2000-12-12

One time, when my dad and I were best friends and took hikes with our dog and had Carvel cones after, we went to the pet store in the mall. I knew about mall-type pet stores then; I knew that the dogs and kitties there were not well looked after and occasionally drugged. I read World, National Geographic's children's magazine; I was all up on animal rights.

We were going to get a toy for my dog and one of the workers there handed me a puppy Dachshund. And for about fifteen minutes I had this warm soft thing that calmed from shaking to kissing my face as I walked around the pet store with it. My family is a family that likes big dogs and I still think any dog that can fit under my stepping height deserves to be stepped on. But this stupid hot dog warmed my heart. I was cute eight-year-old; of course I wanted every puppy in the world. I was a dutiful child who considered my future careers as vet or president, neither of which I know I will never be given my choice of study at a liberal arts college.

The time came to leave and to give back the dog and all I remembered was tears and saying "Daddy." That generally gets a girl their way, but not then. My dad was not going to bring home another dog. He tried to tell me how the dog wasn't healthy, to which I replied they needed a family like ours to take care of it. He said Mom wouldn't like it and I said I would keep it in my room so that it wouldn't bother her. Nothing, though, would really allow him to buy me this stupid chestnut Dachshund.

Don't think my father is not a complete softie when it comes to animals because that is the furthest from the truth. Delivering coffee and driving all around New Jersey has given us many guest pets. Rescuing animals is my father's second job. We once had an Irish Setter for a few days who was dirty and malnourished. When the owner finally showed up, my father told him that he would come by to check up on the dog and if the dog didn't look as happy as ours, he would have my dad to answer to. If you don’t know my dad, I would like to know who you are, but just so you know, he could just as easily love someone as he would be likely to beat him or her, severely. Fortunately, my dad loves most everyone.

My mother wasn't exactly thrilled by all the animals he brought home, but she likes to pretend that she isn't as mushy as my dad is. My dad got that wifely rolling of the eye meaning "there you do again" when he brought home pets. And while it is one thing to want to save an animal running in the streets, not being able to resist a little girl with tears and one of the three sweetest ways of saying "Daddy" you know isn't a good reason to my mothe. So no puppy for me.

Instead, on one of the craziest routes around here, there was a small kitty that he thought must be a rat but had too bushy of a tail to be one that joined our family. He stopped his car in the middle of this crazy road, crawled on his belly and carried a kitten in a VCR box in the back of his truck. She became our other cat's best friend, generally to be found curled together in the sun under the dining room table after she got over my great-grandmother's crystal bowl. That is what she slept in for a while until she got too big and broke it one day unfurling herself from it.

I also raised a baby bird my father found in the attic fan. For about a week I hand fed a little sparrow whose sibling had dropped from the nest and led us to discover the bird-condo we had. I took it outside and gently prodded, dropped from higher and higher heights, waiting for it to learn to fly. He just knew how to soar to the ground, flapping its wings to gently land on the grass. And then, and then, and then, one day it FLEW. And I had a bird that lost its sibling to our garden hose that I took care of and let it fly.

My family is big on this. We are the Statue of Liberty of Essex County ("Give us your tired, your poor, your humbled masses yearning to breathe free, etc"). We like to take things in, make them better. Our most recent acquisition is a black lab who was running the streets of Elizabeth, skinny with a belly full of gravel to keep it full to ward of hunger pangs. My father took him in "just 'til we find a home" and then we named him Bailey. He became the eyes and ears for our aging dog, sweeping paths in snow covered steps to aid her in getting back inside. He became the lover to Marie's dog Lucy, who is one-fifth his size but he doesn't have any clue. He became my best friend once he got over chasing me down hallways while nipping at my ass. He became everybody's friend, the dog that just wants to love you.

Animals are big, they love us better than we love each other and in turn we love them better than we love one another. And when, working this particular job was supposed to finally end this millenium suck year, I heard a little moaning meow across the street and tried to get the injured kitten. She ran into the garden of a brownstone and I stood there with my Angel trying to decide what to do.

He was ready to hop the fence when the old lady who owned the building came to the door. She let us into her fancy Brooklyn brownstone, filled with paintings that she had been making since waiting for her first sweat-heart to come back from the War (or something, this is the story I made for her). And we took this kitten, held her till she stopped hissing and crying, put her in a box and walked to the nearest animal hospital.

Walking, with a softly mewing cat in a box through the brownstoned streets of Brooklyn in the late fall twilight I felt as if I was doing something. I was going to do good. But the lady at the vet said "We don't take strays" and I asked her if she would like me to put it back on the street. And the head vet came out, asking me if we wanted to put it to sleep. And all I knew was this kitten was supposed to be better. I was helping and it was supposed to make a difference.

But she was too hurt for any amount of care that would fix internal injuries. And it would happen on the street if it wasn't for me, and because of me she got to go to sleep. And I got to make it nice for her pain, to the best of my ability.

Because, in the end, I just want to make it better. I would like to take in every hurt animal in the world, every little boy on the foster care ads on the subway, every homeless guy singing me songs. But I can't.

I want to take in pet store dogs, have every piece of my great-grandmother's crystal ruined by growing kittens, teach homeless birds to fly, take a malnourished dog and turn him into the sweetest creature I know. I wish to love animals because in return that is all I will get back from them. And I wish to love people because their happiness will feed into my happiness, allow me to feed off of making them happy and in turn feed them with happiness all at once. But I wish for this and more. I wish to have everyone and everything better, wish to make sure everyone is happy. And living out this wish to the best of my ability is all I really want.