Author: dowdicus

The Convoy

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Darren swirled his fingers in his belly hair. “Well,” he sighed, “shit.” He could feel the convoy slowing down and pulling over as he gritted his teeth against the irritating sound of the maintenance buzzer. Money down the drain, he thought to himself as he swung his legs out over the edge of his bunk and pulled off his virtual reality helmet. Darren glanced at the topless blonde on his calendar as he edged his feet into a pair of worn out, but comfortable brown slippers and pulled on his robe. He unzipped the privacy curtain and the bright red glow of the maintenance buzzer flooded into his sleeper cab.

As the truck slowed to a crawl, Darren plopped himself into the operator’s seat, looked over the instrument panel, and grabbed the computer to check the error code. The brakes squealed as the truck stopped and Darren could hear the sound of pressurized air escaping as he engaged the parking brake. He opened the door, and hopped down onto the road.

The moon was nearly full, and they sky was clear so it was easy for Darren to see, even without his flashlight. The lead truck had an air leak, and he needed to track it down. It wasn’t hard to find; air was rushing out of the red air brake hose at the back of the cab. He knew he didn’t have a spare. “Shit,” he sighed again. His convoy was in the middle of nowhere, it would take forever to get another hose. Darren placed the order with his company issued smart phone; it would arrive by drone in an hour. Good a time as any for an inspection, he thought to himself.

Darren operated a convoy of five smart trucks. His sleeper cab and most of his belongings stayed in the lead truck, as the four other trucks were not built for people to ride around in them. The trucks were all computerized and automated; Darren’s main responsibility was ensuring that the convoy kept moving across the country despite problems like leaky air hoses. He was paid sixteen cents for every mile that he traveled, and in order to make enough money to survive he needed to travel almost constantly. He showered about as often as he stopped for fuel; maybe three or four times per week. It had been two months and thirteen days since Darren had interacted with another human being. He liked to mark human interactions on the calendar he kept in the lead truck. Each month of the calendar featured a nude pinup girl. All of them were computer generated–endless facsimiles of the human form, each more perfectly proportioned than the last, could be churned out by computers in seconds targeting any demographic.

The convoy, though covered in grime and splattered insects, was in decent shape. Some of the tires might need a retread before too long, and truck #3 had a couple of running lights out, but those were things he could take care of the next time he fueled up. It felt good to walk around outside for a bit and stretch his legs, even though it was costing him money. He leaned up against the tail truck and watched other convoys rumble by at 45 miles per hour–all the major companies installed governors on their trucks for optimal mileage. He wondered what the people in the lead trucks were like. Probably like himself, anyway. Most truckers had similar backgrounds. Desperate to make money but without any pliable skills. Lonely. Desperate. 

Darren operated a convoy because school hadn’t panned out and he didn’t like the idea of living in one of the corpo buildings. A lot of truckers had the same story. They couldn’t make rent so they signed up with a freight subsidiary to safeguard an automated convoy line of three, four, even five trucks for one of the corpo states. They were paid just enough that, if they never stopped moving, they could save up enough money to buy something nice for themselves every so often. Of course, never stopping was unrealistic. There were breakdowns, loading and delivery delays, and sometimes you just wanted to stop moving for a God-damned minute. 

It had been almost an hour. Darren ambled back up to the lead truck, but didn’t climb in. Any time he could spend outside of the cab was like a vacation. All at once, he heard the low whir of a drone and the clumsy noises it made as it docked with the delivery port at the top of the truck. He climbed inside to grab the hose and set to work replacing the damaged one as the delivery drone flew away. 

He was moving again. If he didn’t zip up the privacy curtain the sleeper cab felt like it had twice as much space, but the glow of the truck’s instrument panel was irritating. With the curtain closed, the sleeper cab seemed unreal. Of course it bobbed and bounced as more and more miles of road stretched off into the distance. The gray plastic molded shelf and cot discomforted Darren–like they weren’t real. Toy shelves and a toy bed. At least the dashboard’s instrument panel looked real.

A lot of operators went crazy. During training he had heard stories of truckers doing strange things. Hoarding things was common. Every company had stories of cabs that caught fire because they were full of newspapers and magazines. One of his driving instructors told Darren a story about an operator who killed himself. His truck was full of bottles of piss—gallons and gallons of it. The company had to decommission the truck because they couldn’t get the smell of piss out of it. Not that Darren believed that part—they’d probably make some poor sap deal with it before getting rid of the truck. 

Suddenly, Darren zipped the curtain up. He bumped and jostled along with the truck as his convoy cruised down the road. He looked down at his virtual reality helmet, but the idea of surfing the internet or playing a game gave him a loathsome, empty feeling that he wanted to avoid. He stared at the image on the calendar for a long time before grabbing a thick black marker and reaching up to add another ‘X’ to the series. Two months, fourteen days. He turned out the lights and strapped in.

Darren awoke to the feeling of the convoy turning a corner, and undid the safety straps that kept him from being jostled out of the sleeper bunk. He wasn’t sure how long he had been asleep, but he could tell it was still dark out. The convoy was pulling up to its destination. Darren pulled on some clothes and unzipped the privacy curtain, climbing up into the operator’s seat. He liked to be alert and awake when his convoy was being scanned into the yard. Once, when he first started, he met a security guard. 

He was an old black man, fat, with short white hair cropped around his bald head. Darren could still remember the face, but the name had slipped his mind. The man had been worried about his job–after shipping and delivery were automated security guards came to be seen as unnecessary. They had talked about the weather–it had been raining a lot–though Darren went through most of his days completely oblivious to the weather. When he had nothing better to do, Darren liked to replay the conversation in his mind.

This yard, like all the others, was automated, and there would be no security guard, though this was to be expected. Darren hoped to spot another operator. Generally, the rule was that an operator wasn’t allowed out of the truck on customers’ property, but exceptions were made for inspecting trucks and trailers. Since the advertising bots and company spybots crowded people off of radios, there was a simple protocol to follow to meet other operators. As the convoy is being scanned in Darren would climb into the operator seat and start looking for other operators situated similarly. If he spotted someone he would engage the big yellow safety release knob and get out to inspect the truck. Operators had no control over where the trucks would park themselves, so whether Darren would meet someone always came down to luck.

There were only a few other trucks in the yard, but their operators weren’t visible.  Darren lounged sideways in the operator’s seat, resting against the door as his convoy pulled up over the switching pad.  The trailer’s air brakes hissed as Darren’s lead truck disengaged and pulled forward out of the way.  A dirty white yard jockey swung out from behind a row of trailers and hitched itself to the trailer Darren had safeguarded through the empty rural divide.  The trailer’s landing gear retracted, and the jockey slowly pulled it out into the yard, disappearing behind a light blue trailer.  The first tail pulled over the pad and detached, and another jockey pulled the trailer away.  The process repeated until all the trailers had been hauled away and parked somewhere.  

As soon as the final tail of the convoy was detached, each unit independently drove through the yard, hooking up to its next assigned trailer, and then came back together near the exit.  After waiting for a couple of jockeys hauling trailers up the road, his convoy pulled left out of the yard, heading west. Operators were never given information about their loads or destinations, but Darren could tell the direction by looking at the sky. Before he could pick up any speed, he noticed someone hiding in some bushes off the road.

She was short, wide-framed, and ragged. She looked like she had been wandering through the wilderness for a long time. Her blonde hair was matted and tangled, she had a large scar on her right forearm, and the ring finger on her left hand was missing above the first knuckle. She wore common corpo worker clothes–cheap blue jeans and a plain t-shirt–but instead of shoes her feet were bound with cloth. Despite all of this, she looked determined. Confident, even.

Without thinking, Darren popped the yellow safety release for another inspection. The trucks pulled over in a line just a few feet from the bushes. He hopped down and looked right at her as she watched him walk around the cab. Approaching the rear of the passenger side, he pressed his thumb into a biometric scanner and the side compartment popped open. He glanced at the woman again, and pulled a large stone from the compartment, tossing it beside the road. As he continued discarding stones, she stepped out of hiding, and, eyeing him carefully, declared, “I’m not gonna fuck you.”

Startled a bit, Darren stammered out a response, “Oh, uhm, I’m sorry. You need a ride right?”

“I’m headed west.”

“I haven’t figured out which way I’m headed yet, but you’re welcome to ride along. We can take turns in the sleeper.”

He wanted to say something about how he was dying for someone to talk to, but she could probably tell.

After a moment, he looked down at the small pile of rocks he had tossed from the compartment—probably about the same weight as her. He shut the door.

“I haven’t had a shower in a couple of days, but you can take my next one when we refuel.”

She looked like she hadn’t had a shower in a couple of months.

“Thanks,” she said, and they got into the lead cab together.

A beat of silence passed before she asked, “You got food?”

“I’ve got some protein rations.”

Alienation

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The urgent screeching of the alarm clock brought Alex back to consciousness at 6:00 AM.  She was in her bed, on the lumpy mattress that needed replacing. She reached over to the old nightstand and turned off the alarm.  Resolving to lay in the comfort of her bed, Alex took in her studio apartment. The gray painted walls bowed in places; and a large print of Warner Sallman’s “Head of Christ” concealed a thick crack in the plaster opposite the bed.  There was a cheap coffee table and an old couch, a bookshelf full of books she hadn’t read, a small refrigerator, an oven, a tv that didn’t work. A line of shoes on the floor. A closet stuffed full of clothes and storage boxes. Her mother’s cedar chest.  After lying awake for what seemed like too much time, she gathered the will to get up.

A dull but serious pain ached through her muscles and bones as soon as she put her weight on her feet, crawling up through her legs to her spine and torso.  She gritted her teeth and walked to the cabinet over the stove. After starting her coffee pot, Alex kicked off her pajamas and proceeded to the shower.

She noticed a new cut on her right forearm, and several tender purple bruises on her hips and legs.  Every morning brought new damage to her body. Bruises, cuts, scrapes, once or twice a missing tooth or fingernail.  She was lucky, though, she was still fit for duty, which meant she could pay her rent. Some people lost limbs or went mad and were turned out of the corporate municipality to die in the wilderness.  What were a few bruises compared to exile and death? Whatever work she did, it kept a roof over her head and food in her belly. Not remembering was probably a blessing.

The shower timer ran out and the water pressure died down.  Alex stepped out to dry off and gazed at herself in the mirror.  She had a black eye, and a busted lip. Maybe she had been in a fight?  Surely she would know if she had been in a fight–she would have been written up and given a slip.  She dressed herself–cheap bra and underwear, plain shirt, plain pants. Back in the kitchen Alex poured herself a cup of coffee and drank it black.  She toasted some bread and ate it. The clock read 6:40 AM. Elevator privilege for her floor ended at 7. She emptied the coffee pot, pulled on her socks and shoes, and exited her apartment, turning down the hallway toward the elevator.

Janice and Bill, from two apartments down, were also waiting at the elevator.  Janice was missing an eye and some teeth. Her nose was crooked from having been broken.  Bill, who looked big and strong, was missing several fingers and walked with a limp. It must have been very hard work they did.  The three were friends, though, and so they tried not to talk about work–what little they knew of it. They would meet on the elevator and ride to the sorting station together on the subway most days.  The corporation had declared the first and last days of every month to be a social holiday with no work for most workers, and Janice and Bill and Alex enjoyed cooking meals for each other when their holidays coincided.  Janice and Bill pretended not to notice Alex’s black eye, and Alex pretended not to notice the fresh scar on Bill’s face. They chatted about food and plans and getting older, anything but the elevator slowly rising up through the floors.

The elevator doors rolled open with a low ding and a rumble, and the trio stepped on board, fighting for space.  Alex hated fighting for space. She hated being trapped in the full-to-capacity elevator. She hated riding down to the sub-basement, and she hated having to fight for space on the subway cars that took them to the sorting station, where they would be induced and sent to work.  She focused on counting the seconds. If she controlled her pace, and didn’t let the anxiety of being trapped in a box with the entire floor get to her, the doors would open at around 750. The subway ride was a little bit faster, closer to ten minutes. Everyone was slightly maimed or disfigured, except for sometimes the young.  It must be very dangerous work. Janice, knowing how claustrophobic Alex was, held her hand throughout the journey.

After an eternity of being packed into tiny spaces with too many people, the subway arrives, and the doors open, and the crowd spills out.  The sorting station is clean–immaculate, really. Everything looks brand new, from the fences to the benches and the propaganda posters that line the walls.  Alex’s favorite was the “Keep your body healthy, keep the corpo healthy” posters with dietary and exercise information and first aid information. It was so colorful.  There were several different sorting lines, though it was never clear where any of them led. Some of the lines would be closed off after a certain number of people queued up, and so people would jockey for these more limited lines. Alex didn’t believe it mattered which line you got into, but Bill did.  He liked to stand back and watch how quickly the lines moved, what kinds of patterns there were in the headcounts, and how he felt–what kinds of injuries he had–after having stood in a given line the day before.  

Today, Bill picked one of the limited lines, and managed to get Janice and Alex in before they closed the line at 500 headcount.  They moved up more slowly than the unlimited lines, which Bill felt would land them gentler jobs. The painted white brick of the sorting station loomed large before them, with its multiple entrances and large portraits of the corporate board.  As they shuffled up the line, one by one going through the inducement machine, Alex prepared herself mentally for what was coming. She had no idea what kind of work she would be assigned to do or what kinds of injuries might result from it, she only knew she would have no memory of it.

They had passed inside the building.  Fans blew the air around so it was cool and breezy.  An oak desk sat in the entryway, unmanned, as the line formed up on one of the many inducement machines.  The inducement machine was more like a large room, or series of rooms, than a machine. Several people could go through at once, each in their own small inducement room, where a thin blue light will be shone into their eyes.  The moment this light is registered in their brains, the workers go blank. They will follow any command, and they will have no memory of anything that happens to them while under inducement, which lasts until they enter into a state of deep sleep.  Alex’s turn came up. She took a deep breath, and entered the room. After a few seconds, the light shone into her eyes, and she was out.

The urgent screeching of the alarm clock brought Alex back to consciousness at 6:00 AM.  She was in her bed, under the washed out and frayed comforter that needed replacing. She turned off the alarm and lay in the comfort of her bed for a few moments, taking in her studio apartment.  Warner Sallman’s “Head of Christ” with his beautiful hair and face concealed a thick crack in the bowing plaster opposite the bed. A dirty coffee cup sat on the table in front of the old couch. A rug on the floor in front of the stuffed-full closet.  Her mother’s cedar chest. The cross from over the doorway had fallen on the floor. Her coat draped over a chair. After lying awake for what seemed like too much time, she gathered the will to get up.

Rust

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Somewhere in the blue mountains of Kentucky is a holler.  It’s not a particularly large holler, and, in fact, exists as part of a vast valley between two immense hills.  Somewhere in the valley smaller hills rise up—earthy blue-green rhytids—and between the hills exists the holler, called Rabbit Holler.  It is populated with poplar trees and black walnuts, shaggy hickory trees and smooth-barked maples.  The occasional black locust, branching and gnarled, bursts forth from the ground.

At the bottom of one of the nondescript squat hills that borders the eastern edge of Rabbit Holler is a hole in the ground big enough for a man to fit into.  Dropping down inside the hole, such a man will find himself in a small damp patch of cold darkness big enough to stretch himself out comfortably on the smooth rock floor.  In the spring, mayapples cover the hill like a raised carpet of green umbrellas, concealing the cave along with the dull orange-brown-gray of the leaves that make up the forest floor.  The green smell of young plants and the clear trickle of spring water fill the air. 

I discovered the cave when I was nine years old.  I had just learned to set snares, and I was out looking to see if I had caught anything.  Secure a string or wire with a slipknot at one end to a stake and stake it into the ground so that the snare opens about seven or eight inches up.  I hadn’t caught anything that day, but after I got done checking my snares I walked around pushing over dead trees, and nearly fell into the cave.  I remember thinking it was a solemn place, and that I was the only one who knew about it. 

It was a little bit easier to climb down into when I was younger, and it was an unremarkable cave—damp, cold, dark, quiet–except for one thing.  A spring of water slowly flowed from the far wall, filling the air with a low trickling sound.  The water from this spring was cold and pure like the first drops of water that trickled into Creation.  It flowed so smoothly and clearly that you could hardly see it, especially in the dim light of the cave.  I drank my fill.

Before long I got the idea to tote an old brown jug to the cave and carry it back to the house.  As I got older, I would carry more.  I offered some of the water to Mom and Dad, but they already knew about the cave.  They said I should keep it—that our well water was good enough for them.  My brothers and sisters wanted to drink it, but they were too lazy to carry water on their own.  My first few trips to the cave I wanted to share, but after having carried so many gallons, I got stingy. 

At twelve, I went to work cutting tobacco in the summer.  I was strong from carrying so many jugs of water, and I was eager to make some money to help the family buy a truck.  You carried a knife and a spear tip with you, cutting plants and staking them.  The knife was just a long stick with a sharp square piece of metal at the end. The spear tip was shaped like a bell, to help spread the big sticky leaves.  You’d walk down the row chopping at the stalks of the plants with your knife.  Jam a stick into the ground, fix your spear tip to the top, and then impale the plant.  It was dangerous because you were trying to go as fast as you could—we weren’t paid hourly.  I saw a man put a spear through his hand once.   A good cutter could cut and load a hundred sticks a day.  At twelve, I cut about 70.  Ten cents a stick.

I’d bring a big hunk of cornbread and a mason jar full of water from the cave spring for lunch.  Even after it had warmed up, the water from the spring was refreshing and pure and energizing—at least as much as the cornbread.  After drinking a jar of that water I’d stand up straighter and cut faster for a couple of hours.  It was hard work, but as a result I grew wiry and strong.  I could lick kids five years older than me and twice my size. 

Eventually I grew big enough to strike out on my own, so I went into town, got my chauffeur’s license, and started driving long haul for Peabody.  I didn’t have much in the way of possessions, and I was taking up too much space at home, so it was a good fit for me.  I lived in my truck but would visit home every couple of months to give the folks some money and fill up a couple of jugs of that sparkling clear spring water that tasted so much like home.  On occasions I invited others into my truck they would notice the jugs and assume moonshine.  Though they were often disappointed when I told them what the jugs held, it seemed like most of them agreed with me they had never known water could taste so good.

I shared my spring water with people from all over the country—I even brought it over into Mexico and Canada once or twice.  Everywhere I went, if I was known, I was known for never shutting up about my water.  Either you had to try it, or I didn’t have any for you to try but you’d damned sure love it if I did.  Over time, I traveled through almost every state.

I also managed to save up a lot of money, since I didn’t pay rent or utilities.  When I decided to settle down, I started looking for land.  I got a great deal on a hundred acres in southeastern Indiana.  There were hills covered in grass and foxtail and black-eyed Susans.  The woods were full of straight poplar, hickory, oak, and walnut.  There were mushrooms and ginseng.  The hay fields were overgrown with blackberries and raspberries. 

First, I cleared a spot at the top of the highest hill and hauled an aluminum house trailer up there so I’d have someplace to stay.  I bought a tractor and some other tools and implements.  I built a sawmill and a large work shed full of table saws, sanders, planers and everything else I felt I needed.  I dammed up three different ponds and stocked them with fish.  After clearing the fields so I could grow hay, I fenced off pastures and populated them with cows.  I even built a pigpen.

It took a few of years, but my fields and gardens were producing crops and my pigs and cows were producing meat when I got a letter from two of my younger brothers, Cecil and Everett, asking if they could visit me.  They had recently come of age and were looking to get out into the world a bit.  Of course, I asked them to bring some water from the cave spring when they came up. 

I picked them up from the Greyhound station in Brookville in the spring of ’68.  Cecil, as always, was short and round, serious and talkative.  He read a lot, and always wanted to talk about what he was reading about.  Most of the time, though, his audience wasn’t familiar with the subject matter, and he spent so much time explaining he might as well have been talking to himself.  Everett was the youngest of us all—there were eleven of us—with dark eyes and dark hair.  He was also quiet, and only really spoke up to tell a joke.  They handed me a case of quart jugs full of water from the cave.  I hadn’t had water—not real water—in four years.  I greedily sucked down a quart of it before getting into my truck at the bus station.  A policeman stopped me, but I gave him a drink and he agreed that it was the best water he’d ever tasted. 

My brothers slept on cots in my living room and helped me with my cows and fields.  They helped me build a new house to replace the old trailer.  We spent all our time together, mostly working, sometimes talking, always thinking about the next improvement that needed to be made to the property.  Some nights we would go out drinking and looking for women.  The bar in town—the Longbranch—was known as a rough spot.  There were often fights, sometimes stabbings—though we were never involved in the latter.  Though I never married, Everett and Cecil both eventually settled down with women.  I sold them each an acre of land for a dollar and let them cut down trees to build their houses.

I would go back and visit my parents every couple of years, bringing back as much spring water as I could.  Eventually they died—cancer got one, then the other.  Everett doesn’t talk to Cecil or me anymore.  After Dad died, and mom came down with lung cancer, he went nuts over alternative cures.  He got her doing some kind of fungus cleanse that was supposed to kill the cancer.  Cecil and I talked her into going back to the doctor, but it was too late.  The cancer had metastasized all over her body through her lymph system.  Everett and a couple of our sisters blamed us for her death, since we talked her out the fungus treatment.

Cancer.  Such an evil, vile, merciless disease.  An indiscriminate demon.  It affects so many.  After all this time you’d think they would have found something more.  Something better than poisoning the victim to the brink of death only to tease them back to live out the last of their lives in pain and sickness.  Money runs the medical industry.  There’s no money in the cure; only the treatments.  It tears apart lives.  It tears apart families. 

The last time I visited Rabbit Holler was ten years ago, when we buried Mom and went through the house—nothing more than an old shack, really—for heirlooms and valuables.  Margot, Esther and Everett refused to talk to the rest of us.  We let them go through the house first.  I brought some water back, of course, and savored it, not sure when I would be back for more.

Six months ago, I was diagnosed with skin cancer—from being outside in the fields and gardens every day, I suppose.  We stopped the chemo a couple of weeks ago.  For a while, it seemed like it was working, but the cancer started growing again.  I’ve been living in a rest home for the past couple of weeks.  Today, Cecil is coming to visit, and he is bringing with him some water from the cave spring in Rabbit Holler.  It’s all I want before I die. 

He arrives, carrying with him an old brown jug like I used to have when I was a boy.  I can’t help but stare at it as we exchange pleasantries.  He tells me I look good, lets me know how our sisters are doing.  He says Everett is upset at him because of some decorations he and his wife put up.  He gives me the jug.  I lick my lips, and, trembling, try to pull the cork out, but I don’t have the strength.  He opens it for me and hands it back to me.  I bring it to my lips and let the pure cool water flow into my mouth, covering my tongue and filling my cheeks. I swallow, and my face falls.  “What’s wrong?” Cecil asks me.

It tastes like rust.

Apostasy

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I went to Travis’ reading a few weeks ago.  It was held on a Saturday in the Depot District at Two Sisters Bookstore.  It took me a few minutes to find–I had never been there before. This despite having lived in Richmond for a decade or so, and despite having lived only seven or eight blocks from the depot district for the first half of that decade.  When I went out walking I generally liked to walk along the railroad tracks heading east, under the J Street bridge, past the old mattress and the heaps of garbage and what looked like abandoned jungle camps. I imagine it’s all still there, five or so years since the last time I saw it.  

During undergrad I’d walk along the tracks to a wooded area where a large patch of polk grew not far from what looked like an old factory made of red brick.  When I first found the place, I had hoped mushrooms grew there, but they didn’t. In the late spring and early summer, before the plants had grown tough and woody, I’d gather the polk with a pocket knife and a grocery bag and bring it home to eat.  Strip off the poisonous red skin and cut the stalks into rings to batter and fry. I’ve never eaten the leaves before-they’re poisonous, too, and you have to boil them twice–though I’m aware people do. Tastes like fried green tomatoes.

I walked through town often enough when I lived in that part of Richmond, though I rarely walked through the depot district.  I liked the straight up and down lines of the number and letter streets. I never really met anyone that I hung out with for very long–I’d hang out with roommates, when I had them,  but I wasn’t very social otherwise. I’ve never been very good at being part of a community. When I was an ed. major one of my instructors asked me, after I had explained I was half an hour late because I had locked my keys in the house and had had to walk from E Street, why I hadn’t simply called someone for a ride.  I told her I didn’t know anybody I could ask for a ride. She didn’t believe me.

The Saturday of Travis’ reading I was tempted to message him and say I couldn’t make it.  Technically, Dad was coming up to help me caulk my leaky shower, but I had informed him of the reading and we planned to be finished in time.  I was anxious about being around other people. Isolation is something that people with bipolar disorder do to themselves. We avoid parties.  We shut ourselves up in our houses. We play video games by ourselves all day. I want to go, though, so even though I think I’ll probably have to talk to other people I get in my car and drive toward Richmond.

It was sprinkling in the Depot District when I got there.  I had to drive around for a bit to find the bookstore and more to find a place to park.  I’m familiar with the parts of Richmond where the streets are laid out like a grid–numbered streets running north and south, lettered streets running east and west.  The Depot District and Old Richmond are confusing. The roads are laid out like a can of worms, as Uncle Elbert had once described Cincinnati. I parked in an alley just away from the shelter of the bridge, about a block away from the store.  

When I stepped through the doors I had to stop for a moment.  I had never been in a bookstore before. Not like this. I had been to Barnes & Noble, Borders, Hastings, different college bookstores, but this was different.  It felt like a church is supposed to feel. The woman at the counter must have noticed my hesitation–she asked me if I was there for the reading and I said yes.  Just walk straight back to the room at the end. Bookshelves that stood about a foot or so shorter than me criss crossed each other on either side of the path I walked.  They were stained dark, or were naturally dark, and looked old. Handmade, maybe. It was quiet, sacred, like a library, and there were a few people browsing the shelves.  A family of four. A couple. A young woman. I wondered if they were there for the reading.

In the back room I noticed three things immediately:  One, I was under dressed. Two, Mary Fell was there. And three, all the seats were taken.  I didn’t say hi to Mary or indicate that I knew who she was. I only had one class with her a long long time ago, and I wouldn’t expect her remember me.  I thought she was cool, though, and I liked her. She sat between Travis and his wife, Karen, with the same gray hair running down to her shoulders in ringlets like she had years ago.  She wore slacks and a flowy blouse. Everyone was dressed nice–business casual it looked like.

Travis must have introduced me as a professor at Ivy Tech, because someone commented that I looked like a professor.  My hair, as always, was unkempt–short curls sticking out at all angles.  My beard had started to go wild–I was in need of a trim. I wore a pair of dark blue sweatpants long ago spattered with white and green and red paint.  My olive green sweatshirt was, likewise, spattered with a bit of paint. On my feet, foam flip-flops. Travis went around the room introducing everyone, his friends, to me–I don’t remember their names.  There were six or seven of them including the readers: One of Travis’ former instructors from Earlham, reading from a book of poems that she had had published, the other a woman reading from her novel that was about to be published.  The author with the novel had a man with her who I assumed was her husband–or maybe he was introduced as her husband, I can’t remember. There was another couple–the man, with his salt and pepper goatee reminded me of Ian McShane. There was Karen.  There was Mary Fell.

The room was small, and the seats were taken. I stood chatting a bit, terribly conscious that I was standing in the doorway.  The only other place to stand was behind the podium. Travis’ former instructor must have noticed my discomfort–or maybe she just wanted to get me out of the doorway–and offered her chair to me.  Thank God. I sunk into the green vinyl chair, hoping to sink out of sight, and she went out to find additional seating, bringing back a couple of folding chairs.

I took in the room. I want to say the walls were painted green, though maybe they had some kind of patterned wallpaper.  There was Sherlock Holmes paraphernalia everywhere–books, a street sign that said “Baker’s St.,” statuettes and busts on the mantle above the fireplace. In front of the fireplace was one of those black music stands to serve as the podium. Sofas and chairs surrounded the coffee table in the center of the room.  Eventually, someone else came to the room–she was wearing crocs, a t-shirt, and walking with a cane. The reading began shortly after she was seated.

I can’t remember a word of it, but it stirred something in me.  I’m unsure what I thought about as I listened, either except:  Why am I not doing this? Why am I not trying to publish? Why am I not writing?  Why am I not reading? I don’t even journal anymore. I don’t have answers, either.  My favorite instructor told me once, while we were discussing my writing and the difficulty I had understanding why I had escaped and my friends had languished, “Riley, you’re living the life of the mind,” but whatever else she said didn’t stay with me.  Without realizing it, I had always imagined myself a part of that life. Some of the poems, as I thought about myself and I thought about them–what might have inspired them, how they were written, how much work went into them, how much the writer reveals–made me tear up.  

Travis is the last speaker.  We clap as he finishes and sits down in his chair between Mary Fell and me.  “Pretty good,” I say to myself. I stretch and stand. “Welp, Travis, that was pretty good.”  He thanks me for the compliment, and I head out through the doorway, past the shelves, and out into the depot district.  I’m conscious that my immediate exit might seem odd, but I want to be alone. It’s stopped raining, though the sky is still overcast.  I walk down the sidewalk, glancing at the pushed together shops–coffee, ice cream, art, consignment, glass. Down the alley, on either side of me are run down homes–apartments attached to the shops.  Crossing under the bridge, I stop and look for the Blues Brothers car but I don’t see it. I find my white Impala and climb in.

On the way home, I drive past my old house on E Street.  It looks the same: Bad stone work–a web pattern–on the outside.  Empty cement porch. A “for rent” sign is staked into the ground by the sidewalk.  The store across the street is empty again. A couple of battered cars sit in the parking lot of the Tally Ho Pub.  Mrs. Black, the shut-in who lives across the alley (if she still lives) still has a yard full of garbage. I turn left at the light, driving over the J Street bridge.  I look out east, tracing the four parallel lines of the railroad tracks as they curve off into the horizon. I drive home.

Penny

/ dowdicus / Leave a comment

I took Penny to the vet today to get her tumors checked out.  I’d been putting it off. Mom and Aunt Suzy, both nurses, visited last weekend and I showed them.  Two large hard knots of tissue under the skin on Penny’s belly. Several small knots covering the insides of her rear legs like ridges on an alligator.  They looked smooth and inflamed, but I hadn’t noticed her licking and nibbling them until recently. Mom said I needed to take her to the vet; she could be in pain.  Touching the tumors didn’t seem to bother her, but she was a stoic little dog. I called to make an appointment a few days later.

Frank, my basset hound, was asleep on the couch as I came downstairs in the morning.  I knelt beside the basket I keep the dogs’ things in and stuffed Penny’s frayed pink harness and her flat pink leash into my pocket.  If Frank saw the leash he would jump around and bark in his excitement to go for a walk, and, as he wasn’t coming with us, I didn’t want to disappoint him.  Upstairs I lifted the flower printed duvet off of Penny and tried to reassure her about going to the vet while slipping her harness over her head. She lifted her paw to put through the harness, I fastened the plastic snap and carried her downstairs.  

In the car, she climbs over the console and rests on my lap.  I usually don’t allow this, as it makes steering a little awkward, but she’s dying and I feel guilty so I just keep talking to her as we drive along through Cambridge City on our way to Greens Fork.  I don’t spend enough time with her. I don’t pet her enough. She doesn’t like going to the vet.

We come out on the other end of town and turn left on highway 1 at the light.  I’m caught up in talking to penny as we drive past the closed down Alco and what looks to be the beginnings of a new dollar store.  On autopilot, I signal right as we come up to the interstate and take the on ramp toward Richmond. I wasn’t supposed to take the interstate.  I was supposed to stay on 1 until it intersected with 38, but I figure I can just take the next exit heading north.

We can’t get off until Centerville, which means we’ve travelled a bit further East than Greens Fork, where the vet is.  My car’s digital clock reads 10:15; the appointment is at 10:30. I begin to worry we won’t make the appointment time. Yesterday I missed an appointment with the psych people by 5 minutes and they forced me to reschedule despite an empty waiting room.  What if the vet turns us away? What if Penny is suffering and I can’t get her relief? What if I get there and they tell me I need to euthanize her right now? I drive North on a road I’ve never been on, sure that it connects with 38, assuming that it connects where I think it will, and hoping it will do so in less than ten minutes.

When we park at the Animal Hospital it doesn’t even occur to me to check the clock.  I pick Penny up and set her on the ground. She stops to urinate on the grass, and to sniff at some turds, but I pull her away and we walk toward the entrance with slack in the leash.  She walks through the door, perhaps for the first time ever, without being dragged or carried. There’s nobody at the desk. I stand waiting as a family prepares to leave with their young dog and children.  After a few more minutes, the woman who runs the front desk comes out and processes us. Penny doesn’t want to stand on the scale, but we are able to measure her at a little over 13 pounds. We are led into an examination room and told that someone will see us soon.

Penny usually hides under the chair and trembles in the examination room, but this time I’m cradling her.  I put my Columbia coat on the chair beside me and put Penny inside of it—she likes to be covered up, and I figure that being inside my coat will be comforting.  We wait forever for the vet and my eyes pour over each of the pamphlets and brochures about various ailments and medications on the wall. I look at the model jaws beside the sink, unsure if they’re both dogs, or maybe one is a cat.  Both sets of teeth look the same, though one is smaller than the other. Above the examining table in the middle of the room a surgical steel rod hangs from the ceiling with 5 blunt metal hooks, I assume to attach leashes for restraint.  Posters adorn the walls detailing dental and ear canal problems.

The technician comes in first with a computer cart, to see what kinds of shots and things like that we need.  Penny is due for some shots, but I don’t remember which. The vet, Dr. Sally Osborn, comes in. She’s an older woman, thin, with short gray hair.  I appreciate her bedside manner, if that’s what vets call it. Mom actually switched from her vet in Rushville to Dr. Osborn, even though it’s over an hour drive.  For some reason it’s never occurred to me to mention this when I’m at the vet. She examines Penny without disentangling her from my coat. The words “heart murmur” I know.  The larger words describing the locations of Penny’s breast tumors are foreign to me. After palpating and probing Dr. Osborn crosses the room and hangs her stethoscope up on the wall.  She talks to me about what’s typical for older dogs, including hearing and vision loss, and eventually asks me what I want to do.

I don’t have money for treatment, I say, and I stop to breathe for a moment–tears filling my eyes.  I have to collect myself with every sentence. I’m not ready to let her go. I want to know if she is in pain.  I want to know how long she has. The vet says that while the tumors are starting to tighten the skin, and there may be some irritation, Penny doesn’t seem like she is in pain.  That could change however, and as dachshunds are so low to the ground there is the potential for more irritation from things like grass. She says we can take it one day at a time, and tells me she will prescribe an anti-inflammatory.

She uses the word “euthanasia” which I have been struggling to find.  I’ve only been able to think of “put to sleep” or “put down,” neither of which I like.  My only experience with euthanasia has been shooting the dog in the back of the head with a shotgun, and I simply cannot envision such a thing for Penny.  Dr. Osborn asks if I would want to bury Penny, but I live in town and don’t see the point anyway. Maybe I will put a marker out at Mom and Dad’s near the other dogs’ graves, but it seems unnecessary to require a body as well.  She says they’ll send the body to be cremated and I can either have the ashes returned to me or allow them to be spread in a special garden near Fort Wayne. I ask if she can be euthanized at home, because she is scared of the vet’s office.  The answer is yes.

I think of what Penny will be like when she’s died—after the thing, whatever it is, that makes her Penny has been snuffed out.  Does the inanimate shell mean anything? Would it be better to have a body to bury? Do I want the ashes? Do I want to take pictures or memorialize her in some way?  Maybe it’s better to just remember. Or maybe this is my memorial. I tell myself that Penny isn’t a body; that she’s a unique collection of experiences and memories and emotions, but that doesn’t seem to do her justice.  She’s my best friend, and I will miss her.

Penny’s story is a bit obscure to me, and I have always had a bad habit of filling in missing details with whatever makes sense instead of correcting my misunderstanding.  She came to my then-wife and me through my parents, who have occasionally taken in dogs and cats that nobody else wants. They had been emailing with someone about taking in three wiener dogs, but communication had stopped.  Eventually they got an email curtly asking if they were going to come get the dogs or not. Mom and Dad went to the house and Penny and two of her grown puppies were in a box in the yard.

Penny had to have several teeth pulled.  Booger, her son, had an empty eye socket that was infected.  Rosy, her daughter, seemed fine. Both puppies were incredibly overweight–easily twice the size of Penny.  They all needed to be fixed.  My parents couldn’t stop Penny and Rosy from fighting, so they brought the older dog to live with Anastasia and me.  Her toes were crooked, we figured from living in a cage at the puppy mill all her life.

At the time, Anastasia and I lived in a small, slummy apartment with a broken front door, a bathroom, a hallway, a kitchen, and a bedroom/living room area.  It had a bolted-in window air conditioner for the summer and a cast iron oil radiator for the winter. There was a built in bookshelf creating a sort of false wall between the area we slept in and the area we watched TV in.  On one side of the shelf we kept the bed, on the other side, an ugly green couch. Needless to say, we didn’t have a lot of money, which was one of the factors we considered when deciding whether or not to take Penny from Mom and Dad.  When we picked Penny up, Dad also gave us some pork steaks from Mr. Noodles, the pig he had butchered the previous year. We hadn’t had any kind of steak in a long time.

Penny came to us ornery and defiant, and I immediately loved her for it.  I have always had a soft spot in my heart for animals that don’t take any shit from anybody.  On her first night with us I fried the pork steaks in a skillet, and also made some green beans and mashed potatoes.  We sat on the couch with our plates on the coffee table to watch TV while we ate. When Anastasia was distracted, Penny snatched the pork steak off her plate and ran.  She gave chase, but Penny fled to the safety of her kennel and bit at Anastasia when she dared to reach in.

I made the call from my office on the Thursday before Spring Break.  I had noticed Penny limping the night before–her left rear leg was swollen up and I didn’t think she would be able to get around on her own much longer.  The woman on the phone told me she was sorry. I don’t remember if I acknowledged it or not. The appointment was set.  March 11, 11:30am.  I shut my office door to be left alone.

That Sunday I went to see Captain Marvel with my parents in Connersville.  I enjoyed the movie, though I never really felt like the main character was in any danger of failing to achieve her goals.  Afterwards I went to the store and bought some “chewnola” dog treats and vanilla ice cream. When I got home I put the chewnola treats into separate dog bowls, covering them with ice cream–but hopefully not too much.  I placed each bowl on opposite sides of the kitchen to avoid any fights. Afterward, I laid down on the floor with Penny next to her dog bed. I didn’t carry her to bed with me that night–she had been avoiding jumping in and out of bed, even with her stepping stool, and I wanted her to be as comfortable as possible.  

In the morning she was still sleeping under the purple comforter I kept with her dog bed.  Though I wanted to spend time with her, I left her alone. She was comfortable and I didn’t want to bother her.  Mom and Dad were supposed to come before it happened, but they were fighting about something so only Dad came. We watched cartoons and talked about other things until the nurse came.

I knew it was her when I saw the black SUV park across the street.  A heavyset, middle-aged woman with dark hair and dark blue scrubs got out of the driver’s seat with a bag and came across to the house.  We said “hi” and I let her in. I got Penny out of bed, and, while I held her, the nurse gave her a shot to help her relax and be calm. After a few minutes she became woozy, and I laid her back in bed.

I stroke her head as the nurse readies her supplies–vials, syringes, rubber band.  The nurse kneels beside Penny and me and slips the rubber band around her front paw to help find a vein.  Penny bites and the nurse recoils. I tell her I have a muzzle and retrieve it for her. She asks for towels. When I come back from the bathroom with a couple of towels, the nurse is tightening Penny’s muzzle.  I cup Penny’s head in my hand and look into her eyes. Using her syringe, the nurse draws a pink tinged liquid from her vial, and injects it into Penny’s leg. She removes the rubber band and the muzzle. Penny puts her head down and closes her eyes–I brush the tears from mine.  

The nurse looks and tells me something like, “I commend you for what you’re doing. It’s really easy to hold on to them for our own sake, instead of doing what’s best for them.” I don’t look up from Penny, but I acknowledge her statement with a “Yeah.” She listens with her stethoscope.  After a few seconds she says, softly, “She’s gone.” I nod then go to sit on the couch while the nurse finishes her work. She asks if I want time alone with the body and I decline. She gingerly places the body in a green plastic bag and holds it with the tenderness that one might hold a newborn.  My eyes cast downward, I walk her to the door. “I’m sorry for your loss,” she tells me. “Thanks for coming out,” I respond.

I watch her walk across the street, put her things away, and climb into her vehicle.  I close the door and walk over to Penny’s bed, checking to see if her bowels or bladder had released.  I gather the blankets and put them in the dirty clothes. The bed, itself, I put in the garage–I’m not quite ready to trash it.  Dad and I spend the next hour talking about other things, and then he goes home.