SWOOP

SWOOP

Of Dreams and Forever Homes

“I want to take them all home, Dad,” I said. I looked at his face, knew the answer. He gave me one of those smile/ frowns that I’d noticed he reserved for children and homeless people.

“I wish we could. But you can only pick one.”

“I don’t want one if I can’t take them all.” I was learning how adults bargained with each other – force the person to choose between being nice to you and being mean to you. It was simple and effective. And that day, Dad was mean. He didn’t even give my solution a second thought. He didn’t offer a sound. Not a word. Just another smile/ frown, a shake of his head.

“Okay, let’s go then,” I said.

He gave me the Dad look – the one I now know was meant to remind me who’s in charge, who loves me. I didn’t care. I led the way towards the exit. And that was that. We walked out of the cold building and left them all. The noises haunted me. Maybe it was the way the scrubbed and bleached concrete floors amplified sound. Maybe, just me – blessed with a hypersensitive imagination. Maybe, the metal roof, the underside of which served as the interior ceiling. But now, years later, I know it was the auditory presentation of pure suffering. And we just left them. It was a moment that I thought at the time would define me, but like so many experiences, it was really just that moment. I moped around for a couple days, tried to solicit help from Mom. She was on Dad’s side, even though she seemed to understand my pain more than him. I filled several pages of my journal with my thoughts and pictorial memories of the moment. Crying animal sounds – fingernails on a chalkboard haunted my dreams for a short time. And that’s where the memory remained – sounds in my head, scribbled thoughts buried beneath the cover of my Little Black Book. By the time I graduated high school, I had over ten of these little black books. Mostly, they were day to day journal entries that documented how the abysmal frustration of childhood coexists so simply with hope and. Childhood stuff. I went off to college, the little black books got stuffed in a box in my parents’ garage. Twenty-five years later that box showed up on my doorstep.

It’s odd how circular life can be. I remember once having an epiphany that the circle was the answer to everything. Maybe I was onto something. Maybe I was just on something. Either way, the box of my little black journals was the one thing left of my childhood mementos, and it found its circuitous route back into my possession.

I was in my workshop, working on a cat litter box with a tiny motion activated garage door. My wife, myself, and our son Jimby lived on several acres of mountain pastureland in Western North Carolina. We had a dozen cats, a goat, a pig, and two dogs. We were intent on creating an animal sanctuary, but time and money were the illusory specters just out of reach. I was still holding out hope that I’d publish the novel that I’d been working for several years. Okay, truthfully, more like a decade, but I wasn’t giving up. Periodically I’d enter poetry or short story contests. I hadn’t won a thing since high school.

I heard Jimby behind me. I put down my drill, turned to him, and smiled. He was holding a box.

“It’s from Grandma,” he said.

I grabbed my knife and patted the workbench. I had built a series of stacked ever smaller platforms for Jimby to be able to sit at my workbench. “Bring it on up to the bench,” I said.

He climbed up the flat-top pyramid and set the medium sized box on the bench. I slit it open. I looked inside and mumbled, “Oh geez, thanks Mom. The trappings of childhood.”

“What’s that mean?” Jimby asked. He stuck his small hands on the edge of the box and peered inside. “What are trappsings?”

“It means these things remind me of a time a long, long time ago.” I pulled him close to me with one arm and kissed the top of his head – his mat of curly red hair. He squirmed out of my arm and reached in the box again.

“What are they? Treasure maps?”

I picked up one of the little black books which was dated on the front. I guess my youthful self was thoughtful about my future self, realizing that this wealth of information might one day need to be easily referenced. “These are journals I kept throughout my childhood.”

“Can I read them?”

“Hm,” I said, twisting my lips. “I don’t know. Let me find one suited for you. How old are you again, six?”

“Dad! I’m eight!”

I laughed and pulled out the book from 1987, when I was eight.

He grabbed it from my hands. “Cool! Thanks!” He tucked the book under his arm, scrambled down the pyramid and ran out of the shop.

“Jimby!” I yelled after him. “Slow down! And remember to close the gate!”

I laughed to myself when he altered his gait from his full-on excitement run to an awkward fast walk. At least he listened, about the running.

An hour later, I had a successful kitty garage door. Just as I watched it open for the second time, my wife came bursting through the door. “Noni got out again!” she yelled. She was on the phone.

“Oh crap!” I said. Noni was a terrier mix and loved to roam around the mountains. And Jimby must not have closed the gate to the fenced in area near the house. Here we go again, I thought. Not the first time, won’t be the last. I figured Jessie was probably calling our neighbor. About ½ mile down the road, they were the closest people to us, and Noni had graced them with his presence several times. I watched Jessie’s panic-soaked eyes. held my breath, and listened to her – He’s an Airedale mix… About 40 pounds… Her eyes softened; the panic subsided. Yes! It’s Noni! Oh, thank god! My husband will be right over.

I took Jimby with me to get Noni. He took my Little Black Book with him. Apparently my eighth year was quite interesting. I couldn’t remember anything significant happening during that time, but it was a long time ago. God forbid he ever read the high school journals – there’d go any respect I’ve garnered over the years.

While driving, my phone pinged and displayed the title of a new e-mail – Congratulations. I glanced in the rearview at Jimby. He was still engrossed in my childhood story. I picked up my phone to see who sent the e-mail. I saw the sender and my heart skipped a beat. No way! Did I really win? We were getting closer to town, out of the windy mountain roads, onto straight roads with stoplights – turns out my wife wasn’t on the phone with our neighbors, Noni had made it much further than ½ mile down the road.

At the first stoplight that was red, I picked up my phone and read the e-mail – Congratulations on winning the Tears of Joy Writing Contest. I couldn’t believe my eyes – my first writing contest win. Forty-five years old, three unpublished novels, countless contest entries. Was it all worth the $20,000 prize? No doubt at all. The day was turning out to be phenomenal – we’d found Noni, I’d won a writing contest, the cats had a new litter box with a garage door. I totally missed the green light. And so did Jimby – still engrossed in the Little Black Book. My heart was pounding, mids racing. What will I do with twenty thousand bucks? I glanced around the truck. Maybe a new truck. Maybe a vacation. Yeah, I should do that. Take Jessie to an island. It’s been way too long.

I caught the next green light and several blocks further, I pulled into a drab looking metal building – the local animal shelter. I parked at a spot near the door, turned off the truck, and sat for a moment. The excitement was just pouring through. I got paid to write. Granted, it wasn’t a book deal, but still, it was recognition and a nice chunk of change.

“Okay Jimby,” I said. “You ready to go get Noni?” Jimby had never been to the pound before and I was a little nervous to take him inside, but it was one of those things he was going to have to deal with one day.

“Yeah,” he said. But I could tell he was sad about something.

“What’s wrong buddy?”

He had tears in his eyes. “Is this the humane society?” he asked with a scratchy voice.

How the heck did he know those two words. “No,” I said. I turned in my seat to face him. “This is a local animal shelter. It’s very similar to the humane society.” One major difference that he didn’t need to know right then was that this was a kill shelter – a forever home in a sense. “How do you know about the humane society?”

“I don’t know,” he mumbled and looked down.

I was more focused on the fact that I’d won a writing contest than whatever was going on with Jimby. “I’ll tell you what,” I said. “I’ll go get Noni. You want to wait in here?”

“No, I want to come,” he said.

“Alright, let’s go get that crazy dog.”

We walked inside and I got the feeling that Jimby was quite aware of the situation around him – an odd sort of humanitarian-based concentration camp. They had Noni up front. I was relieved to not have to go into the back where I was sure the sounds of hopelessness were echoing off cold metal cages. I grabbed Noni, thanked them for keeping him, and Jimby and I made our exit. I was fairly sure he didn’t want to be in there any more than I did. Way too depressing. Although, on the way out, he was examining some computer screen on the wall.

Inside the truck, after Noni was calmed down, Jimby said in a quiet voice, “I can still hear the horrible sounds. Like fingernails on a chalkboard.”

I turned around in my seat again, thinking, Where’d he get that expression from? Is that from my journal? He had the book open. “Let me see that,” I said.

He reluctantly handed me the book. I looked at the page he was on – it was from when my dad had taken me to the humane society. Huh, I thought, How strange.

“I want to take them all,” Jimby said. “There’s 100 animals here and they cost 200 dollars each. It’s twenty thousand dollars.”

Oh yeah, I failed to mention that Jimby is some sort of math whiz. I closed the little black book and gave him a sidelong glance. “Twenty thousand, huh?”

“Yeah, but there might be a discount if we take them all.”

“How do you know that there’s 100 animals?”

“It says it on the wall when you walk in.”

“Oh, that computer screen thing.”

“Yeah. There’s one hundred and they all need homes.”

I gave him that look that meant I loved him, opened the creaky door of the old truck, and stepped outside. I glanced at the chipped paint and dented side panel of the truck and thought, Looks like I’ll be driving this beater a little longer. Jimby had got out on the other side and was standing, watching me. I gave him a nod and walked towards the front door. He followed me and we walked inside. I swooped my arm towards the cages, smiled at Jimby, and said to the receptionist, “We’ll take them all.”