Simon

Simon

Grampa and the puppy came into our house at the same time. That was the summer I turned eleven. We brought the puppy--an Australian Shepherd--home from the shelter. Grampa came to live with us from the convalescent home.

After the whirlwind of getting Grampa settled and making a little home for the puppy, when I had time to sit down and think about all the strangeness, I remember that my first clear thought was, "They both smell weird." While I knew puppies were supposed to smell weird, I felt guilty for thinking that about Grampa. The puppy's smell was comforting; I didn't even mind having to clean up after her when she pooped or peed. But Grampa's weird smell was vaguely scary. It was indefinable and ominous. I found myself wondering if I, too, would smell like that when I got old.

Grampa had had a stroke. I didn't know what that was. Mom had tried to explain it to me, but she used big words--doctor's words--and most of it went right by me without sinking in. Maybe that's why the first question I asked Grampa, when I was alone with him, was, "What's it like?"

"What's what like, kid," he asked.

"A stroke."

"Ever been kicked in the head by an elephant?"

I giggled. "No."

"Well, that's what it's like." His voice was mushy around the edges, and when he used his left hand, it seemed shaky and floppy. "Let's just say it's not fun," he said, with a lopsided smile.

My older sister Samantha got the job of helping take care of Grampa, along with my parents. My job was to housebreak and train up the puppy. After a week, the puppy still didn't have a name, and I knew this was very important, but I just couldn't think of a good name. I got the idea of asking Grampa what he thought about a name for her, so one day I introduced them. "Hey!" Samantha yelled, "You can't bring that dog in here!"

"Why not?" I asked.

"Yeah, why not?" Grampa echoed. He seemed very pleased to make the puppy's acquaintance, and was stroking her with that shaky left hand, while she licked his face and wiggled around on his lap.

"That's why," Samantha said, pointing to a wet, yellow spot that was spreading across Grampa's bathrobe. I hung my head and picked the puppy up hastily.

"Hell--heck!--that's nothing," Grampa said. "Little baking soda and vinegar'll take care of that." He grabbed for his walker and shuffled to the closet to get a new robe. "Greg'll have him house trained in no time at all--won't you, Greg?"

"Yes sir, I sure will," I promised.

Instead of climbing back into bed, Grampa sat down at the table under the window. The sun bathed the table in hot, golden light. In the center of the table was a huge, black, disc-shaped thing that had actual buttons and switches on it, and big colored panels around the edge. "Is that a spaceship?" I asked with big eyes. I hadn't seen a switch or a button in ... maybe never!

Grampa chuckled. "Nope," he said. "It's a game."

"You've got to get back in bed, Grampa," Samantha fussed. "It's too hot in the sun--"

"Oh, hush, you," Grampa replied. "I just found this again after fifty years, and I want to play. Besides, it's good rehabilitation therapy. Hand-eye coordination and all..." He flicked a switch and pressed a button. Little lights came on, and one of the panels lit up all green, and a beep sounded. Grampa pressed the big green panel. It beeped again, and a red panel lit up. Then a blue one, and a yellow panel ...He pressed them in sequence. It went on that way, adding one more beep and blink each time. The beeping and blinking got faster and faster, until he fumbled with his shaky left hand, and missed a panel-press. The whole big round machine flashed, and made a sound like a fart.

The farting sound made me giggle, and even Samantha smiled despite her best attempt to play grown-up. "Crap," muttered Grampa. "This damn hand..." He started over.

"That's a game?" I asked.

Grampa nodded. "It's called Simon. Put out by Milton Bradley in the late 1970's. I can't believe it still works. I was about your age when Simon was state of the art, Greg. Had a puppy of my own..." His eyes went far away, and the disc farted again.

I remembered I was holding my puppy, who had gone to sleep curled up in my arms, and I quickly left the room to put her back in her box before she peed on anything else. When I got back, Samantha was trying to play the game. She screamed with frustration when she missed a move, and the machine farted at her. That made me laugh. She glared at me.

I took a turn at the Simon game, but I wasn't any better than Samantha. Grampa scoffed at both of us. "Simon did better than you two," he chided.

Both Samantha and I blinked at him. Seeing our confusion, Grampa said, "That's how my dog got his name. He could play this game better than you kids can!"

Samantha and I stared at him with our mouths open. "Your dog ... could play ..." I waved at the Simon game.

"Sure could! I didn't even have to train him to it. Just came in one day and there he was, whacking away with his big paws, pushing the buttons with his nose..."

"Nuh-uh!" Samantha cried. Now she sounded eleven, like me, not sixteen and pretending to be all grown up. We both had big goofy grins plastered on our faces, imagining my little puppy wiggling all over and flailing away at the Simon game.

"If I'm lyin', I'm dyin'," Grampa replied. He grabbed at his walker and painfully shuffled back to bed. Watching his awkward gait, a ittle voice in my head muttered, "Stroke..." I shivered despite the hot sunlight flooding the room.

"Oh," Grampa ammended, as he got comfortable, "He never got past level one, "But many times, I'd find him standing on his hind legs, that big tail sweeping back and forth, whacking away at that game like he was pouncing on a ferret!"

"What's a ferret," Samantha asked. Then she remembered to pretend to be grown-up, and got her indignant face on again. "Anyway, you're making that up," she scolded.

"Nope," Grampa replied. "Dogs're getting smarter--and that was some fifty years ago. Been, what, five generations of dogs between now and then? Why, I bet your puppy'll be able to beat the game before she's two years old. Smarter ..." Grampa said again, under his breath. Then he muttered something I meant to ask Dad about later, but forgot about. "Forced evolution."

I had nightmares about strokes for a few nights in a row--jumbled images of a giant golf club coming out of nowhere and smacking me in the head, or of someone hiding, waiting to jump out at me and scream, "STROKE! STROKE! STROKE!" I forgot all about the Simon game, but every now and then I'd pass by Grampa's room and hear the beeping and the farting noise, and an occasional muttered (or half-shouted) curse.

The summer went on as summers do, and soon it was too hot for anyone to be outside for more than ten or fifteen minutes. The new puppy--not so new now--became a part of the family. She still didn't have a name, but we all called her "Puppy," which seemed to suffice. She got better at going poop and pee on the training pads, and I started taking her out five or six times a day, despite the heat. "Just don't leave her out there," Dad cautioned. "She won't survive out there. No one can anymore." He seemed melancholy when he said that, but I didn't know why, and it seemed like one of those big, grown-up things that I didn't want to understand.

I forgot all about Grampa's story about his dog Simon. Puppy was doing her business outside--mostly--by then, and had been given more or less free run of the house. At night, she slept curled up on the end of my bed, keeping my feet anchored in reality. The nightmares went away. During the day, I often found her curled up in Grampa's lap. The soft smile on his face kept any childish jealousy I might have had from taking root. His hands stroking her fur lacked the palsy of his other movements. He looked so peaceful when he fell asleep with his liver-spotted old-man's hand on her tiny head that I just smiled and grew up a little bit and felt glad to share my puppy with him.

Toward the end of the summer, I passed by Grampa's room and heard the beeping of the Simon game, then the farting noise, and the soft whimper of Puppy. Puppy's whining prompted me to stick my head in, expecting to see Grampa in his chair playing the game as he often did. What I saw instead rooted me in the doorway. My jaw hung open and my eyes felt like they were popping out of my head! Was I seeing things? Was I having a (STROKE! STROKE! STROKE!)

Grampa was in his hospital bed, elevated to a reclining position. His eyes looked as large as mine felt. He was staring at the table under the window, where Puppy was sitting in front of the Simon game. She was wiggling all over, just as I'd imagined her a few months ago. Her front paws were raised in the air and, as I watched, she swiped at a big green panel. Beep. Then a red panel. Beep. Then more beeps, as the game threw out a new challenge. More flailing, blinking and beeping... Finally, a farting noise, and that soft, sad whimper.

"I will be god damned," Grampa said softly. He tried never to curse around us kids, but in that moment, all bets were off. He said it again, as a big goofy grin bloomed over his face, even the droopy half.

I rushed over to the table and picked up the puppy. I hugged her close, astonished and elated. "Good girl! Good Puppy!" I cried. "You did it!" She wiggled, and licked my face, then pushed her paws against my chest to be let go. I placed her back on the table, and she went right back to the game, wiggling and flailing.

I turned to Grampa, who still stared like he'd been (kicked in the head by an elephant) knocked over with a feather. "You weren't kidding!" I cried.

"Well, actually, see ..." Grampa mumbled, then gathered himself together. "Right! And that's how my dog got his name!" He said something else under his breath, but I didn't figure out what it was until later. "Forced evolution. Sink or swim," I meant to ask Dad what that meant, but forgot again.

That gave me an idea. "Do you think ... I mean, would it be alright if I named my puppy Simon, too? Meaning no disrespect to your dog, but ... I just thought..."

"Greg," Grampa replied somberly, "I think that would be a wonderful name. Except ... Well, your pup's a girl, so you'd have to call her Simone."

Just then, the large black disc made a sound I hadn't heard before. It was kind of a sizzling, hissing noise. All the lights flashed in random patterns, and then the game went dark and silent. I scooped up the puppy, and sure enough, my suspicions were confirmed. "Oh no!" I cried. "Grampa, I'm so sorry! Simone just peed on Simon!"

"Oh," Grampa smiled reassuringly. "That's okay. It lived on far past its time... Just another old relic..." I caught the wistfulness in his eyes, despite his attempts to hide it behind his smile. It seemed like something grown-up and complicated was happening that I only glimpsed the edges of.

I searched every auction site on the Internet for a replacement Simon game. I found a few, but I'd have had to save up six months' worth of allowance to buy one. I felt really bad about that, and worked extra-hard on Simone's house-breaking.

Grampa died of another stroke about six months later. The elephant with the giant golf club must have been hidden very well indeed. I had more nightmares and, when I woke up, shivering and with tears on my cheeks, Simone would crawl up from her place on my feet and lick them off my face and whine until I calmed down. She still slept in Grampa's hospital bed until my parents cleaned out his room. I don't know what happened to the broken Simon game; I never saw it again. I was scared to go in there, and just left the door open for Simone to come and go as she pleased.

Dogs don't have to be super-smart to teach kids things, as anyone fortunate enough to have one well knows. They teach unconditional love, unquestioning loyalty. They remind us of the joy that can be found in any moment, no matter how gloomy. Simone kept me afloat during the maelstrom that is adolescence.

Until her dying day, Simone only did one more thing that was what you might call spooky, and not predictably. She could count.

She was about five when it happened. In the winter I was sixteen, during a lull in the ferocious storms that made the outdoors as inhospitable as the summer heat, we were playing Frisbee. I was tired and soaking wet, but Simone kept bringing the frisbee back, wiggling all over and pleading with her big brown eyes. "Okay," I finally said. "I am going to throw this thing three more times. Three, do you hear?" Simone sat, quivering, but staring into my eyes. She tapped her paw three times on the wet dirt. I blinked, then decided it was a coincidence. I hurled the frisbee, and when she brought it back, I said, "One!" I hurled it again, and off she raced, catching it before it hit the ground, which made me laugh and clap. "Two," I said. Again, she tapped the ground three times with her paw. I was sure of it now. I put some extra English into my last toss, and when she brought it back, she dropped it at my feet and sat by my side. "Three," I whispered, now shivering for another reason.

When we got in and dried off, I said, "Simone, go get me five toys from your box." She cocked her head as if thinking, then raced off and brought me two squeaky toys and two stuffed rabbits. She hesitated, cocked her head again, then trotted away and came back with a rubber bone. Five.

Maybe I didn't want to test the magic too much. Magic is a delicate thing. For whatever reason, I didn't give Simone any Doggie IQ tests. I just loved her for who she was.

There was one more spooky thing Simone did; her last and best performance. By then, I was in college, still undecided about a major. Simone was over ten years old, starting to slow down, with cloudy eyes and pain in her hips. On my visits home, I couldn't hide from the fact of her aging. That's another lesson dogs teach, the hardest lesson; everything dies.

On the night I got the phone call, I was studying for midterms, alone in my dorm room. When I pulled the call up on my wall screen, I thought it was some sort of joke. Simone sat before the camera. I could hear her panting, and then she whined softly. Something about the way her mouth hung open, tongue lolling out, clouded brown eyes gazing directly at the camera ... I knew. "Okay," I said to Simone. "Okay. I'm coming home. Just hang on!"

When I got there early the next morning, Samantha--grown up for real now, with a baby on her hip--greeted me. "Greg, what are you doing home?" Her eyes held surprise and ... something else. "We were going to call you ... It's Simone, Greg. She's had a few small strokes. We're going to have to put her to sleep ..."

"I know," I said, not even trying to keep back the tears. "She called me."

"She ..." Samantha stopped when she got a look at my eyes. I got to say good-bye to my beloved dog. It was her dying wish.

I'm in my thirties now. I know all about "Forced evolution.” As a veterinarian, I see evidence of it in the dogs and birds, even some cats, that come into my clinic. AI collars are getting better all the time at interpreting animals' body language and vocalizations. They give pets an eerie, primitive machine-synthesized speech. Mostly it's just babble, but sometimes it's a kick in the head. Like the fact that every animals' AI collar often says, "Sick dirt. Sick air."

People have had to evolve, too. No one goes outside anymore, at least not without elaborate precautions, and never for very long. All the homeless are dead, along with most birds and squirrels and trees and ... well, just about everything. It's not just dogs who must sink or swim.