Interviewed By A Fish

Interview with author Art Rosch conducted by

General Stonewall Jackson Cichlid

            A note from Art Rosch:

           One day I was passing the fish tanks in a large pet store.  I hadn't intended to buy a fish.  The idea was absurd, as we were then planning to move into an RV. Nothing stays put during the driving portion of RV adventures.  An aquarium would be a disaster.  Now that we're hardened RV hipsters, we understand the uses of Gorilla tape, bungees and slip-loks.  We can, to a degree, securely fasten doors, closets, cabinets, drawers, small children and  demented adults.  In the early days any sudden turn would bring all the silverware out to bury itself in the faux wood paneling.  

            A fish swam up to the glass and fastened its eyes upon me.  It was a thumb-sized cichlid with iridescent stipples of blue and red.  It was stunningly gorgeous.

            "Hey," said the fish. "I'm for you.  Get me out of here."

            I tried to ignore the creature but it kept pace with me the length of the aquarium.  Other fish got out of its way as if it were a predatory monster. 

            "I'm serious," said the fish.  "They don't obey my orders in here.  They don't know who I am.  What am I supposed to do with an undisciplined rabble like this? " Its eyes almost crossed with contempt, " Angel fish?  Mollies, guppies, goldfish?  Star fish!  I have only one good thing to say about star fish.  They don 't drop their weapons and run when the fighting gets hot."

            I had to stop.  The fish and I squared off and looked deep into one another's eyes. 

            "General?"  I inquired.  "General Stonewall Jackson?"

            "I know," he replied. "This is embarrassing.  I was a Presbyterian."

            That was how I acquired The General.  He liked people.  He hated fish.  He ate the female cichlid we introduced into his tank. 
          We rigged a special travel bowl that hung from a hook on the motor coach's ceiling.  No matter how we bounced and yawed, the nylon sling that held the bowl kept the General's water nice and placid. 

            When we planned to stay somewhere for a while, we bought ten gallons of bottled water, heated it to the proper temperature and put The General in his aquarium.  It was a major pain in the ass.

End of  note.  Begin interview.

General Cichlid:

            Mr. Rosch, you've maintained a literary career of extraordinary purity.  You sold a story to Playboy Magazine in the late 70's.  It won a prestigious award.  The online magazine Exquisite Corpse published two of your satirical pieces  Aside from fleeting brushes with notoriety, you've barely sold or published anything at all.  In fact, I believe no one besides your partner and your household pets has ever read your most important work. 

Art Rosch:

            First of all, please call me Art.  This formality is silly.  You are one of the household pets who has read my work.  In fact, you've read more of my work than anyone besides my partner.

General:  Yes, thanks for setting up that music stand and turning the pages.  You're a patient man.

Rosch:  Fox did most of the page turning.  You know how she is.  Anything for a reader.

General: Let's get back to the uncompromising nature of your written work.

Rosch:  It's easy to have integrity when you're not getting paid.  The lack of pay is a great motivator.  There's always the looming possibility of posthumous fame.  I don't worry about it too much.  I'm fairly certain I'll be forgotten long before the quality of my writing is recognized..

General:  You don't find this obscurity frustrating?

Rosch:  Not at all.  If I became a successful writer, I would have to behave like one.

I would have to increase my medications.  I would have photos taken of me with my chin on my fist.  I would have to travel on airplanes.  Who wants to do that?

Further Author's Note:

            As you can discern, The General was a remarkable fish.  The preceding fantasy

is half true.  One story about The General that is completely true involves an amazing leap of faith, an awesome feat of piscatory prowess.

            One day I was cleaning my friend's aquarium.  I had prepared a large bowl

with about three gallons of his water, and set him to swimming in it while I poured out the rest of the water and cleaned the gunk off the glass and out of the filters.

          The General wasn't thrilled about this; he slapped the surface of the water with his

tail and darted in angry circles.  Before meeting The General I had never conceived that fish could have such elaborate personalities.  Now I know better.  Animals, all of the creatures on this planet, need to be taken seriously.  Fish, fowl, mammal, invertebrate, they are all conscious, each with unique complexity.  The General was a lesson.

            Having cleaned the rocks, the castle, the toy soldiers, (Yankee and Confederate) and the pumps and filters, I put the aquarium back on the table.  I went through the procedure of getting fresh water to the correct temperature and began filling the tank.  The General was in the big bowl, about four feet away on a dining table.  I was going to net him and transfer him back to the aquarium.  Then I would gently pour the water in the bowl back into the tank until it was topped off.

             I approached the table with the net in my hand.  I was about to chase The General around the bowl until I had him in the little rectangle of green mesh.  He saved me the trouble.  With an explosive leap, the fish flew through the air to make a perfect dive into the aquarium.  Sploosh!!
Let me make this completely clear.  A fish the size of my thumb flew a perfectly accurate arc that must have been at least twenty feet in total extent. If he had missed he probably would have died.
          I will assume that the General was taking no more risks regarding demise by friendly fire.

            This, I swear, is completely true.

           

Breeding Hearts

This is the first draft of what I hope will become a series of novels.  It's only two days old, so bear with me.

         

         Something didn't smell right.  It smelled too good, like oatmeal cookies, or  vanilla air freshener.  We were standing in the foyer of a large house, one of those ostentatious mansions that sprout like mushrooms in fields that were once filled with rows of artichoke plants or almond trees. 

            It should have smelled like dogs.  It needn't reek of dog but there would always be a certain doggie fug in the house of a breeder.  Lydia and I were here on a surprise inspection.  If this place was a puppy mill, as we suspected, it wouldn't smell like oatmeal cookies.  It would smell like damp fur and a little bit of shit and piss.  There would be the scent of animal stress, which smells the same no matter what the breed.  Abused animals give off a distinctive odor that is layered over with a psychic miasma of terror. 

            I looked at Lydia, who is her own special breed of sensor.  Lydia's face registered complete horror.  She was trying to keep herself together, but her special senses also burden her with a special fragility.  Lydia can empathize with other creatures with visceral accuracy.  The job was hard on her.  She kept working, in spite of the pain.

            I showed my credentials to the oriental lady who stood squarely in front of us, just inside the door.  I had a police Lieutenant's badge and an I.D. card that identified me as Lucas Holbein, Field Agent for Viera County Animal Control And Safety.  I was a County Sheriff.  Never mind how I got into working cases busting puppy mills and rescuing starving horses..  This was my work, my vocation.  My fellow cops called me "Doogie".  I didn't care.

            "Mrs. Yu," I said to the tall woman who blocked our way into the house.  "We're here on an informal visit.  I do not have a warrant.  I would appreciate your cooperation."

            There was a smugness to Mrs.Yu that told me this was no surprise.  Someone had tipped her that we were coming.  If this was a puppy mill, it had been cleaned up and the dogs had been silenced. 

            "Yes, please come.  You are welcome to house."  She almost pranced but there was a tightness to her gait that shouted "I AM HIDING THINGS FROM YOU!"

            Another glance towards Lydia.  She had got her composure back but her nostrils were twitching and her eyebrows almost met at the bridge of her nose.  She was very upset.  Already.

            The living room was dimly lit and the furniture was covered in clear plastic.  There were plastic runners on the floor.  Paintings on the wall were the kind purchased for ten bucks a shot at flea markets.  Floral still lifes.  Horses in a field.  A dilapidated boat dock with picturesque little skiffs. 

            "I would like to look around, Mrs. Yu.  I would like to see your basement, garage and back yard.  I can return with a warrant if necessary."

            "All you like, look. I only do not want you in my personal bedroom.  That door, on left down hall." Her hand described an arc of inclusiveness.  Her palm was facing downward, a gesture I had learned was an evasive "tell".  Palm up: not hiding.  Palm down: hiding.  I heard a door open, then close.  A man appeared.  A big guy with very hard looking hands.  A stream of Mandarin flowed from his mouth towards Mrs. Yu. Lydia's ears twitched.  Lydia spoke Mandarin, Japanese and Russian.  She didn't advertise this fact.

            The man interposed himself between us and Mrs. Yu. I showed the man my card and badge.  He nodded. "I am Mister Yu.  My wife not very much English," he said. The man projected sheer cold menace. "Is complaint about dogs?  You listen: not noise!"

            In fact I could hear faint whimpering.  This sound of distress hung like smoke draping itself across the textured ceiling. Otherwise, the place didn't sound like a breeder's premises.  When breeders treat their dogs with respect there is always a cacophony of rambunctious animals.  It was the quiet places that scared me.  I had seen awful things in big quiet houses out in the suburbs.

            "I'd like to see the back yard, please," I said. Mr. Yu went first, then Lydia and I followed. Mrs.Yu fell in behind us.  All the doors were closed.  The house was sepulchral.  We passed through the kitchen and there was a tell tale assortment of utensils.  I saw cauldrons, kettles and large ladles. A floor-standing commercial mixer stood next to a double-sized refrigerator. This house didn't look lived-in. It looked like a factory.

            The door to the garage led off from the kitchen. Just as Mr. Yu was about to turn the knob, his cell phone rang.  He looked at the caller I.D., then said "Ni Hao!"  Our procession paused.  A string of Mandarin flowed from Mr. Yu.  He turned his back to us and took four steps away, into the center of the kitchen.  His voice went low, private.  Unfortunately for Mr. Yu, Lydia has ears like a bat.  She looked off into space but I'll swear her ears became pointed. 

            The conversation lasted half a minute.  Mr. Yu returned, smiling with feigned embarrassment.  "Business call," he said.  Lydia threw me a look.  She had heard something important.

            The large back yard was filled with stacks of black-wired cages.  They were under green canvas canopies.  They stood in an "L" shaped arrangement with room between each stack for a human to gain access to the cage doors.  There were forty cages and about half of them were occupied.  They were inhabited exclusively by toy poodles.  I counted four litters of pups.  They were snuggled up to their mothers' teats, some of them wiggling to get hold, some of them sound asleep.  The other cages held single puppies of various shades.  Black, brown, white and a few pups that were a distinctive pearly taupe.

            This would have been a reasonably acceptable scene but for one odd characteristic: almost all of the dogs were asleep.  They lay with their heads on their forepaws, or curled in a ball.  Some showed eyes that were half open in a hynotized daze. A few cropped tails wagged.  A few tongues stuck out.  There was nothing of canine vitality on display.  Any breeder of any stripe, anywhere, would have a yard full of barking excited dogs.  Visitors!  Yay!  That's what I would expect from twenty dogs.

The two sets of pups were just a few days old.  They lay against their bitches' bellies like they were dead.  I had to get up close, just to see signs of breath, of life.

            Mr.and Mrs. Yu were moving all around us, stiff like mannikins, bumping and pushing.  Mr. Yu gave me a pretty good buffet, which he tried to pretend was an accident.

The grins on their faces were qualified as "shit eating", excuse my language, but there's no other way to describe the falsity of their expressions.

            "What have you done to them?"  Lydia spoke softly but she was nonetheless howling.  I knew that Lydia already knew things that were still obscure to me.  Lydia's intuition often put her two or three steps ahead of me.

            "They sleep!" protested Mrs. Yu.  "It just exercise.  Tired dogs. Very tired."  She pointed at the gear in the yard.  There was the usual assortment of mesh tunnels, ramps, hurdles.  Toys were scattered everywhere.  The turf was almost barren of grass, with divots poking out and  signs of digging and scuffling.  The fence was perfect.  It was a six foot high barrier of twelve inch pine slats.  Each slat terminated in two points.  At the base of the fence was a concrete footing, eight inches or so.  Nothing was going to dig its way under this fence.  None of the neighbors could see anything.

            "I would like to take a blood sample," I said, and produced a syringe and a rubber tie from my coat pocket.  This brought what I expected from the Yu's: protest.  "No blood!  Leave dogs to sleep!" Mrs. Yu did her stiff marionette dance in front of me while her husband approached from my right side.  He did the "accidental" buffet again, but I was ready for him and I was so set in my stance that I didn't budge an inch.  The man almost bounced off of me. 

            Lydia had disappeared.  She had a knack for being somewhere and then not being somewhere.  She possessed a native quietude that made her innately stealthy. People often overlooked her vanishing because they had barely noticed her in the first place.  I walked towards one of the cages that housed a nursing female.  Mr.Yu put himself in my way.  Mrs. Yu laughed an empty sound.  I needed to keep them busy.  I put my hand on a cage latch and Mr. Yu clamped his hand around my wrist.  His grip was like an iron band.

            "You stop!" he said. "No warrant. No search."

            "Look," I said, keeping anger out of my voice.  I did not want confrontation. "I don't see anything that's a flagrant violation.  Your dogs look healthy. I'm just curious about this lack of energy."  In fact, the dogs did not look healthy.  Their gums were pale. Their coats were dull. Some were panting, others looked almost dead.  This was, to all appearances, a kennel of drugged canines.  The two nursing mother dogs looked far too old to be having litters.  One of them was going grey in the muzzle.  The other was emaciated.  I had to keep my feelinngs out of this situation.  It wouldn't help me handle the Yus.  I needed to give Lydia time to scope out the real kennel, the stuff behind closed doors.

            Lydia had gone back through the kitchen and down the first available hallway.  All the doors were locked.  The bathroom door was not locked but a scan of the medicine cabinet showed empty shelves.  Drawers contained some floss and a bottle of Ibuprofen. 

Lydia tried a door that was narrow: a utility closet.  It was locked.  Under her coat she wore a photographer's field vest.  From one of its pockets she produced her little pick set and had the door open in a second.  There was a tiny aquarium on a shelf.  It was about the size of a shoe box. Tubes ran from an IV bottle and led to the creature that was imprisoned in this tiny container.  Lydia's heart was already pounding with fear.  She had long ago accepted the fact that she could not separate her own emotions from the emotions that swirled around her world.  It was a kind of Hell and she was doing everything possible to live and serve while in this Hell.  It was also the reason for keeping her personal life simple and reserved for other humans who were emotionally stable.

            She saw the creature's eyes, staring out from a ball of dark brown poodle hair.  Poodles don't have fur, as such.  They have distinctive curly hair that retains its growing period indefinitely.  This little pup was nothing but a pair of eyes mounted on a round tumbleweed of hair.  There was an IV drip descending from an upper shelf.  It ran through a hole in the container's lid and was attached to the puppy, somewhere in that mass of hyperactive follicles. Lydia examined the label. It was a used drip bag, crumpled and folded, then unfolded.  The label had been scrubbed but Lydia could read the letters "P-H-E", then there was a washed out place, and the script continued, revealing the letters "B-A-R-B".  It was a piece of information but it was flawed as a clue. She had no idea what drug or drugs were being used on the poor little guy. In spite of the chemical cocktail it was being fed, the dog's eyes were alive with desperation.  Lydia heard a voice as distinctly as if it was being spoken into her ear.

            "Get me out of here!" the voice pleaded.  "I'm going crazy!"

            She didn't have to think about it.  She peeled the lid back and groped for the place where the IV needle was attached.  She knew the needle would be as fine as a copper wire.  She found it, taped to the dog's right front leg.  As gently as possible, she removed the tape and pulled the needle out.  It started to drip and she popped it against the sheet rock wall until it bent closed.  Then she picked the puppy up.  It was so light!  It was no heavier than a baby finch.  This meshed with the phrases of Mandarin she had heard Mr. Yu speak into the telephone.  "Tiny," he said it as if boasting.  "Very very tiny.  Fit in teacup!"

            A teacup poodle.  The smallest poodle breed.  She knew that the oriental market prized these tiny dogs and would pay four or five thousand dollars for a poodle that weighed less than six pounds at maturity.  The dog in her hand may not have weighed a pound, if that.  His nose was so foreshortened that the tip of his tongue didn't fit all the way into his mouth.  A little pink curl of knobbed flesh stuck out from between his teeth.

Lydia put him inside her coat.  She used a blade in her lock kit to cut out an approximation of the dog made from her coat lining.  She put that brown lining inside the glass cage and laid the IV tube within its curls.  She replaced the lid and closed the door. 

            She listened carefully.  She heard the whimpering, the near inaudible frequency of suffering.  The dog inside her coat snugged himself to her heart and remained quiet. She felt his little warmth against her sweater, checked that he was able to breathe, and closed the closet door. 

            Lucas was still distracting the Yus in the back yard.  Lydia looked for the basement door.  It was at the end of the hall.  She picked the lock, opened the door.  The lights were on and there were fans turning. As she descended a few steps the contents of the basement came into view.  Shelves were filled with identical glass cages.  There were IV bags dripping into most of the puppies who were confined.  The whole scheme revealed itself. Tiny dogs generate huge profits. Rich Chinese, Korean and Japanese competed with one another to own the smallest dogs. The Yus applied a ruthless logic.  How do you prevent a puppy from growing?  Deprive it of exercise, feed it drugs to keep it docile, confine it to a tiny cage.  At eight weeks you clean up the dog, give it a haircut, take a photo and ship to the customer.  All sales final.  It's in the contract's small print.  Many dogs die in transit.  Those that survive are probably crazy.  It was a scam.

            She used her cell phone to call Lucas.  He picked up, listening. 

            "I'm in the basement.  It's unbelievable.  Get a warrant.  Pretend you're cool with them, or they'll be gone by tomorrow.  There must be fifty puppies down here and...." she almost sobbed.  "Just..just get a warrant.  We have to move on these people. Now!"

            Lucas kept his phone in his hand, palming it.  The situation had just escalated. 

In the basement, Lydia got out her digital camera and took two shots.  One was a wide angle that showed the scale of the place.  The other zoomed in to its limit, making an image of two glass cages that imprisoned two tiny hairy creatures that resembled nothing so much as characters from a Star Wars film.  They were Ewoks.  Minuscule, somnolescent Ewoks trapped in shoe-box sized aquariums and fed through IV tubes.

She sent these images to Lucas.  Then she returned upstairs, moving towards the back yard, hoping she could re-insert herself into the unfolding "inspection" as if she had been there all along. 

            Lucas walked towards another cage, putting a few steps distance from the looming Mr. Yu.  He glanced down at his phone.  One image, of a large basement filled with confined tiny puppies.  Another image, showing the IV drip and the two puppies who lay in their cages as if stunned, barely breathing.  He put his phone back in his pocket.  He returned his attention to the Yus, and saw Lydia emerge into the yard.  There was no noise to her footsteps.  She was, again, present.  Mrs. Yu gave her a look of profound mistrust.

            "You go somewhere?  You go into my house?" 

            Lydia pointed vaguely towards her personal anatomy.  "I had an emergency.  I needed to use your bathroom.  A female emergency."  She made a circle with her hand, indicating her abdominal regions.  The eyes of Mr. and Mrs. Yu locked briefly, then broke.

            Lucas needed to assuage their fears.  He flipped a few pages on the clipboard that he carried in an inner pocket of his rain coat.  "Okay, look."  He made some pen marks on the inspection form's top page. "Your dogs seem a little lethargic but I can't site you for a specific violation.  How about this?  Let's set up an appointment in..oh..about a week."  He gave a cautionary look to Lydia.  She was struggling to keep her emotions in check.  The priority was to keep the Yus from bolting, from pulling a couple of trucks into the driveway, loading up the animals and gear and relocating in one swift operation.  They had experience.  The profits to be made were enormous and the risk far less than dealing drugs.  The Yus might be, probably were, part of an organization.  There might be fifty or a hundred identical puppy mills set up in California and beyond. 

            He tore off the top sheet on his clip-board.  It was a yellow inspection form.  Lucas had written the basic information: the family name, "Yu".  Address, type of facility, number of dogs.  He had refrained from checking off any of the boxes.  Under comments he had written "Dogs display lethargic demeanor".

            Lydia was turned sideways to the rest of the group.  Lucas saw her glance down into her coat.  It lasted a fraction of a second.  A little bump moved under her breast.  He didn't think it was seen by the Yus.  It was time to get out of there.

            "Thank you very much, Mr. and Mrs. Yu," he said.  "I will give you a call some time this week and we can talk further, okay?"

            The anxious couple seemed to relax.  Their shoulders descended, as if they had been holding their breath and had finally let go.  "They must think I'm stupid," Lucas thought.  "At least I hope they think I'm stupid."

            "Yes, that fine," Mr. Yu used his bulk to move everyone towards a gate that opened from the side of the yard and led to the circular driveway where Lucas had parked his grey Ford Taurus.  It was a Sheriff's Department motor pool vehicle.  The symbol of Viera County surrounded the universal star of Law Enforcement.  Viera County was a place of lakes and vineyards. The graphic showed a paradise of up-scale agriculture and refined corridors of Redwood trees.  Lucas considered the County Coat Of Arms to be a ridiculous exercise in vanity.  A more appropriate assortment of Viera County's reality would have been a collage of marijuana plants, heroin syringes and half-built developments.

            He drove away from the Yu's house, rounding the corner and stopping under a copse of oak trees alongside an older house surrounded by a low white picket fence.  It was one of the few original dwellings that remained after the developers had bought up all the acreage along Crest Hill Road.  Now there were bulldozers and back hoes, working on properties that were parceled into one acre lots.  Half-built homes were in progress of becoming pretentious stucco and tile mansions identical to that in which the Yus kept their breeding enterprise.

            Lucas slipped the radio microphone from its clip.  Lydia opened her coat and a tiny head popped out.  "Oh jeez," Lucas blurted.  A female voice on the radio responded:

"Not the Christ, Lucas, sorry, just the same old Judy."

            "Sorry Judy, i just saw something that was...well, a surprise."

            "I hope the good kind," the dispatcher responded. 

            "Let's call it a mixed blessing.  Do we have anyone available to do surveillance?  Is there someone with a pulse out in the field that can spend a few hours watching a house?"

            "In Vikacks?"  She referred to acronym/nickname of Viera County Animal Control And Safety.  "You kidding?  Terrence is out in Santa Lucia where some horses ran all over the Pronzini Brothers vines.  And... hell.." This was pronounced "hail" in Judy Fellows Compton dialect.  "Hail no, but I try 'em all."

            It was the reality of VCACS budget.  There hadn't been any cuts because the agency had started at rock bottom after a prolonged political struggle between so-called "animal loving do-gooders" and conservative politicians

The Animal Companion Book Circle

This is Bear

General Stonewall Jackson Cichlid

          In my efforts to remain the world's most obscure talented writer, I have enlisted the help of my household animal friends. I've told the story of Bear's rescue from the puppy mill. http://bit.ly/evbFda
I've told of my encounter with General Stonewall Jackson Cichlid. http://bit.ly/i9nDav. I'd like to introduce the other members of the book circle and give a thumbnail description of each of my friends.
           Bear is certainly the leading intellect of the group. He is willful, stubborn and sometimes hard to motivate. He learns dog tricks as if they're beneath his dignity, (which they are), but in order to please us he sits, shakes hands and rolls over.
          Bear is the most loyal of fans. He loves my writing and his critiques are incisive and sometimes painful. But that' as it should be. A writer needs to hear about failures from someone who is supportive. A book circle such as this one, dedicated to the work of a single author, is a special vehicle for the writer's work.
          Bear's loyalty is demonstrated in his absolute devotion to his sex partner,
a stuffed dog named Samantha. Here it is, almost a year since his nuts were cut off,
and Bear still humps Samantha two or three times a week. He has no shame in these public displays. He does a little dance around Samantha. He jumps up and forward in a canine declaration of love and dominance. It's a complex movement. His hind legs make a motion as if he is kicking dirt backwards into the faces of any rivals. Those legs stay on the ground while Bear raises the front of his body to a forty five degree angle. This is accompanied by a simultaneous hop forward by a few inches. This dance is done in a circle around Samantha before Bear begins the serious humping.
          "Ufff ruff," he says. Samantha lays on her side. She's a toy, she's inanimate. It doesn't matter to Bear. When he was just a puppy he had his first girlfriend, a toy brown dog named Greta. Somewhere between Greta and Samantha, and before we had Bear's nuts chopped off, we mated Bear with a real toy poodle named Snickers. That's another story. The union, however, produced another member of my Book Circle. This is Gabriel Kuruk (pronounced koo-roook).
         Gabe is a dog of mischief. He was the runt in a litter of two. His sister Kiani
is about the size of her mother, Snickers. Gabe barely weighs three pounds. Bear is a hefty hunk of muscle tipping the scales at seven pounds. Undaunted by his smallness, Gabe is fearless and clever. As a critic of literature he's a joker and is apt to make snide comments about my Philip Roth-style stories of Jewish life in the suburban sixties. Still, it takes all kinds to make a dynamic Book Circle.
          We know that Gabe prefers comic books. We also know that he's not stupid.  He takes his time learning things like "shake hands" but once he's mastered a skill he takes it to breathtaking extremes. Gabe shakes hands with everyone and everything.
          Bear always knows which end Samantha is the business end.  Gabe doesn't care. He messes with Samantha just to piss on his father's head.  So to speak. On our walks with the double leash it's Bear who usually pisses on Gabe's head. It only seems fair that Gabe will take any approach to Samantha:
head first, hind end forward, I don't think he really knows the difference. Besides,
it's too late for Gabe to attempt any production of heirs. He lost his nuts the same day Bear's gonads were separated from his body.  It seems to have done little damage to the father-son bond. They may tease one another, they may piss on one another's heads, but they remain close.





(More tomorrow about the Animal Companion Book Circle, sharing the works of

the world's most talented obscure writer, Art Rosch.)

Getting Out Of Bed: The Most Dangerous Part Of The Day

            In 2005 my wife and I moved out of an absurdly expensive cabin in the woods and bought a 38 foot motor coach.  We had decided to make a major change of lifestyle.  It was an audacious and risky move, loaded with potential pitfalls.  But it worked.  We got out of our "stick house" and moved into a slightly cramped but homey RV. 

            Our original plan included travel.  We crossed the country once, and went on assorted adventures, but the price of gasoline kept rising and our incomes kept falling.

            The RV became a home in a campground where the rent is cheap and all the normal conveniences of civilization are available.  Internet: check.  TV: check. Phone, water, power, sewage: check check check check.

            We love our 38 foot motor coach and we live amicably with two dogs and three cats, surrounded in a campground by a motley bunch of people from all walks of life.

            Our flat screen TV is in the bedroom.  There are cabinets and drawers, windows and fans.  The arrangement of space and the existence of five animal friends imposes one giant fact of life upon us: the only way on or off our bed is from the bottom.  Crawl in, crawl out, head first or butt first or any way you can.  It's a form of gymnastics.  Adding to the complexity of getting in and out of bed is the fact that there are two sets of doggie steps at the bottom of the bed.  Our actual exit/entrance is about two feet of space between these steps.  What's the story? you may ask.  The answer is twofold.  One, our bed sits higher than the normal bed because that's how RV beds are designed.  They are set on a swinging slab of plywood that can be opened to reveal a large storage space. 

            Our cats could get up and down without a problem, but when our teeny miniature poodles arrived we found ourselves being constantly disturbed by whines and whimpers.  I want down.  I want up.  I want down.  I want up.

            We ordered this cool set of pet steps: a five step staircase that fit perfectly into our domain.  Gabriel, the smaller dog, loves them.  Bear, the bigger dog (Gabriel's dad) is terrified by the steps and no amount of cajoling or training will get him to use them. Being the utter saps that we are, we left Bear's stool in place at the right end of the bed, put Gabe's steps on the left and there you have it!  No whines or whimpers.  Gabe up, Gabe down, Bear up, Bear down, end of story.  Each of our poodles is about the size of a shoebox.  They're half the size of our smallest cat.  They like sleeping and lazing underneath blankets or within piles of pillows.  There is a rigorous discipline involved in the act of moving to and from the bed.  We must ALWAYS know the location of the animals.  It has become second nature to make a mental map of the bed before moving in any direction. We feel our way, hands, eyes, entire bodies recording the positions of our loved creatures.  And it's been good; no one's been hurt.  Perhaps, even, the exercise and stretching keeps us loose and more fit than might otherwise be the case.  There are times when I find myself in familiar yoga poses, contorted but otherwise successfully moving to my destination.

            Getting out of bed is a job.  Getting out of bed is a job that has to be done cheerfully in spite of wake-up wrath, grogginess, the pukes, piddles or poops.

            I might interject here that my spouse and I live this way with very little inhibition.  We show tender compassion toward one another's aging bodies.  Life is inherently humiliating as it is; we are careful to grant ourselves some dignity as a couple.

            So...if I say that we have a rare intimacy, I believe it's true. There isn't any choice.  An RV is an environment that is not conducive to privacy. 

            Getting in and out of bed is a procedure that induces uncommon positions and viewpoints.

            It is time now for me to give you another piece of information about myself:

I tend to fall asleep in unusual positions and at unusual times.

            Talk about full moons!  At this point, if you are a bit prudish or tightly wrapped about certain normal anatomical realities, I suggest you stop reading and find an issue of Vanity Fair or O(prah).

            The Fox and I are in our sixties.  I'm not sure how this happened.  The God Of Hippie Fantasies promised that we would never get older than thirty five.  Anything after that was like one of those thirteenth century maps of the world.  HERE LIVE DRAGONS, says the map and that's how we felt.  Old age didn't exist.  It would never exist. 

            We weren't going to be sixty or sixty five.  Hell no!  Something would intervene to ensure our youthfulness.  We would discover that the juice of wild onions mixed with the nectar of rare orchids would halt the aging process.  Or something like that.  Getting old just wasn't real.  It would never happen.

            Before we met, The Fox and I lived wild and crazy lives.  We were in dangerous places, courting viruses or murder and dismemberment, to say nothing of derangement of the senses, intellect and terminal brain damage.

            Somehow we ducked under those scythes.  We survived, and the onion juice/rare orchid miracle didn't happen.  What is it that people say?  That today's sixty is yesterday's fifty?  What bullshit.  Today's sixty is more like seventy.  Baby boomers have lived risky lives, imbibed quantities of exotic stuff, participated in the great Poisoned Democracy, watched fifty billion bullets and ten billion bombs explode all over the world, fled from toxic clouds and radioactive dust storms.  We've lived in apocalyptic terrifying times!  It's stressful!  It beats down those lovely anti-oxidants that we're supposed to cultivate.  

            What the hell do we do now?  Am I going to have to be seventy?  Just wake up one day, bam!  I'm seventy? No!  Nuh-uh.  Fuck this.

            Time moves awfully fast.  Time is sneakier than a weasel stalking a raven's egg.

            I can fall asleep with a book in my hand and a mouth full of raisins.  I can look perfectly awake but I am sound asleep.  I can raise myself up on my left elbow to look out the window and fall asleep, halfway between up and down.  I can, so I am told, walk to the fridge, make myself a waffle, then walk away and get back into bed.  Eyes open but sound asleep.

            The Fox and I have had a rough year.  I lost a job I'd had for nearly thirty years.  I had worked as manager of a large commercial property.  Great job.  Name my hours.  No supervision.  Decent pay. Then the property owner died suddenly.  One day last year I got a letter giving me thirty days' notice.

            It's been that kind of year.  The Fox suffers from auto-immune diseases. 

I have the feet of a hundred year old longshoreman. I don't walk, I hobble.

When an opportunity comes along that gives us a good belly laugh, we cherish the moment like precious treasure.

            Last week I woke up to take my two o'clock pee.  I'm lucky I only pee twice a night.  My prostate must be the size of a football.  What is a prostate, anyway?  It seems to be a gender-specific time bomb buried just behind men's nuts.  Thanks, god.  Thanks for the prostate.  Great invention.

            Anyway, as I was sitting there taking my usual ten minutes to pee, The Fox woke up and slithered from bed.  It was time for her two-fifteen pee and she stood before me in the dark, waiting patiently.

            "You know what you did last night?" she asked, unexpectedly.  We don't talk much in the middle of the night.  We mumble and stumble, grunt and nod until our missions are accomplished.

            I didn't say anything.  She was going to tell me.

            "You got to your knees, turned around and started getting out of bed, head first.  Like you did just now.  Except that as your head reached the bottom of the bed,  your elbows folded, you laid your head in your hands and you fell back to sleep."

            I already had the picture.  I am a big hairy Jewish man.  As I crawled forward, dodging three cats and two dogs, I ran out of steam and fell asleep with my ass in The Fox's face. 

            I started laughing.  It was late and our neighbors are pretty close so my laugh was a high pitched "heee heeee" but it was still satisfying.

            "Your snore was so rhythmic" Fox continued.  "The night lights gave me a complete view of  your full moon and I thought maybe I could play bongos on your butt, maybe they would be tuned to nice pitches, maybe a minor third between them so it would sound like 'Sing Sing Sing'.  But I didn't want to wake you."

            I was tweeting like a canary I was laughing so hard and trying not to roar as I might in broad daylight.

    

     

   "I thought you'd wake up eventually and finish your chore.  As long as you didn't fart or something, what harm could  your ass do to me?  I was willing to take my chances.  You were so deeply asleep; and of course I think you're cute from any angle, so I figured 'what's the harm?'.

            We were both giggling like children.  Oh my god!  You just had to be there.

            I did of course wake up after about five minutes and complete my forward facing slink off the bed, snaking my way down with the help of the doggie steps, none the wiser regarding the comic episode I had gifted to my spouse until she told me this story the following night.

            Have I embarrassed anyone by telling this tale?  I couldn't care less.  We have been betrayed by the God Of Hippie Fantasies.  There is no magic wild onion/orchid juice to reverse our neuropathies, our arthritis, our pops and twinges, our encroaching deafnesss, blindness and dithering mental acuity.  I hereby decree that growing old is an activity of heroes, that it takes major guts to manage the passages that lead us to the Great Light that waits beyond death.

            And if there is no Great Light?  Then we will turn back to behold our brief and insignificant life experiences and know that this WAS the Great Light, one that we weren't able to recognize until after we had lived it.

            

Gabriel: A Very Small Poodle With A Big Ego

When our teacup poodle Bear first came to us he was nothing more than a wad of fur with two eyes.  He barely weighed eighteen ounces.  To lift him was like lifting a bird; there was nothing there, a bit of cotton candy on the wind, just fluff.  If you've been following my animal stories you'll know that Bear has grown and thrived and sired a son.  The story is here: http://bit.ly/eN5mbM

            My wife met the owner of Bear's mate at the grocery store.  The woman had an AKC registered miniature poodle named Snickers.  A mating session was arranged, and it was successful.  There were two pups from the union of Bear and Snickers: the robust Kioni and the runt Gabriel.  At birth, Gabriel weighed a mere ounce and a half.      

            No one gave him much chance at survival.  He was brought to our place after ten weeks of nursing from mama Snickers.  He weighed a little over two pounds.  He was absurdly cute.  We worried about him.  His development lagged so badly that we thought we might have a special needs dog.  Or worse, he might not make it.

            Gabriel hung on.  He gained weight and bulk.  He's still so tiny that his bark has the quality of a rubber-bulb squeeze horn that clowns use when they ride tricycles.  He is a talker.  In this he takes after his dad.  The voices on super-tiny poodles are like instruments of both torture and comedy.  These dogs don't yap.  They howl, yammer, moan, scream, ullulate and speak in nearly human syllables.

            Gabriel makes up for his smallness through cunning.  He's a wily little provocateur.  He is half Bear's weight.  I often think it's Gabriel who is the alpha dog of their little pack.  If he wants the chewy toy that Bear's pulverizing, he takes it away.  If he wants to lay on mom's lap while she's sleeping, he'll bother Bear until he vacates the warm comforting nest that goes up and down with mom's breathing.

            Bear adopts a cool attitude.  "You want to be alpha?  Okay, be alpha.  I don't care.  You're a pipsqueak and I could eat you for breakfast.  I don't care.  Be alpha."

            That would work except that Gabe is a teaser and taunter.  Gabe goes

'neener neener", blows raspberries, gives the finger.  Or the psychic four-legged equivalent of these gestures.  Don't treat this as hyperbole.  The gamut of subtle communication available to these creatures is enormous.  If we, as humans, fail to perceive what goes on amongst our animal friends, that's due to our lack of sensitivity.

            When Bear is sufficiently provoked to knock Gabe sprawling he goes crying to mama.  Gabe is a real crybaby.  He screams as if he's being tortured when mom picks a burr out of his paw.  We have to hold our ears.  Ow!  What a piercing, pathetic wail!  We've learned to take Gabe's screams with a grain of salt.  He screams for effect.  When the burr-extraction is done, he calmly goes  his way. 

Peaches as a kitten

            The animal count in and around our RV/home is two dogs and four cats.  There are two indoor cats, bright orange tabbies.  We have a sluggish long haired male named Andrew and his sister, a short-haired female named Peaches.  

            Peaches talks, nags, wakes us in the middle of the night, demands Whiskas cat treats like an addict.  Peaches is a pain in the ass.  Her voice  isn't annoying like the yowl of a Siamese cat.  It's more like a car alarm that won't go off.  Ever.

            An oft-repeated refrain in our home is this: "Peaches, will you SHUT UP!"  No, excuse me.  It's really "Peaches will you SHUT..THE..FUCK..UP!"

          The Whiskas quiets her down only because she's busy chewing.  If she could meow and chew at the same time, she would.  She wants attention.  She wants to be on the bed because other creatures are on the bed.  She wants the cat toy Andrew is playing with.  She wants me to scratch her belly.  She wants whatever someone else has.  And she bitches about it incessantly.

            One remedy is the squirt bottle.  We keep squirt bottles loaded and near at hand.  A mere shake of a squirt bottle will often cause Peaches to run, hide, and, mercifully, to be quiet.  We're not cruel.  Peaches gets plenty of love.  It's just never enough.

            Gabriel and Peaches have a special relationship.  Gabriel has appointed himself the official Peaches Squelcher.

            Peaches teases Gabriel until he chases her down the length of the RV so that she has to jump on the dashboard.  Then she acts as if Gabriel started it.              
          There's a little step at the foot of our bed to enable Gabe to join us without needing a lift.  The step has become, in our household spatial economy, a choke point.  Who controls the step controls access to the bed.  Peaches likes to park herself on the step and wait for Gabriel to try using it to get up or down.  Gabriel is stuck.  Peaches knows this.

            A staring contest ensues.  It goes on and on.  Five minutes.  Seven minutes.  Ten minutes.  Peaches and Gabriel, staring at one another.  Then, booom! an explosion of running cat and dog as Peaches takes off towards the dashboard with Gabriel hot and barking on her tail.  She gets up high where she can't be reached.  She pretends total innocence.

            Neener neener neener.  Raspberry.  Middle finger.  Or the psychic four-legged equivalent of these gestures. 

            Gabriel may not have Bear's power and stamina but he compensates with ruthless unprincipled trickery and manipulation.

            The litle shit.  We love him.  

Poo Bags and Fire Logs: The Genius of American Marketing

            A woman is walking her toy poodle down Rodeo Drive.  The dog is elaborately coiffed.  Puffs of hair at the legs and atop the head are shaved so precisely that the creature seems to have been groomed in a machine shop by a computer-guided laser cutter.  The dog and the woman bear striking resemblance.  Both have long pointed noses and hair that is glossed with mechanical precision.  The woman is in her fifties, and her face is so full of botox that it looks as if someone has grabbed the skin at the back of her neck and pulled, hard, then pinned the seam shut and buffed it over to make it disappear in the red-brown hair that curls down across her collar.  A purse strap rests in the joint of her left elbow, dangling a small designer bag.  Her right hand holds the leash that keeps the dog at a careful ten foot distance as it sniffs at planters and street signs.  The dog pauses at the foot of a truncated redwood barrel planted with azaleas.  It adorns the sidewalk in front of a store that sells expensive shoes.   The barrel exudes a woody fragrance that competes bravely with the fumes of passing cars.

            The poodle circles several times before it squats, sniffing and searching for the perfect spot.  Then its spindly back legs spread apart, the shaved parts of its thighs looking like chicken legs in a butcher shop cooler.

            The woman looks into the shop window, regards her reflection layered over the displays of shoes.   She refuses to look at the dog while it does its business.  When the tension on the leash indicates that the dog is done, the woman reels the leash to bring the animal to her side. 

            "Stay," she says, and slips the leash handle over an ironwork scroll that decorates a nearby bench.  The little dog sits in contentment.  The woman opens her purse and removes a  long blue plastic baggie.  She kneels holding her knees together, thrusts her hand inside the baggie and, using it as a glove, scoops up two warm turds.  The expression on her face is only slightly modified.  She no longer has the use of a goodly number of her facial muscles, gone to botox paralysis.  Her nostrils tighten and a slight wrinkle of revulsion pokes through the artificial smoothness of her forehead.

            She can feel the steamy new heat of the dog shit.  She makes an effort not to close her fingers over the poodle's production of poo.  Still, she can't help but apply pressure to the fresh arrivals on the sidewalk.  They squish a little as she neatly pulls them into the bag and quickly loops the bag shut and tosses it into the trash bin provided by the town of Beverly Hills.

            I can't prevent myself from feeling a little frisson of pleasure.  Oh how close are the woman's fingers to that poo!  How much, a thousandth of an inch?  A tenth of a milimeter?  Her entire soul recoils in horror.  She has maids from El Salvador for jobs like this.  It would be too ridiculous, of course, to drag along a maid to pick up little Alicia's poo.  The rich woman will hold her nose and do her citizen's duty.

            It's the bags that interest me.  They are products of marketing ingenuity that meet the criteria for brilliance in the capitalist system.  They are cheap to produce, they sell in huge quantities at a price that is many multiples of the original cost.

            Imagine going online and ordering a box of thirty dog poop bags for five dollars.  It's not very wise shopping.  The website dogwaste.com sells institutional quantities: a thousand bags for thirty five dollars, or ten thousand for two seventy five.  The website "shithappens.com" sells designer poop bags that are fully biodegradable.  These clever boutique poo bags claim to have "built-in scoop action" and retail in packages of sixteen for around twenty dollars.  Ouch!  Expensive!  But they look so chic.  They have handles and are decorated with images of dog breeds and have humorous printed messages such as "shit happens" and "size matters".  Oh boy.

            At "Flushdoggy.com" you get a hundred bags for twenty bucks.  They're sturdy enough to do the dirty, but they dissolve in water.  Flushable dog poo in a bag, that's what they're selling.  The easy, "green", thoughtful way to dispose of your portion of the 29,000 tons of poop that are daily produced by dogs.

            I live in an RV campground.  This is a business whose survival depends upon an infinite supply of cheap poo bags   They are dispensed at convenient locations throughout the campground and everyone who walks past a dispenser grabs two or three for later use.  We have two dogs and three cats.  We fill the bags with used kitty litter and poodle doody.  I'm glad I don't have to buy the damn things. Campground management doesn't provide the best in amenities.  The TV reception is a joke, and using the internet wi fi is like trying to play basketball on a trampoline.  But at least they've got complimentary poo bags.

            I wish my dad had been in something as profitable as poo bags.  I'd be rich.  I could expect to inherit some money when my dad's time comes.  Unfortunately he owned a Dunkin' Donuts franchise.  He worked hard for every penny.  He struggled to provide for his family.  He lugged sixty pound sacks of flour, stayed up all night running big mixers and standing over a deep fryer whose grease was popping at four hundred degrees.

            Think high margin, dad.  Think cheap to produce, high volume sales, a thousand percent markup.  Something like fire logs.  Nothing but sawdust and paraffin, probably cost a dime to make, sell for five bucks a log.

            Or pharmaceuticals.  How big is the profit margin in pharmaceuticals?  How much does it cost to produce one of those ten dollar antiobiotic pills that my wife needs during one of her bouts of pneumonia?

            This is the nature of capitalism.  Buy low, sell high.  You'd think there should be some kind of line, some restraint on greed.  But the degree and nature of this restraint invokes an old argument, a political debate that's been going on for generations. 

            When you're broke, and you get pneumonia, and you need five hundred dollars to save your life, there is no argument.  There is only desperation and anger.

            On the other hand, I don't begrudge the wealth accumulated by the makers of dog poo bags.  When we got our dogs, we agreed to abide by the regnant paradigm, the social contract that requires people to police their own animals.

            What kind of world would this be, if people just left their dog shit where it fell?

             

           

Part Three: The Cats Of The Animal Companion Book Circle

Peaches as a kitten

Andrew

            Part Three

Peaches And Andrew

            Peaches and Andrew are brother and sister.  They are also high officials in the secret feline cabal known as the Orange Cat Contingent.  Few people are aware of this powerful entity, founded many thousands of years ago by the venerable orange tabby known as Tutankhitty.  Peaches and Andrew came to us by way of a feral cat rescue service.  Andrew is the only member of the Book Circle who can't read.  He's slow.  Literally.  I don't mean that he is stupid.  His orange coat is so huge and thick that it's impossible for Andrew to do much of anything.  He's a prisoner of his coat

            Andrew moves in increments.  One seldom sees him in transit from one place to another.  He simply arrives.  Fox and I can be in bed, alone, reading.  We turn the pages of our books.  Andrew is suddenly between us, settled and calm, purring.  How did he get there without a hint of disturbance, without moving a single molecule of air?

            Andrew may be a prisoner of his coat but he is also an alchemist.  He has taken his imprisonment and turned it into a form of enlightenment.  It's obvious that he loves being with us, with his family, and that his love is deep and it brings him great joy.

            When I read aloud for the Book Circle, he sees everything as a movie.  That's cool, because Andrew's rare comments help me evaluate the potential for film adaptations of my books.

            Peaches is a short haired orange tabby, virtually the opposite of Andrew.  She never shuts up.  "I want a treat, I want a treat," she says.  "Scratch my tummy or I'll keep making this noise.  Yeooowwwwwww, yeooooowwww.  What's up today?  Are you gonna read aloud or do I have to do homework?  When are you going to write a mystery?  Or a police procedural?  Your stuff is boring.  Too much mystical crap.  I want a good explosion or two.  How about a firefight between a tribe of cannibals and a unit of Navy Seals?  Yeoooowwwww!  Where's my treat?"

            At this point I must give Peaches exactly three Whiskas Chicken-flavored Dentabite Treats or she will not stop making that noise.  The other animals receive a single Dentabite.  These treats are fattening and expensive.  To keep the peace I lure Peaches to a location where she can't be seen by the other members of the Book Circle.  She gets her three treats and she's quiet.  Three treats buys her silence for a while.  We can continue our discussion of my poems, novels, satires and essays.

            You have now been introduced to all the members of the Animal Companion Book Circle, a group formed to discuss my literary works.  We have Bear, Gabriel, Obsidian, Peaches, Andrew and General Stonewall Jackson Cichlid.  We meet in the front room of our RV.  The General's aquarium is on a table a few feet from my computer.  The other members gather where they may.  Peaches likes the dashboard, where she can get elevation over the rest of us.  Andrew crawls inside a cube-shaped cat-house with a circular door.  He puts his head on the lip of the door and watches the proceedings.  Bear must, I repeat MUST, sit between my back and the back of the chair.  This forces me to lean forward and sit with half my butt off the chair but it's out of my control.  If I don't let Bear  into his little squeeze-space, he'll sit on the floor at my side and make a sound, something between a whine and a command.  "Whup," he says.  "Whup."  It's a quiet but insistent sound.  Frankly, it's obnoxious.  I move forward and Bear jumps into the space between the chair and my back. 
            You might discern that our friends are spoiled and manipulative. I've seen far worse.

            Gabriel sits on the couch with Obsidian.  They metamorphose into a composite creature, a brown ball of fur with four alert eyes.

            Thus gathered, we begin our experience of the extraordinary work of the world's most obscure talented writer, Art Rosch.

            I am Art Rosch and this is my reading audience.  I don't mean to exclude my wife, Fox.  She's read all of my work, many times.  She keeps the RV clean, she makes sure the bills are paid on time, she feeds the dogs and cats and cleans the cat box.  Fox is always nearby and ready with a pithy comment or a wry observation. 

            Every creature aboard this thirty eight foot RV is committed to the support of my writing.  I may remain the world's most obscure talented writer, but I am not without a core group of devoted followers.  I'd like to expand my fan base.  Sooner or later, readers will recognize a good thing and they'll subscribe to my blog.  An agent will realize that I'm a hidden treasure.  He'll make a three book deal with a big publisher.  My life will change.  I'll miss the peace and quiet of my RV and my little circle of friends.  I'll appear on the Daily Show and be appalled at how fat I look.  I will be mistaken for Philip Roth, who will be mistaken for me.

            There is no such thing as real life.  It's all a fantasy in which the characters exercise bad judgment, get into trouble, and mostly blame everyone else for their misery.

            My definition of a hero is someone who takes sole responsibility for his or her predicament and fights to change it for the better.

            My effort to change my predicament for the better is right here.  It's my Animal Companion Book Circle. 

            It's always good to know who are your true friends.

Coming next, a discussion about the novel, CONFESSIONS OF AN HONEST MAN in which General Stonewall Jackson Cichclid blows a lot of hot air.

           

           

             

Part Two: The Animal Companion Book Circle.

Part Two

The Animal Companion Book Circle

for the discussion of the works of Art Rosch

The Cats

            There are three cats in the Animal Companion Book Circle.  Our oldest cat is a big tabby named Obsidian.  Sometimes we call him The Ambassador because he likes to amble through the campground visiting and welcoming neighbors.  When he sees an RV with an open door or window and assures himself that no other animals are inside, Obsidian enters and makes himself at home.  People return from the showers or the laundry to discover a tomcat sitting on their furniture.  It's amazing that he's never been trapped in an RV and driven to Alaska or Maine.

            Obsidian is indifferent to hostile dogs, and willing to make territorial accommodations to neighborhood cats.  He doesn't want any trouble.  He just wants to hang out.  He wants to be part of things.

            His taste in literature runs to mysteries and historical novels.  He likes the sardonic style of Elmore Leonard.  This makes him a great asset in our Book Circle because some of my work falls into a sardonic mode.  Obsidian is capable of knowing when I'm mixing irony and comedy.

            Eight  years ago we bought our first RV, a 1979 Fleetwood Flair.  The front door's windows had parchment colored shades.  These are the type that roll up onto a spring-loaded dowel.  Pull the shade down and it stays in place.  To raise the shade, pull a bit outward to disengage the spring and hold the wooden pull-bar until it reaches the desired height.

            The RV was parked in our driveway.  Obsidian quickly took to exploring this gigantic new playhouse.  He was lying on the driver's side arm-rest, with the shade pulled all the way down.  The sun shone brightly over the roof of the house as it sank in the west.  The shade kept the RV's interior from becoming a furnace.  Obsidian was on his back and was flipping at the shade, watching it move.  He batted with his paws.

            I was sitting in the passenger's seat idly watching this play.  Fox was on the outside of the window, hosing off the tires.  The cat was using his hind feet to kick at the balsa wood bar at the bottom of the sash.

            Suddenly Obsidian kicked a little too hard.  The claws on each of his feet were fully engaged with the shade's canvas.  The spring unlocked and pulled the shade all the way up.  The cat was attached to the shade, upside down.  He rocketed towards the top, and hung there like a spitted game carcass.  He looked at me with an expression of such bewildered surprise that I burst out laughing.  Obsidian hung upside down from the shade for five or six seconds before getting his claws free and making a clumsy drop onto the driver's seat.  He bounced off my lap and flew out the passenger side window.  We didn't see him again for twelve hours.  He was thoroughly embarrassed.

            Fox and I laughed till our ribs ached.  We couldn't help it.

            We believe that animals experience complex emotions such as vanity and humiliation.  They care about their looks.  They may be less verbal, but the intensity of their feelings is not mediated by the constant chatter of the mind.  They aren't planning for the future, regretting the past, plotting to acquire things, angry about a careless comment.  They are alive to sun, wind, clouds, shadows and they can hear the whispers made by invisible spirits.