the dog says how by kevin kling

I read this book sometime in October. It was spectacular. Well, err derr. Kevin Kling is a professional storyteller, a playwright and an NPR contributor. The short stories here completely jumped from the pages right into my imagination. Squirrel monkeys, family dinners, car trips, Australia, morphine, Of Mice and Men, bachelor parties, and schoolyard interactions all receive at least a mention...and I was thrilled at every turn.

Regardless of the amount of detail used or the affectations of his own speech, Kevin Kling is gifted as a writer. There are many stories that I could quote, but given the season and my own place in the world, I give you an excerpt from this:

the view from the card table

(please note that immediately preceding these paragraphs, Kling has just spent some time explaining his aunt's breathing sounds, complete with onomatopoetic exclamations and making a comparison to someone running in corduroys. Ba-zing! Zhuup Zhuup, Read sisters!)




Uncle Dale blesses the food and our fellowship and that everyone made it safe. He prays in Jesus' name and calls him, "Our Savior." Our Savior. I start thinking, Jesus is our Savior? Don't you have to be in big trouble to be needed to be saved? I mean, doesn't a drowning person need to be saved? And Jesus is constantly having to come to earth to save us. What does that mean?

Then, I remembered the Meyers's cats. My friend, John Klein, was hired to watch the Meyers's two cats while they were out of town, these lazy, hedonistic cats. I mean, I never saw 'em move, but there were signs of destruction everywhere: chair legs shredded down to toothpicks, an acrid odor in one corner. But, you'd look at these cats and they'd sit there like, "Yes, I know. It was like that when I got here, too." Lazy, hedonistic cats. So anyway, Mr. Meyer told John to feed them twice a day and give them a treat "when you think about it." John and I laughed at what the treat might be. Then, one day, about a week later, we're riding our bikes, and I mention to John, "How's it going with the cats?"

John hits his brake and says, "The cats! The cats! Oh, the Meyers's cats! I forgot all about them."

I said, "They'll be okay, John. They can go a couple days without food."

"No!" he says, "it hasn't been a couple of days. It's been a week. I forgot this whole week."

So we raced over to the Meyers's, and the cats were still alive, but, I mean, just barely. Luckily, the toilet seat was up, so they'd had something to drink. And when they saw John, they didn't think, "Oh, there's the guy who forgot us." No, they saw John as the one who saved them. Every time John came back from then on, those cats would see him and go crazy. "Oh, there he is! He's back." I wondered if that happened to God. "Earth. I forgot all about earth. Oh, my, me, I better get down there. Hey, what if they're mad at me? I know, I'll send the kid." And Jesus came down, and we all went crazy like the cats.