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

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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.