I’m well into my second week of working here. It’s been fairly uneventful, one day melting into the next. Juliette came by again on Tuesday and we went through the same routine: I gave her the receipts, we went through the checkbook together, and she gave me my permanent set of credit cards. There was no fight this time, but she didn’t stay as long, and didn’t lunch with Mr. M. The cleaning people have worked there way through the main rooms of the house, and are now tearing through what I think of as the ‘guest levels’, where there are unused bedrooms and baths, a workout room, and the nooks and crannies that make up the landings between levels. Their job goes faster now and I’m almost ready to have someone come in and clean the carpets.
And the dogs have fleas.
“The dogs have fleas,” I say to Mr. M as he’s eating his breakfast.
“Can you take them to the vet?”
“I’m sure I can. But since you keep the dogs in the house, there must be fleas in the house.” He stares at me. “In the rugs, and the sofas. Anywhere they’ve roamed around. And in the yard. You’re going to have to have the place treated.”
“Crap.”
“More or less, yes,” I agree. “I’m having the carpets done anyway, and I was going to wait, but I think I’ll try and have them steamed before the weekend. And I’ve gotten rid of or laundered the curtains. I know that the chairs and sofas have been vacuumed out , but, well... have you been letting the dogs out of the dining room?”
“No, not since you put them there.”
“I need the name of your vet, then.”
He nods, takes an enormous mouthful of food, and sprints down the hall from the kitchen to his office.
Fleas. I feel like scratching. I haven’t been bitten, so I don’t think we have any kind of infestation. At least not yet. Now I’ll have to fit in a trip to the vet for the dogs. I wonder if I couldn’t just leave them overnight for a good de-fleaing. I can’t imagine how long that’s going to take, or if they’ll do it at all, or if I need to make an appointment. Mr. M returns with a card in his hand, the name and number of the vet scrawled across the back.
“Here,” he says, and then he promptly takes the card back. “Know what? Let me call first.” And he takes yet another large bite of food and he’s back to his office again. I have no idea why the phone in the kitchen isn’t serviceable, but I don’t ask. Instead, I clean up the breakfast trappings. By the time I’ve done straightening everything, he’s back. “They can take them today and they’ll stay there at least overnight, maybe more.”
I’m surprised. I’m surprised that they would take the dogs with no notice. I’m surprised that they would keep them overnight. I’m most surprised that Mr. M took any initiative on this at all.
“You can drop them off any time today,” he tells me, and now he hands me the card for good. “They’ll clean them, and treat them. Said they’d give you some kind of instructions on what to do in the house, and outside.”
I note the address. Santa Monica. Not a problem, I have time to do this right now, I just need to hustle the dogs into one of the cars.
“Do you have anything you transport the dogs in?” I ask. My mind is tending toward some kind of carrier, but they’re so large, I can’t imagine what to stuff them in.
“No, they’ll have to sit in the back of the Jeep.”
Fine. Now the Jeep will have to be fumigated, too. I tick another chore I was going to do off my list and substitute ‘clean Jeep’ with it.
“Would you mind giving me a hand getting them into the Jeep?” I figure they know him, they trust him, they’ll obey.
I figure wrong.
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It’s a face off. Two adults, and three large dogs. Daisy, who seems to be the easiest going of the three, WILL get into the back of the Jeep and stay. Byrd will get in, but then gets right out again, as if it’s a game. Tank want’s nothing to do with it, and is creating a drool swamp of biblical proportions. We’ve coaxed and bribed. I’ve stuck toys and blankets in the back of the vehicle, and nothing seems to work.
“I think if we get Tank in, the other’s won’t be a problem,” I say.
“He doesn’t like the car. Never did,” Mr. M tells me. He’s got his arms around the dog and is trying to wrestle him into the back seat. Tank is howling, whining, and drooling. Mr. M’s shirt is soaked with it, because Tank keep flailing his head and wiping the spit all over him. I’m keeping well out of this, holding the other two dogs by their leads. Daisy and Byrd seem fascinated by the whole procedure, and I have to admit, I’m fascinated myself.
Front loading Tank doesn’t seem to work, he’s clinging to Mr. M.
“Why don’t you try backing in with him, then I’ll close the door, and you can come out the other door?” I suggest.
“Okay,” Mr. M grunts, and he turns himself around so he can back onto the seat.
This isn’t pretty. Tank is a smart dog, he sees what’s coming. Mr. M is no sooner on the back seat then Tank’s scrabbling with all four paws to get out. I close the door on them both, and it’s a skirmish. Mr. M is being liberal with his use of the ‘f’ word and I’m trying not to laugh.
“Can you get out?” I don’t know why I’m asking, because I don’t think he can. But he manages to crawl over the top of the seats and let himself out the front passenger side. “I guess you can.”
“C’mon, Daisy, get in,” Mr. M says, and Daisy, being the most obedient of the three, hops onto the front seat. Byrd follows her, and then clambers over to the back to be with Tank, who seems calmed by her company. “Good dogs,” he says, and slams the door shut. He looks down at himself, making a face. “Fuckin’ dog.”
“He’s scared,” I offer. I do feel a little bad for Tank, but I think I’m feeling worse for Mr. M. “I’ll be back in a while. Guess you’d better wash up.”
“Yeah, and I’m late, too. What else is new. See ya later,” he says, and waves us off without looking at us.
I get into the Jeep and the dogs start to howl. I think they think it will make me change my plans, but I head out of the driveway anyway, turning the stereo up loud to drown them out. I hope it’s not a long drive to the vet.
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Damn dogs. I have my shirt off before I’m even inside the house. Not that I was wearing it anywhere, not that I wasn’t takin’ a shower anyway, but Christ, this is disgusting. I wipe myself off with the wet shirt and throw it into the laundry room, not caring where it’s going, just caring that it’s off me. I might as well undress here, so I take off everything else and leave it. Fuck it.
I’m late for golf, the story of my life. Rene can let his ass in himself, he always does. Now I’ve got fleas on my mind and wonder if they’re in the bed, or on me, or anywhere else. Gross. I know I’m not the neatest person in the world, okay, I’m a slob, but bugs? No, I gotta draw a line somewhere and it’s definitely at bugs.
I don’t really think they’re in the bed. Shi has been changing the sheets every day. I haven’t seen anything that looks like a bug, nothing in the bed but a coupla crumbs from late night cookie eating. The bed is already made, so I can’t tell if there’s anything in it or not. Wouldn’t matter, it’s the black sheets today, wouldn’t be able to see anything anyway.
I hope Shi doesn’t have a problem at the vets. I called. Didn’t get Roxanne, so I hope she’s off today, or won’t be in until after Shi drops the dogs off. No problem getting them in, there never is, which is why Sarah and I chose this vet, well, that and the fact that Roxanne worked there, too, you know, keepin’ it in the family. Not now, though. Now I’m just another customer. I think Rox would string me up just as soon as look at me right now. I know that she likes me, I KNOW it, but she sure didn’t like what I did to her daughter. I can’t blame her. The whole thing was a shitass thing to do. And I mean the WHOLE thing. Took me a long time to figure that out, that even asking Sarah to marry me was the wrong thing to do. Because I don’t want to be married. Not to her, not to anybody. I don’t want to be alone, but I don’t want to be with anyone that way, either. So this really is all my fault, because I started it and I could’ve stopped it and I didn’t until it was ugly and then I did the wrong thing to stop it, too.
I’m a fuck up. Big time. And it’s lookin’ like everyone is pretty much in agreement about it, too, for once. There was a time when one or two people would stick up for me, might see my side of something. Know what? This time, even I don’t see my side of it. And I’ve been spending months trying to, too, trying to understand why I was screwing around on someone I cared very much for, why I DON’T want to be married, why I even started the whole ‘let’s get married’ thing.
I know why about that part, at least a little. I just didn’t want Sarah to leave me. I wanted her to be with me, like we were, but it felt like she was slipping away from me. It did, I can’t even explain it. It felt that way the whole time we were together, like I didn’t know why she was with me, why she was there. Of course I spent a lot of that time completely stoned out of my mind, or drunk, so I guess it’s hard to remember feelings and reasons now, when I wasn’t having any feelings then.
Just that unhappy, miserable feeling that the world was ending and that there was no one who understood that, or that could love me, or even just help me. That seems stupid now, because I’ve been reminded, more than once, exactly who WAS there, trying to get through to me. My mom. My friends, who won’t talk to me now, those guys I worked with, especially Brian, and Kevin, yeah, Kevin, too. A lot of people. But I was out of it. I can’t even remember a lot of the everyday stuff from back then. I know we were touring, gearing up for the tour. I know that we spent time out of the country, a lot of time, but every night it was just drink, drink, drink. And snort. So much blow. So easy to get, too.
You know, I wasn’t even with Sarah then, Jesus, that seems so long ago. No, I was losing Amanda then. Pushing her away. I was losing her, and my grandmother was dying and I couldn’t handle that and there was Sarah, ‘cause Amanda and I were on the outs, but you know, I thought I could get Amanda back.
Really. I did. We always got back together. No matter how bad it got she was there for me, and I was... I was fucking up.
I can’t think about this now. None of it matters anyway. Amanda, she’s long gone. Got her life in order. I guess that was easier to do WITHOUT me in it. And now Sarah, she’s gone, or going, or whatever, she’s nowhere, because I’m not going back to her, and she’s not coming back to me, we’re ‘waiting’, so it’s nothing.
Fuck it, I hear Rene and I’m not even done with this damn shower and I don’t want to play golf today AND there better not be any fucking fleas on me.
Fuck it. Bloodsuckers. Everywhere.
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© 2003 Chandrah, Inc.
© 2003 (*> Baby Bird Productions, Inc.
