√-1

WHEW! After that emotional roller coaster, I’m a little sick of the monster-dog thing, so I ’port myself and Mr. Snuffles to Cancun for a little mercenary me-time. The beach is busy, but once I swap the ol’ work suit for an asymmetric man-thong, I don’t have to fire a shot. The whole place clears out.

Mr. Snuffles doesn’t mind what I wear. He just likes the sun.

It’s a beautiful afternoon. I’m sitting in a beach chair with a fancy umbrella drink, watching the warm waves lick the fine white sand way up into the cracks and crevices of my scarred toes.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m totally into getting to the bottom of the whole Dick-and-Jane thing. But no matter how much you love something, your palms are gonna get sweaty if you hold hands with it for too long. Better to let it all go every now and then, step back and recharge, then go back in with your best game.

Right, Mr. Snuffles?

Wow. I’d almost forgotten what silence was like. Sure, there’s the sound of the steady surf, some birds, and the breeze rattling the fabric in my beach umbrella, but none of it is as loud as the quiet. Perfect place to kick back, watch a puppy chew on driftwood, and stop thinking for a while.

Why can’t you just admit you like him?

That you want a dog of your own?

Hush up. You two are spoiling my buzz. Just… ahhh! Lemme finish this drink, and let the sun and sand work out the kinks in my back.

Why did you pretend you didn’t care when you thought he was dead?

Because I didn’t care, and I don’t, okay?

Then why get all weepy when it turned out he was alive?

Eh, I was swept up in the moment.

You’ve bonded before, you know.

Yeah, but that’s almost always about sex, with a lady—like that MMFF, Jane. And that sort of pleasure only feels like it’s forever. Eventually it goes away.

Is that how you felt about Sophie watching you at the game?

No. Yes. Maybe. I mean…

Oh, great. I’m trying to take a break here, and now even Mr. Snuffles is looking at me like I’m crazy because I’m sitting here arguing with myself.

Hold your cell phone to your ear.

That way it’ll look like you’re chatting with someone.

This is not the time for self-contemplation, okay? I’ve got a drink and a chair and a beach to myself! Can’t you both make like white noise for a little while?

Like Radiohead?

But we love you!

(Because we are you!)

Ooo. The parentheses are new!

Parentheses? For the love of…how many of you are in there?

Relax, Wade. We’ve got lots of tricks.

Huh. What’s that new typeface? Bodoni? Never mind. Don’t want to know.

The real question is why we’re here.

(Is it because you’re crazy…)

…or just because you need someone to talk to?

Crap. Don’t mind me! I’ll just sit here, sip my drink, and count the waves.

It used to be called Multiple Personality Disorder. Now it’s Dissociative Identity Disorder.

(Technically, it’s not even DID, since we don’t take over his body.)

Ah! So we’re not so much different personas as the same one reflected over and over.

One Wade Wilson warped in a hundred funhouse mirrors.

Not listening! Don’t care! Can’t hear you. Can’t hear any of you at all. La-la-la-la. Not Boldface or Italics, Parenthesis or whatever. Chatter your typefaces off all you want. I’m alone and happy on a gorgeous stretch of sand. La-la-la. Look, Mr. Snuffles, is that a dolphin out there?

So basically, he’s pointing out things he knows he should pay attention to, but doesn’t want to, because it’s either outside his immediate focus or too painful to face.

(Like…did we have a dog once?)

Did we?

Yeah, did we?

Not all dogs who wander are lost.

Oh, is Arial supposed to impress me when Bodoni couldn’t? And don’t think for a second you can bait me with a Tolkien reference. Sure, the road goes ever on, but so do some of his passages.

(Can you remember if you had a dog?)

What difference does it make? I remember all kinds of crap. When push comes to shove, I have no idea whether any of it’s true. Can’t do anything about it, so why not keep on keeping on?

We cross our dogs as we come to them and burn them behind us, with nothing to show for our progress except a memory of the smell of smoke and the presumption that once our eyes watered.

Is that another reference?

Yeah. Tom Stoppard, translated into Dog.

As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from troubled sleep, he discovered he’d transformed in his bed into a large schnauzer.

(That was Kafka. Could you try to remember, Wade?)

Gaze long into a doggie, and the doggie also gazes into you.

That one even I know. Nietzsche. Nietzsche is peachy, but liquor’s quicker. How about we compromise, fellas? I’ll stick my tongue in a light socket for a day, and you’ll all leave me alone for an hour.

He who does not remember the dog is condemned to clean up after it.

I keep telling you, my memory’s useless! Whenever I get whacked upside the head, skull-cracked, brain-traumatized, or whatnot, the little gray cells grow back differently—sometimes a little, sometimes a lot.

Dog present and dog past are perhaps both present in dog future.

So what? Even when I hang on to a thread for a little while, eventually my own head gives me a personal retcon. Why bother?

So you can have a story.

Any story is better than none.

If I gave two frigs whether I had a story, I wouldn’t be hanging out in Cancun, would I?

Yet story is the basic mode in which we communicate self to ourselves and others. It can be defined by a basic structure of character, conflict, and closure. Some feel conflict isn’t necessary, but clearly some sort of desire is required to propel any narrative. Even waiting for an elevator is a type of a conflict. Likewise, the desire not to remember is as much a conflict as the desire to remember, and hence part of your story. It is inescapable.

Think you’re so smart just because you have that fancy dollop at the end of your lower case f, don’t you, Bodoni? I went to elementary school, pal. Block letters can spell all the big words, too.

You just said you can’t trust your memory.

So how can you be sure you went to school at all?

All dogs, except one, grow up.

Look, even if this is part of my story, can’t it be a part where I just chillax? What’s wrong with letting go and winging it?

Some writers make things up as they go along, surprising themselves or letting the characters take over. While the end justifies the means, strategically this is like being a magician who doesn’t want to know how his tricks work. When building castles in the sky, isn’t it better to know where the bricks came from so the castle can be built again, if need be?

No, because IT DOESN’T MATTER. Really. I know I’m in a fictional reality. While that might freak out most folks, it makes me feel better. It means that even if the Hulk had killed Mr. Snuffles, he wouldn’t have gotten hurt, since he doesn’t exist. On the other hand, it means there’s hope for the real world, wherever it may be.

Either way, IT DOESN’T MATTER.

The most merciful thing in the world is the inability of the canine mind to correlate all its contents.

Thank you, Arial! Exactly. So what’s the point of getting connected?

Because stories not only exist, they hold everything else together.

We are such stuff as dogs are made of, and our little life is rounded with a woof.

Oh, for the love of… Fine! Listen up! Want to know what I remember? I remember losing my mother to cancer.

All happy doggies are alike; each unhappy doggie is unhappy in its own way.

I remember Dad hitting me as often as he hit the floor. I remember, even as a kid, feeling crowded into my own skin and wanting to punch my way out. I remember really, really liking to take things apart.

(Garçon! Can we get a drink here?)

Shh! He’s sharing.

It was the best of dogs, it was the worst of dogs.

I remember him calling it tough love, the way the righteous wield a sword of justice. I remember being okay with the justice, but more interested in the sword—in fighting back. I remember, by the time I left high school, having a bunch of angry psychos as friends—a gang of punk Dads. I remember one of them shooting real Dad with his own handgun.

And the dog said, “Nevermore.”

And, okay, yeah, sure, I think I remember a dog somewhere along the line, in middle school—before things went really crazy. Something that loved me without talking back, or hitting me, or asking anything at all, except maybe for food and a walk.

What a piece of work is dog. How noble in duck-hunting. How infinite in stick-fetching. In action how like a squirrel.

Real or not, I remember wishing it could last forever. It didn’t, but I did. I lasted forever. Even when I’m supposed to die, I keep coming back. And that’s all I’ve got on that! Happy?

Because I could not stop for dog, it kindly stopped to pee.

Did I have a dog? For real? Or do I just feel like I should’ve?

All dogs happen, more or less.

But I also remember, just as clearly, being the richest man in the world. Having lived to a ripe old age, I lie in an expensive bed surrounded by countless treasures, clutching a framed photo of a boy and his puppy. Before I pass into the great beyond, the frame slips from my feeble fingers, cracking against the floor as I whisper my final word: “Rosebud.”

That’s Citizen Kane.

Exactly! Half the time I remember being Leonardo DiCaprio in Titanic. I don’t want to explain myself because I can’t, not really, not ever. So I just want me to shut up. I just want…

The dog died today. Or maybe yesterday. I can’t be sure.

Come on, guys, can’t you see he’s hurting?

This is freakier than seeing the Hulk cry.

(We’re sorry, Wade. Go on, take your break.)

Yeah, we’ll be quiet for at least a chapter. Promise.

No! Y’know what? Too freaking late! Come on, Mr. Snuffles. I’m dropping you off with Preston. Then it’s time to get back to work.