Monday, June 10--
Got onto the water at 11:30 a.m. Eighty-two degrees and thick hazy
clouds. Swallowtail butterflies are around, so winter is for real, done.
EZ and I have been playing a game. It is entirely her invention, and
every installment provokes my vigorous participation. Initiated within the
past few weeks, her presentations have become more numerous now that the spring
semester of classes has let out and I am away longer hours at work.
During morning hours I often run errands downtown and she rides along
in the car, barking at the ceiling like a wolf baying at a blue plastic sky,
and while I'm inside stores, amuses herself by grinning through her muzzle-smudged
window at criss-crossing shoppers. She anticipates treats in the bank drive-thru,
"woofing" at the tellers to "hurry up with the goods."
The bank ladies always give us a cheery welcome and two or three biscuits
to share.
The house we live in these days is too small for the couch. We moved
here last spring, and the sofa she was accustomed to loafing on while I was
away would not fit, so it has been put in cold storage out behind the house
in a shed where it is providing spacious new lodging for mice.
(Her sofa lounging amounted to a "winked" contract between
us. I knew she snoozed there when I went out. She knew I knew, but pretended
I didn't, and was always down from it and wagging virtuously inside the door
when I arrived home. Ah, so well. It was upholstered in easily-scrubbed shiny
black vinyl, and besides, we all like presuming we hide secrets from those
we love.)
So now, in this new house which has no sofa, the bed is her better-yet
second choice. That's where she began spending quality time while I was gone.
I've never actually caught her on the bed she is always waggling me a welcome
when I arrive at the door, made-up with a sweet grin and kissy full-lipped
affection, holding out a tray with two tinkling Manhattans and a bowl full
of salty snacks. But rancid tufts of fur and smatterings of weedy burrs, and
a warmish circular pattern on the bedspread are evidence enough to know where
she'd recently been. Without invitation.
The first episode of EZ's game began a week or two after I began shutting
her out of our bedroom when I departed. Arriving up the driveway after work
I saw her grinning out at me through the glass door, then disappearing inward,
as usual, to muster up her tray with canapes to refresh my mood. Opening the
door I faltered and uttered "OH," as a pall of unsuitable odors
rushed over and crowded into my nose. I had not stepped across the threshold
before she, sensing disorder in my voice, clattered her tray to the floor
and rushed the door and scooted outside, down the steps and across the grass
and around the back of the house and away from my sight. Turning my eyes inside
I saw a kitchen floor garnished with unattractive morsels someone had withdrawn
from the garbage basket beside the stove and randomly dispersed across the
linoleum. A shredded fish-stick box, a mold-green track of egg noodles, a
contest-winning apple peel clawed six feet long and draped up through the
refrigerator door handle. Coffee grounds and bacon grease with gross Chinese
food mingled into conspicuous parallel trenches. Near the sink was an oriental
inception of droop-legged cranes winging north above a white-capped tsunami,
tinted darkly of egg yolk and two mildewed teabags. I assumed the arrangement
of the mess was haphazard. And, I had a good idea who had laid it out for
me to see.
So, EZ got a spontaneous game of "catch" and passionate attention
from me. I called out the door at her in an energized tone of voice, but she
didn't show herself to me. I hastened out and down the steps and across the
grass and around the corner of the house and up the hill, and paused out behind
the shed. I curled two fingers between two lips and whistled.
Nothing.
Trembling with enthusiasm to demonstrate my sentiment I "hooted"
lovingly for her to come back to me, then got out the binoculars and scanned
the tree line. But she did not reveal herself to me.
Leaning to the east I spied an elderly white retriever face far away
and low to the ground, peering out at me from behind a clump of shrubby poison
ivy. I tried a sociable whistle (which always brings her near to me) but she
ducked to the right out of sight and did not come to me.
She heard me. She noticed me, I know she did. But she wanted me to
take up her play. So I modified my ploy and limped expansively, and slow,
through a brace of low growth, sweetly calling her name, but she would not
look out at me. Halfway to where she'd last been I glimpsed a rust-colored
rear end slouching northeast through a snarl of dead ferns. During a quick
glance back, with a grin on her face, I discerned a matrix of Chinese noodles,
like orthodontic braces, lodged in her teeth.
I yelped fervently and surged into a scurry, feeling slightly foolish
for being brought so fully into this frolic my dear girl was providing for
me.
She is better equipped than I at torpedoing through underbrush and
effortlessly avoiding scratches and twiggy face slaps, which I am not, and
did not. I quickly wearied of the amusement but pretended for her sake, to
have become merely bored by it all. I walked sedately back to the house and
slammed the door and dialed up the sheriff to report a bad dog and a mess.
The line was busy.
Holding the phone I stared at our decorated kitchen floor, and, while
plotting a less appropriate response to her work, failed to see what it said
to me. I put on a pair of rubber gloves and stooped down to work.
Kneeling near EZ's linoleum mural I heard a bump at the door.
I rushed to the living room and finger-spread a gap in the blinds.
She was standing on the stoop, nose to the door, butting against it, wanting
to come inside to me.
OH! She's back! I hurried over and threw the door wide, reached out
and snared a handful of scruff, pulling her in to me so I could kiss her and
congratulate her for the artwork I was preparing to dismantle. She resisted
a bit then sank to the floor as I buried my face in her fur and told her how
adorable was her entertainment for me.
Three days later (remembering to close the bedroom door before leaving)
I came home to another colorful design laid out across the dining room floor.
EZ grinned at me.
Then she stopped grinning at me.
She discreetly tiptoed outside and went away from me. I closed the
door, sank to my knees and wept. Such creativity right here in our own house,
such wondrous elegance unleashed. Wiping tears from my cheeks, and analyzing
the floor, I startled through bleary sight. Then did a double-take at what
might have been "WANT" spelled out in a smear of linguini, with
an unmistakable exclamation point posted over near the living room rug, inscribed
by one wrinkled green bean and a black olive pit.
I thought it wild imagination to attribute the word "want"
to her spelling ability, although I do spend a fair amount of time reading
aloud to her. The sardine fins and oatmeal glue and moldy cheese, and EZ's
"want" were discarded into the trash.
I forgot to close the bedroom door six days in a row; work was taking
all my attention and spring rains lately had made the outdoors too cold to
go to the lake. Nor did I mind coming home to warm blankets. But awaking with
dog hair on my lips and, since EZ likes to roll in smelly things; dead animal
stink in my nose became tiresome. So I remembered to close the door Monday
morning.
Friday June 7, '02-
8:25 p.m.-
An empty peanut can "thudded" as I pushed open the door ...
it rolled slowly then bumped a leg of the kitchen table. EZ sat warily beside
the microwave, wincing up at me in a head-down vulture pose. I leaned the
grocery bag against the stereo; it tipped into a gob of corrupt cottage cheese.
Without a sound I walked skidding nonchalantly on a skim of peanut butter
beside the floor lamp around the living room corner and peeked into the kitchen.
"LAKE" was clearly spelled out in a spread of shrimp shells and
cookie crumbs. Trailing off toward the bathroom, cigarette butts and chicken
bones nudged against the tub: "DAMNIT."
In small print underneath, but abbreviated by the toilet, I could just
make out, in parenthetical green onion tips, "(I got machete)."