Thrownness and a Three-Legged Dog

In the corner cozy against his companions legs lays a boxer missing his right foreleg. His jowls are strung with drool like cables on a suspension bridge. The three-leggeds can get arthritic and he seems so when he adjusts, but my pity assumes a lot. My friend and I are at the Stone store drinking pale ales, and Im mentally head-scratching at the stainless steel sterile, cold-as-a-Ralphs atmosphere and the arrogantly bitter beer, but I like who Im with and the servers are as sweet as their beer is barklike. To my right are two bros taking turns iPhone posing with the keg they just bought like theyre a family unit who just made it to Yosemite Valley. A moment of eye contact is enough for one of them to turn to me and say, Our baby, but its said with sincere joy and so I forget my prejudice against bro-dom and quietly appreciate its funny, small space for bonding. My friend and I are tipsy arguing about the merits (me) and demerits (shes winning) of Christopher Hitchens work. She is convinced that one cannot pick up stylistic t ricks of the prose trade (Im talking his Vanity Fair stuff here) from a man whose post-9/11 rightwing-nuttery is reprehensible, and because this is my side of history, my narrative here, I know that even this argument I have failed to summarize. In any case, I am convinced that one can separate the author and the work, as I do with Woody Allen, as I do with Roman Polanski, and as I do with Martin Heidegger and his relationship with Nazism. Heidegger, whose existential jargon formed in me some summer working between movies at an independent theater in La Jolla. E.g., thrownness (Geworfenheit), the state of individual existences being tossed into a certain time and place and kinship and social mores and obligations, and, this Friday night and on, these jobs of ours we inevitably talk about (careers have paths; jobs have checks), and Geworfenheit connects me to Jim Morrisons like a dog without a bone lyric, though I openly hate The Doors and declare that clearly, loud for me, in the hopes of catching someones ear, maybe in some experimental belligerence to later make a stranger laugh with me. Otherwise I mumble the rest of this with half-ass-ed conviction because, though I enjoy beginning in gentle argument, I prefer to end in ultimate agreement, and maybe that is why I fight readily but concede easily. Maybe because I want this friendship so much. But now I have to ask you, reader (and forgive the 19th century direct address to you, reader), to forgive the link between The Doors and the dog. I came to this writing without an end in mind, but sometimes life throws you an accidental connection and you, in the ineluctable desire to jump into metaphor, chase after it on all fours, or threes, or twos, even one. Then you play with the theme at the foot of a meaningless door and you are able to gnaw at some semblance of a story. As much as youre thrown into lifeand I like to picture the Great Bartender in the Sky throwing us out of heavenly saloon doors and onto rain-saturated plains way east or west of Eden, to here in Pasadenalife throws you connections in the least, or you impose your connections. E.g., Do these earrings match my dress? but augmented to the existential question, What do you think about tonights cumulus clouds and the gorgeous sunset juxtaposed with your fathers funeral? For a few moments in the evening there is levity in laughter and gravity in Syria, and not only when it reaches consciousness, and that increases the gravity and the desire for levity. It is easy to think at this point that we are two Debbie Downers downing our beers but in fact we are quite

content, quite fulfilled this evening. We are people who thrive on contention. Maybe you have to be here. But I take it personally that she stands firm and concedes nothing, especially while I concede that I have never in fact watched a Polanski film but that Annie Hall damn well deserved to beat out Star Wars for Best Picture, though none of this supports my point or should budge her from hers. And my conjunctions are off. Her blue eyes trip me up. I wonder if this whole time it is my own stubbornness that has led me to take things personally. Arguments are like the sea, with the sand washing past us and we think were moving in when never have we budged. So I chug a bit closer to beer numbness and chuckling-at-just-about-anything-ness and now she points to the three-legged sweet slobbering sweetheart with quiet smacking jowls in the middle of the place that has somewhat cleared out of the bros, where now just couples linger til close, and I wonder if it is just now that she has noticed him. I look at her, then at the dog, back to her. Oh my gosh, that poor dog, she says. He does just fine without her pity, but I dont say this, in part because he does just fine without mine. Lets be fair, Im thinking exactly her words. Because another part of me says we need it, we around here need that heartfeltness, we bipedal beer-o-sapiens, we homo happi-less who pay good money to drink a beer that was made, Im convinced, with sadism and pine resin, and that makes bros wrap arms and pose with their keg-child. We who dish out weekday summaries and weekend plans at this nightly junction called Friday need this dog. The drunkenness infuses this sentiment with a sloppy, arms-cast-around-a-torso-dontleave-yet love, but even at a sober distance I still accept it as valid, good. A thought worth savoring. Then its time to go home with his companion, and the boxer has some name that starts with B, so well say Barney, or Betsy maybe, and she must do what she does, and pivots up and walks on with all eyes on him, and gets more love for what he lacks and doesnt know it (or maybe does?). She is lucky for it and so are we to look on her together. Doors open, one person to a door. That one is king.

Timothy Tiernan, October 22, 2013 Contact: tiernanpoet@gmail.com