It was on the edge of twilight by the time I got to the housesitting house. The lights were on, but, save for a single dog, it was empty. I had left it the same way exactly one year earlier, the last time I had housesat for this family.
I had promised myself I would never go back. I was hoping that they would never invite me back. But here I was. Here was the house. Inside was a dog.
I’ve replayed the events of that last gig over and over in my head, trying to make sense of something that, frankly, doesn’t need to be made sense of. Perhaps I’m overly sensitive, but I feel kind of bad about what happened. See, last year, I accidentally killed one of their dogs.
In what added up to a housesitter’s worst nightmare, I walked an elderly dog to the point of exhaustion. The poor thing collapsed, and I had to carry it home. I gave it water and food, but it refused both, using the last of its strength to stare up at me with sad eyes.
Sometimes I picture him looking up at me in my mind’s eye, and I wonder if he knew that he was dying. I hope so. At least then I could get some comfort in knowing that he understood, and in some way, had come to peace with his own mortality.
I walked up the driveway, my thoughts once again with this dog. And here I was, heading back into the fray. One dog left, I thought. Don’t fuck this up, man.
As I stuck the key in the lock, I could hear the other dog rousing herself to greet me from the other side of the door. I could still get out of here, I thought. Just leave and never come back. No, I could never do that. That would be irrational. The family was in Europe and wouldn’t be back for weeks. I knew enough about dogs to know that it wouldn’t end well.
I took a deep breath and stepped inside.
A chocolate lab greeted me, her tail wagging. She’d aged quite a bit in the year that I last saw her. Her paws and face had turned from sleek chesnut to grey, but she still had the energy of a puppy. She licked me, her tail never ceasing its swaying. Evidently, she didn’t seem to hold a grudge for killing her friend.
I gave her a scratch behind the ears and a playful slap on the back. She turned away from me and let me down the hall. Ah, I thought, you just want food.
We wandered over to her food bowl and I reached over to a bag of brown pellets. The dog, whining in anticipation, tapped the floor with her feet, her self restraint barely keeping her from jumping at her food.
I paused, curious. She paused. Her eyes never left my hand, carrying a scoop full of some fancy organic kibbles. This must be the good stuff, I thought. It didn’t smell like anything special, but this dog must love this shit.
I poured the chow into her bowl, quickly moving my hand back as the dog lunged for the food. The dog sucked down her dinner like a shop vac.
As I watched her, I began to feel my own hunger gnawing at me. Shit, I forgot to get food for my stay here! Perhaps the family had left something for me scavenge.
– – –
Several minutes later I laid out in front of me the few loose ingredients I had managed to find: a can of garbanzo beans, a can of tomato sauce, and a can of coconut milk. This will have to do, I thought.
So I poured all three cans into a sauce pan, on medium high. It cooked for about ten minutes, with some steam coming out, when all the lights in the house abruptly turned off.
Power outage. The family’s alarm system, which apparently is run on batteries, began to beep, the sound resonating through the empty house.
But my first concern was for the dog. I wandered through the pitch black house to where she was, still lingering near her food bowl. I gave her a small scratch between her ears and she licked my hand.
Reassured that the dog was still alive, I blindly headed to the alarm system, trying to the fucking beeping to stop. I punched in the code, but it didn’t help. Damn. Fiddling with the controls didn’t seem to do anything either.
Defeated, I headed back to my soup creation, cooling on the stove, and ladled myself a bowlful. I sighed. How did I get here?
The absurdity of the situation hit me like a ton of bricks. I’m in the pitch black house of a family whose dog I killed last year, scrounging for food. With an alarm that won’t shut the fuck up. And it’s only the first night. I gotta do this stint for another 2 weeks. I hope this isn’t some sort of omen.
I glumly scooped the soup into my mouth. It wasn’t bad. The coconut milk paired well with the tomato sauce, and the garbanzo beans gave it some much needed texture.
I finished the soup, and went back for another serving, since there wasn’t much else to do. As I ladled out the second bowl, the power came back on. The fucking beeping stopped.
It was the best feeling I’ve had in a while. All of my immediate discomforts: my hunger, the beeping, and my dislike of sitting alone in the dark, vanished. Sure, I was still alone, but at least I have the dog.
And I aim on keeping this dog alive.
King & Queen's Beans & Things 