punch, roll with it-but roll with laughter. Catch the wave, dude.
This is how Bobby lives, and he is the happiest and most wellbalanced
person I have ever known.
I try to live as Bobby Halloway does, but I’m not as successful at it
as he is. Sometimes I thrash when I should float. I spend too much
time anticipating and too little time letting life surprise me.
Maybe I don’t try hard enough to live like Bobby. Or maybe I try too
hard.
Orson went to the pool that surrounded the sculpture. He lapped
noisily at the clear water, obviously savoring the taste and the
coolness of it.
I remembered that July night in our backyard when he had stared at the
stars and fallen into blackest despair. I had no accurate way to
determine how much smarter Orson was than an ordinary dog. Because his
intelligence had somehow been enhanced by the project at Wyvern,
however, he understood vastly more than nature ever intended a dog to
understand. That July night, recognizing his revolutionary potential
yet-perhaps for the first time-grasping the terrible limitations placed
on him by his physical nature, he’d sunk into a slough of despondency
that almost claimed him permanently. To be intelligent but without the
complex larynx and other physical equipment to make speech possible, to
be intelligent but without the hands to write or make tools, to be
intelligent but trapped in a physical package that will forever prevent
the full expression of your intelligence: This would be akin to a
person being born deaf, mute, and limbless.
I watched Orson now with astonishment, with a new appreciation for his
courage, and with a tenderness I had never felt before for anyone on
this earth.
He turned from the pool, licking at the water that dripped from his
chops, grinning with pleasure. When he saw me looking at him, he
wagged his tail, happy to have my attention or ‘just happy to be with
me on this strange night.
For all his limitations and in spite of all the good reasons why he
should be perpetually anguished, my dog, for God’s sake, was better at
being Bobby Halloway than I was.
Does Bobby have a wise strategy for living? Does Orson? I hope one
day to have matured enough to live as well by their philosophy as they
do.
Getting up from the bench, I pointed to the sculpture. “Not a
scimitar.
Not a moon. It’s the smile of the invisible Cheshire cat from Alice in
Wonderland.”
Orson turned to gaze up at the masterwork.
“Not dice. Not sugar cubes,” I continued. “A pair of either the
grow-small or grow-big pills that Alice took in the story.”
Orson considered this with interest. On video, he had seen Disney’s
animated version of this classic tale.
“Not a symbol of the earth. Not a blue bowling ball. A big blue
eye.
Put it all together and what does it mean?”
Orson looked at me for elucidation.
“The Cheshire smile is the artist laughing at the gullible people who
paid him so handsomely. The pair of pills represent the drugs he was
high on when he created this junk. The blue eye is his eye, and the
reason You can’t see his other eye is because he’s winking it.
The bronze pile at the bottom is, of course, dog poop, which is
intended to be a pungent critical comment on the work-because, as
everyone knows, dogs are the most perceptive of all critics.”
If the vigor with which Orson wagged his tail was a reliable
indication, he enjoyed this interpretation enormously.
He trotted around the entire fountain pool, reviewing the sculpture
from all sides.
Perhaps the purpose for which I was born is not to write about my life
in search of some universal meaning that may help others to better
understand their own lives-which, in My more egomaniacal moments, is a
mission I have embraced. Instead of striving to make even the tiniest
mark on the world, perhaps I should consider that, possibly, the sole
purpose for which I was born is to amuse Orson, to be not his master
but his loving brother, to make his strange, difficult life, as easy,