Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk: A Modest Bestiary Page 4

  “That’s right, Mr. Snob,” my wife said. She always calls me that when we disagree about something, whether it’s a chew toy or the smell of an electrical appliance. “I guess I’m just not as well-bred as you,” she’ll say. And it’s true. She’s not. It’s also true that she’s the one forever bringing it up. It’s her own insecurity talking, the tragic self-hatred of a mixed-breed country girl, so I try to let it slide.

  My wife mentions my bloodline when she’s ticked off, of course, and then again whenever I get sent out on a stud call, which is not the same as cheating, I don’t care what you hear. Infidelity involves a choice, while this is arranged by forces beyond my control. “These females don’t want me any more than I want them,” I tell my wife. “It’s not an affair, it’s work. It’s my job, for God’s sake.”

  She says that if it’s a paycheck I’m after, I could just as easily lug around a blind person. “Or better yet, sniff out contraband, you and that selective nose that hates the TV but loves the smell of a book.”

  “Not all books,” I tell her. And it’s true. I can’t stand thrillers.

  It was in the midst of our difficulties, my wife’s stitches still tender, that I was sent to service a female a few hours west of our home. Normally it’s just “hello/good-bye,” but the land is beautiful in that part of the world. It’s wooded, with lots of hills, so rather than waiting for me to finish, my owner decided to drop me off and spend the rest of the day nosing around in his car. The act itself—it’s hard to think of it as sex—lasted no more than a minute. Then this female and I got to talking. She’s pure Irish setter, just like me, so we had that in common. Both of us had hookworms when we were young, and both of us, very coincidentally, love the taste and texture of candles. “As long as they’re not scented,” she said.

  “The worst are those cheap vanilla candles,” I offered.

  She agreed, adding that the “cheap” part was redundant. “All vanilla-scented candles are cheap.”

  I told her about a cinnamon-scented candle I’d once chewed on as a puppy, and as she howled her sympathetic disgust, I thought of my wife and of how we would have sounded to her ears. “Arrogant,” she’d have called us. “Noses so high in the air you can’t smell your own farts.” This for the crime of preferring one thing over another.

  “You know what else I hate?” I said to the female. “I hate air fresheners, coconut being the worst.”

  “Well, I don’t know,” she said. “I think a pretty good case could be built against wild cherry.”

  “Oh my God, wild cherry!” I said, and I hunched my shoulders, pretending to barf.

  From air fresheners, we wandered on to padded toilet seats, novelty mailboxes, and Labradoodles. She’d just started in on light jazz when I suggested we try the breeding thing one more time. “In case the first go didn’t work.”

  “Don’t have to ask me twice,” she said.

  I didn’t have to ask at all for round three, and the one after that just seemed to happen on its own. “An aftershock,” the female called it. Some might define this as cheating, but I just call it being thorough. Then too I was completely up front about my marital status, practically from the start.

  “Your wife?” the female said. “So how did that happen?”

  I told her we were married by my owner’s girlfriend. “Now former girlfriend,” I said. “I don’t know how binding it is, but I wouldn’t want to be with anyone else.” And it’s true, I wouldn’t. Among other things, I like the fact that my wife needs me. Without my guidance, she’s sure to finish what her boyfriend started. The child across the street will be mangled even worse, and for what? “This is not you,” I keep telling her. For now, though, it’s as if she’s under a spell. I explained this to the female as best as I could, and after I’d finished she cocked her head.

  “So your wife was brainwashed by an English bull terrier?”

  “Something like that.”

  “God,” she said, “I hate English bull terriers.”

  That was when we had the aftershock.

  It was almost dusk when the owner arrived, and he and I headed off for home. The air conditioner was on, but after some whining I got him to lower the window. I had my head out and we’d been on the road for no more than twenty minutes when we came upon a burning building. It was a house, three stories tall, with a low brick wall around it. The owner pulled over, and before he could stop me I jumped over the seat and joined him on the grass. Had my wife been with me, he’d have forced us back into the car, but I’m pretty reliable, even without a leash. Besides, I make him look good, much more interesting than he actually is.

  A small crowd had begun to gather, encircling a barefoot woman with sweatpants on. As we moved closer, I saw that she was holding a dachshund, the type with long hair. Everyone watched as she pushed back his ears, repeatedly kissing his forehead while he twisted and begged to be let down. It was only when an old man arrived and gathered the woman in an embrace that the dog broke free. He and I got to talking, and I learned he was the single thing this woman had reached for when she smelled the smoke and realized that her house was on fire. “Which is nice and everything, don’t get me wrong,” the dachshund said, “but she’s got a teenage son in there.” He gestured toward a second-floor window with black smoke pouring out of it. “He and his mother were constantly at each other’s throats, but he was always nice to me, poor kid.”

  The dachshund let out a sigh, and as the woman reached down to snatch him back up, I caught a glimpse of the poor guy’s future. I could have saved anything, and I chose you.

  Who wants to live with that kind of pressure?

  As I wished him good luck, the firemen arrived. A group of three headed toward the house and were almost there when a part of the roof collapsed. Sparks shot into the darkening sky, and as they sputtered down to earth, I caught the scent of burning flesh and realized how hungry I was. With any luck the owner would stop on our way home and buy us each a hamburger wrapped in paper. Then, smelling of smoke and ketchup, I’d return to my hangdog wife and continue the long business of loving her.

  The Crow and the Lamb

  The crow was out one morning, looking for something to eat, when she spotted a newborn lamb suckling in the field below. Sheep, she thought. What I wouldn’t give for a life like that. The mother spits out a baby and then she just lies there doing nothing while it feeds itself. No nest to build, no spending every rotten moment searching for food, and even then it’s never enough.

  On top of that, birds had to be homeschooled, not like sheep or cows, who learned junk from one another. “It takes a village,” they liked to say, not that there was much to learn in the first place. You lower your head, and food goes in. Raise your tail, and it comes out. The eating part, they had down, but the rest, forget it. Crap smeared from one end of their bodies to the other. Where was the fucking village when it came to cleaning themselves? That’s what the crow wanted to ask. Oh, they moaned about the insects—flies lighting on their faces all day—but news flash: flies go where the shit is, so if you don’t want them clustering on your forehead, clean it! God, these grazing animals were stupid, which was not altogether a bad thing.

  After circling a few times, the crow landed in the pasture and pretended to pick at something in the grass. The old ewe looked her over for a moment, then returned her attention to the newborn, who was receiving the first and probably the only bath of its life. “Cute kid,” the crow called out. “Is it a boy or a girl?”

  The ewe sighed in the way of all parents who expect their baby’s sex to be obvious. “He’s a boy. My second.” Normally she was more sociable, but something about birds put her off—their uselessness, she supposed.

  “Well, he’s an absolute lamb, if you don’t mind my saying so,” the crow said, and she hopped a bit closer. “Tell me, was it a natural childbirth?”

  The ewe had wanted to remain aloof, but what with the subject matter—that is to say, herself—she found it impossible to hold o
ut for more than a few seconds. “Oh yes,” she said. “A hundred percent natural, but then again, that’s just my way. It makes it more ‘real,’ if you know what I mean.”

  The crow nodded. “And the placenta?”

  “Oh,” the ewe said, “I ate it. Tasted like the devil, but I think it’s important for, you know, the bonding process.”

  “Definitely,” the crow agreed, and she lowered her head to scowl into the grass. Nothing irritated her more than these high-and-mighty vegetarians who ate meat sometimes and then decided that it didn’t really count. “So I suppose you choked down the umbilical cord as well?”

  “Don’t remind me,” the ewe said, and she made a little gagging gesture. “Some of them are burying it now, holding a little ceremony, but then I heard that dogs dig it up, which sort of takes the godliness out of it, don’t you think? I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m not a fanatic or anything. You won’t catch me posing in any nativity scene, but I do consider myself to be a very spiritual being.”

  “That, I think, is much better than being quote/unquote ‘religious,’ ” the crow said, and she took another step closer. “Rather than joining the blind followers, the sheep, if you’ll forgive the expression, you’ve figured out what’s right for you and gotten rid of the rest. Take shaving, for instance—some faiths say you can’t do it. Now, that’s fine for a horse or a chicken or whatnot, but where would it leave you?”

  “I shudder to think.” The ewe chuckled. “Especially in the summer heat!”

  “Exactly,” the crow said. “Why buy the whole package when it’s just going to drag you down? I heard of another religion that says you can’t touch a pig.”

  “Well, I’m in!” the ewe said, and she laughed again, revealing her thick, even teeth.

  “I would be too, to tell you the truth,” the crow confided. “But what if you were a pig yourself and your child needed feeding? What are you going to do? Send it to a cow? Let it starve to death?”

  “I see your point,” the ewe said.

  “So we pick and we choose,” the crow continued. “A little of this and a little of that. I, for example, have recently thrown some Oriental meditation into the mix. Every morning I shut my eyes for ten minutes or so and just sort of block it all out. The noise, the hubbub—everything, gone.”

  The ewe turned her head toward the far end of the field, squinting at the brook and the row of poplars that shifted lazily behind it. “I’m afraid we don’t have much hubbub around here,” she said. “It’s a pretty quiet place compared to most.”

  “You’ve just gotten used to it is all,” the crow told her. “The other sheep, the crickets and so forth, and if your baby is anything like mine, I bet he can really raise the roof when he wants a second helping.”

  “Oh yes.”

  “It might not seem like much, but taken as a whole, this farm racket can really jangle the nerves. And that’s what meditation is all about. It’s a way of saying, ‘Back off, world. It’s time for me to be good to me.’ ”

  “I like the sound of that,” the ewe said, and she looked at her baby, who was sitting upright with his legs folded beneath him, his eyes glued to her teats. “Tell me, though, is it hard, this… what did you call it?”

  “Meditation,” the crow said. “And to answer your question, it couldn’t be easier. The first step is to close your eyes, good and hard, mind you, as peeking lets in bad energy that can seriously mess with your digestion.”

  The ewe did as she was told.

  “Now, there’s no set rule, but what the Orientals like to do is repeat what they call a mantra,” the crow explained. “The same line over and over, until it really sinks into your spirit. It sounds boring, I know, but it’s actually very effective.”

  “What kind of a line?” the ewe asked. “Like poetry or something?”

  “Well, I suppose it could be,” the crow said. “My own mantra is more of an affirmation, I guess you could call it. It’s sort of personal, but you’re more than welcome to use it if you like, at least until you come up with something of your own.”

  “It’s not dirty, is it? I have the child to think about.”

  “Of course it’s not dirty,” the crow said. “I can’t believe you would even ask such a question.”

  “I didn’t mean to insult you,” the ewe said. “It’s just that, well, you hear stories…”

  “And that means that all crows are filthy, does it? We’ve all got sex on the brain?”

  “What I meant is that I’d love to borrow your mantra,” the ewe said. “That is, if I still can.”

  The crow looked from the lamb to its mother, marveling that something so cute could grow to be so shapeless and ugly. It was just the opposite with birds, she thought. Nothing was more repellent than a chick, but then again, who needs looks when you’re too young and stupid to use them? Keeping one’s eyes shut would be a valuable skill for someone like the ewe, especially when it came time to mate. She pictured a ram heaving its battered, spindly legs upon her back, and then she shook her head to wash the image away. “I guess I’ll let you use my mantra, but just until you come up with your own,” she said, and she leaned forward to whisper it into the ewe’s ear. “Now I want you to put your head down and repeat that line twenty times. No, better make it thirty, after everything you’ve been through.”

  The ewe did as she was instructed, and as she mumbled into the damp grass, the crow moved beside her and plucked out the eyes of the newborn lamb. One she ate right away, for it was delicious, and the other she set into her beak and carried back to her ungrateful children.

  As for the ewe, she was still deep in meditation, her eyes clamped shut, repeating the code of thieves and charlatans and those who are good to themselves the world over. “I have to do what I have to do,” she said. “I have to do what I have to do.”

  The Sick Rat and the Healthy Rat

  The white rat had been sick for as long as he could remember. If it wasn’t a headache, it was an upset stomach, a sore throat, an eye infection. Pus seeped from his gums. His ears rang, and what little he ate went right through him. Now came the news that he had pancreatic cancer, which was actually something of a relief. “Finally I can die,” he moaned to his new roommate. She was a female, also white, and had arrived only that morning.

  The tank they shared was made of glass, its walls soiled here and there with bloody paw prints and flecks of vomit. “Well,” she sighed, wincing at the state of her new home, “I’m sorry to say it, but if you have a terminal illness it’s nobody’s fault but your own.”

  “I beg your pardon?” said the white rat.

  The female approached the water bottle, stuck her paws into the spigot, and began to wash them. “It’s nice to believe that these sicknesses just ‘befall’ us,” she said. “We blame them on our environment and insist that they could happen to anyone, but in truth we bring them on ourselves with hatefulness and negativity.”

  The white rat coughed up some phlegm with bits of lung in it. “So this is my fault?”

  “Oh, I think that’s been proven,” the female said. “You might not have realized how negative you were being—maybe you were passive-aggressive. Maybe no one cared enough to point it out, but I have to call things like I see them. Just as everyone does to me, only in the opposite direction. ‘How come you’re always so sunny?’ they ask, and ‘Doesn’t your mouth hurt from all that smiling?’ Some interpret it as overexuberance, but to me it’s a kind of vaccine—as long as I’m happy and I love everybody, I can’t get sick.”

  “Never?” asked the white rat.

  “Oh, I had a flu once, but it was completely my own fault. Someone I mistook for a friend took to criticizing me behind my back—saying things regarding my weight and so forth. I got wind of it, and for all of three minutes I wished her ill. I’m not talking death, just a little discomfort—cramping, mainly. I was just starting to visualize it when I sneezed, which was my body’s way of saying, ‘Whoa,’ you know, ‘that’s not cool.’ Then
my nose stopped up and I came down with a fever.”

  “And what about your supposed friend, the one who said cruel things behind your back? If you got a flu, what happened to her?” asked the white rat.

  “Well, nothing yet,” the female said. “But sometimes the body bides its time.” Her pink eyes narrowed just slightly. “I can bet that when something does happen, though, it’ll be a lot worse than a flu. Diabetes, maybe.”

  “You sound pretty hopeful,” the white rat observed.

  The female scowled, then smiled so hard the corners of her mouth touched her eyes. “Not at all. I wish her the best.”

  The white rat slumped against the wall and put a hand to his forehead. “I can’t think of anybody I dislike. Then too, I’ve been alone since my last roommate died.”

  “That’s another cause of cancer,” the female told him. “You need to get out, socialize. Storytelling is pivotal to our well-being, as are nonethnic jokes and riddles.” Food pellets dropped from a chute beside the water bottle, and she took a bite of one. “I heard somewhere that limericks can cure both heart disease and certain types of cancer. Can you beat that? Limericks!”

  The white rat knitted his brow.

  “They’re poems,” the female explained. “You know, like, ‘There once was a mouse da da da / who da da da da da da da.’ ”

  “Oh, right,” said the rat, and, silently recalling one about a prostitute and a dead cat, he chuckled. “And what about haiku? Are they good for curing shorter diseases?”

  “I know when I’m being mocked,” the female said, “but that’s okay. You’re sick and are going to die. I, meanwhile, am perfectly healthy with good teeth and a positive attitude toward life, so joke away if it makes you feel any better.”