Sadie is our Golden Doodle puppy (half poodle and half golden retriever). So far, she looks a lot more like a golden retriever. Anyway, a few short weeks ago, she learned to ascend and descend the stairs to our deck. She typically does that once or twice a day as part of our general walk around, exercise, and potty break. As she grew and became more practiced, the stairs became more and more easily scaled.
Until today.
She started up the first step and began sniffing every inch of the step. Same for the second step. How could she have lost so much skill? She scrambled up to the third step and began sniffling at every single leaf and bit of random detritus.
Then, it hit me. She could sprint up the stairs, hindered only by my own oldish legs. She had always viewed the stairs as a means to and end, but now that she had mastered it, she wanted to experience the stairs in the way that she most likes to experience everything — with nose and tongue.
It took her about two weeks to realize that she had forgotten to properly explore the stairs which she did today…
It could be that the guy who cleans the pool once a week, and himself has a dog, came today and it was his scent that she was particularly interested in.
Or, both.
In any case, it made me wonder how often people think of their career ladders, or personal journeys as something to be instrumental; e.g., to get to the top of the stairs. There are advantages to being at the top of the stairs. You can see farther. And, you’re closer to the kitchen. But there are advantages to being at the bottom of the stairs as well.
Do we ever take the time to really experience and explore the steps along the way? If your whole life is using everything as a means to an end, then in the end, it all means nothing. What of all the opportunities to explore the steps?
I’ve been playing a sort of “ball chase” + soccer with our new puppy, Sadie. She’s extremely good at it, IMHO. She instinctively chases a ball & brings it back. I’ve reinforced it but it would be a stretch to say “I trained her to do that.” I sort of expect most dogs to view this as a game not completely unlike chasing a bird or rabbit & bringing it back.
The more interesting part came when I combined it with soccer. She learned (?) to judge carom shots off the baseboard and half closed doors. She tries to stop a ball before it hits the wall but judges that if she can’t stop it directly, she can stop the rebound. That she even tries to stop it is interesting. That also seemed “natural.” I probably reinforced her differentially, but again, it would be giving me far too much credit to say I trained her to “defend” against having the ball go past her.
I begin a few weeks ago to play with two balls at once. This makes it more challenging for me not to break my neck as well as Sadie. What I find interesting is that she immediately tries to hoard or herd; i.e., control, both balls. She has tried picking up two in her mouth at once, but she can’t manage it. So, she holds one ball in her mouth and “corrals” the other between her front paws. When she gets bored, she relents and lets me throw or roll or kick the balls.
I now sometimes use three balls at once. (I’ll let you know which hospital for flowers). Actually, I’m careful, but Sadie is sudden in her movements. Anyway, once I put a ball “in play”, I usually control or kick it with my foot. Sadie imitates (!?) me in this. She “controls” a ball by putting one of her front paws on it and she also pushes the ball with her paw, though she did try “nosing it” once but I think she found it uncomfortable since she shook her head and reverted to using her front paws.
On some occasions, I “grab” a ball with the bottom of my foot and move it slowly back and forth and feign kicking one way and then kick another way which routinely makes Sadie growl as she scampers after the ball. There’s something else. The slow movement followed by quick movement energizers her more in her quest for the ball than if I simply & directly hit it.
These types of patterns are found in human sports around the globe. Did they co-evolve with dog play? I’ve seen videos of many species of mammal playing “soccer.” From the video alone though, I have no idea how spontaneous the play is. If I had to guess, I’d say it’s pretty spontaneous.
Soccer, American Football, hockey, rugby, field hockey, and basketball share this notion of trying to “make a goal” by getting past the defenders. In every one of these games, there is also the notion of “fake” or “feint.” It feels as though Sadie and I, if not reading from the same script exactly, both of us have the same “playbook” of things that are fun in sports.
On a not completely unrelated topic, I am wondering whether any other new dog “owners” have noticed that their own sense of smell has been enhanced since sharing lives with a puppy. Perhaps it is not so much enhanced as that I pay more attention to it than I did a few short months ago. She goes sniffing and I go wondering for the most part, what it is she’s sniffing on about.
To some extent, it’s the same with sounds. I’m typically a pretty visual person and when I walk alone outdoors, I mainly noticed what I see. When walking with Sadie, however, she reacts to many sounds that I would ignore. I know what it is and give it a name and then reassure her that it’s okay; that trucks and cars and airplanes and helicopters are okay, at least in the distance.
I’m mainly a visual person. I’m much more distracted by, for instance, a butterfly wafting by than a truck backfiring. Like nearly everyone, I love music. But I don’t go out of my way to hear it nearly so much as do many others. But there are sounds that I love: Simple sounds. That is why the poem itself needs to be short and neat. Those are the kinds of sounds I’m talking about. Discrete.
And some of these sounds I think I inherited a love for. Others, I grew to love. And some sounds I believe have elements of innate beauty and of learned significance. The sound of a well-hit baseball is satisfying in some deep sense over and above the significance in terms of the game. It has a resonance of beauty beyond the even more important sense that it shows what humans are capable of. All of us feel pride when we watch an athlete perform some amazing feat of strength and skill and training and will and concentration all coming down to a moment of truth and *CRACK!* there it is and you know long before it clears the fence because you heard the Home Run first.
So, there’s that. But I can’t help wondering why we can’t find a way to also feel pride in all the accomplishments of all human beings. They’re all in our family. And, we recognize that, at some level. See paragraph above.
The snapping sound of a puppy’s jaws “missing” a toy is something I haven’t heard for many decades. Sadie reminded me of that sound from more than a half century ago. Some sounds you remember your entire life.
I was trained in “Experimental Psychologist” in the late 1960’s. Today, my program would likely be called “Cognitive Psychology.” The change is more than simply moving to a more fashionable (or opaque?) terminology. Skinner and other behavioral psychologists held sway over much of the experimental work in psychology and particularly in America.
One of my classmates at Michigan had attended Harvard as an undergrad and described an honors dinner he had attended as a Freshman. He had gotten to sit next to B.F. Skinner at the banquet and Skinner, was not only a smart student (having gotten his own Ph.D. in two years), and a brilliant experimentalist; he was also a tireless promotor of his view of psychology. Even at a dinner for Freshman, he began to wax elegant about his particular approach.
“Now you see,” said Skinner, “I am holding a fork and I move it to my mouth and I get food. Some of my colleagues would say that I believe that I will satisfy my hunger if I move the fork to my mouth. But why? There’s no need for belief! It is simply that when I grab my fork and move the food to my mouth, I am reinforced by the food and thus I keep doing it! There’s no need to introduce any belief!”
My classmate, in awe of the great doctor Skinner said, “Wow! That’s amazing Professor Skinner and you truly believe that, right?”
“Of course I believe it! I mean — no, of course not. I don’t believe. I’ve simply been reinforced for saying it so many times that now it is my behavior!”
This is a recounting filtered through two sets of memory, but in essence, I believe it is correct. I no longer think of the word “believe” as a useless and unnecessary construct. As an undergraduate, I studied a lot of behavioral psychology, and worked as a laboratory assistant in a behavioral psych lab. At the same time, I had another part-time job working as a child care worker in the children’s floor of a psychiatric hospital. At the hospital, the approach the psychiatrists took was strictly Freudian. Thankfully, the patients spent the vast majority of their time interacting with much more practical and reasonable souls such as myself, my fellow child care workers, and many wonderful nurses.
I had been fascinated by Freud whom I first read about around age 13. I came to believe there was much truth in his approach. I interpreted dreams and “slips” and his approach resonated with my lived experience. But my allegiance is to truth, not to an individual. Empirical research began to demonstrate that however intuitive his approach might seem, it was not particularly effective compared with behavior therapy or, later, cognitive behavioral therapy.
When I had a first hand look at the “Freudian” approach applied to a kid’s psych ward, I saw for myself how it could be misapplied and mishandled. Here are two examples. One of the kids K had spent an hour or so building a plastic model of a car. No sooner had he finished and began to show off his cool accomplishment than a much younger kid D ran over and stepped on it, pretty well smashing it to bits. K began yelling and screaming. A nurse — one of the few I worked with who happily drank the Freudian Kool-Aid asked K what he was so upset about. K said, “D smashed my car!”
Nurse: “Well, K what are you really upset about?”
K: “I told you! D smashed my car!”
Nurse: “You’re going to the quiet room until you can tell me what you’re really upset about.”
I am not claiming this is “appropriate” use of Freudian therapy. But it does illustrate how easily it can be turned to something absurd and cruel.
This absurdity was not limited to nurses who “after all” didn’t have the years of training it takes to become a Freudian psychoanalyst. But here’s an example from one of those highly trained psychoanalysts. Another patient, M, had been on the ward for about three years and during this time had become close friends to one of the nurses, N. These nurses, you have to understand, did not spend time simply administering meds and sitting in the nursing station. They were on the floor interacting with kids during 90-95% of their shift. So she had spent many hours interacting with M. I observed them together and it was clear that there was a real bond of friendship. At some point, N had a job offer from Raleigh and told M that she’d be leaving. M was sad — appropriately so, in my estimation.
As is typical in hospitals, there were three shifts per day. There is overlap of shifts so that shift N can find out what happened during shift N-1. We took turns reading the “Nursing Notes” and “Psychiatrist Reports” during the handover meeting. The psychiatrist who was seeing M “explained” that he had told M that he, the psychiatrist, was going on a vacation for a week and so “obviously” the sadness expressed by M because he’d be losing his friend who saw him every week for three years was actually a reaction to the fact that M’s psychoanalyst would be on vacation for a week. Right.
I loved working with the kids. And, I enjoyed my colleagues on the ward as well. However, I got completely turned off to the psychoanalytic approach as practiced. I still believe there are some important truths to Freud’s approach, but also some absurdities, particularly when it comes to his misunderstandings of women. We’ll save that for another time. The point here is just to show why I was looking for another approach to psychology and behaviorism fit the bill.
For a time.
It is impressive to train a rat and to see with your own eyes how reinforcement, shaping, thinning the schedule, extinction, generalization, chaining, all work. I was able to train a rat to do a “chain” (i.e., sequence) of four unnatural behaviors. It took patience and it takes clear observation — a kind of empathy really. You have to know when the rat is “getting closer” to the desired behavior. This observational skill is also useful in training a puppy.
That brings us to the game of “chase the dragon, bring it to me, and fight over possession.” Our new puppy Sadie, being smart, learned to chase, fetch, and fight for control very quickly. What I find more interesting is how her behavior also evolved over the course of a week to grab the dragon by the neck a very high proportion of the time. From the standpoint of fetching and fighting me for possession, she has many choices: head, neck, left forearm, right forearm, left leg, right leg, left wing, right wing, tail, belly, or crotch. So, why is she focusing so heavily now on the neck?
One possibility is that I say “Good work, Sadie” more often when she grabs it by the neck. I doubt it, but it’s conceivable. Another possibility is that it’s easier to carry. That also seems unlikely. She occasionally trips over the dragon as she’s bringing it back. But to prevent tripping, it would be best to grab by the belly. Grabbing by the tail, head or neck makes it more likely to trip. In any case, she doesn’t seem to “mind” tripping as much as I would! Another possibility is that she holds on more easily when I struggle with her. But her jaws are strong and she can hold on anywhere and keep me from retrieving it.
I think the most likely explanation (though not the only one) is that grabbing by the neck and shaking (which she also does) is how her ancestors break the necks of small prey. Many people would say this behavior is “instinctive.” But she didn’t exhibit this preference when we began playing “fetch the dragon.” After a week though, she exhibits a strong preference.
In popular speech as well as in professional psychology, we often tend to dichotomize behavior into “learned” and “innate.” The behavioristic approach focuses on what is “learned.” As a result of that focus, we learned many important things about learned behavior. Some have suggested that the American focus on behaviorism and the importance of learned behavior was partly driven by our political philosophy. Regardless of why it happened, behaviorism “ruled the day” for quite awhile.
It turned out that what might be called “naive” behaviorism doesn’t work completely even for rats. One line of thought was made famous by Chomsky. People cannot learn their natural language merely by being positively reinforced for saying the “right” thing. There are rules that we learn. Children brought up in an English-speaking household, for instance, learn the rule that past tenses are made by adding “-ed” to the end of the present tense form of a verb; e.g.; we have “learn – learned”, “walk – walked”, “type – typed”, “showcase – showcased”, etc. There are thousands of example. But the rules are not “perfect’; there are many exceptions. We have “are – were” and “ran – run.” At a young age, almost all children at some point will say, “I ranned after my puppy” “I eated my dinner.” They have not heard that. They are not learning specific words; they are learning rules.
It isn’t only beings as complex as humans who fail to meet the expectations of “naive” behaviorism. A rat can be quickly taught not to “do” something if they are shocked when they do it. On the other hand, making them nauseous, while apparently noxious, does not teach them to avoid doing something. With smells and tastes, though, it is just the opposite. The rat (or human) can learn in one trial to avoid a particular taste or smell if it makes them nauseated. This is sometimes called the “Sauce Bearnaise Effect” — even one bad experience of getting nauseous after tasting a food — especially a novel one — can induce a life-long hatred.
The point is that some of our responses are predisposed to be paired with certain kinds of stimuli. We are not a “blank slate” but a predisposed slate. This kind of predisposition to fluidity is also true of genetic traits. We may think of the environment as a force capable of moving the genome equally easily in any direction, much like a billiard ball can roll in any direction equally easily on a pool table. But that is not so. Some kinds of changes are much easier to effect. For instance, in breeding dogs, the “toy” version is essentially a more juvenile form. They, like puppies and human babies, have a head that is disproportionately large for their bodies.
I recall many years ago reading an article in Science which observed that infant chimps were not afraid of snakes nor of a severed head. But with no specific “training” or “experience” with these stimuli, when they were shown later, the chimps were freaked out both by snakes and by a head with no body. It seems to me to be quite possible that there are behavioral predispositions that are inborn but not manifest without experience — but that the necessary experience is not “learning” in the traditional sense — not, in other words, being punished or reinforced but simply having experience that builds up your model of the world.
For instance, neither of us has seen a jumping spider as big as a puppy. We’ve never been bitten by one! Since they don’t exist, we haven’t “read” about how venomous they might be. But I’m guessing, if either one of us drove home late in the afternoon, pulled into the driveway and saw a spider in the driveway who jumped onto the hood of the car, we’d be completely terrified. We might “know” intellectually that the spider couldn’t tear the car apart to “get” us. But it would still be terrifying, I think because we would know that our “model” of what is possible in this world is badly defective. Our natural tendency, however, is not to say, “Oh, my God! My model of the world is terrible! I’d better fix it!” No, our tendency is to say, “Oh, my God! That spider is horrible!. We need to kill it!.” Our fear, in this case, is not “learned” nor yet is it exactly “innate.” It is “awakened.” At one time, our mammalian ancestors were so small that a large spider might be proportion to what the puppy spider might be to us?
In the case of he puppy chasing after a chewy toy in the shape of a “dragon,” she has “changed” to most often grab it by the throat. It could be learning of a sort, but it seems more like an “awakening” of a pattern already there ready to be activated by relevant experience. That’s not to say, I might not be able to shape her behavior by reinforcement or punishment to only grab it by the tail. This is not science of course. I haven’t been rigorous enough to rule out a more pure “learning” explanation. It’s just a speculation.
In the last two weeks, she’s also become much more adept at using her paws to “control” her dragon. This too feels more like “awakening” than it does pure maturation or pure learning. She’s grown more coordinated and stronger. It seems as though both maturation and learning are involved, but why should she want to “control” the dragon in the first place? That seems like the “awakening” of an instinctive desire.
What do you think? What is your experience with training puppies or other animals? What is your own experience? Do you think you yourself have had experiences that “awakened” something within?
My first “real job” was working as a camp counselor at a camp for kids with special needs. The camp counselors loved to play pranks on each other. One favorite was to sneak into another counselor’s cabin, fill the sleeping victim’s hand with shaving cream and then tickle them under the nose. The expected behavior is that the counselor will scratch the tickle while still asleep and thus smear their own face with shaving cream. Apparently, they tried this on me.
I awoke in the middle of the night and the first thing I saw were my thumbs firmly pressing on a guy’s windpipe. Apparently, instead of groggily smearing my face with shaving cream, I had immediately jumped up and began to choke him to death.
Mom sighed. She rolled her eyes. She glanced out the dining room window. “Still raining,” she muttered under her breath. She did remember to turn the iron off. Big Fred had gotten understandably upset when she had charred one of his shirts a few weeks ago.
“Donnie, we’ve talked about this before. You don’t even ride — in fact, I don’t even thing you ever rode your tricycle. Nor did you use the wagon we got you last Christmas. How about a new baseball mitt.”
“I sure could use a new baseball mitt! Thanks, Mommy! That’s a great idea. Then, I can play with Junior and I’m sure he’ll just let me ride on the handlebars when we go to the games. We go on…what’s the name of that street where those boys were run over last year? Hansel?”
“Hensley. Wait. You want a bike so you can join your brother in baseball?”
“Yes! Then you won’t have to watch me! Fred can watch me!”
Mom found the notion of peaceful summer afternoons with neither boy around for a few hours irresistible. “And, you promise you’ll play baseball and listen to Junior and do what he says?”
“Why should I always have to do what he says? Why don’t I ever get a turn? Isn’t that what you and Daddy always say? Everyone should get a turn. Freddie shouldn’t get all the turns to boss around! It’s not fair!”
“Donnie. It isn’t a game. Junior has a lot more experience than you do. He knows a lot of things that you don’t. He isn’t trying to boss you around. He’s just trying to help keep you from hurting yourself.”
“Okay, Mommy. Thank you for explaining. Sure, I’ll do whatever he says.” Donnie had long ago that it was important to look serious when he told these lies. Usually, he would ball his teeny fists in such a way as to dig his fingernails in so he really did feel pain. That made him look serious. Of course, it was also important to look Mommy in the eye. That wasn’t really something he remembered discovering. It seemed he’d always know it. The trick is to look just past the person into space while you keep in mind that it’s okay to lie. Everyone does it. That’s what you think about. Donnie felt very proud of himself to have gotten a mitt and a bike for nothing. But he wasn’t done. Not by any means.
Later that day, the rain stopped and the sun came out. The day became stifling and steamy. He knew when that happened, sometimes the Henry kids got into their swimming pool. Donnie stuffed his swim trunks into his pocket & decided he’d visit the Henry kids.
While they were swimming, Donnie spun a story of woe: how he needed a bike so he could play ball with Freddy. He tearfully explained that Daddy’s business was failing so they couldn’t afford a bike right now. But that was the terrible thing. Once he got the bike, he had a job lined up at the park and could easily earn the money to buy the bike. But he couldn’t even get to his job without the bike.
Becky always seemed the easiest mark and she spoke first: “How about if we pitch in and buy you your bike?”
Donnie smiled a huge grin. It was a genuine grin too. The Henry kids all thought he was smiling about the bike and they felt better than ever about helping out their friend. The real reason he was smiling was that his little con had worked. Then, he felt a bubble of doubt like an ugly burp. He realized that it was because it had been too easy.
“You know what? I really appreciate your offering to buy me a bike, but I just realized, that there’s really no need.”
Becky frowned. “What do you mean? You just said you needed a bike.”
Donnie guffawed. He realized, he would need to do more mirror work on his fake laughs. “Oh, I do need a bike, all right. But you don’t have to buy one for me. You can invest in one. You can lend me the money. I’ll make lots of money at my job. Then, I’ll give you back twice as much as the cost of the bike. You’ll double your money. Not in a year, but in two months!”
Everyone in Donnie’s neighborhood was very well off, but the Henry’s were exceptionally well off. To them, it seemed like nothing to give the money to Donnie. Donnie didn’t understand this, but he did see the blank look in Becky’s eyes when he said he could double her money. Donnie said, “Look. You double your money and you can tell your mom and dad how smart an investor you are. Trust me. They’ll be proud of you!”
After Donnie toweled off and feasted on some fancy teeny hot dogs, and gotten dressed again, and rounded up the cash he “needed” for the bicycle his mom promised to buy, he noticed Mr. and Mrs. Henry having cocktails across the hardscape. We walked over and began, “Mr. and Mrs. Henry. Thanks so much for letting me use your pool! And, wait till you hear what smart investors your kids are!”
Once Donnie had sold the three Henry kids on the idea, it was easy to get other “investors” from the kids.
“Ted, here’s a chance to do something really smart for yourself. Double your money! I promise!”
“Greg, here’s a chance to do something really smart for yourself. Double your money! I promise!”
“Mike, here’s a chance to double your money! Be smart!. I promise you won’t be sorry.”
Needless to say, Donnie never worked a job and never paid any of them back a single cent. You might reasonably assume they would have gotten together and beat the crap out of him. Instead, he played them off against each other.
“Ted, here’s the thing. I didn’t make as much money as I thought — they lied to me. After I finally get paid, I’ll probably only have enough to pay you back — plus interest — but not the other investors. If they find out I paid you off, they’ll feel like fools. So, if anyone asks, just say I couldn’t pay anyone off.”
Donnie used slightly different words, but this is what he told all his “investors.” Each one thought that they would be the “winner” — the only one to gain any profit.
September is a month of excitement for school kids. Who is in your class? What is your new teacher like? The weather is typically great. It seemed bad form to bring up debt repayment. Nonetheless…
Ted and Donnie Boy found themselves next to each other on the bench awaiting a turn at bat. Ted asked, “Say, Donnie.” Ted lowered his voice so they wouldn’t be overheard and asked about the timetable for getting his money back. Plus interest. Donnie said, “Oh, yes. I have it back in my locker. I’ll give it to you right after the game. I promise!”
October brings a cooler wind and leaves begin to turn orange, amber, and scarlet. “I’ll pay you next time I see you. I promise!”
November isn’t all that much fun on Long Island. It’s too early for snowball fights or sledding, but too cold for baseball. “I’m sorry, Greg. I brought you the money today. And, on the way over here, I saw this family begging for money so they could have a real Thanksgiving dinner so I gave it to them. Stupid, I know, but if you could have seen how pathetic and wimpy they looked.”
“Oh, no problem,” said Greg. “I’m sure you’ll get it sometime.”
“Absolutely. I have plenty at home. I’ll bring it tomorrow. I promise.”
December, January, February…
At some point, Donnie’s classmates were too embarrassed to keep asking. And too embarrassed to tell anyone else. Some were so embarrassed that they continued to believe that they would eventually be paid to avoid feeling like fools. Others realized they had been hoodwinked but didn’t particularly want that to be known so they pretended that they had been paid.
On the longest day of the summer, it was their custom to stay awake around the central fire and dialogue. This particular year, they found themselves arguing about which animal was the most dangerous to the tribe.
No, the most dangerous is NOT the seagull.
One spoke: “Crocodile has many teeth and strong jaws. Besides, he can creep silently along, looking much like a floating log until it is too late.”
Another spoke: “True enough. Yet, what of Panther who lies still and unseen upon a tree branch in the night? Then, he pounces with teeth and claws?”
Yet another spoke: “Terrible indeed. But what of Rattlesnake? He can lie unseen in deep grass and though he is small, he injects a poison that can kill? And, there are many more of them than there are Crocodiles or Panthers.”
Photo by Donald Tong on Pexels.com (not a rattlesnake, but you get the idea).
On through the night, one by one, they would bring up dangers to the tribe. At first, they spoke only of animals, but one pointed out the danger of lightening and another of flood. Another spoke of the year without summer and others pointed out the red pox had killed many.
At last, a short time before the sun began to re-emerge over the horizon, and the sky paused on the brink of deciding to stick with the mild pink color or paint a different scene, they began to speak no more, awed into silence by entire sky aflame in a sea of crimson.
And, they all knew.
They all saw it.
They all realized it was more deadly than anything they had discussed before.
And they all realized it was up to them to tame this monster.
Fred shook his head as he clicked off his cellphone and laid it down carefully on the bedside table charger. His reading light was still on. He glanced over and saw that Geri was awake. He wished for a moment that the phone call had never happened; that it had just been a bad dream. He could see from Geri’s expression that she knew he was upset.
“Well?” She began. “Was that who I think it was?” Her exasperated tone, Fred knew, wasn’t a reproach to him. He shrugged. “He wouldn’t take no for an answer. Of course. He’s coming over in the morning on his way to close a big important deal, so he says. Wants to share the fruits of his genius by showering the boys with gifts.”
Geri sighed. She was, by now, quite familiar with Uncle Donnie’s “gifts” to the boys. The first such gift had come somewhere around their seventh birthday, he had “gifted them” bee bee guns. That would have been bad enough, but Uncle Donnie didn’t stop there. He regaled them with stories about his “bravery” in the “big war” and how he had shot many more “Japs” (as he called them) than he had ever gotten proper credit for. Of course, like all of Donnie’s stories, he completely fabricated this one. He had never been drafted and he certainly never volunteered. He never served in armed services. So far as Geri could tell, he’d never served anywhere for anything. Nonetheless, when she looked at the glowing faces of her admiring twins, she didn’t have the heart to debunk his tall tales. Donnie had left soon after an enormous breakfast to close an ‘enormous’ deal, the details of which he couldn’t disclose for legal reasons, but he assured them all, they’d soon be reading about it in the paper.
Donnie’s parting words had been: “Tell Daddy to take you to Dick’s soon! They have your rifles waiting for you! Who knows? Maybe some day, you’ll be a war hero too!.”
That evening, Geri & Fred had had the worst fight of their marriage. She couldn’t understand why Fred had not told the boys they weren’t old enough to have bee bee guns and that their Uncle Donnie had told them a pack of lies. Fred had ended up yelling and saying things he didn’t mean. Geri had ended up yelling and saying things she didn’t mean. They had never really “resolved” that conflict. But they eventually moved on. Since Uncle Donnie’s visits were only occasional, they came to an uneasy cease-fire about the necessity of debunking his lies. Geri promised not to burst the bubble of Donnie’s lies, but Fred understood that if she were ever asked directly, she would tell the truth. Fred said he would do the same. As it turned out, the boys never asked either of their parents whether Uncle Donnie’s tales were true.
Now, Fred regretted not havingmcalled Donnie out on his lies when he first told them. Well, Fred reasoned, now it was ‘water under the bridge.’ Hopefully, this visit wouldn’t last too long. Fred turned the light out. He knew he’d no longer be able concentrate on his book. Sleep would take awhile. He knew there was no point in worrying about Donnie’s visit or trying to guess what lies he would fill his sons’ heads with next. But that knowledge didn’t bring sleep.
Geri for her part, also lay awake in the dark, struggling to find the argument that would convince Fred to permanently sever ties with his brother. How do you convince someone to forsake their demented and destructive brother? She worried about Donnie’s impact on her sons. What of them? They were bright boys, so their teachers all said. How could they keep falling for Uncle Donnie’s lies? Of course, when the four of them had arrived at the gun shop, Donnie had not paid for the rifles. What he had done was to have the stocks engraved with the boy’s names: “Teddy” and “Ronnie.” Uncle Donnie had assured the store owner that his brother Fred would come by and pay for the rifles and the engraving. Normally, the store owner insisted on cash up front for engraving, but after Donnie explained his status as a war hero and explained that he needed every cent right now to buy the old armory downtown where he was going to make a “first class” shelter for homeless veterans, the store owner agreed and even contributed twenty bucks of his own money.
Fred had paid the two hundred bucks for the air rifles and engraving. Every time Uncle Donnie visited from then on, Donnie had reminded the boys how he had “bought them” engraved air rifles and asked how their target practice was coming. They complained that their Dad had insisted on strict rules about using the guns. For one thing, they had to wear safety goggles. For another, they could only aim and shoot at paper targets stapled to trees. Uncle Donnie had clicked his tongue and wondered aloud what was wrong with his brother. “When I was in basic training, you know what we did? We shot at each other with live ammo! That way, we learned to duck and aim quickly so when I finally took all those island back from the Japs, it was easy. You don’t get to be a soldier by being a coward! Tell you what, boys, I’ll talk to brother Fred & see whether I can talk some sense into him!”
Geri swung her feet over the edge of the bed. She could tell that Fred was awake and upset too. She said, “Fred, I’m going to make some chamomile tea for myself. You want me to make you some too?”
Fred sighed. “Yeah, I suppose. Thanks, sweetheart. Actually, how about that Sleepy Time Tea instead? That has hibiscus too. I think it works better.”
The tea quickly sent Geri into dreamland, but Fred still couldn’t get to sleep until about 3 am. He kept going over the other disastrous “gifts” that Donnie had promised over the years. He couldn’t think of a single time that his brother had actually paid even a single dime for any of the gifts he had promised the twins. Nonetheless, the boys kept accepting the idea that Uncle Donnie was their generous and prosperous benefactor. On the few occasions when Fred had tried to set the record straight, the boys just looked at each other and shook their heads. Usually Teddy would pipe up first with a comment like: “It’s okay, Dad. We understand. Uncle Donnie explained it to us. You pay for our house, our clothes, Christmas and birthday presents. And, you’re not rich like Uncle Donnie. He says we shouldn’t expect you to buy extra gifts and that he’s happy to do it.”
Fred had not wanted to come right out and call his brother a liar. To the boys, Donnie was a war hero and a rich successful businessman. To Fred, it was more than a little maddening. After all, the boys had been there when he went to pick up their rifles. Apparently, they had been so focused on how “cool” the rifles looked and were so busy imagining getting a chance to shoot, that they had paid no attention to the fact that he, their father, had paid for the rifles and the engraving.
It seemed to Fred, only moments after he finally fell asleep that he heard the front doorbell ring. “Crap,” he muttered aloud. He rolled over. Geri was sitting up in bed. Then, Fred heard the the twins sprint down the upstairs hallway and piston their feet down the stairs. He could hear the happy greetings though he couldn’t make out what was being said. Fred & Geri exchanged a look. Fred took a leak, did a cursory job of brushing his teeth and ambled over to the bedroom door. He turned to look at Geri. “Are you coming down soon?”
Geri frowned. “Geez. It’s only 6:30 am! Who visits someone that early on a Saturday morning?”
Fred nodded. He said, “We know who. My brother. Donnie. Anyhow, I’m awake. You ready for coffee or breakfast?”
Geri half-smiled. “Coffee sounds nice. I’m not ready for breakfast. Tell everyone I’ll be down in a little while. We should use up those eggs. Maybe an omelet for everyone? You can just leave a bit for me?”
Fred smiled. After all, he did enjoy his life. Most days. They were a very lucky family, he reminded himself. His wife had barely survived having the twins. Lost a lot of blood. It had been touch and go. But all was well. And then, there was the accident. Randy could have easily lost his right eye. Probably would have if the bee bee would have struck a quarter inch over. After that little incident, Fred had put away their rifles for a month and made them promise to always wear their goggles no matter what his demented brother Donnie said.
Fred reached the top of the steps and heard the front door slam. Had the boys gone out for a walk? He took a quick detour into the boys’ room and peered out into the soft predawn. He saw the boys pile into the back seat of Fred’s “custom-made luxury car.” At least, that’s what Fred called it. Where the hell was he taking them? Not exactly cool not to discuss with us. Probably just driving around the block, Fred supposed.
Fred supposed wrong.
The boys did not return for breakfast. Or lunch. Geri and Fred were both worried, though Fred was reluctant to call the cops on his own brother. Donnie didn’t answer his cellphone. Nor did the boys. Upon checking their room, he found both cellphones on the nightstands. The boys hadn’t known they were going to be away long. Even Uncle Donnie couldn’t have kept them from wanting to text their friends. Their friends! Fred tried calling some of the friends of the twins. None of them admitting to know of any plans. In fact, Judy & Jill had expected the twins after lunch to come study algebra together.
Fred was fighting a feeling of dread. He felt the shadow of Geri in the doorway and looked over at her. She just stared at him. Fred nodded. “Okay. Okay. I’ll call.”
Fred still felt bad about calling the cops on his brother. He explained the situation and, in turn, the cops explained that since the man was a close member of their family, there was nothing to be worried about and that, in any case, their hands were tied for 24 hours. Fred wanted to explain that Uncle Donnie wasn’t an “ordinary” Uncle. He wanted to make them see that his brother was a liar; unreliable; a cheat. But he didn’t know these police officers. To them, it was just an Uncle out for a joy ride and all would be well by dinner time. Fred reassured himself that the police were likely right. He supposed the twins would be back by dinner.
Fred supposed wrong.
Geri didn’t exactly blame Fred. But when the weeks dragged on and no leads arose, Geri stopped crying audibly. Her cheeks bore the light little tracks of tears, silently shed, and she moved on past chamomile tea to heavy drinking and then to opioids. Fred became obsessed with finding the twins. Everyone at work understood. Nonetheless, he was eventually put on unpaid leave. On the few occasions when he tried to concentrate on some time-critical problem, he utterly failed.
Fred combed the neighborhood for the third time, hoping to trigger the memory of someone who might have seen Donnie’s wreck of a car and noted which way it had turned. But only one jogger, Alice, had noticed the car. At that point, the car was still going the same direction Fred himself had seen although Alice noticed that the car had no plates. But questioning her for the third time turned up nothing new.
When Fred returned home from a day of canvasing, Geri was gone. Geri’s clothes were gone. On the kitchen table, she had left a short hand-written note:
petersironwood 