Garth Stein - The Art of Racing in the Rain

Gestures are all that I have;sometimes they must be

He picked me out of a pile of puppies,a

Very gently. Like there areeggshells on your pedals, Denny

Denny moved me far from the farm inSpangle, to

Monkeys have thumbs.

Her name was Eve, and at first Iresented how

When it was just Denny and me, he usedto

One summer Saturday afternoon, afterwe had spent the morning

A couple of years after we moved intothe new

Ideally, a driver is a master of allthat is

When I was locked in the housesuddenly and firmly

Eves condition was elusive andunpredictable. One day she would

They sit in the trees and on theelectric wires

The clues were all there, I simplyhadnt read them

When Denny went away the followingweek, we went to

The weeks tripped by with tremendoushaste, as if digging

Your car goes where your eyes go.

In Mongolia, when a dog dies, he isburied high

It was hours before Denny returned,and he returned alone.

I was not privy to much, being a dog.I

She made me wear the bumblebee wingsshe had worn

Soon, Labor Day weekend came, andafter that, Zo was

Everything they said made sense, butnone of it added

For the first few weeks of our newarrangementDenny and

In February, the black pit of winter,we went on

That year we had a cold spell in eachwinter

Six months came and six months leftand Eve was

In the morning, Denny didntknow about Eve, and I

For Eve, her death was the end of apainful

With experience, a driver adjusts hisunderstanding of how a

Zo insisted on going to schoolthe next day, and

I spent most of the day hanging out inthe

Much of what happened to Dennyregarding the custody suit

They took him to a small room with alarge

Hands are the windows to a manssoul.

I love very few things more than anice long

The morning after Eves funeral,I could barely move. My

Because of the criminal chargesagainst Denny, the Twins had

There was an occasion that summer whenDenny found a

Oh, a breath of September!

The flash and fury of a sprint raceare grand.

How quickly.

This is not a conversation Ilike to have, Mark

The solution had been put to Denny byMark Fein:

Denny paid his account with Mark Fein.Shortly afterward, Mark

It was an especially difficult winterfor me. Perhaps it

Ayrton Senna did not have to die.

Separate entrances for cats and dogs.Thats what I remember

Days later. A week. Two. I dontknow. After Dennys

The summer of my tenth birthday camealong and there

You need to go out? Letsgo out.

The couple who stood in the doorwaywere entirely foreign

Had I known I was meetingDennys parents, I might

A driver must have faith. In histalent, his judgment

So much information came out in thefollowing days, thanks

All rise, the bailiffcalled out, such old-fashioned formality in

The very next day, Mr. Lawrenceinformed Denny that the Evil

The dawn breaks gently on the horizonand spills its

After it is all over, after the lastrace has

Gestures are all that I have;sometimes they must be grand in nature. And while I occasionallystep over the line and into the world of the melodramatic, it iswhat I must do in order to communicate clearly and effectively. Inorder to make my point understood without question. I have no wordsI can rely on because, much to my dismay, my tongue was designedlong and flat and loose, and therefore, is a horribly ineffectivetool for pushing food around my mouth while chewing, and an evenless effective tool for making clever and complicated polysyllabicsounds that can be linked together to form sentences. Andthats why Im here now waiting for Denny to comehomehe should be here soonlying on the cool tiles ofthe kitchen floor in a puddle of my own urine.

Im old. And while Im very capable ofgetting older, thats not the way I want to go out. Shot fullof pain medication and steroids to reduce the swelling of myjoints. Vision fogged with cataracts. Puffy, plasticky packages ofDoggie Depends stocked in the pantry. Im sure Denny wouldget me one of those little wagons Ive seen on the streets,the ones that cradle the hindquarters so a dog can drag his assbehind him when things start to fail. Thats humiliating anddegrading. Im not sure if its worse than dressing upa dog for Halloween, but its close. He would do it out oflove, of course. Im sure he would keep me alive as long ashe possibly could, my body deteriorating, disintegrating around me,dissolving until theres nothing left but my brain floatingin a glass jar filled with clear liquid, my eyeballs drifting atthe surface and all sorts of cables and tubes feeding what remains.But I dont want to be kept alive. Because I knowwhats next. Ive seen it on TV. A documentary I sawabout Mongolia, of all places. It was the best thing Iveever seen on television, other than the 1993 Grand Prix of Europe,of course, the greatest automobile race of all time in which AyrtonSenna proved himself to be a genius in the rain. After the 1993Grand Prix, the best thing Ive ever seen on TV is adocumentary that explained everything to me, made it all clear,told the whole truth: when a dog is finished living his lifetimesas a dog, his next incarnation will be as a man.

Ive always felt almost human. Ivealways known that theres something about me thatsdifferent than other dogs. Sure,Im stuffed into a dogs body, but thats justthe shell. Its whats inside thats important.The soul. And my soul is very human.

I am ready to become a man now, though I realize Iwill lose all that I have been. All of my memories, all of myexperiences. I would like to take them with me into my nextlifethere is so much I have gone through with the Swiftfamilybut I have little say in the matter. What can I do butforce myself to remember? Try to imprint what I know on my soul, athing that has no surface, no sides, no pages, no form of any kind.Carry it so deeply in the pockets of my existence that when I openmy eyes and look down at my new hands with their thumbs that areable to close tightly around their fingers, I will already know. Iwill already see.

The door opens, and I hear him with his familiarcry, Yo, Zo! Usually, I cant help but putaside my pain and hoist myself to my feet, wag my tail, sling mytongue around, and shove my face into his crotch. It takeshumanlike willpower to hold back on this particular occasion, but Ido. I hold back. I dont get up. Im acting.

Enzo?

I hear his footsteps, the concern in his voice. Hefinds me and looks down. I lift my head, wag my tail feebly so ittaps against the floor. I play the part.

He shakes his head and runs his hand through hishair, sets down the plastic bag from the grocery that has hisdinner in it. I can smell roast chicken through the plastic.Tonight hes having roastchicken and an iceberg lettuce salad.

Oh, Enz, he says.

He reaches down to me, crouches, touches my headlike he does, along the crease behind the ear, and I lift my headand lick at his forearm.

What happened, kid? he asks.

Gestures cant explain.

Can you get up?

I try, and I scramble. My heart takes off, lungesahead because no, I cant. I panic. I thought I was justacting, but I really cant get up. Shit. Life imitatingart.

Take it easy, kid, he says, pressingdown on my chest to calm me. Ive got you.