Baby

“JOHN!!!! GET IN HERE!!!! SHE’S HAVIN’ A SEIZURE!!!!!!”

            I’ve just started my morning walk, too late. It’s hot; the sun blazing down in all her brilliant glory. Yet, I’m not supposed to be out here. In the sun. Melanoma and all.

            I am going at a pretty fast clip, therefore, when I hear this distressed shout from inside John’s house. (I didn’t know till just now that his name was John even though I wave at him every day. He will stop to chat, taking a break from his constant puttering in his yard. Last week, it was the Muffled Mask Chat. “I had to let her go…..mumble mumble mumble…it was time…mumble mumble ……” and I had thought, damn, did he have to put the roly poly beagle basset hound down? Yet then as he continued to mumble through his mask --why do people think that you can understand them through their masks? Or maybe they are just so desperate to talk they don’t care?-- I realized he was talking about his old dilapidated truck. The one permanently parked at the corner of my street, overflowing with miscellaneous handyman debris—part of a rake, stray piles of plant matter, boxes that needed to go to the recycling----)

            So, today, when I hear his wife? roommate? hollering for him to come help her with Baby’s seizure (he calls the overweight pooch, Baby), I pause for a moment. Part of me wants to start running, but another part of me, the writer voyeur part, wants to stand there a moment and eavesdrop on the shouting. Plus, I'm worried about Baby! 

            I don’t hear him answer. I can only assume he came running. That Baby was having a seizure—though since I can’t see in their house, it could have been someone else—and that John would help her.

            I start walking again. There’s nothing for me to do. But I feel sorry for them inside that house with a seizuring dog. I remember when I was little, maybe 5 or 6 or 7, living in Hacienda Heights, and we had this magnificent collie dog named, Laddie. And he had seizures. They were so scary. The massive dog suddenly stricken, collapsed on the asphalt, shaking and foaming at the mouth. I don’t remember the details of how we helped him. Maybe my mom put a stick in his mouth to keep him from biting his tongue or to keep the tongue from blocking his air passage. I remember that it was terrifying to watch him writhe and struggle like this. But then it would be over. And Laddie would get up. I don’t remember how long it took him to recover. Yet, he did.

            And Alice. My sweet tortoiseshell. The seizure she had at 1 am. She had diabetes. I’d given her the shot that evening before going to bed. But I’d done it wrong. I knew I had. Blood had popped out from the needle. I’d quickly removed it. Then she seemed fine. Owen Hill and I went to bed. On the futon in the living room at the bungalow on 63^rd street.  Then at 1 a.m, she woke us having a seizure. Her poor little body was shaking and she was foaming at the mouth and luckily one of us, probably Owen, had the presence of mind to run to the fridge, grab the sugar or anti –sugar mixture-- I can’t remember which, taking a bit on his finger---stuffing it in her little mouth. The shaking stopped.  We rushed her to Pet Emergency on University-- every pet owner’s nightmare --but she was saved that time. The vet said she was lucky. That we did what we did. Yet after that I never gave her another shot. I couldn’t live through another seizure.

            She lived a few years after this episode even without the shots. Yet the image is still in my mind. And I shudder.

            Now, I can’t get the voice of Baby’s mom shouting in frustration and panic out of my brain: “JOHN!!!! GET IN HERE!!! SHE’S HAVING A SEIZURE!!!!!”

            I try to shake it off as I turn up 31^st street. Try to focus on the mocking bird’s loud song and the too hot stillness of a day that promises heat and no swim.

            Oh, Baby. I hope you’re okay!

            I walk on….    It’s a another day in the neighborhood. A large orange tabby appears from behind a car, meows loudly, and then saunters away….And, I think to myself how lucky I am to be walking walking walking under the too-bright morning sun.