I hit a dog with my car once.
My son was in the back seat.
He was too young to know.
And I was too old to forget.
So I made a bargain with my dead mother:
“Give that mongrel a second chance
and I’ll do the same for you.”
The mutt sprung up from the mess of matted hair and hot blood just to the left of my now dented fender and trotted the rest of the way across the street. That was when my son uttered his first bark.
At the time I remember thinking he was simply acting like a child. But when he neglected to make any other noise than growls and yaps for the following three days I began to grow worried.
I took him to the pediatrician and the doctor asked me if he was eating normally, drinking water, and maintaining regular bowel movements. When I responded that yes, he was performing a number of his usual healthy behaviors, I was told that it was most likely just a phase and sent home. My son kept his head propped out the window the whole way, his little tongue pressed firmly out the side of his gaping mouth.
I called my sister and she suggested that I look into therapy.
He’s only four, I told her as my fingers worried the coiled phone cord and my son tore up the newspaper with his teeth. Well make sure he has all of his shots, she advised with no hint of comedy. I hung up and thought about taking up smoking.
The next week my son still showed no signs of anything other than canine communication. I caught him squatting naked in the living room and managed to snatch him up just before he soiled the carpet. That night he refused to eat with his hands, instead burying his face in the mashed potatoes and tipping over his cranberry juice while trying to lap it out of his plastic cup. I didn’t do the dishes that night.
When the lady behind the counter at the coffee shop offered my son a milk bone I finally decided to look into professional help. On my way out the door I scanned the community bulletin board and noticed a neon green page with none of the pull tabs ripped off. In all lower case letters it read “pet psychic”. I was desperate. I took the whole sheet.
That afternoon I drove my son to the small strip mall near the freeway on ramp and parked in front of the bare looking glass window with the same lower case font and a neon open sign with a burnt out e. I opened the rear passenger door and had to grab my son by the collar in order that he not run off into the parking lot. I still refused to resort to a leash. Leading him into the waiting area I commanded him to sit and stopped myself just before adding a stern “stay”. Moments later a woman dressed in draping tie-dyed fabrics and wearing the anticipated rind stone-garnished horn-rimmed spectacles greeted the two of us with the airy ambivalence of a stoner. I could have sworn she smelled of pot. Where is your creature, she queried. I remember cringing a bit at her use of the word creature. As I began to attempt an explanation my son jumped from his chair and promptly began humping the woman’s cloth-covered leg. At that point I quit speaking. The woman looked down at my son, then at me, and then at the ceiling for an uncomfortably long period of time. Finally, looking back at me, she said, I think I know what to do.
Gently removing my son’s determined grip, she led both him and me back to her work area. It definitely smelled of pot. She had a medium height table like you’d see in a veterinary clinic and an oversized plush chair covered in cloth matching that of her gown. When she sat down it appeared that her body disappeared into the cushions leaving only a floating, bespectacled head. She gestured for me to help my panting son onto the table and instructed me to hold him steady. I thought to myself how in any other time this whole situation would have had me running for the door back when my son began thrusting himself against a stranger’s leg. But I didn’t have much time to continue this vein of thinking as the woman shushed me quite determinedly and began blowing gently on my son’s face. His nose crinkled a bit and he snorted more than slightly annoyed. The woman then held out her hand just in front of his nose and he began smelling it curiously, finally sticking out his stubby tongue to taste her fingertips. To my embarrassment and disgust she then withdrew her hand and began closely examining my son’s saliva over the top of her twinkling glasses. Her own tongue flicked out of her leathery lips and traced the same spots where my son’s had been only moments before. A foul, coppery flavor seemed to appear in my mouth as I watched.
Pondering for a moment she looked up and me: your son tastes very old and very young, she said. I could say I was perplexed but that wouldn’t begin to describe the confusion I was feeling at that moment. She stood abruptly from her camouflaged seat and took my son’s ruddy cheeks in her knobby hands. Looking him dead in the eye she pressed her face in so close to his that their noses touched. She began stroking his nape with one hand while maintaining her hold on his chin with the other. I simply stood there, watching a grown woman petting my child. I could feel my son tensing a bit and then heard him uttering a soft yet menacing growl. At this signal I expected the woman to retreat but instead she began growling back. As my son’s timbre grew in intensity she raised her own to match until both of them were baring teeth. Then, just as gradually as it had begun, their threats quelled like the fading embers in a dying fire. I noticed my son’s eyes lazily closing as the woman reassumed her perch on the hippy chair. I couldn’t tell if her actions had put him to sleep or if he’d simply grown placid out of indifference. Whatever the case I was relieved to be able to loose my grip on his tee shirt. My hand was getting sweaty to the point of feeling a little gritty. I glanced over at the woman to see what she might be doing with this temporary hiatus and noticed that her eyes were closed as well. I stared at her eyelids, watching the pupils sliding around beneath the sagging skin under her meager brows. Eyes still closed she began to speak: I don’t think you belong where you currently live. Her voice was calm yet commanding, although I couldn’t tell to whom she was directing her ruminations. Her nostrils flared as if she was remembering a strong scent. Now tell me, she continued in the same direct tone, who invited you? Again I was at a loss as to who she might be asking so I simply maintained my puzzled silence. Checking back in with my now fully dormant son I noted that his pupils were moving a bit frantically beneath his own, smooth eyelids. I suddenly felt guilty for a reason I couldn’t fathom. It was quite frustrating. I looked down at my feet, shifting my toes inside my boots and wishing I could find some sort of answer for the whole messy predicament. My introversion was rudely interrupted by the woman’s voice only now it was somewhat patronizing and clearly directed at me. You did this, you know. I most certainly did not know. You invited her to live in your little boy, she said with a blatancy that jarred me like watching a stranger slap their child in public. Invited who, I begged, the guilt gaining bulk by the second. Your mother, she said matter-of-factly, she was not at all a good person in her past life.
My head was spinning and I felt my knees buckle a bit coaxing me to sit down legs crossed indian style on the floor next to my sleeping son. What do you mean her past life, I nearly bawled as the words started to catch like velcro in the back of my throat.
You recently gave your mother permission to have a new attempt at life. She spoke as if she was sharing a piece of commonly held knowledge to which I was simply not as yet privy. She continued, considering her former character, she’s been allowed this next time around as a pup (and a rather unruly one I might add) and there seems to have been some sort of mix up.
I sensed that I ought to be putting a number of pieces together into a larger, sensible whole but I felt as if I was trying to jam a car key into a household lock.
Your son is playing host to your reincarnate mother who has been allowed new life as a lesser being, in this case a dog, she said. And apparently things got a bit jumbled in the process seeing as how her soul has been placed in the body of your child.
The fact that the explanation was beginning to make sense gave me a combination of alarm and misery. My son’s body was holding my mother’s dog soul like some sort of human puppet on a canine paw. But where is my son’s soul, I implored. It’s been moved, she replied with a steadiness that inspired me to shake her right out of her tie-dyed drapes. Moved where?! My anger was beginning to take the spotlight off of my desperation. To a body that wasn’t being used, she explained making it sound like I ought to know the body of which she was speaking. By that point I had reached my limit.
Standing quickly enough to give myself a brief sense of dizziness, I scooped up my then stirring son and rushed out of the back room, through the glass front door, and past the blood and fur still staining the front fender of my car.
My son ran away a few weeks later. I called the police. I put up missing posters on telephone poles. But he never came home. Although a month or so later a mutt wandered onto my porch and refused to leave even after I shooed him repeatedly. Eventually I had him taken to the pound. That same day I traded in my car for a newer model and chose a new coffee shop.
