Walks with Benjamin

Walks with Benjamin
(Chataugua)


February 3rd -

Our path was always the same. A quarter mile of suburban, vinyl-sided starter homes – white, tan, gray, white, gray with white trim, cream, even red. Then about a hundred paces through a nature path off the main thoroughfare, past popplers and white-barked birch, scrub bush and in the summer, cooler pine filtered patches. Finally, with a few tugs on the leash, and a a bunch of painstakingly counted sidewalk squares, we'd make it to the train station embankment. It was a sure thing, an assortment of early commuters could be found leaning against light posts and the red bricked wall of the of the station building. They sipped from their stainless steel travel mugs, and stood stiff in the cold windy morning of a Chicago-area winter. Every day, Ben would lead the way, giving each of the bystanders his ultimate attention, tugging at the leash relentlessly, digging in with his rear feet and sort of skipping forward toward each figure as we passed one after the other. The collar around his neck vanished into his flesh and his gasping mouth with its sinewy braids of dangling drool disgusted everyone. I knew it, for I was the dog-walking fool who saw their expressions up close. Benjamin was a Boxer - a breed I had learned to accept for its shortcomings - finally, reluctantly. Maura brought him home one day. I had no say in the matter, and now that our first child had reached her fifth birthday, I am the sucker that has feelings for the animal. I am the fool who takes him on this route every single day no matter what the weather is like or what is planned in my schedule. Our lack of a fence and Benjamin's lack of intelligence has eliminated the option of training him to defecate in a single spot of the yard on command. The result is this painful walking which has become one of the only reliable events in my schedule.

Today, snow crunched underfoot as I walked. Only one inch on the sidewalk but I got pissed - dry, frozen flakes sneaking over the rubber soles of my shoes and sticking to perfectly clean suede. Suede sucks in the winter. It is now ten minutes to eight and as always, with perfect precision we are making our way down to the station. Benjamin darts forward. He catches me off guard and my hand is yanked from my coat pocket, spilling contents to the snow below - tan plastic grocery bag for strategically scooping poop now blows about a yard ahead, an old train pass rests delicately on top of the snow at my foot, a relic from when I used to be a commuter myself at that station before I lost my job. I picked up the tattered cardboard piece, let up on the leash to head for the bag as I caught site of a tiny black indent in the snow, a neat little footprint of something small I must have dropped and not noticed. I braced myself for Ben's tugging and squatted down, slipping my bare hand into the bed of flakes to search. It is metal, I can tell. My hand stings from the cold melting snow-water as I bring the object to the surface, a tiny avalanche victim found frozen and stiff. I brush off sticky flakes from what appears to be some sort of Christmas ornament, till I realize that what I am looking at are actually the tiny plastic tires and red die-cast metal wings of a matchbox-sized toy airplane.

From the attic. The box of toys from the attic.

A tiny memory stemming from the unbelievably burdensome task of cleanup which haunted me for six months after mom's death last year. The back and forths into the city, the awkward phone calls to the distant brothers. Maura would indirectly pressure me to get them involved, and in the end I would listen because she was always right. I faced my fears of confrontation skiddishly, putting off the return of their voice mail messages till Maura would get on my case. I hadn't stayed in touch with either of them since they left Chicago and I took their short, mysterious, four word messages as a sure sign - they were still royal assholes.

I remembered now the instant I had buried the object from my childhood into the pocket of the coat I was now wearing one year later. I recalled the smell of the crayon-painted, corrugated box from which I found it on a day filled with emotion and snippy remarks as we cursed and fumbled through dusty cabinets and dank newspapers. Some objects were discussed - who would get most use, who had more room. Others were slid into pockets like war trophies, to be looked at later, alone, or on the car ride home. The plane was one of my trophies from a previous life of innocence that had been formidable, and which had somehow been responsible for establishing the low self-esteem I am cursed with now as an adult. After-school snacks at friends' houses and euphoric Saturday mornings of Tom and Jerry had somehow softened me into a thirty-five year old that is a complete pushover. Maura and my brothers will contest to this.

Ben yanks on the leash again, and I am forced back to the here and now. The bundled figure of the first commuter turns around to avoid us.



March 15th -

It is one of those rare days when it storms outside and there are still piles of snow on the ground all around so everything is water, water, water. It's actually raining like hell out and I am sitting at home with old drool-mouth Ben since we really can't go anywhere during our usual walking period. Kristen sits on the floor next to him as he looks out the sliding glass doors of our family room. Her friend Gayle sits with me at the kitchen table in the connected kitchen. I raise my cup to get the last bit of coffee. Gayle pokes at her corn puffs. They had just experienced their first sleep over.

"I don't like corn puffs."

"Don't eat them if you are full" I'm irritated even though I know I'm not supposed to be since she is only five years old. I can't help it. She isn't my blood. Kristen yanks on Ben's foot and looks over at me for a reaction. I just glare at her - brow wrinkled tight. A lot of great parenting can be achieved through subtle facial gestures. I can hear the rain smash against the vinyl siding in waves. It is a hell of a storm and I start to think of the basement, and the horrible fact that the sump pump might not be working.

"Kristen, go play with Gayle upstairs in your room."

She completely ignores me and continues to pester Ben with another menacing paw grab. The resolve of a five year old drives me berserk.

"ONE... TWO..." And up she pops with a belligerent shuffle across the linoleum flooring. Gayle is silent, turns to me, nervous, slips down off her seat in pursuit.

I can hear the muffled fan of Maura's hairdryer blowing from one of the bathrooms upstairs. As I fill my cup for a second round, I relish the idea of time alone with today's headlines that await, though I am beginning to feel that headlines are no good for the soul. They don1t affect me on my tiny plot of land, in my cozy kitchen, at my kitchen table with my coffee, the bright light of the kitchen table chandelier throwing comforting warmth onto the familiar newsprint. George Bush doesn't speak for me. I don't trust him, but its OK cause he doesn't speak for me. Washington DC is far - a far away place I have never visited and I think of it as a crowded city with lots of flags and monuments, and urban scum. I have heard the stories of the urban scum and harrowing cab rides that get the blood flowing and slip hollow pockets of air into your chest. The Middle East doesn't affect me either, and the city of New York, a long, butt-numbing car ride of two days at least. It is far, far away.

I have actually made a concerted effort to stop reading headlines in the last few months, but on rainy days such as today, they sit and tease me. They beckon, and call me to the table, for I am unemployed and the unemployed read newspapers.

The morning is finished off with pleasant discussion with Maura, taking advantage of the little time we have together while the kids play nicely upstairs. Maura's hair is soft and silhouetted by the table light, pert and bouncy from the fresh blow dry and for a few minutes I return to the giddy place that she and I once explored together at the beginning of our relationship - before years of mortgage and sleepless child rearing. She really is quite beautiful at moments like this and I steal extended eye contact as she speaks to me at great length. She talks about Kristen's day at school, about how cute and confident she was and what the teacher's said. Headlines do not beckon her. I am the one who carries this weight. Benjamin lets out a shrill yip and I hear the scratchy claw sounds of him scrambling to his feet. The rain has let up a bit and it is time to take on our route.



May 11th -

Spring is here I think. The proof to me is the scent of thawing Earth and moist mulchy leaves which permeate the air. Ben walks calmly as we are not yet at the station but just entering the wooded neighborhood preserve. He is enjoying this early spring day too and I have to give him an occasional yank every once in awhile as he stands all rigid and handsome. He relishes deep-bellied sniffs, pushing his stubby snout facing into the wind. Dogs have it simple, not encumbered by weighty intelligence and wisdom. Maybe the Buddhists have something when they talk of the significance of all sentient beings and all that thought on not killing earthworms, not swatting flies. Crazy talk. Crazy humans.

Our walk is uneventful. Simple.



July 1st -

We are moving at a snail's pace today. The three of us I mean: Kristen, Benjamin, and I. My failed attempts to get a job have forced Maura to go back to work on a part time level at least and now it is Daddy the primary care giver. The Chicago July humidity and ninety-degree heat are taking their toll on Ben and I wonder if the tiny figure of a man walking at the end of the block can hear the moist, weighty breaths of our dog. From where I am standing they seem to be capable of waking up my vacationing neighbors, whom I covet because they have no children - and no Boxer to walk. They sleep as much as they want on weekends, and take leisurely days off.

I stand there waiting for Kristen to pick up a handful of pinecones off of one of the perfectly manicured lawns. Our trips, now that Kristen comes along, are about half the distance as before but take the same amount of time. We are still wading our way through the neighborhood housing which I playfully refer to as Vintage Vinyl, though secretly I have gotten used to the sterile suburbia and love the curved streets of reasonably priced homes that look expensive till you get up close.

"Come on Kristen."

"Wait Daddy, you wait." Once again my impatience overpowers my parental wisdom and I don't even bother to reprimand the talk back.

"We've got tons of those things at home already." She is a collector.

"Wait Daddy."

A few minutes later we have finally made it three or four houses further. Kristen runs up ahead for a bit and then I see her pick something up off of another lawn, but this time I see red. It isn't a pinecone. Her little hand picks up one of those mini American flags and she begins waving it up in the air above her head. Ben catches sight and bolts. My arm is forced straight again.

"Watcha find?" A long pause follows, no response, just hand waving.

"What did you find?" I repeat, even though it is obvious. It's kid talk.

"It's an American flag." It was one of the landmark things a kid learns about - American flags, railroad crossings, train engines, steamrollers. This familiar object however, was a symbol of forced patriotism finding its way into my mundane life again. I grew tiresome of the flags I would see, mounted to the fronts of model homes, sneaking up on me in unexpected places and times - attached to a car mechanic's tool box, on the wall of some kid's room you could see from the sidewalk at night, and of course here, disregarded on somebody's lawn, dirty and faint. Kristen loved flags, whether American or skull and crossbones, she will brighten up at the site of one, wave it like directing an orchestra.

"What a little patriot." Maura would reward her.

"It's wrong to have a flag laying on the ground." Kristen started. She was holding the tiny rectangle of fabric in her fingers, pulling it open and taught like no adult would bother to.

"It's for all the people." She looked up at me, deadpan serious. Here we go again. I was in for it.

Ben lifts his leg on the neighbor's mailbox.

"Yes." I pause. "It's because of what happened awhile back, in New York, remember?" I had made a big mistake by trying to explain this to her before. A child's resolve is strong, and this was not Disney. There is a reason a person is supposed to shelter a young child, but this was unusual - images everywhere, everyone talking. I got busted then and I am again now, stuck here in another round of careful conversation where I must pick and choose my words. This time I am smart and wait out the awkward silence to see what she comes at me with next. The wait is not long.

"People died."

"Yes, many people passed away and they are up in heaven." I wasn't into the heaven talk but try explaining agnosticism to a little kid.

"It was those people that did it. Those bad people who don't like America."

"Yes, but you don't have to worry. Remember how I told you that we don't live near to where all of that happened?"

"Will that happen to Chicago?" She had me here. I paused for a long while and then took the safe path.

"Highly unlikely."

"Would Benjamin get hurt if they did that in Chicago?" She must have picked up on my insincerity.

"Sweetie, I told you not to worry about that."

"Why don't they like America?" Oh boy, I was in for it now.

A deep depression had fallen over me the few days after last year's tragedy. I suppose, like the Kennedy assassination, almost everyone can tell you where they were and what they were doing at the time. I was standing in my underwear. I was ironing for a stupid business meeting - upstairs, alone. I remember it was the harsh transition from jovial taped broadcast, to the voices of depressing and deliberate live commentary that made me look up from my ironing. The scenes flashed over and over on the TV - and then the call-ins from people on the street. My honest reaction at the moment stemmed from a strange understanding that it had finally happened. It finally transpired. I had seen the public television documentaries - the one-hour specials filled with shocking interviews of gray-bearded men they called clerics. They would always sit Indian-style, with gym shoe covered feet and loose-fitting garments. I had seen the hatred in their eyes, and wondered why America would not take the inevitable seriously. Even Maura sat dumbfounded that morning, and I remembered yelling across the hallway in between my mouthwash rinses. "Bin Laden probably."

"Who?"

"Bin-LA den."

Most Americans don't watch PBS specials I suppose.

The morning of the eleventh evolved, and as I rushed to get on with the last bit of my pre-terror lifestyle, Maura stood glued to the phone receiver while Kristen walked in and out of the family room pulling stuffed animals by a jump rope leash. Maura stood, television remote in her other hand, flipping the live images off each time our innocent child entered. She was bound to see it and she did. I caught her. Tiny hands gripping onto the plastic handle of her jump rope - I caught Kristen staring. Maura wasn't noticing, engrossed in phone conversation.

"I don't believe it, I don't believe it." She was repeating, her back to Kristen, who was standing there behind her.

Maura's head then turned and her eyes bounced off the beautiful profile of our daughter, with her perfect, puffy lips and oatmeal-encrusted cheeks, to my reciprocating stare. Neither of us spoke and I walked over, sat right down in my white briefs and dress socks, pulled our child to my lap and began the awkward discussion which sticks with us to this day.

It was much later when Maura and I began our fervent late night discussions, where I would forecast the future in terrible terms, over copies of Newsweek magazines, edges creased with folds and soiled from spilled coffee.

Today, however, I am fortunate to be lost in our daily routine. Our walk with Ben takes about fifteen more minutes then usual, but it is worth it - getting things sound and justified once more - for a while. My fears and thoughts unbridled, Ben keeps my focus. Three days till the Fourth of July. God bless America. Shit.



Sept. 5th -

"Come on Ben. Come ON."

A few commuters are now staring at me, the buffoon. They see this comedic event as somewhat of a show in their normally routine morning. My hand yanks Ben's collar clear off - pops right off over his head as I try and use it for leverage. I pull at him to stand upright. Stupid dog. Stupid Ben. Kristen kneels down next to him, pulling on his stubby triangle ears and laughing. His odd behavior is something that confuses me. His flat face looks up, with his deep brown eyes fooling me into believing that he thinks like we do. I slip his collar back over his head and with two hands on each side of his rib cage, prod him to a standing position.

"Good Benjamin. Good dog." Kristen lets out a forced, little kid laugh. I catch split-second traces of parental smile across faces of the train station patrons. We move off the pedestrian area, back into the wooded trail, and head back. As usual, Kristen lags behind, this time collecting each gold-tinged Maple leaf off our pathway home. It is an early fall this year, and both Ben and I welcome the cooler air.



Sept. 12th -

The live broadcasts of the September eleventh ceremony in New York City affected many of my friends that I spoke with, as well as myself. They served as yesterday's radio backdrop during my trip to WalMart and the post office. The long list of names read over lonely chords of the cello hit home. They set a morose tone, choreographed simple tasks of my trip; sitting at a stoplight, pulling up on the parking break, pushing down on the accelerator. The day came and went. We were fortunate - much more fortunate then what was to steel its way into our own isolated cell of existence today, on this brisk morning, as I arose from bed and ambled downstairs for my morning coffee. I saw the darkened outline of Maura's legs at the base of the stairs as I descended our carpeted steps. She sat in the chair that never gets used and I knew right away that something was not normal. With each step down, another segment of her figure came into view, and one leg, one hand, one arm, became the image of Kristen's body nestled into the warm embrace of her mother. Maura had her face leaned over so that her lips touched the silky straight hair on the back of Kristen's head.

"What's wrong, what happened?" I let the words out, short, staccato.

Maura looks at me with a tiny head-jerk down the hall, avoiding words. Kristen's body jerks in a manner that tells me she has just finished up with a good cry.

The light is on in the kitchen, and I make my way, expecting to be shocked by a horrific, blood-speckled murder scene, but my heart is put at ease as I enter a kitchen in normal array. It is dark though and the only light is that thrown from the oven range. Maura likes atmospheric lights - hates the cold fluorescent. But then there at the side of the fridge, I do see something that disturbs me. I see the unusually still figure of Ben, with his head laying flat and extended. His neck is stretched out so that his chin is off the cushion of his bed. It rests on the checkered linoleum flooring. His jowls lay neatly on each side of his snout, symmetrical - no drool this time, clean. His eyes look past me as if affixed on some imaginary object across the room. They are dry and unflinching. Benjamin is dead.

The rest of the morning was out of sorts. I spent a few hours on the phone, trying to figure out what was required when getting rid of the husk of an old friend that decides to have its last breath on your kitchen floor. Maura and I took turns trying to figure out what possibly could have happened to him so suddenly, so unexpectedly. I claimed heart attack. Maura took a more romanticized view - brain aneurysm.

"Look at how relaxed he looks, and normal - I can't imagine a heart attack victim, laying there as if he had just finished with his afternoon tea." I don't know where she pulled this fancy British talk from. "Though, I guess a brain aneurysm hurts, doesn't it?" She was sometimes a bit too blunt when under crisis.

She purposefully kept Kristen in the living room while I worked things out. She kept her attention on games, and fantasy stories of stuffed animals that could talk to their human parents. I could hear Maura's silly, patronizing reading voice that evolves with your first child.

My hours of phone calling brought truth to the matter. There was no reasonably-priced solution that would take care of the matter for me. I wanted some third party to come into the kitchen wearing sterile white lab coats to skillfully transport Ben out of the kitchen and then bring my normal life of simplicity back to me. I couldn't handle these manly emergencies a husband was to take care of. I was the type that became bamboozled. Maura would poke fun. There was an animal hospital about five miles away, in the next suburb, but they offered no such service. I was going to be the one forced into lifting the body of my old friend, and bringing him forth for proper disposal. The thought of his dead weight revolted me - lifeless blood being pulled to his lower extremities, his head dangling off my arm as I move him to the rear hatch of our station wagon. Or maybe he would be just stiff and cold, and the shock would make my heart pound like it did the time I grabbed onto a dead squirrel while cleaning out rain gutters. I reached for an old time vice - dug through the clutter of our junk drawer in the kitchen and came up with my stashed pack of Marlboro Lights. I lifted the flap, and pulled out one of three last cigarettes. Maura stole an occasional smoke too - didn't think I noticed. I took my time. That's what smoking was really for, time.

I enjoyed the warm tobacco coming into my lungs, and watched the smoke of my exhaling form a fuzzy haze over the many photos and scraps of memento attached to the front of the refrigerator. It was an odd assortment of items, and it came to me right then that a fridge is really a nice scrapbook of a family's life. Things get attached and never leave, and then new things get added. It's a synopsis of a life really. There are little rectangle photos of my nieces and nephews I have never met, a faded photo of my family when we were kids at Christmas time, which I had found in my mother's attic. -We are all smiling and innocent, and you can see the raw happiness in our faces that had not yet learned of life's hardship. Then there were the newer items, the construction paper projects from Kristen's preschool, and there, mixed amongst the montage of items was the miniature American flag Kristen and I had found on our walk last July. I could tell she had put it on the fridge by herself, since it was on the lower freezer portion, and was fastened with way more magnets then necessary so that the faded stripes of the material were pinned flat against the textured surface of the fridge. I realized how quickly this Fall had come upon us - our wholesome, middle class family with such trivial worries and concerns.

I wet the tip of my cigarette at the kitchen tap and threw it in the garbage, called out to Maura in the next room, "Taking things out to the car." Things. What a word to use.

I first went out the driveway, started the car up and opened the back hatch of the wagon. I then grabbed a ratty old picnic blanket out of the cabinet near the back door, and walked over to Ben. The fabric would at least keep things at a distance somewhat.

I layed down blanket next to Ben, grabbed him by the upper legs, and slid, well, sort of pulled him onto the blanket while standing on the corners of the fabric so it wouldn't slide away in the process.

He WAS heavy. I then realized I could probably lift up on each corner and use it as I had seen in movies before, the gangsters pulling the body out with the blanket acting as sort of a hammock. I now realized why they did it that way.

I pulled up and made an awkward shuffle across the remainder of the kitchen, down the back steps of our side porch and out to the open hatch of the wagon. I rested the body down on the cold concrete for a minute to catch my breath, and then lifted him with one heave into the back floor of the car. I let him down a bit harder then I planned and got queasy hearing the dull thud of his weight come into contact with inside of the car. The blanket slid off Ben's head and his blank stare now directed itself over my left shoulder. A dog's stare is completely innocent. Even a dead dog's. I reached out, ran my hand across the smooth muscle on his neck. He was indeed cold now. He wasn't Ben anymore. The finality of things hit me, and the realization that there would be no more time alone with my friend brought the rare tingle that comes with teardrops. From the pit of my chest I felt a rock that made its way up my larynx, revealing itself as intemperate emotion. His face became distorted through the curved filter of tears welling up in my eyes. I was a child once again -crying over a silly pet. A pet that was more burden then friend. Anyhow, nonetheless, I was crying and I couldn't stop. I heard steps coming down our back porch. Ashamed, I tried to wipe my eyes with my coat sleeve. Unmercifully, it only left wet streaks across the navy blue acrylic.

"I got him in." I declared out loud so Maura could hear. I kept my head facing into the car.

There was no answer.

"Daddy?"

Shit. Kristen. Here I go again. The great father figure - pillar of strength, crumbling down. Big time crumbling.

"Daddy, why are you crying?"

I turned to face her, my hand unable to hide the streaks of tears and transparent snot sliding down into my mouth. She is solid, calm, and stone-faced. Her eyes are relentless and so direct that they pin me down helpless.

"Why are you crying?" She repeats. I am surprised at her stoic face, and amazed as I see it actually flash a miniscule smile, most likely for my own sake, but a genuine smile nonetheless.

She runs toward me, throwing all of her five-year-old weight against my leg, her arms squeezing as tight as they possibly can around my waist. She then lets go, and before I can prevent her from doing so, she makes her way to the opened car where Ben lay.

"His ears are little points." She puts her hand out flat over the top of one of them as if it will poke her like a needle or something, or as if it might twitch.

"He had such beautiful eyes Daddy." Her hand was now running across Ben's muscular neck just like mine was a minute ago. She did not flinch. Slowly, she let her hand continue, pushing back the blanket to reveal his torso. You could see the sunken area of his stomach, now a recessed valley of smooth brown fur. Then slowly and carefully, with her other available hand, she brought something from her side. I stood silent and watched her respectfully and diligently unravel the faded rectangular fabric of her miniature American flag. She placed it up on Ben's ribcage, and then as if in second thought, brought it lower to the side of his stomach. That must have been in her mind the ideal location, and with that she bent down and kissed Ben's face.

"Goodbye Ben." I heard her say so quiet.

It was eight minutes past the hour. By ten minutes after, I was in my driving down the road past the train station. There were no commuters, it was mid-day. I paused briefly as if looking for someone, then went ahead and pushed down on the accelerator.