Playing Dead
I knew an old man once. His wife had died suddenly leaving him with only time and memory to accompany him. On advice from a friend he got a shelter dog someone had pushed out of a car when it was too old to keep.
The old man, injured by love and loss, had grown bitter. He tried to teach the old dog new tricks. He tried endlessly to teach it to play dead. When the dog refused, he would kick it.
The dog forgave the old man, who it turned out, was really just teaching himself to play dead.
And in time it was the dog that taught the man what every thrown away shelter dog knows.
How to forgive.
And how to live again.
He was a broker, a money guy, and like all money guys he never seemed to quite add up. He was getting in from an office Christmas party just as I was heading out. He had some secretary marching unsteadily on high heels in front of him as we passed on the stairs. There is an army of girls that come from Brooklyn and Bayonne to the city for their first real jobs. They become executive assistants, which means they answer phones, smile till their jaws hurt and grind their teeth at night with worry that they don't belong, and never will, on this side of the river. Inevitably they become entranced by some unhappily married guy. The “she doesn’t understand me” guys that fill every office in every high rise on the island. The girls tell themselves a man’s lingering presence means 'I need you' or 'only you can save me.' It doesn’t of course. It means I’m tired of the boss and the bills and the wife.Or I’m tired of the harangue of living. It means I’m tired of the way...
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