Carmen Dog (17 page)

She gives a little moan. Nods yes and yes. The policemen have not the slightest idea that all this is a manifestation of joy. They have been warned by the doctor that this Pooch-Isabel-Golden Eyes is the most dangerous of all the animals in his care and that he always took precautions when dealing with her, that he knew she would one day attack him, that he had predicted the precise moment the attack would occur, and consequently was prepared for it and therefore not badly harmed. They diagnose her as hyperactive and wonder if her criminal behavior could be controlled with pills or a change of diet.

And now they have presented her with a written confession to sign. Pooch hesitates. What about Isabel's crimes? Isn't it Isabel who should be captured and incarcerated as an animal dangerous to society? But where does duty lie? And the master? What would make him most proud of her? Self-sacrifice for the sake of others? Surely that. Hasn't she been trained for it from the beginning? And to think of herself as last and least important? Trained to put-up-with? to acquiesce? to “stay” and “heel” and “sit” and “lie down and roll over?” Even though she sees that she might put a question into their minds by asking how she could have been, at the same time, at the Plaza and at the doctor's, she signs
yes
to everything. But she signs it in a sort of fit of exhilaration:
Pucci
. It's just as well that this is not her legal name.

In the halls on the way to her solitary confinement, Pooch sees several policemen wearing Rosemary masks. Most are still in their uniforms, though a few are wearing gray or navy blue dresses, their pistols and nightsticks making lumps under their skirts. She remembers the boxes of masks that had been confiscated at the Academy when the doctor and Pooch and Rosemary were arrested. There seems to be a lot of them. No doubt the police were already prepared to infiltrate the Rosemary movement. It's a little scary that one won't be able to know one's enemies for sure anymore, but even so Pooch gives little hops of joy.

In solitary, she calms down quickly and curls up on the floor by the door (though there is a cot in the cell) to await her master. The position doesn't seem quite as comfortable as it used to be. Perhaps she misses the scratchy mat, or perhaps her hip bones have broadened somewhat even in these last couple of weeks. She rests her cheek on one hand to keep it off the floor and with the other hand she fingers her worn-out collar.

"Not win,” Rosemary had said to all of them just that morning, shortly before they had been separated from the others in the vestibule of the Academy of Motherhood. She had again been dressed as the little old Rosemary she used to be, and she had told them to remember that they were not trying to win. “And don't forget that,” she said, “for if we do ‘win' we will surely lose everything."

Pooch had not understood her. There, about to be arrested, and as strong and grand as she was under her gray dress, she had said, “Not win.” But now, thinking of her master and the pleasures of duty, Pooch decides she does understand. Of course there is nothing to win ... nothing but someone else's love. And to be loyal to it. Loyalty! That is, after all, what she was born for, and how satisfying it is to still be so. How relaxing, to lean back (loyally) into someone else's love and care, never to want to win anything ever again.

She begins to compose in her mind a joyful and nostalgic haiku:

—

Daisies, dish soap, doormat, smell of his chair.

Oh breath of golden spring!

—

(She had especially wanted to work the word
golden
into it.)

There is barely time to count syllables and she knows it needs much more work, though she does like the middle line. Her solitary confinement hardly lasts half an hour when the baby, still screaming and furious, is brought to her. Obviously the policemen can no longer deal with its noise. She had been a little worried about it, but had known that when the master came, all would be well with them both. Still, it's a relief to take it into her arms, where it stops yelling instantly and turns from beet red to its normal peachy glow. For the last few days the two of them have had so little time to enjoy each other. Ever since the time she and Basenji had curled up together for comfort. So now she is happy to have a chance to get reacquainted with it. With some bits of rag from her skirt (which makes the skirt all the more disreputable), she forms a ball for the baby to throw and for herself to fetch. The baby screaming again, but now with delight.

A few hours later the master does come. Pooch knows who it is even before the door opens—that special beer and pipe tobacco, that armpit smell that could only be
his
armpits. Stronger now than ever. Probably because he no longer has Pooch to do his laundry. Yes, that will be the first thing she'll do for him.

The door slams open and Pooch leaps into his arms and begins kissing his cheeks ... his whole face. She nearly knocks him over. In her joy a word does come out—"Master.” Just once. And Pooch is even more ecstatic to find her voice returning, however hoarse and gravelly it sounds. But then she is shocked to silence again when he leans her over backward, puts his hand up under her paint smock to one of her breasts, and gives her a long French kiss—not at all fatherly. She pulls away from him as soon as he loosens his grip slightly. Can this be her master? The man from whom she learned, or thought she had learned, all her upstanding loyalty and morality, though perhaps she had made it all up out of her own needs. All of a sudden she wonders—where
did
she learn them? From the operas, no doubt, and the haiku. Or Bernard Meltzer. And has she ever really known the master, for here in his hand, a chain, a choke collar, a short whip, handcuffs, and a muzzle. Muzzle! Clearly he has been convinced that she is a dangerous animal, in spite of all that he knows of her. Why, she grew up with him! How can he think this about her? How can he kiss her in that way? Like the sybarite's kiss only, actually, more violent and less sensuous ... not sensuous at all, in fact, a cruel and frightening kiss.

"You're to come home,” he says. “I told them I'd keep you in line. From what I hear of your recent experiences, you already know very well where bad animals go and what happens to them there. I hope you can keep that in your head. I left the laundry. The houseplants died. Be careful and we'll both have a real good time. My wife, as you must realize, is now at the aquarium, so
if
things go well, I thought we might get married later on."

He motions for her to pick up the baby. Then, when it is in her arms, he gives it a peck on the cheek, but pulls back with a yell. There are red teeth marks at the side of his upper lip. The baby has bitten him.

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Alas, I cast my nets into their seas and wanted to catch good fish; but I always pulled up the head of some old god.

—Friedrich Nietzsche

By now, in a manner of speaking, all men have lost their mothers. Even if the mothers still live where they have always lived, they are grayer or greener than expected or more mustachioed. They slide down banisters, fall asleep on the Persian rug in front of the fireplace, and, rain or shine, dance around in the back yard (if there is a back yard); otherwise, on the roof. They smile at nothing or at anything or are always almost smiling. Talk about the Mona Lisa! Others do not encounter their mothers except on outings to the zoo. Some mothers have not been seen at all for quite some time, and the worst is feared.

Of course all the members of the Academy are disturbed by the loss of or changes in their own mothers. Many have always treated their mothers with the utmost kindness and consideration, carrying their suitcases, opening doors and jars, and reaching into high places for them. They regret—especially now, and considering their own recent losses or problems with their mothers—they regret that circumstances have forced them to lock away, virtually imprison these other younger mothers, along with a few older, more experienced ones.

A large room at the Academy has been set apart for the use of the members. A moose head hangs on one wall, tiger, wildebeest, and assorted deer and antelope on the others. There is a bear skin on the floor and near it a zebra skin. A cut-off elephant foot stands by the door as a receptacle for canes and umbrellas. It is to this room that the members of the Academy often come to discuss their own mothers and mothers in general. No female is ever allowed in, except once a week a small, blotchy one in a black uniform is let in to clean up.

At the exact moment that Pooch is running out from between her master's legs (this time, in truth, knocking him over)—she is holding the baby in her teeth by the back of its diaper—at that exact moment the little blotchy female enters this room, and in a few minutes out comes a zebra, walking upright with a wildebeest head in its forefeet. Ten minutes later the same thing happens, except that this time out comes a bear with two antelope heads in its paws.

There are no members in the members' room because today is a big day at the Academy. Not only is there the excitement of all the new mothers-to-be just brought in, but the first babies (twins, actually) to be born under completely scientific observation, from insemination on, are about to be delivered. True, they have not taken nine months to gestate, but who can tell how long is normal now that things have changed so much. And anyway, twins are often a bit premature. Two heartbeats have been clearly heard and two skeletons seen on the x-rays. One member of the Academy is even sure that he heard three heartbeats and that three little skeletons are quite easily seen if one looks properly.

The donor of the sperm of these particular infants is a man high up in government circles. His identity of course is a secret, but it is known that he was handsome in his younger years, he has already fathered several successful males, and he once played football. The members of the Academy have great expectations for these babies. Their future has been mapped out for them already.

Several Academy members are dressed in their operating room greens and the contractions are coming every five minutes. Many of the mothers-to-be who have expressed an interest are allowed to watch the procedure. It is hoped that they will learn something useful. They stand behind the Academy members, up on boxes so that they can see over the members' shoulders. They are being unusually quiet.

But soon there is as much confusion and consternation at the Academy as there is at the police station. At first no one is quite sure what has happened. What sort of baby is this? ... this naked, shapeless lump, almost all head? Perhaps it is an extra-large rat ... or pig, or pup? Could be anything—don't they all look like this in the beginning? But certainly ... or
almost
certainly not human, though hairless enough. Pig. Probably pig. And goodness knows how many more to come, yet from a creature obviously on the way up and with only the slightest suggestion of the porcine about her. And wasn't she thought to be “up” from racehorse and by Secretariat? She is still in labor, but now no one is paying any attention to her except Cucumber (Pickle for short), who has been holding her hand all this time and wiping her face with a cool, damp cloth. (The members of the Academy not only allow such behavior, they encourage it. Besides, they are concentrating on the important end.)

It is at this moment of confusion, when the Academy members have just turned to stare at each other in astonishment, that all the mothers-to-be (Chloe and Phillip among them) spring into action and fall—literally fall from the vantage of their higher perches—upon the members of the Academy and, by dint of their numbers and the element of surprise, easily overpower them.

(Cucumber had snatched the new baby out of harm's way in the nick of time.)

First the mothers-to-be take away all the Academy members' keys and then they hustle them down to the baby paraphernalia shop. Cucumber doesn't mind staying with the mother, who is still in labor. She has never been interested in anything athletic and actually prefers to stay behind. She is hoping that the next baby born will be something quite different from the first—that would be an adventure of its own sort.

Down in the shop, there are unfortunately only three Responsive Early-Life Play Pens. Chloe and Phillip help the others pick out from the group of green-clad and business-suited men the three who seem the most important. They do this partly by an examination of their underwear (whether it was bought at jc Penney's or not) and partly by who the men defer to. After they put the three men in the pens, they load the dispenser with the nutrition cupcakes (also on sale there) and punch in the proper program—they pick one that is for particularly recalcitrant children, good for either the terrible twos or the frustrating fives. They are hoping that with some positive reinforcement, as well as a modicum of negative reinforcement, these most important members of the Academy can be reprogrammed to behave in a way that is more sensitive to the needs of all creatures. Perhaps after a day in the pens, they will have switched sides.

The men will not be badly off. They will be rocked and sung to. Educational stories will be read to them by soft voices. When they need to pee, they will afterward be air-dried and powdered. After some time they may even learn to enjoy it, though now there isn't much else for them to do
but
enjoy it as best they can. Of course they will also have plenty of time to think about the pig-baby (if such it really is).

The rest of the members of the Academy are confined with various sorts of baby paraphernalia—straps, harnesses, and leashes—and given pills for hyperactive children. Then the mothers-to-be return to the roof, where all the other mothers and former mothers have gathered and where John is practicing his juggling and back flips. They stop on the way up, however, in the rest-and-relaxation room, where they take all the remaining animal heads off the walls, even including the moose head, which is so heavy it takes three of them to carry it. These they bring with them to the roof garden.