Chessie Bites the Dust

We never realized what a heart Mom O. had for animals until the day Mark had to leave the warehouse to help Charlie bury his dog. After lunch, Van had phoned the office, hysterical as all get out. Mom O’Dell held the phone away from her ear so Van’s volume wouldn’t damage her hearing. We heard every detail of the conversation.

            “Now, Vandalia,” Mom O. said. “Calm down. I can’t make out a word you’re saying. Who is dead?”

            Van’s tone made us all wince. “Chessie is!” she said. “Charlie’s dog. He’s had her since he was sixteen and I swear, sometimes I think he loves her more’n me. Now she’s dead. Strangled and hanging over the chain link fence. Tell Charlie to get home right now. He’s gotta get her down before the kids wake from their nap!”

            To us, as soon as Van said the bit about strangled and hanging, Mom O. seemed to come perilously close to fainting dead away. Adam scooted his folding chair closer to her desk and patted her shoulder. Not a touchy feely gal, Mom tolerated it that day. Appeared to maybe even derive strength from it.

            Right before Mom O. spoke, she reached out and grabbed her blood pressure monitor. Latched onto it so tightly the skin on her age-spotty knuckles looked bleached.

            “You need to stay calm, Vandalia,” Mom said. “For the children. Now tell me, how exactly did the poor thing manage to choke itself?”

            Van’s huff was easy for us to hear. “She runs away all the da— dang time, Mom O.,” Van said. She paused a moment and when she resumed, her voice sounded slightly more collected. “She digs out under the fence. She busts through the gate. And here lately she’s taken to trying to climb over. So this morning, I tied her up. Inside the dog run.”

            Mom O. was now blinking non-stop, to try to staunch the flow of her tears, we’d surmise later. When a stream of snot began to creek toward her mouth, Adam plucked a tissue out of the box on the desk and dabbed at her face. She swatted him away.

            “Well, surely Chessie barked or howled or something,” Mom O. said.

            “But that’s the problem, Mom,” Van wailed. “She didn’t. Because . . . Because . . .”

            Mom O.’s steely eyebrows tangled together and her raisin eyes practically disappeared.           

            “Because why, Van?” Her words marched out individually and defined.

            Van didn’t answer right away. When she did, it sounded as if she was reading from a Hollywood script.

            “Oh, Mother O’Dell,” she began. Her voice was nearly impossible to make out at first. A wheedle really. “Do you remember what it was like? To have a house to care for? And animals? And babies? And a husband? And—” Her questions crescendoed and each item she added was imbued with more drama than the last.

            Mom O. cut her off, almost without moving her lips. “Get to the point, Van.”

            Our eyebrows lifted in unison as we heard Van draw a trembling breath.

            “Well,” she said, “at the beginning of summer when Chessie started staying outside the better part of the day, it occurred to me her howling might keep the kids from their naps, and you know they need their naps.”

            Mom yacked her free hand and rolled her eyes. “The point, Van,” she said. “The point.”

            “So last week I drove to the pet superstore up at the strip mall and bought a . . . bought a . . .” Van seemed to run out of gas about then.

            Mom O.’s gaze drilled a hole in the paneled wall over our heads. “A what, Van? What did you buy?”

            We leaned in to hear Van’s answer.

            “A barker breaker kit.”

            In one motion, Mom O. both stood and knocked her rolly chair to the ground. She gripped her considerable waist with one hand and clenched the phone with the other. Her eyes were squenched shut as if she was picturing the whole scene play out on her eyelids. After a minute, she transferred her free hand from her waist to her cheek. To scrape a tear away.

            “And this morning,” Mom said, “poor Chessie didn’t dare make a peep for fear she’d get the living daylights shocked out of her. That’s what you’re saying, Van, right? Right?”

            At that point the only thing coming from the phone was that blubbering racket girls make when a serious crying fit takes hold. Mom O. sneered and slammed the receiver into its cradle. Headed toward the warehouse door, her elbows pumping something fierce.

            “Mark!” she called from the doorway. “Charlie. Get over here. Now!” When she didn't get a response she ventured into the cool shadows of the warehouse.

            We followed close enough to hear her mutter. “Wouldn’t surprise me if that harlot was entertaining visitors of the male persuasion ‘round about the time Chessie choked. Wouldn’t surprise me a-tall.”

            We dropped back lest Mom O’Dell discover our proximity and aim her anger at us.

            “Her’s pissed,” Adam said as he shouldered the office door for us.
            "Her's most definitely pissed," Jason said as he reached for the treat bowl.

(This is an ongoing short story. If you'd like to read the whole thing, click here: "Vandalia and Charlie." That's where the saga starts.)

When Pigs Fly

It would be a good day to bury someone. Or some thing. The ground is soaked after days of drizzle. Will share its moisture if you but step on it.

            I head for the basement. To me, it smells like death but then, it often does. Could be the inch of water on the floor in husband’s workroom. Might be a juvenile rodent in some advanced state of decay, its head like a walked on brussel sprout, thanks to one of husband’s traps. Long ago I relinquished my insistence he use Havahart cages. The day he displayed an incarcerated rat (as opposed to the usual mouse) outside the kitchen window, I nearly dropped my wine glass.

            When he came back inside, I moved away from the sink so he could wash his hands. I spoke through clenched teeth.

            “Get the real traps. The killing kind.”

            I empty the dehumidifier. Fill the bunnies’ water bottle. That’s when I notice what’s wrong with this picture. I take in the cages of our guinea pigs—Trixie Juniper (sassy and sleek) and Sweetie (humble, like Wilbur in Charlotte’s Web, and tousled).

            Something seems familiar. I picture the scene in The Wizard of Oz when the witch’s feet poke out from under her house. Only here in our basement, it's Sweetie’s butt that sticks out from under her purple pigloo. I make a hummy noise. That’s when I notice the silence. Consider she is not whistling and chuttering her usual high-pitched alarm. Ever since she learned basement light equals human equals food (at least a fair amount of the time—intermittent reinforcement and all that), she has proved our most vociferous beast.

            I slump. Exhale loudly. “Did he not see her?” I ask the basement. The boy child. When he fed her. Didn’t he question the absence of squeaks?

            I move the purple dome off her waist. Do my spot on imitation of a guinea pig vocal. My Indian name, after all, is Talks with Animals. I called myself that for months after I watched Dances with Wolves. Sweetie does not reply. Doesn’t stir in her aspen bedding. I make my eyes squinty. Will her to waddle her knocked-over-bowling-pin body to the side of the cage. To where she always begs for raisins. Every morning. She doesn’t today because she isn’t today. She cannot, will not, catch her breath of life ever again.

I text husband the sad news. He replies. Says he will lay her to rest tomorrow. I nod. Permit myself a small smile. Under the chestnut tree with all our other beloved pets, no doubt.

            Moments after I return my cell to my hoodie pocket it does a jig against my belly. I take it out again. Hold it at arm's length to decipher the words.

            “Prepare her for burial please.”

            My eyes bulge. I swallow nothing. Me? But I thought that was on the boy list. Along with taking out the trash and relocating almost-big-as-your-hand spiders.

            Preparing her for burial would mean I’d have to touch her. Make contact with death. Don’t tell anyone but part of me thinks it’s contagious. Being dead. I lay a hand over my heart. Feel its increased cadence. Work my tongue in my mouth in search of moisture.

            I lower myself to the floor next to the line of animal cages. Dry my palms on my skinny jeans.

            “This is why I could never be a single mom,” I tell the pets. “’Cause I don't know how to load or unload a mousetrap. Can’t bash a rabid raccoon’s brains with a shovel if need be. Don't have the guts to scrape a roadkill off the street in front of the house.”

            One of the rabbits thumps a big back paw. “Oh, fine!" I say as I heave myself to standing. "I’ll do it!”

            I walk over to the pile of old but clean towels next to the washer. Select a small purple one. Pick at the dried white paint next to the embroidered-in-gold reindeer. It’s soft. She’ll like that. I sigh. Even though she’s dead. I return to her cage and crouch beside it. Feel the splintering start. In my nose. At the corners of my eyes.

            “I hope you didn’t suffer, little friend,” I whisper. “I hope you closed your piggy eyes and . . .  And nothing. Just . . .”

            I reach in and touch her gently. Tentatively. She’s so soft. I imagine she’s warm. What if she’s . . . I poke her. She’s not. I admire the rosettes on her rump one last time before I roll her in the terry shroud.

            “You always looked like you had bed head all over your body, sweet girl.”

            I scootch over so I can get both arms inside her cage. “Remember how I wanted to change your name to Pigsley after we rescued you, but I couldn’t? Because you're so sweet, no name but Sweetie would do.”

            I wrap and tuck the cloth around her. Remove her much heavier in death than life body from the white wire house.

            I snuggle her into an American Eagle shoe box. “Get it, Sweetie?” I say. “I picked this one ‘cause it reminded me of that old hymn—I’ll Fly Away.”

            A sob breaks out of me like a cough. Right after I put the lid on.

            “Why does this never get easier?” I ask the question of Trixie and the bunnies.   The rabbits are side by side, watching me. Trixie sprints up her ramp. Cocks her head. I hold Sweetie’s coffin inches from Trixie’s nose.

            “She’s in here. You never liked her though. Always gave her a hard time. Now she’s gone. Who you gonna talk to now?”
            Trixie whistles. Puts her front paws up on the bars.

            I bite my lip. Whimper. “I’m sorry, Trix. That was mean.”

            I place the burial box on the floor where she and the bunnies can see it.

            “Here you go. I’ll leave her down here a little while. So you all can pay your final respects.”

            I climb the stairs to the kitchen. Take a seat at the table. Sip the last bit of my morning coffee. It’s cold. I spit it back in the cup. Get my phone out of my hoodie pocket and slide it open. Hold it at arm's length and type.

            “Piggy prepared for take off.” Send.