FUDDY MEERS

FUDDY MEERS, by David-Lindsay-Abaire.  Claire, a woman strugging with memory loss.

CLAIRE.  You remember that dog?  Skinny old thing Mr. Cuthart kept tied up in the front lawn all day? Daddy always said he was going to report him.  Remember she just sat in the sun, biting at her scabs?  Cuthart didn’t even give her any water.  So I’d sneak down the road with my squirt gun, and spritz water into her mouth and she’d bark.  And one day, when Cuthart was downtown, I untied her and let her run around a little.  But she darted straight into the road, just as Daddy’s pickup was coming around the curve, and he didn’t see her, so he plowed into her. Daddy and I came through the back door, and Nancy was hanging out of his arms like a set of broken bagpipes.  And he spread her out on the kitchen floor and she was breathing real hard.  And the pain was humming off of her like I could hear it.  And she just let the pain take her over.  And that’s all she was.  This pained thing.  And Daddy was bent over her, talking to her real quiet.  And all of a sudden Nancy stood up, like it was a new day, and she started running around the kitchen like she wasn’t half-dead, barking and clicking her nails against the floor tiles.  And we were all shocked because Nancy was like a puppy all of a sudden, not that bony heap on the floor.  She was this fireball for about three minutes, until she got tired again, and curled up beside the sink and went to sleep and died like it meant nothing.  You remember how all that happened to her?  It’s funny how almost everything else is gone to me, and that sad old dog just came into my head.