PART ONE

INTRODUCTION

Chapter One: I AM BORN

Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anyone else, these pages must show. To begin my life with the beginning of my life, I record that I was born (as I have been informed and believe) on a Friday, at twelve o’clock at night.

Oops. I just accidentally quoted the opening lines of David Copperfield, a semi-autobiographical novel by someone called Charles Dickens. Anyone reading this – or hearing it read to them – should read that book as well, someday. It’s terrific.

So let me try this again.

I, Jocko Coster, was born – as luck would have it – in a barn in Barnes City, Iowa. By “luck,” though, I mean to say bad luck. The barn was freezing cold. Barnes City – a tiny little town, really – was in the middle of nowhere. My father, a dog called Rex, was an abusive alcoholic with a fondness for interrogating people. (This is hardly what I’d call conversation.) My mother, a bitch called Gertrude, did her best to put up with that– but eventually (as I have been informed) succumbed to booze as well.

I had some brothers and sisters, too. But – truth be told – I don’t remember them very well. One, I know, was a black and tan dog called Butch. He seemed a little effeminate. Another one, a piebald bitch called Angela, seemed, well, a little butch. Brother Butch, for instance, was always talking about how he’d like to redecorate the barn while Angela was always working on the tractor.

“This is not,” I thought, “the family for me.” Sigmund Freud, somewhere, writes about something he called “the family romance.” The basic idea is this: the people who seem to be your parents are not your real parents; your real parents – probably a king and queen somewhere far, far away – are a perfectly loving couple who would love you perfectly well as well. Plus you probably wouldn’t have brothers or sisters with whom you’d have to share their royal love. I, too, like anyone in such a situation, had such a fantasy. I dreamt – or rather, daydreamed – that someday my king and queen would come to the barn. They would recognize me as their long-lost child – stolen from them by gypsies, perhaps (although I now know that it’s “politically incorrect” even to imagine such a thing) – and then take me home to their castle. I confessed as much to Butch, one day. “Ha!” he laughed – a lisping laugh that actually sounded like tss, tss, tss. “That’ll be the day!”

But then one day it really was the day.

Chapter Two: I OBSERVE

I was sunbathing one afternoon, in a little patch of light by the tractor, when the great big barn door opened and in walked the two handsomest men I’d ever seen. The golden-haired one, who I later learned is called “David Coster,” walked over to where I was and said: “Hey, Kevin, look at this one.” “Kevin,” I thought, must be the name of the brown-haired one. “This one is the one,” said Kevin Kopelson. And with that, Kevin picked me up, rubbed my little head, kissed me on the forehead – which seemed to be some kind of consecration – and then said: “This one is our Jocko.”

“Oh, God,” I thought. “This is it! These are my real parents! This is my one-way ticket out of this hell-hole.”

So I licked Kevin’s handsome face – dogs can’t really kiss – I licked and licked and licked it, in part because I was so happy but also to see if I could get him to laugh and then see if his laugh sounds anything like Butch’s. It doesn’t! No tss, tss, tss. It’s more like: ho, ho, ho – only not in a Santa Claus kind of way. Which makes sense, now that I think about it, because Kevin isn’t Christian. He’s Jewish – only not in a religious sort of way. He’s atheist – which means that he’s too smart to believe in God. God is for pansies. Santa Claus, though, is not. Santa Claus, as your own parents may have told you, is very, very real.

Then we three got in – well, in the car. I must confess I was expecting to see some sort of beautiful golden coach out there, led by the two handsomest, pure white horses I’d ever seen. But at least it was a nice car: a shiny black “Mustang” which I wish they still had because it would be pretty cool to race around in it – with David at the wheel, as usual, and Kevin riding “shotgun” next to him, and me on Kevin’s lap with my head hanging out the window and the wind whipping my great big ears around. Their car, nowadays, is a big black truck. Luckily, though, I’d soon discover another mode of transportation – but it’s too soon, now, to say anything else about that.

Chapter Three: I HAVE A CHANGE

The house that my two new Dads, David and Kevin, lived in was no castle either. (Nor was it far, far away. They live in Grinnell, Iowa, which is only about an hour’s drive from Barnes City.) But it’s a very nice house – all covered in a light green stucco and surrounded by gorgeous gardens that David was always working on. Kevin does stuff indoors, mostly – cooking, cleaning, moving furniture around for reasons that have always escaped me. (I think he’s a bit obsessive.) My most favorite part of the garden – even though I fell into it once, which was really pretty embarrassing – is a goldfish pond. My second most favorite part of it is the bird loft, where David breeds his prize-winning “Seraphim” pigeons. These are, in fact, pure white – like those horses I’d imagined. And so they all have names like “Snowflake,” “Snowstorm,” and even “Snowglobe.” (The fish do not get names.) I like to watch these pigeons swoop around the so-called “flight” attached to the loft, with sunlight glinting off their angelic wings. They’re not called “Seraphim” for nothing!

My most favorite part of the house, inside, is the sofa in what David and Kevin call “the jungle room.” They call it this because it’s filled with tropical plants and flowers, like orchids, and because it’s where they display stuff – like masks – that Adam Coster (who is the oldest of their three human sons) brought back home with him from Uganda, a country in Africa where he spent some time in something called the “Peace Corps.” I like to sit on top of that sofa, looking out the window and barking at any and all potential trespassers. I must seem terrifying to them, because they never dare come any closer. But I’m not really a mean dog – not to people (or animals) whom I’ve gotten to know and love. I’d do anything for them!

My second most favorite part of the house is the gas fireplace in the living room. I just love lying in front of it, on a cold winter’s day. (Maybe this reminds me of that patch of sunlight by the tractor.) And please don’t tell David or Kevin this, but I have figured out how to start that fire myself. All I have to do is push a little button on the right side. Thank God (who of course does not exist) that the device is not something you’d have to have opposable thumbs to operate. Dogs, for some reason, do not have such thumbs. We have useless, thumb-like things called “dewclaws.”

Chapter Four: I CAN FLY

Actually, there’s something in this house that I like even better than the sofa or the fireplace. And it’s something that, like my ability to start the fire, neither David nor Kevin (unless they’ve already read this book) knows about.

There’s a little “oriental” carpet in the bathroom by our garage. (“Oriental” is probably a politically incorrect way to describe it. After all, one doesn’t call carpets made in, say, Bayreuth, Germany – as opposed to Beirut, Lebanon – “occidental.”) The pattern, says Kevin, is known as “Sarouk.” He says, too, that it was given to him by an old friend of his named Tina, in exchange for Kevin having given her a dog named Andy. (That name, “Andy,” was a nickname for “Anne de Joyeuse,” the “royal favorite” – or boyfriend – of a sixteenth–century king.)

One morning, while both David and Kevin were at work – David being a doctor and Kevin some kind of teacher – I decided to take a close look at this pattern. I see some kind of flower – I can’t recognize the species, either because it’s a Persian species that can’t be grown here in the United States, or because it’s too abstract a representation of whatever species it represents. Or maybe because it represents, in abstract form, the so-called “Tree of Life.” I see, too, some kind of insect, I think – maybe it’s a bee. “I don’t like bees,” I think – because one of them stung me once, in the garden. And then, for some reason, maybe because it rhymes with “bees,” I say aloud – and by the way, I am able to speak, it’s just that I don’t like to do so with adult humans like David and Kevin around – “Jeez Louise.” (That “Jeez” is a nickname for Jesus Christ – who may have existed, in reality, but was most certainly not the “Son of God” that religious Christians tell themselves he was.) The carpet suddenly rose off the floor, with me still on top of it, flew out the bathroom, flew up the stairs, and now starting flying all over the house. This was rather startling, of course – to say the least! Because although I had read about such “flying carpets” – there’s one for instance in the old “oriental” story collection called One Thousand and One Nights – I’d always imagined they were make-believe. Well, let me tell you – they’re very, very real. Like Santa Claus. And they fly like him – only without the help of reindeer. They fly all by themselves – if you happen to know the magic words. And – as I’ll start describing in Part Two of this book – they can take you just about anywhere in the world.

PART TWO

SOCKO THE KING

Chapter One: I MAKE A FRIEND

David and Kevin had just had their morning coffee and then left for work. I had just jumped on my magic carpet – the little red Sarouk that they keep on the floor of the bathroom by the garage – when, after saying the magic words “Jeez Louise” and then flying up the stairs and over to our king-sized bed on the second floor of our light green house in Grinnell, Iowa, I suddenly realized I had company.

“Hi, there!” said the red, blue, green, and orange striped creature now sitting next to me on the carpet.

“Who are you?” I asked.

“Don’t you know who I am?” said the creature. “I’m the King of the Sock Monkeys.”

“The King of the Sock Monkeys!!?” I asked.

“Yes,” said he. “But you may call me Socko.”

“Well, Socko.” I asked. “Is there somewhere in particular you would like to go?”

“There is, indeed,” said Socko. “I would like to go to Berkeley, California – where there is a very special little boy named Henry. First, though, we will have to make a stop in the Candy Land of Goa. That’s in India.”

“Gosh,” I said. “Those are far, far away. And this ‘invisible-fence’ collar I’m wearing prevents me from leaving our garden.”

“I will take care of that,” said Socko. “All I have to do is touch your collar with one of my hand magnets – or even one of these foot magnets here. And then we might fly anywhere in the world.”

“That’s great!” I said. “But why do we have to go to Candy Land? And who’s the little boy?”

“I’ll explain it en route,” said Socko (in French). And with that, he touched my collar with a hand magnet, we flew out the window of our second-floor bathroom, we flew over the fence at the edge the garden – while some of David’s pigeons, stuck in their flight, gazed up at us with looks of envy on their little faces – and we now flew east out of town.

Chapter Two: WE GO TO GOA

The most direct route to India, I figured, was due east – and then eventually a bit south. To do this, all we had to do was start flying out toward the rising sun – or up and over Interstate 80, more or less. And so this is what Socko explained while the two of us – good friends by now – did just that:

The King of the Sock Monkeys was born under a taffy tree in Candy Land. His main job – apart from making sure there’s enough candy for everyone here – was to make sure every special little boy or girl in the world got his or her own sock monkey. (He did not explain why this was necessary, but I’d find out why once we got to Berkeley.) To do this, he himself – on a flying carpet of his own – would take one out to the boy or girl.

(I wondered what those magic words were. But Socko couldn’t tell me.)

One day, though, David and Kevin came to Candy Land. (They were in India visiting their good friend Geeta Patel.) Socko, like me, thought that these two, David and Kevin, were the two handsomest men he’d ever seen. Plus they were wearing the handsomest clothes he had ever seen – blue and green striped kurtas that Geeta gave them. Socko wanted to see what other nice clothes they may have had with them, and so he climbed into Kevin’s suitcase. But the suitcase frame was metal, and so Socko got stuck there when a foot magnet of his happened to touch it.

The next thing Socko knew, he was tossed out of the suitcase and onto their bed in Grinnell, Iowa. He was happy living there now, because it’s a very nice bed in a very nice bedroom and also because David and Kevin are such good, smart people. But Socko was sad there, too, because of all the boys and girls who he figured would now never get their sock monkeys. But then I flew by this morning and he figured he could have the best of both worlds. He could still live with David and Kevin, on our bed, and also live with me – and yet with my help on my carpet he could still take kids their monkeys.

By the time Socko finished explaining, we had reached Candy Land. He chose the perfect sock monkey for Henry – a blue one with a red hat, perched on top of a licorice tree. Socko explained to him, briefly, where we all now needed to go – and also why we needed to. Then we took off!


Chapter Three: WE GO TO BERKELEY

Heading due east once again, we flew up and over Thailand, over the Philippines, and then over Hawaii. We now headed a bit north – over the Golden Gate Bridge and then the Bay Bridge.

This is what Socko explained, in detail, while the three of us did just that:

Henry’s dad, Eddie, is Kevin’s favorite nephew – in large part because he had such nice curly hair and such nice long eyelashes along with, even as a little boy himself when he was the same age as Henry, such a deep, deep voice. Eddie’s ancestors are from three different countries: Russia, Italy, and Ireland. Henry’s mom, Kelly, has ancestors from many different ones: Italy, Norway, France, Holland, and England. Both parents work as architects, which means that they make buildings. And they love Henry just as much as David and Kevin love their three human sons – Adam, Seth, and Sam – not to mention as much as they love me!

“That’s the house! That’s the house!” screamed Socko when we reached 1729 Parker Street in Berkeley, California. I was so startled by this that I tumbled off the carpet – and then down through the air like Gibreel Farishta and Saladin Chamcha in the novel The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie. Or like some so-called “tumbler” pigeon. Luckily, a big tall redwood tree in the backyard now broke my fall, landing me relatively unscathed – just a few scratches on my head – by the deck by Henry’s back door.

Kelly and Eddie were there, having their morning coffee. “Hey, little guy,” said Eddie as he scooped me up and took me inside the house, where Kelly put some kind of ointment on the scratches. (Kelly’s cats – Xander and Giles – seemed to find this all very amusing. I don’t much care for cats anymore.) Meanwhile, my two travelling companions landed quite gently on the deck and then came inside to meet Henry with me.

Henry seemed quite pleased to be given “Charlie” – which is what he now dubbed his new sock monkey. Socko directed Charlie to place his own two hand magnets on both sides of Henry’s head and say the magic words “Mumbo Jumbo” with them still there. With this said, Henry began glowing blue and green – a sure sign, explained Socko, that the charm had worked. Henry, you see, was not only a very special little boy. He was now guaranteed to grow up to be both very, very good and very, very smart – like both of his parents, Kelly and Eddie, who quite clearly, as children themselves, must have had their own sock monkeys.

We all went to the zoo the next day. Here, Socko explained to me that as a dog, I must be descended from wolves. I found this interesting. It meant that I was adopted by David and Kevin. They actually chose me and so must have found me very, very special. I also found this startling. Wolves, after all, are very large and have rather long fur. I am rather small – in fact I once heard David and Kevin describe me to one of their friends as a miniature dachshund – and have very short fur.

Chapter Four: WE GO HOME

The day after that, Socko and I said goodbye to Henry and Charlie, jumped on our little Sarouk, flew up and over the redwood tree in the backyard, and then over Highway 80 once again – heading due east. When we got to the Rocky Mountains, Socko looked sad.

“What’s the matter?” I asked. “Don’t you like mountains?”

“That’s not it,” said Socko. “I miss little Henry.”

“Well,” I suggested. “You can always ‘friend’ Henry when we get home. Or we could ‘skype’ him.”

Socko was unfamiliar with such terminology – or technology, rather, which they must not have yet in Candy Land – and so I explained it to him. And now when we reached 1333 Broad Street, in Grinnell, Iowa, Socko once again touched my collar with a hand magnet. We flew back in the second-floor bathroom window, put the carpet back on the floor of the bathroom by the garage, and then crawled into bed with David and Kevin.

But I couldn’t sleep. “What’s a dachshund?” I wondered. “What on Earth could that mean?” So I crawled out of bed, climbed up the stairs to the attic, where Kevin has an office, “logged on” to his computer, and “googled” the word.

It turns out that not only am I, like any dog, descended from wolves. As a dachshund dog, my ancestors must have been German. And while I sort of knew what this meant – because David often tells friends that his own ancestors came from Germany – I resolved to soon explore the place myself.

PART THREE

BERLIN STORIES

Chapter One: I AM A CAMERA

“I am a camera. Or rather, I need a camera … plus some film, plus some pencils and notebooks. Come to think of it, though, maybe I should just take Kevin’s computer. He doesn’t seem to use it much, anymore.”

That’s what I told myself as I began packing for my flight to Berlin – to be taken on an airplane this time instead of on that magic carpet in the bathroom. For one thing, I wasn’t sure David and Kevin would want to be without that carpet for several years. For another thing, after I left them a note saying I wanted to go to college in Germany – at Humboldt University in Berlin – they said they would pay my airfare. They said, too, that I could use a suitcase they have.

So I left another note for David and Kevin, saying I need a camera, plus some film, etc. And then they bought me that stuff. Those two are really such good guys!

Kevin did not, though, let me take his computer.

Socko, at first, wasn’t too thrilled with this plan of mine to get in touch with my roots as a “dachshund” as well as to get a good education. I explained to him, though, that he could take sock monkeys to special kids by himself for a while and that, when I finished college, I would rejoin him. I promised, moreover, to bring him back something special.

Chapter Two: BERLIN IS FULL OF KUNST

“Kunst” is the German word for art. And boy is there a lot of it in Berlin! They’ve got a great oil painting called “The Man with the Golden Helmet,” which looks like something by the painter Rembrandt but was really done by someone else. They’ve got the Ishtar Gate, which comes from ancient Babylon. They’ve also got a bust of Antinous, from ancient Rome. Antinous was a friend – or rather, a boyfriend – of the Roman Emperor called Hadrian.

I took photographs of all those things, using my new camera, plus ones of other artworks that caught my eye. But it’s really a waste of time to do this. Museums sell reproductions of what they have – in sizes that range from postcards to posters – and these are much better than any pictures you might take.

One place the camera did come in handy, though, was the Berlin Zoo. Here there were lions and tigers and bears – all very scary, but all safely behind bars. Here, too, there were some non-sock monkeys – not quite as clean, I thought, as my friend Socko.

Of course, I wasn’t there just to go to museums. I had classes to take – in psychology, sociology, and linguistics – as well as lots of reading to do for them. The books assigned were in German, of course, as were lectures. But I’m one of those people – or creatures – who can pick up a new language quite easily. In fact, I became completely fluent in German in less than a week! (Ich bin ein Berliner, indeed! That means, “I am a donut.” If you want to say that you’re from Berlin, in German, you say Ich bin Berliner.)

I had one problem, though – a fellow student named Chris Isherwood. This guy – who I remember had bright red hair and wore these bright red sweaters – was a real bully. I learned in psychology class, though, that the best way to handle a bully is to stand up to him. So one day, when as usual the guy demanded that I fork over all of my lunch money “or else,” I just barked at him and then bit him on the leg. He started crying like a baby and then ran away. That was the last time he – or anyone else – ever bothered me there.

Chapter Three: MIT SCHLAG

“Mit Schlag” is the German expression for with whipped cream. And that is how I like to have my hot chocolate prepared: with lots of whipped cream on top. After class, I would head over to a big street called Unter den Linden (which means “under the linden trees”) where there’s a great little coffee shop called Café Einstein. (The famous scientist Albert Einstein used to live in Berlin, from the year 1914 to the year 1933. But then – for political reasons – he had to move to the United States. David and Kevin’s house, by the way, was built just before 1914.)

One time, at Café Einstein, I happened to overhear a man at the next table talking to someone about the famous movie star Marlene Dietrich. This really got my attention because David once told Kevin that he’s a cousin of Marlene Dietrich! What David did not tell him, though, at the time, is that Marlene Dietrich, at least according to that man next to me, was born (not far from the zoo) in Berlin! This man also said there’s a museum mostly devoted to Marlene Dietrich, over by Potzdamer Platz.

I quickly slurped down the rest of my hot chocolate and – using public transportation – headed over there. The museum has clips from many of the films Marlene Dietrich starred in – from The Blue Angel, in which she’s a singer, to Touch of Evil, in which she’s a gypsy. It also has costumes she wore. The woman was very tall.

I learned there, too, at the museum, that Dietrich’s family (on her mother’s side) made very beautiful clocks. That family – called Felsing – used to have a store on Unter den Linden where they sold these clocks. “Well, that explains it!” I said to myself. Because there is a beautiful antique clock – made from tortoise shell – in our living room back home in Grinnell, Iowa. It chimes very prettily, every half hour, and Kevin has to wind it once a week.

The museum has a gift shop, too. It was here that I bought the something special I had promised Socko: a little wind-up mechanism that – also chiming prettily – plays a song Marlene Dietrich used to sing. It’s called Lili Marlene. I also bought something here for David and Kevin: a poster of the movie star. In it, she’s wearing an evening gown and smoking a cigarette.

Chapter Four: BERLIN IS FULL OF BEER

Beer is a drink that, if you have too much of it, makes you drunk. And like all alcoholic beverages, it can be addictive. Unfortunately, I developed a taste for beer in my third year at Humboldt University. I stopped going to Café Einstein – by myself – and started going out with other students to various bars. They must have thought it was very funny to see me drunk – plus it didn’t cost much for them to get me drunk. I’m just a little dog, so it doesn’t take much beer for me to be three sheets to the wind.

I stopped reading for class. Then I stopped going to class. I had gone from being one of the top students at Humboldt to being the laughingstock there. I was ashamed, of course, but couldn’t seem to stop drinking – just like my (biological) father Rex!

When David and Kevin found out about this – I think it may have Chris Isherwood who told on me – they insisted I come home right away. I resisted, at first – because beer is so delicious! Being a good (adopted) son, though, I soon complied. I packed up all the stuff they’d bought me, plus what I bought for them and for Socko, and took the next flight back to Des Moines.

Chapter Five: THERE’S NO PLACE LIKE HOME

David and Kevin picked me up at the airport, gave me a treat, and then took me back to Grinnell. It’s about an hour drive. Those two brought Socko along, so I began to suspect they know more about us two than they let on.

David and Kevin loved the poster, had it framed, and hung it up in the bathroom by the “jungle room.” Socko loved what he got, too, and put it in his little blue “treasure box.”

I just loved being home again.

PART FOUR

MAURITIUS

Chapter One: THE FIREBIRD

Do you like ballet? I just love ballet – which I do not consider an “effeminate” art form. Ballet can be just as masculine and athletic as … oh, I don’t know, football.

Take my favorite ballet – which, like Kevin, is of Russian origin. It is called, in English, The Firebird.

The Firebird is based on a folk tale about a magical red bird. A very manly prince – named Ivan – captures the bird, which in performance is danced by a very lovely woman. The firebird gives Ivan one of her long tail feathers in exchange for release from captivity. And then whenever he’s in danger, all the prince has to do is wave this tail feather around for its previous owner to come to the rescue. If you ask Kevin very nicely, by the way, he can show you a beautiful box he has up in the attic. There is a miniature painting on it of the original firebird – in bird form, that is, not ballerina. Kevin also has a tattoo of the firebird on his upper right arm. David has a near identical tattoo, on his left arm, of a related bird called the phoenix.

In the folk tale, as it happens, there is a wolf that plays a pretty big part. I – as a miniature dog – am descended from wolves. But there is no wolf in the ballet.

Well, I’ve got a tale to tell – about a bird un-related to the firebird – which I think would also make a good ballet. Someday, when you are all grown up, by which I mean when you’re about twenty or thirty years old, maybe you’ll turn it into one (either by composing music for it or by choreographing the dance). I suspect – because I happen to know you have a sock monkey – that you may be a very gifted artist. Maybe someday, too, you’ll have a tattoo of your own. But you must wait until you are much, much, much older than thirty to do so. David and Kevin, for instance, were fifty years old when they got theirs – which in human years, I believe, is just old enough to figure out what tattoo to get.

Chapter Two: ACROPHOBIA

“Acrophobia” – a word derived from Greek – means the extreme or unreasonable fear of heights. Maybe you have it. Maybe you don’t. And I’m not sure if people or even animals like me are born with it or if for some reason we develop it over time. I myself, luckily, have never had acrophobia. How else could I stand to fly around the house – let alone the world – on a magical red carpet? I’d always be thinking I’m going to fall off!

“But what on Earth,” I imagine you thinking, “does acrophobia have to do with this ballet you say I’m supposed to create?”

As you may recall, my second most favorite part of our garden is the bird loft, where David breeds prize-winning “Seraphim” pigeons. (The fishpond, which was my favorite part, no longer exists. David filled it in with dirt a couple of weeks ago. He said he got tired of all the “maintenance” it required. He then planted herbs there: plants like parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme. Oh, and fennel. Kevin uses these, sometimes, to cook with. I myself have tried eating these, uncooked, but I must confess I don’t care for them at all!) These Seraphim pigeons are pure white, as I’ve said, and so they all have names like “Snowflake,” “Snowstorm,” and “Snowglobe.” (Well, not all of them do – as you’re about to find out.) I like to watch these pigeons swoop around the flight attached to the loft, with sunlight glinting off their wings.

One fine, bright summer morning here in the town of Grinnell, Iowa, one of these birds managed to escape. David was doing some chores inside the loft – I think changing the birds’ food and water. (Kevin was inside the house, sitting in the jungle room and reading a book.) I noticed that David had left the door to the flight unlatched. This made me realize: I can probably latch and unlatch that thing myself. It’s not that high off the ground. And then, I thought, I can sneak into the flight, when both David and Kevin are away at work, and play with these pigeons. Socko might want to play with them there, too.

As I was thinking this, a pigeon suddenly pushed the door to the flight open and thereby released itself from captivity. The bird then flew to the top of the loft, perching just next to a weather vane up there, and started looking around the garden. I barked a couple of times – in a vain (ha!) attempt to get the bird to fly back down and return to the flight. But that must have startled the bird, which now flew across the garden and all the way to the top of the house!

David, having heard me barking, came back out of the loft, saw that the door to the flight was unlatched, noticed me staring at the top of the house, and then saw this pigeon of his perched there – just next to a chimney.

“Well, Jocko,” he said, after leaving the flight and carefully latching its door behind him, “there’s nothing I can do about this now. I have patients to see. So please see if you can talk the poor thing back down and have Kevin put it in the flight. We don’t want some hungry hawk to get it.”

“What a horrible thought!” I thought. “And what a responsibility! If I can’t do as David says, this potential playmate of mine might soon become raptor food!”

“Little bird, little bird,” I called after David drove off to work, “please fly back down here.”

“I can’t,” it cried. “I’m too scared to move!”

“I don’t see any hawks,” I said.

“I mean I’m scared I’m going to fall,” it cried. “I’ve never been up this high before!”

“I promise you that you can’t fall,” I told the poor thing. “You fly very beautifully.”

“Well,” it said. “If you say so.” And with that, the gorgeous white bird leapt off the roof, flew way high up into the sky, and then – I hope you can picture this – turned three somersaults in a row while falling, flew back up to where she was before turning the somersaults, dove down through the big beech tree in the garden – her glittering white wings glancing and dancing off of the tree’s shiny copper-colored leaves – and swooped down to the ground just next to where I stood gazing in astonishment at this display.

“I didn’t know you could do that!” I exclaimed.

“Neither did I!” said the bird.

And it wasn’t even out of breath.

Chapter Three: PHTHONOS

An ancient philosopher (Aristotle) once defined envy (or phthonos, in ancient Greek) as “the pain caused by the good fortune of others.” A German philosopher (Immanuel Kant) defined envy as “a reluctance to see our own well-being overshadowed by another’s because the standard we use to see how well off we are is not the intrinsic worth of our own well-being but how it compares with that of others.”

I must confess I was envious, at first, of this bird’s own flying ability. It looked a lot more fun than just sitting on a carpet that does all the work of flying for you. And that carpet won’t do stuff like somersaults. I mean it probably can do them – on its own. But I would definitely fall off of the thing if it ever did one with me sitting on it.

But as I got to know and, eventually, befriend this bird, I no longer felt envious. I became very glad, for her sake, that she had such an amazing skill.

This bird, you see, is a girl bird. Her name is “Snow.” Her parents’ names, I now learned to my surprise, are “Super Jock” (the dad) and “Gorgeous” (the mom). She has a couple of brothers and sisters, and her favorite one of these is a boy bird named “Giant Head.” “Super Jock” and “Giant Head” are not, in my opinion, very dignified names (like “Jocko” and “Socko”) – but I’m sure David has reasons for choosing them.

I learned, too, that the Seraphim pigeon derives from an older breed called the Oriental Frill. Snow and I, therefore, have at least one thing in common: she comes, originally, from “the Orient” (from the country called Turkey, to be specific) – and so does the “oriental” carpet I use come from there (from Persia or, as it’s now called, Iran). And the Oriental Frill is one of a number of pigeon breeds known as “tumblers” – which would explain Snow’s innate ability to do those somersaults.

When I told Snow about how I myself derive from wolves, and about how I came to be adopted by David and Kevin, and about how Socko and I like to fly around the house on that magical red carpet – and sometimes to fly around the world on it so as to bring sock monkeys to children like you – she asked: “May I join you sometime?”

“Why, of course!” I replied. Because I knew that Socko, too, would very much enjoy Snow’s company. And because, quite frankly, I really wanted him to see this new friend of mine fly!

I could now hear Kevin unlocking the back door to the house. (I happen have superb hearing.) So I quickly unlatched the door to the flight, letting Snow sneak back in there, and I quickly latched that door behind her, and I quickly trotted over to where Kevin now stood – over by this big fountain we have in the garden – to see if he needs help with anything. I do very much enjoy helping him, if possible.

Chapter Four: MAURITIUS

About a week later, when both David and Kevin had gone for what I knew from past experience would be a rather long bike ride, I decided it was time to fly around town with both Socko – whom I had already told all about her – and Snow. So I got on the little Sarouk, which as you may recall is what the magical carpet’s pattern is called, said the magic words “Jeez Louise,” and rode the thing up to the master bedroom where Socko leapt from the bed’s headboard onto it and touched my collar with one of his hand magnets. We both now rode the carpet out through the second-floor bathroom window. He alone now sat on it, hovering close to the ground like a thirsty hummingbird, while I hopped off and let Snow out of the flight and then carefully latched the door to it behind her.

“Socko” I said. “I’d like you to meet Snow.”

“I am very pleased to meet you, Your Majesty,” said the bird quite properly. (Socko, as you may recall, is the King of the Sock Monkeys.) “Jocko has told me so much about you.”

“Please call me ‘Socko,’” said the king quite fondly. “And I am pleased to meet you!”

Socko and I, both now sitting on the Sarouk, flew up and over the fence and out of the garden while Snow, while also turning a couple of somersaults, flew out of it more or less beside us.

“Wow!” exclaimed Socko. “Did you see that?”

“I certainly did,” I said. “And I don’t know how she does it!”

Socko now explained to me, somewhat unexpectedly, how all modern-day birds have “evolved” – quite naturally – from some kind of ancient dinosaur. (Socko often likes to display how smart he is – or rather, how much he knows. But this isn’t always a good thing. In this case, for instance, I suspect he was somehow trying to top – albeit in an intellectual way – Snow’s very athletic accomplishment.)

I told Socko, as kindly as possible, that – having studied the nineteenth-century scientist Charles Darwin and his theory of “natural selection” when I was in college in Berlin, Germany – I already knew all this. But Snow, who had been overhearing us, did not yet know it.

“That’s amazing,” she said. “I can’t believe I’m really a dinosaur. I can’t wait to tell my brother, Giant Head, that he’s one too!”

I wasn’t sure how a bird cooped up all day and night – until now – in that loft would know what dinosaurs are. Maybe, I said to myself, David talks to them out there.

“And did you know, Snow,” asked Socko, “that the now-extinct giant Dodo bird was a kind of pigeon?”

“What’s a Dodo bird?” asked Snow. “And what do you mean by extinct?”

“Uh, oh,” I said to myself. “She’s not going to like knowing this.”

Socko now explained that there used to be – until a couple of hundred years ago – a very large bird called the Dodo living on an island called Mauritius. This island – a couple of thousand miles from where Socko, Geeta Patel, and also your Aunt Sampada were born – is in the Indian Ocean. The Dodo, unlike every other pigeon we know of, was unable to fly – because its wings were much too small. And, he said, it could be found nowhere else on Earth. Some very hungry men sailed to Mauritius. Dodo, they discovered, tastes a bit like chicken. And so, stupidly, these guys ate them all!

“The poor thing,” Socko ended this most unnecessary lecture, “is now extinct – just like, apart from you modern-day birds, all the dinosaurs are.” But those dinosaurs, he said, were wiped out by a giant meteor. There were no human beings alive, back then, to eat them. Humans evolved – from some kind of monkey, or maybe ape – much, much later.

“That’s just horrible,” cried Snow. “How can people be so stupid? How can they be so cruel?”

“Look down there, Snow,” I said so as to distract her. “That’s the high school that Adam, Seth, and Sam must have attended.”

“Oooooh!” she exclaimed. “It’s so big!”

“And that,” I said, pointing to a big un-natural body of water next to the school, “is the swimming pool where I’m pretty sure both Seth and Sam used to work as lifeguards.”

“Let’s all go down and splash around in it,” Snow suggested. “I feel like taking a bath.”

But Socko said he would get water-logged and much too heavy, probably, to fly – much like the Dodo, in fact – if we all did such a thing. And some of those boys in the pool – bullies, probably – might bother us … and maybe even take this carpet from us!

“Oh, look!” said Socko now. “There go David and Kevin!”

Sure enough, we could see those two riding past the swimming pool and also past the high school – riding clear out of town and into the countryside on what seemed to be a bicycle path.

I was scared they might look up and see us – and that Socko and I would now have some explaining to do – but fortunately they did not look up. Still, though, I thought we should probably fly away from where they were headed … fly somewhere they can’t possibly see us.

The carpet – as usual – must have read my mind. It reversed direction, flying due east now instead of due west, took us over a couple of blocks, and then, turning south, took us to downtown Grinnell. I pointed out, to Snow, a famous little “jewel box” bank we have there – designed about a hundred years ago by an architect named Louis Sullivan. Snow just loved this bank’s big blue skylight and also the two golden griffins – lions with wings – that it has sitting out front. Socko – in yet another unnecessary lecture – explained to us that, unlike the Dodo bird but like the phoenix, the griffin is a mythical creature, and that the only mammals that fly (lions are mammals, as are apes and dogs, whereas birds are not mammals) are bats, and that if some lion did have wings it would not still also have (as do those griffins down there, he said) four legs, and that, at any rate …

“Oh, look!” I interrupted. “There’s Café Phoenix! Let’s go see if we can get some dessert.”

“Great idea,” said Socko. “I am getting rather hungry.”

“Hungry enough to eat Dodo?” joked Snow.

“Ha, ha, ha!” laughed Socko – and so hard that he almost fell off the carpet.

We landed, unseen by people, in the town’s central park, rolled the little carpet up, stashed it in some shrubbery there, and seated ourselves at a little table in front of one of the restaurants – the one called Café Phoenix – that sits across the street from this park. The restaurant’s owner, named Kamal, now came out. (He is from Egypt, originally.)

“Hi, guys!” said Kamal. “I take it you’d like to have ‘the usual.’”

Socko and I, I must confess, do come to this restaurant pretty often. We both, you see, just love the delicious chocolate cake that’s made here by Kamal’s wife, Laura. (She’s from Wisconsin.) The cake reminds me a bit of the delicious hot chocolate that I used to have – mit Schlag – back in Berlin.

“Yes, indeed,” I nodded vigorously to Kamal. And now, waiting for our food to arrive, we all became, for some reason, rather … I think word is pensive. Which was really rather pleasant, after all. Friends, you see, don’t always have to talk and talk and talk to each other. Sometimes we can just be together and think.

I, for one, was thinking about how much I just love whipped cream (or Schlag, in German). I was also thinking, I must confess, that although Snow – like the Dodo bird – might taste a bit like chicken, she looks a bit like cream.

PART FIVE

STATE FAIR

Chapter One: IT MIGHT AS WELL BE SPRING

You will have discerned, by now, that I’m usually pretty gay. And by “gay,” I mean happy – as in “Glitter and Be Gay,” a great song from the musical Candide. Sometimes, though – like just this past summer – I’ll be gay in a melancholy way. My friends Socko and Snow will of course notice this and try to cheer me up: Socko, usually, by suggesting we go fly around the house; Snow, by suggesting I eat cucumbers from the garden. Cucumbers!

Sometimes, too – and you will soon see why this is a related thought – I’ll wonder why couples like David and Kevin, or like your own parents, ever get together in the first place. Do they, perhaps, see one another across a crowded room and for some reason decide just then and there: “Let’s get married!” Do their own parents decide for them that they should marry?

It was while mulling over these particular questions about ten summers ago – in the first week of August – that I overheard Kevin say to David: “Let’s go to the State Fair next week. I’d like to see that Swine Pavilion again. And Jocko might like it, too.”

“State Fair?” “Swine Pavilion?!” What on Earth was Kevin talking about? So, later that day, I looked up those names on the Internet and learned that, like many states, Iowa – once a year, in Des Moines – has an agricultural exhibition (plus amusement park) where farmers show off their best livestock (like hogs and cattle) as well as their tastiest food (like hogs and cattle). I learned, too, that the “Swine Pavilion” is where hogs get shown.

Chapter Two: TOO MUCH FOOD

Iowans, unfortunately, can be much too fat. In fact, a lot of what David has done as a surgeon is to help exceptionally fat people lose weight. I’m not quite sure how he does this, but as he seems to be a very popular surgeon he must be very good at it. Anyway, when we arrived at the Iowa State Fair that next week there were all these very overweight people blocking the entrance. Some of the people, too heavy even to walk, had to use motorized tricycles! I did feel sorry for them – but also, unfortunately, a bit irritated. Why didn’t those fatties just stay home, I wondered meanly. Why didn’t they just eat less!?

But then – on our way to the Swine Pavilion – I could both see and smell just why they didn’t – or maybe couldn’t – eat less. The State Fair features, just about everywhere, lots of small pavilions (also called “kiosks”) and restaurants that sell the most mouth-watering but very unhealthy foods imaginable: funnel cakes, salt-water taffy, something called “corn dogs” (which are hot dogs coated in a thick layer of cornmeal batter and then deep fried in oil), deep-fried candy bars, and what is locally known as “pork tenderloin.” Pork tenderloin, though, is really a German dish – as I recalled from my school days in Berlin – called wienerschnitzel. Dachshunds, by the way, are locally known as “wiener dogs” – ostensibly because we look like hot dogs. David and Kevin, by the way, monitor my food intake very carefully – I guess because they know that otherwise I’ll eat everything within reach. That’s how I stay so slim, I guess. Plus I exercise – by running around the yard – a lot.

David now sighed, and told Kevin that he could see – from all the fat people chowing down on all this food – that he really had his work cut out for him! Kevin – now chowing down on a corn dog, said (with his mouth all full of food): “Sorry. What did you say?” I think Kevin may be somewhat deaf.

The Swine Pavilion was full of all these giant hogs! (Plus “sows” – which is the word for female pigs. Just as “bitch,” incidentally, is the word for a female dog.) Not that these animals were fat. They’re simply bred, explained David (who grew up on a farm), to grow up to be big.

Afterward, we headed for a part of the fair called the “midway.”

Chapter Three: A MANY-SPENDORED THING

A “midway” is the amusement park part of a state fair. Here, there was an old-fashioned Ferris wheel, an enormous roller coaster, and also rides that were far too modern (or high-tech) to have such generic names yet. As you know, I have no real fear of heights and so was pretty eager to ride one of these. But I was also, one must confess, distracted by all the candy and bits of food that people had either accidentally dropped or – finally too full to eat anymore – just thrown on the ground. (They’re called “litter bugs,” such people.) I couldn’t help but gobble up as much of this delicious detritus as possible. Just then, though, I saw something – or rather, someone – even more distracting.

I saw another dachshund – except this one looked nothing like me! She was the same size as me, more or less. Plus she, too, was slim. (We both weigh about ten pounds each.) But she had this long, golden fur. (My own fur is short.) And she had the most beautiful eyes – blue eyes! – that I have ever seen. (My eyes – like Kevin’s eyes – are brown.)

“So this is love,” I thought. “This is why,” I now realized, “David and Kevin first got together.” And it’s why your parents got together. Not my parents, though – Gertrude and Rex. But that’s another story. Your parents – like David and Kevin – just took one look at one another – across a crowded dance studio – and just knew “at first sight” that they were meant to be together. Together forever.

But, unfortunately, this blond-furred, blue-eyed vision of female pulchritude – for, whilst running over there just as fast as my four little legs could carry me and leaving David and Kevin behind to do whatever it was those two now wanted to do at the fair, I could soon both see and smell that she’s female – this vision of pulchritude hadn’t even, I thought, seen me yet. She had kept those blue eyes of hers focused, it seemed, somewhere off in the distance – maybe on the roller coaster.

And now that I was within just a few feet (or paws) of her, I realized she wasn’t alone. She was with the two shortest (adult) human beings – and both of them were female, too – that I had ever seen. Those two must be, I thought – those two must be dwarves!

Chapter Four: NOT SNOW WHITE

“Hello, there,” I said to my new beloved just as soon as I was within earshot. “My name is ‘Jocko.’ What’s yours?”

“What’s my name?” she repeated. “My name is ‘Rapunzel.’”

“Oh?” I asked. “Because of your long, beautiful fur?”

Good sense – and proper manners – prevented me from also asking if she usually lived locked up in a tower most of the time.

“Do you really think my fur is beautiful?” she asked.

“I do think so,” I answered truthfully.

“Thank you,” she said. “And you have the cutest little walk I have ever seen. Or rather, the cutest little run. You certainly raced over here!”

So she had seen me too, I thought.

“These two people you are with – what are their names?” I asked.

I wanted to ask if those names were “Dopey” and “Doc” – but once again good sense and proper manners stopped me.

“The one on my left,” replied Rapunzel, “is ‘Betty-Ann.’ The other one is ‘Gwyneth.’”

“Those are lovely names,” I said, “like the name ‘Rapunzel.’ But why are they both so short? Why do their arms and legs look so … well, so stunted? And why are their heads so … relatively huge?”

Chapter Five: WHAT WALT DISNEY LEFT OUT

There are different kinds of dwarfism, I now learned. The kind that Betty-Ann and Gwyneth both have, said Rapunzel, is called achondroplasia – a “bone-growth disorder.”

“With achondroplasia,” she further explained, “one’s limbs are proportionately shorter than one’s abdominal area, with a larger head than average.”

“What causes that?” I asked.

“Conditions in humans characterized by disproportional body parts,” she said, “are typically caused by one or more genetic disorders in bone or cartilage development.”

“Not only is this girl,” I said to myself, “beautiful. She’s absolutely brilliant!”

“Do you and I,” I now asked Rapunzel, “have achondroplasia? I mean, just look at our little legs.”

“I’m not sure,” she said. “I think, though – to judge from something I once heard Betty-Ann say – that we’re probably just bred that way.”

Still, I didn’t care to think of myself as disordered in any way, and so – changing the subject – I now suggested to Rapunzel that she and I ditch these dwarves of hers and go do something crazy!

Chapter Six: FUN ON A ROLLER COASTER

“Just what do you have in mind, Jocko?” asked Rapunzel.

“Well,” I said. “I think I saw you eyeing that roller coaster ride, whilst I myself was eyeing you. Why don’t we two go sneak onto it?”

“Okay,” she said. “I’ve never been on one before. And it does looks fun!”

By now, Kevin and David – who must have been trying to find me – had struck up a conversation with Betty-Ann and Gwyneth. I heard one of these women say something like: “Those two look so cute together.” I then heard David say: “Indeed, they do.”

And with that, Rapunzel and I ran just as fast as our eight little legs (combined) could carry us over to the line for the roller coaster. We ran to the head of the line. We then jumped into a roller coaster car – which suddenly started moving!

“Whee!” cried Rapunzel.

“Whee, indeed!” I cried in response – now somewhat distracted by the sight of Kevin and David, who, having finally seen what Rapunzel and I had so naughtily done, were running over to the roller coaster to retrieve us. Betty-Ann and Gwyneth, I saw, were running behind them just as fast as their four little legs (combined) could carry them.

“This is fun!” cried Rapunzel as the roller coaster car was being slowly pulled by some kind of chain mechanism up the first (and very tallest) of five inclines.

But then – just when we reached the top of this first incline – the poor thing looked ahead to where we were about to plummet – once released from the mechanism and left to the claims of gravity – at a perhaps literally break-neck pace.

“Oh, no!” she screamed – and I could see, once she stopped (literally) screaming, that she was starting to hyperventilate.

I now remembered my friend Snow – only temporarily “acrophobic” – sitting way up on top of our house, that very first time she got out of the flight.

“Just close your eyes, Rapunzel,” I said. “And breathe. And hold onto me just as tightly as you can.”

Gee, her fur smelled terrific!

Chapter Seven: IT WAS WORTH IT

The ride now ended. Rapunzel was still holding onto me – even though I don’t think she was very scared anymore. Kevin grabbed me out of the roller coaster car. One of the women grabbed Rapunzel.

“What were you thinking, Jocko?” Kevin scolded. (I wasn’t thinking, though. I was feeling! And it felt wonderful!) “You are in big trouble.”

And I was in trouble – although not, I thought, whilst Betty-Ann and Gwyneth hustled Rapunzel off to some other part of the fair, in the way that Kevin meant. I was in heart trouble. I was in love with Rapunzel! And I might not see – or smell – her ever, ever again.

Fortunately, though, I did see her again. And she, it turns out, was in love with me! But that, too, is another story.

PART SIX

BYE BYE BIRDIE

Chapter One: BOXING DAY

My friend Snow, the pigeon, was looking very confused that day.

“What’s the matter, Snow?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t know what’s happening.”

David, just then, emerged from the pigeon loft carrying something brownish and white in his hands.

“Well, Jocko,” he said. “Sienna seems to have died last night.”

Sienna was one of David’s first two Seraphim Pigeons and, as such, still had some brown feathers on her. (Hence the name ‘Sienna,’ which is also the name for a shade of brown – or yellow-brown. David was quickly able to breed all the yellow-brown out of those two’s offspring – making them, as adult offspring, totally white.) As such, too, Sienna was Snow’s great great-grandmother: or her mother’s mother’s mother’s mother!

Being so old, I figured, Sienna must have reached the end of her lifespan. This differs amongst creatures. Pigeons like Snow and Sienna normally live about twelve years. So do dogs like me. People, though, can live up to a hundred years – which is a very, very long time. And sock monkeys like my friend Socko (and like the one that you have) may live even longer than that!

“That’s okay,” David now confirmed this thought of mine about Sienna’s lifespan. “She had a very good life here. And so she died quite peacefully.”

David now took Sienna’s body into the house, soon emerging from there with it in an old shoebox. David took this shoebox – or rather, makeshift coffin – into his big black truck and then drove off somewhere – I figured – to bury it.

“What does it mean to ‘die’?” asked Snow.

I thought, now, that Socko had better explain this to her.

Chapter Two: MONKEY BUSINESS

Let me explain, to you, why I thought that he should explain to Snow what death is. Socko, I had noticed from all his interactions with them, is very good with children. You may remember this yourself, from how he presented your very own sock monkey to you. Also, he likes explaining stuff – as you may remember from his (rather untimely) lecture on Dodo birds.

So I went into the house, jumped onto the flying carpet, said the magic words (“Jeez Louise”), picked up Socko on it, and flew with him out to the garden.

“Socko,” I said. “Please explain death to Snow. Her great great-grandmother, Sienna, has just died.”

“Oh, Snow,” said Socko. “I am so sorry to hear that. But everyone’s body must stop working sometime.”

“What do you mean by ‘work’?” asked Snow.

“I mean all the things we get to do with our bodies. Things we’re barely aware we’re doing: like breathing, or blinking our eyes, or sleeping, or (when awake) seeing, hearing, touching, tasting, and smelling the world around us. And also things we know very well we’re doing: like walking, or running, or even flying.”

“How about thinking?” asked Snow, using her brain. “Can Great Great-Grandma Sienna still think?”

“No,” said Socko. “Because the brain is part of the body.”

“So she can’t even dream anymore?”

“No,” said Socko. “Because being dead is not at all like sleeping. In fact, being dead is not being anything at all. Being dead means not being.”

“So where is Great Great-Grandma now?” asked Snow. “I have heard of a place called heaven.”

“Heaven,” explained Socko, “isn’t really a place. Or rather, it’s just an imaginary place. It’s something that’s sometimes nice to pretend exists.”

I could see that Snow was trying to understand all this.

“If you have any other questions about death,” I said to her, “just ask Socko. Or me. And of course you can always ask your parents. They must know all about it, too.”

Chapter Three: FREE VERSE

“What about ‘hell’?” Snow asked us the next day. “I once heard that there’s a place called ‘hell.’”

“Oh, that,” said Socko. “That’s an imaginary place, too. Bad people, when they die, are supposed to be sent there to be punished forever. But true punishment can only happen to us when we’re alive.”

I now thought of how naughty I was, with Rapunzel, when we ran off (without permission) to the roller coaster at the State Fair – and of how upset with me (and probably very worried) Kevin was.

I then thought of a beautiful poem by my favorite poet, Billy Collins – probably because it is called “The Afterlife” and possibly because it ends with the word “snow.”

They’re moving off in all imaginable directions,
each according to his own private belief,
and this is the secret that silent Lazarus would not reveal:
that everyone is right, as it turns out.
you go to the place you always thought you would go,
the place you kept lit in an alcove in your head.

Some are being shot into a funnel of flashing colors
into a zone of light, white as a January sun.
Others are standing naked before a forbidding judge who sits
with a golden ladder on one side, a coal chute on the other.

Some have already joined the celestial choir
and are singing as if they have been doing this forever,
while the less inventive find themselves stuck
in a big air conditioned room full of food and chorus girls.

Some are approaching the apartment of the female God,
a woman in her forties with short wiry hair
and glasses hanging from her neck by a string.
With one eye she regards the dead through a hole in her door.

There are those who are squeezing into the bodies
of animals – eagles and leopards – and one trying on
the skin of a monkey like a tight suit,
ready to begin another life in a more simple key,

while others float off into some benign vagueness,
little units of energy heading for the ultimate elsewhere.

There are even a few classicists being led to an underworld
by a mythological creature with a beard and hooves.
He will bring them to the mouth of the furious cave
guarded over by Edith Hamilton and her three-headed dog.

The rest just lie on their backs in their coffins
wishing they could return so they could learn Italian
or see the pyramids, or play some golf in a light rain.
They wish they could wake in the morning like you
and stand at a window examining the winter trees,
every branch traced with the ghost writing of snow.

(That three-headed hellhound is called Cerberus.)

“You know what?” I said to Socko and to Snow. “I’m in the mood for some chocolate cake. Why don’t we all go to Café Phoenix and have some!”

“That’s a great idea, Jocko,” said Socko.

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Snow. “I’m not very hungry. And I don’t feel very happy.”

“It’s normal to feel sad when someone you love has died,” I myself now explained to her. “But it’s never a bad time for chocolate cake – as long as you remember not to eat too much of it!”

“Oh, don’t worry about that with me,” joked Snow. “I eat like a bird!”

“Ha, ha, ha!” we all laughed.

With that, I let Snow out of the flight, was very careful to latch the door to it behind her, and we all took off for delicious dessert by Central Park.

Life is good.

PART SEVEN

MY FAIRFIELD LADY

Chapter One: I HAVE OFTEN WALKED DOWN THIS STREET BEFORE

I had been rather unhappy for some time – which is not like me in general. My heart hurt. I had almost no appetite – which, again, is not like me. I missed Rapunzel, I suppose – that beautiful blond dachshund from the State Fair.

David and Kevin must have sensed this about me. In fact, I heard them discussing it once. “Jocko looks listless,” said David. “I’d say, instead,” said Kevin, “that he looks lethargic.” So persnickety, that Kevin, like the character named “Henry Higgins” in the play called Pygmalion.

So one morning in October a few years ago, when it was unseasonably warm out, they had me come along with them to Café Phoenix – a walk down Broad Street (due south) and then across Central Park. I knew they wouldn’t order any chocolate cake for me. This I’d have had to be doing by myself, without those two human beings present. But so what? I wasn’t hungry, as I’ve already mentioned.

We three were now sitting outside, in front of that restaurant and facing the park – or rather I was on Kevin’s lap, lying down – when something very odd, and also unseasonable, happened. A tiny little hummingbird (or so it seemed) flew by right in front of us and then continued flying (due north) towards Grinnell College.

And then Rapunzel ran by right in front of us, chasing after that little hummingbird! She looked, I thought, like she wanted to eat it.

I now jumped off Kevin’s lap to chase after Rapunzel, who I assumed hadn’t seen me lying there. I caught up with her on the college campus and said: “What on Earth are you doing here, Rapunzel? And what’s with you and hummingbirds?”

“Jocko!” exclaimed Rapunzel. And then she started licking my face – which, I should explain, is a very pleasant feeling for us dogs.

I licked her face too, for a while – at which point we both knew, instinctively, that we were equally in love with each other. And suddenly I was hungry.

“Equally in love?” you may be wondering. It’s a question of the amount of tongue pressure on the face; hers and mine, we sensed, were the same amount.

“I just love hummingbirds,” explained Rapunzel. “It’s amazing to watch them hover like helicopters. No other bird can do that, you know.”

“So you don’t eat them?” I asked.

“Eat them!” she exclaimed. “Of course not.”

Just then, the bird – having reversed course – flew back towards us and started hovering helicopter-like over some little red flowers.

“Oh, my gosh!” exclaimed Rapunzel. “It’s a bee hummingbird – the tiniest bird on Earth. And I’ve never seen one before – except in a book.”

“Um,” I said. “I’m pretty sure that’s not any kind of bird. In fact, it’s a moth. A sphinx moth – which just happens to look, in a rather good imitation, a lot like a hummingbird.”

“Oh, you’re right, Jocko,” she said. “I’ve read about those moths – in a different book.”

At this point, David and Kevin arrived on the scene. And then shortly after that – just like back at the fair – so did those two dwarves named Betty-Ann and Gwyneth. Betty-Ann and Gwyneth, they now started explaining to David and Kevin while Rapunzel and I kept studying the sphinx moth, have relatives who live in Grinnell and whom they like to visit from time to time. They themselves live – and here my ears pricked up – in a nearby town called Fairfield, Iowa.

“I know where that is!” cried Kevin. “It’s about two hours from here ‘as the crow flies.’” That’s an old expression meaning, I believe, in a straight line.

“What do you two do in Fairfield?” asked David. “Do you work at Maharishi University?”

I had no idea what this was. I knew only that the name “Maharishi” sounded Indian and so made a mental note to later ask Socko about it. He’s from India, as you may recall.

“No,” said Gwyneth. “There’s also a pretty big arts community in Fairfield. And we work – at home together – as weavers.”

“Do you mean you make baskets?!” cried Kevin. He just loves baskets. He also loves boxes – like that one with a “firebird” on it. I guess he has a thing for any kind of container.

“Baskets?!” repeated Gwyneth as she gave Betty-Ann a little wink. I took this to be some kind of in-joke between them, maybe one having to do with a big white poodle named “Basket” that had once belonged to the writer Gertrude Stein and her lover Alice B. Toklas. In fact, as I would later learn from Rapunzel, this was exactly what the joke had to do with.

“No,” said Gwyneth, “I’m afraid we make carpets.”

“Oriental carpets,” added Betty-Ann. “Little ones, that is, about the size of prayer mats.”

“I’d just love to see them sometime,” said David. “And if you like, we can all walk over to our house now for some coffee.”

“I’d love some coffee,” said Gwyneth. “Our Grinnell relatives are all Mormon.”

Mormons, you see, can’t drink anything with caffeine – or even alcohol – in it.

“And also for you to see,” added Kevin, “this little red Sarouk carpet that we have.”

Chapter Two: BUT THE PAVEMENT ALWAYS STAYED BENEATH MY FEET BEFORE

That’s exactly what happened. All six of us now walked over to the house. (Had Kevin and David paid the bill at Café Phoenix before running after me? I certainly hope so.) The four of them, after touring the inside of the house and scrutinizing the Sarouk, had their coffee out back in the garden. Rapunzel and I, meanwhile, had a little chat.

I told her about Socko and Snow – and also about what we three (non-humans) do from time to time (aloft) with that little carpet. Rapunzel suggested (in a rather good imitation of the actress Mae West) that I alone come down to Fairfield and see her sometime. I should, she said, swing by her house on the carpet (aloft) and then go off with her on it for a tour of, as she put it (punningly), “our fair city.”

“Okay,” I said as I gave Rapunzel a little wink (in a rather good imitation of Gwyneth). “But don’t be surprised if there’s some hovering involved!”

“I certainly hope there is,” she said.

“Hey,” I said – remembering our time together on the roller coaster. “Aren’t you afraid of heights?”

“Oh gosh, you’re right,” she said looking suddenly lethargic.

“That’s okay, Rapunzel,” I said. “I’m sure we can think of something else to do together.”

“Oh?” she asked looking rather happy. “Like weaving?”

“Yes,” I said. “Like weaving.”

PART EIGHT

OUT OF AFRICA

Chapter One: HE HAD A MUD HUT IN AFRICA

When your Uncle Adam, having gone to the University of Chicago, graduated from college, he decided to join the Peace Corps. The Peace Corps sends young Americans all over the world to help far less lucky people to do better in life. It decided to send Adam to Uganda. That’s a country in East Africa. But it’s a horrible one. And so he had a horrible time out there, in part because mountain gorillas kept bothering him.

Also, he missed your Aunt Jenny a lot. She was still at the University of Chicago. So he decided to come back home sooner than anyone had anticipated – but to keep this a secret from everyone in the family, except your Uncle Seth, as well as from Jenny.

I, though, knew all of this at the time.

I was still just a puppy who had only recently been brought to their home by your dad’s two dads – David and Kevin. Seth was there, too, as was your dad. They were soon to perform a marriage ceremony for “the dads” – as they called David and Kevin – in the house. They are both ministers in some kind of atheist church, which in my opinion – and theirs, apparently – is the only kind of church that makes any sense.

Seth just happened to be playing catch with me, one morning, when Adam telephoned him long distance from Uganda to reveal his secret plan: he would fly to Chicago the following day, which just happened to be not only “the dads’” wedding day but also Jenny’s birthday, and then he’d suddenly show up to meet them all at her place. (They’d be driving to Chicago, and over to Jenny’s place, right after the wedding.) Surprise!

Seth must not have known that with my superb hearing I could make out everything Adam was telling him in this phone call. But it was a secret and so of course I kept it all to myself.

Chapter Two: SHE HAD A CONDO IN CHICAGO

Jenny’s mom, Zhongxing, had been kind enough to buy her a beautiful one-bedroom condominium to live in. The condo building is in the Hyde Park section of Chicago and it had been designed – about a hundred years ago – by a very famous architect named Frank Lloyd Wright. It looked, I’m told, a lot like David and Kevin’s house. The condo unit, I’m told, is on the first floor of that building and it even had a tiny little balcony where Adam and Jenny could have their coffee, weather permitting, in the morning. In afternoons and evenings, though, they did homework at a beautiful dining room table that Zhongxing also bought. I hate to say it, but I think Jenny used to be spoiled. On the other hand, she is a very respectful and dutiful daughter – as mandated by Chinese tradition – and always studied very hard. Adam studied hard too, which is why they are both doing so well now in their careers!

You are probably wondering about the marriage ceremony that I mentioned. Well, I can’t tell you – based on personal experience – very much about it. Although I was an integral part of the ceremony, I hear, I couldn’t help but sleep through it! (David, in fact, tells people that I snored through the thing. But let me tell you, he’s the one who snores!) I was just a puppy, as I’ve mentioned, and, like human babies, dog babies need a lot of sleep. When I woke up, though, I can tell you based on personal experience, everyone was drinking champagne and eating these pink and white cupcakes that someone kept calling “champagne” cupcakes. I guess they’re made from champagne – which is basically a drunken version of grape soda.

Nor can I tell you – based on personal experience – very much about Adam’s surprise arrival at Jenny’s place. What I’ve heard, though, is that no one was there when he got to the condo. Jenny was out for a walk or something and everyone else, having left me behind in Grinnell with a baby-sitter, had yet to arrive. It’s about a five-hour drive from here to Chicago.

Adam had this one huge backpack with him. Plus he was very hungry. Plus he didn’t know when exactly anyone else might show up. So he just put the backpack by the front door to Jenny’s condo and left to go get something to eat. Jenny, shortly thereafter, now arrives back at her place, sees this backpack, can tell that it looks like Adam’s, which she thinks is very strange, but can not understand what it’s doing there. All of a sudden, though, everyone (but me) from Grinnell shows up! They’re all yelling “Surprise! Happy Birthday!” And then they all start puzzling over the presence of this oddly familiar backpack.

And now Adam returns!

Your Grandma Julie just screams with relief. (This scares Adam a bit. But she had been so worried about how he was getting along in Uganda.) Jenny just weeps with both relief and happiness. And Seth – I’d imagine – just stands there grinning.

The very next day, more or less, Adam asked Jenny if she’ll marry him.

Chapter Three: “I DO”

Most young women will plan their wedding with their mother and mother-in-law-to-be, or they just have those two women take care of everything. Jenny, though, had heard how great David and Kevin’s wedding had been – a small and very intimate affair with only immediate family present – and so she wanted one just like it. Adam agreed with her on this and so they asked those two men to take care of everything. Julie and Zhongxing did not quite agree, I hear, but couldn’t do much about it. When Adam and Jenny – and Jenny in particular – decide on something, it really stays decided! But that’s something you may already know by now.

I can tell you, based on personal experience, a lot about that marriage ceremony, which also took place in David and Kevin’s house – plus in the beautiful garden behind it – the following summer. I was no longer a puppy, you see, and so didn’t need all that much sleep anymore.

David, as usual, did most of the work. He had made the garden look especially beautiful, having planted multi-colored bromeliads everywhere, having draped “Spanish Moss” over all the low-hanging tree branches, and having festooned the fencing around the yard with hundreds and hundreds of yards of bright red cloth. (Red is the traditional Chinese color for weddings.)

Inside the house, David filled both the living room and the dining room with hundreds and hundreds of orchids. The orchids, though, were placed in huge glass jars, which were then filled with water and topped off with tiny little floating candles. It got pretty hot in there, though, when all those candles were lit.

And it was even hotter outside – maybe the hottest day of the century! But everyone was so happy that Adam and Jenny were getting married. We hardly noticed that we were all about to pass out from heat stroke.

Jenny, by the way, looked especially beautiful in an off-white wedding dress and her neck festooned with the opalescent-black pearl necklace that David and Kevin had given her, for her birthday, back in Chicago.

The only work Kevin had to do, for the wedding, was to get the wedding cake. Unfortunately, the old woman he had asked to make this cake – a retired schoolteacher turned baker who supposedly specialized in elaborate wedding cakes – wasn’t very good at this new career of hers. Adam and Jenny’s cake was supposed to look like a dragon-and-phoenix vase they have – a wedding present from David and Kevin – but it looked instead like something an idiotic or at least very lazy clown might throw together for an idiotic baby’s birthday party or, better yet, something a lazy baby might throw together for a clown. (Traditional Chinese weddings, for good luck, are supposed to have dragon-and-phoenix ornamentation.) When Jenny saw the thing, the day before the wedding, she just burst into uncontrollable laughter, grabbed your dad’s samurai sword, which had been a birthday gift to him from “the dads,” hacked the horrible thing to pieces, threw those pieces away, and then told Kevin he had better come up with something better than that for tomorrow!

Kevin was pretty upset – but then he remembered the “champagne” cupcakes from his own wedding, ran over to the baker in Grinnell (someone other than that clown baker) who maybe still made them, found out that she did in fact still make them, and was able to get more than enough cupcakes for everyone. The woman also whipped up this huge pink and white champagne cake, which everyone would think was by far the prettiest one they’d ever seen. So, it turns out, Kevin saved the day – or that second baker did – after having nearly ruined it with that first ridiculous cake.

Kevin, by the way, had thoroughly researched traditional Chinese weddings and wanted Adam and Jenny to do everything that day “by the book.” But as this would have meant, for instance, that Jenny would have to spend the night before sleeping out back in the pigeon loft and that someone else, the next morning, would have to bind her feet together, put her in a big wooden cage, and then carry this cage containing her out of the loft and over a tiny little stove set on fire, no one other than Kevin was very interested in having this happen.

The ceremony itself was performed outside by your dad, your Uncle Seth, and also Jenny’s brother Raymond. And then, after coming inside to have some of either the champagne cake or the cupcakes, everyone (but me) left the house for dinner at some nice restaurant downtown. (Grinnell is famous, in Iowa, for its many fine-dining establishments – including my favorite one, Café Phoenix.) I was upset to have been left behind, as usual. On the other hand, it enabled me and my friend Socko to now fly around the house on our magic carpet while eating leftover cupcakes and to now – on what must have been a “sugar high” – fly around the backyard while pretending to be on an “African” safari.

“There’s a mountain gorilla,” cried Socko. “Let’s go get it!”

But then he and I fell asleep – and must have been sound asleep by the time everyone got back from the restaurant.

Chapter Four: SOME LIKE IT HOT

Jenny was actually born in China – in the province of Húnán – but shortly thereafter moved with her family to America. (Your mom had a similar experience, but I’ll get to that later.) After Adam and Jenny got married, I decided that Socko and I should take a trip there. First things first, though, I had to read up on the place. (This is something you should always do, before traveling anywhere odd for the first time.) In a cookbook called Revolutionary Chinese Cooking, which Kevin happens to have, I now read the following: “Their spicy diet is said to make the people of Húnán hot and fiery in nature: in fact, so renowned are they for their valor and tenacity that the Chinese say you can’t have a true army without them.” Well, that explains it! I said to myself. “Hunanese women,” the book continues, “are known for their amorousness, and sometimes for being a little shrewish.”

To be a bit more specific, Jenny was born in a city called Chángshā. That cookbook of Kevin’s doesn’t have much to say about this city, apart from some food-related information, so I had to turn to the Internet. Well, Chángshā is a very ancient and interesting city, but on the Internet, still, you’ll mostly read about the food there. Here’s one bit, for instance, in somewhat broken (also known as “pidgin”) English:

Chángshā people boast to be the best gourmand of China and here people spend a lot of time eating. Their cuisine is one of the Eight Cuisines in China and has a fine and delicate appearance and a hot and sour taste and the heavy and hot taste is an equal competitor to any other spicy food in the world. Street dining and restaurants in the city make every visitor’s mouth very hot. No matter the featured snacks – Stinky Tofu, Sister’s Rice Balls, or the famous Spicy Shrimps – the many types of tasty local food will not disappoint any guests.

My mouth was watering! As soon as possible, Socko and I hopped onto our carpet, flew west, stopped in California to visit Kevin’s great-nephew, Henry, continued flying west out over the Pacific Ocean, stopped for a bit in Hawaii, where Kevin’s sister, Maureen, has a condo but unfortunately does not make “rice balls,” continued west until we got to Beijing, where we made a quick tour of its “Forbidden City” and of the very famous “Great Wall of China” nearby, and then flew south to Chángshā.

Boy, they weren’t kidding about the food! “StinkyTofu,” in particular, may be the most delicious not to mention the spiciest thing that I had ever tasted up to that point. Too bad they don’t make it in Grinnell. (Maybe Aunt Jenny will make you some. You should ask her.) Most interesting, though, are the many historical sites, my favorite of which – and Socko’s too – was a two-thousand-year-old mummy! Her skin was still “quite stretchy,” according to our tour guide. But before I could determine for myself whether or not this was so, the guide led us out of that tomb and into the gift shop. I bought a tiny little key chain with a mummy statue on it, but it must have been blown off the carpet on our flight back home.

Or maybe Socko stole it. He is, I have noticed, a bit of a kleptomaniac – meaning he steals stuff uncontrollably. He takes things – literally.

PART NINE

A PASSAGE TO INDIA

Chapter One: MOSQUE

This part of the book doesn’t have anything to do with any one particular mosque. “Mosque” is just the name of the first part of a novel by E.M. Forster called A Passage to India. You should read it someday.

Like Uncle Adam and Aunt Jenny, and like your own parents, Uncle Seth and Aunt Sampada met in college. They went to the University of Northern Iowa, which had offered Sampada – a tennis star back in her hometown (Mumbai, in India) – an athletic scholarship and had offered Seth – who could have gone to any school in the country but preferred staying close to his hometown (Grinnell, in Iowa) – the opportunity to, well, to meet Sampada!

They were introduced junior year, and it was love at first sight. She had never known anyone so smart, kind, athletic, and handsome. He had never known anyone so smart, kind, athletic, and beautiful! He especially loved, he said, Sampada’s cute little ears! I can relate. A lot of people like my own enormous ears.

They were inseparable, and very serious about one other. But none of us knew it. Seth and Sampada, for some reason, kept it a big secret – even when she would spend school holidays with us in Grinnell.

Sampada fell in love with me, too, during these visits. I fell in love with her legs! They’re so long! I’m telling you, she has the best lap to relax in.

So imagine our surprise when Seth, who I’m not sure had ever left Iowa let alone the UnitedStates before, announced that he’d be spending most of the summer after graduation in Mumbai – with Sampada.

Chapter Two: CAVES

“Is there something you want to tell us?” asked David when Seth revealed this travel plan.

Seth blushed – and then revealed the secret. He was in love with Sampada and she was in love with him.

So, off he went – after David made sure he’d gotten the necessary vaccinations: tetanus, typhoid, diphtheria, polio, etc. It is very important to get every shot your doctor ever tells you to get. They don’t even hurt that much.

Seth was unaware, at any rate, that it was monsoon season in India. This meant that he and Sampada could not leave her parents’ house for a couple of weeks. Sampada was unaware, moreover, that she had just come down with chicken pox. (See what I mean about getting  those shots?) This meant that she was quarantined – which basically means locked in her room – for most of that time. Seth, then, got to spend a lot of time getting to know Sampada’s father, Sagar, and her mother, Vidula. Sagar, he later told us, is a very smart man who likes to talk a lot. (So he’s a lot like Seth, I thought.) Vidula, he told us, is a very smart woman who gets to listen a lot.

I don’t recall now much of what else we were told about this visit, other than that Seth, much like that lucky little boy in the book Little Black Sambo, ate a tremendous amount of pancakes. (Kevin, I hear, has given you his copy of that book. It’s the very first book he ever owned, he says.)

Oh, wait. I remember now. After monsoon season ended, and after Sampada recovered from chicken pox, they all did a lot of sightseeing. They went to the Taj Mahal, to the Tomb of Salim Chishti, which is part of the Jama Masjid mosque complex (oh – there’s a mosque for you), the Elephanta Caves, and the Babulnath Temple.

When I told Socko about all these apparently famous places, he said, “Let’s go see for ourselves! It’ll be a reconnaissance mission!”

So, off we went. We flew to Mumbai, on the little Sarouk, flew all around the city, and elsewhere, seeing all those places from far above – except for the caves, which we would have had to fly into. (Not happening.) We saw other things as well. Millions of people running around. Tigers threatening little monkeys – just as tigers threatened little Sambo. (This, needless to say, got Socko very upset. Such things, apparently, never happened in Candy Land.) Lots of traffic jams. Lots of automobile and bicycle accidents.

Big cities can be exciting places to live, I imagine. But, unless you have a carpet to fly around on, you really have to look where you’re going … not to mention plan to spend a lot of time getting there!

Chapter Three: TEMPLE

It wasn’t very long after this trip that Seth proposed to Sampada, presenting her with the most beautiful ring I have ever seen. (And let me tell you, David has a lot of beautiful rings! You should have him show them to you.) Seth was really sneaky about it, too. He had had a jigsaw puzzle made up from a photograph of the two of them. On it was written, in very small print in the upper left-hand corner, “Will you marry me?” Seth then hid the pieces that had this writing on them, worked on the puzzle with Sampada until – but for those pieces – it was complete, and then handed them to her saying, “Oh, look, here they are!”

Shortly after this happened, Sampada’s parents, Sagar and Vidula, came to meet everyone in Iowa. Seth and Sampada picked them up at the Des Moines airport and drove them to Grinnell. When Vidula emerged from the car, we all gasped. She looked like a movie star! She even had movie-star sunglasses on. I rushed over to greet her – I’ve always liked celebrities – and, to everyone’s amusement, the poor woman recoiled in horror. Apparently, she was afraid of dogs! Even miniature dogs. Of course, it wasn’t long before she realized I wasn’t at all dangerous, and, once we were all in the house, even let me sit on her lap – almost as nice a lap as Sampada’s. Ironically enough, Seth and Sampada now have not one but two gigantic dogs, Coco and Bella. We get along, sort of.

Anyway, wedding plans were now discussed. David and Kevin explained that they wanted to get Sampada a black pearl necklace – by now a family tradition – for her to wear at the small informal ceremony to be held in our house. This raised the matter of just how much gold wedding jewelry was waiting for Sampada back in Mumbai. (I wonder if Sampada, like your Aunt Jenny, used to be spoiled. It’s possible.) There would need to be two gowns purchased: a modest red dress for the Grinnell ceremony and a spectacular gold sari (to go with all the jewelry, I suppose) for a big formal reception to be held at some later point in Mumbai.

“Will there be elephants there?” I wondered. “Will there be horses?” I had learned a thing or two about Indian traditions from Socko.

The Grinnell ceremony went off without a hitch. The Mumbai reception never happened – for reasons I can’t get into here. But we did get to see Sampada in that sari – at an outdoor celebration held a few months later at a fancy resort in Arizona.

I wasn’t invited, for some reason. But Socko and I went anyway – another reconnaissance mission! In fact, all of the women in attendance wore saris – given to them by Sampada. The men wore beautiful silk scarves. It was really something else! Other guests staying at the resort – “rubberneckers,” Socko called them – were so mesmerized by this scene that they didn’t even notice the two of us flying around on that little carpet.

PART TEN

LOVE IS A FOUR-LETTERED WORD

Chapter One: AND ALSO A THREE-LEGGED BEAST

One day, not long ago, I flew down to Fairfield to be with Rapunzel – only she wasn’t at home. This had never happened before. So I waited and waited – maybe about two hours – for her to show up. When she did, she had a funny look on her face and said: “Jocko, we’ve got to talk.”

What she meant, though, was that she had to talk. She told me that she wants to break up with me, but that it wasn’t because of anything I’d done or said.

“It’s not you, it’s me,” she explained.

“What does that mean?” I asked.

It meant, apparently, that – much to her surprise – she didn’t want to spend time with me.

“You mean,” I asked, astonished, “you want to be alone?”

Dogs, you see, are pack animals – much like our ancestors the wolves. And although you do, occasionally, find – or at least hear of – “lone” wolves or even dogs, these are not alone by choice.

“Well,” she said. “Not exactly.”

There was someone else, of course. A next-door-neighbor-lady’s dog, called Draco.

“That sounds demonic,” I said.

“I know it does,” said Rapunzel. “But he’s really very nice. You’d like him!”

Somehow, I thought this – my liking Draco, that is – rather unlikely.

Chapter Two: MONKEY BUSINESS

“What’s wrong?” asked Socko after I’d flown back home from Fairfield. “You look terrible!”

I suppose I did look terrible. I’d been crying all the way – but fortunately all the carpet has to do is read my thoughts to know where to go.

“I’ve been dumped!” I explained.

“You know,” Socko said, “I can’t say I’m surprised.”

“Why not?” I asked.

“Well,” he said. “Let me ask you this: Is there a new dog in her life?”

“There is,” I said.

“Does he happen to live in Fairfield?”

“He does,” I said. “In fact he lives just next door to Rapunzel.”

“Ah ha!” said Socko. “She’s what you call a ‘homebody’ – like Seth! And she needs someone who isn’t running – or flying – off all the time.”

Well, that made some sense. But Rapunzel knew just how madly in love with her I was and also that I made every effort to be with her as much as possible.

I didn’t know what to think.

Chapter Three: “MARCEL”

I knew that Kevin had written a book on romantic love – he talks a lot about his work – and so I thought that reading it might help me deal with my sadness and also to understand what I was going through. The book is up in his attic, along with all the other books he wrote, on a shelf below his desk.

And it’s a very smart – not to mention beautifully written – book. Kevin talks there about how people have different notions about what love is and also about how while some of these ideas make sense all by themselves, they do not make sense in conjunction with some others. For instance, some people believe that “opposites attract” (brunettes like blonds best) while other people believe that you are most attracted to identity or even just similarity (blonds go for blonds – or perhaps I should say, the blond leading the blond). I guessed that I must belong to the first group.

Kevin also talks a lot there about the French writer Marcel Proust. So I decided that I should probably read Proust’s great novel now. (He has multiple copies of it in the attic.) The novel is called (in English) Remembrance of Things Past. And in it, the author (or rather, narrator, who is probably also called “Marcel”) has lots of interesting things to say about love. He says, quite seriously, that “love is a reciprocal torture.” He says that “love is space and time measured by the heart.” He says: “A woman one loves rarely suffices for all our needs, so we deceive her with another whom we do not love.” He says: “What a profound significance small things assume when the woman we love conceals them from us.” He says: “In a separation it is the one who is not really in love who says the more tender things.” He says: “Those whose suffering is due to love are, as we say of certain invalids, their own physicians.”

But Proust, or his narrator, is also quite funny about love. I enjoyed, in particular, one scene where this crazy old man called Charlus falls in love – all at once – with two brothers. They’re called Arnulphe and Victurnien de Surgis. They are very handsome, but not that bright – and much, much younger than he is.

“So you’re called Victurnien, after the Cabinet des Antiques,” the Baron [Charlus] was saying, to prolong his conversation with the two young men. “By Balzac, yes,” replied the elder Surgis, who had never read a line of that novelist’s work, but to whom his tutor had remarked, a few days earlier, upon the similarity of his Christian name and d’Esgrignon’s. Mme de Surgis was delighted to see her son shine, and M. de Charlus in ecstasy at such a display of learning.

Then comes this passage, shortly thereafter:

“And are you a reader too? What do you do?” he asked Comte Arnulphe, who had never heard even the name of Balzac. “Oh, you know, mainly golf, tennis, football, running, and especially polo.” Thus had Minerva, having subdivided herself, ceased in certain cities to be the goddess of wisdom, and had become partly incarnated in a purely sporting, horse-loving deity, Athene Hippia. “Ah!” replied M. de Charlus with the transcendental smile of the intellectual who does not even take the trouble to conceal his derision, but, on the other hand, feels himself so superior to other people and so far despises the intelligence of those who are least stupid that he barely differentiates between them and the most stupid, as long as the latter are attractive to him in some other way.

Chapter Four: DOCTOR’S ORDERS

Proust’s novel was all very well and good, but it did not make me feel or understand things any better. So I decided to see what David had to say.

I left him, on his bedside table, the following note.

Dear David,

Rapunzel has just dumped me. She said, “It’s not you, it’s me.” But I find this very hard to believe. For one thing, there’s already another dog in her life.

Sadly,

Jocko

“Listen, Jocko,” David said to me after reading this. “First of all, Kevin and I do know about all you flying around on our little carpet – and not just to Fairfield! Second of all, we know about Socko and Snow’s involvement in this. Third of all, what you feel for Rapunzel, and the fact that she no longer feels it for you, is just a matter of brain chemistry. Let me give you an article to read.” And with that, he handed me an old issue of a magazine called Science. In it was an essay the title of which I have forgotten. But it contained a lot of interesting information. I won’t waste space (and time) here telling you all of this information, but here – to the best of my recollection – is an example of it:

Serotonin is a somewhat counterintuitive hormone to make the list, since it actually promotes feelings of calm and contentedness. But it’s possible to chart the lifespan of a romantic relationship by tracing the roller coaster ride of serotonin in the brain. During the early attachment phase of love, serotonin takes a back seat, residing at low levels, while other reward-regulating chemicals take over. As a result of that serotonin dampening, people become borderline obsessed with their beloved, unable to focus or eat whenever apart. Eventually, once a relationship solidifies, the raphe nucleus in the brain stem begins to cook up more serotonin, eliciting those warm and fuzzy feelings of togetherness that typify longer-term attachment. The only downside of that serotonin upshot is the loss of excitement, also colloquially known as the end of the “honeymoon phase.”

“How ironic,” I thought. A love relationship is supposed to be like a roller coaster ride, figuratively speaking, but Rapunzel and I began ours on an actual roller coaster!

Also, I thought, I’ve never heard of this “raphe nucleus” in the brain stem. So I had to look that up, later, on Wikipedia – using Kevin’s computer. But the entry there uses highly technical language which I could not understand. I began to wish that I’d taken some science courses back in college.

“Feel better now?” asked David the next day.

Chapter Five: JUMEAUX

I was sitting on our front steps, later that day, to mull over that article in Science. I’d understood the article, for the most part, but it had not succeeding in making me feel any better.

Suddenly, one of my favorite neighbor ladies came walking down the street. She’s one of my favorites for several reasons. First of all, her name is Echo. (In ancient Greek mythology, Echo is the name of a beautiful young woman who is in love with a handsome young man called Narcissus. Narcissus, though, is in love with himself. Things do not end very well for them.) Second of all, although my Echo is about eighty years old in human years, she looks and acts about eighteen. Third of all, she always wears matching ensembles – including one that’s called a “twin set.” (A “twin set” – also spelled “twinset” – is a matching set of a cardigan and a short-sleeved sweater.)

When Echo came close to where I was sitting, she said: “Jocko, what’s the matter? You look so sad!”

At this, I started sniffling.

“Oh, Jocko,” said Echo. “I know what the matter must be. You must be heartbroken.”

At this, I started crying.

“Look, Jocko,” she said. “Let me tell you a story. When I was about your age, in human years, I was madly in love with a boy in my high school named Ron. Ron was the captain of the football team and he was as handsome as handsome can be. He was also as nice as nice can be. All the girls at school were interested in him – but he was interested only in me. We dated for a while and even started talking about if and when we should get married. But then Ron met a new girl in town – named Brenda. He broke up with me – and a few years later married this Brenda.”

“Well, let me tell you, I thought that I would die. I even thought that I wanted to die. But then Ron’s identical twin brother, Don, asked me out. (Can you believe that?) Don was the captain of the chess team – and he was just as nice as Ron. We dated for a while, but it just wasn’t the same as it had been with Ron – even though the two guys both look and act exactly alike and even though Don was madly in love with me. So, to be fair to Don, even though I knew it would probably break his heart, I broke up with him. And this did break his heart. But then, a few weeks later, he started dating Brenda’s identical twin sister, Glenda. (Can you believe that?) Those two got married shortly after Ron and Brenda did.”

This was just about the strangest thing I ever heard. It was also somewhat confusing: Ron and Don, Brenda and Glenda – I thought I should be taking notes!

“Oh, and that’s not all, Jocko,” said Echo. “When I finally met my husband, Larry, I realized that what I felt for Ron had only been what people call ‘puppy love.’ I found true love with Larry – and Larry found it with me.”

“Puppy love?” I thought. “What an odd expression!” And then it all made sense: what Proust wrote; what that article in Science said. I suddenly felt as though a big black cloud overhead had just disappeared, or as though a very heavy weight on my chest had been lifted. I leapt up and then licked Echo all over her face.

“I thought that story might make you feel better,” she said. And then she gave me a little kiss.

Not long after this – maybe five or ten minutes – I saw someone else, another favorite neighbor lady, come walking down the street. Her name is Regina. And with Regina was a new pet dog she must have just gotten.

Can you believe that this dog looks almost exactly like Rapunzel – yet another long-blond-haired and miniature dachshund? Well, she does. (The only difference between Rapunzel and this gal, in terms of looks, is that the latter has only three legs. But that’s another story.) Her name is Millie – and now we soon fell madly in love with one another.

PART ELEVEN

SHENANIGANS

Chapter One: FLOP ROCKET

Some kids get along well with their siblings. Take me and my brother, Butch, or me and my sister Angela. I’d say we got along well, in our short time together before David and Kevin adopted me.

Other kids, obviously, do not get along with siblings, and for various reasons. But that’s not quite relevant here.

Adam, Seth, and Sam, from what I can tell and also from what I’ve heard from David, got along very well when young. Adam and Seth in particular, because they are very close in age.

When I came onto the scene in David and Kevin’s house, all three of them, your two uncles and your dad, were teenagers. They were all doing very well in school – they’re all very smart, like you – despite the fact that they were playing video games a bit too much. Everything in moderation, as the old saying goes. Or to quote Oscar Wilde: “Everything in moderation, including moderation.” That’s a joke, by the way, which you’ll understand when you’re older.

Anyway, Seth, apparently, wasn’t just interested in playing video games. He was very interested in creating them. And so, not long before the events to be related in the next part of this book, Seth joined Sam in Saint Louis, Missouri to start a gaming company. They called it Butterscotch Shenanigans. (Your Aunt Sampada came along with Seth, of course. Your mom was already there, still attending the college your dad had recently graduated from. More on that later.) That name “Butterscotch Shenanigans,” I believe, derives from a then popular television show called South Park. “Butters Stotch” [sic] is a character on it; “Shenanigans” is a catchphrase there.

Your Uncle Adam, at the time, was living in Texas and getting a doctorate in something scientific. Aunt Jenny was there with him, attending medical school.

Not long after the events to be related in the next part of this book, Adam and Jenny would join the others in Saint Louis, Adam to join Butterscotch Shenanigans, Jenny to work at a hospital there. But that work turned out not to be her cup of tea, so she changed careers. She became a writer instead of a doctor. Change like that is a good thing. Life, in fact, is – as you’ll undoubtedly discover – all about change.

By the way, what I just did there is called by prolepsis by people like Kevin. But all that means, basically, is flash-forward. Knowledge is power, as another old saying goes.

Chapter Two: QUADROPUS RAMPAGE

The company’s first game, “Gerblins,” in which all the vocal effects were done by your dad, got a fair amount of attention upon release and has since become a cult – or do I mean camp? – classic. Its next three games, “Flop Rocket,” “The Monocle of Destiny,” and “Quadropus Rampage,” were smash hits – so much so, in fact, that other, bigger companies wanted to buy them so as to take in all their profits. (The name of Seth and Sampada’s dog Bella, incidentally, derives from “The Monocle of Destiny.” But the Bella there is a little pug. The real-world Bella is a big mutt.) Seth and Sam, however, had the wisdom to not let this happen. Many companies, like many people, are basically selfish and lazy. Be wary of them. Contrary to the old saying “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth,” you should probably always look a gift horse in the mouth. Its winning smile might conceal a mouthful of rotten teeth – or worse!

Those early games, though, also drew the attention of some other, better companies than those big, selfish, lazy ones.  One such was a film production company that wanted to make a documentary about Butterscotch Shenanigans. They did eventually make that documentary, after the events related in the next part, calling it “Dev Diary.” “Dev,” here, is short for “game development.” You should watch it sometime. David and Kevin make what’s called a “cameo appearance” – and I must say they still look very young and handsome there. I was filmed as well, but most of that footage, apparently, was left on what’s called, now metaphorically, “the cutting room floor.” (Film editors haven’t actually spliced bits of film footage together for a long time now. It’s now all done digitally.) You can, however, catch one or two glimpses of me in the final episode.

Anyway, Kevin, for some reason, in his interview out in the garden by the fish pond, kept talking about ghosts! It was embarrassing. Luckily, and wisely, all of that spooky footage was edited out.

Chapter Three: EXTREME SLOTH CYCLING

Their next game, already in development, would have been one called “Extreme Sloth Cycling.” But after the events related in the next part, Adam, Seth, and Sam decided to make one called “Crashlands” instead. But that’s not really my story to tell. You can ask your dad, or your uncles, about it.

PART TWELVE

JABBERWOCKY

Chapter One: COULD BE VERSE

Do you know a poem by Lewis Carroll called “Jabberwocky”? It is in a book called Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There, which is better known as Alice Through the Looking-Glass, and it goes like this:

’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

      Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:

All mimsy were the borogoves,

      And the mome raths outgrabe.

“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!

      The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!

Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun

      The frumious Bandersnatch!”

He took his vorpal sword in hand;

      Long time the manxome foe he sought—

So rested he by the Tumtum tree

      And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,

      The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,

Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,

      And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through

      The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!

He left it dead, and with its head

      He went galumphing back.

“And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?

      Come to my arms, my beamish boy!

O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!”

      He chortled in his joy.

’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

      Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:

All mimsy were the borogoves,

      And the mome raths outgrabe.

It’s what they call a nonsense poem, as you may have discerned. But I quote it here because something very Jabberwockish once happened to your dad.

Chapter Two: COULDN’T BE VERSE

It all began with some visions that your dad had. In them, some kind of dragon inside of his body is struggling to get out. Then it does get out, and starts flying or rather crashing around whatever room your dad happens to be in. Then it crashes through a wall and disappears.

I said “some” visions, because your dad “saw” this happen, in his mind’s eye, several times over the course of a few weeks.

When I overheard this, from David, who was telling Kevin about it, I had a strong sense that these “visions” were signs of something bad, maybe something very bad, and also very real. Socko, when I told him, had the same sense. So did Snow, when we told her. But she also said, try not to worry too much about whatever this dragon was or about what it was doing. Sam could probably handle it, she said; and if he alone couldn’t handle it, there were wizards who could help. (Don’t ask me why this is, but that Snow is psychic!) And if some wizard alone couldn’t handle it, she said, both David and your dad’s mom Julie could help.

I say “it,” because we never did find out if this dragon was a boy or a girl.

Chapter Three: NIGHTSWEATS ON BROAD STREET

A few weeks after these visions began, your dad came home to Grinnell, with his then girlfriend Diana, for a visit. (She’s now your own mom, of course!) Their first night here, we could all hear him stumbling around the kitchen at about one or two o’clock in the morning. David went downstairs to see if anything was the matter, and of course I jumped out of bed and tagged along. (Sometimes I’ll get a treat when I do this, but this time I was just as concerned – despite what Snow had told me – as David seemed to be.)

Your dad’s pajamas were sopping wet. He told David that this had started happening every night, and at about this time of night. He said, too, that his left armpit now really hurt. So David said, “Let me see.” Your dad lifted up his shirt, and, seeing what was there, I nearly jumped out of my furry skin. As clear as day, even though it was nighttime, we could all see a dragon face pressing up against your dad’s not-so-furry skin! It must have been a tiny dragon, though, as the face was about the size of can of dogfood.

“That’s it!” said David. “We’re calling your mother. And then we’re off to see the wizard.”

Chapter Four: A LITTLE KNOWLEDGE, A DANGEROUS THING

I wanted to go, too. But David told me to stay home and keep both Kevin and your mom company. They’re a lot alike, those two – Kevin and your mom. They like doing lots of crazy things – like, oh, I don’t know, screaming for no reason at all or dancing wildly – and sometimes they do these things in front of children!!

Anyway, Julie met David and your dad at the wizard’s place. And by all accounts, she’s an excellent wizard. (Yes, many wizards are women. Many of the best ones, in fact.) Wizard Nina knows all the most efficient spells and also knows how to make – to concoct, to be precise – all the most effective potions. But after examining your dad from head to toe, and giving his armpit a good snicker-snack in the process – as I soon would hear David telling Kevin – she said this had to be a very rare as well as very dangerous dragon. She had never even heard of – let alone seen – the likes of it before.

“Well,” said Julie. “Let me do some research.”

“And then I’ll talk to Snow,” said David.

(Don’t ask me why this is, but Snow knows a lot about herbology. David must have known this about Snow, probably by having hacked into my email account and reading there a message I once had to send to my own girlfriend, Millie, about … but that’s another story and I really don’t have the time to go into all that right now.)

Kevin, who was now wide awake, didn’t know what to do. But having to do something, he engaged in a lot of what I believe is called “magical thinking.” He put on this dragon shaped necklace that your dad once gave him. He made and then ate a lot of ice cream cone shaped cookies. Your mom, also now wide awake, engaged in similar – no doubt superstitious – shenanigans, like shaving off some of her long, beautiful hair. Your dad, later on the next day, found this all very funny and endearing – if not that helpful.

Chapter Five: BLOOD DRAGON AND BLOODROOT

What Julie found out, having done all of her research within the next few hours, is that your dad’s tiny dragon was in fact very rare and dangerous. It’s called a “Blood Dragon.” A Blood Dragon can actually kill you, if you don’t … I think the word is neutralize it in time. No one really knows how one gets into you, although the leading theory is that if you ever actually hit someone hard in the head with a brick, someone who doesn’t at all deserve such treatment, any Blood Dragon who happens to be in the neighborhood and to see you do this will crawl into your own head, through an ear, while you’re sleeping. And then it will sleep for a couple of years. When it wakes up, it is very very hungry and starts eating you up – from the inside out!!

So Julie reports all this horrible information to David, who then, later that morning, goes out into our backyard to have a conference with Snow. He tells Snow everything that’s happened and also everything we now know.

“I knew just what to do,” Snow later told me. She indicated to David that he should open the door to the pigeon loft and let her out. He did this. She flew out and then all around the garden, picking out – with her beak – bits of three beautiful but also toxic plants that, unbeknownst to Wizard Nina, someone would need for the only potion able to neutralize a Blood Dragon. One such plant is called “bloodroot.” (In Latin, it’s sanguisorba.) Another one is called “May apple” (or podophyllum peltatum). And another is called “periwinkle” (or vinca).

David now took these plants from Snow, thanked her by rubbing her little head, locked her back in the loft, grabbed your dad, drove him over to Julie’s house, picked Julie up, and then raced the two of them over to the wizard’s place.

Wizard Nina had her doubts about adding all these plants to some potion that she’d already begun concocting for your dad. David knew, from Julie’s research, that he didn’t have the time to convince this woman to do something that a little bird told him to do, so he just said: “Look, you are putting these plants in that potion and I’m not kidding!” He’s not someone you really ever want to argue with, at least not when he knows what he’s talking about, and so the woman just threw that bloodroot and other stuff into her cauldron, brought it all to a boil, distilled the liquid there into a “vorpal” syringe, and then stabbed that syringe into the dragon face, which was still pressing into your dad’s armpit. After all, it was now about only one or two o’clock in the afternoon of the next day.

“YIKES!!!” screamed your dad, as Wizard Nina forced this newly reinforced potion out of the hot syringe and into the now badly contorted dragon face.

And then that face got smaller and smaller and smaller and eventually, after just about ten seconds, disappeared altogether – along with all the rest of the dragon. It had been neutralized!

“That’s a relief!” said your dad. “I feel like my heart has just exploded out the back of my body.”

“You’ll need to eat more than the usual amount of food for the next couple of weeks,” said the wizard. “You’ve got to gain back all the weight that the dragon, by eating you, took off of you.”

“Sure thing,” said your dad. “But first I’m going to run five miles.”

And then your dad did just that, meeting David and Julie, and Kevin and your mom, and Socko and me back at the house – which I guess I forgot to mention is about five miles from the wizard’s place.

Luckily, there were a few ice cream cone shaped cookies left, which your dad ate in less than ten seconds. By now, your Uncle Adam, who clearly had a brick shaped dent on top of his head, Aunt Jenny, Uncle Seth, and Aunt Sampada were on their way to Grinnell, too, to join in on celebrating the very first “Slay-the-Dragon Day” in the family – which in my opinion is probably the best day of the whole beamish year.

PART THIRTEEN

FAIRY TALE

Chapter One: ONCE UPON A TIME

Do you know the phrase “wild ride”? Well, both of your parents began life on such a ride – kind of like that roller coaster ride I took with Rapunzel.

Your dad’s original wild ride happened just a few weeks after his own parents, unbeknownst to them, had created him. David was at home, in Des Moines. Julie was with Uncle Adam and Uncle Seth, who were just a few years old at the time, visiting her friend Tammy. Tammy lived on a farm about an hour away, in Carroll, Iowa, and owned an apparently lovely little horse – chestnut colored and barely bigger than a pony. Julie thought it would be fun to ride it around the farmhouse while Adam and Seth watched.

As soon as Julie sat on the horse it had a kind of fit. Julie was thrown to the ground, which shouldn’t have been too much of a problem. As I’ve said, it was a pony-sized horse. She wasn’t that far off the ground to start with. But one of her shoes got caught in a stirrup. The horse then bolted, dragging Julie around the house a few times. Adam and Seth looked on with what I can only imagine must have been a combination of fascination and horror. Tammy as well. Yet she at least had the presence of mind to yell, “Whoa! Whoa!!” (That’s what you tell a horse to make it stop.) Julie’s foot somehow extracted itself from the stirrup. The horse, ignoring this, just kept running. Tammy then took Julie and the boys back to Des Moines. David, from there, took Julie to the nearest hospital.

Was Julie all right? Had she broken any bones? Injured any internal organs? “Take some x-rays,” suggested David to the attending doctor. Before any x-rays could be taken, though, a pregnancy test had to be performed. This was standard operating procedure. A woman should not have x-rays taken if she’s pregnant. They could harm the little baby-to-be inside of her. Or babies-to-be, in the case of twins, triplets, quadruplets, etc.

Anyway, the test showed that Julie was pregnant with your dad! Needless to say, this made David and Julie very happy. Whether your dad himself – in utero – was happy to have been on that ride with Julie is an interesting question to ponder. I don’t know. Maybe he can remember. You should ask him.

Your mom’s original wild ride occurred just a few hours before she was born. (Like Aunt Jenny, she was born in China. Different city, though: Chéngdū. I’ll have more to say about that in the next chapter.) Her parents, Wendy and Robert, were still quite young at the time. They did not own a car. Nor did they know anyone with a car they could use. They did, however, have a bicycle.

When it became clear that Wendy was in labor, the two of them hopped on the bicycle so as to take it to that nearest hospital, Robert pedaling in front, Wendy riding “sidesaddle” in back. (In a way, then, it was as if your mom – like your dad – began life as a kind of equestrian!)

The hospital wasn’t that far from where Wendy and Robert lived, but it was far enough away that they had to go very quickly and not stop for any reason at all.

The problem was, it was late at night. Chéngdū, at the time, had a curfew. This meant that no one was supposed to be out of doors after a certain hour – except for people like policemen, firemen, etc.

Luckily, Wendy and Robert didn’t encounter any such people … until, that is, they came upon someone your mom likes to call “a lady street sweeper vigilante.” In Mandarin, I believe, she’d be called qīngjié gōng. (I speak a little Mandarin. Also French. I am quite fluent in both English, as you can tell, and German, as you may recall.)

This lady – or “lady street sweeper vigilante” – was very upset to see Wendy and Robert hurtling towards her on that bicycle. Perhaps she was rather obsessive – and mean – about making people obey the city’s curfew. Perhaps she feared that the bicycle would run over – and therefore mess up – a neat pile of street sweepings. Anyway, she start screaming at them. “Stop! Stop!!” (Tíngzhǐ! Tíngzhǐ!)

Of course, they couldn’t stop. Robert just kept pedaling, and as he raced toward the street sweeper he called out – by way of explanation – “Lái la! Lái la!” This translates, roughly, as: “It’s coming! It’s coming!”  The lady was very confused, at first. But as they raced past her, and she could see the condition Wendy was in, she understood. “Bǎobèi lái la! Bǎobèi lái la!” (“The baby is coming! The baby is coming!”) This, incidentally, was the first of any number of wild rides your mom has been on. She’s just that kind of person, as you may know by now. At any rate, the baby did come. Wendy and Robert named her Zéng xī and also nick-named her Diǎn-diǎn – which means tiny-tiny. Your mom, apparently, was rather small at the time.

Chapter Two: IN A KINGDOM FAR, FAR AWAY

Chéngdū is in Sìchuān province. It’s actually the capital of it. When I found out that your mom was born there, I decided to go see it for myself as soon as possible. This time, though, I’d go alone. Those tigers in Mumbai really upset Socko and who knew what predators they’d have here.

Chéngdū, I discovered while flying around on my little carpet, has a lot of giant pandas. I was petrified, at first. They looked like they could eat me. Fortunately, though, they’re vegetarian. They’re all on a strict bamboo diet.

Watching those giant pandas munch away on bamboo made me pretty hungry. I seemed to recall that just as Chángshā is known for its very spicy “Stinky Tofu,” Chéngdū is known for its very spicy “Hot Pot.” Which one, I wondered, is spicier? Well, let me tell you, “Hot Pot” is a lot spicier! This is because of the Sìchuān peppercorn, which gives all dishes it’s used in the ability to make your mouth feel numb.

Chéngdū is also known for the leisurely pace of life there. I could see why. Everyone (except for Wendy and Robert at times!) seemed to be moving very slowly – even pedestrians crossing a busy intersection or even trying to catch a bus. Maybe they spend too much time watching – and being influenced by – giant pandas. Those animals, I realized in retrospect, are really very sluggish. Slothful, even.

At any rate, some people seemed not to be moving at all. For the most part, I saw these people sitting down and chatting with one another, or playing games, or even just drinking tea.

Chéngdū, I’d later learn, has more teahouses than any other city in the world. They say that people here can drink the equivalent of up to seven lakes full of tea every year!

But there’s excitement as well. Believe it or not, I watched what’s called an “opera”! I’d have called it a circus. It had acrobats, magicians, and even scary “fire spitters.” So it wasn’t all like, say, operas like The Barber of Seville by Rossini or The Marriage of Figaro by Mozart.

When I got back to Grinnell, I told Socko all about it.

Chapter Three: THERE LIVED A TINY, TINY PRINCESS

Your mom and dad, as I’ve said before, met in a dance studio. This was at their college, Washington University in Saint Louis. And they were “hip-hop” dancing. (It was a thing at the time.)

They fell in love at first sight, as I’ve also said before, and became inseparable. Perhaps, among other things, they could sense that they had both been – and so rather enjoyed now being – wild-riders. Your dad, after all, did stay by your mom’s side when she’d be on truly terrifying rides. Your mom stayed by your dad’s side throughout the “Blood Dragon” ordeal.

After that dragon was killed, a couple of things happened, beautiful things, which Socko and I just happen to have witnessed.

First of all, you dad proposed to your mom. Socko and I had just flown down to Saint Louis to check up on him. Snow sent us. She wanted to be certain that the dragon-killing potion had worked. Well, we couldn’t find your dad at home. Nor could we find your mom. “Maybe they’re in the park,” said Socko.

They were in the park. In Forest Park, to be specific, on a grassy knoll there called Art Hill. We hovered just low enough to both see and hear them as they sat together. Your mom reached around and picked some kind of flower. We weren’t quite sure what kind of flower, but Snow later assured us that it must have been a white clover flower. Your mom handed the flower to your dad, who somehow shaped it – stem and all – into a ring. He then presented this ring to your mom and asked, somewhat sheepishly, which makes sense as they were in a kind of meadow, “Will you marry me?” Your mom, predictably, just screamed with joy. “Yes!” she then yelled. “Yes, I will!” Socko and I flew away at this point, thinking it best to give them some privacy.

(A few months later, incidentally, your dad gave your mom another engagement ring: the pear-shaped diamond ring she now wears. Flowers are nice, of course, but diamonds are forever.)

Second of all, when your mom and dad visited Grinnell after this, David and Kevin had more jewelry to give her: the by now traditional black pearl necklace given to their daughters-in-law. Once again, your mom just screamed with joy. Socko and I now woke up from a nap we were taking. “What’s with all the screaming?” we wondered. By this point, your mom was wearing the necklace. “Wow!” said Kevin. “It fits like a glove!”

“That’s an odd thing to say,” I told Socko. “Even for Kevin.”

Because, clearly, it fit like a necklace.

Chapter Four: HAPPILY EVER AFTER

For some reason, Socko and I weren’t invited to that wedding. We went anyway, though, on the little Sarouk.

I’m not sure your parents know about that wedding crashing. So why don’t all three of you now look very carefully at a video made of the event, which I’m sure they can easily locate.

I can wait.

Did you see us there? I know we’re in at least one of the shots.

At any rate, as you must have been able to tell by watching the video, and as your parents of course already know, the wedding was spectacular. It was held at an old grist mill near Saint Louis. Your dad wore a snazzy blue suit. Your mom wore a stunning white gown at the ceremony, performed by your Uncles Adam, Seth, and Daniel, and at the dinner after that . She then changed into a red-and-black gown to dance in.

The video, you’ll have noticed, shows your dad serenading your mom. But you can’t hear him doing this, as no sound was recorded by the videographers. Did you know that he has a great singing voice? He does! The song he sang is called “Thinking Out Loud.” It’s about a couple who fall in love and then stay in love forever.

It also shows Daniel giving a toast, which – for a twelve-year-old (his age at the time) – was surprisingly eloquent.

It shows David and Julie giving toasts, both of which were quite moving.

It shows Robert and Kevin giving toasts, both of which were hilarious! (Kevin’s was a bit more hilarious than Robert’s, as he’s very competitive.) Robert’s, among other things, told the story of your mom’s first wild ride. (“[Bǎobèi] lái la! [Bǎobèi] lái la!”) Kevin’s, for some reason, I recall verbatim:

Ever since the beginning of time, which of course was about six thousand years ago, there have been great couples. There have been Adam and Eve, whom you may recall from the Bible. There have been Adam and Steve, to quote that so-called “Queen of Disco” (Donna Summer). There have been Frank Sinatra and Ava Gardner. (He was a jazz singer and also film star; she too was a film star and also bullfight enthusiast. Or at least bullfighter enthusiast.) There have been Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera. (Both of them were painters, from Mexico.) There have been – and maybe these two are better known to some of you – Lady and (the) Tramp. Like Adam and Eve, before eating that apple, Sam and Diana really enjoy (especially when out riding bicycles) being naked; unlike Adam and Eve, they actually own bicycles. Like Adam and Steve, they really enjoy dancing – although unlike them, unfortunately, they are not particularly fond of disco dancing. Like Frank Sinatra and Ava Gardner, they are true romantics – although unlike them, thank God, they are not romantic narcissists. Like Diego Rivera and Frido Kahlo, they are brilliant artists – although unlike the former Sam is not at all fat and unlike the latter Diana has two separate eyebrows. But of all these couples, I think that Sam and Diana have most in common with Lady and Tramp. They are both adorable. They both enjoy spaghetti and meatballs. And Sam, like Tramp, had, shall we say, a bit of a past before meeting Diana (while hip-hop dancing), and then falling in love with her, and then – almost immediately – getting her to fall in love with him.

As for their future together, you probably think that I’ll say something predictable like, “May it be filled with all sorts of food (and not just meaty pasta or forbidden fruit), and filled with all sorts of singing and dancing (including jazz and even disco), and with all sorts of exercise (including bike riding but not including bullfighting), and with all sorts of brilliant artwork, and with lots of romance. And so may they continue getting naked whenever (or wherever) possible. And, like Lady and Tramp, may they generate (although not all at once) as many as four children, up to three of whom will (as Lady-like little girls) look exactly like Diana and one of whom (a Tramp-y little boy) will look like Sam.” But I will not say such things, even though I do wish them for Sam and Diana. (The Latin word for that rhetorical trope, incidentally, is apophasis.) Instead, I’ll just end this toast by quoting Frida Kahlo, who (with reference to some French women artists) said: “[T]hose [Parisian] bitches … are so damn ‘intellectual’ … that I [just] can’t stand them anymore. I [would] rather sit on the floor of the market in Toluca and sell tortillas [there] than have anything [more] to do with [them].” So here’s to another great couple, perhaps the greatest of all time: Sam and Diana!

Perhaps I recall it verbatim because I really love that old movie Kevin referred to. It’s from 1955. It’s called Lady and the Tramp. And it’s about two dogs who fall in love and then stay in love forever. Kind of like Millie and I.

Maybe you all should now watch that together.

THE END