So I put my right arm around Kathryns shoulders, and we went in through that door and down the hallway. It wasnt very well lit. Bare bulbs screwed into the ceiling showered raw light downward so that the place looked like an aging army barracks. I dont know what I was expecting. The floors were cement, so they could clean them easily of waste matter, and our shoes, our running shoes, were squeaking over that surface.
You cant imagine the noise. They were all barking and howling and yapping, these dogs of every size, pure dog-desperation, mutt-mania, an army of refugee dogs, and we marched down that hallway between the cages, being roared at, like these dogs were screaming Save us save us, and I held on to Kathryn, and then we walked back, with me still holding on, and then we walked down the hallway a third time, and Kathryn said, You can let go of me now, so I did. I let go of her.
We kept walking back and forth. We werent about to get a dog. No. That wasnt ever the idea, despite what I had said. We were just there, walking up and down that aisle at the Humane Society, for Kathryns benefit, and after about the fifth time it felt as if we were on inspection, in the dog barracks. Not all the dogs quieted down, but some of them did, and when they did, we began to peer at them, which we really hadnt done before when they were making a racket and they were just generic dogs.
Its when you start looking at dogs that you begin to notice their faces. Is that the word? Faces? Muzzles? And after all in a Humane Society theyre mostly mutts, so you dont have anything like a breed to distract you, except for Dalmatians, because people are always buying Dalmatians, thinking that theyre cute, and then they get rid of them because they cant stand how difficult and dumb they are. You do notice all the Dalmatians in the Humane Society.
Kathryn was still a bit scared, but by this time she was noticing their expressions. I didnt prompt her. I didnt say anything. And soon she said, Ill bet that one likes a party. And Id bet that ones a bully. That ones kind of stupid but has a good sense of humor. And that one, hes a recluse. That ones a pack animal. That one there, shes stubborn and independent. That one likes to ride in cars. That one thinks all day about food.
She had her index finger pointed at them. And then she started to name them.
Youre Otis.
Youre Sophie.
Youre Lester.
Youre Duffy.
Youre Gordon.
Youre Daisy.
Youre Waverly.
And you, you handsome fellow, she said, pointing down at a dog on the other side of the bars, you, youre Bradley.
There was a dog there, I admit it, that looked a lot like me, like my brother or cousin, these sort of eyes I have, and its voice was just like mine, a rumble, phlegmy, you know, but strong and commanding like my voice is. Brownish fur like mine, and friendly, like me, but prone to harmless manias, also like me, you could just tell.
And the thing was, as Kathryn was doing this, as she was naming the dogs, going up and down the aisles, something quite amazing happened. One by one, the dogs stopped barking. They just quit. At first I didnt think it was happening, I thought it had to do with my hearing, you know, what do they call it, tinnitus, but it wasnt that. The dogs were really going quiet. Kathryn would point at them, one at a time, at one dog, and give it a name youre Inez and the dog would look at her, and after a moment or two it Inez the dog would clam up. And before very long, it grew really quiet in there, maybe a yip or two now and then, but otherwise no sound. As if, all that time, all they had wanted was a name. It was spooky.
I think we had better leave now, Kathryn said. I took her hand and we went back out to the car.
I think we had better leave now, Kathryn said. I took her hand and we went back out to the car.
But before we got to the car the red-haired receptionist in the jumpsuit said, What happened? What the hell did you do in there? and she went rushing back toward the kennels, and the dogs started howling again, crying out to heaven as we unlocked the car and backed out of the parking lot and pulled out onto the road. We were gone, we were erased from the Humane Society. Meanwhile, the sky had mottled over with clouds.
We lived in a cheap place in one of those student neighborhoods, an old building, really antiquated, one cigarette would have set it afire instantly. I was driving, rushing back to our old building and that apartment, feeling gleeful, and at first Kathryn was annoyed that I had taken her there to see the dogs, you know, paternalistic or patriarchal or something equally criminal, but then she changed her mind, and in her excitement was actually bouncing on the seat, her legs tucked under her, and she said, Im still scared of them, but, Jesus, Brad, I was inspired. Those were really their names! I gave them the right names. I knew exactly what to call them.
Theres no such thing as the right name for a dog, I said. Its all arbitrary. A name is arbitrary.
No, it isnt, she insisted. There are okay names, approximate names, but theres one correct one, and I hit it every time.
And I thought: Well, I dunno, who cares, maybe shes right, why argue. We got home, and we sat down on the sofa together, and she looked so beautiful in the blue sweatshirt and the blue jeans she was wearing, no socks, just her sneakers, these rags, these gorgeous rags that she had made beautiful by wearing them, and the cap she had on, her gray eyes, the delicate way she moved, and in a sudden heedless rush I said, Kathryn, I love you, and she nodded, she acknowledged it, she didnt say she loved me but I didnt care and didnt even notice that she hadnt said anything in return until about four weeks later when she moved out. But on that day, she leaned into me. We held on to each other. Clutching. We must have stayed together in one posture just holding each other, there on the sofa, for maybe an hour. When youre in love you dont have to do a damn thing. You can just be. You can just stay quiet in the world. You dont have to move an inch.
Then eventually she said, Look. Its snowing.
We disentangled ourselves and got up together and walked over to the window. The air had been abruptly filled, every square inch, with snowflakes, and I thought of how peaceful it was, even though the snow was just this humble artifact. This is our first snow, I said aloud, thinking that we would have many more years of seeing it together, that we would stand in front of windows year after year, watching the first snow, the two of us, watching the wind swirl it, then watching the spring storms, watching the snow melting and the water rushing down into the storm drains. From now and then onward into forever, this would happen. We would watch our children playing in the melting snow, splashing in the puddles. After we died, we would still be seeing everything together, Kathryn and me. Into eternity, I thought. Death would be a trivial event as long as I loved her.
She must have thought she loved me, too, because she wanted to cook a dinner for me, which she did, a quick Stroganoff, and then afterward, while I was doing the dishes, she was still sitting at the table, and she started to sing.
I had never heard her sing before. I didnt know she could sing. I dont think she knew that she could sing. She had a small, a very small, but a sweet voice, and in this small sweet voice she sang two songs, I guess the only ones she could think of at that moment, very slow and sultry, You Are My Sunshine and Stairway to Heaven.
Then in bed, later, she sang the Michigan fight song, Hail to the Victors. Softly and slowed down, in my ear. As a love song. You know: the way youd sing to a winner. Because after all, I had won her, somehow.
Outside, the snow went on falling.
For days afterward I went back secretly to the Humane Society. I went back there and gazed at the dogs in their pens. I would look at all the dogs that Kathryn had named. Also I was looking for the Labrador-retriever-collie mix she had named Bradley. After me. Finally I went in and said I wanted him, and they turned him over to me, but only after they neutered him and gave him his shots. I persuaded my sister, Agatha, and her husband, Harold, to keep him for a while until I had convinced Kathryn about the wisdom of having a dog. I just knew I could talk her into it. I took Bradley up north, wagging and slobbering in the backseat, and left him with Agatha.
Back at the Humane Society week by week the other dogs were gone, one by one they disappeared, replaced by new dogs. The old dogs the dogs that Kathryn had named had found homes, I liked to think, where they were fed and housed and taken care of, but where they were occasionally unhappy about one thing, which was that they had the wrong name. The name they were supposed to have had been lost, and their owners had given them bogus names, childish names, lousy standard-issue dog names like Buster and Rover and Rex. The only dog who had the right name was Bradley, a name that he and I had to share.
Once in a while I would see a dog out on the street, and I would recognize it from the Humane Society, and I knew that it had seen us, Kathryn and me, two people in love, walking up and down between the cages, holding each other. It had seen that but didnt or couldnt remember. I was the person who remembered.
Now theres Bradley the person, me, and Bradley the dog, him.
You know, that day was perfect. A breath of sweetness. Thats a phrase I would never use in real life, but I just used it. You can laugh at my wording if you want to, you can laugh at the names I have for things, I know you do that, but Ill think of that day from now on as a perfect day. A breath of sweetness.
What Im saying is: that day was here and then it was gone, but I remember it, so it exists here somewhere, and somewhere all those events are still happening and still going on forever. I believe that.
THREE
DID HE TELL YOU about the dogs?
Well, yes. He did.
And he said that I was afraid of dogs and that he drove me to the Humane Society?