CIRCLE of CEDARS

Cedar trees that grow close together become joined at the top, Max had heard. That is why when some get cut down, others around them become vulnerable to high winds and destruction. When his people had first come from California, the trees were dense in his yard—a magical forest. But his family had cleared the land and filled in the natural landscape to extend the area around the pool. High winds had followed, uprooting more of the trees and leaving a sad, scraggly terrain between the yard and the creek and the neighboring property. Open and ugly, not richly textured and mysterious as it once had been.

At least in the center of the circle that all the homes on the cul-de-sac shared, the trees were still intact. That circle had been the meeting place for creatures of all sorts, both nocturnal and diurnal—the winged kind, the small ones with eight legs, some who liked to burrow and make mounds, others who liked to slither or climb, the masked ones who came out at night to sniff and sometimes attack the garbage bags, the lone possum with pale eyes, various felines—a strange and incomprehensible species to Max—and of course canines like himself, the best. A plethora of life forms who shared the earth space with no fences or property lines. And above them all roosted a barn owl named Minerva, who could hear and see better than any of them. Hidden by day, she would reveal herself to some when evening came, her heart-shaped face and piercing eyes suddenly visible through the dense branches of the cedars. . . .

********************

Max stepped into his neighbor’s garden and peered into the bedroom window. The heater was humming; the inhabitants wouldn’t notice him. Darby was stretched out on the window seat like little Lord Fauntleroy, his nose in the lush pillows, and Emma curled up on the bed. What a scene!

Max rarely thought of class and lifestyle discrepancies. But on this chilly day when his own yard had frost on it, he mused upon the ways creatures lived. Of course, he had the swimming pool—dirty and cold at present—and the larger yard. He also had balls—Darby had lost his as a young lad, though he was known to do Elvis impressions around attractive females—dry, ineffectual movements that would never produce offspring. What a waste! And Emma, sweet as she was, also sterile. The pair would always be naïve, unworldly, compared to virile, boisterous, daring Max!

He sniffed around to smell any new evidence of their outings. None. Being in their yard made him envious and contemptuous at the same time. The envy concerned food. They got morsels of turkey and chicken, bread and butter, grapes cut or bit in half, ice cream, and biscuits. Even their regular meal was a mixture of wet and dry, stirred up in a stew. Thinking about the meaty chunks of moist, scrumptious canned canine concoctions stirred into a generous portion of dry niblets with just the right amount of water made Max salivate. Max and Bear—he couldn’t forget his older chum—only got dry food—and not enough of that. They would wolf down their portions (no pun intended) and want more.

What else did he envy? Well, warm baths instead of cold ones—a dip in the pool or a run through the creek—trips to a proper vet instead of a clinic, and the softness of a bed. And a less junky yard, though he contributed his share to it. He loved tearing off the limbs of stuffed animals and strewing them about, and twice a week mutilating a garbage bag and spreading the contents around the front yard and street. But no one could blame him for the rusty metal, scattered auto parts, piles of lumber, and overall muddy yard. Still, Max wouldn’t exchange his life for Darby and Emma’s, his roving spirit for their namby-pamby ways.

At least they didn’t wear scarves, as their predecessor had done. Sunny—a mutt in fact, though his people never used the m-word around him—had been in television commercials and had a wardrobe of scarves, hats, sweaters, and even a little sailor hat with a matching scarf—ridiculous to Max, who didn’t even wear an ID collar. A photograph of Sunny and his mom showed them both in sailor outfits, winning some sort of prize for best look alike pet and owner, next to the runners up, a young man with spiky hair and a small iguana on his shoulder, wearing matching black leather jackets. A contest not even for talent—only looks!

What strange things humans did in their quest to favor nurture over nature, Max thought. Even the word “owner” bothered him; how could anyone own another? He preferred the attitude of indigenous peoples toward land, creatures, water, and sky, which he learned about from another dog who had heard tales passed down from earlier, wolfish ancestors just beginning to be domesticated. “All my relations” was a mindset he could relate to—when he lay beneath the whispering trees at nightfall, when he heard the singing of the stars and the call of Minerva that sounded alternately like hisses, chirrups, snores, twitters, or occasionally a scream, he knew that all lifeforms had a purpose and are interconnected.

Still, it was easy to have contempt for others along with envy. It was said that he, a German Shepherd, could learn anything. Anything! Many did not discern his great intelligence, partly because of his unkempt appearance and outdoor ways—how he hated being judged for his appearance or called a name such as mongrel, cur, fleabag, or even tail-wagger. Didn’t people know that words could hurt?

Of course, he could learn anything a two-legged creature could teach him, though he laughed when he heard Darby’s human mom describing a trick some canine in a film had performed. The poor lad had to put his head between his forelegs, which rested on a velvet chair, and count to 20 while his mistress hid some inane object and then look for it as she called out “fetch.”

Max wouldn’t stoop to such androcentric madness. His fetching had been largely with torn-up footballs, old athletic shoes, mud-stained tennis balls. He was quick and sure, instinctive and glorious, and never tired, unlike Darby and Emma. They would be classified as “indoor elitists”—only one step down from “indoor pampered,” the canine caste that rarely touches bare earth and never associates with outdoor strays. He himself was an “outdoor enthusiast / socialite” with free, unsupervised roaming privileges—the latter because he knew how to escape the confines of the fence.

His mind wandered to Bear, whom he had known all his life. A chocolate lab with deep brown eyes, Bear had come from California three years ago. He complained bitterly about the heat and the cold in Texas, and about his arthritis. Emma was the same breed—Max didn’t like to think about breed distinctions, though they were there, nonetheless—but she was nubile, carefree, happy with any weather, and Pollyannaish in disposition. Pollyanna, he recalled, had a four-legged companion, and helped to transform a town—a sign of strength rather than naivety.

Max felt a little jealousy in the bond of breed that Emma and Bear shared, but surely everyone could see that he and Emma were more compatible. Darby, jealous by nature and a herder—half Australian Shepherd and half Blue Heeler—tried to keep them separate. But Max and Emma, being similar in age and playfulness, always gravitated together. Darby was on the lookout for any sign of trouble, and sometimes he charged at her to bring her back home, as if she were to blame for her natural social instincts and needed herding. Not everyone understood females as he, Max, did!

Max looked again into the window. They were probably in the kitchen, enjoying some tasty morsels. Perhaps if he waited by the back door, their mother would let them out to play. She did so occasionally but was displeased by his influence upon them, as Max would lead them down the hill into the creek. Darby and Emma had to get their undersides, feet, and forelegs cleaned every time they were transgressive by going into the creek.

Transgressive! A delicious word, like illicit, scallywag, reprobate, bigamist, polygamist. He was all of these, and proud of it! Not affected, obedient, genteel, chaste, reserved, cautious, as some others were. He fully lived! Passion and freedom were his métier!

In the distance, he heard Bear barking. Bear never strayed from the yard, never found the missing plank in the fence, never cared to go fool around with Mocha, who was chained up on the other side, even though Bear still had his jewels, rusty as they were. Max knew that he himself was the one who had knocked up Mocha. Strange expression. In England it simply meant to knock on someone’s door—he had learned that from an English Setter in the next block. He thought back nostalgically to the moments of salacious exchange, and then the wonderful pups. Ah, Life—the endless cycle.

If Darby and Emma’s house and yard represented one world and his another, the house on the corner was yet another, with many people crowded into the house and vehicles crammed into the driveway. The cedar trees had been stripped from the property, and junk lay all over the back yard. And then there was poor Mocha. A pit bull, she was feared, though she herself was submissive and cowardly. Chained up, her life was confined to an eight-foot area. Only prison—some called it kennel—could be worse.

Five tiny mixtures of Mocha and Max (their names sounded grand together, he thought) emerged a few months after their frolic. What cuteness! They were not bound by a chain and knew nothing of the history of slavery, of forced labor, of quilts that bore the stories of debilitating incarceration and acts of violence, of howls that voiced the cry for freedom, of being hunted and punished for attempting to escape, or of the hope for self-determination, victory, and retribution.

His musings were interrupted as the back door opened. “Max, go home.” She was not in the mood for wiping off creek jumpers. “I’ll come over to give you supper in a while.” He whined and jumped up on her, his muddy forefeet making a marvelous stamp-like print on her blouse. “Get down.” Oh, why couldn’t they see his plight, his true existential condition, his yearning for companionship? He whined again. His dogged determination would surely win her over.

“Ok, but let’s go over to your yard to play.” She opened the door to let Darby and Emma out. Max jumped in ecstasy. The three dogs sniffed and circled, Darby wary, Emma oblivious to anything but delight. The three ran over to Max’s driveway and through the back gate. One pup called Cinnamon joined them, her tiny, dirty, uncollared body quivering as she wriggled under the gate as it slid closed. “That’s my girl,” thought Max. “Unafraid of anyone—even the big guys.”

Max glanced at the little lemon tree his people had planted, covered in plastic to protect it from the North Texas winter, and at the line of cactus plants—experiments in transplanting that might not last. His people were like that, too, fragile and uncertain in the Texas environs. He alone was a sturdy, stalwart Texan, with strong roots here. Despite his bravado, a tear welled up in each eye, so he turned his head away from the others before running to get the torn and dirty football on the off chance that Darby’s mama would throw it for him. Yes, she grabbed it, and here it came!

********************

Bear ached with old age—stiffness, pain in his hips, fatigue. He didn’t like being outside so much of the time; he felt homesick for California, for the inside life he had known there. Here, in this big, strange place, he had aged.

He felt that no one paid him the attention he deserved. He was, after all, the wise one, the elder. He knew things that no one else knew. He knew, for example, what had happened to the finger and a half that his owner Jose had lost when the electric saw went crazy that warm day, when his people parents rushed to the hospital, leaving the door unlocked and blood all over the kitchen floor, when Daniella and Jaime and their cousins and aunt and the neighbors were looking for the fingers—even on the roof. What drama! But no one asked him or even looked into his eyes. Oh, there was a phone call to a vet, from the lady next door. “If I brought the two dogs in and you x-rayed them and found the fingers, and then extracted them, would they still be useful to the person who lost them?” Negative. Bear could have told them that. No way to take some parts belonging to a human and stick them back on, once they had been in the mouth and stomach of someone who had salivated over them, swallowed them—whether or not chewing had taken place.

This was a strange place, Texas. He missed the weather of California, his indoor, younger life. His good health and active body. And now Jaime and Daniella were always lately hanging on his neck, looking at him with the saddest eyes he had ever seen. What could be their problem? They were at school now, but he knew he’d get the same treatment when they came home.

The garage door opened. Karina, his mom, had the keys in her hand. “Come on, Bear.” She opened the car door. What? She never took him for a ride. She didn’t look at him but kept gesturing to the back seat. How would he get up into the seat? He ached, thinking about it. He took a few stiff steps, then stood still. Mocha was yapping in the background, and now here came one of her pups, Cinnamon.

“No, go away,” Karina yelled at them. “Come on, Bear.” Bear took a few more steps. Where would they be going? Oh. He suddenly remembered a possibility. The vet. That office with the long line of canines and cats and other creatures. Shots and pokes, pills and prods. Obnoxious, really. Was it really necessary to go there, ever?

Karina patted the seat then got behind him and pushed so that he was forced to jump up onto the seat. Owww. His poor joints! The door slammed. But there was another sound he heard simultaneously—Minerva, the barn owl who lived in the cedar trees, let out an unmistakable harsh screech—he had never heard such a thing in the daytime. What could it mean? Audibly, Karina muttered, "Cuando el tecolote canta, el indio muere," but he didn't understand that, either.

Karina got in the front and turned on the ignition. Mexican music muffled the noise of the engine. The garage door came down, and Bear had a sense that he would not be coming back. Was it time to go to California? Why weren’t the others with them?

He took no pleasure in the scenery. Karina stared intently at the road. Within a few minutes she stopped the car and parked, slipped on his leash, and insisted he get out. Ouch again. They walked toward a building—yes, the vet. Bear could remember the smells, the sounds of barking, the people wearing the same green outfits, and the myriad complex emotions that people and animals had there.

“I’m sorry, Bear,” Karina said, just as they entered the door. Sorry for what? She had never said that before, to him anyway. He sensed a great weight in her heart and a dread in his own. Were the whispered allusions to his extinction coming true? But he had always trusted in the goodness of his people; he had forgiven every unkind word or action. Surely now was not the time for—but his mind could not even imagine it.

They waited, and Karina stroked him—the first strokes he had gotten from her in some months. Then it was their turn to go into a little room. “Hello, Bear,” said the assistant in the green outfit. “Just lie down here.”

As he obediently lay down, he tried to wag his tail, but it felt too heavy. Then the vet came in with a long needle. Double ouch. “This shouldn’t hurt at all,” said the doctor. But it did—the long needle, the anxious look in the six eyes of the three humans around him. He wondered what might be wrong with him.

Karina turned her face away, and he could see tears running down it. He tried to comfort her with his own eyes but felt them closing, closing until there was no more light at all. Even the memory of Minerva’s warning signal faded away.

********************

Max surveyed his yard and thought about how different it had been when he was a pup. Some of the new grass his people had planted had taken, some had not, leaving spaces for dust and mud and rocks to gather. He hadn’t helped, he realized, with his own rough ways. He had carried chewed-up toys, rocks, and all sorts of junk to the various sites on the land. Now his family, desperate to sell their house and move back, worked to pick up the junk strewn everywhere. A neighbor with a chain saw was cutting down more trees.

His musings were suddenly interrupted. “Max, come here,” called his mom. He knew what that meant—hours locked up in the garage—when it was broad daylight. There would be strange people coming in to look at the house while he was stuck in the dark garage. Everything topsy-turvy—darkness when it should be day.

Max had blown his other option. He had been offered a small fenced-in area on one side of the vast yard, with a second-hand shed in case of rain or snow—but he had managed to escape, like Houdini, whenever they enclosed him there. Now he regretted his break-away tactics; the garage was much worse, like an isolation cell in prison or what humans called a kennel.

Darby and Emma used to rush up to the fence to “play” with him from the other side and with Bear, too. Max sighed. Soon he would be in California cooped up in a much smaller yard. At least that was the plan he had heard. Change did not always seem like progress.

“Max!” He had to go in. Through the backyard and the mudroom and into the garage, where he could lay on an old dirty blanket in the dark until someone—usually Jaime— remembered to let him out.

Being in the garage was strange without Bear. Bear—he had always been there before. Where was he now? Max couldn’t say. He didn’t like to think about change or possible death—not now when he was at the height of his own powers. It seemed against his nature to be introspective.

But as much as he hated to admit it, he missed Bear terribly. He even missed Bear’s snoring, his complaints, his persnickety, old dog ways. And he missed Mocha, and Cinnamon, her sole remaining pup, who had been taken away by a man in a uniform. How strange to lose a consort—especially one in captivity—and the last of his own progeny. Gone.

Well, here he was now, in the dark, dismal garage. The door went down, obliterating daylight except for a narrow horizontal strip of light where the floor began. Might as well sleep for as long as he could, thought Max. Before he closed his eyes, he worried about the changes ahead. Finally, he fell into a restless sleep.

Max dreamed of chasing a squirrel across the circle and under the cedars in front of his house and of Bear’s eyes, staring at him with wordless envy. Minerva’s voice cried out a warning shriek. Then, he was in a box on the back of a truck, being jostled and jolted. He woke up with a dry mouth and a fear about moving to California. Maybe the rest of his life he’d be cooped up in a small yard, or worse, a box like the one in his dream.

Finally, the garage door opened. There, in fact, was a large truck in the driveway with a gangplank. No! Jaime was up in the truck, playing with a ball, bouncing it hard against the side walls, as if he, too, resented the move. Ever since Bear had gone, Jaime seemed sullen, aloof. He hardly wanted to play with Max anymore.

Max gingerly stepped onto the gangplank and found it steady. With several leaps he was up in the truck.

“Max!” Karina shouted.

“Let him come,” said Jaime. The boy and the dog found each other and tangled together on the truck’s floor. Then Jaime threw the ball hard against the wall, and when it rebounded, Max caught it and then dropped it at the feet of the boy. Over and over, they did this, until Max jumped off the back of the truck, hoping that Jaime would follow—his way of showing the boy that he did not want to leave Texas, that this yard, this sky, these trees were their home.

Then two things happened. A truck pulled into the driveway next door, and Mocha jumped out, bound by a leash with a uniformed man on the other end of it. The man escorted Mocha to the front door, carrying an envelope marked “citation.” How relieved Max was to see her! But there was no Cinnamon. Karina called Jaime in to start packing, and Max was shepherded into his own backyard.

For the rest of the day, there was movement on both sides of the fence—his own family packing and loading the truck; the people next door getting ready for something. Mocha barked. Benches and tables were set up in the driveway next door. Cedar trees blew in the wind, releasing spring pollen.

At sundown, Mocha was put inside her own garage. The old man next door was stirring something over a large pot on an outdoor gas stove. Cars began appearing; the hosts welcomed their guests and offered tequila and Sprite. Max could smell beans and tortillas, rice, and cheese.

His own family had never made an effort to meet the people next door. Max came and went, visiting Mocha, but there seemed to be an invisible line that was never crossed by the people, even though the fence ended at the two mailboxes, side by side. Class difference, he reasoned. Unknown in the canine world, even between pedigreed and not. Why were humans so concerned about it?

Then, wonder of wonders, a whole troop of men arrived, wearing black with silver studs up the sleeves of the jackets and down the outside of their pants. They had bright red ties with silver embroidery and bright silver belt buckles. Max watched as they brought out instruments from cases—trumpets, a violin, large, rounded guitar, and bass—all the time, bantering in Spanish.

A mariachi band. He had heard one before, at a fiesta in a grocery store parking lot. And on the radio. But never in his own neighborhood.

Kids of all ages came out of the house and surrounded the band members, shyly touching the instruments before racing back inside to their TV or video games. Young women in tight jeans showed up with dishes of food. Now he could smell guacamole and salsa.

The music started, instruments springing to life and then voices joining in song. Max could hear two trumpets, the screech of the violin, and the softer sounds of the guitar and bass. Words—he recognized corazón, mi casa, el amor, primavera—were all blending, harmonies rising. He felt like howling with them but decided to wait. Oddly, not everyone appreciated his vocal talent.

Through the gate, Max could see Darby and Emma’s mom step out between the cedar trees that lined the entrance of her own driveway. She was sweeping the sidewalk—but she wasn’t just sweeping, she was moving in time with the music, dancing with the broom. Then her husband came out, listened to the music for a few minutes, and they both went back inside the house.

The old man, wearing an apron and wiping his brow with a handkerchief, stirred the pot. More people arrived. A fiesta—and on what Max presumed his last night in Texas. The acrid smell of tequila was on the breeze, along with the occasional scent of a cigarette. Mocha was quiet, from her interior location. He knew she must be wondering about all of the people in her driveway, who clapped between each song.

Five little boys came outside and ran over to the house next door. They rang the doorbell, and he could hear them asking if she wanted to come over for a birthday party for their aunt. Soon after that, Darby and Emma’s mom walked over with a small gift and handed it to one of the younger women.

The sky darkened. The light from the garage next door illuminated a piñata hanging next to a fan belt. He could see the red hair of Darby’s mom, the only gringa at the party, among all the darker heads, and a little girl weaving among all the adults and teens. He could see one man sitting on a pile of tires, leaning against the outside wall of the house, and the young women chatting together.

The harmonies rose and fell. One of the trumpet players smoked between blasts of trumpet, the cigarette held expertly as he fingered the notes. But Max was most drawn to watching the feet of the violinist, which made patterns in time with the music.

“Doesn’t anyone dance?” The words of Darby and Emma’s mom in English stood out from the rest of the conversation. Then, spontaneously, one man asked her to dance, and four other couples formed. They danced and twirled in the driveway; the tempo of the music increased. Partners changed, laughter and clapping now mingled with the music.

Max somehow was aware of front doors being opened in the cul-de-sac, of a lone listener leaning against his car on the other side of the grove of cedar trees in the circle, of the soft cooing voice of Minerva, and of the music traveling outward on the air.

“What is that song?” asked Darby and Emma’s mom.

“Mexico Lindo y Querido.” The translation? Something about loving the homeland, a mythical place Max had never been, unless it was here. But perhaps they were all in that place through the music, he reckoned.

The violinist stepped forward to dance with the gringa, who was now lifting the weight of an imaginary Mexican skirt as she twirled around him.

“You dance like a Mexican woman,” he said in Spanish. “You married?”

There was laughter and then translation, and her own response, “Yes. My husband is a drummer who sometimes plays with a band—Los Nice Guys.” More laughter.

If only his own family would go over for the feast or let him out so he could munch on some leftover tortillas, thought Max. Then he noticed the back door of the mudroom opening, his own family slipping out to sit outside on their patio, under the big sky.

A lone walker from the house across the way circled the cluster of cedars in the cul-de-sac with pensive steps, looking on at the crowd in the driveway as she passed by each time. Max wondered if she, too, wished she could join them. Humans were odd—it wasn’t only fences that kept them separated. He thought about Bear and Cinnamon, who were gone forever, and how Darby and Emma would stay and grow old in Texas while he was somewhere else.

He trotted up to Jaime and put his head on Jaime’s arm. His family seemed calmer than they had been in a long time. Karina had her eyes closed and hummed with the music. Jose drummed against a chair arm with his hand that was missing part of his fingers.

Max thought about bolting the next day, just before the truck pulled away, to stay in Texas and roam free. But his loyalty was too ingrained; he knew that even if he stayed behind, he would soon be following the scent of his people to California.

The music swelled as song followed song. No sooner had the clapping died when another song title would be called out and the instruments started anew.

Max could hear the sounds of Minerva twittering as if to say everything was all right and would somehow work out. He knew he would never forget her voice and her watchful eyes, even if he were thousands of miles away.

Near the protective circle of cedars, the serenade and the dancing lasted long into the jubilant Texas night.