I’ve always had a way with animals. Place a cat, dog, sheep, or pig in front of me and I’ll find a way to make friends. This quality led to my current line of work.
I was in the library and had just met the librarian of this little town. The library wasn’t much bigger than a gas station. The librarian wasn’t much bigger than a broom. We were making chit-chat and she asked me what I did and I said animal sitter. And professional reader. The librarian, nice lady in her seventies with a bucket of grey hair, mentioned she had a friend who was always trying to get out of town to visit his brother but could never get anyone to watch his animals, and I was quick to respond, “Well let your friend know that I’m his gal, because that’s what I do. I’m a real animal person.”
I got back to reading. In about twenty minutes, the librarian came over to the couches and apologized for interrupting but wanted to let her know that her already friend had gotten back to her and was wondering if I could do as soon as this weekend. I said, “I can absolutely do this weekend!” and the librarian took this and went away excited.
Then it was my turn to interrupt the librarian. “Hi. How do I login to the computer?”
“There’s login instructions,” she pointed out.
“Oh, right. Those. Thank you. I just figured, since I don’t have an account…yet.”
“It works for all users.”
“Are you online?” I asked some reason.
“Gosh no,” she sighed.
I have a seat all to myself and log into a computer from easily fifteen years ago, and it works on the first try. I double click. I enter the search bar: Best tips for taking care of someone else’s animals. I thought I knew but it turns out wow, no. “I’m going to have to print these,” I said aloud like an in important journalist working a juicy lead, and each page shot out of the printer like a thing of wonder, hot and ready to go. It had been a while since I’d watched a printer in action and I marveled at its instantaneous efficiency. Just remarkable.
I owed the library one dollar at five cents a sheet, and went to pay it but the librarian wouldn’t allow it. “On the house,” she said, smiling and watering the potted succulents. “We’ll see you again. And good luck with Gunnar’s place.” “Thanks for all the help,” I nodded to her. “Have a great day.”
I went back to my apartment and studied my notes. This was going to be a solid way to make money going forward. Everyone in the country had animals, and everyone occasionally wanted to get away. All I had to do was stay healthy, flexible, and helpful. I sat on the couch with my phone on the table and watched traffic go through town. I hated living in this dump. I couldn’t have any animals, but that didn’t erase the smells of the past from sone who did have animals, because it never smelled normal in here. Sometimes a draft would come through and I’d think, “Did they use to keep horses in here?” A lot of homes around here started out as carriage houses, perhaps that was how this place started. Today it smelled strongly of a dirty road, flowery laundry softener, fresh mud, and lingering odors from ancient animals. Candles and incense worked but they only masked what was really going on. If I could ever find a way out I would jump at the chance for something different.
My phone chimed with the text message, and I brought the address up on Google Maps. Oh wow, this guy was really out there. Nothing but woods and fields and streams on all sides of him. No wonder he couldn’t find help, he lived in the middle of nowhere. I grabbed my bags and put them in the car. One of the other tenants in the building was just coming around the corner. “Where you going?” she snarled. “I’m going out to the country to get some fresh air,” I said. “Isn’t this the country?” she wondered. “Yeah, but we’re in the middle of town,” I reminded her. “It’s still the country,” she said, and went inside.
It was quite the drive out. A few trailer parks, a campsite. Homes that looked quieter than a church mouse. The Seneca Nation was only a few miles down the road. You would hate to get lost out here. There’s nobody around and nothing’s marked. Then there’s this great old barn and old farmhouse that was fixed up maybe twenty years ago and this monstrous lone maple tree in the yard arched over the house like a huge crane. In the yard on a rocking chair was presumably Gunnar. He didn’t look old, but he moved that way. He rose from the chair slowly and smiled as he came to the driveway. “Dagny,” he said, and extended his hand, which I shook, and it was the hand of an artist and the hand of a baker and the hand of a person who cared for animals. I could feel all that instantaneously. He would expect great care for his animals. “Pull up a chair,” he said of the open rocker beside his. “Tell me about yourself. Thank you so much for doing this, by the way. I’ve needed to get out for a while. But I’m sure in your line of work that’s what you’re used to, coming to the rescue.”
“Indeed,” I said. “Wow, it’s really beautiful here. Have you lived here my whole life?”
“Well, not my whole life, but a lot of it. I didn’t used to have all the animals. It was a lot easier back then. But we do it because we love them, right?”
“We sure do.”
“Marybeth said you were a real animal person,” he said.
“Marybeth? Oh! The librarian. Yes. I told her that.”
“Have you ever done chickens before?”
“Oh yeah,” I lied. “But I like to come into each job pretending that I know nothing, and really just seeing it as the owner sees it. Lots of listening. I don’t like to bring any preconceived notions. I like to do it exactly as the owner wants. I’m just here to be you, but me. So if you just show me the way you do it, that’s the way I’ll do it.”
“I like your method,” he said. “A real student. That’s the only way to learn anything. You first have to admit you know nothing.”
“Knowing nothing has never been a problem for me.”
“That’s great. Are you ready for the tour?”
I rubbed my hands together. “Let’s do it.”
“Oh, your shoes,” he said. “You have boots, right?”
“Boots, yeah. You know what—oh no—I forgot them. I wasn’t even thinking. I can go back for them?”
“No, there’s no time. You can wear mine, and I think I have some others, a tiny bit smaller, that could work.”
I laced up his extra books. “How do those feel?” he asked. “Like they were waiting for me,” I said. “That’s great,” he said.
He wasn’t much older than me. So what had happened to him? He looked like someone who woke up everyday and wondered how his life had gotten away from him, when all he had to do was look around and see paradise. How could he looked so stressed in paradise? Why did his body hurt so much?
He said the old barn used to have cows but that was long before his family owned it. Over the years his family used the barn primarily for storage, but these days it was where he made his art and raised his chickens, who lived in the sprawling cement basement with automatic doors that allowed them to free-range during the day. “The doors slide down right at sundown,” he explained. “Neat,” I said. “So in the morning, once you let them out of the inner cage, these doors will open with the sunrise, and they can do it all over again.” “Got it,” I said. “Their feeders are full, same for their waterers,, but keep an eye of them because they get dirty and blocked by gunk when the chickens goof off and start kicking stuff around. They need to be clean and clear of debris otherwise they’ll get sick.” “I’ll make sure they’re always clean and clear of debris,” I promised.
We kicked off our boots and came into the living room of the old house. You could feel the age in here. Probably a few generations of people coming and going. This guy isn’t going to stay here forever. He was probably trying to find a way. If I had the means, I’d love to make him an offer. It was the kind of place I could really settle down in. He pointed out his cat and dog on the couch and recliner. “That’s Skittles,” he said of the orange cat in the chair, “and this is Pumpkin,” he said of the brown bear wagging its tail on the couch. She had age spots around her eyes, making her look wise and battle-tested.
We shook hands at his Jeep. “Have a great time,” I told him. He looked a tad skeptical. “Your animals are going to be fine. Go. We’ll be great without you.”
So he drove off, and left paradise to me.
I fell into the routine which Gunnar had designed so thoughtfully. Everything was right it should be. Coffee beans, grinder, mugs above the sink that he made himself. The living room had that classic living room feel with the couch in the center of the room and space behind it. I had expected the TV to be a little bigger. It outperformed my phone, but I had expected a cinema. Still, it had all the subscriptions and I would for sure be catching up on shows. In fact, now seemed like a good time to start, and I plopped down with Pumpkin and Skittles and got to work. As I got a good new show going, I propped my feet on the coffee table in front of me and put my hands behind my back and said, “Okay, Dag. You’re an animal person now. Don’t mess it up.”
I was still watching Netflix when I realized it was completely dark outside, and I thought about the chickens and remembered about the automatic doors and knew I was in the clear. I watched a little longer, finishing the frozen pizza I’d baked.
“Okay, guys, ready for bed?” I asked the group.
The guest room upstairs was mine. It had three windows and all faced the stream, which audibly churned in the dark. Skittles jumped on the bed and Pumpkin slept on her bed next to mine. I couldn’t believe he went to bed like this every night.
In my sleep I heard a chicken. I woke up. I heard it again and flung off the sheets like a firefighter in the middle of the night and ran out half dressed into the moonlight and saw beside the barn a circle of white. It was the chicken. “Why are you out here?” I asked. She let me pick her up. “Hi, honey. Let’s go back to bed,” I said, and took her into the barn where the inner cage door was open, and the chickens were various state of roost around the greater barn interior, even upstairs with the art supplies and lawn mower. I ran my fingers through my hair in disbelief. “Okay, I’m going to finish sleeping, and take care of this first thing in the morning. Sound good, ladies? Everyone behave.” I went back to bed, but I heard something on the front porch. A scratching at the front door. I sat up and looked at the empty dog bed. “Pumpkin,” I said, and went downstairs and let her in. “Everyone back to bed!” I called.
A few hours later with a cup of coffee I opened all the doors on the barn and let everyone out for the day. Gunnar left a list on the fridge of things to do if I was bored. My choices were to clean the cat box, water the garden, clean the water and food bowls for both house animals and barn animals, and comb Pumpkin’s hair, which was shedding in big clumps. I decided to do a little of everything and quickly found that life was in the doing. It didn’t matter if it was for yourself or for others, but the secret to happiness was to be found in the doing, and I saw it all at once. That’s why this guy had surrounded himself with all his favorite things, so that he could do them everyday, even if they were hard. That’s why his body hurt. I felt invigorated caring for so many things at once. I wasn’t just an animal sitter, I was a caregiver.
As caregiver, it my job to assess where each animal was emotionally, and then to give them that which they were lacking. I followed the chickens around the yard, poked my head in the same weeds they did. I drank from the hose. I even tried sitting on a few of their eggs. Right there in the coop, I got down and carefully sat on the eggs just to see what it felt like, and it felt like I was rolling on an ocean of ovals.
I’d been looking for Skittles. She and I hadn’t quite bonded yet. While she slept on my bed, she mainly kept her distance during the day. When I finally cornered her on the front porch I couldn’t help but get down to pick her up. I wanted to have a little chat, but she swiped at me with her orange paw and drew instant blood. “Oww! Bad kitty!” I cried. I washed the cut in the kitchen sink and wondered about Cat Scratch Fever.
When I had some time in the afternoon I decided to utilize my chance at having a bath in a big country tub, and it did not disappoint. I was impressed with how hot the temperature could get. Bath salts, yes please, and remembered when I had snorted them at a music festival, thinking they were coke and later told the horrifying truth before reality got even more horrifying. I dropped a handful of synthetic cubes into the running water and watched the planes of existence slowly rise over my skin. The water appeared lavender in the shadowy white tub. I pondered a lifestyle in which I could do this everyday.
Before bed I decided to make good on my impulse to get a little more comfortable with my surroundings. I was caretaker, after all, not some vagrant. I hadn’t packed much, an error which I regretted, but what I had I would rather see hanging from a closest than continue to lie on the floor. The guest closet was perfectly adequate, but it just wasn’t me. For fun I had a look at the closet in the master bedroom. Oh yes, this was much better. I could go home and put my entire wardrobe in here. For now I started by removing Gunnar’s collection of flannels and jeans and carrying them into the guest closet and hanging them up with care. So much better. I opened the windows to listen to the stream in the dark but failed to locate it. Then I swapped the bedsheets, guest for master, and Pumpkin came in and stared at me disapprovingly. I pointed at her bed, “Lie down,” and she dropped her head and conceded.
I awoke early to singing birds and wet carpet. Pumpkin had urinated on the rug next to the bed, and when I stepped into it my weight pushed the urine around like a wave. I guess it’s my fault, but I honestly thought she was house-trained.
People honked and waved as I work outside, and it felt good to be recognized. When I got tired I went inside and took a nap upstairs in bed. Several hours passed. I was thirsty. I looked at my phone and read a text from Gunnar. “How’s everything? I’ll be home tomorrow.” “Everything’s great,” I texted back in the twilight before rolling over and plowing back into sleep.
I wasn’t caught completely off guard when Gunnar returned in the morning, but my back was turned as I was counting the chickens and kept coming up short. I met him on the grass where we had first sat together.
“Good trip?” I asked.
“Oh yeah. How are things? Any problems? Everyone’s accounted for?”
“Well, I did just turn up two short when counting them just now.”
“Were they in last night?”
“I think so. Yeah. They were in. I definitely counted every time. It’s why I noticed right now.”
“Do you have time to help me look for them?”
“I mean, I do have to get going. I have another job lined up. I’m sure they’re around. They probably just wandered down to the stream. You know what? I just thought of it. My other job can wait. I won’t go until they’re found. How about that? Let’s go find them.”
He scrunched his eyebrows and agreed to the search party.
We found them. Just as I said, they were down by the stream. It’s where I would have been. The sound of rolling water was simply too enticing. It’s a wonder more animals didn’t just stand there mesmerized by it. “Well, okay,” he said. “Now that everybody’s found I can pay you. Here you go.”
“Thank you,” I said, accepting the envelope of cash. “But I. I was thinking. What if, now hear me out, I stayed, and helped you with the animals?”
“No thanks,” he said. “Now that I’m home, there’s no need. But thank you for offering.”
“Okay, well. The guest room. Does anybody stay in it?”
“Just guests,” he said.
“How much could I rent it for?”
“It’s not a rental.”
“Okay, so that can be your room. How much to rent the master bedroom? Have you ever thought about a price? Because whatever it is I’ll pay it.”
“Dagny, thank you for your help, but I think it’s time I get back to work.”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you, Gunnar. Let’s work on something. You don’t even have to pay me. I’d do it for free. It’d give you more time, it would.”
“I’m really not interested in any of that. If I have to go out of town again, I’ll be sure to call you.”
“I think I really bonded with them,” I said.
“I’m sure you did.”
“Would you ever sell one of your chickens? Just one.”
“No, I don’t think I would,” he said.
“One more night,” I plead.
“No. I can’t do it.”
“Would you at least help me with my stuff?”
“Sure,” he said, and together we go upstairs. “Wait, why are the rooms switched around? And was there a flood in the bathroom?”
“No, I just had a bath this morning,” I tell him. “Do you like it? You said yourself the guest room used to be yours anyways.”
He charged into the master bedroom and flung open the closet. “I’m speechless,” he said. “Are you like a deranged person?” he asked me.
“Not in any way, shape, or form,” I answered. “Your animals understood. I can’t help it if you don’t. It was their idea I take the master bedroom. They said you were more beta. They like my alpha nature.”
“Dagny.”
“How much to sleep in the coop?”
“I’m calling the police.”