It Chooses You - Miranda July [32]
Joe:
All them animals are gone now, but those are from years ago. The last dogs died in 1982. We had nine of them, and they all died within fifty-one days. Could you believe it? From Christmas Day till the first of February.
Miranda:
You had nine dogs at once?
Joe:
Yeah, we had twelve dogs when we moved out here, and for the first six, seven years people thought we only had one dog because they were more or less in the house all the time. Now we’ve got cats, but one, Mother wants to take him in tomorrow, I think, and maybe put him away. He’s maybe nineteen years old, and all of a sudden he started going downhill. We feed him about eight times a day, but yet he’s skin and bones now. The vet says that happens sometimes when they get older, because I know he eats. But he’s pretty bad now.
Miranda:
What’s his name?
Joe:
His name is Snowball, and his picture should be up here someplace. It’s over in those pictures over there – he’s a white cat. And the other one’s in the bedroom with my wife; her name is Silky.
Miranda:
What’s in that container hanging from the ceiling?
Joe:
Oh, that’s the favorite toys of some of our pets. See, it says, THE NAMES ON THIS CONTAINER ARE OF THE EIGHT PUPPIES THAT I BROUGHT TO CALIFORNIA IN AUGUST 1970. ROSIE OUR OUTSIDE CAT FOR SEVENTEEN YEARS, JANNIE, GINGER, BONNIE, HUGGY BUMBUM, BIG FAT TEDDY BEAR, RANDY DANDY DO ZO, PRINCESS TOOTSIE BELL, MISSAPUSSY, CLYDIE BOOPS, BLACKIE BIG BOY, CORKY… and so on.
Joe looked misty-eyed as he read the names on the bucket; a rare moment of silence came over him and he glanced around the room as if looking for something else to say. I pointed at a pile of lists.
Miranda:
Are these grocery lists?
Joe:
Yeah, I shop for seven different widows and one widower – they can’t get out of the house. I’ve got one jacket that I wear when I go to the store. It belonged to a policeman I knew that got shot and killed, and his brother gave me his jacket. He says, “Every time you go to the grocery store I want you to wear it.” Well, I go at least four times a week, at least maybe two hundred times a year, times thirty-five, thirty-six years. I must’ve worn that to the store, oh, three or four thousand times, and my wife has had to repair it. But now it’s almost beyond repair.
Joe wanted to show me the backyard, which was filled with dozens of poky palms that he said were all descended from one tree that he had pulled out of someone’s trash. We wove between the plants to the back wall, which was engraved with names.
Joe:
This is where I got most of the dogs and cats buried. I don’t bury them six inches under the ground – I dig a hole seven foot deep, figuring no one will ever take them out, and I keep them close to the wall. I figure if anybody comes in there and puts in a pool, they wouldn’t affect it at all.
Miranda:
That’s pretty deep.
Joe:
Yeah, I have to have a ladder right next to the hole so I can get out. I can’t even get out of the hole.
Miranda:
What’s written in the walls?
Joe:
Well, I chiseled the dogs’ and cats’ names there with a chisel and a hammer. There’s names all over – there’s Jilly and Corky and Mittens and Puggy and all.
Miranda:
And the hole, is that for a cat that is –
Joe:
That’s Snowball’s – gonna have to be put down.
Miranda:
Right. So that’s in advance.
Joe was overwhelming, but not like Ron. He was like an obsessive-compulsive angel, working furiously on the side of good. It became harder and harder to remember that I had met him just today and had no responsibility to him, or history with him.
Joe:
Maybe this Christmas you can come over, because I put my decorations up about the fifteenth of November and leave them up till the fifteenth of January. So you’re welcome to come anytime. What’d you say your first name is – Mary?
Miranda:
Miranda.
Joe:
Oh,