Comet's Tale (10 page)

“So you don't shoot people who bring dogs in here?”

“Technically the owner doesn't allow pets, but well-mannered dogs aren't a problem. Especially a dog trained to help somebody.” Linda was eyeing Comet's vest. Perhaps I wasn't trapped in some kind of time warp after all.

“Maybe you could give seminars to your fellow businessmen.” I recapped our recent encounter. “Trust me. In two days, I'm going back there and I'll be expecting a whole new perspective.”

“Are you here to see a particular exhibit?” Linda asked.

Little did she know I was entirely ignorant of the southwestern art scene; I had just thought the gallery would be a good training opportunity. “I don't know enough about art to know what I'm looking at. But I'd like to see what you have.”

When Freddie visited me, she regularly flipped through magazines about southwestern art. Once she had shown me a portrait of a Native American man that had struck her as especially evocative. I was surprised to see that same painting hanging in the upper floor of the gallery. The image was at once realistic and otherworldly, the saturated colors seeming to shimmer on the surface of the canvas. A shirtless young Indian stared directly at the viewer, his skin faintly glowing, his expression forthright and somehow modern. He was set against a stark white background in which a distant moon hung. His spare headdress—just two feathers—was visually balanced against the moon, and circular tribal tattoos covered his shoulders. Perhaps because of the precise, almost mystical balance of the visual elements, and the frank yet unreadable expression on the young man's face, it was difficult for me to take my eyes off the painting once I started looking at it.

“What do you think?” Linda had walked up behind me, but I was so captivated that I didn't even turn around. “The artist's name is Ben Wright. He's part Cherokee. Ben's work deals with ancient Plains cultures—Crow, Lakota, Cheyenne, and others.”

Born in Iowa and living in Nebraska, a man didn't use expressions like
spiritual, moving,
or
engaging,
especially in public. “Wow,” was the best I could muster.

I wasn't a player in the art acquisition market, but this day became the genesis of a fascinating education into that world. Over subsequent visits, Linda taught me the basics of emerging and established artists and gave me a primer on art, from furniture to glass to bronze to acrylics. Comet was the Wal-Mart greeter on those occasions, though politely keeping her distance from the other customers until I gave permission to say hello. The gallery's staircase became our training area. Comet's stoic stance while steadying me was a far cry from her former furtive sprints up and down stairways. Fortunately, she showed no interest in any further artistic investigation. The apology that stammered from clerk and owner alike on our return visit to the first gallery seemed to have cured her brief dalliance as an art critic. Still, it was nice to know that my sidekick, like my wife, wasn't shy about finding unique ways to make a point.

9

FEBRUARY–MAY 2001—ARIZONA

All that winter I focused on training Comet. Now that she understood what the goal was, she eagerly absorbed new duties. I taught her to brace me from the front when I got in and out of chairs. If I needed her to, she supported my weight when I walked. She waited patiently in front of automatic doors, allowing me time to get through. When spasms threw me to the floor, she learned to lean down, let me grasp her collar, and pull myself to my knees and up.

Before training Comet as a service dog, I had watched her interact with the various stuffed animals she collected on our shopping trips. When torturing these toys, she used her front paws and feet like a cat, pulling and swatting the animal, then prying it far enough off of the floor with a paw for a firm mouth clinch. It was this dexterity that I had taken advantage of when teaching her to open doors. At first she had mouthed the animal attached to the door lever, pulling it down. By now, though, Comet had learned that it was easier to utilize a front leg and paw to push the lever down like a human.

When I saw how easily Comet thrashed the stuffed animals, I realized that I would have to teach her how to temper her powerful touch. Because greyhounds are tall and lanky, many people assume they're also fragile. Their unusually flexible spine allows them to curl into a sleeping posture (again, like a cat) that takes up far less room than required by most large breeds. But the feline delicacy is all an optical illusion. Greyhounds are not only tall, they're big and strong. People are amazed after examining Comet's spread footprint that it is actually as large or larger than that of most retrievers and labs. And greyhounds make up for lack of fat or body mass with lean, strong, fast-twitching muscle fiber. In fact, greys have a larger heart and a higher percentage of fast-twitch muscle than almost any other breed. Their structural strength, from spine to leg muscles, allows all four feet to be off the ground during each running stride, both when contracted and extended. This double-suspension rotary gallop is the fastest of all canine running gaits. What all this means is that nothing on this dog is dainty or merely decorative, including the neck, which, as I observed, can propel a stuffed animal across a room at warp speed until something solid intervenes.

That was my challenge when it came to teaching Comet a potentially lifesaving skill: fetching a recent addition to our lives, my new cell phone. The first few times I threw the phone across the carpeted room and ordered Comet to fetch it, she tasted the plastic and spat it out like a rancher tasting escargot. I figured I'd solve that problem by tucking the phone inside a stuffed animal—I had plenty of fodder in the box of plush toys I had stashed in the garage. Comet quickly learned that if she brought me the ringing animal on the floor, she'd get a liver treat. The problem was, Comet wasn't a retriever. She didn't “fetch.” Instead, she would grasp the monkey-phone in her teeth, retract her long, muscular neck, and fling the thing at rocket speed across the room. Her first phone delivery was via airmail at ninety miles per hour aimed straight at my face. The bruise went away in about a week. After that, I learned to duck during our phone-training sessions. Two broken lamps and a few holes in the drywall were a small price to pay for intact cheekbones.

Eventually I removed the phone from the plush monkey. The only reason I didn't suffer any severe injuries was because Comet had learned to tolerate ringing plastic in her mouth long enough to quickly flip the phone to the floor near my feet, where I could pick it up with a mechanical grabber. Despite her displeasure with the taste, Comet was occasionally spirited enough to bang the cell phone off the solid surface closest to my head. I learned to be judicious in my requests for the phone (only in emergencies!) and with treats. Comet was rewarded only if nothing was broken and no blood was spilled.

In a few short months, Comet learned enough service skills to significantly improve my quality of life. Tasks that used to make me feel pissed off and demoralized became exercises in teamwork—functional choreography that made us both feel immensely satisfied with ourselves. The fact that the training process was often hilarious was a bonus that boosted my endorphins, taking my mind off the reality that with each passing day, I was a little less “able.”

The biggest surprise was how our service training transformed my life outside our home. When Comet's magnetic personality was brought into the shops and galleries of Sedona, my world began to expand in totally unexpected ways. Galleries outnumbered liquor establishments here, something I found astonishing. In the small towns where I grew up, only the churches outnumbered the bars. Linda was my guide to the creative community, introducing me to a host of talented painters, sculptors, and other artists. To me, the gallery scene was as exotic as a trip to Bali. The colors, textures, and even the smells—wood, oil paints, wool fibers, and mineral spirits—tingled my senses and ignited my imagination.

I couldn't believe these were the same places I had driven past countless times, barely registering them as quirky little storefronts. Without Comet, I never would have thought to explore the galleries. It would have been too hard to navigate the spaces without stumbling, and I would have been too self-conscious about my body. With Comet, I opened the doors and we were beckoned inside.

Three weeks after I first met Linda, Comet and I stopped by her gallery to say hello. In a courtyard to the side of the building, I saw a tall, powerfully built man standing in front of a blank canvas that rested on a worn wooden easel. His back was to us, so all I could see was shoulder-length dark hair woven with threads of gray, the straight locks flowing over a white T-shirt tucked into beltless blue jeans.

Linda came to greet us and quietly said, “That's Ben Wright. I've asked him to be an artist in residence this month.” She raised her voice and called, “Hey, Ben? Do you have time to meet some friends of mine?” Before he could answer she led us a few steps into the courtyard. On a shelf next to the easel I saw vials of paints and glass jars holding brushes, pencils, scrapers, knives, and other tools. A gentle wave of warm, dry air picked up the scent of mesquite, linseed oil, earth, and a hint of pungent sage. I'm sure that Comet was also absorbing the sounds and smells, but her eyes were focused on the back of the man who stood mutely in front of the canvas.

Just when the silence seemed to be reaching uncomfortable, the artist turned. His face was weathered, but his smile was bright, giving him a youthful look.

“Sorry,” he said. “I was just finishing blessing this space with some burning sage.” He stuck out his hand to shake mine, clearly assuming that an apology involving sage-smoke blessings was all in a day's work. Just for an instant, I expected him to introduce himself as Gandalf.

Ben was about six foot three and as big-boned and broad-chested as a college tight end. Although he was part Cherokee, his appearance was more Texas Baptist. If ever there was a human who exuded as much calm as a greyhound, it was Ben, and Comet picked up on that immediately. Ben wasn't wearing a uniform, but she forgave him, gliding over to where he stood and leaning her body against his legs. Within five minutes, she had lowered herself into a prone position in a shady spot next to Ben's easel, inviting the work to continue.

Ben accepted Comet's invitation. “Hey, Wolf, why don't you guys stick around and watch me work? Maybe we can both learn something.” Thus began sessions that lasted several weeks and immersed me in a world as fascinating as any containing goblins and elves.

“I concentrate on Plains cultures and traditions,” Ben told us that first day. “I've personally explored how the ancient teachings are universal and applicable to everybody, all colors, all nations. Like many aboriginal tribes around the world, the Plains Indians believed that everything—every creature, person, insect, star—is connected and interdependent. Life is not to be lived as a pyramid, with man on top and everything else below. These cultures believed that life is a circle, connected to all and ending where it began. So even though I'm part Cherokee, my paintings try to enlighten everybody, spiritually and visually.” Ben stopped and grinned at me. “Heavy stuff for an Indian, huh?”

“Yeah, but heavier for someone so white he glows in the dark.”

That first afternoon, Ben didn't draw a thing. No painting. No sketches. It was as if he were laying the invisible footings and foundation for a house. How could I not be mystified and excited? While we were in the courtyard, I hadn't thought once about my own situation. I was in the moment for the first time in many months, maybe years. I looked at Comet in the rearview mirror as I drove home. “Art is magic, Comet. And I love magic.”

The next time we visited the courtyard studio, I asked Ben, “How do you know what to paint?” He laughed at the bluntness of my question but tried his best to answer it.

“I've been mentally composing for the past few days. This painting I'm working on now”—I double-checked; the canvas was still blank—“is inspired by some passages written by Guru Rinpoche. No, he's not American Indian; he's Buddhist. Anyway, he wrote about how Buddhists think the basic cause of suffering is self or ego, an obsession that keeps a person from knowing the real world. It's a false world if ego is the center of the universe. I'm reading this and seeing the words as a face that has features from different ethnic groups. An indigenous universal man, if you will. I'm going to convey my interpretation of the guru's thoughts by painting that man.”

By our next visit, Ben had begun to draw. As he worked, he explained technical aspects of painting—glazing, color mixing, composition, spacing, and other details that completely absorbed me. “I apply several thin layers of clear glaze to all of my paintings because it further highlights the colors and provides depth from the light shimmering over the surface of the canvas,” he told me.

Understanding a work of art was like peeling away the layers of earth covering an archaeological site. Each level was only one piece of the final discovery. Just learning about the meaning inherent in one symbol, for instance the medicine wheel, was a lesson containing layers all its own. The wheel designated far more than the four directions. It was like North America's first encyclopedia, containing information about sacred colors and animals, earthly elements, spiritual signposts, and various human races. That was just one symbol. And Ben offered just one artist's perspective. And Sedona was full of artists.

Art became my own version of Buddhism. Because much of the focus was on the understanding and portrayal of others—other cultures, viewpoints, times, and beliefs—it allowed me to remove what I was going through from the center of the universe. My own pain and regret were insignificant when compared with the world as it really was. Living was bigger and better and brighter than any one individual could be. I recalled that the actress Ethel Barrymore had observed something similar about getting outside of yourself: “The more things you love, the more you are interested in, the more you enjoy, the more you are indignant about, the more you have left when anything happens.”

On Valentine's Day Freddie came down for a brief visit. Her eyes sparkled when she saw how far Comet and I had come in our training, and I could tell that she was proud of us. Even better, for the first time in much too long I had something fun to share with her. Comet and I escorted Freddie to our favorite galleries and introduced her to Linda and a few other artist friends. The collection of Ben Wright's work at Linda's gallery left an especially strong impression on my wife. Sunday morning, as I began to shave, I saw a small picture of one of Ben's paintings taped to the mirror above my sink.

“I can't get the images out of my head,” Freddie confessed. “I know we may not have the money, but I cut that picture out of a magazine just to dream.”

“You're right, we can't afford it,” I said, but the wheels were already spinning.

I wanted to make a grand gesture. I wanted to inspire something in Freddie besides anxiety. Being parent, breadwinner, supervisor of employees, and the only glue that seemed to be holding the family together was eroding Freddie's normally feisty spirit. That would have been difficult enough without the additional strain of worrying about my emotional and physical well-being. I had the distinct impression that despite her compassion, Freddie was reaching her limit. There was no denying that during our phone calls her remarks had become increasingly clipped and impatient. Being separated most of the year was a burden so heavy that it was obviously stressing the underlying structure of our marriage. Catastrophic failure was a distinct possibility. If I happened to reach one of the girls by phone, their end of the conversation was like a political press statement—brief and devoid of meaningful content. I wanted these incredible ladies to know that my love was constant even if I wasn't.

When Freddie left after Valentine's Day, I called Linda and told her that I wanted to give my wife something that would surprise and delight her and, if possible, pay homage to what was good about our life together. A few conversations later we had concocted a plan that I knew would fit the bill, timed to coincide with Freddie's next visit around Easter.

The evening stars dimmed when I saw Freddie's smile as she emerged from the airport shuttle on the night of the surprise. It would take place after a reception Linda was hosting at the gallery to honor some of the artists whose work was displayed there. Freddie had barely been able to contain herself when I told her about my Art 101 lessons with Ben Wright, and she knew that he would be in attendance that night along with many other artists. After the gallery reception, a group of about thirty of us met at a nearby restaurant, where Freddie and I were seated at a table with Ben, Linda, and a few other artists. Enjoying a fine meal in the company of creative minds was an experience completely at odds with the hundreds of law and medical gatherings we had attended in the past. These people saw the world differently. The discussion didn't revolve around politics or local gossip; instead, they reported on a unique color spotted in the diffuse light at the base of a canyon, or laughed about how conversations were similar to the moving shadows in a stand of cottonwood trees, or marveled at how local river deposits could make the most wonderful adobe clay.