Cool, Calm & Contentious - Merrill Markoe [95]
“Here,” he said, pushing a filthy rope into my hands. “Take the other end of this rope and pull on it for a minute. It will help me clear my head.”
“What is she talking about?” asked Ginger, who had wandered over and was now sitting beside him. “Does it involve cookies? I tuned out after ‘you.’ ”
“No cookies,” said Jimmy. Ginger yawned loudly, then collapsed lethargically onto her side.
“I see,” I said. “I thought it would be interesting to write about your amazing resiliency. But obviously I’ve hit a dead end, I guess. Anything I say on this topic will have to be pure conjecture.”
“I have a suggestion,” Jimmy offered. “Have you ever written about the way I wake you up in the morning?”
“No,” I said. “I, um … I must have overlooked that somehow.”
“Well,” he announced, “then thank me, because I just did your work for you. As usual, you are overlooking the obvious. Wake up, woman. Most of what I do on a daily basis is so magnificent that I’m surprised you ever write about anything else. Like my motto says: ‘I am a delight to all.’ ”
“I didn’t know you had a motto,” I said.
“More proof that you haven’t been paying attention!” he said. “Sulum est usquequaque laetus video vidi visum mihi. It roughly translates to ‘Everyone is always glad to see me.’ ” Jimmy yawned loudly, ending with that sound of a creaking door hinge that he favors. “Seriously. You need to write about the way I wake you up.”
“I don’t know if I have anything to say about that,” I said.
“Oh, please,” he said, so startled by my response that he stopped chewing his foot. “Don’t you claim to be a storyteller? Aren’t you supposed to be an observer of life? How can you live here right beside me and not have noticed how like a ballet it all is?”
“A ballet?” I snorted. “Here’s a better idea: write this homage yourself.”
“You know I can’t write,” he said. “Come! Let’s relive it together!”
He sprang to his feet and surprised me by hurling his front legs and upper torso onto my lap.
“Picture this,” Jimmy said. “There I am, standing on that slippery wood floor in your bedroom, when I am overcome with an urge to say hello that is so strong that I begin a glissade that ends with a grand jeté–like leap to the top of your bed. Everyone is riveted. Will he make it? Will he crash into her? Will she be pissed off or happy to see him?”
“When you say ‘everyone,’ you mean the three sleeping dogs?” I asked.
“Set up a camera tomorrow and see for yourself,” he challenged. “That way you can also slow it down and watch my muscles ripple. Pay special attention to how my lips flap along with my ears. Call it ‘Doggy Allegro.’ I guarantee: instant viral hit on YouTube!”
As suddenly as he had jumped onto my lap, he now flounced back to the floor, racing unpredictably to a spot underneath my desk, where he began to energetically, even frantically, chew on the base of his tail. “Just a second. Mouth full of hair,” he said before plopping his head in my lap and resuming his lecture. “Anyway, once I arrive safely at the edge of your mattress, I gaze across the peaks and valleys of your comforter and instantly know which of the unidentified lumps before me is you. How do I do it? No one can say. Yet I have a one hundred percent accuracy rating.”
“It’s because I am always the lump on the right,” I said.
“Nice try, but I can’t tell right from left and you know it,” he said. “Go ahead. Test me. Ask me to give you my right paw.”
I obliged: “Give me your right paw.” He just sat there, panting.
“See?” he said. “Nothing. Yet because of my keen sense of smell, I find you, stand on your chest, and begin to slowly lick the entire length of your arm. One long, slow lick from your wrist to your shoulder. It’s my signature move. No one else does it. Ginger licks fingers. Puppyboy just does faces. Hedda doesn’t lick.”
“Well, that’s true. I’ve never had another dog lick my whole arm,” I agreed. “I’m not sure why you do it, either.”
“It helps to wake you,” he said. “By the way, whatever