While the Joker Sleeps

 As I type from my couch, my 11-year-old black-and-white, blocky-headed love, Pvt. Joker, is nestled against me. I should be working. There are deadlines today—and everyday. I thank the freelancing gods for that. But today I'm consumed by the grief of not knowing how long he and I have. 

His hind legs are stiff these days. So much so that he stopped running long ago and can no longer jump into my car or onto my bed. Due to increased pressure to compensate for his weak hindquarters, his front legs have taken on a grossly bowed position. When I watch him bent over his food bowl, those distorted limbs oddly holding him up, he looks like something out of a Mannerist painting. Did the Mannerists actually paint animals? I can't remember that college lecture. 

Joker is on a litany of medicines: an anti-inflammatory and painkillers, glucosamine, chondroitin, MSM, and hemp. Last week, I bought adhesive paw pads to help him gain traction on my wood floors. All of it only helps a little. 

A few minutes ago, as I passed through the living room on the way to my laptop, I saw my sweet boy curled up in his bed and knew he needed to be next to me instead. Or was it I who needed to be next to him? So I laid out the Christmas throw blanket that had belonged to my paternal grandmother, Nanni (pronounced Nah-knee, the moniker of choice for North Central West Virginia Italian grandmothers)—a remnant of her short stay at Maplewood, a fancy retirement home, before the money was cut off and she lived the rest of her days at Meadowview nursing home. To add insult to injury, the lackluster Meadowview was located just a stone's throw from Maplewood. I cursed my father's sister for her part in this no-choice situation every time I drove past the safe, warm allure of Maplewood and into the parking lot of Misery Not Masquerading As Anything But Meadowview. 

Nursing homes are a microcosm of despair, regardless of social media videos that show old folks dancing from seated positions as an underpaid nurse's aid gleefully leads the way. Whenever I see those videos, I wonder if that nurse is the same one who'll yell at someone's beloved grandmother or grandfather later that day when the going gets tough. On my last visit with Nanni before she passed, as I entered the cafeteria where she was sitting at a table being fed pudding by a nurse's aid, I wondered if that nurse had ever been mean to her. Or had it been the girl with the resting bitch face and the stringy black hair who was handing out fruit cups? Back to reality, I was struck by the rapid change in Nanni's appearance. By this time, her nose was so bereft of cartilage that it protruded from her face like a flesh-covered obtuse triangle. The tip of it poked my cheek, but I felt it in my heart as I kissed her face that evening before I left. 

If my dad could've done anything about it, Nanni would not have taken her last breath at Meadowview. But her bank account was empty and his was too lean. Nanni's Christmas blanket made it out of that place alive, and it has gone on to wrap around both of my little boys as they've snuggled up on the couch each Christmas. I don't know how she'd feel about it being passed on to my dog today, although when I was in college she'd write letters asking about my two pit bulls, so maybe she liked dogs after all. Or she was simply doing the thing you're supposed to do when you love someone: You show interest in what matters to them. Those two dogs, Kaiser and Phaedra, how I loved them. Anyone who knew me knew. They were alive when I took in Pvt. Joker. And a motley crew we were: The single, struggling freelancer and her three dogs, living their (sort-of) best lives in a rental bungalow in the heart of Memphis, Tennessee. Glory days. 

In some ways dogs are luckier than humans. Human love is messy, even when it's good. With a dog, if they get the right human, life is buttertits, a neologism meaning "smooth like butter," as coined by a sweet-faced alcoholic skateboarder I knew in college. Joker got the right human. I love him endlessly. As I squatted down and prepared my recently injured lower back to gather all 55 pounds of him—over half my body weight—into my arms to lift him onto the couch, I glanced at Nanni's blanket and knew she'd approve. 

Because my kids are here, I've had to retreat to the bathroom a few times today to have a good cry over this beast resting easy next to me now. I don't want my boys to witness all my boo-hooing, not yet. He's still here. For now. 

Pvt. Joker came to me as a foster named Jake. That name sounded too much like a frat boy or someone who doesn't know who The Alabama Shakes are, so that wouldn't do. Since Joker is similar sounding, I settled on that—briefly. Something was missing, and I found it in a favorite film, Full Metal Jacket. Pvt. Joker it was. He's not like his namesake, though. My sweet beast is quiet and serious and—until I adopted a puppy I named Jezebel last winter—has never been playful in his life. Another defining trait is that, belying his strong, silent-type appearance, Pvt. Joker is easily spooked. He is also perfect, a representative of everything good and pure in this life. How I love him. Unconditionally and immeasurably. 

The thought of life without Joker is breaking me. I've been broken before. Unlike the pain we pile onto ourselves through improvident hopes or best-judgment deferred, losing a dog isn't self-inflicted or self-resolved. The joy you feel in knowing this particular creature is singular and mysterious. And like that one amazing hair day or New York City pizza, when it's gone it can't be recreated. 

As I look at the sleeping creature beside me, his spotted side rising and falling in even measures, I know that anyone who believes a pit bull is inherently evil has never loved one. Like Kaiser and Phaedra before him, Joker has saved me. 

Although I don't know when my precious boy will cease to rest by my side, I know his failing mobility is a portent and that when he goes, my heart will not shrink for the loss. It will grow even bigger to make room for him to stay forever.