Taking Care

Preparation for a Collie

THERE is Jane and there is Jackson and there is David. There is the dog.

David is burying a bird. He has a carton in which cans of garbanzos were once packed. It is a large carton, much too large for the baby bird. David is digging a hole beneath the bedroom window. He mutters and cries a little. He is spending Sunday morning doing this. He is five.

Jackson comes outside and says, “It’s too bad you didn’t find a dead swan. It would have fit better in that hole.”

Jackson is going to be an architect. He goes to school all day and he works as a bartender at night. He sees Jane and David on weekends. He is too tired in the morning to have breakfast with them. Jane leaves before nine. She sells imported ornaments in a Christmas shop, and Jackson is gone by the time Jane returns in the afternoon. David is in kindergarten all day. Jackson tends bar until long after midnight. Sometimes he steals a bottle of blended whiskey and brings it home with him. He wears saddle shoes and a wedding ring. His clothes are poor but he has well-shaped hands and nails. Jane is usually asleep when Jackson gets in bed beside her. He goes at her without turning on the light.

“I don’t want to wake you up,” he says.

Jackson is from Virginia. Once, a photograph of him in period dress appeared in The New Yorker for a VISIT WILLIAMSBURG advertisement. They have saved the magazine. It is in their bookcase with their books.

Jackson packs his hair down hard with water when he leaves the house. The house is always a mess. It is not swept. There are crumbs and broken toys beneath all the furniture. There are cereal bowls everywhere, crusty with soured milk. There is hair everywhere. The dog sheds. It is a collie, three years older than David. It is Jane’s dog. She brought it with her into this marriage, along with her Mexican bowls and something blue.

Jane could be pretty but she doesn’t know how to arrange her hair. She has violet eyes. And she prefers that color. She has three pots of violets in the living room on Jackson’s old chess table. They flourish. This is sometimes mentioned by Jackson. Nothing else flourishes as well here.

Whenever Jackson becomes really angry with Jane, he takes off his glasses and breaks them in front of her. They seem always to be the most valuable thing at hand. And they are replaceable, although the act causes considerable inconvenience.

Jane and David eat supper together every night. Jane eats like a child. Jane is closest to David in this. They are children together, eating junk. Jane has never prepared a meal in this house. She is as though in a seasonal hotel. This is not her life; she does not have to be this. She refuses to become familiar with this house, with this town. She is a guest here. She has no memories. She is waiting. She does not have to make anything of these moments. She is a stranger here.

She is waiting for Jackson to become an architect. His theories of building are realistic but his quest is oneiric, he tells her. He sometimes talks about “sites.”

They are getting rid of the dog. Jackson has been putting ads in the paper. He is enjoying this. He has been advertising for weeks. The dog is free and many people call. Jackson refuses all callers. For three weekends now, he and Jane have talked about nothing except the dog. They will simplify their life and they cannot stop thinking about it, this dog, this act, this choice that lies before them.

The dog has crammed itself behind the pipes beneath the kitchen sink. David squats before him, blowing gently on his nose. The dog thumps its tail on the linoleum.

“We’re getting rid of you, you know,” David says.

It is Saturday evening and someone has stopped at the house to see the dog.

“Is he a full-blooded collie?” the person asks. “Does he have papers?”

“He doesn’t say,” Jackson smiles.

After all these years, six, Jane is a little confused by Jackson. She sees this as her love for him. What would her love for him be if it were not this? In turn, she worries about her love for David. Jane does not think David is nice-looking. He has many worries, it seems. He weeps, he has rashes, he throws up. He has pale hair, pale flesh. She does not know how she can go through all these days, each day, embarrassed for her son.

Jane and Jackson lie in bed.

“I love Sundays,” Jane says.

Jackson wears a T-shirt. Jane slips her hand beneath it and strokes his chest. She is waiting. She sometimes fears that she is waiting for the waiting to end, fears that she seeks and requires only that recognition and none other. Jackson holds her without opening his eyes.

It is Sunday. Jane pours milk into a pancake mix.

Something gummy is stuck in David’s hair. Jane gets a pair of scissors and cuts it out.

Jackson says, “David, I want you to stop crying so much and I want you to stop pretending to bake in Mommy’s cupcake tins.” Jackson is angry, but then he laughs. After a moment, David laughs too.

That afternoon, a woman and a little girl come to the house about the dog.

“I told you on the phone, I’d give you some fresh eggs for him.” the woman says, thrusting a child’s sand bucket at Jane. “Even if you decide not to give the dog to us, the eggs, of course, are still yours.” She pauses at Jane’s hesitation. “Adams,” the woman says. “We’re here for the ad.”

Jackson waves her to a chair and says, “Mrs. Adams, we seek no personal aggrandizement from our pet. Our only desire is that he be given a good home. A great many people have contacted us and now we must make a difficult decision. Where will he inspire the most contentment and where will he find canine fulfillment?”

Jane brings the dog into the room.

“There he is, Dorothy!” Mrs. Adams exclaims to the little girl. “Go over and pet him or something.”

“It’s a nice dog,” Dorothy says. “I like him fine.”

“She needs a dog,” Mrs. Adams says. “Coming over here, she said, ‘Mother, we could bring him home today in the back of the car. I could play with him tonight.’ Oh, she sure would like to have this dog. She lost her dog last week. A tragedy. Kicked to death by one of the horses. Must have broken every bone in his fluffy little body.”

“What a pity!” Jackson exclaims.

“And then there was the accident,” Mrs. Adams goes on. “Show them your arm, Dorothy. Why, I tell you, it almost came right off. Didn’t it, darling?”

The girl rolls up the sleeve of her shirt. Her arm is a mess, complexly rearranged, a yellow matted wrinkle of scar tissue.

“Actually,” Jackson says, “I’m afraid my wife has promised the dog to someone else.”

After they leave, Jackson says, “These farm people have the souls of animals themselves.”

The dog walks slowly back to the kitchen, swinging its high foolish hips. David wanders back to the breakfast table and picks up something, some piece of food. He chews it for a moment and then spits it out. He kneels down and spits it into the hot-air register.

“David,” Jane says. She looks at his face. It is calm and round, a child’s face.

It is evening. On television, a man dressed as a chef, holding six pies, falls down a flight of stairs. The incident is teaching numbers.

SIX, the screen screams.

“Six,” David says.

Jane and Jackson are drinking whiskey and apple juice. Jane is wondering what they did for David’s last birthday, when he was five. Did they have a little party?

“What did we do on your last birthday, David?” Jane asks.

“We gave him pudding and tea,” Jackson says.

“That’s not true,” Jane says, worried. She looks at David’s face.

SIX TOCKING CLOCKS, the television sings.

“Six,” David says.

Jane’s drink is gone. “May I have another drink?” she asks politely, and then gets up to make it for herself. She knocks the ice cubes out of the tray and smashes them up with a wooden spoon. On the side of the icebox, held in place by magnets, is a fragment from a poem, torn from a book. It says, The dead must fall silent when one sits down to a meal. She wonders why she put it there. Perhaps it was to help her diet.

Jane returns to the couch and David sits beside her. He says, “You say ‘no’ and I say ‘yes.’”

“No,” Jane says.

“Yes,” David yells, delighted.

“No.”

“Yes.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“Yes.”

David stops, confused. Then he giggles. They play this game all the time. Jane is willing to play it with him. It is easy enough to play. Jackson and Jane send David to a fine kindergarten and are always buying him chalk and crayons. Nevertheless, Jane feels unsure with David. It is hard to know how to act when one is with the child, alone.

The dog sits by a dented aluminum dish in the bright kitchen. Jackson is opening a can of dog food.

“Jesus,” he says, “what a sad, stupid dog.”

The dog eats its food stolidly, gagging a little. The fur beneath its tail hangs in dirty beards.

“Jesus,” Jackson says.

Jane goes to the cupboard, wobbling slightly. “I’m going to kill that dog,” she says. “I’m sick of this.” She puts down her drink and takes a can of Drāno out of the cupboard. She takes a pound of hamburger which is thawing in a bowl and rubs off the soft pieces onto a plate. She pours Drāno over it and mixes it in.

“It is my dog,” Jane says, “and I’m going to get rid of him for you.”

David starts to cry.

“Why don’t you have another drink?” Jackson says to Jane. “You’re so vivacious when you drink.”

David is sobbing. His hands flap in the air. Jackson picks him up. “Stop it,” he says. David wraps his legs around his father’s chest and pees all over him. Their clothing turns dark as though, together, they’d been shot. “Goddamn it,” Jackson shouts. He throws his arms out. He stops holding the child but his son clings to him, then drops to the floor.

Jane grabs Jackson’s shoulder. She whispers in his ear, something so crude, in a tone so unfamiliar, that it can only belong to all the time before them. Jackson does not react to it. He says nothing. He unbuttons his shirt. He takes it off and throws it in the sink. Jane has thrown the dog food there. The shirt floats down to it from his open fist.

Jane kneels and kisses her soiled son. David does not look at her. It is as though, however, he is dreaming of looking at her.