Dog Days - 3

By Robert Levin

Well, standing as I was on the corner of "Terror Street and Agony Way" (as the poet described it), what I did then was what's left for you to do in this circumstance.

I resolved to - what else? - redeem myself.

I mean what choice did I have at this point but to try to get the gods to FORGIVE me?

Now I certainly recognized that the level of depravity to which I'd sunk made redemption a tall order. The gods would hardly respond to a less than stellar effort. But after thinking long and hard about it, I finally came up with something I thought was near to perfect in its symmetry. Something that they'd just have to applaud.

With the help of donations I opened an animal shelter.

Forget what you're thinking. Okay? I never went into the kennels. I functioned - it's the truth - in a strictly administrative capacity.

Anyway, it turned out that I was nothing short of brilliant in this role. Under my supervision the shelter quickly became a huge success, and, sure enough - it could not have worked out better - with each rescue and adoption of a mangy dog or one-eyed cat my Maureen burden grew lighter until, just like that, it was gone.

With that monstrous problem behind me I felt, as you can imagine, something like great. But this wasn't the only reason for my high spirits. No. They derived as well from an even bigger reward that my act of redemption yielded. In the delirium that develops from the knowledge that you're successfully making amends with the gods - from the certainty that you're pleasing them and earning their approval - you get to feel that you're atoning not only for the crime at hand but also - they become one and the same - for WHATEVER YOU DID TO WARRANT THE DEATH SENTENCE YOU WERE HANDED AT BIRTH! In turn you can feel that your atonement actually makes you eligible to SURVIVE YOUR DEATH - that it's your TICKET TO HEAVEN!

This, you'll have to concede, is some spectacular shit and it occurred to me one night that it was right here that the answer to the question that had been eating at me might be found.

Had I maybe set the whole thing up? Was it possible that my problem with mortality was even more serious than I realized and that (ingeniously exploiting the simultaneity of a bitch in heat and a simple, random hardon) I'd deliberately committed an appalling but ABSOLVABLE crime in order to fashion an opportunity to experience my ULTIMATE redemption?

Was it possible, that is, that I'd FUCKED A DOG TO GET INTO HEAVEN?

(I should note that I flashed on that after an evening of heavy drinking with a bunch of veterinarians. It came to me while I was crawling on my hands and knees up three flights of stairs, just moments before I puked on my welcome mat.)

Now I don't want to leave the impression that I was entirely free of issues. Although my guilt and shame had evaporated there was still something pertaining to Maureen that bothered me a little. Whenever I thought of her, I would find myself wondering how she'd, you know, rated me. If, you know, she wanted to see me again.

But male ego aside, I felt in all other ways terrific. And, indeed, when I was interviewed on Animal Planet on the occasion of my shelter's first anniversary, I was fully at ease with being visible, more at ease with it than I'd ever been before.

Dog Days recently appeared in Retort Magazine

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Dog Days - 3

By Robert Levin