(unpublished)
DEAD PETS
BY
TIM LEBBON & D F LEWIS
Beever always thought death was ugly, a carbuncle on the otherwise spotless gleam of existence. But he had seen something that day that hinted otherwise; a brief glitch in an ordered life, which turned preconceived ideas onto their neat heads and spurned his desire for a quiet, unobtrusive reality.
It was a dog.
It darted from the pavement, all fur and yaps and lolling tongue, and disappeared from view. It yelped as his front wheel left the road for an endless instant, and the sound reminded Beever of one of those squishy toys they sold for dogs. He had always wondered what kind of animal found amusement in a squealing dead thing, but now, perhaps, he knew: the squishy things taught dogs about how they should never scamper onto the hot surface of a roadway. Especially in the morning. Particularly when Beever was cruising to work in his bottom-of-the-range Ford Escort. That scamper just was not the done thing, in a doggy world of things done for nothing.
Beever yelled something previously absent from his streamlined vocabulary. He leapt from the car, then time slowed down as he stepped around the bonnet. Or rather, time slowed him down, the time it would take to see the red scene under his wheel, the unwillingness to complete the journey and realise what awful damage he had done. Other cars were swerving or stopping, drivers hooting and hopping mad, unconcerned at the life that was steaming away on the road.
A wagging tail first caught his eye. It was black and white, furry but in a clean, well-loved way. It was a tail that groomed well, one that rarely had to wave away flies. Hope invaded his mind and took residence, but then fled again with its tail between its legs as he saw the splashes of red on the dog’s white coat. They looked like ownership dye-markings on sheep, but these were in the shape of death. One end of the dog waddled and disturbed fine dust across the tarmacadam; the other end had burst, and was spewing a frothy pink onto the road, a grotesque Christmas bauble created from the natural mould of the animal’s skull.
Beever knelt, misled for a moment by the happy tail, hand held out to comfort the injured-but-happy hound. Then the reality of the scene hit him: the wisp of white hair on his illegal, previously bald tyre; the mess on the road like the detritus from an exploded lava-lamp. And that’s when his world tilted. Just slightly, but enough to turn him permanently off-balance, skew his perception from black and white and into a red-tinted haze.
The reason was this: the dog wagged in death. For the few minutes it took for its brains to exit the body entirely, life clung on tenaciously, perhaps because it knew the true glory of death and was unwilling to concede so easily. Beever watched as the movement in the dog’s shattered body subsided, and he was sure he heard a quiet, satisfied sigh as the mutt finally relented. Its tail gave one last flap; a defiant, smug gesture against life.
“One, two, three, four…” slowly Beever counted.
*
The feeling of death was not as I had imagined it. Yet, immediately, I knew the happening was the finish of me and that most of the tail-wags, witnessed by Man Beever, were merely lifeless tics and twitches echoing a departed soul. I often wonder why I scampered so foolhardily close to that smooth rubber tyre as it spun near the pavement, a pavement upon which, beforehand, I had been sedately straying along in a straight line. Why, oh why, did my brain have its own uncontrollable tic? A spasm that made me think I could survive a playfully gratuitous foray into the path of Man Beever’s metal shell on wheels? A quirk of bodily thought that cannoned me and my full-swollen tongue into the yapping silence of dead fur? Many is the time that us dogs need to raise a lower limb. We are followers of untutored nature. And, even, in this so-called death (so-called because I’m still here to call it), I feel my leg unpick itself from the tarmacadam, pulling vessels and strands of my erstwhile life in unfelt agony from their plastered limbo. And the soft, soothing hiss of the flow as it gushes from the pit of my stomach is just sheer squishy heaven, as if a valve was urgent in its need to grant relief. Better than sex.
*
“Five, six, seven, eight…” Beever bit his lip, determined to keep counting.
It was as if imagining the dog’s thoughts upon being squashed by his Ford Escort were reminiscent of Beever’s own future death: echoing, not like a drowning man having his past life flash before him, but, rather, it was a mind merging with every single death, the nearest first, the furthest last.
The calls and curses of the other drivers soon woke him from this deja-vu nightmare. He was blocking the road with his mis-angled spontaneous parking. They would sooner, it seemed, slice off his backside as he stooped by the ex-dog rather than be delayed further in their travelling from motorway to motorway.
Then the quiet, unobtrusive reality – with which he had tried to cotton-wool his pointed pangs of guilt – slowly unfurled to reveal a woman standing on the pavement, a leathery loose-end wagging in her hand, tears in her eyes, a full unmistakable meaning in her glances at the sad sight beneath Beever’s balding tyre, yet a lack of meaning in the words she used with which to shout:
“Brigg Fair, Fennimore, Gerda…”
Evidently names she had for the ex-dog, hoping at least one of them might unpeel its past from its present.
“…A Song of Summer, Florida Suite…”
Perhaps, though, not dog’s names at all. But still trying, no doubt, to flay the future, slice the standing moment, sliver the seconds one by one.
And still counting.
Meanwhile, Beever backed his car off the steaming remains towards a lay-by. The other cars by-passed with much finger-wagging, eyes barely glancing down at the red mess, using the shocked Beever as distraction. The woman stood on the pavement, at the nearest point to her erstwhile pet without endangering her own life. A small crowed was gradually gathering from a nearby pedestrian zone. One or two tried to calm the woman. One even put his arm around her shoulder. A busy-body watched with a beady eye so as to ensure Beever returned from the lay-by to sort out the mess.
“It jumped straight into my path,” said Beever as he arrived amid the powwow, breathless and eager to justify his actions.
“…The First Cuckoo In Spring, A Walk To The Paradise Gardens, A Village Romeo And Juliet…”
The woman’s method of shock relief was simply enumerating lists, like Beever often counted to ten-or-so before, say, losing his temper or making a vital decision. So much was now obvious.
“Just jumped right out, like it had a mind…” Beever trailed off, suddenly conscious that the assembled onlookers were only too aware of the existence of the dog’s mind. He began to shake, twitching in life as the dog had shivered towards death, and he wished someone would come to comfort him. “One…two…three…” he began, but the numbers all faded into one number, the greatest number, the darkness of totality and infinity. Zero times infinity is one.
A stranger wearing a postman’s coat darted between traffic and grabbed the dog’s tail. There was a sticky pop as the mutt parted company with its final resting place and let the man haul it to the roadside. The woman was still listing, perhaps vocalising the possibilities that could have flowered within each exposed cluster of brain cells. The dead dog left a gelatinous exclamation of shock on the road, tongue lolling as if to imbibe what belonged inside, eyes attempting to stare back over its head at the puller. Beever could not help admiring the symmetry of the mess, but true enlightenment was stolen by the hungry wheels of the traffic now it had room to move once more, and soon there was only the knot of people on the pavement – and the dead doggy mess – to bear testament to the tragedy.
He forgot what number he had reached, could not decide a figure with which to start a new mantra. He turned to the woman as she continued listing; she was being led away by the caring passers-by, but still she was able to snatch a glance over her shoulder at her dead friend.
It was as if she did not know Beever was there. Perhaps, that was for the best.
*
In a place where senses confuse rather than illuminate, I smell the words of my former walker and feeder, Lady Jane. She is standing near to what I used to be, and the familiar tone of her voice inspires blanket memories and images of darting things to chase. My legs have failed, but movement is not essential where there is no up, down or round-about. Lady Jane seems sad, but I do not feel her hand on my coat. Her words are strange, and draw strange pictures from deep within me or, perhaps, from the squishy mess without:
…a forest, with bracken streaming unhindered across gulleys and hillsides…
…a cold misery, stubbornly shut doors punishing me for some unknown misdemeanour, clanking waving things in the wind…
…a calm disregard for the inevitability of the eventual end, perhaps shadowed by the hidden knowledge that it may all be so terrible as to warrant little live consideration...
(The last thought feels alien, as if some new voice had interceded and planted its suggestion in my confused mind);
But nothing feels terrible. I taste a curious warmth, hear soft hands pressing in from outside to pet and comfort, even though I cannot see them. Senses twist and turn, passing through each other so that the only real sense left is thought. And even this seems to be juggled by the words of Lady Jane.
*
Beever awoke bathed in moonlight and sweat. He thought he had dreamt of the dog, but images from his own life mixed in with the vague memories of his sleep-thoughts. He went downstairs for a drink, ready to lap at the washing up water from last night if he found no orange juice in the fridge. But the juice was there, as was the evidence of his unfortunate journey: an uneaten, unwanted Indian meal, sitting cool in vague imitation of the product of his accident.
Despite there having been no human casualty, the police had eventually been called to the scene. Who by, Beever was unsure. Whatever the case, he had never before had any dealings with the law. As he guzzled the icy juice, he supposed that people like him only had brushes with the boys in blue as a result of driving incidents. God knows how many times he had broken the speed limit without getting caught. Once he’d even driven a few days with an out-of-date MOT certificate! In any event, there had been no witnesses as to the speed he was going before he met the dog – or none that the police were willing to believe, bearing in mind one or two bellyaching drunks who had belatedly arrived from the pedestrian zone. The dog’s owner herself was still in a state of shock, by the time Beever was sent on his way by the police. Her lists did not even seem to repeat themselves. At least, for her, they served a calming purpose, no doubt. They had not even breathalysed him – short shrift they would have got, had they done so. Beever’s breath was like a Consulate advert, menthol fresh, sexily smoky. Alcohol was just another mug’s game. His blood was of quality octane, at the worst of times. Any foreign substances were merely hidden by his sheer effervescence, tinged with the sweetest salts. Indian meals were merely one ingredient in his lifestyle. Garlic and spices were good for the digestion. And the heart. Even the odd cigarette didn’t matter when the rest of you was flushed out every morning, regular as clockwork. Beever didn’t have to drop turds on pavements. Without even a tiny breaking of wind between him and unbroken slumber.
But tonight, he had changed.
He stared at the disused Indian. His equilibrium was shot to pieces. The whole incident had got to him. His bowel movements looked like turmeric stock.
He stared at the disused Indian. He then returned to recalling the lady with the leather leash. Reminiscent of those choke-chains that dog disciplinarians so favoured. How ever had it escaped her fettering? He should have asked the police to investigate this. Not questioning him, but discovering why she was walking a dog without due care and attention. Joy-shackling. Dangerous leading, not dangerous driving! He returned to bed, muttering to himself. Sounded like counting. Perhaps a million or two…
*
“A Song Before Sunrise, Hassan, Late Swallows, Irmelin…”
Is this Dog’s Heaven? If Catholics allowed us animals the benefit of a soul, this is Doggy Hell, more like. I can’t get Lady Jane’s word-lists out of my two pointed ears. I can’t even tail-flick these pesky articulations from buzzing around my face. Not within my physical capability to contort, especially as my real body is dead, squashed like a fly would have been by a pram-swat. Tandoori chicken is like a huge dead insect, especially the proper sort, marinated for years in cloying substances. Yet the other dogs around here look clean limbed, transparent almost, like Frances Burnett Hodgson’s WHITE PEOPLE. You can see they’ve been cleaned out, from muzzle to tail-tip. That dog there – I’m told he once belonged to Arthur Machen. Jack London’s mutt is hereabouts too, somewhere. One particularly famous breed (I forgot the name) showed me that it was not able to drop turds anywhere even if it wanted to do so. The orifices have all been sewn up or cauterised. I must say I’ll tell whatever god rules in this neck of the woods that I prefer the latter, under anaesthetic. Must be Hell, there are so many albino mongrels about. It’s strange what Fate deals us…
*
Deals us. Beever woke with the two words in his head. He had forgotten the rest that had preceded them. Having not eaten the night before, he had no urge for anything more than pitiful spirts of orange from his front-loader. He shook his head. He was not the sort to dwell on such bodily processes, let alone range fast and loose with all manner of crude expressions. He re-lit the Menthol he had put out just before returning to bed after the fuel visit to the fridge. The smoke coiled around his lungs refreshingly, blown from his nostrils like a spice-steeped dragon from the orient. Yet another takeaway was hovering on the horizon for the coming night. He couldn’t face cooking, at the best of times. As he took another deep drag, with the taint of eucalyptus mingling with the rank tobacco, he vowed to spend the day looking for the lady with the lead.
Struggling to remember the rest of his strange dream, he smoked the cigarette down to the filter. He tried to curse when the heat bubbled the skin of his thumb and forefinger, but he never swore, and the pain was soon washed away down the sink. There was a squeal from somewhere down the pipes that reminded him of the squishy-toy sound from yesterday. He waited with baited breath as the water gurgled away, wondering what was swimming against the current, but there was only the satisfied grunt of the drains, a sigh of contentment, a final drip of quenched thirst spiralling up from the dark, dingy, much-inhabited drainpipes way below reality.
Outside, nature seemed to sense what he had done. He was the doggy killer, crusher of trusting heads, spreader of moronically loving brains across skid-marked tarmac. A fly flew expertly into his ear, defying all Beever’s attempts to extricate it and giving its life to annoy him. An aloof magpie swooped low from the flat roof of the Post Office, squawking and clenching its claws in imagined contact with his throat. Beever ducked and felt hairs plucked from his head by the mad bird. This was unfair; this was not good. This was the stuff of nightmares, and though their content may be forgotten in the midst of sleep-mists, still the sense of their presence weighed oppressively down on him.
He never broke the law, not really, but today his soul was incarcerated within a bulging cell of guilt.
Near the scene of the unpleasantness, Beever espied a familiar shape drifting toward him. In a flash of navy-blue and red, the postman darted into gates and doorways like a soldier stalking his own death. Beever had the sudden urge to ask him to ‘stop, wait a minute Mr Postman’, but guessed that the joke had been worn thin by a whole generation decades ago. Instead, he leant casually against an old stone wall and pretended to watch the traffic storm by.
As was his wont, his mind drifted into curious planes of distraction. He pictured the car-dwellers as faceless mannequins, travelling in some grotesque parody of the ultimate crash-test of life. He was a secret watcher. He saw through the imagined shields of glass and metal to the true insides, where noses were picked and the contents eaten, songs were sung unhindered, mouthed messages travelled behind mirrors. The sticky roar of wheels on the hot tarmac played a strange tune, rising to crescendos of white noise, falling again into silent anticipation as green flipped to amber, to red.
“You cun git a few more of the fuckers, if you will.” The voice was gruff, angry, like a hessian sack full of scabs.
“I’m sorry,” Beever said, more to give himself time to gain composure than because he had not heard.
“Yer the one, aintcha? Smegged the lady’s mutt, crushed the old fucker into shit?”
“I ran over a dog,” Beever whispered.
“An’, like I says, yer welcome to git a few more of the little fuckers.” The postman sagged against the wall, a cliché in the flesh, sweatmarks circling his arms like contour lines of stress. He mopped his brow with a jaded handkerchief, blew his nose, wiped his face again.
“Do you possibly know where the unfortunate animal’s owner lives?” Beever asked suddenly. The postman told him, went on his way, muttering under his breath and constantly wary of darting hounds.
Beever wandered along the path the postman had indicated, stepping further than he had thought the way could lead, shouldering past overgrown hedges and the defeated remains of old fences. However far he looked, the path always turned aside within a few paces, and he experienced the surprising memory of a story by a man called Machen; paths leading to nowhere, and a dark presence overhanging an innocent appreciation of nature. He wondered whether Machen had owned a dog.
He would have known the house, even if the stern postman had not provided him with a head map. Between warped fence-boards, past thick clematis and honeysuckle, Beever saw into the garden of Lady Jane -
- the name, from nowhere, shocked him less than what he saw, and so its impact was really lost under the flood of visual surprises -
Hanging from trees in the woman’s garden, hundreds of dog leads. Some of them were new, the leather barely tarnished by time. Others were old and worn and twisted, scarred by unknown assault, darkened by rot or blood, or both. Glinting catches nudged rusted ones in the gentle breeze, singing a haunting concerto into the cloudy sky. Beever gasped, because he saw a familiar lead amongst the multitude: bright green, studded, new. It hung in pride of place.
The front door opened. A dog exited the house, closely followed by the woman, the mysterious Lady Jane. A new dog, wearing a new lead. Eager. Lolling tongue. Faithful to its mistress.
*
How dare she? There’s something very cruel in the way owners try to forget their erstwhile beloved pets simply by a speedy, almost thoughtless, replacing of them by another. All that adoration with which she smothered me, all that mutual dependency, only because I was there? Surely, not. Surely, yes.
We dogsy folk effectively interchangeable, then, in the sentiment stakes? Symbolised by the telling of tales: listeners all agog, intrinsically believing, trusting everything heart and soul, until that truly telling moment when the words THE END are gratuitously added. Then those who have been told the finite tale can return to their so-called real life-stories where the only possible cliff-hanger is a hopeful fictitious death. Gratuitous, yes, because fictions, like lists, or counting, can never otherwise end. They go on and on, building worlds, forever, even after their bogus denouement. And when the presumed eternity finally ends, can truth and lie then be told apart? Truth and lie. Tail and lead. A lady’s tale. Lady Jane, Lady Jane, Lady Jane, Lady Jane…
*
Listlessly, she returned into the house. The black robot dog came behind her, aerial aloft. Shaking off my dozy insolence, I followed, needing to drive my own body, steering it as if I, too, were a vehicle, an exterminating robot on runners. I preened myself, nevertheless, for a choke-chained walkies in the Paradise Gardens. If I were lucky. Meanwhile, I somehow knew, quite gratuitously, that the postman’s name was Frederick Delius.
*
I found her draped across her bed. Now was the time to return the love she’d granted all her pets. Her flesh was translucent, her breasts glowed like fairy-hives of wild honey. She beckoned me palely. Her tongue was eager, smoky and pepperminty. She offered a white-pubed orifice for my mating. But this, surely, was not my season of heat. Men, nowadays, could only pipe it up piecemeal. Like takeaways. Men were not the creatures they once were. She, too, was seemingly out of season, as steaming blood pooled around her hindquarters. My turn to offer an overhaul. Midriff tyre tracks rasped from belly to buttocks, as, to the sound of the first cuckoo, we peeled ourselves, eventually, apart.
