Lily and the Octopus(41)

“Guys!”

The shark next to me remembers his role as elected speaker. “Sure, we could eat some pooch.” Murmurs of agreement and consensus.

“Do not eat the pooch!” I clap my hands together loudly and repeatedly to grab their attention. One of them covers his hearing pores, or whatever, with his fins. I wait until I have their attention again. “Do not eat the dog. That is what I’m saying. You may eat the octopus. But I am trusting you to not eat the dog. Does everyone understand?”

I survey the circle and the sharks nod their agreement.

I repeat. “Does everyone understand?”

“Yeah!”

“Yeah!”

“Sure!”

“Yeah!”

“Octopus!”

“Dog.”

“No dog!”

“No dog.”

“Good!”

I wonder what I’ve gotten myself into.

I tiptoe inside, carrying the sharks two at a time, and I place them around Lily’s bed so they’ll be the first thing the octopus sees when he wakes up. It’s a horrific sight. Imagine waking up to a shiver of red-lipped sharks grinning from ear to . . . well, not ear. Endolymph . . . whatever . . . pores. Never mind, that’s a bad example, but you get the picture. I hope it literally scares the octopus to death.

When everything is set up, I call for Lily with a quick whistle. She lifts her head and shakes her ears and when she stops she stares through the sharks, unfazed. She can’t see them. The octopus, however, screams.

“Aaaaauuuuugggghhhhh!”

He covers his eyes with two of his arms.

I bite my lip with anticipation. Will he have a heart attack? Will he just die of shock? Will his eyes turn to Xs like in a cartoon while his mouth goes slack?

“Just kidding, governor,” the octopus says, dropping his arms back down to their resting place on Lily’s head. “Nice pool toys.”

“Those aren’t pool toys, they’re sharks. Real sharks! Right, guys?”

Instead of murmuring their agreement, this time they all lie silent. In fact, one tips over on its side. Not very menacing. The jig, sadly, is up. “How did you know?”

The octopus shakes his head. He can’t believe how pathetic I am. “They smell like condoms.”

“How do you know what condoms smell like?”

“Oh. Lily and I got in your goodie drawer. I tried a few on.” I look down at Lily, wondering how she could be such an unwitting accomplice. How she could possibly ever team up with this monster. But she’s blind and trusting and sweet, and he may be steering her in ways beyond her control. As if to underscore this new reality, Lily stares blankly into the void. “By the way, there were only nine left in the box and I used eight, so . . .”

“And you smelled them?” I’m incredulous.

“Our smell sensors are at the ends of our arms. Kind of hard not to.”

I look down at the sharks lying limply at my feet. “I, too, can command the sharks, sir!” I wonder if Cate Blanchett ever said that. To the sharks I yell, “Get him!” I point at the octopus, but nothing. I’m so enraged that I pick up one of the sharks by the dorsal handles and throw it right at the octopus. I yell again. “Get him!”

The shark bops Lily in the nose, and she mistakes the command as being for her. She springs to life, running in circles, bumping into inflatable sharks at every turn. She wrangles one by the caudal fin and swings it around like a wrestler slamming a mismatched opponent. The other sharks make a safety bumper for her mania, and she can run every which way in her hunt to bring the one unlucky shark to its demise and I don’t have to worry about her running headfirst into the stove. This is a first since the octopus blinded her, her having this much fun and my allowing her to have it without constantly interfering to redirect her away from injury.

Finally her teeth puncture the luckless fish, and it slowly starts to deflate. Lily lies in wait until just enough air has been expelled from its tail, then pounces. She lands between the dorsal handles and her weight slowly presses the air out of her prey, the shark’s creepy red smile melting into a grimace. It occurs to me that to Lily, the inflatable sharks do not smell like condoms. They smell like red ball did when it was new. They smell like adventure. They smell like fun.

The octopus laughs, and I’m still angry. But I also can’t help but feel joy at watching Lily prance and play. There is still vitality inside of her. There is still grace and jubilation and puppyness and wonder.

I take a seat in order to fully appreciate her frivolity, her silliness. This may be the last time I see it in her. The last time I appreciate it myself.

We are both transforming.





5.


Lily yawns and stretches awake from her afternoon snooze and struggles to get down from my lap. I place her gently on the floor by my feet; she looks bothered by something, and I’m about to carry her to home base (“Home base!”) to reorient her when she scrambles up my leg and starts humping. This hasn’t really happened before—maybe once or twice in the manic hysteria of puppyhood, but that seemed less sexual and more a function of uncontainable joie de vivre. This, however, is uncomfortable in its single-mindedness of reproductive purpose.

“Lily, stop that.”

I’M! HUMPING! YOUR! LEG!