A Nest of Nightmares

COMMUNITY PROPERTY

Ellis had to drive, which meant that Susie got to hold Gonzo on her lap. He hated her for that, among so many other reasons. He felt close to tears at the memory of Gonzo’s plump, furry little body, the warmth of him, the sudden tension in his skinny legs when something outside the window caught his attention.

Ellis didn’t want to lose his dog. Most of all, he didn’t want to lose his dog to her.

The house, community property, would have to be sold. The car was his, and he would keep it along with his hunting rifles and stereo system. The dishes, records, and furniture had been, with the help of the lawyers, divided fairly, even if neither party was entirely satisfied. But how did you divide a dog? Unthinkable to sell him, as if Gonzo were no more than a piece of community property like a house or a television set. Equally unthinkable for either Ellis or Susie to give the dog up to the other. It was impossible, and humiliating, to imagine custody of the dog granted to one and only visitation rights to the other.

His lip rose in a sneer. Visitation rights, with Susie laying down the law to him about when and where? No thanks. Once the divorce was final, he intended never to see the bitch again.

‘Don’t hold him like that,’ he said without looking at her. ‘Let him put his head out the window.’

‘And have him jump out after some other dog and get hit by a car? Christ, you’d love to hang that over me, wouldn’t you?’ Her voice was dry ice.

‘He wouldn’t jump out. He’s a smart dog. You always underestimate his intelligence. He’s wiggling like that because you’re squeezing him.’

‘Just watch the road, would you? And don’t talk to me.’

The animal clinic came in view, and with the sight of it his heart seemed to freeze. His hands tightened on the steering wheel. He wanted to touch Gonzo, to roll him on the ground, to pull his ears, to scratch the white patch on his chest.

He thought of Gonzo as he had first seen him: a patchwork scrap small enough to fit in one cupped hand. There was a lump in his throat and the taste of salt in his mouth. He couldn’t go through with it.

Susie let out an ugly snuffling whimper as he turned the car into the parking lot, and the lump in his throat dissolved. Listen to her – you’d almost think she was feeling something.

‘We don’t have to do this,’ Ellis said, putting the car in park but leaving the engine running. ‘Just say the word.’

‘Say the word and let you take him, you mean.’ Her voice was strangled with tears. ‘Hell, no. If you’re so big-hearted, you say the word and I’ll keep him.’

‘This was your idea in the first place,’ Ellis said, and it had been. It was a horrible idea, too. But he could not bear the thought of seeing her win, of losing Gonzo to her. He could stand to lose, but not to see her win.

She said, speaking for them both, ‘I’d sooner see him die than see you get him.’

‘All right,’ he said, and switched off the car.

Gonzo understood where he was now, and began to struggle in her arms.

‘You’ll drop him. Let me carry him inside,’ Ellis said, reaching for the writhing dog. Susie clutched Gonzo more tightly and backed away. Driven by a feeling of unfairness – she’d got to hold the dog all the way here – he followed, but she fled to the doorstep. With bad grace, but not wanting the people waiting with their pets inside to see him struggling with his wife, Ellis opened the door and let her carry the dog in.

‘We have an appointment,’ Ellis said to the receptionist. ‘And we don’t have time to wait all day.’

‘Um, what’s the problem?’ The receptionist was young and seemed intimidated by him.

‘We’ll tell that to the vet.’

Blushing, the girl went to find a vet.

Gonzo had stopped struggling, but he was trembling violently now, and the whites of his eyes showed. A temporary truce went into effect between husband and wife under the watching eyes of all the other pet-owners present, and they both stroked Gonzo, their hands occasionally colliding, and murmured words meant to soothe him.

‘Dr Blake will see you,’ the receptionist said when she returned. Ellis had never met Blake before – a young man, he was presumably new to the clinic.

‘What seems to be the problem?’ he asked, his manner a nice mixture of cheerfulness and sobriety.

Silence for a moment, neither husband nor wife wanting to be the one to say the words. Finally, setting his jaw and hating her for making him do it, Ellis said, ‘We want you to put our dog to sleep.’

‘Oh? Is he ill? Young dog, isn’t it?’ The vet reached out and Susie retreated, arms closing more tightly about the animal. Ellis hissed her name and she stopped and let the vet take the frightened dog from her arms. She was trembling almost as much as the animal.

‘You know,’ said the vet, looking at her kindly, ‘many problems people think are serious often aren’t, really. We can cure many diseases that . . .’

‘He’s not ill,’ Susie said. ‘We just want you to, please, put him to sleep.’

‘Kill him? But why?’

‘I really don’t think that’s any of your business,’ Ellis said coldly. ‘We’ll pay whatever it costs, of course. It’s not as if we’re asking you to do something illegal.’

The vet stiffened, and Ellis knew he had used the wrong tone of voice. ‘Not illegal, perhaps,’ said the vet. ‘But I find it immoral to kill a healthy young dog for no good reason.’

‘But we have a good reason,’ Susie protested. ‘We don’t want him to suffer. He wouldn’t be happy without us – he’d suffer if we gave him away to strangers. But if you put him to sleep – it really would be just like putting him to sleep, wouldn’t it? – he wouldn’t feel any pain, he wouldn’t know what happened.’

Ellis could see that had thawed the vet a bit. Susie’s earnest, almost child-like manner coupled with her beauty would thaw any man – until he got to know her too well.

‘If a dog is suffering, then frequently the best thing is to put it to sleep. But I’m talking about physical suffering – I doubt the anguish he’d suffer at being parted from you and your husband would be great enough to justify euthanasia. He wouldn’t be in any physical pain, and he’d soon get used to a new home and have a long life ahead of him.’

‘I think we know what’s best for our dog,’ Ellis said. ‘If you’re not willing to put him to sleep, I’m sure we can find someone who is.’

‘I doubt that,’ said Dr Blake. ‘I doubt you’ll find any reputable vet willing to kill a perfectly healthy dog.’ He stroked Gonzo’s trembling flank. ‘Look, if you can’t keep the dog, why not give him away? He seems like a nice, friendly little dog. Why don’t you let me take him? I’ll find him a good home.’

‘No. Absolutely not. We don’t want to give him away,’ Ellis said. ‘There’s no point in wasting your time – there are plenty of other vets in town.’

‘But if you can’t find one who’ll agree?’

Ellis shrugged angrily. ‘That’s ridiculous. They gas dozens of dogs down at the pound every day. It wouldn’t be as quick and painless as you could do it here, but . . .’

‘But at the pound there would be a chance of someone else finding him and giving him a good home.’

‘That’s out of the question. We don’t want anyone else to have our dog.’

Dr Blake shrugged. ‘I think you better get used to the idea. I think I can guarantee you won’t find a vet in town to go along with you. You’ll have to take your dog to the pound.’

Ellis stared at the vet. ‘If you won’t make it easy for me,’ he said quietly, ‘think of this: there’s no law that says a man can’t shoot his own dog.’

Susie whimpered. ‘Oh, he would,’ she said, gazing at the vet for help. ‘He would shoot Gonzo. Please . . . I don’t want Gonzo to suffer.’

‘All right,’ the vet said, his lips tight. ‘I’ll save your dog from that.’ Grim-faced, he put the dog on a metal table and motioned to Ellis to hold the dog still.

‘He won’t feel any pain,’ Ellis said, as the vet prepared the needle.

‘It’s better this way, for all of us,’ Susie said almost prayerfully.

They were both stroking the dog, on either side of some invisible property line, when it died.

The woman burst into tears and snatched up the body, keening over it while Ellis pulled at her arms, trying to get the body for himself.

Disgusted, the vet called in his assistant and managed to get the dog’s body away from the weeping pair. ‘City health regulations,’ he said, as the assistant carried it out to dispose of it.

Ellis looked at the vet through a glaze of pain and tears and suspected that he lied, but it didn’t matter. There was no point in fighting over the body now. Gonzo was gone.

‘Some people,’ said the vet bitterly as they turned to leave, ‘shouldn’t be allowed to have pets.’

They sat in the car; Susie weeping inconsolably, Ellis too drained to start the car. His grief had dissolved the hatred he felt for his wife. He no longer blamed her, any more than he blamed himself. The dog’s death now seemed some unavoidable, senseless tragedy, some act of God which had destroyed the life they had built together.

Susie was sobbing the dog’s name like a prayer. After a moment he joined her, weeping without shame. He forgot where they were, he forgot how Gonzo’s death had come about, he forgot how much he hated his wife, forgot everything except this immense, dreadful loss which united them. He put his arms around her and they rocked back and forth in their shared grief, their tears running together.

Later, in the house they no longer officially lived in, the house largely stripped of furniture and soon to go on the market, they shared a bottle of plum brandy that had been left behind, unwanted or unnoticed, in a cabinet.

All they could think of was Gonzo. The memory of the dog still made Susie break out in fresh tears from time to time, but Ellis was through with his crying. He thought about Gonzo deliberately, testing himself, probing at the sore memory as if it were a wound just starting to heal.

‘I loved that dog more than anything,’ he mused aloud. ‘Much more than I care for most people. I’d have given up anything for that dog.’

‘You!’ She was shocked out of her tears. ‘You think you were the only one? How about me? Don’t you know how I loved him? He was just like a child to me – the child you didn’t want.’

He remembered then just why they had taken Gonzo, the dog that had become so much a part of their lives that it was hard to remember a time without him.

Ellis had been laid off, bringing in $68 a week in unemployment while he looked for another job. She was making $125 a week as a receptionist, and complaining bitterly about having to work. They were quarrelling a lot – not always about money – and the subject of divorce had come up more than once.

Then Susie had got pregnant. Worse – she wanted to quit her job and have the baby. It would make them a family. It would keep the marriage together. On $68 a week.

Ellis had, after more hair-raising scenes and threats than he cared to remember, finally convinced her to have an abortion.

Three days after the abortion, while she was still lying in bed weeping and using up her sick leave, Ellis had gone to the pound and picked out the cutest puppy he could find.

It had been intended as a gift to cheer his wife up. He hadn’t expected how much he would come to love the flippantly named Gonzo, how important the dog would become to both of them.

‘I should never have let you make me have that abortion,’ Susie said. ‘If I’d had a baby I’d still have it – and we might not even be getting divorced. Somebody else would have taken Gonzo from the pound and he’d still be al-l-l-l-l-live.’ She burst into tears yet again.

He moved across the couch to comfort her. Just then, he would have done anything to get Gonzo back. But that was one thing he could not do. He felt very close to Susie, knowing that she was feeling the same sorrow and loss that he felt. Suddenly he wanted her, more than he had in a very long time.

He began unbuttoning her blouse, consoling her with his flesh. She forgot her tears and began responding to his urgency.

Sprawled across the couch she suddenly whispered, ‘I don’t have anything – I stopped taking the pill when I moved out.’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said recklessly, suddenly seeing the answer to their irreplaceable loss. ‘I love you; I want to be with you. We were crazy to think about a divorce.’

‘We’ll start all over again,’ she murmured happily.

‘We’ll have a baby,’ he said. ‘We’ll have a baby as we should have before. We’ll start it right now.’

One photograph angered him the most. It showed Susie with little Jessica on her lap, as smug as she could be about having the child all to herself. Doling out the minutes to him only when it pleased her, while she could be with Jessica whenever she wanted.

‘Of course, if you think you’ve got a case,’ his lawyer had said. ‘But I’d better warn you – the court nearly always lets the child stay with the mother, unless we can provide some compelling reason why not.’

He would find a compelling reason. Ellis flipped through the photographs again. All harmless. The first detective hadn’t been able to get anything on her. She was keeping clean – at least until the divorce was final. But that careful morality wouldn’t last long – she’d soon be sleeping around. He would keep a detective on her – a really good one, this time – until he had the proof he needed to get his child away from her.

He stared at the photograph. He wouldn’t let that bitch get the better of him.

The house, community property, would be sold. They each had a car and their personal belongings, and the rest of the property had been divided up after many arguments and consultations with both lawyers. Neither was entirely happy about the result, but it was fair, they agreed, a fair division of property.

But how could you divide a child? You couldn’t. Somebody had her, and somebody didn’t. Unless nobody had her.

He looked across the room at his gun rack and crumpled the photograph in his fist.