WHILE PORTLAND deserved its reputation for being wet and mostly miserable for much of the spring, the weekend of Hazel’s garage sale at her mother’s home turned out to be sunny and warm, which brought out a plethora of crafters and bargain hunters. She scarcely had time to sit down all morning, let alone drink the extra-strong coffee she had brought with her in a thermos.
“The nearest Starbucks is like a mile away. I can’t leave the garage sale to feed my caffeine addiction,” she had told herself as she poured an entire pot of “robust, full-bodied” French roast coffee into her well-worn thermos.
The insurance company where she worked as an actuary had instituted a health-and-wellness regime several years earlier, doing away with the candy and snack machine, and passing an edict—or rather a stern but pleasantly worded policy—doing away with employee coffeepots throughout the office.
“Some people cannot tolerate the percolating smell of old roasted coffee beans,” the energetic human resources director had claimed in an all-company email. “And no one knows for sure if any coffee supplied by our employees is actually fair-raised and fair-traded coffee. So, rather than debate that controversial subject, if an employee must have coffee, it must be brought in from the outside, in a sealed container.”
The edict had proved to be a small boomlet for local thermos sales. And for the nearest Starbucks, three blocks distant.
In the late afternoon of the garage sale, the steady flood of customers ebbed, and Hazel finally had time for her third cup of coffee of the day—the first two had come at home.
“Delicious,” she said as she sipped from the red plastic thermos cup.
The house had been picked over and the garage was all but empty. Her mother had been an avid gardener up until her final year, and kept her tools cleaned and oiled and neatly hung on racks. The racks were now empty.
The lawn mower had been sold early.
Hazel wondered if she had priced things too cheaply.
I probably did, but I’m getting rid of it—and they’re paying me to take it away. A win-win situation.
The furniture went quickly. There wasn’t all that much of it, but it sold. Craft supplies, in boxes and priced per boxful, sold quickly, surprising Hazel.
The great majority of the for-sale items in the house now too were gone. All that was left were a few odds and ends, a couple of file cabinets, and an old desk, which was too large for Hazel’s smaller apartment.
Hazel stood, folded her chair, and walked toward the GARAGE SALE sign she had placed in the front yard.
It would be replaced by the Realtor’s FOR SALE sign the following day.
A young couple pulled to the curb in an old but clean Ford pickup truck, with a unicorn decal on the back window and a rainbow bumper sticker. They hurried out, holding hands, laughing.
“Are we too late?”
“No. Not at all,” Hazel said, being accommodating and gracious, much as was her habit. “There’s not much left. But you’re welcome to take a look.”
Hazel wished she could be more assertive. She really wanted to lock things up and wait for the Dumpster on Monday.
But a few more minutes won’t matter…I guess.
And she had no idea of the impact this one simple decision would make on her life.
Next time I’ll be more assertive and just say no. That would be a real change of pace for me, wouldn’t it?
Thurman sat by the front door, front legs neatly together, his panting slow and steady, watching, almost as if waiting for some sort of a good-dog final inspection. He seemed to be listening intently as Wilson talked to his mother on the phone.
“Mother,” Wilson said in the firmest tone he could muster, “you said a day or two. That was Tuesday. Four days have passed. It is now Saturday and the beast is still in my house.”
Wilson knew he could be tougher and more rigid while on the phone. It was more anonymous, more invisible—almost as invisible as the Internet trolls and the vitriolic comments they posted on web pages and the like.
If they can’t see you, they don’t know how big or small you are.
“Wilson, I know what I said,” his mother replied. “A couple of days. Maybe to a word genius like you, a couple means two. But I meant several. Okay? I am eighty-five years old, you know.”
Wilson’s mother had a master’s degree in English from Carlow College and was much better at grammar and punctuation than was her son. When she called him a “word genius” it wasn’t a pronouncement of fact—just a way to make him feel sorry for his less-educated mother.
It seldom worked as planned.
And Wilson noted that she was never hesitant to bring up her advanced age when it suited her purposes for gathering empathy, if not downright sympathy.
Like now.
“Two days. Four days. A week. I’m not one to quibble, Mother,” Wilson stated, emphasizing the word “Mother.” “You promised—within a short period of time—to have this beast removed.”
At the word “beast,” Thurman growled up at Wilson, looking a little hurt.
Not beast. Good dog.
Wilson stared down at him and shook his head. He mouthed the words, “It’s for effect, okay?”
Thurman shook his head in return as if wondering what sort of oddly calculated game these two people were playing, neither of them being in a position to win, and both precariously close to losing.
Odd, he growled. Too much think.
“That is not true,” Wilson hissed back, his palm over the talking-into portion of the phone.
“Wilson,” his mother said, obviously hoping her flat tone would indicate hurt and pain rather than a simple attempt at manipulation, “I understand. I will make more calls. I’ll post a flyer downstairs.”
Wilson wanted to interject that the only people who would see that flyer would be the crotchety old people in her senior-living complex, who couldn’t adopt a dog even if they wanted to.
But he didn’t.
Thurman gave him that look. So he left the remark unsaid.
“Fine. You do that, Mother. I am counting on you to find a new living arrangement for this dog…”
Thurman growled again.
Better.
“…a living arrangement that does not include me.”
Wilson’s mother inhaled and waited a moment to answer.
“You are such a good boy, Wilson. Have I told you that recently? You are such a good boy.”
To Wilson, it sounded like his mother was still talking about the good dog, Thurman.
After he hung up the phone, he crossed his arms and stared down at Thurman. Thurman adjusted his front paws just so and stared back up at him, a trace of a grin almost hidden under his black snout.
But not really hidden. Thurman had proven, over these few short days, to have an abysmal poker face.
“You should be on your way to the pound, Thurman.”
Wilson had started referring to Thurman as “Thurman” on the second day of his “visit” and no longer thought of him as “that dog” or “the beast.”
Thurman growled back, his growl mixed with a happy smile of subterfuge.
You like me.
Wilson shook his head and kept a mock grimace on his face.
Thurman’s growls and whines and soft barks and whimpers and throat clearings all seemed to Wilson to convey something. Some of them were obvious.
Hungry.
What you eat?
Outside?
Really, what you eat?
I would like some of food you eat.
The more complicated, the more abstract—well, for those, Wilson remained unsure.
And it frightened him, just a little. Or maybe a little more than a little.
Frightened. Alarmed. Fascinated. Like a rodent is fascinated by a snake, coiled and ready to strike, unable to move because of the beauty of the snake’s scales and eyes and slithery tongue, tasting the air.
Like slowing down when driving past an accident—staring, drawn to the carnage and twisted metal.
Drawn.
Wilson knew what memories were hidden and how well he had them hidden and how hard he worked at hiding them and now there’s this dog who pushed whatever buttons were to be pushed and Wilson was again thinking about things that he did not want to think about—or at least blaming the effort it took to hide the memories as a reason to believe that a puddinghead of a dog could talk.
This is complicated stuff, Wilson thought, and it is made up of things I do not want to remember.
“You have me almost believing you can talk, Thurman. You know that?”
Yes.
“I have a doctorate in creative writing and a second master’s degree in contemporary American literature—and I’m listening to a dog. Do you know how absolutely absurd that sounds?”
Thurman growled.
Yes.
Wilson knew it was ludicrous. He knew it was delusional. He knew it was perhaps the first sign of a descent into dementia, or some other horrid cognitive impairment.
But then, there it was. Thurman’s ability to communicate. To talk. Sort of.
“You know, it’s probably because I’ve lived so long by myself. That has to be a contributing factor, Thurman. I am fantasizing having someone to talk to.”
Thurman growled.
Probably.
“But I’m not going to tell anyone about it.”
Sure.
Wilson walked into the kitchen and Thurman followed. He reached into a shopping bag on the counter and pulled out a leash from a store in Shadyside called Petagogy. He had taken a cab there to purchase the sixteen-foot retractable leash and a plain black leather collar to replace the hideous red plaid collar with rhinestones that the rescue center had sent Thurman off with.
“What do you think?” Wilson asked.
Holding the leash in his hand, he explained the process to Thurman, demonstrating how the leash worked, like a flight attendant on a dog airline.
“So, we are going for a walk, Thurman. No pulling or yanking. No barking. No lunging at other people.”
Thurman growled yes.
Wilson, on occasion over the years, took walks around the neighborhood. But not often. When he walked alone, he knew people would be watching and evaluating, obviously thinking that he had no business being out and about with no purpose or destination in mind.
He had tried walking at night, but the shadows unnerved him, and the sweep of headlights brought back troubling memories, or at least let them edge closer to his consciousness, and he wanted no part of those nighttime terrors, not anymore, not ever.
“But with a dog, Thurman—that’s you by the way—I have a reason to be out. And it will allow me to get exercise without resorting to using that disgusting faculty health center.”
Thurman smiled and nodded.
Wilson snapped the leash onto the collar and tested the resistance of the retractable section of the leash.
Thurman barked and smiled.
We go.