And you may find yourself on Flatbush Ave.
“And you may find yourself
Living in a shotgun shack
And you may find yourself
In another part of the world
And you may find yourself in a beautiful house
With a beautiful wife
And you may ask yourself, well
How did I get here?”
“Once in a lifetime”
- David Byrne (Talking Heads)
[ I ]
Seems like I was always stepping on somebody. Can something move into a place without something having to move out? Is it a zero-sum game with each move cancelling the other out. There's a saying I heard in Ireland that when one Cork man moves into County Tipperary that two Tipperary men have to move out.
Poor ‘Sneezer’ my wife’s melancholic older dog. He was not doing well recently health wise. When he went missing earlier that year I cycled around Midwood and Flatbush with the only printed picture of the dog that my wife had to hand.
“Seriously? I asked herself (herself is the wife), “This is the best picture you have ... a sad looking fluffy dog in a diaper and a red neckerchief?”
So off I go on me bike looking for this missing gloomy dog in a nappy. A one-man search party. They will think I’m taking the piss - having a laugh at them, I thought. I stopped and asked strangers & neighbors if they had seen the dog in the picture. The officer near Glenwood & Ocean was helpful within her police gruff-ability and advised me to redirect my attention down Clarendon Ave to the NY dog shelter to see if the dog had been brought in there.
“This is so far” I thought after several miles of frosty air biting into my handlebar hands.
After checking in at the dog shelter I waited my turn: pacing, standing, sitting on the plastic seats. At one point I was at the doors looking out onto the street and the bright blue sky wondering if I’d find the dog at all. I imagined our lad if he was human-like should be mooching in a garret in Paris, a lit Gauloise dangling broodily from the side of his lopsided mouth. Herself says he was never happy but he seemed even less so since I had moved in on his territory. Out of the cold harsh winter sun the further set of the glass double-doors were pushed inwards by a man-in-a-hurry with what looked like our ‘Sneezer’ dying in his arms. I thought this was the end of the search, but even though his dog looked identical it wasn’t ‘Sneezer’.
When it was eventually my turn, I was guided down the piss-shit pungent corridor, firmly pushing the metal door into the lost & found dog rooms.
“I’ll leave you to look around for him– let me know if he’s here” the guy says.
I looked in the very first nickel colored cage, disbelieving kismet. “Is that him?” I asked myself.
This dog looked too tidy, he was fully shorn-down of his shaggy locks as part of his rescue process. But he had the same snaggle-tooth mouth and the same peeping out tongue. This insouciant dog didn’t budge or react as a normal canine might on recognition. He actually looked even more downcast than usual, like he wasn’t happy to see me.
“Sneezer, Sneezer, here boy”, I say peering in and encouraging him to life, but he stayed at the back of the cage. It was ‘Sneezer’ all right.
We heard later the story from the street; he was dognapped by two little boys who entered our front yard. But he was getting old and holding his bowels wasn’t his strong suit. So I surmised there might have been some Sneezer dumps done at the dognappers house; so they sent him to the pound. At least I hope he took a fine poop on their carpet, it's the least he could do-doo.
A few weeks after we got him back I came in very late from an Irish business organization Christmas party well fluthered from the open bar. I was breaking in my lovely new brown boots, expensive leather soles and uppers. Last a lifetime stuff. Herself had persuaded me to get them in a fancy Manhattan shop on Broadway with stacked walls of vintage sewing machines on display to demonstrate the brand’s claim to age, authenticity and tradition.
It was nearly completely dark in the inner hall. The light was a vintage twist-knob sconce up high in the middle of the hall. It was hard to turn on at the best of times. In the near total darkness of the inner hallway I guided meself along by touching the wall rail with my outstretched hand.
“Oh no, Sneezer!!” I squished my drunk boot into his stinking shite, kicking and yelling out in a rage at the slick stool underfoot. I imagined I could hear him snicker in the darkness like ‘Mutley’ to my Captain Dastardly. I supported my body now on my one clean foot and held onto the wall. I carefully scraped the sole & lashed out at him crying out in frustration with an aggravated kick into the heart of the dopey darkness. Herself started yelling, sleepy and annoyed from the bedroom “Leave the dog alone!”
A few weeks later I came into the front room; he was lying there splayed and disabled; we had to call in the vet. Vet says “we can give him a gift”, over and over until it became a family catchphrase. Did he have to go for me to come in? Some gift, hmm?
We had a whispered family conference on the stairs outside as if the mutt could hear us debate the cost of a dog's life. Herself, me and the mother-in-law tearing up.
How much to keep him alive for only a short time more versus how much to let him go today was a financial question that hung in the air.
We all laid hands gently on him as he waited quietly on the dining table. The vet inserted a valve into his leg followed by an anesthetic injection and then “one to stop his heart”. The dog went imperceptibly & permanently quiet & still, his tiny pink tongue sticking out sideways as always.
“You gave him a gift, you gave him a gift” says the nice vet again as my wife wrote out a check and they took the small fluffy body away.
[ II ]
We had a railroad apartment with joined-together rooms and a narrow hall. I had notions of myself as a songwriter. Which I was, award winning, yada-yada, blah, blah. I needed or felt I had to have a space for ‘my stuff’, a little privacy in the house to call my own, an island of meself in the great brown-faced sea of the Caribbean folk I was living with.
“Was it too much to ask for a bit of space to call me own?” It was an unused room, lacking direct sunlight, the window faced a wall, draughty but it would be grand if I could make some space.
Bit by bit I started to move a few things about gradually making room in herself’s higgledy-piggledy storage. She would kill me for saying junk… so that description will have to be improved. It reminded me of how junk might look like if it was junk. It bore a passing resemblance to unused articles that were piled up cause it was easier to keep them at that moment than feeling the pain or fear of letting them go. Off-season clothing and various other unused furniture and knick-knacks that I somehow thought were less important than my need for room.
This ‘gentrification’ of her 2nd small room was a bone of contention and learning for us.
“you have your space so now where am I going to put my stuff” she would say… and fairly, too.
”You have the whole apartment, the bedroom, the sitting room and the dining area” I’d say back.
It’s hard to find a spot to plank your arse here in the city.
My wife’s family has been here in Flatbush going on 30 years and the Irish were reputedly in Flatbush back in the day. It sometimes annoys herself when some ‘aww gee shucks’ hipster bumpkin newbie adopts an “oh look what I have discovered!” attitude to the area.
“We were here already” says the native Indian to the Dutch and the Dutch says “no, don't call it New York” to the English and the WASP’s put up ‘No Irish Need Apply’ signs for the Catholic Paddy, the Irish organize to get a foot up the ladder and then sprint to the suburbs leaving space for the Caribbeans, and so on. Then sometimes the circle completes and descendent children of a tribe that previously left the nabe in the past return to ‘know the place for the first time’. Enjoy it while it lasts cause it’s always changing and time is passing on.
[ III ]
In due course of time the tug of another dog pulled on herself and we found ourselves doing-the-rounds of puppy shelters on Saturdays. I had grown very fond of both my sisters-in-law’s dogs and most recently her sister’s pop-eyed, sand-colored Chihuahua. So in the city adoption place near the UN building we went looking again and picked out a Chihuahua pair from the book of mutts. On the way into the adoption kennels a wee fellah, again in the very first cage caught my eye as we went in. He seemed more at ease with himself than the scary guttural yard Baskervilles throwing themselves against the glass doors opposite. The Chihuahua sisters were horrendous tiny yapping bitches. I knew they were not for us immediately and said “let’s take a look at this other one over here instead”. He didn’t seem to be as barky as the rest & he was interested in relating. So we took him out up to the family room upstairs and we adopted him straight away, a small but buff black and tan Dachshund mix.
Taking the new dog ‘Klaus’ for a walk was a declaration of being a local. I didn’t realize right away but after a bit, just by being out and about with a dog on a leash alters ‘the stranger’ into being ‘the guy with the sausage dog’. Part of the neighborhood and with an identification.
My dad was super talkative, friendly to all. “Hello, how’s it going, nice day, etc.” Herself that I married says I say ‘hello’ too much.
“There’s no point, people aren’t friendly,” she says, but I do it anyway. It’s an Irish thing – we talk to anything that moves.
One day when he was younger, our emotionally-intelligent but fairly silly dog in all other ways escaped and sprinted off down the street. This happened just as I opened the gate to cycle away in my blue safety helmet and bright yellow jacket. I had to run after him with what felt like an army of locals hooting and laughing at me from each stoop. Our dog has no clue of traffic and couldn't even climb a step when we first got him so it was urgent that I grab onto him before a car did for him on our narrow busy street off of Flatbush Ave.
Only after I caught up with ‘Klaus’ to nonchalantly grab his scruff as he sniffed about under a corner tree was I able to laugh with relief. I must teach this dog to come when he’s called I thought to myself as I sheepishly and self-consciously carried him like a baby in my arms back up the street. Everyone smiled, happy with the afternoon show. I was at the time nearly the only white guy on the whole street of long-time neighbors. No one begrudged us a happy conclusion to another lost & found doggie tale.
John Munnelly © January 2018 (Souls of Flatbush/Lefferts Project)
1/15/18
