Weird Tales of the Wild, Wooly Midwest
These are the stories that greeted me upon my return to Appleton, WI: 1. Our venerable family pooch, Dandy, is now on Doggy Valium. She's 17 and still very chipper, but mostly blind, mostly deaf, and now, apparently, a little daft. Last Friday, she awoke from a nap, took one look at my brother, and started racing around the house, barking madly like she used to when she'd chase cars down the street at a more tender age. She ran so quickly, even with her fat belly and bum little legs, that my brother couldn't catch her and had to call both parents home from work. They tackled her, round about an hour later, trapped her in a blanket, and rushed her to the vet, who pronounced: "Dogs dream frequently; they often dream that they are puppies frolicking. Dandy woke up without realizing her dream had ended and continued to frolic. She's just a little panicked." She is now, I am happy to report, sore but sedate. 2. My aforementioned brother -- the quiet one, the peacemaker -- got pummeled by a bouncer last night, at the neighborhood bar owned by a good friend of my dad's. I was sleeping in the loft above my parent's room (my bedroom, and the rest of the downstairs, have been out of commission since June due to flood damage). Around 4am, Jim came in and announced calmly, "Mom? Dad? I got into a fight at the bar tonight. Just thought you should know." He said this in full voice, not whispering or trying to rouse them first. Very matter-of-fact. They rolled over and began questioning him in a surprisingly nonchalant and alert manner: "Oh, really? What happened?" I lay quietly, sniffling and realigning the flannel sheets I'd kicked off in my sleep, as he recounted the details. It wasn't my fault, I just got caught in the middle. I was trying to stop it, and I just got caught, you know? It was packed. EVERYONE was there, like 20 or 30 people I knew. The bouncer just started yelling at Keith -- we were getting ready to leave, and he just started yelling, like, "Get the F outta here, F this, F that, Get outta my F-ing face." And Keith was just like, "All right, man, chill, we're leaving, it's cool." And I tried to calm him down, and he shoved me, and I shoved him back, and then he just nailed me, and I kinda tackled him. It was crazy. Everyone went crazy. -Are you okay? Well, I mean, I got hit in the face. I just didn't want you to wake up and see me sleeping with a fat lip and my nose all bashed, and see my bloody shirt, and get scared. It wasn't my fault. -Did anyone get arrested? Yeah, Mark did, probably til Monday. [Of course Mark did. If any one of his friends did, it had to be Mark.] He and Joey tried to go after the bouncer after he hit me. I didn't do anything, though. There were all these witnesses who said I didn't do anything. -You didn't get a ticket or anything? Oh, well, so the cops said there were people saying I was trying to start something all night, like I was shoving people and stuff. He said the DA was there, and people told him I was starting something. But Ron [the owner] told them, No, I know him, I know his dad, he wouldn't do anything like that, he wasn't causing trouble. Just thought you should know. [rustling] Oh, hi, Christy. -Oh, okay. Good night. And so my baby brother -- the quiet one, the peacemaker -- owes the cops a signed statement, once he's of "sound mind" again. *** I just watched Magnolia for the second time, about a week ago. And I just finished reading The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, by Haruki Murakami. Life imitates art, especially weird art, especially all at once.
