Horace Afoot by Frederick Reuss Read Free Book Online Page B

the hospital gown I was wearing when I arrived back home have made an impression and renewed their interest in me. Wacko. I can hear the dinner-table talk. Now you stay clear, boy. Hear me? Forks wave. He’s wacko.
    I lift a leg into the chair, rock with purpose. Into mind pops a line from a poem.
If you never do anything for anyone else, you are spared the tragedy of human relationships
. I like to think the poet meant it. Unfortunately, I think he was just being ironic. I don’t at all agree with the idea that a beneficent and thoroughgoing altruism can negate the tragedy of human relationships, can somehow reverse and obliterate it. Human relationships are tragic a priori, and the true Samaritan acts, not to change this condition—but in spite of it. The idea, implanted over the centuries by sentimental Christianity and taken over in our time by political propaganda, advertising, and the movies, is that by good deeds we negate this tragic condition and transform it into something better. But there is nothing better. The world is not so neatly divided. Good is not accomplished merely by negation of the bad.
    I get up and go inside. The thought merits a phone call.
    “Horace here.”
    “May I help you?”
    “I’m glad you put it that way.”
    “Excuse me?”
    “Do you like Saint Bernards?”
    “Saint Bernard? I don’t know who you’re talking about.”
    “Not the saint. The dog. You know, the big shaggy things they use in the Alps to rescue people lost in the snow?”
    “Yes, I know. Those huge, slobbery animals, the ones with the little wooden barrels around their necks. What about them?”
    “What do you think about them?”
    “What I think?”
    “Yes.”
    “Not a whole lot. Frankly, I hate dogs. They scare me.”
    “I see. But what about in principle?”
    “Are you calling from the Humane Society?”
    “No.”
    “Because if you are, I’m not interested. I have a cat I took in as a stray, and as far as I’m concerned I’ve done my duty by little furry mammals.”
    “I see.”
    “A dog is out of the question. And a big dog? If you ask me, I think keeping gigantic pets is cruel. They need the outdoors. They need open spaces to run in. I don’t know whose idea it was to make pets out of them, but in my opinion they have perpetrated a giant cruelty. Your organization should speak out against it.”
    “Against pets?”
    “Against big pets. Yes. I’ve seen some of the literature you put out. About neutering and overpopulation and such things. But I’ve never seen anything about pet size. I mean, how big is big enough and how big is too big already? That’s what you people should be concerned with. My neighbor down the street keeps a pig! Can you imagine? A pig. He says it’s from Vietnam, but I don’t care where he got it. Keep a pig as a pet? In the house? It’s disgusting. You people should do something about it.”
    “I hear pigs are smart.”
    “Smart has nothing to do with it. My grandson is smart—but do I let him climb all over the furniture? To let a pig into the house—I’m sorry. It’s disgusting. Now if you don’t mind, I have to go. Sorry about the dog. I hope you find a nice home for it in Switzerland someplace.”
               
    A thunderstorm that has been brewing for the past hour finally rolls over Oblivion and pins the town where it lies with bright cracks of lightning and tearing sheets of wind and water. In seconds the weedy lot that is my front yard becomes a muddy bog. Water cascades from the roof overhanging the porch and makes me feel hidden, cozy and safe behind the waterfall. Moments before the storm broke I rushed through the house to close all the windows and have been monitoring the steady drop in temperature by the gooseflesh on my arms and my quickened olfactory sense. I can smell the rain. How clear the air suddenly becomes. Lines seem to straighten and corners sharpen in a thunderstorm. Water flies in dense sheets that sweep past with fierce