The Art of Racing in the Rain. Garth Stein

he rented on Lake Washington. I didn’t enjoy apartment living much, as I was used to wide-open spaces and I was very much a puppy; still, we had a balcony that overlooked the lake, which gave me pleasure since I am part water dog, on my mother’s side

      I grew quickly, and during that first year, Denny and I forged a deep fondness for each other as well as a feeling of trust. Which is why I was surprised when he fell in love with Eve so quickly.

      He brought her home and she was sweet smelling, like him. Full of fermented drinks that made them both act funny, they were hanging on each other like they had too many clothes between them, and they were pulling at each other, tugging, biting lips and jabbing fingers and yanking at hair, all elbows and toes and saliva. They fell onto the bed and he mounted her and she said, “The field is fertile—beware!” And he said, “I embrace the fertility.” And he plowed the field until it grasped the sheets in its fists, arched its back, and cried out with joy.

      When he got up to splash in the bathroom, she patted my head, which hovered low to the floor, me still being immature at just over a year old, and a little bit intimidated by all the screaming. She said, “You don’t mind if I love him, too, do you? I won’t come between you.”

      I respected her for asking, but I knew that she would come between us, and I found her preemptive denial to be disingenuous.

      I tried not to act off-putting because I knew how infatuated Denny was with her. But I admit I was less than embracing of her presence. And because of that, she was less than embracing of me. We were both satellites orbiting Denny’s sun, struggling for gravitational supremacy. Of course, she had the advantage of her tongue and her thumbs, and when I watched her kiss and fondle him sometimes she would glance at me and wink as if to gloat: Look at my thumbs! See what they can do!

       5

      Monkeys have thumbs.

      Practically the dumbest species on the planet, next to the duck-billed platypus, who make their dens underwater even though they breathe the air. The platypus is horribly stupid, but is only slightly dumber than a monkey. Yet monkeys have thumbs. Those monkey-thumbs were meant for dogs. Give me my thumbs, you fucking monkeys! (I love the Al Pacino remake of Scarface, very much, though it doesn’t compare to the Godfather movies, which are excellent.)

      I watch too much TV. When Denny goes away in the mornings, he turns it on for me, and it’s become a habit. He warned me not to watch all day, but I do. Fortunately, he knows I love cars, so he lets me watch a lot of Speed Channel. The classic races are the best, and I especially like Formula One. I like NASCAR, too, but I prefer it when they race on the road circuits. While racing is my favorite, Denny told me it was good for me to have variety in my life, so he often puts on other channels, which I enjoy very much as well.

      Sometimes if I’m watching the History Channel or the Discovery Channel or PBS or even one of the kids’ channels—when Zoë was little I’d end up spending half the day trying to pry goofy jingles out of my brain—I learn about other cultures and other ways of life, and then I start thinking about my own place in the world and what makes sense and what doesn’t.

      They talk a lot about Darwin; pretty much every educational channel has some kind of show about evolution at some point, and it’s usually really well thought out and researched. However, I don’t understand why people insist on pitting the concepts of evolution and creation against each other. Why can’t they see that spiritualism and science are one? That bodies evolve and souls evolve and the universe is a fluid place that marries them both in a wonderful package called a human being. What’s wrong with that idea?

      The scientific theorists go on and on about how monkeys are the closest evolutionary relative of people. But that’s speculation. Based on what? Based on the fact that certain ancient craniums have been found to be similar to modern man’s? What does that prove? Based on the fact that some primates walk on two feet? Being bipedal isn’t even an advantage. Look at the human foot, full of bent toes and calcium deposits and pus draining from ingrown claws that aren’t even hard enough to scratch at the earth. (And yet, how I yearn for the moment my soul inhabits one of these poorly designed bipedal bodies and I, too, assume the health concerns of a man!) So what if man’s body evolved from the monkeys? Whether he came from monkeys or fish is unimportant. The important idea is that when the body became “human” enough, the first human soul slipped into it.

      I’ll give you a theory: Man’s closest relative is not the chimpanzee, as the TV people believe, but is, in fact, the dog.

      Witness my logic:

      Case-in-Point #1: The Dew Claw

      It is my opinion that the so-called dew claw, which is often snipped off a dog’s foreleg at an early age, is actually evidence of a preemergent thumb. Further, I believe that men have systematically bred the thumb out of certain lines of dog through an elaborate process called “selective breeding,” simply in order to prevent dogs from evolving into dexterous, and therefore “dangerous,” mammals.

      I also believe that man’s continued domestication (if you care to use that silly euphemism) of dogs is motivated by fear: fear that dogs, left to evolve on their own, would, in fact, develop thumbs and smaller tongues, and therefore would be superior to men, who are slow and cumbersome, standing erect as they do. This is why dogs must live under the constant supervision of people, and are immediately put to death when found living on their own.

      From what Denny has told me about the government and its inner workings, it is my belief that this despicable plan was hatched in a back room of none other than the White House, probably by an evil adviser to a president of questionable moral and intellectual fortitude, and probably with the correct assessment—unfortunately, made from a position of paranoia rather than of spiritual insight—that all dogs are progressively inclined regarding social issues.

      Case-in-Point #2: The Werewolf

      The full moon rises. The fog clings to the lowest branches of the spruce trees. The man steps out of the darkest corner of the forest and finds himself transformed into …

      A monkey?

      I think not.

       6

      Her name was Eve, and at first I resented how she changed our lives. I resented the attention Denny paid to her small hands, her plump, round buttocks, her modest hips. The way he gazed into her soft green eyes, which peered out from under stylish strands of straight blond hair. Did I envy her engaging smile that eclipsed anything about her that might have been considered less than special? Perhaps I did. For she was a person, unlike me. She was well groomed. Unlike me. She was everything I wasn’t. I went for extended periods without a haircut or a bath, for instance; she bathed every day and had a special person do nothing else but color her hair to Denny’s liking. My nails grew too long and scratched the wood floor; she frequently attended to her nails with sticks and clippers and polishes to make sure they were the proper shape and size.

      Her attention to every detail of her appearance was reflected in her personality as well: she was an incredible organizer, fastidious in nature, constantly making lists and jotting down notes of things to be done or gotten or assembled, frequently creating what she called “Honey-Do” lists for Denny and me, so that our weekends were filled with trips to the Home Depot or waiting in line at the Disposal and Recycling Transfer Station in Georgetown. I didn’t like painting rooms and fixing doorknobs and washing screens. But Denny liked it, apparently, because the more she gave him to do, the more quickly he completed his tasks so he could collect his reward, which usually included a lot of nuzzling and stroking.

      Soon after she moved into our apartment, they were married in a small wedding ceremony, which I attended along with a group of their closest friends