Read Online Large Animals in Everyday Life by Wendy Brenner - Free Book Online
Authors: Wendy Brenner
Tags: General Fiction
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allowed her tolove her husband. So, after grieving for him a while in public and a while longer in private, she went on living for her child, just as she always had, and when that was no longer realistic, she lived for her childâs child. Why else did one live? she wondered. The childâs fears were her own, and she would fight, if necessary, to keep from relinquishing them.
The child is scared of everything
, the childâs parents said. They recited this to strangers in department stores and waiting rooms and restaurants, even if the child was sitting quietly at that moment. It was impossible to take her anywhere, they said. They said it sometimes with scorn, other times irony, and still other times resignation. They took the child to a restaurant called the Ivanhoe that featured catacombs you descended to by elevator. The catacombs contained creative surprises especially for children, the nice lady who ran the elevator said. She had a sweet, apologetic voice and yellow hair in the shape of an optimistic, upward-floating bubble. Nevertheless, the child refused to go. Well, she got into the elevator but then caused such a scene the elevator had to be stopped and reversed.
Of course, what were we thinking
? the childâs parents said.
Sheâs scared of everything
, they told the nice lady. The lady worriedly worked the controls, her hair aquiver with concern.
And whatever she isnât scared of, she feels sorry for
, they told her.
Next door to the child lived an exceedingly large black dog. Half Great Dane, half Rottweiler, half
Clydesdale
, the dogâs owner liked to say. He was a fat-cheeked personal injury attorney who advertised on the local TV channel. âAn accident is just thatâan accident,â he said on his commercial. One would have thought the child would have been scared of the dog, but she wasnât. She was worried about the dog. The dog lived in a chain-link fenced enclosure that gave it plenty of room to run, but it didnât run much. It stood dead-still, right up next to the fence on the side of its enclosure that bordered the childâs yard, its boulder-sized head pointed at the childâs back door. If someone stepped outside, the dog began to tremble, and then, if the persontook one more step toward the enclosure, the dog hurled itself into the air, releasing a heartbreaking bark so loud and deep it was difficult to comprehend. The dog was lonely! The child visited the dog often, poking her fingers through the chain-link grid to pet the animal. The dog would turn sideways, shivering with desire, and when her fingers touched its side it would shut its eyes, a cracking noise seeming to come from deep within it. The child could not stand to hear the noise. And the fence drove her crazyâshe could only squeeze four fingers through and then she could barely move her hand at all. The dog barked and shivered and hurled itself about, desperate for her, and she pushed her fingers through and moved them dutifully back and forth in a spot the size of a baseball card. The dog was so big, and she could touch so little of it!
Her parents gave each other knowing looks when they saw the child doing this. The child was going to ask for a dog. They were good parents and they could see it coming. They were better parents than a lot of parents. There was a boy in the childâs second-grade class whose mother whipped him with a Hot Wheels racetrack, for instance. It was common knowledge. And the three Logan children could be seen any Sunday morning picking Japanese beetles from the trees in their yard and dropping them into Chase & Sanborn coffee cans of gasoline, their father grimly supervising from behind the picture window, his arms folded. The childâs parents would never do anything like that. When it was time, they would get the child a dog and the dog would teach the child valuable skills while helping her get over her fears.
Actually, though, the child didnât
The child is scared of everything
, the childâs parents said. They recited this to strangers in department stores and waiting rooms and restaurants, even if the child was sitting quietly at that moment. It was impossible to take her anywhere, they said. They said it sometimes with scorn, other times irony, and still other times resignation. They took the child to a restaurant called the Ivanhoe that featured catacombs you descended to by elevator. The catacombs contained creative surprises especially for children, the nice lady who ran the elevator said. She had a sweet, apologetic voice and yellow hair in the shape of an optimistic, upward-floating bubble. Nevertheless, the child refused to go. Well, she got into the elevator but then caused such a scene the elevator had to be stopped and reversed.
Of course, what were we thinking
? the childâs parents said.
Sheâs scared of everything
, they told the nice lady. The lady worriedly worked the controls, her hair aquiver with concern.
And whatever she isnât scared of, she feels sorry for
, they told her.
Next door to the child lived an exceedingly large black dog. Half Great Dane, half Rottweiler, half
Clydesdale
, the dogâs owner liked to say. He was a fat-cheeked personal injury attorney who advertised on the local TV channel. âAn accident is just thatâan accident,â he said on his commercial. One would have thought the child would have been scared of the dog, but she wasnât. She was worried about the dog. The dog lived in a chain-link fenced enclosure that gave it plenty of room to run, but it didnât run much. It stood dead-still, right up next to the fence on the side of its enclosure that bordered the childâs yard, its boulder-sized head pointed at the childâs back door. If someone stepped outside, the dog began to tremble, and then, if the persontook one more step toward the enclosure, the dog hurled itself into the air, releasing a heartbreaking bark so loud and deep it was difficult to comprehend. The dog was lonely! The child visited the dog often, poking her fingers through the chain-link grid to pet the animal. The dog would turn sideways, shivering with desire, and when her fingers touched its side it would shut its eyes, a cracking noise seeming to come from deep within it. The child could not stand to hear the noise. And the fence drove her crazyâshe could only squeeze four fingers through and then she could barely move her hand at all. The dog barked and shivered and hurled itself about, desperate for her, and she pushed her fingers through and moved them dutifully back and forth in a spot the size of a baseball card. The dog was so big, and she could touch so little of it!
Her parents gave each other knowing looks when they saw the child doing this. The child was going to ask for a dog. They were good parents and they could see it coming. They were better parents than a lot of parents. There was a boy in the childâs second-grade class whose mother whipped him with a Hot Wheels racetrack, for instance. It was common knowledge. And the three Logan children could be seen any Sunday morning picking Japanese beetles from the trees in their yard and dropping them into Chase & Sanborn coffee cans of gasoline, their father grimly supervising from behind the picture window, his arms folded. The childâs parents would never do anything like that. When it was time, they would get the child a dog and the dog would teach the child valuable skills while helping her get over her fears.
Actually, though, the child didnât
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