Church of the Dog (20 page)

Upstairs is harder. Mara cleaned my grandparents’ bedroom after Grandma died, but I feel funny having anyone stay in it. I don’t want anyone to move anything. Minda would just get that. I’ll put her in there.

Finally, there is the room that used to be my dad’s when he was a kid. I went upstairs to the door with the ceramic sign on it that read SAM. I opened the door we never opened and turned on the light.

My father’s train track snakes all around the room. His Tonto bow and arrow hangs on the wall. If I put Rob in here, he would play with them. I’ll put Paul in here. A few rodeo trophies of his sit on his dresser, two for saddle broncs, one for bareback, and one for bull riding. A handful of 4-H ribbons hang from the corner of the mirror. It wasn’t unlike the way my room had been, except he also had some pictures of my mother tucked into the frame of his mirror. I never had that. I never had someone I wanted to marry. I never even had a serious relationship—drunken lovers, sure, a few, but anything significant, no.

The bedding is dusty. I pull sheets and blankets out of their neatly tucked corners. Stripping the blankets off my father’s bed seems sacrilegious. I just destroyed part of the Sam museum. Instead of feeling bad, though, a good feeling washes over me. I feel like maybe he’s watching me and trying to tell me that making room for the present is a good thing and that he knows I don’t need a museum bedroom to remember him. I feel like he’s applauding my choice to begin to make room for a living family. “Thanks, Dad,” I say. Then I carry the wad of bedding down to the creepy basement and stick half of it in the washing machine. Once I start the machine, I run out of the basement and up the stairs.

It’s two-thirty a.m., and like the three previous nights, I can’t sleep in this house. I go to my room to change my clothes, and that’s it. I leave my window wide open so I don’t have to mess with it when my lungs freeze up. There will never be enough air in there. If I sleep at all, it’s with my head on the dining room table. The kitchen is the only room in this house that I can breathe in.

From my place at the dining room table I can look across the backyard and see Mara’s light still on. She stays up late on weekends. From time to time I can see her silhouette cross through the stained-glass window, sometimes carrying something, sometimes dancing alone, sometimes dancing with Zeus.

I put my coat on and walk out to survey the two-year-old heifers. Not much going on. No problems. Satisfied, I begin to walk back, passing Mara’s house. I turn and pause. Light streams out into the dark night from her stained-glass windows and reflects on the frost that coats the ground. I go up to her door and knock.

“Hello, friend,” she says as she opens her door wide and shuts it behind me. “Welcome to the Church of the Dog.” I follow her past all her paintings in progress all over the walls: in her image . . . some Angels, some mermaids, some with Zeus and horses.

She pours me some tea from a kettle of water on the wood-stove. “You can’t sleep there, can you?”

I just shake my head.

We sit on the little futon she uses for a couch near the fire, and she rubs my back while I sip tea.

“My life is such a mess,” I blurt out.

“Lots of weeds?”

“And nothing I grew on purpose,” I add. “My family is all gone,” I choke out and turn my head so she can’t see the tears that stream down my face.

She puts her arm around my back and rests her head on my shoulder. “I’ll be your family,” she softly offers.

I put down the teacup and swing my legs up in one motion, resting my head in her lap, lying on my side so I can watch the fire a little longer. “Thanks,” I say and drift off while she strokes my hair.

When Dan fell asleep, I tried to ground him and clear him. His aura looked so frenzied, all the colors squished together in chaos rather than the pulsing rainbow ribbon that usually swirls around a person in a motion similar to a gentle flame.

I start with red, picture it in my mind, and that thought energy seems to pull the red out of the chaos and separate it. I separate all the colors like that so that when I’m all done, they look like the rainbow again instead of like a television when the station has gone off the air.

I set my alarm for a couple hours later, and when it goes off, I check on the young cows. I should have asked Daniel about what was going on out there. I walk near one cow on the ground, behind her so I can see how things are going, and there I see a tail coming out of her birth canal. My heart sinks. Daniel told me about this, but I’ve never actually seen it or dealt with it.

It’s me against the contractions of a large Angus heifer. I have to push the calf back into the uterus and grab its back legs. It doesn’t stand a chance of getting out butt first. I try not to think about having my arms up a cow’s vagina or about being so close to where the poop comes out. I try to stay focused on the little life in there, the life that will be taken back in about ten months probably, but nonetheless, I feel like life needs a little victory these days, and that’s what this is: me against death. I’m so tired of death. I stop pushing during the contraction and wait for it to pass, and then I push with all my might. I get nearly up to my shoulders and finally feel more space. I slide my hands around the calf, trying to identify what is what and, most of all, where the hind legs are. When I think I have both of them, I pull with all my might. I wedge my feet up against the cow and pull. She has more contractions. I keep pulling, and finally the calf slides out.

And then I started sobbing. I don’t know why. Tears are funny like that. They don’t always make sense. Maybe I’m simply overdue for a hard cry.

But, anyway, chalk one up for life. Finally.

I’m at a dance of some kind, sitting and watching. Mara is dancing like she means it, with a big smile on her face.

When the song is over, she approaches me. “Wanna give me another two-step lesson?” she asks. “I want to twirl.”

“Not yet,” I answer.

“How ’bout some food? I come here all the time, and the food is great.”

“No, I just want to sit here,” I reply.

“Suit yourself,” and with that she goes off and dances again.

All of a sudden Grandma is there, and she gives me a little shake. “Wake up,” she says, exasperated. “Honestly, Daniel,” she mutters, “wake up.” But I’m not ready.

Suddenly, I’m on the dance floor with my mom. “Hey, how’d you get me out of my chair?” I ask her.

“Desperate times call for desperate measures,” she replies. “Mothers have their ways. Hey, do I have to keep leading, or are you going to step up to the plate?” So I concentrate on leading. “Now listen to me. It wasn’t your fault I died. It was my time. It was in my contract. You didn’t do anything. So get on with it. Stop wasting your precious life. You have an important purpose on Earth, and with that happy times and many blessings will come your way if you’re open enough to embrace them.”

And just as suddenly as I found myself on the dance floor with Mom, I find myself in the buffet line with Dad. “What I want to say, son, is that you need to slurp up life like this here spaghetti. It’s going to get all over your face sometimes and look like a mess, but, really, if you can get over appearances, it’s good for you and it’s tasty.” He loads up my plate with more than I think I could eat in a week. “Here, boy, eat up. And then you go on and ask some girls to dance.”

“I had a funny dream last night,” I tell Mara the next day. “I was at a dance, and you were there and Grandma and my parents.”

“Was I lookin’ good?” she jokes.

“As usual,” I reply, kidding her back.

“I had a dream that I was eating this really amazing spaghetti. Oh, Dan, it was so good, and I was just puttin’ it down— practically double-fisting it—and it was getting all in my hair, but I didn’t care.” She smiles at me, almost as if she’s waiting to see how I’ll respond.

“Spaghetti, huh?” I ask, beginning to wonder about all of this. “My dad was trying to get me to eat spaghetti in the dream. Isn’t that a coincidence?” I ask, hoping she’ll say, Yes, what a strange coincidence.

But instead she says, “Well, you really should have because it was delicious.”

I ask Dan if maybe we could go to the McRae house and see if there’s anything we can do to make it more livable. He looks hesitant, but I pick up an empty box and a sage smudge stick.

We walk up the stairs together, past many black-and-white photos of straight-faced people, none of whom, I’m quite sure, are living today. We walk through the hall to his room. I take one step in and feel my lungs tighten. “Oh, I see,” I say and take a step back.

“What?” Dan asked.

“Friend, you have a little psychic pollution problem here. We can clear it, but I’m wondering what will keep you from creating it all over again.” He just looks at me, waiting for some cue, I guess. “Let’s try this,” I start as I light the sage. “Go to each corner of the room and fan the smoke. As you do, ask the Angels, silently if you want, to clear this room of all negative energies. Imagine them sweeping those energies out the window where they can be recycled into something positive. I’m going to go drink some water while you do that.”

I figure he’d feel more comfortable doing what he needs to do without an audience. I’m sure I could do the same job in a quarter of the time he’ll take, but it seems important that he do it. As I see it, action is thought taken one step further, so by taking action, regardless of what that action is as long as it relates to the thought, he commits to changing his thought patterns and makes new thought patterns concrete.

When I return, he is standing in the middle of his room, smoking sage stick in his hand, waiting for me. “Why don’t you just set that on the windowsill?” I say, and he does. “What do you think about doing a little weeding in here?” I propose. He nods. “Okay, what would you like to create in your life?”

He looks at me uncomfortably.

“You don’t have to share your answer. Just think about it. Okay, when you look at this room, what do you see?”

“The past,” he replies without hesitating.

“Yes, and while the past has its place, it’s kind of like button-weed in here, isn’t it? Not much room for anything else.” I hand him the empty box. “Make room for what you truly desire.”

He packs his old toys and his old clothes. He folds up all the bedding and puts it in the hall. He takes down the curtains and rolls up the rug. He moves the pictures of his parents into the hall.

I take the lid off a big cardboard box. “You have a lot of negatives,” I say as I look at its contents.

“Yeah,” he says.

“Where are your prints?” I ask, thinking maybe something from that collection would be something he might like to bring in.

“I just have one—the one I made with you at the school. It’s still in my grandparents’ room,” he says.

“You’re telling me you have all these negatives and just one print? What’s up with that?”

He shrugs. “I just like to have them.”

Something about this isn’t right. “Have the negatives? Or have your friends all tucked safely away in a box?”

He stops what he’s doing and looks at me, maybe hurt or maybe just exposed. I can’t tell. “Both,” he finally says.

“Is it that you like to have them, or is it that you like to take them? Is taking someone’s picture a way you show you care while still keeping something—your camera—between you and the people you care about?” I ask.

“Why are you asking me this? Why does it matter? Maybe I just like taking pictures,” he says, still staring at me, confused.

“Or, sweetie, maybe the way you’re relating to the world is affecting your happiness.”

We go into town and drop off his old toys at the thrift store. I spy an old aquarium in the corner. “Hey, how ’bout that?” I suggest, and he picks it up. We head next to the senior center, where some of the seniors propagate houseplants to sell, and then to the hardware store for paint. I watch him study the different colors and shades, and decide on gold. Last, we hit the fabric store for curtain fabric. He chooses green, blue, and gold flannel. We get enough to make a comforter cover, too. Then we go home and work some magic.

In my dream I’m still in my own bed. I hear Heather Nova sing “Papercup,” a waltz about how magical dancing is. Adam holds out his hand. I sit up and take it, joining him in a waltz. We dance and dance around my house until the song is almost over. He waltzes me back to bed. I sit, and then he kisses my hand before he disappears.

Minda, Paul, and Rob drive up the driveway right at sunset in their compact rental sedan. Rob’s in the driver’s seat, Paul shotgun, and Minda in the back.

Rob opens his door and shouts, “Howdy, partner!” He is wearing what I presume to be his new cowboy hat. He steps out and gives me a brotherly hug.

Paul gets out of the car and studies his surroundings. He brings his hand to his head as if to run his fingers through his hair, but since that’s not an option, he just smoothes back his dreads. “Wild, man. This place is wild.” His eyes look extra large in his big glasses.

“Paul was smart enough not to bring weed through airport security. He’s still adjusting to not being stoned,” Minda says as she climbs out of the backseat with a big brace on her leg. I help her. She hangs on me for a moment, and I hug her. “I can’t do a lot with this thing on my leg, but I can cook,” she says.

I kiss her cheek and whisper, “I’m so glad you’re here.” Then Rob hands her the crutches, and I have to let go.

I suddenly feel overwhelmed with relief.

A heifer in labor bellows out. “You’re just in time for your lesson,” I say to Paul and Rob.

Paul and Rob carry their bags into the house while I carry Minda’s things. I have to change the plan and give her the downstairs room since I don’t want her on stairs on crutches. I put Rob in my room and move my stuff to my grandparents’ room.