It’s a Dog’s Life

We’re in the same boat. When I ask them what day it is. What date. No one knows right away. There’s always a kind of hesitation. People look at their watches.  Same ol’.  That’s what they think.  That’s what they say. I need a ticket. Bus fare to somewhere else. Weird cycles, sleep patterns. Things enter into the cranium with the force of a violent spike driven in:
–Daddy?
–Yes, love.
–Dad?
–Yes, I’m here. Livy.
–Where?
–I’m here. Coming to get you. Where are you, Livy?
–What?
–Where are you, love? Livy.
–Bermondsey.
Christ, that’s out of a book. A book I lent to her when she was twenty-three. Graham Swift.
–Where are you Livy? Let me come get you.

It’s a Dog’s Life; Doggy Treadmill
“Downtrodden husbands who have been forced to take Fido for an airing in the park may now breathe a sigh of relief, for the treadmill pictured here will enable the family pet to get all the exercise he needs on the back porch or the front lawn, and if the weather gets too severe, he may do his daily dozen in the kitchen. The contraption (first exhibited at the Los Angeles Dog Show) permits the dog to run for an hour without getting anywhere, and the proud owner may be sure that Fido will not get lost. If a rabbit passes by, the dog has a good run while bunny stands around nibbling clover. A flywheel supplies momentum!”
–Modern Mechanix, 1930

It took forever for her to tell me where she was. And then I went to get her. I drove out to Hagerstown in the middle of the night. Morning, really. There were deer. And chickens. And when I got her, she had vomited all over her shirt.
–Come on love, let’s go.
–Dad?
–Let’s go. Livy.
–Dad?
–Yes, love.
–I love you from here to the sun…
– … and back.
–And back.
It’s what we used to say to one another when she was three.
–Let’s go, Livy. I got the car here. Let’s go.

Some example I was. At least she never saw me smoke. I never smoked at the house. Around her. And then, later, when she would visit. When me and the ex split up. Those weekends. My weekends. Ours. I never smoked, so at least there was that. She had asthma, so…
So.
–What will daddy have with his dinner?
–Wine.
Wine. She said that when she was two. And we all laughed. The boys all kidded me and gave me Charlie-horses and thought it was grand. Yeah, grand. Some example.

–Let’s go. Livy. Let’s go, love. I have the car. It’s warm inside.
–Dad?
–Yes.
–Where are we, Dad?
–I don’t know. Out in the country somewhere. You don’t remember?
And she fell asleep like that in the back seat. Standing up. Strapped in. I had no right. No right to lecture or say anything. Fair enough. Fair enough, love.
Love.

Humana

I read him a poem now, when he wakes up.
He wakes up for ten minutes a day.
–Pomes, he says.
–Pomes in the closet rotting, I say.
–Are they now?
–They are.
–So send them out.
–They don’t want to travel any longer.
–They’d rather rot?
–They would. It’s their wish.
–And yours also?
–I don’t matter in this. It’s what they want.
Then he uses an English accent:
–Pomes, everyone…a pome, no less. The lad fancies himself a poet!
And he laughs. Before he goes into a coughing fit.
–You know where that’s from?
I say yes. From The Wall. Floyd.
–Sharp one.
I tell him I went to film school.
–Schyool, he says. And you don’t have to go to film schyool to know Floyd.
–Schyool. I used to be a stoner, so yea. You’re right.
He likes them, my poems. My pomes.
–It’s how Kerouac used to say it, or write it, he says.
I know that. I hate Kerouac. But I don’t tell him. People know (he knows). They always ask why I have “On the Road” on my shelves. I have Shakespeare, and I hate him too. And Mann. And Gide. I don’t like either of those fellows. I have them because I’ve read them. I’ve had to, in order to make up my mind. And then I couldn’t give away the books. Couldn’t sell them used, either. They’re still books. Good books.
–What I crave now is a nice, cold pint, he says.
–Black and tan?
–Then room tempy.
–What?
–Room temperature, then. For a black and tan. It’s only proper.
I ask him if I should sneak in some bottles next time I visit.
–Yea, sure.
And glasses? I could stuff them into my messenger bag.
–No, too civilised. Too highbrow. I miss drinking out of a bottle. I miss ice cold watermelon in the summers. Fried rice. Sitting on dark green grass.
The next time I come, he’s up and about slowly, dragging an I.V. hooked to a bag hooked to a pole on four wheels.
And the time after that, the room door is closed and there’s a wreath on it.