Gary Flanagan's Chihuahua
Next post: what I did on my winter blogcation.
And by the way, I have nothing against chihuahuas.
chihuahua skull image from Skulls Unlimited.
Take John and Elise. John was in love with her, but clueless about the ways of women. Not as taciturn as his father, a slab of a man, thick and slow, who tended to talk only after having a few, John had learned little of relationships or communication. He tried, though, bought Elise a toaster oven. He researched and did price comparisons and found one that would fit over the counter. He matched it to her appliances, black and sleek, made sure Elise could cook those frozen tater tots that she loved so much in it.
“Happy Valentine’s Day!”
Elise was expecting flowers, maybe even a dozen red roses or some sort of singing Valentine. She wanted the cliché, craved it after seven arid manless years. There was so much expectation that when she unwrapped the box (how many roses could be in such a huge box? And so heavy?) she burst into tears. What in the hell was this? John, bless his naïve heart, thought she was crying with joy, until Elise ran out of the living room, opened her kitchen window and flung the toaster oven, still in its box, out into the warm California air.
Start with a question. Focus on intent. For John, love. For Elise, unmet expectation, a dry spell Hallmarked to death, broken by this practical, this unromantic man. But intent no longer mattered to Gary Flanagan, whose chihuahua was crushed under a toaster oven flung from a third story window. As soon as Elise heard Taquito’s truncated yelp and Gary’s shouts, she knew something bad had happened. She looked at John, still in shock himself at the strange turn the afternoon had taken, through the kitchen doorway and held a finger up to her lips, her bloodshot eyes widening in warning.
And then, she didn’t know why, she felt a surge of lust. Elise marched over to the couch and starting ripping John’s clothes off, pinned him against the flowery cushions. Caution be damned, they consummated their two-week relationship right then and there without saying a word.
In the confusion of expedited passion, her underwear went missing. Afterwards, John went on a hunt, made a big show of it, checked behind the huge ficus in the corner, rifled through the china cabinet, lifted Elise's hair and brushed the nape of her neck with his chapped lips. “Nope. No underwear there, either. Guess you’re just going to have to go commando,” he told her and she laughed like it was the funniest thing in the world. Like it was the first time she heard that one.
Elise picked up a takeout menu from the coffee table. “I don’t know about you, but I’m starving. Chinese?” she asked, waggling a flyer from Mr. Chen’s Vegan Delites. “Chinese!” John responded with a jocular wink as he tossed her bra across the room, just missing the trash can.
Below, on Broome Street, a crowd had gathered. Tacquito’s hind quarters were barely visible under the box and a trickle of blood from his mouth had formed a dark comma on the sidewalk. Laura Falcon from Apartment 16 had heard the impact. She had poked her head out of her window and called the police right away. After putting down the phone, she went out to comfort the victim, that sweet and single Gary Flanagan from the sixth floor, handed him a huge mug of coffee and some chocolate chip cookies. Together they waited, stared up at the bank of windows, row after row of shiny glass with ominous gaps, windows cranked out to catch the breeze. Curtains flapped, blinds shuddered. Potted plants teetering on windowsills had taken on a dangerous quality. "Rows of terrabombs," thought Gary, newly enlightened about the pitfalls of gravity.
There were too many possibilities. “Not a peep from up there. Not a peep.” Gary kept repeating, and Laura would give him a reassuring pat on the shoulder. To Gary it felt creepy, like she was enjoying this chance to make herself useful. Indispensible. After the police took a report, took little Taquito away, she invited Gary into her apartment. He refused. Fred, the condo building's maintenance man, sprayed down the sidewalk as Gary watched, still holding on to the chihuahua's six-foot black leather leash. The comma of blood turned into a rusty cloud and slowly dissipated, washed into the gutter. Gary went back to his one-bedroom, determined to get totally drunk.
John and Elise have never told John, Jr. about the night he was conceived. They’ve grown quite comfortable with each other’s foibles over the last twelve years. He’s better about flowers, and she understands that you show your love in the best way you can. Sometimes she wonders what would have happened if John had brought flowers. How long it would have taken them to get beyond their assumptions? They couldn't stop talking that night, about the past, about how childhood confusion solidifies into adult surety. Elise is glad he gave her the toaster oven. She wouldn't change what she did that afternoon, wouldn't even alter it even by one second. Without the toss, the truncated yelp, the immediate intimacy of being partners in a crime of happenstance, she and John would never have gotten this far. There would be no John, Jr. It was fate, all around.
The day after the toaster oven incident, John left Gary Flanagan an anonymous apology note stuffed with twenties. The police said it was no use dusting for prints, and it was true, John had worn gloves just in case. Couldn't they have at least tried? Was Taquito's life worth so little? Gary has another dog now, a minuscule mutt from the SPCA who trembles in cold weather, whose barks sound like an infant with whooping cough. Nowadays, he tends to leave the building by the back door, shuffles Pepin past the dumpster and parked cars. He avoids the scene of the crime.