosages and the prognosis. For today, she gets half a pill in the morning, then half a pill at night. But if she acts uncomfortable, I’ll bump it up. Whatever is needed, and don’t worry about any long-term health effects.
She has become an absolutely wonderful dog. Her mind remains sharp and clear. One morning, she acts a little confused about where we are going, but that’s the lone exception to an exceptionally lucid life. When I give commands, she obeys. But there is very little need to tell her what to do. Every walk has something worth smelling. The weather has been perfect, and neither of us is in a hurry anymore. Halfway to the park, we come upon an elderly couple climbing out of an enormous sedan. They’re in their eighties, maybe their nineties, and the frail little woman says to my dog, “You are so beautiful, honey.”
I thank her for both of us and go on.
The park lies to our right, beginning with a triangle of public ground where people bring their dogs throughout the day. Roxie does her business in one of the traditional places. I congratulate her on a fine-looking poop. Then we continue walking, heading due north, and at some point it occurs to me that it would be fun to change things up. We could walk down into the pine trees standing beside the golf course. But since I’m not sure that she’s strong enough, I say nothing. Not a hint about what I want to do. Yet when we reach our usual turnaround point, Roxie keeps on walking, not looking back at me as we pass the old maintenance building and start down a brief steep slope.
Coincidence, or did she read my mind?
Whatever the reason, we move slowly into the pines, down where the long shadows make the grass cool and inviting. I am crying again. I’m thinking about everything, but mostly I am telling myself what a blessing this is, being conjured out of nothingness, and even when the nothingness reclaims us, there remains that unvanquished honor of having once, in some great way or another, been alive....
Copyright (c) 2007 Robert Reed
Created with Writer2ePub
by Luca Calcinai
Robert Reed, Roxie
