Monstrous Contradictory

It was the nicest casket I had ever seen. Relatively speaking, I suppose, because so many caskets aren’t really nice to look at simply because people already know either what’s in them or what is about to be put in them, which makes it hard to think of them as nice looking. But I think that casket was the nicest I had ever seen, and I had laid eyes on a few in my time. You see, the casket was for my dog, Elmer.

Yes, I chose to bury my dog in a cemetery; it’s simply part of my upbringing and something that I haven’t been able to shake, though I have done quite well in shaking most of the customs of my religion. The way my dog died is kind of a long story. A meteor hit him. Funny how a long story can seem rather short if you say it the right way.

When I was 12, my brother decided, for reasons that will always remain a mystery to me, that Styx was one fuckin’ cool band and that no one had a right to tell him what to play on his stereo (especially not me, but for reasons other than simple physical dominance on his part). Summarily, he played Styx for many hours out of the day and was especially attached to one song that featured robotic voice-over, and from where my room was, I could clearly hear the Japanese greetings from whomever the lead singer of Styx might be (the only name that comes to mind is Ronnie James Dio, but of course he is the lead singer of Dio). I hate this song. I have developed a sort of pathological and violent response whenever I hear that song, as have many people of the generation of when it was popular, though their response is expressed more in a dancing robot-like gesture where mine involves a fit of near epileptic proportions and some yelling to the same effect.

My ex-girlfriend liked Styx too. We had this sort of understanding that she would never play that song whenever I was around and I agreed never to hit her. That was a joke, though not a very funny one. I should probably mention that my girlfriend was deaf, which would make one wonder why she liked to hear that one song. Apparently, she wasn’t completely deaf, and there were some things that she could hear when played at an extremely high volume and at a certain pitch, and the Styx song was one of them, much to my annoyance and aggravation.

Well, as the dog being killed by an asteroid part of the story continues, I have a job (a career, actually) that takes me to far off locales and exotic destinations of the sometimes Asian type, so I had to leave my dog, Elmer, with friends all the time. This constant moving and relocation causes an enormous amount of stress on the part of my dog, and sometimes I wonder if the whole having a dog is really a good idea and best for Elmer, but in the end I decided that I loved him too much to give him up. Awww.

Yeah, well, all the stress of living at someone else’s place gives Elmer the shits, and he has to be left outside by whomever has the dog for that particular week. This is usually a fact that I neglect to tell the potential caregivers of Elmer for the upcoming week, and understandably, I usually don’t get many people to repeat-sit for him. The only person that really loves Elmer as much as I do is my ex-girlfriend, who for the sake of litigation, will remain nameless for the remainder of this story. From time to time, I will refer to her as, "The Ex," "Ex," "EGF," or "Psycho Bitch that I could never Understand (PBTICNU)." The last of these nicknames will be used sparingly due to the aforementioned possible litigation.

I suppose the reason that EGF loved Elmer so much was that he was also deaf, and I suppose that they developed some inter-species bond that I can never hope to understand due to the fact that I was the guy who could watch and hear the television set at the same time and would frequently talk while my back was turned without realizing it.

I’m coming back from a trip to one of the aforementioned Asian countries full of mirth and good cheer, but also glad to be back where at least I think I understand the laws and restrictions about what I can and cannot bring into the nation (they made me wash my shoes before I got on the plane) and looking forward to seeing Elmer, even though he is living with the EGF and I wish to get out of there with as few hand gestures as possible (she talks a lot). I get back in my roasting hot car, which was left for almost 2 weeks in the long term lot at the airport, and curse my failed air conditioning whilst burning my hand on that little metal strip that all car companies feel is important to put at the edge of the windowsill, right where your hand will go if you don’t have air conditioning. I can’t wait to see my dog, my beautiful and wonderful deaf Elmer, who, by this time, will have a bad case of the shits and will be equally excited to see me. I managed to scoop enough air into the car while I was driving along the interstate to cool myself and the car down to a reasonable 80 degrees or so, and I’m jammin’ to the oldies station as I sometimes do to put myself in a better mood, singing along to the parts that I know, mostly the choruses, and when I get off of the interstate, back to the West Park area of town which borders the shore, I suck in some of that wonderful sea breeze. Elmer and I, we like the ocean and always try to get as much sand into the car after a trip to the beach where he tries to help me pick up women by looking adorable, but mostly we just get sympathy looks from the elderly due to our severely handicapped Frisbee playing (I blame his hearing loss for his inability to catch or follow a Frisbee, I have no explanation for my lack of coordination).

I have like a mile to go before I get to the EGF’s house, so I decide to stop in what passes for a town, but is more like a tourist stop off the interstate for some milk and other perishable goods that have most certainly perished because I always–and I mean always–neglect to take that shit out of the fridge before I leave. I also pick up some of the really good dog food for Elmer, really feeling the bond between us grow stronger when I hand the 20 over to the clerk, thinking that I can somehow buy his affection like a 4 year old (I mean that a 4 year old’s affection can easily be bought, not that I want to buy a 4 year old. At least not right now).

Paying for the perishables and the dog food, I am punched in the side by Jeff. Jeff is one of those guys that you knew in high school but really didn’t talk to, not because he was nerdy–though he was–but because you honestly didn’t enjoy his conversation or the way that his nose whistled when he breathed. Jeff wants to go and have a beer. It’s 4 in the afternoon. Jeff doesn’t understand the concept of not drinking before dinner. I’m tired, and I want to go home, and I had a long flight. It’s still like 8 in the morning for me. Or something. Jeff doesn’t even comprehend the concept of time zones let alone jet lag. "C’mon man some other time." Jeff says he never gets to see me around anymore. "Don’t you hang out at the Brandished Sword? (bar)" "No, not really, I’m really busy, you see, and I don’t usually…" Jeff takes the bag of dog food out of my hand and carries it to the car for me. I feel bad. We exchange numbers and promise to call each other. Jeff says that he hates to ask, considering that I’m really tired and all, but… could he have a ride back to his place. He lives in the Roundtop Trailer Park. I still have this nagging "I don’t want him to think that I think I’m better than him complex," so I agree, thinking that his trailer park is close to where the EGF lives, so it’s not a big deal.

Jeff wants to play a tape in the car, and I’m not about to stop him, I suppose. I’m just going to drive him there and not think about if I’m a good person or a bad person, but my air conditioning still doesn’t work and my car is like 100 damn degrees again, so I’m desperately trying to scoop some air into my car with the cup-like motion of my hand, and Jeff puts that damn tape in. Jeff likes hits of the 80s, or the 70s, or whenever the hell that fuckin’ song was popular. Of course, it only makes sense that Jeff would like that song. Everyone that I don’t like likes that song. (I secretly suspect that Elmer hated that song too, but I could never quite get him to chew up the tape that the EGF had with it on). I freak out, as I am wont to do, and try to extract the tape from the tape player. It won’t come out. The Eject button falls off. It starts playing that one part over and over. The Japanese voice plays for 3 seconds, and then the opposite side of the tape plays for 3 seconds, and I can’t quite make out what is on the other side (I think perhaps Night Ranger) through the rage now welling up inside of me, and the sound of my hand beating on the tape deck to hopefully either break the deck or just make it stop. The heat from the car had made the plastic so soft that the buttons were ready to fall off, and the internal mechanism had warped itself out of shape so badly that any tape put in it would be instantly trapped forever, repeating a small segment of both sides until the owner of the tape deck (me) went mad or killed himself.

In short, I crash the car against a tree in a way that didn’t really hurt either myself or Jeff, and he did say something about when could he get his tape back when we got out of the car and surveyed the damage. On the walk over to the EGF’s house, I came to the conclusion that crashing the car was the only reasonable way out of the situation, short of going deaf.

At that moment did I just understand a bit more about my dog and the EGF?

Naturally, it begins to rain on the way back to her house, which is only a few miles away, though it seems like more when you are talking to Jeff, whom you don’t care for and he’s complaining about the rain, which is growing in intensity, and about carrying Elmer’s gourmet dog food, which he makes several comments about, mostly to the effect that he can’t afford that kind of food for himself, much less his dog, thereby increasing my sense of guilt and making the walk even longer.

Well, Jeff finally shuts the hell up as we start down the hill towards the EGF’s house, and the rain is coming down harder, and my glasses are all wet, and all I can think about is how much I want to see Elmer and take him home and feed him some dog food and put this goddamn milk in the fridge and take a shower and then go to bed, when I realize the reason why Jeff hasn’t said anything for the last minute, and that’s because he’s having some mild sort of attack right on the sidewalk in front of the EGF’s house. I turn back to look at him just as he keels over, thinking maybe it was all the walking and the excitement over the car crash, which really wasn’t that bad (my airbag didn’t even go off), and the prospect of losing his tape within the bowels of my car that is the cause of all this, and maybe he lives in a trailer park because he has this condition and not because he is a stupid man and rather unpleasant to be around–even though he is–and I start to feel even worse about buying and letting him carry the heavy bag of gourmet dog food and the whole situation regarding high school and I should have just gone to get a beer with the guy, would that have killed me for christ’s sakes, when he goes to say something. I rush over to him just as Elmer comes running over (he witnessed the collapse because he was outside due to the shitting-when-he-misses-me thing, and that the deaf EGF wouldn’t have heard the rain and thunder, which it was by now beginning to do) and starts to lick Jeff and not me, and I’m too distraught about Jeff’s condition to notice Elmer’s disloyalty to me, his owner, and pay no attention when Elmer nearly jumps on Jeff to lick the crap out of him, something that I chalked up to the deaf dog having some sort of connection to people who are having epileptic attacks, even though I didn’t have a clue as to what Jeff was suffering from. I’m too busy trying to hear what the hell Jeff is trying to say, cause he can only speak in a whisper, just like in the movies when people are at their last breath, and I hear him say that he needs his pills, just like in the movies, and when I ask him where they are, he says in his left breast pocket, which is right where Elmer is licking like a fiend. I shoo Elmer’s head away and try to grab a pill, but all I can pull out is this white mush, because apparently Jeff isn’t the brightest of bulbs–as I suspected–and he just tosses his pills into his shirt pockets for the day, just in case, but I don’t think he took into account the strenuous activity he would be performing in the rain which melted his pills into a gooey powder that Elmer has voraciously licked up, and if I look up now, I can see him headed for the old pier beside the EGF’s house.

Unbeknownst to me, EGF has called the paramedics on her special phone, because while she didn’t hear the rain or the thunder, she did hear the barks of Elmer (something that I didn’t find out until later is that Elmer and the EGF had that special bond because his barks were at the special pitch that she could hear–don’t ask me to explain it, I don’t even understand it myself) and she became alerted to the situation by looking out the front window and seeing me crouched over a dead man and thought that I had killed someone on the way home from work. I will never understand her.

Anyway, the police get there just as the paramedics get there, or at least I can hear the sirens from a distance, when I see lightning crash into the ground and strike a tree relatively close to me, though I only feel a small tingle and the sensation that I have to go the bathroom, but Jeff, who is clutching the bag of dog food like it was the holy grail, looks like he just bit it. I wave the police over frantically, now freaking out thinking that I have indirectly caused a man’s death, just in time to see where the lightning had struck. A tree, a little bit inland from the end of the pier, cracks right down the middle and topples onto a boat that was sitting just beside the pier, and I take a quick sigh of relief because Elmer is spasmodically foaming at the mouth at the start of the pier and it looks like the tree is going to miss him, and I breathe out, but the tree hits a boat–a decent sized boat at that–and the boat dips way down into the water at the front but jumps way up high in the back, and I wipe my brow again, because the boat could have hit Elmer but missed him by a good bit (and by now the policemen have stopped in their tracks, in the rain, with a man dying, if not already dead, on the ground, to witness the double near death of Elmer), and I just start to think about Jeff again when the boat’s back end, which was lifted high out of the water, comes crashing down on the end of the old pier and rips a few boards up by the opposite end, and this time Elmer isn’t so lucky because he happened to be pacing and foaming and shitting at the opposite end of the pier and is summarily launched high into the air, over the house, and over the chimney of the EGF’s house, spewing foam and shit the entire way, so that his path does actually resemble a rainbow of sorts within the giant storm, an arc of dog and dog products over the house and directly into the path of the speeding ambulance, where Elmer lands through the windshield causing the driver of the ambulance to slam on the brakes, but, of course, it is too late, and they go careening across the lawn with Elmer in their dashboard and glass everywhere, not being able to stop on the wet grass on the EGF’s front lawn, and the EGF, hearing the siren from the ambulance, I suppose another one of the few things that she could hear, looks out the front window, just in time to see the ambulance with Elmer in the front and the soon to be dead paramedics with panicked expressions on their faces barreling at her at a good 30 miles per hour, and of course there isn’t time to run, so the ambulance hits the EGF’s house and her inside, and the whole massive thing comes to rest just as Jeff looks up at the house with the ambulance and the two dead paramedics inside the house, Elmer on the hood, the EGF somewhere inside, also dead, the tree on the boat, the boat sinking quickly, the pier sinking quickly, the trail of shit and foam across the house, the two stunned policemen, and me, kneeling above him, and doesn’t say a god-damn thing. Just puts the dog food down and walks away.

The boat (which, incidentally was owned by Ronnie James Dio) is now part of a natural reef, and my dog has been buried. I just made up the part about the meteor, because it was outlandish enough for you to keep reading, and there wasn’t any short way to say that my dog was killed in such a manner as I described above.

© Ehren Pflugfelder 2001