Texarkana
A short story inspired by the R.E.M. song "Texarkana", and the death of my dog.
Christina wakes up early. When she lived in the city she hated mornings, everyone was rushing everywhere, and it was loud and anxious. Now, out in the country, she likes them much better. She lives in a guest house on a large farm, here the mornings are misty and quiet, as they should be, in her opinion.
After the fog has lifted off the fields, she takes care of the animals on the farm. Her grandfather lives in the big house by himself. The animals are his, but he only really likes the horses, so Christy tends to the rest as part of her ‘rent’. Her grandfather is a Vietnam veteran, he likes the big house to himself, he likes painting his horses, and he likes having dinner with Christina, but only a few times a week.
So, Christina is mostly alone. On top of taking care of her grandfather’s animals, she works as a veterinarian - “two vets in the family”, one of her grandfather’s favorite jokes. In the city she worked at a clinic, she was one of many vets, and the pets and owners she saw never remembered her from their last visits. Now she gets to know some of them, at least a little bit.
Christina drives a 2008 Chevy Avalanche, after she’s done on the farm she drives it into the local veterinarian’s hospital. She has a tiny office there. Mostly though she does house calls.
Christina thinks she’s fine at her job, some days she’s even good.
Her office is cramped and messy. She checks her calendar, today and then three more times this week: in home euthanasia. On a sticky-note nearby: Call Mrs. Dodds. If the call goes as planned, that number will be four.
“Good morning Mrs. Dodds – yes I hope you’re doing well, as well as you can, I know it’s very hard news,” Christina scans through a file while speaking.
“Well, I was just calling to see how Gloria is doing?” She listens closely.
“I’m sorry to hear that … sounds terrible… have you thought any more about your options? Well Gloria is suffering… My medical suggestion would be euthanasia, it’s a very peaceful and painless procedure, I think it would save Gloria a lot of pain. Well, of course it’s your decision, of course. Ok. I can order a refill for the steroids, but it sounds like they’ve stopped being effective – ok… Ok... I’ll do that. Just – alright, bye then.” Christina puts the phone down, suddenly overtaken by a burning frustration.
What a cruel thing, an unfair thought.
Just three this week then.
…
Christina parks the Chevy Avalanche in front of a big blue house with a cherry red door. She takes her kit with her. The house is carpeted, with high ceilings and honey-oak trim everywhere.
The family is very upset, this time mostly the mother. The dog is sweet, calm. Usually if they’ve reached this point, they’re in too much pain to be anything but docile. But Christina can tell that this one was always sweet and calm, before anything bad happened. She’s left a lot of time, so that the family can say goodbye.
It’s simple to fade away into the background as they cry and hug their pet, as they hold onto each-other. Usually now is when the realization sets in that they really won’t ever see the sweet creature again. She takes the time to look around, take in the home she’s entered and imagine it during happier times. Where do they put the Christmas tree? When did they last celebrate a birthday?
The family stays for the first shot, the one that puts the pet to sleep, and then they leave, off into another room. Sometimes they go together, some families break apart and go alone to their private bedrooms. Then, it is just her and the pet and one more needle.
This one is a dog named Robbie. She thinks it’s a silly name for him, she thinks he looks more like an Einstein or something, with his fluffy tufted ears and long messy fur. As he fell asleep, he relaxed into her arms. The family gave him kisses and pets and held him for as long as they could.
Now it’s just her and Robbie, his breathing is short and shallow. The house is quiet, she can hear the mother crying in the master bedroom.
Christina gently pets Robbie’s head; she notices that he has beautiful blonde eyelashes. She prepares the next shot. It always seems too easy to administer. How could death go so gently, so quietly, into a creature?
She reminds herself that death was already there. For Robbie it was already in his blood, multiplying and suffocating it. She is performing a kindness. Her days seem to be filled with them, vials and vials of kindness. She has held many soft bodies, just the two of them, and when the moment drains away, she is alone.
She packs Robbie into an insulated bag, he’s about 50 pounds. She carries him out to her
car and loads him into the backseat, she only puts them in the truck bed if they’re too big, otherwise it feels wrong. She’ll take him to the veterinarian hospital to be cremated.
…
When the rest of her work is done for the day, she drives home. On good days she listens to Glen Campbell, Willie Nelson, or John Denver. On bad days she doesn’t listen to anything.
Some days, when she’s tired or frustrated, she listens to the bands she picked up in college; The Cure or Depeche Mode or something equally as ‘alternative’, at least in comparison to Willie Nelson, which is all she would think to compare it to.
She plays Lovesong, tries not to think too much.
She thinks anyways - about Mrs. Dodds, but mostly Gloria, an ancient sheltie. She’s been seeing Gloria for a long time. She went blind a few years ago and now she has Osteosarcoma. Bone cancer. One of the more painful ones, more painful than Robbie’s Leukemia diagnosis.
Well surely Mrs. Dodd’s knows better than I do. She laughs a little to herself, a mean laugh.
Christina is very rarely mean, not outwardly at least. But these things got to her, more and more every day.
Christina pulls down the long dirt road to her grandfather’s house. The street sign reads Swearing Creek Road, for the creek that makes its way down the mountains behind the property.
Her grandfather named the creek and put the road sign up himself, the kind of thing you get to do when you’ve been the only one around for long enough. He used to go to the creek and just yell at it, when he got angry as a boy, or after coming home from Vietnam. He said the creek swallowed up anger, brought the curse words and hatefulness into its shivering embrace and cooled it all down. Said the anger turned into something clearer there and then washed downstream in crystal stripes and streamers.
Christina hadn’t been to the creek in a while, but she thought of her grandfather’s stories whenever she took the time to look at the street sign, which wasn’t too often.
Christina parks by the guest house and sits for a moment. A new song is playing over the radio; Texarkana, by R.E.M. She hesitates before turning the car off, listens for a moment.
I would give my life to find it, I would give it all.
She feels stuck. The emptiness of death sits with her even though the body-bag is gone.
No one else has been here with her in… in forever. How could it be she’s never had another passenger, breathing in the seat beside her?
Walking through the woods, I have faced it –
She cuts the car off, the song stops short.
…
Nighttime on the farm is less peaceful than the early morning. The coyotes yip and bark in the distance, the cicadas and katydids screech. Christina approaches her grandfather’s house.
A big dog, Ulysses, is resting on the porch. He’s a Great Pyrenees. Her grandfather calls him an ‘outside dog’, a notion she was taught not to support in school. She’s found that position impossible to argue to farmers, including her own grandfather.
Ulysses protects the property and the animals, a worker above all else, he wouldn’t want to cuddle up inside if they let him. So, Christina finds it easier not to get too attached to him, he’s getting old, but he’s in good shape. She doesn’t have to think about anything like that yet.
Christina and her grandfather usually have dinner together on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. Today is Monday, but Christina enters anyways. Inside her grandfather is listening to Willie Nelson, she smiles to herself.
“Pop-pop?” She follows the music to the den. It’s filled with paintings of horses.
He sits in front of an easel working on a new painting with a shaky hand. Christina can see the deterioration, see the paintings go from perfection to something just short. She can see him now, struggling to outline the anatomy he knows by heart, and not for a lack of trying.
“Hey Pop-pop.”
“Hey! Oh, hey!” He’s always happy to see her, even if he doesn’t ask her over or make much more effort than showing up for dinners that she cooks. She kisses him on the head.
“Looks great.” She nods at the painting. He shrugs.
“Eh, I’m losing it.” He puts the brush down. “What are you doing up late?”
“Just - long day I guess.”
He nods. He starts to clean up his painting supplies.
“Well, I’m going to bed I think, but I’m sorry to hear that Christy.”
“It’s ok, alright… goodnight.” She hugs him. He pats her back.
“Goodnight, you check in on those sheep for me would you? I been hearing coyotes all night, and neighbors say they had a bobcat come down. Nothing Ulysses couldn’t handle of course but…”
“I’ll check on them.”
…
Christina shuts the front door behind her.
“Pop-pop doesn’t trust you,” she says to Ulysses. He huffs, as if in response. She smiles.
Animals have always liked her, and even more listened to her. When Christina was a kid, her mom accused her of talking to animals in the half-joking, half-angry way only someone on the borderline of sanity could.
Christina makes the long walk towards the barn with a big yellow flashlight, she only realizes Ulysses has followed her after his heavy footsteps startle her enough to turn around. He keeps his distance.
She opens the big doors to the barn where the sheep sleep. A collection of hazy white eyes look back at her, square pupils glowing in the orange beam of the flashlight.
They stumble around, stupid and sleepy. They make loud bleating sounds, too simple to speak more quietly in the dark.
“You guys alright in here?” Christina likes sheep fine, they’re among the dumber animals she works with. Being alone with them is a strange feeling, especially when they’re in a herd like this. It’s as if their empty minds all merge into one larger being, an uncanny creature that moves like a sloppy current, as thoughtless as a field, but still somehow conscious. It almost feels cruel.
They all look at her the same, blinking dumbly, emitting strange sounds. She’s glad Ulysses came with her.
“Ok… goodnight.” She shuts the barn doors.
…
Christina climbs into bed. Texarkana is stuck in her head. It’s wrapped itself around her, got her thinking. She is mostly alone.
How many days has she lived just like this?
Twenty-thousand chances I've wasted, waiting for the moment to turn.
She turns off the light.
I would give my life to find it.
Has she found it? She thinks she feels some sense of fulfilment. She mostly feels noble, dutiful, a worker above all else, like Ulysses. She takes care – of creatures, of her grandfather, of a beautiful land. She sits with completely innocent beings as they lie dying, she holds them, washes away their pain, bears witness to their final breaths.
This is it - what she spent her life trying to find. It must be. How could someone give their life to something and have that not be it?
She closes her eyes. She’s sure of one thing, tomorrow will be just the same as today.
The thought feels sharp, jagged. She thinks of Swearing Creek, of her grandfather’s anger, her mother’s anger, of her anger, a hidden thing. Where does it all come from and how can a creek possibly wash it all away? She shakes her head and turns over.
She thinks that solitude and anger must run in the family, and something else – a searching feeling. Maybe she has not given her life in the way she thought, maybe she has just moved unknowingly, like the creek, absorbing anger. Witnessing, just witnessing, and then… she is mostly alone.
40,000 stars in the evening, look at them fall from the sky. I would give my life to find it, I would give it all...
