Rufus

Struggling through a week of sickness does horrors to one's writing ability. After finally delivering the knock-out punch to a cold that had me pressed into a corner for far too long, I continue to deal with fatigue. It didn't help that this week was the first time I worked for more than two days in a row for over a month. The mornings were as cold as a frozen water spicket. I didn't warm up until lunchtime. My energy level was dismal--after about two hours of work, my weary joints screamed at me to take them home.

I'm posting this with chagrin. The date of my last post, January 13th, is staring at me with bloodshot eyes. If I cover the date with left hand, however, I can continue to type with my right hand without distraction. This may take a while.

Rufus announced our coming before we arrived. Driving up the rural road to the house, we heard his barking. His voice was deep, rumbling, and full of canine menace. As we pulled into the driveway, Rufus circled our van like a shark circling a raft of shipwreck victims--the house was our land, and we knew we had to leave the vessel and cross the surf of driveway gravel to get to safety. We stepped out of the van and braced for confrontation. Rufus stood his ground, arching his back and bellowing warning to the sky.

"Shut up, Rufus."

Aaron saved us. He was working on the remodel too, and having been there for several days, he already knew that Rufus was a coward.

"Rufus, shut your mouth."

Rufus hung his head and ran behind the house.

"He's not going to bite you," Aaron said.

We nodded in agreement. We could see that Rufus had given up for the moment.

As we began working on the house, Rufus eyed us from the outskirts of the building. Poking his head in random doors and windows, he'd make angry faces and put on a show of bristling his back hair. His back hair was abundant. I'm not sure what breed Rufus is, but as near as I can guess, he is half Labrador and half buffalo. Bison fur has a strange way of matting in dirty, brown clumps that gradually fall off buffalo hides. Rufus had this same kind of hair--it tangled in wiry patches that sagged away from his skin. Elsewhere, his coat was long and shiny. On his scruff the hair stood spiked and thick like a wolf's.

Rufus didn't trust me. Eventually he summoned the courage to pace the open half of the house and inspect us as we worked. He never stood still. Rufus was always in motion--he'd walk past me as if on a definite mission, but I'd catch his sidelong looks as he passed. I could tell he was sizing me up, trying to determine if I was really friend or foe. Once or twice I reached for a tool from my belt just as Rufus walked by. He jumped to one side, and stared at me wild-eyed. It was as if I were a gunslinger from the old west who had just reached for my six-shooter. Then Rufus would calm down and continue walking, but still keeping one eye on me as he did.

After we had been working for several hours and had grown accustomed to Rufus's nervous pacing, I noticed he was carrying something in his mouth. It was a small rubber tire, taken from a toy truck or a hand cart. Rufus repeatedly walked by me with the tire in his mouth, slowed his pace as he passed and looked askance at me, and continued stalking the house. Eventually it occurred to me that the tire was Rufus's toy. As he passed by me again, I reached out and took the tire from Rufus's mouth. He turned his head away as I did this, putting up a weak show of resistance. As soon as I brandished the tire in the air, Rufus changed. The hulking buffalo-dog became a puppy. He spread his legs, stretched his back with his head to the ground, wagged his tail like a high-speed windshield wiper, and perked up his ears to triple their normal height. I threw the tire, and away Rufus ran, but he didn't do what I expected next. He didn't bring back the tire and beg me to throw it again. He resumed pacing the house, tire in mouth, and looked at me suspiciously.

A little later, Rufus approached me without his tire. He put his head next to my knee. I reached out my hand and he didn't flinch. I patted him. He seemed to like it because he pressed his ear against my knee a little harder. I scratched behind his ears and smoothed the jagged hair of his nape. Eventually I stopped and resumed my work. Rufus looked up at me, and a hurt expression spread his face.

"Sorry, Rufus. I need to work now."

Rufus turned away and seemed to sigh. I watched him leave, and then looked down at my work. When I looked up again, I saw Rufus walking out of my house carrying my water bottle in his mouth.

"Hey!" I yelled. "Put that back!"

I sprang after Rufus, but he was too quick. He turned around as I sprang, saw me coming, and ran away just as my hand was closing around the bottle. Rufus ran to the far side of the house, sat down, and began munching on the cap that firmly shut the water bottle. I gave up chasing him and resumed my work. When I looked up after a few minutes, I saw that Rufus had succeeded in removing the cap from the bottle, had taken the mouth of the bottle into his teeth, and was attempting to drink my water. I stared incredulously as a dog proceeded to guzzle my Aquafina. Rufus was interrupted by Aaron, who saw the dog and took the water away from him.

"Is this yours?" Aaron asked after coming inside the house and holding up my water bottle.

"Yes," I said. "But I don't want it now."

"Watch out for Rufus," Aaron said. "He'll steal any kind of drink he can. His favorite is coffee."

Rufus had entered the house behind Aaron. He looked from Aaron to me.

"You're a bad dog, Rufus," said Aaron.

Rufus hung his head and shuffled over to me. He put his head against me knee.

"No," I said. "You stole my water. You're not my friend anymore."

Rufus walked away without looking at me.

I later found out that Rufus stole more than just drinks. The following morning my father and I returned to the house to continue our work. Rufus didn't bark at when we arrived--or at least, not as much. He seemed inured to our presence and contented himself with barking at the other subcontractors who arrived at the job. Rufus approached me with his tire more than once, and deciding that I ought to forgive him, I threw it for him several times. Eventually, Rufus persuaded me to pet him. This was the real test of my forgiveness. Would I pat him on the head again, he asked as he looked up at me with hopeful eyes. I gave in. Again I patted him, scratched his ears, and smoothed his scruff. Again I was forced to tell him that I was done petting him, again he looked at me with pain, and again, as he walked away, he robbed me.

"Hey," said my father, "isn't that your hat?"

Rufus had swiped my winter hat off of nearby box as he walked away.

"Stop!" my father shouted, lunging after Rufus. "Put that back!"

Either my father was faster than I, or Rufus was more intimidated. He froze in his tracks, and my father retrieved my hat. This time, Rufus didn't bother apologizing. He just kept walking towards the door and went outside.

But eventually, he was back, asking for forgiveness. I was foolish enough to grant it.

"Put that down! Stop!"

This time it was my gloves that Rufus had taken. We'd gone through the whole routine again, and my father had caught him red-pawed. Rufus dropped the glove from his mouth in disgust. I caught his eye as he stomped outside. His face quivered with guilt.

I decided that I couldn't take any more chances. I put everything that Rufus could take into the van and shut the door. Rufus returned to my side asking for affection, and I gave it to him. He seemed to look around and be disappointed when he realized that I had nothing left to steal. Even if I had, and even if he did, I'm pretty sure I would have forgiven him again. Something about this whole ordeal is very familiar. The predictibility of Rufus's behavior initially struck me as funny, but then I started to think about myself. How many times have I been guilty of the same stupid, selfish actions? And every time, I end up going to somebody and saying I'm sorry. It's embarrassing, but if I didn't, I'd be all alone. And where would I be without someone to forgive me?

Fortunately Falling

Yesterday, I worked for the first time in a week. The slow economy still has construction in a choke-hold, and lately I'm lucky if I put in more than half time. I'm always amazed at how every activity, whether rooted in work or leisure, has its unique draw on energy. Stamina for work weakens over a period of unemployment, just like the tough skin on my hands. I found myself tired yesterday after three hours of work. My body wasn't really weary--I was tired in my mind because of the unfamiliarity of my own job.

The free time I've enjoyed on the days off has been welcome. I've read more, written more, and goofed off more. Initially, the extra time struck me as a rare opportunity to get things done: applications for graduate school, projects around the house, the correspondence course I started four years ago and never finished. Over time, however, the urgency of these tasks and the chance to finish them seemed less important. As I've grown accustomed to the late mornings with coffee and a video game, the easy lunches when my wife comes home and we munch on quesadillas, or the long afternoons of lolling on the sofa with a blanket and an aimless web-browser, I seem to have lost the drive to accomplish the things I was most excited to do when this sabbatical of a winter still loomed on the horizon.

Back in November, before the daily grind had slowed to a halt, I would spend the spare brain cells during my days thinking about what I would do with extra free time. Like tendrils on a burgeoning flower, my thoughts would branch and shoot and turn back on themselves as I pondered all the creative possibilities. Now I have that free time. And now I seem less interested and less motivated to spend it well.

On the way home from work yesterday, as I rode in the truck with heavy legs and a sore neck, I felt a familiar yet long absent feeling. It was that old desire to create. The same swelling, expanding desire to do something full of my own imagination, something that would make me and the world around me richer. All the many days that I had spent dinking around the house had failed to inspire me. Those had been the best time to act, yet had done the least to inspire me.

Theologians of old threw around the expression felix culpa, fortunate fall. They believed that the expulsion from paradise was a good thing. Some even went so far as to say that God knew mankind was too ungrateful to appreciate the goodness of life without a bit of bad mixed in. I'm enough of a Romantic that I suppose I'll always be dissatisfied with my circumstances. I'll always be thinking about the proverbial grass on the other side of the proverbial hill. But part of me wonders if something wired into all of us prevents us from appreciating all the good that surrounds us unless we're a bit uncomfortable. I'm pondering the words of another old theologian, a guy from Tarsus. He said he'd learned the secret of being content in every situation. Maybe he was content because he knew that every situation had some good and some bad. And maybe he thought that's the way it's supposed to be, at least for now.

Needled by a Tree

Today I took down the Christmas tree. I hadn't watered it for over a week, so the needles were dry and turning brown. The patches of turning color started in the center of the tree and spiralled out, like swirled chocolate in a pudding cake. I knelt in the scattered pine needles beside the tree and untwisted the bolts that held the trunk in place. Eight bolts in total--a perfect amount for tweaking the tree during set-up, an annoying excess when putting things away. As I removed the pressure from the tree trunk, a sweet odor rose to my nose, as if the tree were exhaling in relief.

Sap covered the bolt heads where they had gripped the tree, and deep wounds gouged the trunk. I lifted the tree from the tree stand and carried it out to the porch. The tree was lighter and thinner than when I had brought it into the house. My wife and I may have gained weight over the holidays--evidently the tree hadn't. I glanced at the corner where the tree had stood, and marveled at the stark nudity. The tree had perfectly filled the corner. Now an entire half of our living room looked as skewed as the one-eyed cat I saw this morning. Grabbing the bow-saw I had borrowed from my father, I stepped outside, hoisted the tree to my shoulder, and took it behind the house.

After laying the tree on the ground, I began sawing it to pieces. I felt a bit like Procrustes, shortening the limbs of the guests who didn't fit his bed. The fragrance of the tree increased as I sawed. The trunk and limbs weren't so young that the sawing was difficult, but the tree clearly wasn't dead either. It was a tree in its prime, and I was cutting it up and throwing the segments into the yard recycling can. As I picked up the boughs and tossed them into the receptacle, they brushed onto my hands a bit of sap that won't come off. Once I'd thrown the entire tree into the can, I closed the lid and walked away, feeling the tree-blood on my palms. And I find myself hoping that some of my skin rubbed off onto the tree.

I sit and hope

I sit
And hope
That someday
I will be a master chef
Of words
Who gives the world
More
Than a
Bowl of mush.

Uncommon Decency

The news headline has been consistent this week. Each day the Yahoo homepage has featured a story following the death of John Travolta's teen aged son. For four successive mornings, a new update had greeted me, each about this young man whom I have never met and whom I know nothing about, except that his father is an actor and that he has died.

The impression the news has given about the Travolta family is that they are grieved. Also, the family seems to be disturbed about the amount of publicity the death has generated, particularly the ongoing journalistic prodding into the intricate details. Quite surprising.

Americans have always been fascinated by celebrities, and there is nothing innately wrong with this. Is it possible, however, that the American populace has lost sight of common decency in their clamor for details? Until young Mr. Travolta passed away, how many Americans even knew John Travolta had a son? How many cared? The sixteen year-old boy had a daily existence that no one was curious about. He had dreams, hobbies, and chores, the same as anyone else, but nobody asked about them while he breathed. Only two reasons exist for the sudden popularity of Jett Travolta: his father is an actor, and he died. The prying curiosity of the public reveals a shallow desire for stimulation. Nothing is gained and nothing is bettered by the ordinary person knowing the exhaustive details of this young man's death. The greatest service that anyone can do to him and his family is to leave them alone.
But that's assuming that anyone would care to do them a service, isn't it?

Bowels of Mercy

My wife has been sick for two days. This morning, Katie sat on the couch, swathed in a blanket, a robe, and pajamas. She checked email on her laptop while eating a bowl of oatmeal. Suddenly, she stopped eating in mid-spoonful. Katie coughed on some heartier grains that had stuck in her throat. I assumed that she had swallowed too soon, but then I saw her color change. She got that unmistakable look in her eyes: a vague commingling of meditation and fear. It's a look that a person never forgets once he's seen it stretched across the face of someone seized by nausea. Luckily, I had the presence of mind to sweep the computer from her lap just before she rose to her feet and hustled to the trash can in the kitchen. As she disappeared around the corner, I hummed to myself and focused on my book. The last thing I wanted to think about was what she was doing into the trash.

After Katie had excused herself and gone upstairs, and after I had cleaned the kitchen, I again sat on the couch with my book. I found myself unable to read, however. The Germans seem to have a word for everything, and I'm sure the Germans have a word for the ordinary experience that sends a person's mind off on a philosophical jaunt. The episode with my wife and my unpleasant chore that resulted had poked my brain. As a result, I sat and pondered one of life's most profound mysteries: "Why does vomit smell so bad?"
I am not interested in the obvious scientific answer to this question. My attitude toward the scientist is like that of a character in a novel by Walter Moers: he watches a scientist experimenting on animals and then turns the animals loose on the scientist so that he can write a short story about the experience. I understand that vomit smells bad because it contains stomach acids. That does not interest me. I want to know why vomit smells bad for our sake. Why does it smell awful when it could just as well smell good? Vomit could smell like soap or lavender, but instead it smells like carrion. Why? And why do the revisited contents of our stomachs resemble smashed brains when they could just as well look like rose petals, or a basket of fruit, or at least the pizza we ate in the first place?

For most of us, the sight of our vomit is the closest we will ever come to seeing our own insides. In that pained moment, as we involuntarily heave to purge ourselves of every last bit, we feel our weakest. Against our will, we have emptied ourselves. The effort leaves us breathless, moaning with stinging breath, as we clutch at a toilet bowl for support. And the thing that we cannot help but look at is something that we made ourselves. The foul mess, with its stench and discoloration, was once a part of our bodies. Into us it went, attractive, fragrant, and appetizing, and out again it came, mutilated and polluted by the contact. I don't believe that man is wholly bad. Yet I believe that even vomiting says something about the nature of human beings. We are warped creatures who seize, devour, and distort the world around us. Our insides are twisted and dark, and we seldom ponder the nature of our own souls. I can't stand being sick, and retching is as abominable to me as having my nails pulled, but the next time I toss my cookies, I plan on doing something new. When I am finished, I intend to look long and hard at what came out of me. And then I'll think about how it got there.