Lily and the Octopus (19 page)

Long pause.

“I don’t think that. Do you think that?”

This time it’s me who pauses.

“Sometimes.”

“Well, I don’t think that you are.”

“There really is an octopus, you know.”

Pause. “I know.”

“He’s taking her.”

Trent sighs or yawns. “I know that, too.”

We sit quietly for a moment. Trent is the only person I can be on the phone with and not feel pressured to speak. But I suddenly feel terrible for dragging him out of bed—his own bed, with
his boyfriend and his healthy dog—to talk to me, in my bed, with an octopus and my sick dog, feeling so very alone.

It brings back this memory of when Lily and I had been together for maybe only a year and a half. It was November. The Leonid meteor shower was going to be spectacular that year; it
wouldn’t be that spectacular again until sometime like 2098, or 2131—a year when Lily and I were certain to be stardust ourselves. So I woke us up in the middle of the night, grabbed
our pillows and a blanket, and spread them out on the back lawn. I snuggled her in close to me and we lay there looking up at the fire raining across the sky, though she never really understood why
we would leave the warmth of our comfortable bed for this weak recreation on the cold, hard ground. I don’t think she got the magic of meteors.

Trent speaks again, since I can’t. “I don’t know what I would do if I ever lost Weezie. The thought to me is . . . unfathomable.”

But you
will
lose Weezie
, I almost say. I no longer live in a world of ifs.

I think of Kal and the tipping point, the point where death is inevitable. Was he right? Is that tipping point actually birth, the beginning of life itself? We will lose everything that matters,
or everything that matters will lose us. It is predestined, the nature of life. But I don’t tell this to Trent. I don’t see the point in dragging my friend out of bed to depress
him.

“I used to think that way about Lily.”

“And now?”

“Loss is no longer just an idea.”

“Did you see that guy about the thing?”

“Kal. His name was Kal.”

“Did you like him?”

“I did.”

“Was he handsome?”

“Very.”

“And?”

“You’ll see. I’ll show you.”

Lily burrows her head deeper into my armpit, but in that way she does when she’s using me to scratch her nose. In doing this, she raises the octopus toward me—only just the slightest
little bit, but I flinch. I hate that I still flinch in his presence.

“I can’t imagine losing Weezie.”

“Don’t think about that now.” I’ll be there for him when he does.

“You called wanting to know if I think you’re crazy?”

“Yeah.” That, and to escape debilitating loneliness.

“I think you need to do something big. I think you need to grab life and shake things up. Turn the whole world on its head. Stop playing the octopus’s game.” It’s the
Ferris Bueller in him talking. Over the years Ferris has become somewhat muted; I like when he bubbles to the surface. “You want to know what I think? I think maybe you’re not crazy
enough.”

When we hang up I stare at the phone for a while, in that strange way you do when you stop taking technology for granted and suddenly you can’t imagine how there was just a voice in there,
talking to you, even if that voice couldn’t fully understand you and what’s happening in your world. I feel perhaps even more alone than before I called. Although I’m not alone.
Not anymore. I can see the anger gestating inside me, growing exponentially, as surely as if I were holding a sonogram printout. It’s about to erupt in unimaginable ways.

I lift Lily gently from her sleep and grab a blanket from the linen cabinet and we head outside. I lay the blanket out for us on the grass as best I can with one hand. There is no meteor shower
to see tonight, so I turn on the strings of antique lightbulbs that hang decoratively over the yard, the ones I usually only turn on for barbecues and parties, the ones that make my backyard look
like a festive catalogue page where plastic people live carefree lives. We lie on the blanket and look up at them.

“What are we doing?” Lily yawns and nuzzles into me again. The night air is warm and still.

“We’re creating a memory.”

“Why?”

I don’t tell her why. The answer is I need it. I need this memory to hold on to if my plan fails and she is no longer there.

“Because sometimes it’s nice to have memories. Don’t you have any favorite memories?”

Lily thinks about this. “All of my memories are my favorite memories.”

I’m amazed by this. “Even the bad ones?”

“Dogs don’t remember bad memories.” Envious, I scratch her on the velvet part of her chest. What an incredible way to live.

“We did this once when you were a puppy. We got out of bed and brought our blanket outside and we lay on the grass looking at stars.”

“Are those stars?” Lily looks up at the shimmering lightbulbs, and even though she can’t see, I wonder if she can make out just enough light to imagine them.

“Yes,” I lie. “Those are stars. Their light has traveled for billions of years. Aren’t they magnificent?”

Lily agrees, because she is small and she’s a dog and to her even little things, even things she can’t see, seem magnificent.

“We can go back inside in a bit.”

Lily thinks about this. “No, this is nice.”

“I’m glad you like the stars; we’re going to be spending a lot more time underneath them.” I pause before telling her my plan, or at least that the time for my plan has
come. Trent has confirmed it for me. “We’re leaving here soon, and I don’t know if we’re coming back.”

“We’re leaving here soon? Where are we going?”

I squeeze her tight in the way I do when I’m asking her to trust me, to follow me as we leave the only home she probably ever remembers.

Maybe you’re not crazy enough.

“We’re going on an awfully big adventure.”

Death. Death is the awfully big adventure. But not this time. Not this adventure. The greatest adventure, our adventure, is the fight to live.

I place my hand over the clear plastic bandage that covers my tattoo. I was only supposed to wear it for a few hours, but I figured a few hours more wouldn’t hurt. I peek underneath and
see the tips of eight arms dangling to breathe.

I am done waiting. I am done being walked all over by a spineless intruder. I’m tired of fighting the fight on his terms. Trent was right. I haven’t been crazy enough.

Haven’t. Been.

That all stops now. I can feel the change surging inside me—in my nerves, in my organs, in my veins.

My transformation is almost complete.

I
’m able to navigate the streets of Chinatown with relative ease, relying on memory, even though I haven’t been here since they closed
the Empress Pavilion, a place I used to frequent for dim sum and celebrity sightings. I cruise the streets, trying to distinguish the fish markets from the groceries. I creep along slowly in the
outside lane, but no one honks. There are a number of mom-and-pop stores along both Broadway and North Spring, but since the awnings are in Chinese (except for one, which may be a bodega),
it’s hard to tell which is what, so I nab a metered spot on Spring to continue my investigative errand on foot.

The Chinatown in Los Angeles is not nearly as chaotic (nor as Chinese) as the Chinatowns in New York and San Francisco. On a weekday afternoon it’s easy to stroll in and out of stores,
taking in their exotic contents. The fish market I come to first has nothing more exotic than Maine lobster and Dungeness crab. I think of asking if they have hidden inventory in back, but
I’m afraid that they might sell some sort of illegal catch, like endangered sea urchin or poisonous puffer fish, and I don’t want anything like that. I’m not
that
crazy.

The second place I try on Broadway is more to my liking. It feels less touristy, more authentically Chinese. I don’t immediately see what I’m looking for laid out on crushed ice, but
I have no problem asking the fishmonger. He has a kind and wizened face.

“I’m looking for octopus.”

A kind and wizened face that looks back at me confused. I try to explain so that he doesn’t inadvertently sell me some sort of Chinese goblin, a Mogwai, like in the movie
Gremlins—
something that will ultimately do more harm than good. But I don’t know the Chinese word for octopus, so I hold up eight fingers, then invert my hands and wiggle
them.

“Ahhh.
Zhāng yú
.”

He walks me to the end of the case and I see them lying motionless on the ice, a half dozen or so. They’re far less menacing when they’re dead.

“Hmmm.” I make a show of studying them as if I’m looking for something very specific. “Do you have anything, I don’t know, bigger?” I hold my hands farther
apart for emphasis.

The fishmonger holds up his index finger for me to wait while he disappears into a walk-in cooler. The air-conditioning is working overtime, and the whole place is alive with an electric hum.
The windows are yellowed with cellophane, giving everything a doleful pall. A few flies buzz near the doorway, but they steer clear of the fish. I wonder if they don’t like the ice. An
elderly Chinese woman looks at oyster sauces. We make eye contact and I offer a smile. She is nonplussed.

The man returns with a larger specimen, one that I think will do nicely. I nod and he smiles and wraps it up in waxy paper. When he hands it to me I say, “There’s one more thing I
need.”

The fishmonger looks expectantly at me. I nod to what I see behind him. He gestures at some prawns. I shake my head no.

“That.”

He turns around confused, until he sees what I’m pointing to: I want to buy his cleaver. Now he shakes his head. Not with disgust, but almost. Certainly profound disapproval. This is just
like
Gremlins
. I can hear him say, “You do with Mogwai what your society has done with all of nature’s gifts. You do not understand!” But instead of
Mogwai
I hear
octopus
. I doubt the octopus is a gift; if it is, it’s a gift I’m hell-bent on returning.

I point again, insistently, and pull a small wad of twenties from my pocket. He looks at the money. After some hesitation, he pries the cleaver free.

When I return from my errand, Lily is sitting in her bed, awake, staring off in the direction of the stove. She doesn’t hear me, but the octopus does. The paper package under my arm
rustles as I enter the kitchen and my keys land on the table with a jingling clang. I place the package on the large cutting board by the sink, then pick up the cutting board and the package
together and bring them to the table where the octopus can see. I cast a sideways glance back at Lily to make sure he’s watching.

He is.

I fumble for a moment with the string that ties the package. While I often have difficulty with knots, this fumbling is mostly for dramatic effect, mostly so I can produce my new cleaver and
bring it down with a thud on the string at the flatter end of the package. I can feel it sink into the cutting board. While I don’t particularly want to sacrifice my good cutting board, the
overall effect is without equal, so I can’t help but not care.

We’re leaving here soon anyway.

“What’s in the package?” It’s the octopus talking. Success. I have piqued his interest.

“Oh, you’ll see.”

I carefully undo the bundle and the paper makes an awful, rumpling sound. The smell hits me before I even have the last of it folded open. It hits Lily only a nanosecond afterward, and she
rouses from her trance and her sniffer hits the air and she makes her way over to where I am, stopping only when she bumps into my shins. She plays her part perfectly, a stretch limousine to
deliver this party’s guest of honor.

“Seriously,” the octopus says. “What’s in the package?”

“You want to know?” I gnash my teeth into the most evil grin. “THIS.”

I unfold the final flap of paper and hoist the dead octopus by its head. Juices drip from its flaccid arms onto the floor.

“Whoa,” the octopus exclaims, and uses one of his arms to shield his eyes. “Is that what I think it is?”

“Yup.”

“That’s barbaric!” The octopus has no sense of irony.

“Yup,” I say again.

“Oh, god, the smell. Who is that, even?”

I don’t know its name; I never thought to ask the fishmonger if it ever had one. I look at the dead octopus, limp and gray. It has only a faded purple hue, like a dying violet. The color
is the only thing about it, really, that even suggests there once was life in it.

“Iris,” I answer. I look down at Lily, who is hungrily lapping up octopus drippings from the floor. I always did like naming things after flowers.

“Aw, man. I have an aunt Iris.”

This causes me to cackle wickedly, like one of Shakespeare’s witches. “Probably not anymore!”

When the hurlyburly’s done. When the battle is lost and won.

I push the paper aside and slap the dead octopus down onto the cutting board. It lands with a moist and meaty splat. I pry my cleaver loose and bring it down hard on one of the arms, cutting off
a good three inches.

The octopus screams.

Fair is foul and foul is fair: hover through the fog and the filthy air.

I toss the arm piece to Lily and it lands on the floor with a wet slap. Lily finds it almost instantly and gobbles it up with one bite.

“Stop! Stop! Stop! Are you crazy?”

I think about my new mantra. “Not crazy enough!” I pry the cleaver free of the cutting board and bring it down again, trimming a few inches off another arm.

“EGAD!” the octopus gargles with horror. I toss more of the dead octopus to Lily, who seems to be enjoying this as much as I am.

“I’m sorry, is this bothering you?” I ask the octopus, faking concern.

“Of course it’s bothering me! Oh, gah! I can actually taste it through her skull.” The octopus is turning green. “I think I’m going to throw up.”

I shrug. “Be glad it’s only your aunt.”

Cleaver. CHOP. Toss a bite to Lily.