The Dogs Must be Walked (pt 5)
In this one, I seek shelter in my favorite place, take a dog for a spin in Bed Bath and Beyond, and have a god sent encounter with a generous teen boy.
The 1 train deposited me on 66th and Broadway and I launched my battered body up the subway stairs, all time repeating the chant I whispered to myself every time I wanted to give up:
“The dogs must be walked the dogs must be walked the dogs must be walked…”
When I emerged from the subway steps I dropped my mantra as my eyes drank in the spectacular view of Lincoln Center, each impressive building in the performing arts complex stood shrouded in snow that was still falling in huge flakes, dropping from the heavens and dancing in swirls, carried on the wind. The giant domed windows of the Metropolitan Opera House cast golden light against the gray sky. This part of the city, which was usually bustling with foot traffic on weekday afternoons was totally deserted. Even while I shivered uncontrollably, I stayed rooted to my spot, struck at the beauty of the eerily silent, white cloaked city. Sights like this one were a big part of what drew me to this job.
My memory held a cache of sublime imagery, instances the average New Yorker never slows down enough to see. I lived to feel the serenity of Central Park at seven in the morning before tourists, commuters and kids rose from their beds and came to obstruct the tranquility of the scene. My heart sang with happiness while walking through Poet’s Walk, watching the dogs frolic freely while I sipped hot coffee. I’d stand at the giant staircase, overlooking the beauty of a deserted Bethesda fountain, visions of park sculptures, bridges, the cherry blossom trees exploding with life in early spring. I saw dogs catch their reflections for the first time, their doubles staring back at them from shiny car-doors. I’d seen hawks scoop down from atop buildings, and carry away rats that were lurking in corners of Riverside Park. Here and now I added this surreal scene of Lincoln Center in winter’s embrace to the catalog of beauty that lived in my memory.
A sharp pain in the back of my foot brought me back to the hell of my reality. I might get to see beauty that others could never imagine, but for it I was paying a price beyond my wildest dreams.
The stupid clogs I’d picked up from Harry’s Shoes were a pathetic match for the blizzard. My ankles were soaked and frozen, and I’d only been walking in the new shoes for a few blocks. I needed a minute to think about how I was going to survive the remainder of my work day. Knowing I only had a little while to spare before I needed to pick up Ernie the papillon, I turned on my heel and staggered in the direction of my home-away-from-home: the Barnes and Noble on the corner of 66th and Columbus.
Over the last year, as I’d struggled to find clients for my new business, I often wondered how I would have survived if this corner bookstore didn’t exist. It’s four floors were my sanctuary, I’d passed countless hours reading in the fourth-floor café, grooming myself in the public restroom, napping under the windowsill in the philosophy section on the third floor. Often, I had hours between my sporadic walks, and I’d spend those hours leafing through books to my heart’s content. It was in that Barnes and Noble that I memorized the dog breeds, their histories and breed standards. It’s also where I discovered Tom Robbins, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Robert Heinlein and Toni Morrison. In that Barnes and Noble I’d read about the horrors of factory farming and made the decision to quit eating meat. I explored the Amazon River Basin with Wade Davis and wished I could study to be an anthropologist like him. I read The Great Game, then took a turn with poly sci, becoming infuriated when I’d read books that outlined the implications of the lies and blunders of George Bush which had caused the death of so many civilians in the middle east. I read about the establishment of Kashmir, about the scientists who studied Antarctica, the old growth forests in Northern California.
I’d played my first game of chess in that bookstore. Tracy and I had found an old set in our apartment, and I’d been trying to teach myself how to play the game by reading a Chess for Dummies book for weeks when one day a guy around my age, with shaggy hair and dirty jeans walked up to my perch on the windowsill of third floor and asked if I wanted to play a game with him in the café.
“You can’t learn chess from a book, believe me,” he explained. I was hesitant. A big part of my every day was spent avoiding the stares and catcalls of men which plagued me from the moment I left my apartment in Washington Heights every morning, and never ceased till I slid the bolt across my door again at night. But something about this guy seemed so genuine, for once, I gave in.
As we set up a game in the café upstairs, we talked about our lives. I told him that I was trying to start a dog walking company. Most people chuckled, or started doling out advice when I let loose that little tidbit about my life. He didn’t, though. He nodded like that were a totally normal thing for a nineteen-year-old girl to do. He told me he was from the Pacific Northwest. He’d deserted a circus he was traveling with and now juggled in Penn Station for a few hours a day. He slept in the park on summer nights, brushed his teeth in the fountains and bought movie tickets for 11am shows on Saturdays, then spent the rest of the day sneaking into flicks.
The memory of that guy made me smile. What was his name? Where did he find himself right now? Had he gone back to his circus, or was he juggling by the subway, trying to earn enough money to catch an evening film?
Like the streets outside, the store was deserted. I nodded a hello to one of the booksellers. She looked unperturbed by my appearance. The B&N employees had seen it all; their store was a hub for eccentrics: for writers, upper west side mothers, the homeless, the elderly and the lost. I never spoke to any of the workers, but they all knew who I was and I felt that they sort of liked me because they let me nap in the corners even though I often saw them shaking teens awake.
I rode the escalator up to the third floor and hobbled to the women’s lavatory. I pulled my water-logged gym shoes from my bag and held them under the hand dryer. As soon as it turned on I felt relief spread through my body. Before I knew it was huddled beneath the dryer, turning my head, trying to get the hot waves of heat to touch every part of my frozen hair and neck. I moved so that the hot air would blow against the hood of my jacket, and my heart leapt with the realization that I might be able to use it again. I took off my jacket and held it under the dryer, then climbed under again and started drying my wool sweater. A woman with a toddler in tow entered the bathroom and shot me a look of utter disgust and contempt. I rolled my eyes and stood up a little so I could get the heater to hit my back side. Look at me how you must in the high rises or the park. Barnes and Noble was my house.
I reached into my bag and pulled out my sopping-wet socks and held each one under the dryer. I wanted to stay under that thing for an hour, but I pulled my phone out and snapped back into reality. I had ten minutes before the window for Ernie’s pick up closed. I threw my layers back on, stuffing paper towels into my still-soaked gym shoes before tying them back on and tossing the useless clogs into my pack. I was still drenched, but felt lighter after my time spent under the hand dryer.
Now that I was thawed it was easier to bend my knees and I was grateful to my bookstore sanctuary with supplying me with hope that I might be able to survive the remainder of my day.
Five minutes later I burst through the door at Ernie’s apartment on 65th and Central Park West. There I was greeted by his owner, a stay-at-home mom named Shannon. Shannon was her usual, chipper self.
“Jamie! Can you believe it out there! Wow, it’s just beautiful, I’ve been watching from the window all day.” I didn’t blame her; Shannon’s apartment offered a bird’s eye view of Central Park. If I had a view like that in my apartment, I would never get anything done.
“It is beautiful,” I agreed. This time I knew for certain that my frozen lips broke into a smile. Shannon was a truly kind client. Even if she was totally clueless about the struggles faced by normal people, she was a great person to work for and she always greeted me and spoke with me like I were one of her wealthy friends.
“It is beautiful, but the weather is really wild.” My voice was getting sheepish as I tried my luck gaining my client’s permission to shorten the thirty-minute walk I supplied Ernie with every afternoon.
“You know…Ernie may not like it out there. It’s really cold, and the sidewalks are frozen and covered in slush. Maybe I should just take him around the block to relieve himself, and skip the longer walk today.”
Shannon threw her head back, her perfectly quaffed hair stayed didn’t budge a bit as she laughed,
“Oh Jamie, you spoil him. Ernie needs exercise! And he loves walking with you. Besides, his groomer is coming by tomorrow, it’s all right if he gets a little messy.” A little messy to Shannon is a speck of pepper in a sea of salt. The smile was suddenly hard to keep up.
“Oh, okay, no problem.” I replied, hoping my voice didn’t crack into a sob as my heart sank to somewhere below my numbed knees. I lifted Ernie’s warm, limp body from the sofa, carried him to the entryway and put on his harness, jacket and booties. As I worked his feet into the little balloons my insides were filling with dread as I thought about taking another stroll through the winter tempest
I carried Ernie out onto the sidewalk. Ern was a full-grown adult, there was no real need to carry him but it was our ritual. Usually I looked down at him and cooed affectionate greetings, asked him about his day and told him which direction I thought we should head in. On that day, though, I was having trouble speaking. Ernie was looking at me, perplexed over my abnormal demeanor. He looked heartbreakingly adorable from underneath those giant, butterfly ears. I decided that I couldn’t make this sweet little dog watch me stagger through the snow. Shannon had said we needed to walk for the full thirty minutes. She didn’t stipulate where we walked.
I shuffled through the snow to 62nd street and Columbus, Ernie looking up, worried by every gasp for breath and cry of pain the escaped from my bedraggled body. He didn’t look so happy himself; the snow was so deep that it sunk Ern past his haunches. He had to attempt a sort of army crawl, keeping his center of gravity low so that his feet might find the ground. Every once in a while, he hopped up on the surface of the snow, then looked at me, worried, while he sunk below the surface. When we got to the entrance of Bed Bath and Beyond, the relief we both felt was palpable.
The security guard chuckled as we walked in. He saw me do this on the worst weather days, and didn’t bat an eye as I ushered my little charge onto the escalator, then speed-walked him around the two floors of the store for thirty minutes.
After walking Ernie, I headed back to Cam’s building. When I entered I saw the afternoon crew and Andre and Tony applauded me when I walked in.
“Girl, you need an award for walking through this day!”
“Jamie, you are the most amazing girl in New York City, you know that?” I wondered if they had any idea how much I needed their encouragement.
This time I picked up the key for Penthouse Three. I wrapped the tiny Maltese, Balto into his sheepskin coat and brought him downstairs. He, thank God, demanded I bring him home after ten minutes, and I complied. I dried him outside the door to his penthouse, worried I might drip water on the horse-hair rug splayed on the living room floor.
After Balto I went back down to Cam’s apartment for our second walk of the day. She bounded to me, just as excited as she had been in the morning, but stopped short of me and looked me up and down.
“What the hell happened to you?” Her big brown eyes seemed to say.
Cam was very disappointed that I wasn’t anywhere near as fun that afternoon as I had been on our morning walk. I could barely move; I mostly just rocked from side to side and somehow seemed to be progressing forward behind her bounding body. I gave her a long leash so that she could frolic in the snow drifts that lined the paths of the park. When she saw that I couldn’t be cajoled into frolicking with her, Cam’s mood shifted from disappointment to worry and I noticed that she didn’t bound through the snow with as much vivacity as she normally exhibited. For that I felt eternally grateful.
I was trying to mentally remove myself from my body. I wanted to mediate myself into hot summer days. I tried to imagine what it felt like to be stuck working a twelve-hour day in ninety-degree weather. I wanted to feel my shoulders burn and hear the dogs pant. I tried to remember the sweat pouring from my face, the leashes slipping through my moist fingers. None of my memories proved strong enough to remove me from this wintery hell.
I dried Cam off and scribbled her a note:
2/25 3:15–3:47
Cam loves snow.
Jamie
Then, I let myself out of her apartment door and sat with my head against the door for a few minutes. I didn’t rub my toes or my fingers. I no longer felt any hope of my body becoming aware of those derelict digits again. I just sat and tried to breathe and told myself that the day was almost over, that it was just a little farther to the end. I changed my shoes back to the clogs, and lied to myself saying they weren’t as bad as I remembered.
I headed to the bus stop on Broadway, walking like a hunchback, teeth chattering. When the bus pulled up I climbed on and had to swipe my sopping wet metro card three times before it read. I hobbled through the aisle, my eyes scanning desperately for a seat. Nothing. Every one was occupied.
It felt like my thighs were resting on glass statues, and the glass was digging into me so that I thought I’d start bleeding soon. I tried to think of some way to compose myself, but I couldn’t come up with anything. I had no way to warm myself, no fresh gloves or socks, no snacks, no hot coffee. Involuntary tears started streaming down my face, and I hated myself for it. I hated even more that I was basking in their warmth. I closed my eyes and silently let the tears fall. Then I heard,
“Hey, Miss, do you want to sit?” I opened my eyed and turned around to see some kid, fourteen or fifteen years old, at most. His dark brown skin was encapsulated in a black hoodie. He wore no jacket, blue and white basketball shoes adorned his feet, glasses perched on his nose, his hair was cut in a fade. I wanted to hug him. I wanted to tell him that he was a goddamn good person, that this deed meant so much to me. But all I could do was nod my head in his direction. The look on my face must have been enough for him, because he gave me a toothy smile and says,
“This too shall pass.”
TO BE CONTINUED…
