Camp Strange

Data, Star Trek: The Next Gen­er­a­tion’s android sci­ence offi­cer, shared his star­ship quar­ters with a sleek cat named Spot. Data wanted to be human, wanted to under­stand what makes some of us choose choco­late over vanilla, what makes us gig­gle when tick­led, the strange and etheric con­nec­tions that tie our species together. A cat’s fiercely inde­pen­dent streak can push a man to curse, can cause a woman to shake her fist in frus­tra­tion. Maybe that gave Data a bit of a walk on the wild emo­tive side. But in my opin­ion, Data should have part­nered with a dog.

My first dog lived to the over­ripe age of 21. Ras­cal left the planet with a mil­lion soft tumors folded into the sag­ging hol­lows of his belly, thick milky cataracts cov­er­ing both eyes, and a seri­ous incon­ti­nence prob­lem. He left the way com­pan­ion dogs often do, human arms gen­tly cradling his neck, a vet’s nee­dle in one arthritic leg.

Ras­cal fol­lowed me home from the first grade the very day I turned six. We lived one block from the Catholic school. I wore a green plaid skirt, dingy white col­lared blouse, and scuffed patent leather shoes. I wasn’t one of the cute girls. I knew that even at five-almost-six. I car­ried a hawk­ish nose, an angu­lar chin, per­pet­ual scabs on both knees. I was a bit chubby, a kid who loved but­tered bread and mashed pota­toes with gravy, a kid who flew down Cold Spring Hill on her banana bike, hands hov­er­ing above the han­dle­bars in a show of ter­ri­fied joy, no hands until I hit a stray divot of grass, flew over the front wheel, and skid­ded twenty feet, butt first, on a newly-laid sea of pea gravel. Thirty-eight years later, I still have a lop­sided ass from that incident.

The pup trailed behind me, the cut of his exposed ribs press­ing a pat­tern of inter­fer­ence waves into the air. I prob­a­bly smelled like the cheap hot­dogs and processed gov­ern­ment cheese the nuns served at lunch. I prob­a­bly smelled kind and defense­less, smelled like the kind of hun­gry human a dog could love. My par­ents let me keep him. We were inseparable.

Dogs bring out the doggedy god in humans the way cats bring out the meow in an android. We rolled in summer’s tall grass, drooled when the kitchen radi­ated the scent of spaghetti and meat­balls, chased kids, dogs, cats, and imag­i­nary friends down Cold Spring Hill, care­ful to avoid the evil gravel. It took me ’til my cur­rent age of 44, but now I know that every life is a lonely life, every per­son walks a tightrope over shark-infested waters. We all yearn to belong to a pack; we all feel iso­lated at times, lone hunters, some­times even behind polar­ized shades that block any hint of sun. But at ten, at thir­teen, at twenty-one, Rascal’s pack of me-and-you was my iden­tity, my best den. He was Alpha. He let me bury sad eyes and big nose into his rough brown and black hide.

Ras­cal was all dog. He loved a good tummy rub, a hand­ful of unwanted veg­etable snuck under the table. He was smart, too, could drop butt to con­crete on com­mand, even faster when you held a Milk Bone. But he didn’t ask the big ques­tions, didn’t pause in thanks or con­tem­pla­tion when the food hit the floor. He didn’t make many delib­er­ate choices. He sure wasn’t Sissy.

Sissy came into our lives six years after Ras­cal passed. An ele­gant pooch with long white hair, she brought a cer­tain sophis­ti­ca­tion to the house­hold. Reg­u­lar dog kib­ble? No thanks, not unless you added a cou­ple raw eggs and sprin­kled grated cheese on top. A jaunt around the neigh­bor­hood? Yes, but she would fetch the good lead with the snazzy rhine­stones, never the cruddy can­vas one with the oil stains. She learned a hun­dred com­mands, seem­ingly overnight. You could tell Sissy that Mar­tin wanted to play and she’d seek him out, ten­nis ball in mouth, regard­less of how long it took her to find him.

Dogs have taught me that ani­mals have as much claim to the word “soul” as humans do. Ras­cal loved run­ning, loved ketchup on fries, loved the car­nal plea­sure of sun­light on exposed body. He took his duties as Fam­ily Dog with some sense of respon­si­bil­ity; he pro­tected us each day from the das­tardly — his opin­ion — mail­man by flash­ing his incisors with flour­ish and snarl. Sissy, how­ever, took the whole soul bit a few gigan­tic leaps forward.

A cou­ple nights a week we watched Star Trek: The Next Gen­er­a­tion. Sissy lay at our feet, sleep­ing, legs some­times twitch­ing in REM slum­ber. One episode some­thing strange hap­pened. Data stepped into the holodeck, stepped into a dance les­son with sexy Dr. Crusher. My boys groaned, put hands over eyes to avoid any poten­tial roman­tic dis­play. They quickly low­ered fin­gers when they real­ized Data was get­ting a tap dance les­son! Bril­liant androids learn fast, and within two min­utes, Data was step-ball-chaining and heel-shuffle-toeing as well as any old timey Vaude­ville star. Dr. Crusher’s stiletto heels beat a tribal rhythm against the floor, her fore­head bead­ing with sweat, Data’s flat taps match­ing her stride for stride. I glanced at the boys to watch their reac­tion, and real­ized that Sissy was star­ing at the television.

Tap tap tap tap tap­pity tap!

Sissy head bobbed in time to the ath­letic dis­play. She seemed to grin.

Tap tap tap tap­pity tap­pity tap tap!

Sissy sat up, faced the spec­ta­cle head on, her breath becom­ing labored, excited.

From that moment on, Sissy was a Trekkie. The boys prod­ded her with dan­gling feet every time Data appeared on screen. She seemed to under­stand the fuss, and after a week or two, started to utter a low gut­teral howl when­ever the child­like android stepped onto the bridge or beamed down to a new planet. Clas­si­cal con­di­tion­ing? True Data fan­dom? I wasn’t sure, and the boys didn’t care! They even set up spe­cial Data view­ing nights for friends who didn’t believe we had a Star Trek android lovin’ dog.

One late after­noon, I heard a ruckus at the side door. The boys fell into the house, Sissy quick on their heels.

“Mom! Mom! Sissy saved us from the Borg!”

Mar­tin paused to catch his breath, his small hands still would around the del­i­cate leash. He began to hiccup.

“He’s not kid­ding, Mom!”

Louis unhooked the dog and Sissy saun­tered to the water bowl for a good, long drink. The boys launched into a story about a gang of high school boys who taunted them in the alley, threat­en­ing to hurt their beloved dog.

“But Sissy showed them! Just like Data! She must have learned it from Star Trek!”

The con­ver­sa­tion devolved into two boys argu­ing and one dog howl­ing. I’ve never been quite sure exactly what hap­pened in that alley, but my boys are still con­vinced to this day that Sissy reared on hind legs in a dis­play of pro­tec­tion and, well, humanity.

Sissy got old, the way we all do, and started hav­ing seizures, then other neu­ro­log­i­cal prob­lems. I found myself with my arms gen­tly hold­ing her head, her neck, in a too-familiar tableau. In the end, the deci­sion is never easy. When you choose the road of com­pas­sion, you choose what it means to be most human. Just ask Data. He’d understand.