Cool, Calm & Contentious - Merrill Markoe [96]
“No,” I said. “That ‘stuff,’ as you call it, is expensive moisturizer. And it’s not supposed to be eaten. It may not be good for you.”
“You say that about everything,” he complained. “You even say that about horse shit. It saddens me the way you limit yourself.”
“So are we done with this topic?” I said, thinking that this was going nowhere and that I’d like to turn off the computer and run some errands.
“Are you kidding?” he asked. “I was just getting started. I am practically writing this story for you. Have you ever noticed how you always have to go out to run errands whenever we start to talk about something real? I no sooner mention the way you limit yourself and … kaboom. Errands. Always errands. I think you’re running from something.”
“That’s a troubling thought,” I said. “I do put a lot of unnecessary limits on myself. I should probably try to be more open to other possibilities. It’s so easy for me to get into a rut. Whether it’s from laziness or habit or fear, I often do the same thing day after day, and the next thing I know, I—”
“Okay. Enough,” said Jimmy, “No need to go on and on. I wasn’t finished explaining my special wake-up sequence. Anyway, the overture has ended and now we’re up to the adagio, which, as you know, is the part where I lie down next to you and squirm around on my back. My head and my body go at equal speeds in opposing directions. It’s a beautiful thing to behold.”
“And you’re going to tell me that this has a function besides screwing up the blankets?” I scoffed.
“Of course it does. But like all great art, it’s open to interpretation,” said Jimmy. “Some might say I am expressing my vulnerability and subservience by showing my belly. Others might claim I’m figuring out how much of the space you’re currently occupying I can take from you without a fight. Territorial acquisition. Similar to the rules of football or the battlefield.”
“I always wondered what you were doing,” I said. “But now that you explain it, I realize you’re just being inconsiderate.”
“Come on! You’re really going to argue with Pack Rule Number One?” he said. “ ‘Dominate or be dominated’? It comes with my species. That’s just how the world works.”
“Every day you try to push me out of my own bed because of Pack Rule Number One?” I gasped.
“I play along with an awful lot of your irrational bullshit,” he said. “I hope you notice how I rarely overindulge. I let you lie wherever you want, I am just quietly aware that I can take it all away from you if it should become necessary.”
“And is that also why, during this so-called adagio movement, you always slam your head into mine and scratch my face with your sharp nails?” I asked him.
“See the way you always dwell on the negative?” he said solemnly. “I have never hurt you, have I?”
“Actually,” I said, “you hurt me almost every morning. Just last week you poked me in the eye with your paw. You knocked your head into my face and it made my nose bleed.”
“No, I never did that,” he argued. “You’re thinking of someone else.”
“I’m thinking of you,” I said. “That’s why as soon as I hear you make the leap to the edge of the bed in the morning, when you start to come racing toward me, I duck under the covers.”
“You do that to avoid me?” he asked. Now it was his turn to be hurt. “I thought it was part of the way you sleep.”
“I am trying to avoid injury,” I said. “Merrill’s Rule Number One. Obviously you don’t give any thought to the effect you are having on others. You’re heedless.”
“Heedless?” he repeated. “I’m always shocked by the way you misinterpret everything I do. Apparently my magnificent wake-up techniques are totally lost on you. Sometimes I think that trying to communicate with you is futile.”
“Hey, hey … wait a second,” I said. “Now who’s taking things personally? I think we communicate rather well.”
“No,” said Jimmy, skulking off toward the door. “It’s useless. We don’t understand each other at all.”
“Yes we do. We communicate