The Sebastian Variations - by Rod Carley

THE SEBASTIAN VARIATIONS

By Rod Carley

 It wasn’t a heart attack and it wasn’t a stroke. 

But, on the eve of his sixty-fifth birthday, Uncle Irving woke with a start. Before I go any further, let me try to provide a context for my uncle’s dark fright of the soul. 

Ira Sandberg the painter married my grandmother. They had a baby boy, named him Irving, and had a modest happy life until Ira was conscripted by Prime Minister Borden to fight in Europe. Private Ira Sandberg served as a sketch artist documenting the horrors of Passchendaele. He survived four years on the front lines. After returning home, his brushes and pencils remained locked in a drawer. 

And that is how Irving Sandberg came to be razed in a house of night terrors, with a shell-shocked father and an exhausted mother forced to focus on her husband’s trauma. A few years later, on a cold November morning, Ira Sandberg shot his brains out with his service revolver. The note he left in the cellar contained two words: “No light.”

Piano lessons saved my grieving uncle. It was my grandmother’s idea. He sought out classical composers from the past to connect with those who might move him. They taught him he didn't have to feel alone although alone, and became his friends, a dead composers’ society, existing in his mind and fingers. Bach joined him in his studies at the Royal Conservatory of Music and, upon graduating, served as his meagre bread and butter in the local symphony.

            My uncle remained a loner, rarely socializing, never dating. He never wanted children; diapers scared him, as did clutter and mess. Six hours of daily practice since the age of six left him stooped and near-sighted. He ate in solitude in the darkness of his curtained bungalow, ordering in Chinese, the fallboard serving as a table. Only the nighttime flicker of his piano lamp offered any light.

           By the time my mother came along, my grandmother had remarried. My grandfather was a hard-working practical man who farmed the land and tried to plant the same seeds in his step-son. It was a crop failure. I rarely saw my uncle growing up. He didn’t come to family gatherings and avoided holidays. I can’t really blame him for that. The only time I saw him perform was when my mother dragged us to the symphony when I was ten. He resembled a hunch-backed cricket, sitting front and center, perched awkwardly over a shiny black Steinway grand piano. His playing was another matter entirely. When I closed my eyes, I imagined it was Bach himself up there on that stage, even though I had no idea who Bach was.

My uncle merely existed. Until the night he woke up gasping for breath and couldn't get back to sleep. He crawled out of bed and sat at his piano. He attempted to play the opening of Satie’s First Gymnopedie. The sad, simple melody only fueled

his pain. He played it again and again, the keys slippery with his sweat, and, was about to repeat it yet again, when he heard the sound of a dog barking somewhere down the street. He’d heard

barking dogs at night before and took little notice of them. Something about this dog’s bark was different. He stopped playing and cautiously approached his front door. He had never opened it

 in the middle of the night, much less unlocked its deadbolt. He unlatched the lock slowly and he and his soaked pajamas crept down the crumbling driveway.

The barking continued.

Uncle Irving searched his barren cul de sac in search of the dog. The cold November air should have chilled him to his femur bone. He checked yard after yard but could not find any sign of the barking dog. It was as if the barking were an audio recording blasting out of a military loudspeaker, something out of Casablanca. He returned to the end of his driveway and stared into the night.

Uncle Irving could not move. By the time night faded into a grey cloudy dawn, he was still standing there.

           CLANG!

The banging of a garbage truck broke his trance.

           “You alright?” shouted an ebullient city worker, standing on the back of the truck.

           My uncle turned to look at the worker, without seeing him.

           The worker hopped off and approached my uncle. “You’re gonna catch your death in those pajamas. You’re soaked to the bone.”

           “Do you hear the dog?” my uncle mumbled.

           The worker listened. The dog or loudspeaker had stopped barking hours before. After a moment, “There’s no dog,” he said. “You better get inside.”

           “No dog?” my uncle repeated to himself.

           “Sorry, pal.”

           My uncle turned and shambled back up the driveway.

           The worker shook his head and dumped the garbage can of Chinese delivery containers into the belly of the truck. He knew better than anyone the curbside truth of life. He secured my

uncle’s garbage can lid, stepped up on the sideboard, and gave the driver’s door a knock. He asked around on his route. No one heard a dog barking in the night.

*

          An hour later, Uncle Irving sat rocking his skinny frame on the steps of the Humane Society. A young volunteer hopped off the city bus at the shelter across the street.

           “You’re up early,” she said by way of a bemused greeting.

           “Dog,” my uncle replied, his breath a frozen cloud.

           She took him out back, unlocked the weather-beaten kennel and led him down rows of cages. The parade of desperate eyes was too much for my uncle and he scuttled away without uttering a word, his long scarf blowing in the November chill.

          He entered his tiny bungalow and collapsed at the apartment-sized piano, proceeding to pound out his pain with Beethoven and Berlioz. When he could play no more, he closed his

exhausted eyes, lay his head down on the keys, and wept in despair.

And that’s when it happened.

An idea tingled in his fingers. It traveled up his spinal cord, arriving at his cortex. He stood up with a single robotic motion and found himself in the kitchen. He searched, found and removed an untouched phone book from an unused shelf. He leafed through the Yellow Pages. He found what he was looking for. Perspiration dripped from his chin as he dialed the number. It was the first time in decades he’d reached out to anyone besides my mother.

            Two days later, he picked out the runt of the litter at a farm south of the city, a tiny black and white mitten with a quirky white patch circling his right eye. He would have to wait eight weeks to take possession. 

My uncle anxiously prepared for his new arrival, purchasing a leash, a bed and crate, food, bowls, toys and enough “how to” books to keep him researching well into the night.

          The local taxi drivers knew my uncle well from years of taking him to and from the rehearsal hall. He, on the other hand, did not know them. He was a silent backseat passenger, staring out the window while Vivaldi’s Four Seasons played in his head, the Winter movement his least favorite. On a particularly cold mid-January morning, Uncle Irving picked up Sebastian. He bundled up the tiny pup in a new blanket and returned home.

           A border collie was the most impractical breed my uncle could have selected for his sedentary lifestyle, but no one could accuse Uncle Irving of being practical. The books suggested

crate training, but he couldn’t bear Sebastian’s cries in a cage on his first night home. He tossed out the manuals and Sebastian moved into his bed.

           My uncle froze his woolen socks to help with Sebastian’s teething. He brought Sebastian to rehearsals and sat him on his piano bench. Sebastian responded to the Goldberg Variations,

barking in rhythm to the allegro movements. 

“Better than the First Violin,” my uncle mused.

With each passing day, he felt lighter.

          He first noticed the drips on the kitchen floor two weeks in. At first, he thought it was spillage from Sebastian’s water bowl. However, under closer inspection, it was dog pee. Fighting back his OCD, my uncle mopped the floors five times daily.

           “You’re okay with that, Irv?” my mother asked while visiting with dog treats a few weeks later.

“I don’t mind,” he replied stiffly, rubbing Sebastian’s belly.

          The day Sebastian turned six-months old my uncle took him in for neutering. He dreaded the operation - my uncle, not Sebastian.

After a brief examination, the vet sat my uncle down and gave him the bad news. Sebastian did not just have retracted testicles, a common enough problem - he had no testicles.

“Birth defects,” the vet explained. “Probably what’s causing the bladder problem. My guess is in breeding. Where did you say you got Sebastian?”

“Maple Creek Kennels,” said my uncle. His fingers involuntarily played a concerto on his knees. His eyes darted about the examining room. 

“I thought so,” replied the vet. “They should’ve been closed down years ago. Disgusting what they do there.”

Uncle Irving asked for a glass of water and put his head between his knees, trying to catch his breath. He bounced a curled knuckle against his mouth.

The vet kneeled beside him. “Sebastian will never develop functioning bladder muscles to control his urine,” he said as if talking to a bewildered four-year old. “He’ll be a leaky faucet

for life.”

Uncle Irving gasped.

“And it will be a short life, I’m afraid.” My uncle clutched his chest. “I’m sorry, Mr. Sandberg, but my advice is to put him down and start fresh.”

          My uncle fled the clinic in horror, clutching Sebastian tight to his bony ribs. He stopped in the parking lot and raged at the winter sky.

“You cruel bastard!” he screamed. “He’s just a little dog. A loving little dog who hasn’t done a thing to hurt anyone!”

The sky remained silent.

“What has he done to deserve this?”

The sky said nothing.

“Nothing is right! You should be put down, you heartless bastard! You call yourself the God of Love? My father was a beautiful artist. He loved you and you destroyed him! Well,

you’re not taking Sebastian, you hear!”

Still nothing.

“Turn me to salt, c’mon, I dare you!”

Again nothing.

“Answer me!”

The taxi driver rolled up his window and got out of the cab. He put an extra blanket over my uncle’s shoulders and helped him and Sebastian into the back seat, gently closing the door.

 “Tough break, Mr. Sandberg,” he said as he drove them home, accustomed to the silence. “I know how you feel. I lost my wife to cancer last year.”

“Time heals all wounds,” said the First Violin.

“Be strong,” said the Conductor.

“Everything happens for a reason,” said the Percussionist.

The list goes on. Comforting words from well-meaning onlookers perched on the sidelines of grief, which are in no way comforting. My uncle refused to accept the vet’s advice. With the help of my mother, he sought out the local animal hospital. X-rays were taken and sent to the Ontario Veterinary College at Guelph University.

           The definitive diagnosis arrived a week later. Sebastian was a hermaphrodite.

That’s right, a hermaphrodite - a rare anomaly hearkening back to Ripley’s Believe It Or Not, like the dog-faced woman or the world’s tallest man. Sebastian suffered from a rare ovary-testicle hybrid that resulted in an abnormally narrow urethra and a bladder the size of a child’s birthday balloon. He would need two surgeries to correct the condition; premature death within three years, the alternative.

           Uncle Irving did not have the five thousand dollars to pay for the surgery, nor did my mother. He cursed his artist’s life. 

           My mother started a Sebastian Fund, putting mason jars on the counters and reception desks at local restaurants, motels and businesses, forcing my uncle to talk to people to save his little dog’s life.

           Two months later and they had raised a little over two hundred dollars.

            At home, my uncle pounded out Mozart’s Requiem long into the night, mourning Sebastian’s inevitable death.

           The phone call came three weeks later.

Intrigued by Sebastian’s unusual condition, Sarah Watson, a doctor at the veterinary college, offered my uncle the surgeries free-of-charge, if he would permit her to document the procedures for a new teaching manual she was assembling.

          Two weeks later, my mother drove her stepbrother and Sebastian to Guelph. The ride was excruciating for my uncle. He was terrified of driving and had failed his driver’s exam five times as a teenager, too terrified to pull out of the Ministry of Transportation parking lot.

Even though he popped Gravol by the hour, my mother still had to pull over five times. Sebastian remained oblivious. He barked at the oncoming traffic, trying in vain to herd the transport trucks.

My uncle packed Sebastian’s fleece blanket and toys – a duck with a built-in squeaker, a rabbit missing an ear, and two well-gummed tennis balls. Leaving Sebastian behind was almost too much for my uncle.

“He’s going to be fine, Irv” my mother reassured him on the drive back. “Sebastian’s got the best care imaginable.”

My uncle had never been a praying man. He became one that day. 

           My mother drove him down on weekends and paid for a motel near the college. By day, Uncle Irving kept vigil while my mother shopped for discount school supplies. My uncle was

careful not to tire Sebastian. The symphony sent a “get well” card. 

           One month later Sebastian came home. The surgeries were a success. As instructed by Dr. Watson and her effusive medical team, Uncle Irving massaged Sebastian’s bladder muscles three times a day. Still, Sebastian would always be a dripper.

          My uncle went to the pet store and bought five waterproof nylon dog diapers. The diapers were stabilized with two elastic straps, affixed around Sebastian’s rear legs and a Velcro strap used to secure the diaper to his waist. At the local pharmacy, he purchased disposable incontinence pads. Sticky adhesive tape attached each pad.

           “Don’t you find this all a little ironic?” said my mother, dropping her stepbrother off with his new purchases.

           “How so?” my uncle said.

           You’ve been afraid of mess your entire life and now you’re buying diapers.”

    “A series of coincidences, nothing more.”

           “Forget it,” my mother laughed. “Have fun.”

           Uncle Irving and Sebastian were inseparable. My uncle learned to cook, preparing meals the pair shared morning, noon and night. Sebastian developed a taste for asparagus and ate my

uncle’s untouched vegetables.

My mother checked in on them once a week. She pulled back the musty old curtains, opened the windows, and welcomed in life, fresh air circulating for the first time in the now cozy little home.

Framed pictures bedecked the walls. At Christmas, their stockings hung together on a brass music stand.

         Whenever Uncle Irving performed, Sebastian watched from the wings, his black and white markings matching the fifty-odd tuxedos on stage. The First Violin bought him a bowtie. The Percussionist tossed him treats when the Conductor wasn’t looking.

          The familiar click of Sebastian’s nails on the hardwood floors became a source of comfort. They took a bath together once a week, Sebastian standing patiently in the foam as my uncle soaped and rinsed him, and, then, standing even more patiently on the tile floor while my uncle toweled him down and applied his diaper rash cream.

Crawling into bed, Sebastian curled up beside my uncle as he read Dickens aloud. He took a shining to Pip.

           Sebastian and my uncle were a familiar sight to those who walked the waterfront - the dog who loved Bach and his doting father. They became regulars at family events, celebrating holidays and birthdays at my parents’ faded Victorian home.

For sixteen years, my uncle changed Sebastian’s diapers, until one cool morning in October, Sebastian succumbed to old age and died in my uncle’s arms. 

        Irving Sandberg changed eighteen thousand diapers over the course of his border collie’s lifetime. He would change five-hundred thousand more if he could wake-up beside his best friend one more time.

Sebastian surpassed his life expectancy by thirteen years.    

My uncle placed Sebastian's ashes in an urn on the lid. The piano remained silent. 

          The following autumn, my uncle died of pulmonary heart failure at the age of eighty- one.

          The First Violin spoke at his funeral, choking up when she reached the part in her speech referring to the Rainbow Bridge, the magical bridge where pets are reunited with their owners.

          My mother mixed her brother’s and Sebastian’s ashes together and spread them under an old oak tree in their favorite play-park. Our family attended. 

          Each October, the symphony performs the second Goldberg Variation. A photograph of Uncle Irving and Sebastian is projected on a screen above the Steinway piano, side by side at his piano, the duet never to be parted again.