2005

pst

fri
feb
18

Okay, here's the Rube Goldberg contraption, and forbidden thought. It's like paint-by-numbers, which if you ever give David Daniels as a gift, he throws in the mud.

It begins with Achilles of Thessaly, West Highland White Terrier, born April 10, 1992, up in Sacramento.

It also begins with David Daniels asking me from time to time, always unexpectedly, "What do you feed those dogs?" including both Achilles and Paris, the Scottie.

Feeling surprised by the question again, I'd always say, "They have infinite food, I always leave dry food out for them, and heard you're supposed to give them a consistent diet, such as they might find in a particular habitat, where they'd always feast on chipmunks, for instance, so I give them chicken."

I wouldn't say all that. I'd just say, "Chicken."

Then he'd ask me how old Achilles is, and I'd say, "I have no idea."

These were such exasperating questions.

pm
2:13

Over the years, it would be the same thing, always surprising me, asking in warmer and warmer tones, "So what do you feed those dogs?" pushing my limits, and I'd say, "Chicken!" often with Ralph watching from the corner of my eye.

You have to watch what you say around Ralph.

Then as Achilles grew older, and began to gorge a little, then regurgitate, lap it up, throw up, eat it again, sometimes whimpering a little before he started all this, I watched his diet a little more carefully.

Then David starts with the Hershey's Kisses. Well, I decide, because I heard it on the radio, chocolate is toxic to a dog, so instead of allowing David to toss Achilles a piece of chocolate across the floor, I responded with action, not words, simply placing Achilles in my lap whenever David went for the Kisses.

"Isn't Achilles getting old?" David would say. "Maybe you can start buying 'mature dry food,' I think it's easier to digest," although a part of me felt David was trying to kill him! I would go right up to the edge, thinking, If this dog ever dies, I'm going to ....

2:33

There was something fuzzy about what had happened in the grass. My stepfather had told me something like, "I told you ... to stay ... off the grass," in positively exasperated tones, my mom had suddenly said, "Let's go out for a sundae!" and I had slammed my jaw shut, nailing my third tooth towards the left on the top into the tooth below with such force, they almost had to hospitalize me, though I remember rolling around on the ground, writhing in the pain, with my stepfather sneering, "What's he done now?"

2:47

I was in a meeting, exactly a week ago, practicing writing with my left hand, not even caring what David was talking about, in almost a dream, about Mendham, his adventures there, even leaving the room to get water for the dogs, and coming back.

Someone interrupted him to ask what was Rita Benson's name before she got married, her name as an actress, and David had said, "Her name was Rita Romilly Benson after she got married," and suddenly saying in my mind, almost excitedly, Ask me how you spell it!

So I say, "How do you spell 'Rommelly?'" and without a moment's hesitation David says, "I'm not telling and don't you write it down!"

2:52

Then near the end of the meeting, he asked me something about his website. "I've seen some of it," I told him, "though a lot of it crashes my computer."

"Richard," he said, "I want you to visit ------," and here he told me the name of a website. "You can find the link. Remember that! Write it down," adding at the end of the meeting, "Don't forget! Visit that website!"

So I got home, visited that website, and after a solid hour of it crashing my computer trying up uplink flash-something-or-other, flew into a rage.

2:58

Next day, looking at my notes for something else, I read, "I'm not telling and don't you write it down!" and realized, This is exactly how I felt in third grade, after my mouth injury, how the teacher would refuse to answer my question, then erase the blackboard before my very eyes, not even letting me copy what had been up there, later picking me up and moving me to the slow section, in another room, the class for dimwits.

3:02

Wait! This is hilarious, I realized, looking at my notes. I'd already written "Rita Rommelly Benson" in my notes before David had told me "not to write it down!" and afterwards, he had gone to some pains to describe how to find her name on the Internet, how she had been an actress in George M. Cohen's musical plays, and other things.

I knew he really didn't care whether I wrote it down, and he went to even further lengths to make me realize that fact, as deeply as possible, both then and in meetings earlier this week.

3:08

And out in my taxi, resting at the airport, I suddenly realized what had really happened out in the grass, not far from the sidewalk. And after I realized the exact sequence of events, remembered it in its entirety, felt a circle, or hoop, across and around the top of my chest, inside the muscles there, and simultaneously, as my chest relaxed, had a (Vision) The olive green serpent suddenly rises and says, "I told you ... to stay ... off the grass!" and the head of the little serpent is the head of my stepfather, all of which dissolves, fades, vanishes. (Fin)

In the total relaxation that followed in my chest muscles, erasing the slight anger I had been feeling all week, over nothing, I remembered what had really happened.

3:22

My stepfather repeats, "I told you ... to stay ... off the grass!"

And with untold mirth I tell him I'm not standing on the grass.

"I'm standing on a place, where there'll never be grass, because I'm standing ... on a rock!"

My mother catches on and says, "Let's go out for a sundae!"

And leaping into the air, with my jaw askew, yell, "Ha! Ha-ha!"

3:26

And just as I think, "If this dog ever dies, I'm going to ..." switch from an image of David Daniels, and his lawn, to the whiskered green lawn of my stepfather, and his hissing serpent, and leaping into the air, with my jaw no longer askew, yell, "... throw it on your grave!"

"Ha! Ha-ha!"

3:38