J. Lennon - See You in Paradise

“What are you doing in here?”

He looks up and smiles at her, a smile full of understanding and patience. Not the smile of a child. Her heart dislodges for a moment and swings free from a vein, and it occurs to her that Ray should not fear the half of this boy that is Ellen, but the half that is him. He says, “Same thing you’re doing in here. Getting away from those cuckoos.”

“Can I come in?”

“Sure.”

She fits easily; it’s a big doghouse and she is a small woman. She says, “Do you miss him? Bounder?”

“I will, I guess.”

A jagged splinter juts from a ceiling beam, and she reaches up and plucks it off. “He was a good dog,” she says. “Farewell, Bounder.”

He looks up at her. God, what a look! It’s the spitting image of Ray, this thing he does where he focuses suddenly on her face as if he has just now noticed it for the first time, and he reaches out and touches her cheek, and some small emotion floods his eyes. But Ryan doesn’t touch her. The look grows quizzical.

“Do you know what my mom is going to do in there?” he says.

“No, what?” Her sinuses are filling up.

“With Bounder? Did she tell you?”

“Tell me what?”

He leans past her suddenly and pokes his head out. Sunlight screws his pupils to pinpricks. When he ducks back inside, he puts his hand on hers and says, full of concern, “Just stay here.” It is no expression of need, but a kind of warning. She has no choice but to heed it. Her nose clogs and begins to run, and as if anticipating this very problem, Ryan reaches into the pocket of his pants and hands her a tissue.

Through the closet door Ellen hears Ray arriving: arriving Ray, with her rival Jane, Julia rather, who remains alive, having survived the rivalry. It’s time for meet-and-greet, it’s time for beat-the-band, it’s time to dive into the light and await the vet van. Bounder’s in a ball on the closet floor, boring, no not boring, snoring, or rather heavy breathing, wheezing, heaving, sneezing. Dying. Crying. No: crying’s all done now, it’s out. Out like the light. And now it’s time for the dying. All right: she’s ready: what’s the time?: okay, ready: out.

Hi! She says Hi! making rounds, shaking hands, taking names, rounding friends. The holy whole of them is here, LydPaulTomSydMattPatJanetBob, seeing off the hound, the mutt, the mound in his hut. Except he’s in the closet half-asleep, hurting. No — pain is ending, heaven pending, heart is mending! Breathe in, breathe out. That’s it.

“I’m so sorry to hear—” It’s Lovely Fat Lydia, anti-development maven, swimming in her muumuu, beautiful, they hug, they kiss, It’s okay, His time has come, That’s old for dog years, Thankyouverymuch. And now the dentist with his giant choppers, size and shape of postage stamps, grips her shoulders, gives them a little massage, “We’ll have to get together, come to my place for dinner some night—” Imagine! a come-on at a time like this—

Wait. Close eyes. Calm. Yes. Better.

“Hi, El.”

Open eyes. “Hey, Ray.”

She can see herself in the set of his face, the way she seems to him. Poor man. Never understood. She tried to be the girl he thought he saw when first he saw her. Attractive, productive, what they call vivacious yet not in the least bit dumb: she was a catch. Loved, loves him. But he never knew what he was getting; she kidded herself that he did. One night at the copy shop it came out. She was pregnant, it was almost their second anniversary, they were xeroxing invitations to the party they were throwing themselves. Next to her in line was a punk rocker with a poster for his band. That poster: so intricate, so patient, she had to say something. She placed her finger on it on the counter and said what came to mind.

“Pretty-pretty.”

The punk swiveled. He clearly didn’t like her finger on the poster but didn’t ask her to remove it. He said, “I beg your pardon?”

Ray placed a hand on her shoulder, half-protecting, half-restraining. She was going to say it again, she knew it. Here it came: “Pretty-pretty.”

The punk looked at Ray for some instruction. She still doesn’t know if Ray gave it or not. “Thanks,” said the punk, and pulled his poster out from under her finger.

That night he said to her in bed, as proto-Ryan exerted itself in her belly, “What was that all about? In the copy shop.”

“What in the copy shop?” The invitations sat addressed and stamped on the mail table, just inside the door.

“What you said to that kid.”

“What’d I say?”

“You said, ‘Pretty-pretty.’”

Yes! It was succinct, instinctive, perfect. One pretty because it was, and the other because the first wasn’t quite enough. But she replied, “Is that what I said? I thought it was a nice poster.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t do that,” he said.

“Say nice things?”

His “never mind” came much later.

The first pretty was not enough, that was the trouble. And since then nothing has ever been enough. And all that came before, that was not enough either. It is not enough to speak against fossil fuels; one must walk two miles to the doctor’s office, three to the grocery, four to the library. It is not enough to protest development: firebombing bulldozers, that might be enough. It isn’t enough to cry, one must rend one’s garment. It is not enough to love, one must give everything.

Bounder loved, Bounder gave everything. And when the cancers chose him, Bounder accepted his suffering. It is not enough to let him die. No, she has to make him a gift of death; the dog would have done the same for her. And let them all see her mercy, let them watch him accept bliss into his heart.

Those anniversary party invitations disappeared, but not into the mailbox. The party did not occur. The marriage did not end there — really, it didn’t seem like a big deal at the time — but it would, it would.

“I have to tell you something,” she says now to Ray. He actually winces.

“What is it?”

But first: “Where’s Ryan?”

“I don’t know,” he says. “With Julia? I can’t find her.”

“I need him.”

“What is it, El?”

“Something is going to happen.”

The doorbell rings. His doorbell, Ray’s. He rigged the chime so that its factory-installed major triad became the minor seventh that sounded now. How they laughed to hear it, that enigmatic, unresolved chord that transformed every meter reader, every petition-monger and Mormon elder into an omen. Now Ray reacts with a sort of horror, as if the precipitous notes have burst a spore in his memory and let their marriage out. For the first time she sees what a terrible thing she’s about to do. Yes: let Ryan stay away.

She opens the door. The vet is there with his awful box. He’s a shorty, five five tops, with a confectionery smile that congeals on his jaw when he takes note of the crowd. The crowd, in turn, takes note of him and grows silent. There is a moment of calculation, which is cracked by a whine. The whine is Bounder’s. The closet door has fallen open. The old dog drags himself out.

His fur is halfway gone and coarse as twine, the skin studded with cysts. His back legs no longer support his meager weight, and a trail of urine appears, smeared over the floorboards behind him. He is like a bride as the activists part to clear his path. No, Ellen thinks, no, no, no! and she rushes to him and lifts him off the floor. This seems to hurt him — he howls — and her will weakens. But when she turns back to the vet it is with renewed resolve. Now, she thinks, now.

The tiny doctor says, “Are you kidding me, lady?”