Church of the Dog (12 page)

“Everyone likes to be important, I suppose,” I say.

“Everyone needs to have a purpose,” he says. “How many times have you heard of someone dropping dead right after they retire? All the time. Animals need jobs, too. Border collies chewing up everything in city apartments need to have a job. They get bored and depressed without a job. Grandpa had you ride Pal today because he knew Pal was getting depressed. Now Pal may be a little uncomfortable, but he’s not depressed anymore. Who’s to say whether arthritis hurts worse than boredom and depression?”

“Good point,” I say.

“There they are,” he says. “We’re going to ride wide around them. You go that way, and I’ll go this way. This should be easy.”

That was the end of our conversation.

I felt a little better about bringing in cattle to be slaughtered after my dream, but it’s still hard for me. I think a little meat is probably good for most people. A little. I look at the young steer closest to me. There is honor in feeding others who need to be fed. Is there honor in being an excessively large steak for a morbidly obese person? I don’t know. Something about it seems sad to me. Wasteful. I imagine someone being served a part of that steer and throwing away the rest of their steak, throwing away the whole reason he sacrificed his life. People think vegetarians see meat as a black-and-white thing, and maybe some do. I wish I could see it all as clearly as that, but I don’t. For me it’s not black and white. Ethical implications of my actions and choices are never simple or easy to me. At the same time I recognize it’s a luxury to be able to take ethics into consideration. Most people in this world are just trying to survive. And I am no one to judge any of them.

I open my eyes to the sound of laughter coming from outside. Laughter in and around this house—imagine that. Grandma drinking wine, Grandpa buying roses and dancing in the living room. Sometimes I want to ask Mara what she did with my real grandparents.

I groan and sit up. My body still aches from riding all day yesterday looking for stray cattle that got left behind on the first roundup. I groan more and massage my legs.

I peek out the window to see what the laughter is about, and to my horror, see my grandmother and Mara naked, making snow angels in about five inches of new snow. Grandma gets up and runs back into the little sauna. I put my hand over my eyes. I think seeing that physically hurt me. I grimace and shudder. Now Grandma’s running around naked. What’s next?

I shake it off and look again. Mara lies still in the snow for a minute, leisurely stands, and looks around her as if she can feel me watching. She looks up, catches me, smiles, and waves. Then she walks casually back to the sauna.

I rub my forehead with my hand, embarrassed.

There are three goddamned bumps on my neck today. The first one is huge and painful now.

I walk down the staircase, past the pictures of all the people in our family, now dead, and figure my picture will be up on that wall before too long.

When I get to the breakfast table, Edith is in the middle of askin’ Daniel whether there’s a special woman in his life.

“Nope,” he says, and I’m not surprised bein’ that he’s always been a loner n’all. Edith looks sad about that, and I can tell she wants to ask him more questions, but Daniel doesn’t look up from his eggs.

I walk over and kiss my wife on the cheek as she scrambles more eggs. She smiles at me and warms my heart. I catch Daniel looking puzzled. “What are you looking at?” I ask defensively. He shrugs.

Mara knocks on the door and lets herself in. “Good morning! Fencing today? The snow is melting fast.”

“Nah. Yesterday was a long day. Come in,” I say. We all rode about fourteen hours.

“Roses!” says Mara.

I change the subject abruptly. “Hey, want to see something funny? Daniel, will you please bring me that cup behind you?” Daniel picks up my cup of coffee and hobbles over to the table, expecting to see something funny. “Thanks,” I say to him. Then I turn to Mara. “Daniel’s a little sore today.” I laugh. “Isn’t that funny?”

Daniel goes back to buttering toast while Mara sits across from me at the table. She looks up at me and points to her neck. I attempt to cover up the bumps with my shirt. She holds up three fingers. Daniel turns around and sees that.

“Grandpa, is she telling you that on a scale of one to ten, she thinks I’m a three?” he asks, joking.

When I noticed my new bump this morning, I had resolved that today would be the day I told ’em. There is no good time to do it. Best just to do it. “There’s no easy way to tell you this,” I start, but chicken out. “Daniel, but yes.”

Mara’s concerned expression alerts Edith and Daniel that there is something serious going on.

“Well, actually, no. She was pointing out that there are three bumps on my neck today. There was only one a couple months ago. There’s no good way or right time to say this, so I’m just going to say it: I think my days are numbered.” There, I said it. They just stare at me.

“Well, maybe you should go to the doctor,” Edith says angrily.

“Name one person we know who has gone in the hospital and then come out,” I say.

Mara and Daniel look at their eggs.

“You’re giving up just like that,” Edith says.

They stare at me kind of blankly, and I get to feelin’ a little uncomfortable. “If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go check to see if all the livestock water is froze up.”

I go outside and take a few deep breaths before I begin to make my way to the trough.

Grandma and I just sort of look at each other for a few minutes. I suspect Grandpa’s announcement feels more real to her than it does to me. I wish I could say something comforting to her, but instead I just sit there, knowing I should do something but do nothing.

“Well, what’d’ya think? He was going to live forever?” She seems angry and I’m not sure if she’s talking to me or herself.

“Excuse me,” I say quietly. I walk over to the door, pull on my boots, and grab my camera.

I walk out to where I find Grandpa with his arms folded over the top of the paddock fence. I rest my forearms there, too, and sort of drop my head through the empty space between my arms. Eventually, I lift my head up to look at Grandpa staring down at me with a gentleness I’ve not often seen on his face.

“Grandpa? Can I take a few pictures of you?” I respectfully ask.

“I don’t know. You any good at it? I don’t want people rememberin’ me as some ugly old guy. Can you make me look about forty years younger? Or at least make me look like that Clint Eastwood fella everyone thinks is the cat’s meow.”

I laugh a little and capture Grandpa peering out over his December steers and his land, the siding on the barn behind him as weathered as his face.

“So what are you gonna do with your inheritance, boy?”

“You know, Grandpa, I was thinking of selling all the cattle and buying some of those little miniature horses that pull carts at the fair.” Joking around has been the way Grandpa and I avoid talking about anything real. This time I joke to dodge the question I’d rather not think about, and he seems relieved and laughs.

“Hey, remember when you were about fifteen and just takin’ an interest in the bulls? You were on that big black Angus we bought from the McDaniels. Whitey and I were standin’ right here talkin’ about how it seemed you were a natural when that bull sent you flyin’ right over our heads. Hoo!” He laughs so hard, he cries. “Oh, you were just like that Superman for all of three seconds!” He holds his sides now, laughing so hard.

We both retreat to our trenches, hiding safely behind our humor. “Jesus, Grandpa, weren’t you scared I’d break my neck? I remember that fall. Knocked the wind out of me for about four days, cracked six ribs, and just about scared the life out of Grandma, who, as I recall, came running out of the house calling you every name in the book. It was the only time I ever heard words like that pass Grandma’s lips. She had a few words for Whitey, too, if I remember right.” Grandpa laughs hard, tracing my path in the sky with his finger. “How’d your marriage survive that, anyway?”

He laughs and pats me on the shoulder until his arm comes to rest on the other shoulder. “You know, boy, I’m not sure I ever told you just how proud I was, am, of you. Not for the bull riding. Just for turning out reasonably well.” He gives me an extra squeeze on my shoulder and says, “You mean the world to me, boy.”

I’m a little startled and for a moment feel a little naked. But then I put my arm around Grandpa.

“You know, Grandpa, I respect your choice to skip chemo if you really are dying, but I think for Grandma’s sake you need to get a diagnosis. I mean, maybe they’re just fatty cysts like Blue used to get.”

“You’re comparing me to a dog?”

“I’m just saying learn what all your options are so that your choice is the best one. And I think you need to listen to what Grandma wants even if you don’t choose it. I think you owe her that,” I say.

“Okay, Dr. Phil,” he says.

When Grandpa and I enter the clinic, I can see he’s worried. I take a seat in the waiting area while he checks in with the receptionist. Then he returns and sits next to me on a light blue vinyl chair. We leaf neverously and silently through issues of
Sunset
and
Family Circle
. I’m not really even paying attention to what’s on the pages. It just feels good to turn them.

Grandpa looks at me sideways. “You lookin’ for new cookie receipes in that woman’s magazine?”

“No, sir,” I answer.

“Information on the latest diet?”

“Nah. I’m not really paying attention to what’s on the pages, I confess.”

“I feel sorry for them women,” he says. “Got them cookie recipes and diet information in the same magazine. Must be terribly confusing.”

I shut the magazine and study the cover. He also looks at the teasers. “ ‘New Ways to Surprise Your Husband in Bed,’ ” he says a little too loudly. “Hey, ladies, it’s not that hard. We’re surprised when you just say yes!” He laughs at his own joke.

Dr. Anderson comes into the waiting room. “I thought I recognized that laugh!” he says to Grandpa. He notices the bumps, frowns, and asks, “What have you got there?”

“That’s what I’m here for,” Grandpa tells him.

“Well, ask the nurse for a big black Sharpie marker and draw a circle around them. My eyesight is going to hell, and my nervous tremor is getting worse. But if you just draw me a few circles, I suspect we’ll both be fine.”

I must have looked alarmed because they both start laughing at me. “That one is so gullible,” Grandpa says and gives me a wink. “You ready for me now?”

As a nurse approaches, Dr. Anderson says, “First, you get to let my nurse see how much pie you’ve been eating this fall. Sally, does our scale go up to three hundred?”

“Three hundred ninety-nine,” she answers. “Beyond that we have to go next door to Dr. Reimer’s scale.”

“It’s so handy having a vet next door,” Dr. Anderson says.

Grandpa follows Sally the nurse, and I wait.

Finally, he walks down the hall toward me. He gives me a reassuring smile, which I return, but I see something in his eyes I haven’t seen in a long time: fragility. Suddenly I see him as he is now, in this moment—not the indestructible man I remember from ten to twenty years ago. And in this moment, he is fragile and scared. I realize I am the strong one now. It’s my turn to take care of him. But as I realize how ill-equipped I am to be the strong one, I also get a small glimpse into what it must have been like for him when he was broken and asked to take care of me. I stand and wait for him.

“Come on, boy. You’re going to help me pick out a Christmas present for my wife,” he says without stopping. He just puts his arm on my back and guides me out with him. We get in the pickup. “They’re going to call me in a couple days,” he says, looking out the passenger-side window so I can’t see his face. “Let’s stop at the café first. If I’m going to drop some cash on your grandmother’s Christmas present, I better have some food in my belly so I don’t pass out.”

I chuckle softly at how the more he tries to hide his nice side, the more he actually reveals it. “Sure thing, Grandpa.”

The barnyard seems empty. The December steers have been shipped off. It is the way it is. I wish I could feel more at peace with it. This afternoon I watched them being loaded up and shipped off to die. It reminded me of saying good-bye to my dad for the last time. In the end he was shipped off to die, too.

But cows are cows, and people are people, right? Or are we all sentient beings? Am I the only person who struggles with this?

While Mary Beth O’Callighan sings the last of “Ave Maria” in church, I remember the time Lance Grennan, Tim’s younger brother, stood on the pew during one of her solos, plugged his ears, and yelled, “It hurts my ears! It hurts my ears!” We were the same age . . . maybe five. My parents giggled. I suspected everyone in the whole church secretly wanted to do the same thing.

When she finishes now, the altar boys bring out the wine and wafers for communion. Father McCleary says his bit, and the first row stands.

Grandma leans over Grandpa and me to whisper to Mara, “I’m sorry dear, but only Catholics can take communion.”

“That’s okay,” Mara says. “I came prepared.” She reaches into her purse and pulls out a silver flask and some Wheat Thins. She adds a slice of cheese to the Wheat Thin and pops it in her mouth. Then she takes a swig from her flask. “Jesus doesn’t like exclusion.” Our row stands and awkwardly walks in front of her as she prepares another cheese-and-cracker sandwich.

Tim, who sits behind her, taps her on the shoulder, and she turns around. From where I stand in the aisle, I hear him ask, “Hey, what you drinkin’ there?”

“A lovely Chilean merlot,” she answers.

“Mind if I have a hit of that?” he asks. She hands him the flask, and he takes a swig. Others watch in horror. Then Tim’s row stands and joins us in line.