The Dogs

by Stephen Orr

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“You’re going to have to try harder, sir.”

The old man pushed down on the unmade bed, the yellowing sheets, the stale rugs, the scent of Bill and semen and the true, sea-smelling salt of life. He pushed down and Mary pulled him up and soon he was standing and she, Mary, his keeper, his maid, moved him across the room, one step at a time, lowered in him into his chair beside the window, the curtain blowing in the warm, doughy breeze, the trees and grass and leaves and horse shit and everything true, real. He said, “Same spot!” (indicating his rib) and held his side and winced and took a deep breath, but then deflated. And this young man, this Davison said, “Are you up to talking about it?”

“Course I’m up to it,” he said. “But there’s nothing to discuss.”

“It’s important.”

Mary didn’t think so. She told Davison he should leave, can’t you see, he’s not well enough, but the young man with long sideburns was determined. “You should take a stand on this now, or else everyone will be using your words.”

“They’re welcome to them.”

Davison didn’t understand the old man at all. How could this be alright? How could he agree to it? How could he not be bothered by what was going on, and by this Smith, most of all? Either way, Mary moved him aside, said, “If you’re staying… (is he staying, sir?)… then sit over here… and keep out of the way.”

Davison obliged. Stood beside the door to the old man’s room on the second floor of the building on Mickle Street, Camden, New Jersey. Mary started stripping the bed, removing the old sheets, piling them on the floor, unfurling clean sheets and allowing them to billow and settle on the pissy mattress, smoothing them, tucking them in, as Davison took a step forward and continued: “I can’t understand why you’re not angrier.”

The old poet with his grey beard and rheumatic eyes smiled and shrugged and looked out of the window. “Look, Mary, it’s the vacuum.” But Mary didn’t care – she just continued making his bed. “Have you seen this latest thing… Davison, Davison, was it?” He held back the curtain to show him and they watched as the vacuum on the cart sucked air (it was said) through a hose leading up to a second floor parlour across the road, where (it was said) it cleaned dirt from rugs. But the old man didn’t see the point of vacuums, or anything. “Too much going on for no reason.”

“How’s that?” Davison said.

He didn’t reply.

Mary covered the bed with a rug, picked up the sheets and left the room. As she went, the old man said, “You heard from Bill?”

“No.” The full-proof voice, from halfway down the stairs. “He’s busy, I suppose. He doesn’t want to spend every minute in here with you, sitting and… whatever it is you do.”

Davison took the opportunity. “He hasn’t attempted to vary the lines…” Presenting the old man with the book, the poem, but he pushed it away. He didn’t care. After a moment of watching the vacuum, he said, “I should be flattered, I suppose.”

“You should be angry.”

“What for?” Turning to him calmly.

“He’s making money from your work. Money. And lots of it. This is the second edition, he’s sold thousands.” Holding the slim volume in front of the old man’s face.

“Why do I need money?” Calling: “Mary… could you ask Lydia? See if he’s partial to a visit. He said he would. He promised me…”

Still, the old man was happy enough. There was always something or someone to watch on Mickle Street. A couple of stray bull terriers cornering someone’s lost pup; the hum of the vacuum motor; the horse’s feet, unsure on the cobblestones; Mary’s canary singing in the corner of his room. He indicated and said to Davison, “If you really want to help, let that thing out of its cage… get rid of it.”

“You want me to?”

“No… she’d go insane, she is insane, I don’t know why I keep her around. But there’s no one else. I give her free board, get my bed made, rugs cleaned, a few sausages of a night.”

Davison wasn’t sure of the nature of the old man’s relationship with Mary. Were they lovers? Friends? Or was it just business? But maybe it didn’t matter. All that mattered was Smith’s book. “It’s been published in Europe, without any mention of your name.” Sitting on the bed beside the poet’s chair. “See here… He called on his friend, and explained the meanings that all men know… You recognise that, surely? From the memories of the bird that chanted to me…”

The old man didn’t answer, but knew every word of his book of poems, its seven editions, verse and prose and bits of driftwood in words and barnacles growing on the pier he and fifteen year old Bill stood beneath to escape the sun, the rain, the eyes. But he said, “It shouldn’t…” Heard the dogs, looked down to see the terriers mauling the pup, called, “Someone stop those dogs!” He couldn’t watch, gave up, let the curtain drop and said, “If I could get out of this chair… if it wasn’t for my rib.” For the first time, looking Davison in the eyes: “He’d call’d on his mate, He pour’d forth the meanings which I of all men know.”

This time, Davison waited. If the old man remembered what he’d written, then it was clear: other men or women, poets, lesser poets, shouldn’t be able to pretend these were their words. Or at least, if they were set upon such a thing, should give some acknowledgement. “I mean, this is not some sort of tribute, it’s theft. It’s no different to me going into a shoe shop and walking out with a pair of boots I haven’t paid for.”

“It’s not theft.”  

“What then?”

“Two men wear the same suit to a party…”

“It’s nothing like that.”

“It’s something like that… and anyway, the gods of leaves and canaries only grant us so many words, and it’s not beyond our… means, to share them, is it, Mr Davison?”

Davison wondered why he’d come. He’d thought he was doing the old man a favour, telling him, but no, he seemed lost in his memories and worlds of his own making, his naked boys and nature walks and ocean swims and all the things he’d heard about (rumours, perhaps, but so much so many times must add up to something).

“I miss Bill… he said he’d come.”

“Bill?”

“Bill Duckett. He’s a good boy, and he reads to me, Mr Davison. That’s important now, with my misty eyes…” Staring out of the window.

“Could I read to you?”

“No.” Short, sharp, like that, like only Bill could do it.  

“And I would like it known, Mr Davison,” the old man continued, “if you or anyone else writes something about me, the old man sitting at his window in Camden, New Jersey, if you’re planning on any of that…”

“No, I’m not a reporter, I’m not a lawyer, that’s not why I came.”

Ignoring all of this: “…if that’s what you’re intending, tell people I didn’t stop writing because I was too old or had this abscess. It was because of the noise, this damn city getting louder with its vacuums and people forever making my bed and… there’s only so much noise a man can tolerate. Tell them it’s about the noise, Mr Davison.” He opened his curtain again, shouted down, “Will someone please…?” Thought about it, said, “And those turtledoves. Hers, too. I told her I didn’t want them in the house, but she doesn’t listen to me. If you want to do something useful you can release them, too.”

Mr Davison couldn’t see what turtledoves had to do with him, anyway. Where were they? “The turtledoves?”

“In the parlour.”

“They stop you from writing?”

“Yes … don’t worry about this Smith stealing a few lines, he’s welcome to the lot, the lot! Worry about those turtledoves, Mr Davison.”

“Would you like me to have a word to Mrs Davis?”

 “No, then there’d be more dramas. What would come from it? It’s just me and that canary now, I’m afraid. No poems can be written in a menagerie of insanity and fresh sheets and old sausages (she rewarms them, days later).”

Davison wasn’t finished: ‘I could speak to him… it’s not an oversight, not with lines so close to the original. I can tell him we’re aware of what he’s done and no, you’re not angry, but you insist on an apology, or perhaps, a share of the royalties.”

“Of which you would take…?”

“Something for my time, perhaps.”

The old man studied Davison’s shirt and cellulose collar and silk tie. “Nothing raises its head far above the parapet, Mr Davison.”

“I’ve travelled all this way from Kansas, so all I’m suggesting is something to cover my expenses.”

By now, the vacuum had finished and a man had dropped the tube from the second floor window and another man had wound it onto a hose, and the old man said, “At least that’s stopped.”

“And what about after you’re gone?”

“I don’t care what happens after I’m gone. Why would I?” Staring at him.

“Surely you’d like to think your poems have some sort of… life?”

“Why do I care? A few poems won’t make any difference. And anyway, we all borrow and lend some time, whether we know it or not. What we remember, choose to, or choose to forget, maybe that’s not so important. Maybe it’s just the songs that keep playing… can you hear them, Mr Davison?”

He listened, but couldn’t hear a thing. The old man sang: “Listen’d to keep, to sing, now translating the notes… is that how it went, Mr Davison?” Then seriously. “We’d be rather proud, wouldn’t we, if we thought our words would last forever and people would… worship us. Who’d be worshipping me? They’ll be burying me. Cleaning all of this shit and…” Calling: “Mary, can you see where he is? He said he’d read to me…” And softly: “If he does come, Mr Davison, I might have to ask you to leave, as he’s not good around strangers, just me, we get along marvellously, especially considering the difference in our ages. Forty years. But it doesn’t matter to him.” Returning to the window, the vacuum on the cart setting off along Mickle Street.

Mary returned with a  small pug, placed him on a rug beside the old man. “He likes to sit with you.”

“I don’t want him here.”

“It’s company.” Retreating from the room.

“I’ll throw him out the window.”

But she’d learnt to ignore him. She left. The old man managed to kick the dog, but it didn’t care. “Get out.” But nothing.

Mr Davison thought, maybe if I have wasted a trip… maybe? If I could write something about this … circus? This menagerie? 

“Where did you meet Bill?”

“His grandmother, Lydia, I had her down the hall… cheap rent, and she did what Mary does, but better… quieter, faster, without all the bother and the dog” – kicking it – “and the turtledoves and the canary… she was fine, but she had to look after her sister, where was it, Oklahoma, perhaps… but Bill stayed… are you going to put that in your report, Mr Davison?”

“I didn’t come here to write a report.”

“No, you didn’t, did you? Because, may I say, I’ve done the same.”

“The same?”

“There was a poet, I won’t name him, I was so taken with the way he described … and a few lines of story, I took them and used them and no one ever found out and I got away with it because his book, well, no one knew it, no one had read it, it was forgotten, so it was easy, so I took… I used a few of his characters, too, and everyone does it, Mr Davison, so I’m not sure what you’re worried about or why you came all the way from Texas.”

 “Kansas.”

“Fine country. Because what I write we all write. We share the same thoughts and so what if… see, Mr Davison, I think, I hope you’re coming to understand there’s no such thing as stealing. We all steal. We must steal. Only… if  you think I wrote poems to make money or become famous, do I look famous to you, Mr Davison?”

“Perhaps.”

“I had Mr Wilde here the other day. He’s famous. But lost in his own dream. A man sits in his own shit, he’s not famous.” Waving his hands in telegraphed confusion. “And what you are, I am, always was and will be, and I sing, can you sing, Mr Davison? Soothe, soothe, soothe, Close on its wave soothes the wave behind… I will come and go a thousand times a day, Mr Davison. Not just me but you and Mrs Davis and Bill Duckett. Any man who spends his life trying to work out how any wave is different from the next is a lunatic.” Returning to the street. “And again another behind embracing and lapping, every on close, But my love soothes not me, not me. Not any of us, Mr Davison and… what did you say his name was?”

“Smith.”

Smiling. “Smith, the Everyman. Everyman lapping at the shore… I can’t be sure what I’ve written, can I, but whatever it is, your friend, your Smith, he’s welcome to what he can carry home.”

Davison knew he was climbing the wrong tree. But the whole trip needn’t be a waste. “And Bill sits with you?”

“He does.”

“Keeps you company?”

“Yes.”

“He’s your friend?”

“Yes, my friend. Unless the bag of bones…” Kicking the dog again, but this time it stood, moved across the room. “Do you understand what I mean, Mr Davison?”

“No.”

“He’s happy to sit here and read to me and never offer an opinion or ask a question or think … what are you thinking now, Mr Davison?”

A cat came into the room, and the old man called, “Mary, it’s here… I told you about the cat.”

“You don’t want it?” Mr Davison asked.

“No, please, if you could…”

Mr Davison picked up the fat cat, threw it out of the room, and the old man asked if he could get the dog while he was at it, so he picked up the growling dog, threw it from the room, closed the door, returned to the bed, sat down and said, “If that’s the case… we’ll let it stand, shall we?”

“It’s important we think the best of people, Mr Davison.”

But Davison didn’t agree. “Not when they aim to profit from your work. Years of work, wasn’t it? Thirty years? I don’t understand how you couldn’t be so… protective?”

The old man looked out of the window, seemed to be remembering something. “But what does any of it matter?”

Mr Davison waited.

“If me and Bill are standing on the beach, the hard part of the beach, and there’s water on our feet, and it’s clear and warm and… what does any of it matter? And there are shells, and I can feel them between my toes, and I stop and pick one up and show Bill and he throws it as far as he can… oh madly the sea pushes upon the land… what could anything matter?”

Mr Davison suspected the old man was trying to see the waves from his room on Mickle Street, knew they were too far away, too difficult to reach with an abscess and old lungs. “Tell him, tell Mr Smith… I’m sure he forgot, I’m certain, Mr Davison, he’d read my poem somewhere and forgot, and that’s fine, because I’m sure he was only trying to say the same thing I was.”

A pneumatic drill started out on the street, coming up through the foundations, the walls, the floor, their feet, and the old man said, “If I could write another poem, I would. But everything is working against me, us, all of us… the idea that we’ve got something worth saying.”

Louder and louder, right beneath the window, so that there was no canary or turtledove or poetry or any of this. Mr Davison got up to close the window, but the old man stopped him, told him to sit on the bed, listen, and try to make sense of the street noises.