The Art of Racing in the Rain

now waiting for Denny to come home—he should be here soon—lying on the cool tiles of the kitchen floor in a puddle of my own urine.
I’m old. And while I’m very capable of getting older, that’s not the way I want to go out. Shot full of pain medication and steroids to reduce the swelling of my joints. Vision fogged with cataracts. Puffy, plasticky packages of Doggie Depends stocked in the pantry. I’m sure Denny would get me one of those little wagons I’ve seen on the streets, the ones that cradle the hindquarters so a dog can drag his ass behind him when things start to fail. That’s humiliating and degrading. I’m not sure if it’s worse than dressing up a dog for Halloween, but it’s close. He

“Mi chiamo Enzo. Anch’io voglio diventare un campione.”

I don’t want Denny to worry about me. I don’t want to force him to take me on a one-way visit to the vet. He loves me so much. The worst thing I could possibly do to Denny is make him hurt me. The concept of euthanasia has some merit, yes, but it is too fraught with emotion. I much prefer the idea of assisted suicide, which was developed by the inspired physician Dr. Kevorkian. It’s a machine that allows an ailing elder to push a button and take responsibility for his own death. There is nothing passive about the suicide machine. A big red button. Press it or don’t. It is a button of absolution.

My will to die. Perhaps, when I am a man, I will invent a suicide machine for dogs.

Growing old is a pathetic thing. It is full of limitations and reduction. It happens to us all, I know; but I think that it might not have to. I think it happens to those of us who request it. And in our current mind-set, our collective ennui, it is what we have chosen to do. But one day a mutant child will be born who refuses to age, who refuses to acknowledge the limitations of these bodies of ours, who lives in health until he is done with life, not until his body no longer supports him. He will live for hundreds of years, like Noah. Like Moses. This child’s genes will be passed to his offspring, and more like him will follow. And their genetic makeup will supplant the genes of those of us who need to grow old and decay before we die. I believe that one day it will come to pass; however, such a world is beyond my purview.

The dawn breaks gently on the horizon and spills its light over the land. My life seems like it has been so long and so short at the same time. People speak of a will to live. They rarely speak of a will to die. Because people are afraid of death. Death is dark and unknown and frightening. But not for me. It is not the end.

The pain was so intense it left me shivering and weak. Later, Doc applied salve to my wounds and wrapped my forelegs tightly and whispered to me, “It’s a mean bastard who won’t pay for a little local anesthetic for his pups.”

Do you see? This is why I distrust them. It’s a mean bastard who will do the cutting without anesthetic because he wants to get paid.

The beach, the ocean, the sky. It was there for us and only for us. A world without end.

“No race has ever been won in the first corner,” he said. “But plenty of races have been lost there.”

“No race has ever been won in the first corner,” he said. “But plenty of races have been lost there.”

I looked at him. He reached out, settled his hand on the crown of my head, and scratched my ear like he has always done.

“That’s right,” he said to me. “If we’re going to be a cliché, let’s be a positive cliché.”

Yes: the race is long—to finish first, first you must finish.

He didn’t say anything, but he looked at his hands trembling and then he looked at me, and I knew what he was thinking. He was thinking that if he just had a steering wheel to hold on to, his hands wouldn’t shake. If he had a steering wheel to hold on to, everything would be all right.