Tough Day for the Army (4 page)

You can say a lot of things about my dog, but he's no asshole.

One of the books is about a dog who rescued people from the Twin Towers. Out of patriotic duty I brought that one home, but I don't really want to read it. I have a hunch I'm not alone on that front. My dog never rescued anybody.
Au contraire
, I rescued him, and from his perspective it was a real lottery moment, given the odds, you know, the sheer number of his canine brethren lined up in cages stacked from floor to ceiling at the shelter he called home at the time. I went down a row, peering into each cage at the candidate inside. Some barked viciously, others barked friendishly. Some pressed their noses or paws to the bars. The dark concrete floor had a drain in it, and I knew what that was for. A woman who volunteered at the shelter was following me, offering a kind of color commentary about each of the dogs: “This one likes his belly scratched.” “She just loves to cuddle.” “He's great with children.” I wondered how she knew all this stuff about these dogs. Maybe she took them home for a test drive, like car salesmen will do with the new models so they can speak knowledgeably to customers about handling and acceleration.

I said to her, “Which one goes zero to sixty fastest?”

“We have some greyhounds in the pens outside,” she replied, and I realized that once again, I'd made most of the joke in my head. The woman looked like one of those people who used to be really overweight but then got the stomach surgery so they deflate, but what's left is a sort of skin sack that the fatter person used to live in. I admired the sacrifice, the dedication it must have taken to see the process through, but it didn't look good on her.

I figured the woman might be too ugly to love, something I often feared about myself.

A basset hound. That's what she looked like.

Being ugly in the dog world is actually a virtue. The books about the dogs that save things often have pictures of these dogs on the cover and very few are classically handsome. In fact, the odder-looking the dog, the more people it seems to have saved. One of the dog book stars, a pitbull mix, was missing an ear and had a jagged scar circling one eye, like someone had tried to carve the eye out of his head with something simultaneously sharp and dull. This dog had saved himself as well as several others because of his indomitable spirit. Based on his looks, if this dog was a human and an actor, he'd be playing junkies and pederasts exclusively, but at the bookstore I saw one young and pretty girl disengage from the boyfriend whose arm she had been clutching so she could pick up the book and coo at the cover image.
Soooooo cute.

The barking from all the desperate shelter dogs was like static in my ears and the smell of piss and disinfectant was like static in my nose, and there at the end of the row in a cage at eye height was Oscar. He was sitting upright, mostly alert, looking straight at me. His eyes were and are black, unexpressive, but very, very deep, like two pools of oil. The placard on the cage called him “Fluffy,” but I saw through that.

“This one doesn't do much,” the woman said.

“I can relate,” I said.

She looked at the floor. I figured maybe she could relate too.

“His name is Oscar,” I said.

She put some glasses that had been dangling around her neck by a chain up onto her nose and looked at the placard. “Says here that it's Fluffy.”

“It's wrong,” I said. I pointed at Oscar. “I'll take this one.”

“We have several other rooms,” she replied. But I couldn't imagine wanting to walk through several other rooms of this.

“He's perfect,” I said, but what I probably meant was,
He's good enough.

I took him home and we began our lives together, and at least until I realized that he's below par as a muse and/or savior, it was pretty good. We had
Jeopardy.
We had walks in the morning and afternoon where people would often look at him and smile and then their eyes would reach up to mine and they'd still be smiling. It was all very
How bad can a guy be with a nice dog like that?

When I'd weep inexplicably at something showing on the television, he'd leave the room, which I thought I appreciated, as it allowed me a little dignity and privacy, until I realized this behavior was inconsistent with him saving me. I yelled at his retreating back, “You're not doing the job, pal! Not acceptable! You're not showing me anything about how to live life with this walking away business,” but nothing stopped the clack of his nails on the wood floor as he retreated to our bedroom.

So this afternoon, after the walk, and before
Jeopardy
, I decide to read one of the dog books aloud to Oscar, to see if maybe it will provide some inspiration. This one is a real doozy. It's about a man trapped in his house by Hurricane Katrina, and because of swelling in his legs due to the diabetes he can't get out or go for help. For seven days, while he waits for rescue, his two Dobermans scavenge for food and bring it back to the man. It's the perfect kind of book because even in the most desperate parts you sense it's all going to be OK, since no one would publish this book if the man died horribly, maybe even urging the Dobermans to feed on his corpse so they could live.

When Oscar looks like he's about to fall asleep I read louder. When one of the many amazing things happens, I mark my place with a finger and look directly at him and say, “Can you believe this? This is fucking amazing.” He seems unimpressed, like he's heard it all before, like in the dog world this story is cliché, mundane.

“Would you rather I read about Marley?” I say.

It‘s a pretty short book, and reading doesn't take all that long. There's a happy ending, just as I suspected. The man had to have a leg amputated because the dogs couldn't scavenge insulin, but he lived, which is what we're told counts above everything else. He refused to leave the house until the rescuers promised to bring the dogs with. They all live in Alabama now.

After finishing, I look up, and Oscar is indeed sleeping on his side in the daylight slanting through the windows. Almost time for his dinner, then his walk, then
Jeopardy
, then more television, then bed.

“It's about the loyalty, pal,” I say. “Man's best friend.” Still on his side, Oscar stretches and grunts and blows air out of his cheeks, which is one of the more endearing things he does. He rolls from his side to his belly and rises to his haunches like a yogi.

“Would you do for me what those dogs did for that man?” I say. “Would you save me like I saved you?” He stands and yawns and shakes the sleep out of his head, his ears thwapping.

Oscar has also noticed that it is near dusk. He walks into the kitchen area and sits next to the cabinet where we keep the food. He does this sometimes.

Who am I kidding? He does this every day.

“Have I ever forgotten?” I say. He looks back at me with those bottomless eyes.

“Except the one time, I mean, which I've apologized for.” He lies down in front of the cabinet, chin on his paws. I see myself on the couch reflected distantly in his eyes.

“What are you teaching me about life and living?” I say. “Tell me.” His tail swishes the air behind him, stirring some dust motes. When he's really excited, his tail takes the shape of a comma arcing over his back. My dog doesn't speak, or write, or even inspire books, but in this moment I think I get the message.

This is next
, he is saying.
Life is about whatever you do next.

DRAFT B-4—NOT FOR CIRCULATION!
CONFIDENTIAL AND PROPRIETARY

To evaluate the efficacy of penetrating captive bolt stunning of cattle in Commercial Beef Slaughter Plant #5867 and identify potential causes of a return to sensibility among stunned cattle.

Stifling the complaints. In the opinion of this researcher, the combination of on-site protests; undercover, illegally obtained video aired on one of the TV newsmagazines with a title dealing with either time or vision (this researcher forgets which); a rising sense of public outrage; and, most important, lawsuits, results in the drawer of the short straw (that being this researcher) trading his oxfords for work boots, his pleated wool trousers for rubber coveralls, and spending sixteen consecutive days on the slaughter floor at plant #5867.

184 hours of stunning over 16 operating days were observed at an average line speed of 129 cattle/hr. Cattle were evaluated for signs of returning to sensibility on the bleed rail.

1. Because if they aren't stunned, they are more than willing to drive a stone-hard hoof through your skull.

2. Helps avoid misinterpretation of spasms that occur during ejection from the conveyor restrainer system and of tonic spasms, commonly seen a few seconds after stunning.

Previous research suggests that the corneal reflex becomes absent in conjunction with electroencephalographic patterns that indicate the animal is insensible. Cattle no longer have corneal reflexes when all of the following four criteria are fulfilled.

1. No spontaneous blinking

2. No vocalization

a. Mooing

b. Bellowing

c. Or any other sound

3. Eyes have a wide, blank stare; the eyeballs must not be rotated; and nystagmus must be absent.

4. No righting reflex when the animal is hung on the bleed rail. Animal must:

a. Have straight back

b. Neck and head will be limp and flaccid

c. Momentary flopping of a limp, loose head should not mistaken for a righting reflex, and kicking and limb movement must be ignored.

If you see anything enough times over and over and over, that anything, no matter what it is, becomes entirely unexceptional. Plus, sometimes they just twitch for awhile.

In addition to the previous four criteria, if the tongue is fully extended, limp, and flaccid, the animal can be considered properly stunned and insensible, as in the author's experience, an animal with a fully extended, limp, and flaccid tongue will never ever never have spontaneous blinking.

A completely relaxed jaw is also a good indicator of profound brain dysfunction.

Thick. Tactile almost, like you could reach out and hold it in your fist. Like it surrounds you. In this researcher's experience, an adjective such as “chewy” would not be entirely out of the question. The dominant scent is fresh cow insides, which this researcher suggests smell exactly as you think they would.

However, a stiff curled tongue is a sign of possible return to sensibility.

On the other hand, the tongue will not always slip out of the jaw, even in properly stunned cattle.

Thus, if the tongue is fully extended, limp, and flaccid, one can conclude that the animal is insensible, but the
absence
of a fully extended, limp, and flaccid tongue
should not
be used as an indicator of return to sensibility.

I'm not sure what that means either.

Outside. Far away from the house, inside a plastic bag, buried in a hole. A ditch, inside a plastic bag, buried in a ditch outside, far, far away from the house. Far, far away from the house, inside a plastic bag, buried in a ditch lined with vulcanized sheeting and sprinkled with lime, outside.

The tail may move, or raise, or twitch, even when animals are insensible. When the animal is hung on the bleed rail, the tail gradually becomes limp and lies down flat against the rump.

Occasionally, insensible cattle with the limp head, blank stare, and extended, limp, and flaccid tongue will withdraw the forelimb if a person grabs it; therefore a reflex reaction to a tactile stimulus of a limb is not considered a sign of sensibility.

Dead. Brain-dead. Absence of neurological functioning.

Spooky.

We have zero tolerance for the inhumane treatment of animals used in our products. We pledge to you, the consumer, that all animals are fed, housed, and slaughtered according to the most stringent of USDA guidelines as outlined in the Humane Slaughter Act of 2001.

If a problem with return to sensibility was observed, additional data were collected, as time permitted, to identify the cause. Alternatively, follow-up interviews with staff were conducted to identify the cause of the return-to-sensibility problem.

Night-long, slow-motion scenes of traumas the researcher is sure never happened to him in his waking life. In one, the researcher is a boy, and he hugs an iron bedpost, legs and arms wrapped around it seemingly multiple times, like his arms are spaghetti tensileness, and he looks over his shoulder at a man who resembles his father, but is larger through the chest, advancing toward him with a belt looped once, forming a strop that the man knocks against his palm.