Heaven's Coast - Mark Doty [116]
And there is a whole new presence in the house. We’d made the decision to adopt a cocker spaniel about to become an orphan of the epidemic, but his owners decided at the last minute they couldn’t go through with it. Wally has been imagining a new dog that would, unlike the dignified Arden, lick his face. He’s imagined the cocker spaniel, small presence, might sleep close to him. Disappointed, Wally sent me to the shelter, and I fell in love with a youngish golden retriever, Beau. The first time I met him he seemed awfully docile, thoughtful; later I learned he was recovering from anesthesia at the time. On my second visit, we went out to the run together and he leaned his golden weight against me, trusting. He wasn’t exactly small, but he did lick, and there was something in the way he let his body relax against me that banished all doubt: this dog was for us.
Beau arrives the day before the planned party, a fireball of energy. The pads of his feet are soft and pink; this dog’s been penned indoors, as underexercised as he’s been underfed. You can see every one of his ribs; his chest is sharp and narrow. He’s wild for play, food, attention. Dealing with him, the startled and intrigued Arden, the bemused home health aides who’re trying to keep Beau from devouring Wally’s breakfast, and Wally himself, I think, What have I done?
Even Rena, with her great capacity for acceptance, will later tell me she thinks I may have lost my mind; it isn’t, rationally, a good time to adopt a dog.
It’s true, Beau’s a handful, but there’s something about his brightness and eagerness that’s welcome, fresh—golden. And the problems he presents are ones I can deal with, too; confused and undertrained as he is, he’ll learn, he’ll begin to understand. Most of what’s troubling in my life right now I can’t do a thing about.
And when he’s tired, Beau heads right for the open space in the middle of the bed, and before falling asleep (he seems afraid he’ll miss something, holding his tobacco-colored eyes open absolutely as long as he can stand to) he licks Wally’s face with a long purple-spotted tongue, source of laughter and delight.
But other changes aren’t happy ones. Wally hasn’t been wanting to get out of bed. The morning of the party, he’d like to take a shower. I’m skeptical, but the home health aide who’s there is stronger than I am, and he cheerfully decides to try it.
The results are disastrous; placed on the toilet, Wally can’t remain sitting up. The room’s so narrow that the aide can’t really get the wheelchair close to the toilet, and it winds up taking both of us to lift Wally back into the chair, and then back to bed, and by then he’s exhausted and in pain, saying his waist hurts—pulled muscles, I’d guess, or aching ones, jarred by movement.
Getting up even for a few minutes for the party is impossible. People come into the room to see him, but Wally can’t really connect with anyone today, and wants to sleep. In the living room, one eye on him and one on the guests, I have the odd sensation of entertaining while, in the next room, Wally’s barely there. A strained, difficult afternoon, and I can’t wait for people to leave.
Incontinent all the time now, Wally’s hooked to a catheter. It looks really unpleasant, when Paolo inserts the tube, but it doesn’t seem to hurt. I have to pee, he says every fifteen minutes. You are peeing, I say. He’s used to it in no time, though it causes an infection which he must take more antibiotics to treat.
Strain and more strain, but his humor sparkles out of nowhere, just when I least expect it. Darren, getting ready to go out, walks into the bedroom one day, rubbing moisturizer into his face. Wally looks at the tube, looks at him, and says, “It’s going to take more than that.”
Another time, I stand by the side of the bed while two eager retrievers leap up from the comforter where they’ve been sleeping until I said the word walk. Excited, bumping