Category Archives: Fang & Claw

An Open Letter to a Puppy

O’! my dearest forsaken,

I wanted to give this to you now, but you are too young to understand. Hopefully, one day — perhaps when I am playing the cloud circuit and you are still on the ray and beam — you will grasp what I am going to confess. Because I am not sure I do.

When you were about three months old, I tried to give you up for adoption. Worse yet, I still occasionally consider it.

But please understand: My reasons when you were on the quarter-year are far different than when you are on the half. And none had much to do with you.

When you were three months, I feared I was not parent enough to raise you. Here, on your six-month anniversary on the planet, I can tell myself I am parent enough. I often believe it.

But I still catch myself catching myself, usually with the nagging doubt that you could do better. With a bigger yard. With an additional pup. With better food, more exercise, a real pool instead of the kiddie one you splash every day and frantically circle when you get the hypers.

You never complain, of course, though sometimes your energy bottles into a deep sigh or a trailing whimper. And I will think: Take people up on their generous offers of a bigger house, a daily jog, a yard full of siblings.

But, clearly, I cannot bring myself to say goodbye. The notion of you not filling this postage stamp of a home with your dander and chocolate newness terrifies me. I am too taken with your ways.

I like the way you play. When you do, you play as a cat would. You will carry a ball through the house, and appear startled when you bat it with your Sasquatch paws AND IT WILL MOVE. So you will pounce, secure, repeat. Or how you play with a stuffed animal as an infant would admire a crib mobile: on your back, with arms aloft.

I like the way you eat. When you do, you will scamper from kitchen to living room, make sure I am still there, and return to your kibble.

I like the way you walk. When we do — molasses slow to you, I know — you will gaze up every few steps to verify that it is ME holding you back. If we are watching our daily sunsets from the backyard, you will laze in front of me, never behind, as if I would slip away in a careless moment. But I would not slip away. I do not think that I can.

I like the way you velcro. You will not abide bathroom privacy, sitting on my feet at the toilet and against the glass door when I shower. When I write, as I now do, you are under the table, dreaming and yipping and trembling enormous pads. Do you dream of open fields? Of brothers and sisters?

Above all, I like the way that you teach: how to human-up; how to wait it out; how to use “no” as sparingly as an adjective. You show me that you — like all your brethren of fang and claw — are not a pet at all. Nor even a puppy. You are an emotional 401k, offering to match 105% of my love investment.

You are the part of me that works. The heart of me that beats. Bon Iver was right: Only love is all maroon.

I was never brave enough to become a parent of flesh. Some hard days, I fret I am not meant to be one of fur.

Yet here we are, on postage stamps and kiddie pools. On your full birthday, (November 1; you are a Scorpio) perhaps you will get a decent-sized pool, one that is deeper than a ruler. Maybe you will get a yard that allows a sprint instead of a spin. I do not know, and not knowing is always the dilemma.

But I do know this, and you should, too: You will never sleep next to a boy who could love you more, whether you want it or not.

Happy Half Day, JayDee Barkinger.

JD and Me

I know this taste.

I first experienced it in the summer of ‘79, before my freshman year of high school. The summer I turned into a Type 1 diabetic.

Before then, at a Michigan middle school, I would play pickup basketball daily, usually with a huge plug of Bubble Yum bubblegum wedged in my mouth that I’d smack incessantly and obnoxiously as pre-teens do. It was my Popeye spinach; the sugar high fueled me until darkness called the games.

Then I turned diabetic, and sugar was out. I’d still play daily, but something was off. How can it not be when a fixture in your life is suddenly gone forever? It’s an unmistakable, undefinable flavor, the taste of vacancy.

As I got older, I’d realize it’s not an uncommon thing. It happens anytime someone you love suddenly dies. It returned in 1999, when my dear friend Libby Hatch, who had offered one of her kidneys for a transplant I needed, died in a motorcycle crash three weeks after the profound gesture.

And it returned this weekend, when I gave JD away.

It killed me, giving her up. But I found myself falling daily while walking her. Since the transplant, I’ve suffered severe orthostasis, an abnormal drop in blood pressure that occurs when you stand that can lead to fainting. And while I never lost consciousness, I would “white out” as my vision faded and dizziness swelled. I’d collapse in the dog park, on a sidewalk, in my kitchen. Just wrestling a dog vest on JD — who is not yet five months but already 50 pounds of muscle and joy — left me gasping.

People would come up to me at the dog park, where I routinely had to sit in dirt while I waited for the cobwebs to clear, offering to help me on my feet.

Last week, on the day I fell twice, I called the dog walker, Lauren, and conceded the once-unthinkable: I didn’t have the health for a dog that healthy. I choked down sobs and told her, I don’t think I can do this.

Lauren, who manages dozens of dogs with a team of animal lovers, told me she and her boyfriend would be willing to adopt JD. They already had two dogs, and JD would get daily walks with the “woof pack” at the park. I could still see her five days a week. More importantly, JD would get the company and exercise she craved. And deserved.

Finally, I agreed. Lauren brought Jack over, and they all played in my backyard. As they laughed and sprinted through the yard — something I rarely can do — I began to lose it. I felt like shit. My sniffles punctuated JD’s playful growls and yips.

They sensed it, of course, and assured me: If I wanted her back, or if she somehow wasn’t a good fit for them, they’d return her in a heartbeat. “I know it’s hard,” Lauren said. “I can’t imagine giving up one of my babies.”

I could. This fucking body has repossessed much.

As they walked to the front door, JD in happy tow, they repeated their promise: Make the call, and she’s back here. I couldn’t muster a response, just a teary wave as they closed the door behind them.

The next day, I awoke to an empty house, which I guess was fitting; I was empty, too. I dragged to the tub and immersed in defeat. I thought I’d beaten this goddamned disease with the transplant. But you never defeat it. You’re always shadow boxing; it’s just a different shade.

But suddenly, a ding. Reprieve!

It was Lauren, texting to say that Friday night was a disaster. Her dogs apparently were offended at the very existence of JD (particularly the older dog), and made everyone’s existence a living hell. She would need to return JD, she said, but would continue to help me find a “forever home” for my girl.

The news jolted me out of the water like I’d dropped a toaster in it.

It wasn’t me. I may be broken, but I’m not a bad parent.

Lauren was similarly devastated; she’d come to love JD, too. But deep down, I was overjoyed. Knowing that a young, healthy couple found her energy a challenge meant that maybe I wasn’t so broken.

And now, she is back home with me. And I feel a renewed strength, a resurgent health, an enlightened sense of sight.

I may still have to find JD a home. Some one day, I may still have to concede to that jagged vacance. No matter its form, diabetes is a relentless mobster, constantly collecting on the vig.

But not today.

Today, I am a good dad. Today, I can offer her a good life.

We don’t always get to choose whether to alight the No on our Vacancy sign.

But when we can, it’s as sweet as bubblegum.

Jagged Vacance

“Someway, baby, it’s part of me, apart from me”
You’re laying waste to Halloween
You fucked it friend, it’s on its head, it struck the street
You’re in Milwaukee, off your feet

And at once, I knew I was not magnificent
Strayed above the highway aisle
Jagged vacance, thick with ice
But I could see for miles, miles, miles

3rd and Lake, it burnt away, the hallway
Was where we learned to celebrate
Automatic bought the years you’d talk for me
That night you played me Lip Parade
Not the needle, nor the thread, the lost decree
Saying nothing, that’s enough for me

And at once, I knew I was not magnificent
Hulled far from the highway aisle
Jagged vacance, thick with ice
But I could see for miles, miles, miles

Christmas night, it clutched the light, the hallow bright
Above my brother, I and tangled spines
We smoked the screen to make it what it was to be
Now to know it in my memory

And at once, I knew I was not magnificent
High above the highway aisle
Jagged vacance, thick with ice
But I could see for miles, miles, miles