My Wife Says, He Really Loves You
Camera ready. The garden is in startling bloom, and this is the time to record. So I open the door; but then the dog, whom we have nicknamed Jake, ran out, and I had to chase after him. Calling does no good. He crouches down, waits until you are a foot away, then takes off, like a rocket shooting out into space. Very aggravating. Except that you can’t get angry because he is still very much of a pup. But by the time I’ve gotten him back I am exhausted, and he is now sitting there, looking so docile, that I can’t even raise my voice to admonish him. My wife says, See, he really loves you, always wants to play with you. If you were going to the station, like what happened at Shinjuku, he too would sit outside on the island around which all the traffic flows, and would wait, like that other dog, that famous one, whose statue in front of the station is so prominent, wait there until, eventually, you came back, even if it took forever. So I bend down, and he flinches, thinking that I’m going to hit him because he ran away; but I’m really going to pat him and scratch his ear, which he so likes. So then we go back into the house, camera work put aside, and, instead, I start to tell him about the etchings we have by Jaques Callot, an artist who was really great with dogs, and drew hundreds of them, pulling, being pulled, or just wandering about, and after whom our Jake is really named. And I can tell, by the way he cocks his head to one side, that he is really appreciating that bit of information. So I tell him some more.