Fiction by S. S. Presby
“Sounds Like Joni Mitchell” was the first-place winner in fiction in the 2024 Golden Quill Writing Contest.
Buddy is dying today. It’s a bad day for it, but it’s happening.
Sheldon didn’t know what was going to happen afterwards, when there was no one. But he had to kill Buddy, because he loved the big guy.
Buddy lay in his favorite spot with his back against the wall, on a sheet of vinyl flooring that Sheldon had bought at Do-It Center and spread over the carpet to protect it from explosions. Buddy’s legs trembled every few seconds, like he was running down his last deer.
“It’s okay Sonny,” Sheldon said softly. “It’s okay, big guy.”
Sonny was Buddy and Buddy was Sonny. His official vet name was Sonny. But over the years he had acquired a lot of names: Buddy, Big Guy, Beast, Bud Boy, Budoou, Buzzard, Buster, Buzzy, Buzz. But Buddy was the name they had used the most. He responded to all of them, to the feeling that lay underneath the names, to the love. They had given him a lot of love.
Sheldon sat on the floor with his back against the wall and his legs out in front of him. He rubbed Buddy’s neck and cheeks softly.
“Sweet Buddy, sweet boy.” Sheldon’s eyes got hot. “My big guy!”
Buddy thumped his tail.
Thump-thump. Thump-thump.
Sheldon felt a rush of hot liquid fill up his belly. He leaned down and kissed the big dog’s face. Buddy’s breath was beyond rancid.
“Oh Buzz, you need a mint like nobody’s business.”
Thump-thump. Thump-thump.
Sheldon looked at his phone and the text from the euthanasia lady. She was on her way ten minutes ago.
“How about some turkey, big guy?”
Thump-thump. Thump.
Buddy’s tail was getting tired.
Sheldon’s mouth twisted down into a thin rail. “Take it easy, Buzz. I’ll be right back.”
The death lady had told him that it was fine to feed Buddy while she did the injections, so Sheldon bought two pounds of organic turkey from Sprouts. He walked stiffly to the kitchen, sadness making his legs seem far away. He jerked opened the fridge, and one of Laura’s face serums fell over. Sheldon stared at the stoppered bottle lying on its side. Its screw top was tight, so none had spilled. Laura was always very neat. He picked up the bottle gently. Touching Laura’s things hurt, made him crazy and pissed all over again.
He dropped the vial into the trash without reading the label.
“Guess you didn’t really need that one.” He said to the empty kitchen.
Sheldon took out the sliced turkey, set it on the counter, got out a plate and unfolded two slices. Then he snorted. “Fuck am I doing?” He dumped the whole lump of sliced turkey onto the plate in a two-pound pile and carried it into the front room. He tore off a hunk of meat as he walked and ate it.
He sat down on the floor next to Buddy with the plate in his lap. “That’s some pretty good shit, my bud.”
Thump-thump. Thump-thump.
Buddy’s nose was still alive, still running fast and hopeful.
Sheldon broke off a small hunk of meat without bothering to unfurl a slice and held it front of Buddy’s face. “Here you go, boy.”
Buddy snapped forward too hard and faster than Sheldon thought possible.
Sheldon jerked his hand before Buddy’s loving teeth snapped to the bone. He stroked Buddy’s neck gently. “Okay Bud, it’s okay, easy does it.”
Buddy was blind from the cancer and his movements were stiff and erratic. Before he got sick, Buddy had weighed over a hundred pounds. Now his ribs poked out like sticks, but his coat was still thick. All the carnage was happening on the inside.
Sheldon rubbed Buddy’s head and stroked his body until he relaxed. “That’s a good boy, Bud, take is slow.” Sheldon moved the turkey back into range, and this time the big dog took the bite gently.
“That’s a good boy, just a little at a time, sweet guy.”
Time slowed down. It was just Sheldon and Bud. He fed Bud small chunks of turkey and let time roll backwards. Let what used to be fill up his eyes.
He and Laura had gotten Buddy as a puppy from the Humane Society in Pasadena. They sat in the car after their initial intake interview, and Sheldon laughed his ass off while Laura imitated the humorless, nasally adoption consultant.
What kind of pets have you owned?
Do you plan to have children?
Why or why not?
How big is the yard?
What sort of surface?
How high is the fence?
What did your parents fight about?
Did they yell at each other?
Did they yell at you?
Was corporal punishment used in your childhood home?
Who is the Alpha in your pack?
Why?
Have either of you ever sought, obtained, or been subject to a restraining order?
How much physical interaction do you plan to have with the dog?
How about with each other?
What is the plan when and if you split up?
Do you drink or do drugs?
Why or why not?
Sheldon had laughed until his sides hurt. Until snot came out of his nose and he peed himself a little.
Laura said, “We could have a pet human a lot easier.” She did a Groucho take with her eyebrows and Sheldon cracked up again. “Just take out the diaphragm and get busy,” she said.
Sheldon held out another hunk of turkey, but Buddy was done. He laid his head down and was panting hard. His legs trembled like he was shivering.
“It’s okay Buddy,” Sheldon rubbed the dog’s face and ears gently. “You’re okay, sweet guy.”
The rain had blown out about midnight, and a fist of arctic cold punched in behind it. Sheldon had set up a space heater next to Buddy’s bed, and the air around them was warm, but Buddy wasn’t panting because he was hot, he was panting because he hurt.
Sheldon set the plate of turkey on the coffee table. He pulled a Mexican blanket off the couch, laid it over Buddy, and sat back down.
“Pet human,” he said out loud.
But there was no pet human for him and Laura. Never going to be.
A few months after they got Buddy, they had taken out the diaphragm and went all in on the pet human enterprise. After trying for more than a year, Laura had gone to the doctor and found out that her fallopian tubes were in tatters. She had undergone a painful medical procedure in an effort to open up the tubes. The doctors had essentially pumped fluid inside her and tried to blast open her lady bits.
Sheldon stroked Buddy’s body gently under the blanket. He was so skinny. He puked up almost everything now. All that was getting fed was the fucking cancer. Sheldon kept touching the dog’s hair, and memories blocked his eyes like dense evergreens.
He remembered the bathroom door.
It was a few months after the tube blasting, and Laura had missed her period. It was a Saturday. He heard the toilet lid close and, sixty seconds later, sobbing. A few moments later she came out of the bathroom crying hard.
“Oh babe, I’m sorry, so sorry,” Sheldon said and tried to put his arms around her. But she pushed him away and thrust the home test in front of his face.
“Blue, but blue is positive,” he said.
Laura was crying so hard she couldn’t speak, but she let him hug her, and Sheldon felt his heart running out to the horizon in every direction all at once.
But that’s how God has a fucking jolly. He, she, them, it—whatever—is fucking pitiless.
The embryo had lodged in Laura’s left fallopian tube instead of the uterus. She was pregnant, and they were both ecstatic for about three weeks, until the pain got really bad and she started bleeding.
“What a fucking laugh,” Sheldon said out loud, and Buddy’s ears twitched.
Sheldon took his hand out from under the blanket and rubbed his own face and head, giving himself a little petting. He tried to breath, tried to let go.
Buddy had a deep tremor and his whole body shook.
“Oh Bud,” Sheldon said and put his hand on the big dog’s neck. The sharp smell of wrecked tuna and shit leaked out from under the blanket.
Sheldon’s sigh was almost a laugh. “Guess that about sums it up.”
The tech that did Laura’s ultrasound was matter of fact. He nodded his head in confirmation. “Ectopic,” was all he said.
Just that one word, “ectopic,” like that should have explained everything, balanced off all their wild hope, dissolved away catastrophe.
They heard the heartbeat on the monitor. It was so strong, so clear. Swoosh-swoosh, swoosh-swoosh. Swoosh-swoosh, swoosh-swoosh.
Thump-thump. Thump-thump.
Buddy was thumping his tail in shit.
“Fuck,” Sheldon said.
He got up and trudged to the service porch then brought back two buckets filled with warm soapy water, paper towels, and rags. He kneeled down and went to work with paper towels cleaning up the chunks and slicks of slime. Once he had scraped and dry-wiped as best he could, he used a rag and warm water to bathe Buddy’s bum and then sopped up the shitty water with more paper towels.
Buddy’s body stopped shaking, but his legs were still in full tremor.
“That’s a good boy, Buddy. Such a good boy, it’s over now. It’s going to be . . ..” Sheldon’s voice caught. He took the mess to the kitchen, stuffed the shitty towels into the trash, put the buckets outside, pulled out the trash bag, and took it to the bin.
“Isn’t there any way to move it,” Laura had asked the tech. “It’s only a few inches, a few centimeters.” Her voice broke, and she pushed Sheldon away when he tried to hold her.
The tech looked at her like she was crazy. “It’s ectopic,” he said again, enunciating each syllable like they were morons.
Sheldon wanted to bash the tech’s head with the ultrasound wand, do a violent non-consensual proctologic exam on the bastard.
“Like a transplant,” Laura said. Her voice was animated by magical hope.
The tech shook his head and finished cleaning the instrument. Sheldon almost grabbed the guy as he left. He wanted to shake him and scream at him, make someone give them an answer. But it wasn’t the tech’s fault. It was nobody’s fault really.
In bed that night Laura had said, “I want to name him.”
Neither the doctors nor the tech had told them it was a boy, but Laura said she knew.
“He should at least have a name before he dies.”
She was teetering, right on the edge of another crying jag. Laura sat up in bed, and her legs were trembling. She kept clenching her hands into fists and then unclenching them and laying them flat on top of the covers.
“What name do you want to give him?” Sheldon asked.
“Henry,” she said. “After your dad.”
Sheldon’s dad had died a few months before, and even though his dad had been sick for a long time, Sheldon was having a hard time coming to grips.
“Sure,” Sheldon said. “He’d like that.”
“What about you?”
“I like it too.”
Laura cried then, they both did, and they held each other for a long time. Until Laura had to get up and go to the bathroom.
Sheldon was standing over the trash bin, and the lid was open. He didn’t know how long he had been standing there. He dropped in the bag of shit rags, closed the lid, and went back inside. He put in a new garbage bag and washed his hands.
He looked at his phone to check the time. The angel of death was getting close. Laura wasn’t. Laura wasn’t going to come.
Sheldon had messed up royally last night. He had gotten stoned enough to crack open his hurt and drunk enough to be stupid.
He had called her.
Lenny answered.
Lenny was younger than Laura. Lenny was taller than Sheldon. Laura met Lenny in acting class. Laura had known Lenny for about three years. Lenny had long hair. Lenny had pale blue eyes, and she had probably been fucking Lenny even when she and Sheldon were married because she had been working on a scene with him, and when she and Sheldon split up, Laura moved right into Lenny’s apartment.
“Hello,” Lenny said.
Even though it was Lenny’s apartment, and he was calling Lenny’s apartment, it threw Sheldon to hear Lenny answer the phone at Lenny’s apartment.
“Hello,” Lenny said again, louder and slightly irritated. “Look man, were not interested in any—”
“Hey. Sorry. This is Sheldon.”
There was a pause, and Sheldon could hear Lenny breathing.
“Is uh, is Laura there?”
More breathing. Lenny used up a lot of air. “Just a minute,” Lenny said.
The sound was muffled. Lenny probably had his big hairy hand over the phone. Lenny had a lot of hair, even on the backs of his big hands.
After a minute, Laura came on. “Hello.” Her voice sounded far away, like she wasn’t really listening, or was really tired, tired of all their sad history, or maybe she was stoned, or maybe she and Lenny had just fucked and she was feeling easy and relaxed.
“It’s Sheldon.”
“Yeah.”
“Uh, I just wanted to tell you that Buddy, uh, Sonny is. I’m going to have to put him down.”
The line was silent. No breathing at all, like everyone was underwater.
“He’s not doing good, well I mean,” Sheldon said. “Not doing good at all. He’s starting to suffer babe, um, Laura. So I, I called the lady, euthanasia lady and she’s coming tomorrow, two p.m.”
Laura breathed in. Laura breathed out. “Okay.”
“I didn’t know if you wanted to see him or say goodbye or whatever.”
“I can’t.”
Sheldon pictured her standing in the window of Lenny’s apartment and looking out at the street. She was wearing panties and one of Lenny’s giant-ass T-shirts. Lenny lived in a one bedroom right above the Sunset Strip. It was an expensive address for a struggling actor, but not so much for a Molly, ketamine, and mushroom dealer.
“Laura?”
“Yes.”
“Please come.”
“I can’t Sheldon.”
“But he, this is your last chance to see him.”
Laura took another slow breath. “You say goodbye for me Shel, you were always his favorite.”
Sheldon’s head got hot and huffed up. “Really? That’s it? Just no?”
Silence.
“It’s just for, like an hour, or less, a few minutes.”
“Sheldon.”
“Just one hour Laura, one fucking hour.”
“I’m going to hang up now.”
“Please don’t, please, please, I’m sorry.”
Laura didn’t hang up.
After a few seconds, Sheldon said, “I’m not asking for you to come back or anything, I, I just want . . . can’t we say goodbye to him together?”
Sheldon pictured Lenny shaking his long narrow head or stroking his ratty beard and making a stink face.
“Please Laura.”
“I can’t Sheldon. That’s . . . that’s all over. I’m sorry. Give him a kiss for me.”
The line went dead.
Sheldon had stared at the phone after Laura hung up and he stared at it now. He thought about calling her again, FaceTiming and making her watch the lady stick a needle into Buddy. Watch the dog that they both had loved die. But Sheldon knew that FaceTime doesn’t work like that. You can’t make someone pick-up, you can’t make them watch.
The doorbell rang. It was a fanfare. When they got the Nest, Laura had wanted to set the chime to something unique and regal, like King Henry the Eighth was making his big entrance. Sheldon had never heard it ring before. The house was deep in the San Fernando Valley, and no one ever came to the door.
He looked at the time. One fifty five.
Sheldon got mad.
Why was the lady early?
Why had they set the doorbell to that stupid fanfare?
Why hadn’t he changed it back?
He got madder.
Why did he have to do this?
Why hadn’t Laura come for just a few minutes?
Why didn’t he and Laura get their pet human?
Why had she run away?
Why hadn’t he helped his mom turn his dad so he didn’t get that fucking huge bed sore?
Why fucking cancer?
Why fucking, fucking, fucking Lenny?
Sheldon didn’t have answers, and the missing pieces were sinkholes inside him. They went deep. He stood up and yanked it open.
“Mr. Shelton?” the lady asked. She was smiling softly.
“What?”
“Mr. Shelton?”
Sheldon took a long breath and let it out. “No.”
The lady cocked her head.
“That’s not my name.”
The lady looked at her paperwork. She had one of those metal document boxes. “Morris Shelton?”
“Sort of. It’s Sheldon Morris.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
“That’s okay.” Sheldon had a wild thought. Maybe this was some kind of black cat in the matrix, maybe because she got his name wrong he didn’t have to go through with it, maybe he was going to get some kind of cosmic do-over, for his dad, for Laura, for all of it.
“Does that mean we got a reprieve from the Governor?” Sheldon tried to laugh.
“What?”
“A reprieve.” He tried to keep it going, but the lady didn’t get it, and Morpheus didn’t appear, and his lame joke fell to the ground and lay there.
She said, “I’m sorry, I don’t understand. Did you call Angels’ Wings?”
The mobile death lady had a soft fleshy face and big brown eyes. Her hair was dyed red. She had a backpack slung over her shoulder and her metal box/clipboard in her hands.
“Yeah. I called.” Sheldon and the woman stood facing each other for an awkward moment, then Sheldon said, “Please come in.”
The lady stepped inside.
“Would you like to sit down?”
“Thank you.” She sat on the couch, and Sheldon sat down on the ground next to Buddy. Buddy thumped his tail, and Sheldon rubbed his ears. She opened up her metal clipboard and took out some papers.
“I have a few questions I have to ask you,” she said. Her voice was warm and it warbled a little.
“Sure.
“This is Sonny?”
“Yeah, I mean we called him Buddy, call him Buddy, but yeah.”
“How old is Buddy?”
Sheldon said, “He’s almost fourteen.”
She nodded and smiled. She had a wide mouth, and her smile wasn’t in a hurry. She smelled like a hippie, like frankincense or patchouli or something.
She wrote on her form then looked at Sheldon. “I have that there were two owners, you and Laura. Is Laura here?”
Sheldon shook his head.
“Is she coming?”
“No. She and I are divorced.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
“Me too.”
The Lady smiled with her eyes, but her lips bent down like she was thinking about something. She got up from the couch. “Is it okay if I sit down here next to him?”
She sat down near Buddy’s bum and touched his legs gently.
“Careful,” Sheldon said.
The lady looked at him.
“He’s had a lot of accidents.”
She smiled again. She had nice teeth for a hippie. “Haven’t we all, hon. Haven’t we all.” She kept petting him, and Buddy stopped quivering. “He sure is a big guy.”
A wave from the deep rushed Sheldon. “The biggest,” he managed, and then the watery hurt overwhelmed him, and he was crying.
Sheldon rubbed Buddy’s face and neck fiercely. He bent his head forward, and his tears ran down into Buddy’s fur.
The lady kept petting Buddy with her right hand, but she reached her left hand out and put it on Sheldon’s shoulder. “He sure seems like a good dog, like a really, really good boy. Like he gets lots and lots of love.”
Sheldon was crying freely, fiercely. Gets love, gets love, got love. He finally said. “He did. He does.”
Buddy was the golden age, the morning sun, the first cup of coffee, possibility and a spring garden, hikes and laughter and sex.
The best there ever was.
The Lady’s name was Charlotte. She was strong. After it was over, she slid the body bag under Buddy all by herself.
They sat together on the couch for a good minute, and then she said, “I’m sorry Sheldon, but I’m going to need you to help carry him.”
Sheldon was glad that she said him, not it. That she was still talking about Buddy like he was a being not a thing. “Sure,” he said.
She put her hand on his forearm. “You did the right thing. It was time, and you let him cross over without any pain, in peace and in love.”
“If you’re trying to make me cry again, it’s not going to work.”
“Okay, Mr. Tough Guy.” Charlotte laughed.
She had a nice laugh, it was deeper than you’d think.
Charlotte had an old Honda Passport SUV with the first row of rear seats removed. The side door was open, and music played softly from the Honda’s stereo.
“Let’s set him right here,” Charlotte said, and they laid the bag down on a plush dog bed in the back of the Honda.
Charlotte used a fresh Mexican blanket to cover him.
Sheldon felt heat rush to his eyes again. He said, “That’s a nice blanket.”
Charlotte smiled. “My husband and I used to like to go down the coast to El Sauzal.”
“Where?”
“Near Mazatlan, in Baja.”
“We used to go to Puerto Nuevo.”
“Oh.”
“That’s where we got them. Our blankets. The one I laid over Buddy.” Sheldon wanted to keep talking to Charlotte. He didn’t want the talking to end, didn’t want the moment after the talking was over to arrive.
“Good Bye Sheldon,” Charlotte said, and she put her arms out for a hug.
Sheldon hugged her. The smell of hippie oils was strong. Charlotte closed the doors and climbed into her van. Sheldon walked up the short driveway and stood on the porch.
Charlotte backed into the street.
The Honda made a loud “thunk!” when she switched from reverse into drive, but Charlotte’s windows were all open, even though it was cold, and the music was blasting for Buddy and for Sheldon, and it sounded like Joni Mitchell.
Shannon Presby was raised by beatniks and grew up down the street from a Manson crime scene. After high school, he went feral for a time. Later, he was an actor and studied with Stella Adler in NYC, went to law school, clerked for the U.S. Court of Appeals, and became a criminal prosecutor. He’s still doing that gig. He is also an MFA student at UCR Palm Desert working on a weird crime novel. His first published short story, Soundtrack, appeared this summer in volume 11 of Kelp Journal. Shannon likes brown beer, wild places, and words.