Maynard, Short Story, Part I

Maynard Part I

An Essay of Love

(Dogs are born to love, people have to learn how and most never do.)

(Mr. Wayne Wilks)

I remember sleeping fast and hard, lost in a dream world of slumber and booze. It was an unusual sleep. A sleep all of us have experienced, where the mind is still lively, not quiet awake, not fully conscious, yet vigorously active, involved in both the sleeping world of dreams and the wakeful world of sunlit day and darkest night.

Phantoms spirits swirled about. Strangled lovers and demon souls with lost wee babes, in lusts delight. Lonely hearts with outstretched hands, in wretched cries at night demand. With pitiful woes, they lie and grin, with suicides at crossroads sin. Second chances and guilt’s remorse filled the air… and things much worse.

Not fully asleep yet unable to wake I tremble in fear as ghostly shapes laugh, scorn, and brush rudely against my face. I feel a presence around me, cold and harsh like an icy bitter frost, angry and proud it means me harm. Stirring I struggle upwards from the dim of my dreams, seeking the safety of reality and the peace of my room. My fear grows deeper as curtains flutter, bed sheets stir and thunders arrows slam into the earth with loud report and crashing force. Adrenaline flows thickly through my dilated veins, short and quick my breathing comes.

I hear myself whimper, whine squeamishly like a frightened child. Aware and embarrassed by the adolescent sounds escaping my lips I flush, as fear becomes terror then terror unknown. I struggle to move my arms or legs but paralyzed they lay, heavy as iron. I fight to sit, yet in leaded concrete, I sleep entombed. In Curare’s stoic grasp, muscles lay rigid, stiff and frozen. Evils creep and Devils stalk.

Suddenly the cold disappears. The fear and loathing, the terror and anguish vanish in an instant. Calming light fills my mind. Warmth settles over and around me as dread departs. No longer afraid, filled with sudden happiness and ease I move my arms, first left then right and kick my legs in slow motion glee as if riding a phantom dreams bicycle through weightless clouds of bright.

My mind seeks awareness, swimming for the surface in the warm summer waters of a calm unknown sea. Bubbles gleam brightly, sparkling with life as they twinkle upwards, breaking the surface just above me. I reach, stretching upwards, gasping for air; balmy tropical winds tease the tips of my fingers.

Suddenly I am conscious of a presence beside me, large and dark. I feel its tepid humid breath across my face, warm and slightly sweet. It tickles the hairs of my nose and ears. It smells of musk, shampoo and puppies. Something cold, round and wet presses firmly against my lips…

I sit up straight, instantly awake. A tangle of sheets covers my waist and legs, my chest lays bare covered in cold sweat. I do not know how I know it, but I know I am not alone. I sit motionless scanning the blackness, adjusting my eyes to the soundless gloom.

I listen, holding my breath searching for the slightest sound or tell tale signal of the intruder. Seconds pass as minutes I wait, stone still.

A hint of motion to my right, a heart piercing shrill and I lurch to the left slapping on the bedside lamp and fumbling for my gun. Shaking with fear and uncertainty, I scan the room, nothing but Skillet my cat staring up at me from the floor of the bedroom, crying softly like a love torn Tomcat atop a can in a Broadway dreams back alley.

Reaching down I pet his head attempting to calm him, confused by his actions, he by mine.

Stepping out of bed, I quickly search beneath it, through the closets, the bathroom, throughout the whole house, nothing.

Settling on the blue velveteen sofa, I relax catching my breath, setting the weapon beside me. Lighting a smoke I inhale deeply, sighing as the nicotine rushes to the screaming cells of my brain.

“Feed me! Feed me you fool’” they shout until in smiling drug-induced calm they chill.

“God, what a dream,” I mumble, catching my breath.

“Shit. Damn glad I don’t get many of those. Fucking hell!”

Standing, dressed only in a pair of baggy checkered briefs I head for the kitchen.

Opening the refrigerator door, I search. Only a half full bottle of soda and quarter empty bottle of Crown are there to greet me.

The whisky winks, “Where ya been handsome,” She asks. I’ve missed you baby. Remember last night. Let’s do it again.”

I hesitate only briefly before grabbing the soda.

She smiles, knowing I will return to her in time. I always do. Tanned and brown, into her arms I flee.

Twisting off the top of the soda, I gulp it right from the bottle, slurping loudly.

“Hell, who the shit cares, nobody here but us mices,” I announce to Skillet looking up at me from the dungy linoleum floor.

The sweet bubbly liquid slides easily down my parched throat, cold and crisp, burning and tingling the back of my throat. I drink greedily, repeatedly, before replacing the bottle back to its rightful place beside the empty milk container and the half-eaten watermelon carcass, now shriveling and wrinkling with age.

Slamming the door, I turn and take the few steps required to bring myself into the small open dining area. Bending I retrieve a round plastic dog bowl from off the grungy Persian rug, stained and worn with years.

Filling the bowl with cool water from the tap, I set it back in its place beside the empty stainless steel dog food bowl.

“Where the hell is Maynard,” I wonder looking around the half wall that separates me from his usual sleeping spot. The floral printed royal blue rug, darkly stained, just to the right of the dividing line between the dining and living room areas, just in front of the antique hutch, is empty.

Searching the other rooms of the house with no success I go to the back door, open it and peer out calling, “Maynard, here boy…come on boy.”

I search the back yard dressed in my skivvies, then the front yard, calling and whistling, no Maynard.

Reentering the house I lock the doors and stand silently, confused, sure that I have forgotten something, feeling queer and unusual. Unable to shed the dream and knowledge of the presence that woke me, I shiver lightly, the flesh of my arms bristling.

“I know I let him back in last night, I know it,” I think to myself looking again at the empty silver bowl upon the dusty floor.

“I know it because he was not supposed to have anything to eat, before…Before… Before we went to the vet…..!”

“My God,” I stutter.

Setting upon the sofa, I place my head in my hands and remember. Wetness leaks from my eyes wetting my cheeks.

Before letting the exhaustion of the last few days pull me willingly into blessed sleep and yearned forgetfulness, I return to the fridge, take out the bottle of whisky and smash it in the sink

Sleep did not come easy that night.

* * *

It can be rightly said of life that those who touch us the most are those from whom we least expect it.

It was so with Maynard when he first entered my life. I clearly remember expecting his time with me to be neither memorable nor lengthy. Although our time together did prove to be limited it was nothing if not memorable, this of course proving only how little I knew of life and of myself and perhaps still do.

We first met one cool October evening as the day wound down and the night eagerly awaited its turn. The air was crisp, tinged with the hints of winter and the subtle soft whispers of chill and of frost. Wafting on the winds were the scents of bitter leaves, fat overripe persimmons, wood smoke and raccoon, inseparably mixed with teasing pleasant tones of autumn cedar, over ripe apples, cocoa and whisky. Filling my nose and my spirit with delight, I drank them in, relishing only more.

We drove north along the Broadway Extension, my daughter and I, in the city I called home. Disinterestedly munching on cold, stale burgers, fries and thick frosty milk chocolate chasers, we talked of happy things and times to come. It was on the backside of my bi-weekly trip to the suburb of Edmond, my weekend with my six-year-old daughter Mauri soon at an end. As we passed an area of intensive highway construction, soon to be the site of a modern toll road then nearing completion, I first noticed Maynard. My head turned in sync with the canine as we and the long cruiser slipped past. Of course, Maynard was not his name at the time, yet had he possessed a name or had it been that, there was, certainly no way I could have known it.

He stood trapped between the tall chain link fences lining the limit of the highway construction on the east, and the edge of construction lining the north bound highway on the west. The tall dried brown grasses that flourished along the side of the roadway partially obscured my view of him. Yet even with my limited vision and short viewing time, as we zipped along at highway speeds, it was obvious to me that he was in trouble.

He stood tall and skinny, covered in a thin layer of loose black fur. Small spattered patches of gray skin were visible where the hair had worn away or perhaps fallen out. His back sank in a semi half-circle curve like the sagging spine of an aged and broken mare. His lope was slow and staggered.

As we passed, he moved a few steps further then stopped as if each few steps took a great effort and extracted a toll. That he was starving to death was obvious, as he slunk forward, now no more than a mere shadow of deaths inevitable stalking.

He also headed north, unhurriedly making his way through the knee-high grasses edging the metal fence, his head and long neck tilted downward, seemingly in sullen recognition of resignation and hopelessness.

Once reaching the top of a small hill my new perceptive allowed me to easily see that his journey was in vain. To the north, as well as to the south stood extensions of the same tall fence that blocked his progress to the east and to the west. How he got there remains a mystery, yet his only way out was through a small opening in a gated construction entrance. The entrance faced west to the highway, providing access to nothing save two wide two lane sections of the busy, traffic-clogged road and a certain bone crushing death.

It was then, in the fleeting instant that it took to pass him, that I pledged to myself to do whatever I could to help him. Of course, at the time, my thoughts of help consisted of no more that a gentle touch, soothing words, a few scraps for his belly and a safe escort across the road.

I, now looking back through the tarnished clouds of all that has passed, can see myself clearly through the taint and the soil of the years since and smile at my innocence. For even then at the age of thirty-two I knew so little of life, of myself and of all that would come. I should have known that I could no more resist him than I could resist the breasts of a beautiful woman, the smile of a blue-eyed infant or the purr of a down covered kitten. However, youth is nothing if not naïve and naivety is in fact the blessing of youth as aged wisdom births regret.

“Poor doggie…He’s lost huh Dad?”

“Yep, sure looks like it Babe, “I answered.

“I wish we could have him, he could stay with Lucy and Bucky. Sept Lucy would probably bite him if he got close to her food bowl.”

“Boy that’s the truth. She’s mean when it comes to food isn’t she.”

“She sure is. You know what she did to Bucky once…”

We drove the last few miles, the discussion drifting from subject to subject, the lost dog soon dispelled from the child’s thoughts and words, but not from mine.

I have always had a soft spot for the lost ones, the poor ones, the ones who needed saving. That likely explains most of my troubles with the opposite sex as well. I have always been attracted to the lost puppy type. The helpless, the wayward and the ones I can save. I have yet to save one as it always ends in failure. My white hat must be pretty stained and dusty by now. Who knew, my white steed was in reality a tattered orange Vega.

So according to my secrete pledge I placed the remainder of mine and Mauri’s burgers and fries back into the printed white paper bag, reserving them for later. This accomplished my daughter and I both directed our thoughts and attentions elsewhere for our time together was quickly ending, rushing headlong into finality as quickly as Maynard’s and mine was racing towards a beginning.

Soon my beautiful blonde haired daughter would sit safely tucked within the comforting folds of suburbia and the true world, her world.

“I love you Dad.”

“You know what Pumpkin?”

“Yeah…You love me more.”

“You’re darn tootin.”

“Well I love you infinity,” she countered.

“So I love you infinity plus one.”

“So what I love you infinity plus eleventy hundred.”

“Don’t matter cause I love you infinity plus a million, jillion, zillion infinities.”

Giggling, stretching her arms as wide as they could go she finished.

“So… I love you this many infinities.”

I conceded to her the victory, until next time.

“But I still love you more,” I whispered under my breath.

‘I heard you,” she laughingly exclaimed opening the passenger side door.

“Huggy kissy Daddy,” she teased as she stretched over to my side placing a warm wet kiss upon my unshaven face.”

“You need to shave Daddy.”

“I know hun, but you know me. I shave…”

“I know Dad. You shave once a week…”

“Whether I/you need it or not,” we finished in unison.

“Love you punk. I gotta go now,” I added, watching the fake smile upon her mother’s painted face slip an inch or two at our long goodbye.

“See ya next time. Ok? Be good for your Momma. Ok?”

“Ok Daddy. Don’t forget to pick me up and we’ll go eat at Bennigins. Bye, Bye.”

“Bye my love.”

‘Bye, Bye,” she called blowing kisses and a few hugs from the tiny front yard.

Her mother, sister and stepfather stood by her side on the pavement as I backed out of the darkening drive, their plastic smiles and beauty queen waves a perfect disguise to the coldness, loathing and hatred that grew so plainly within their hearts like black mold on crumbling white tombstones.

Plastic people, plastic lives, that’s who they were, beginning life as warm thick liquid, pliable, amiable, smooth and flowing , easily moved, formed and shaped; hardening over time, immune to external influences, cooling and forming, coagulating into solids, immovable, un-shapeable, hard and unforgiving. Those were the people who raised my once loving daughter.

Leaving my daughter once again as I so often did, as I had left her mother years before; as I would leave them again, one more day, one more week of the dozens to come, until they came no more, I drove.

For six years I had been seeing my daughter two nights every two weeks before returning her to her home, her other family, her other Dad. By now, it was second nature. By now, I had accepted that she no longer belonged to me. I was nothing more than a friendly visitor in her life, a close and trusted friend and a bimonthly interruption.

I loved her dearly, still do, yet even by then she was no longer a part of my life, except in the most temporary of senses. I love her and have missed her every day since the day of her birth yet I learned to suppress such feelings, just as my own father did. At least I learned to try. I had to. I had no choice. No one is strong enough to hurt every day; no one is that tough. One simply learns to shut it off, to push it back. You do that or you die, piece by piece, bit by bit, day by day. Long before, I decided I wanted to live. Besides I made the bed, it is for me to sleep in. We all get just what we deserve. I did and I still am. I deserve not my daughters love; therefore, I do not have it. Just ask her mother.

I left her mother for the love of another, who left me just weeks before Maynard found me.

Jesus shed tears of blood. God requires blood as a sacrifice. Perhaps my tears can somehow, someday help to pay my debt to my daughter. Blood and tears are certainly all I have known since and seem to be all I can expect.

Anyway, in only a few more years my loving daughter would join them in the front yard with her own plastic smiles and beauty queen waves.

Beginning the long monotonous trip back, I rejoined the endlessly flowing parade of Sunday commuters soon finding my way back onto the highway, as my thoughts again turned towards Maynard and my self-appointed mission.

As I passed by the spot where I first noticed him, this time heading south on the west side of the highway, I braked, slowing the full-size land cruiser to well below the flow of traffic. I crept along as deliberate as traffic would allow ignoring the occasional honk or fingered gesture, my neck careening to the left, peering over four lanes of traffic into the field beyond for any sign of him.

He was gone. God I wanted a drink.

Immediately exiting the roadway and already experiencing a bit of sadness and guilt my hesitation had caused. Aware of the gloom that would ensue if I failed I pressed a heavier foot upon the gas. I feared the sleep filled days of withdrawal and melancholy that would result if I were unable to find him, the loss of another thing not yet found.

It took little in those days to cast my mind and emotions back into a blue morose void of depression where I spent most of my waking hours. It was only those alternating weekends with Mauri that allowed me to raise my head above the stinking black waters of self-deprecation. It was only my time with her that allowed me to live as others do; to act as others do; to walk in the sun and enjoy the light; her and the forgiving effects of alcohol, my brown sugar mistress.

Heading south along the service road to the next intersection, I searched for the first opportunity to turn about back to the north. Traffic was light for that time of a Sunday evening, the cooling temperatures and dropping barometer unquestionably playing a roll.

Quickly circling I reentered the roadway a mile or two south of where I had initially spotted him, this time intent on passing as close to his last known position along the east side of the west facing fence. Again, he was not in sight as I cruised north along the black asphalt shoulder on the right. Not yet willing to concede failure or abandon my pledge, I edged the heavy car even further to the right. Leaving the shoulder and rolling onto the grass, I felt the right side of the car sag as the tires sunk into the soft rain dampened earth. Stopping just above and at the edge of a small drainage ditch extending out in both directions north and south, I paused in my seat once again methodically scanning the wide area to my right.

Exiting the car with the small bag of scraps in hand, I made my way around to the rear of the auto. Carefully trudging through the weeds, mud and small brush that lined the fence my thoughts again turned involuntarily inward as I mentally kicked and scolded myself for not stopping the first time I passed. I felt bad for the lie that I’d told myself, the lie about my daughters safety and how as a father It was my duty not to stop; that it wasn’t prudent to stop and check on a stray dog, possible hostile, possibly ill, with her in the car; too much of a risk. What rubbish we make up to justify our deeds or the lack of them.

Walking the first twenty yards or so with no sign of him I began to call and whistle.

“Here Boy,” I shouted to the vacant fields and great mounds of ocher red earth. “Come on Boy, it’s all right.”

“Here boy, Here boy, come-on.”

As I walked, I grew increasingly more anxious and disappointed feeling as if I somehow had let a moment pass or an opportunity slip away, ignored the cards dealt, passed and shook my head in the face of fates desire.

I thoughtfully inspected the ditches and brush piles, peeking into drainpipes, concrete works and around massive silent earth moving machines as the sun set ever lower behind the plains and the day grew inexorably towards night. The evenings thickening shadows grew longer as I searched and called, dusks masking curtain of darkness continually descending without pause or consideration, having no concern or thought to my plight or his.

“Here Boy, come-on,” I persisted.

Committed to venture a bit further, one last push to the east and the taller grasses just beyond the construction zone, I turned to my right, calling out.

“Here boy.”

“Here boy, come on it’s all right.”

Twenty or thirty yards into my walk I called out again, louder, longer, whistling between calls with the typical ‘here boy’ whistle of, “Bob White, Bob White.”

Rising to the top of high rolling hill where the waist high Missouri Thistles stood, armored and thorny, regaled in finest shades of vibrant purple intensified by the dying glow of ginger hued embers of the fading day, I stopped.

Reluctantly giving up, accepting the search as futile, I bowed my head in frustration and wondered of all the moments that I had let slip past, mostly regretting not the things I had done yet regretting mostly those, I had not. The remaining light was now little more than a soft orange glow on the horizon and knowing it would last only moments longer and that I had to navigate the construction zone again, preferably not in pitch-blackness, I turned to the right.

With one last whistle and shout, I scanned the fence line to the south. First left, then right, then left again. As the weight of my body rested firmly upon my right foot and I pivoted to turn and to leave I caught a glimpse, only a glimmer or a sense of movement, forty or so yards straight ahead. There I saw, on the downside of a small hill just beside the edge of the southernmost fence, a small black spot suddenly appear.

To my surprise and great delight there he was, his long neck straining upwards from his position lying prone amid the short grasses and corn faced yellow prairie flowers. I relaxed, forgiving myself for all of my misdeeds, now content with the fact of his presence and the pending completion of my pledge.

I approached cautiously, unsure of his reaction, condition or of his acceptance of me. I wanted only to help but not at the price of a serious bite from an animal rejected by humanity, likely bitter, certainly frightened or possibly even rabid.

With each new step I drew nearer, bent over, my back slightly arched, my right hand extended, palm up, assuming the least threatening posture I could conceive while watching his coal black form rise from the weeds.

Watching him struggle to his feet, I stepped closer, observing his first few tentative steps in my direction, shaky, careful and unsure. He cautiously sniffed the air for any sign of danger.

“it’s ok boy…Come on. I won’t hurt you. It’s ok honey, Come on.”

I spoke kindly in my most soothing and reassuring tone as he continued his approach, his tail tucked neatly between his hind legs, his neck bent downwards, his nose just inches above the ground. His sullen deep-set eyes, fixed and cautious, never left mine. His dark thin lips drew slightly back as he plodded warily towards me.

As we approached each other, somewhere near the middle of the grassy space that separated us he stopped. Taking his cue, I knelt a few feet before him, my neck just level with his long thin jaws. Presenting my hand for approval, I waited. He sniffed, tested and pondered only briefly before actively deciding by rushing swiftly forward and placing his lowered head full against my chest in an act of total resignation and submission.

“Hi kid, how you doing, “I asked placing a hand kindly on the top of his head, stroking evenly.

“Not too good, huh boy? Poor fella, bet your hungry.”

With our symbols of acceptance and trust now presented, approved and past, I sat cross-legged in the grass beside him as we talked. I spoke about nothing, mainly simple imaginings about what we could fix for dinner when we got home.

Thoughts of odd-looking gruels filled my mind and escaped from my lips, slippery concoctions, fatty, nutritious and wonderful, filled with raw eggs, bacon grease, powdered instant potatoes, and fresh milk, assorted crushed up vitamins, a pinch of Iodinated salt, a spoonful of sugar, thick iron rich molasses topped with alfalfa honey. I petted and stroked while he listened and relaxed, greedily consuming the fast food fare that I presented him, he pretty much ignored my menu suggestions but I chattered on nonetheless.

Beside me in the grass his head lying across my lap we met, shared introductions, touched and eased each other’s doubts. My soft droning voice seemed to calm him and that was my purpose. Although I did intend to create just such wondrous canine culinary delights, and did, I also knew better than to stuff a starving animal. I had seen too many documentaries of Auschwitz to kill him the fist evening by over feeding him. However, he got his gruel, one big spoonful at a time, every few hours for the first few days.

It was there in that field of prairie grass and wild flowers under an ever-darkening October sky that we began our friendship. It was there as we sat communing in the chilling evening air writing canine cookbooks that I first knew that my home would also be his. I had yet to discover that he owned my heart as well.

I cannot honestly say how long we sat there talking and sharing under the star filled sky, how long we sat or lay on our backs eyes cast upwards to heavens bright twinkles. Nor can I say how long it took us or what difficulties we faced navigating the construction site in total moonless darkness. I do know that by the time we reached the roadway and my car that we were the best of friends.

I, even now, over twenty years later find myself asking; where would I be had we never met? Who would I be? Would I somehow be someone different than who I am now? Would I be something less? Would I be less wise, less happy, less me? I ask yet I hear nothing. I question myself, even God, yet I find no answers.

I am still alone. I still lead a solitary singular existence void of love and of family. My nights still play silently, lacking a lover’s warmth, intimate sighs and loving touches. So what have I learned? What have I gained?

He hesitated only briefly as I opened the back door on the passenger side and beckoned him in, yet try as he may he could not make it up on his own. Wrapping my arms around his hard boney chest I lifted until we got his front legs onto the back seat then I lifted again from the rear. As I lifted the second time, my arms and hands wrapped around his lower stomach, he let out a pain-filled wail. It was more of a deep moan or anguished cry actually, pregnant with fear and with pain. Yet he never barred his teeth, turned his head towards me, growled or in any way threatened me. Remembering now, I think he was simply too far gone to care.

I have had the misfortune in my life, having shared my years with many wonderful dogs, to be the brunt of several bites as I picked their broken bodies up off the street where they lay crushed or shattered. They bite instinctively, not out of any viciousness or spite, meanness or anger; it is simply a natural reaction to pain. I have even seen dogs bite their own broken legs in an attempt to stop the hurting. Maynard was far past any natural reactions.

Before I managed to navigate the turn around and head back towards my home he laid fast asleep.

Arriving at my small comfortable home and once inside and out of the nights gloom, I saw for the first time the true horror of his condition.

He appeared to be part Sheppard, part Lab, all black except for a few streaks or blotches of gray bearing evidence to his advanced age and poor health. His coat, if one could call it such, was thin, matted and dull, containing none of the original shine and fullness of health that it must have once possessed. It simply hung loose about his bones as if it were no more than a shawl hastily thrown over a rickety table or thin-legged chair.

He stood about two and a half feet tall, four to four and a half long.

His large head, round, scraped and scabbed, now no more than skin covered bone, also bore witness to his suffering. Along each side of his face, where cheeks and thick flesh should have been, sat deeply recessed pockets of skin covered bone with baggy slack skin clinging tightly to the groves and contours of his skull and jaws. His snout, extending six inches or so beyond his head, sat tipped with a hard black nose, dried and deeply cracked. Yellowish puss trickled from his nostrils.

His eyes were long and dim. His right stared sightless, black, with no pupil or whites visible. It resided uselessly within its socket only partially covered with the frayed remnants of an eyelid. The eyelid, or what had once been one, hung limp, damaged and torn, connected with only a feather of loose dangling skin. Bright and bloody crimson it stood out boldly against the ghostly white film draping the long dead eye.

His left eye, also covered in spidery tendrils of milky silk, foggy and ashen white vaguely veiled in the milky pallor of encroaching cataract, still seemed to provide him some degree of sight. Black gobs of hardened wet goo stuck fast to the edges and hollows of his sunken emaciated sockets.

He shook when he stood, unsteady and unsure, his weak bamboo like legs unable to support even his own meager weight. Yet when able, he stood tall and straightly upright, his head level with my waist. When he walked he stumbled, first one way then another, unable to keep his balance.

The pads of his paws, cracked and worn, left bloody stains across my oak floor like delicate red wolfish footprints printed with red rubber stamps or childishly smeared as if by blotted finger-paints on tawny sun darkened sand. Burrs and thorns clung matted and clumped wherever enough hair remained for them to gather. Stickers and splinters pierced the flesh of his toes and pads.

Each rib, easily counted and plainly visible, along with virtually every bone in his body, protruded prominently through his limp coat. His legs and hips, no more than rickety extensions of cartilage and bone, displayed no reserves of fat or roundness of muscle. Only through extreme perseverance and strength of will were they able to support him.

I still see him in my mind’s eye coyly posing beside the poster child for the draught and starvation stricken masses deep within the Sudan, swollen bellies, bones and flies.

My dreams are worse as he stalks the narrow passages between small wood slatted buildings crammed with blue striped suited prisoners stacked like wood; warming himself in deepest Polish winters beside furnaces of hungry red flames, fed with blue suited flesh, stoked and stirred with white human bones. Feasting on the putrid dead in piles and mounds, he stalks the makeshift graves and death filled trenches along the war torn edges of my darkest dreams.

First things first, time for a bath.

As he slept, I made cruel, longing love to my mistress. I drank in her dark charcoal eyes and savored her bittersweet cinnamon skin. In the morning, I awoke on the sofa, her acrid bitter taste thick in my mouth, her scent, heavy and sweet upon my clothes, her empty glass shell splayed and shattered upon the floor.

I spent the next two months attempting to coax all the food and fluids I could into his shrunken belly a bit at a time. I set an extra plate when I ate at home and always brought home an extra burger, or two, sack of bones or scraps when I ate out.

In the evenings we sat together, he at my feet, I talked and drank spilling my soul in tear eyed futility. He listened patiently, calmly as the television droned on, endlessly monotonous and meaningless. I stroked his back and petted his head while he slept.

I fornicated and cried with my whisky-eyed whore, suckling her supple and forgiving breasts, tasting of weathered aged oak and tannin filled corns. I hid from life, sought escape, absolution and numbness deep within her long thin neck and her round supple waist.

He spent his time eating, drinking and sleeping. For once settled and accepting of his new home he fell into an extended period of stupor and extreme exhaustion. He slept upwards of eighteen hours a day only rising for the basic needs of existence, returning immediately to his spot upon the large blue floral rug when his needs were satisfied.

On weekend mornings when I couldn’t awake and fat Portuguese harlots stomped harshly through my head in flowing gowns of dew sweet grapes in colors red and pallor’s pink he waited. When my forehead throbbed and my temples ached; when cymbals clanging and pounding gongs in Spanish rhythms with Moorish chants split my skull from east to west; when nights regrets and mornings vile found me huddled alone with empty heaves and empty bottles, he lay down beside me on the cool of the floor, accepting and patient.

When I could function, I did what little I could to make him comfortable and ease his suffering. I fully expected to return each day from work or stagger in from the bar and find him past, silent, cold and motionless, curled neatly upon his rug atop the hardwood floor, folded neatly in deaths embrace. He was stronger than I knew, far stronger than I.

Perhaps the most surprising and unexpected result of Maynard’s escape from the brink of death was his newfound and enduring friendship with my black Persian cat Skillet.

Skillet, a large impressive cat, black as Virginia coal with a coat of long, fine and silky hair that gleamed in the light like that of a proud Mandarin Prince. Black as Satan’s heart, save a streak of solid white running down the center of his back like a shy Oklahoma skunk or Sylvester the cartoon cat from my childhood. He was the son of another cat I had since lost to the world, a beautiful Calico I called Kitty, I know, how original, but it fit her well and she never complained.

Skillet was a remarkable cat in many ways, not the least of which was his kind and loving soul. He would walk with me through the neighborhood as if he didn’t know that cats don’t walk with people, only dogs do that, but that was Skillet, always living on the edge, always in-tune and innovative, open to new experiences and friendships. His brother Tom, a large tabby cat, muscular and tough, while a good and loyal friend never possessed Skillets charm, poise or grace and certainly not his avant-garde ultra hip attitude or capacity to care.

Skillet, both before or since, possessed no particular liking for dogs and although still a young animal was by then firmly set in his feline ways. Of course Skillet had no reason to fear or be intimidated by Maynard, since the canine had few if any teeth left in his jaws, but surely Skillet had no way of knowing that.

It was not long before he I and a cat made three, and three became one.

Continued:

© 1989-2009 Tim W Wilkinson/Wayne Wilks