I, SPOT or The Reflections of a Rat Terrier
@SeeSpotsBook.com
INSTALLMENT V

THE OPPOSITE OF LOVE

CHAPTER 17

Considering the chain held out to me by Lilly’s Grandfather I reflected on the low status awarded the Object of My Devotion as a consequence of his defiance. Anticipating a rapid rise to top dog with Baby Lilly beside me as my consort, I assumed a disguise of submission. I meant to curry favor with the current order even as I bent its rules and rulers to my will. With this in mind, I bent my head to receive the collar around my neck.

The over-sized shackles were family heirlooms, passed down from a hound long gone. Heavy chains after Memorial Day, of course, are in bad taste, and for a male terrier under twelve pounds not really ever appropriate. Mine was one of those slip-off kinds, where I might choke myself if I slipped forward, but also be free in an instant if I lurched aft. Somewhat consoled that I might rid myself of the gaudy restraint by a split second toss of the head, I allowed Lilly’s Grandfather to guide me as if I were an escaped convict parallel at some short distance to the shore. We strolled down a worn cement road pierced by side streets. Views disclosed the dunes holding the waves at bay.

Friday dusk in a seaside town has especial appeal in early July. This is the hour of the promenade, when from bungalows and porched houses, verandahed manors and sea view condominiums the population parades. Most of the neighbors were expressing themselves solidly in the margins of the street. The sand in the gutters left damp or bejeweled with moist lumps, bloomed with a rich bouquet of fragrances, the blossom ripened by the steamy heat, the top notes enhanced by the airy infusion of sea salt.

Lilly’s Grandfather thought himself above the courtesy of allowing new acquaintances to smell beneath my tail, or nibble at my privates. I was restrained from crouching flat as is proper when setting foot where one is new-arrived. The first impression I made among the xenophobic sea-siders as I strutted along with my gaudy chains, was one of haughty pride though I was, in truth, flustered and self-conscious.

Mistaken for a snob, I was made to feel unwelcome. Not since infancy had I been so assailed. Behemoths twice and thrice and ten times my size lunged at me and if it had been a few hours earlier and their own restraints but a few inches longer these monsters would have straight-away lunched on me. Insult added to intended injury: hairy throats growled behind fences, frothing jaws dripped from balconies.

I did what I had to do quickly, anxiously looking over my shoulder while I did it. Lilly’s Grandfather, hands shrouded in plastic, picked up after me then led us grimly to sanctuary far from the yapping mob I might have, under other circumstances, befriended.

CHAPTER 18

I had passed through the gauntlet of public attack and lay safe, so I thought, at the House of the Begetters. Lilly’s Grandmother, after hearing a report of my movements and their disposal, instructed her mate to wash his hands twice. She took it upon herself to inspect my paws, rubbing them without aesthetic appreciation, twisting a sudsy rag. I appreciated the gesture, though the thought crossed my mind she could have licked my toes clean just as easily and better.

Lilly, meanwhile, could be seen dining on high in her throne with the attached tray. Her attendant mother, who wore a white uniform with white rubber-soled shoes to match, looked pleasantly sleepy, as if she had risen from bed and the sight of her beautiful daughter throwing a spoon at me was the continuation of a dream. Before I could receive my gift, Lilly’s Grandmother tossed it into the sink.

Racing for the spoon, I beheld the plastic bowl intended for my food now placed in a corner of the kitchen. The tasteless kibble remained bare. I looked up to Lilly, who understood at once what was wanted. Just as she was about to fling her own bowl towards mine she was restrained by her sleepy smiling mother and removed from the room, supposedly to Slumberland.

Pack order determines that once the highest ranking member finishes her meal, the rest may then feed, in this case, on the hindquarters of a dead cow. As they supped, by way of a housegift, I presented my hosts with a retrospective of my favorite tableaux vivants. I offered a mixed program from my repertory: The Pose of Respect, The Gaze of Expectation, The Crossed Paws of Patience, The Craned Neck of Yearning, The Glance of Pathos and the reward-winning Droop of Woe. I found my performances poorly attended. Judging by sniggers, some audience members confused Tragedy with Farce.

Meanwhile, Lilly’s Mother, dressed still in her white uniform, but without her lovely daughter, returned to take leave of us until dawn. Her mate, with a sheepish glance at his elders, rose from the table to accompany his wife to the door. Around and under the table we strained to hear a kiss, followed by the click of the lock. Lilly’s Father returned to the table. Soon after, supper concluded.

My bowl remained empty but for kibble. I grew thoughtful. I had allowed myself to be mislead in public, and in doing so had behaved ungraciously to my peers. In private, I had been denied presents from the hands of those who would fling them to me. Dead cow had been withheld from me, likewise applause. Rather than be seen contemplating dry chow, I left to chew on my thoughts in the living room. I was shooed off the couch as if I was a house-fly.

CHAPTER 19

W. Somerset Maugham, a writer best known for short stories, among which the finest are set in the Moluccas, was also in his youth an accomplished playwright. Maugham’s fortune was based on theatrical success; yet his plays have not withstood the test of time. An exception is the West End comedy called The Circle. In the third act an aging beauty states “The opposite of love is not hate. The opposite of love is indifference.” As might be expected from he who wrote Of Human Bondage, these words resonate deeply with Rat Terriers.

Dinner over, after a few dozen attempts to trick me into fetching a ball without recompense, the Begetters grew disappointed in me and I in them. Their short attention spans did not extend to other entertainments. When I pushed their hands away from the books they read, or off the channel-changer they clutched, I was absent-mindedly rebuffed.

I, Spot, long used to being the center of social-gatherings, was here ignored. The pack barked at each other, but not to me. They plumped bags of bird feathers behind their backs as I lay slumped on the rug, forced down from the couch, the chairs, and various laps. No one wished to cuddle, no one wished to pet, no one wished to gaze into my eyes and whisper they loved me.

I lay low in spirits, too, remembering how I had so quickly abandoned the Object of My Devotion in my attempt to rise within the ranks of his pack. I recalled how my luggish brothers and sisters stepped on my head, and pulled my ears with sharp teeth to gain their ends. I was forced to admit I had in a sense done the same.

Lilly’s Father took me out for the night’s last stroll. In no mood to meet anyone I had insulted, I did my business at the first street pole, and turned tail home. It was evident from the way the pack shuffled upstairs to bed no strays were expected to rejoin us that night. Even so, I crept onto the welcome mat waiting for the Object of My Devotion to return to devote himself to me.

Shortly before dawn the door creaked open admitting a pair of white rubber-soled shoes. I recognized the apparition as Lilly’s Mother, reeking of things I did not like at all. She slipped my leash over me and we proceeded out the door, down the street and up onto the wooden bridge, which lead to the beach.

CHAPTER 20

Lilly’s Mother stood on the top of the bridge and stared out over the water. Her white dress glowed in the light of the moon. The ocean itself was dark; the waves had reassumed their identity as menacing beasts, wild horses this time, come to trample us, had not their gallops broken up against the shore where the seaweed lay piled like a green fence.

I could not say where Lilly’s Mother had been, but the smells of blood and disinfectant clung to her, as well as the salty fluids human exude after working long hours. To roll up the legs of her uniform, she took off her rubber-soled shoes and white socks. Holding these in one hand, with my leash in her other, she paced the edge of the dark sea. The wind off the water blew away the scent of death from where it lingered in the folds of her clothes.

The gulls winged overhead. Several stamped on the ground arguing over bits of trash, a few pecked at horseshoe crabs washed up onshore. The fickle birds, my eager audience the dawn before, flew at us with squawks, and looked at me as if considering how to hoist me into the air between them or hold me down on the sand so as to feast on my sweet brown eyes.

I heard hissing behind my back and turned my attention to the dunes. There under the bridge feral kittens blinked the almond eyes I had felt spying on me since the night of evil omens in the sky. Lilly’s Mother would not permit me off my leash to fraternize. I peered between the slats as we returned over the bridge, straining to peep into their lair.

On the porch, day broke as Lilly’s Mother wiped sand off my paws and from her own bare feet. The smell of death swept off her by the sea, she went upstairs to shower away the last traces of salty fluid before joining her daughter in Slumberland.

I cast myself down in a corner of the kitchen. Squawked at by flying scavengers, hissed at by catty spies, rebuked, and for good reason, by other terriers, given the cold shoulder by an unappreciative audience, set upon by the beasts of the air, of the sand, of the sea, and of the living room, I felt deeper and sharper than claws or fangs the pangs of longing for the Object of My Devotion. Making sure there was no witness, I ate kibble. When I thought to take a sip from the flimsy plastic bowl, water sloshed over the rim in little drips.

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