“In the season of summer, with all its labors, then it is that goats are fattest, wine is best, women are most wanton, and men are weakest; for Sirius dries up their heads…”
Hesiod’s Works and Days, translated by Gregory Nagy
Lethargy, lassitude, lust… sic transit every one of my teenage summers! But I have long since left behind skinnydipping at dawn and spun bladders of boxed wine: I now prefer a good night’s sleep to each teenage pharmakeia. And my summer mornings are ruled by the rise of a real canine: the puppy that my partner and I adopted from a Chinatown shelter in March.
Eight months and forty-odd pounds later, our pitt-terrier-mystery mutt is the darling of downtown Manhattan. Her coat is half-black and half-white—all that’s best of dark and bright. I call her sweetpea and sugarplum, dingbat and serpent’s tooth; but her given name is Celia. The center of all social orbits, vaulting skyward from every possible perch, showering strangers with more kisses than even Catullus would wish to receive from his Lesbia: she’s celestial, alright.
Still, Celia’s dies caniculares are a fresh take on the torments of age-old Sirius.
SUNDAY, 4:30 am: Sirius stalks the sun along the Brooklyn skyline, keeping the lusty secrets of the Lower East Side—but I am not awake to watch rosy-fingered dawn fumble for her alarm. Sleep is far dearer to me now than dog-starlight.
5:43 am: The puppy cries for the cobblestones. Her business swiftly accomplished, Celia attends to the affairs of others: last night’s rat action along Houston, canine correspondence on the low leaves of Washington Square shrubbery, and community outreach AKA another failed attempt to befriend the flock of pigeons that often occupy LaGuardia’s labyrinth. Celia sniffs at cigarette butts lying cold on Bleecker, her eyes bright with hunger, so I haul her home for a breakfast she first refuses: kibble can’t compete with a sidewalk slice, cheese down and crust stale, stepped on at least twice.
7:30 am: Celia snores softly in her crate. My partner stretches out on the couch, lashes closed to crescents as he sinks back into night. Sleep never has come easily to me, so I instead recoup the morning’s losses with a flat white and a fresh apple tart. Vesuvio has held court on Prince Street for over a century now, the home and hearth of Anthony Dapolito—not just our staunch defender against evil incarnate (yes, I do mean Robert Moses) but a baker, too! In forty-odd minutes I’ll return, seeking a fresh loaf to last the week, but first I intend to drink and eat and read Steinbeck while the sleepy SoHo sidestreet wakes around me.
11:15 am: Single-minded Celia pulls me to the private dog run behind the Silver Towers on Houston. Membership costs sixty-ish dollars a year, but to us the run is priceless. Celia loves all living things, her fellow canines foremost. That black tail is already a white-tipped blur; as soon as I let her off leash she forgets me for the other fur. No matter—I always find a human friend here, if company I seek—New Yorkers are only gruff and antisocial until a dog comes into view, or up in conversation.
2:11 pm: In the vivid, vibrant heat of summer, when the days are long and lazy, Sirius knows one last way to strike at me. His iron is as hot as the August sun as he hammers me into a hellish depression. Exercise is a cool breeze, stirring my serotonin back to some acceptable level, and so I try to make as many trips a week as I can to the YMCA on Bowery and Houston. Monday morning Tai Chi is too crowded for me, but there’s always that brilliant six-lane expanse of chlorine beauty. I swim with abandon, the hounds nipping at my heels.
3:22 pm: Waiting for the M21, I scroll through Angelika showtimes: the new Jeff Buckley documentary looks like heaven, but Hamnet seems promising, too, if somehow more maudlin. All cinematic musings are interrupted by a message from my partner. It’s a picture only, but the subtext is clear: Celia lounges in the shade made by our usual table, diligently destroying some animal tendon; in the foreground, a tall glass of tapped Kona and Zadie Smith’s White Teeth. I disembark at LaGuardia and walk, grinning, the block to Peculier Pub (inarguably the best bar on Bleecker). The price of their mozzarella sticks hasn’t changed since the Bush days and they stock a surprisingly sophisticated assortment of non-alcoholic ciders, beers, and cocktails—but the best thing about the Pub is the people. They make a sticky, dark, crowded dive bar feel like home.
5:02 pm: Dog-tired, Celia savors the air-conditioned aisles of Morton Williams as my partner and I attempt to answer that most critical question: dinner. Arms full of groceries, we exchange nods with the giant sunflowers in the community garden—their seed-heavy heads signal the end of summer. Home at last: Celia sprawls before the sideways floor fan. Her belly is pink with heat beneath the fine white fur and her ears are a fine dark silk, perking to observe the opening of the refrigerator. From the kitchen spill the sweet scent of squeezed lemon and the still sweeter sound of my partner’s voice as he harmonizes with the Indigo Girls.
7:34 pm: St-Germain on the rocks: swilling dregs, I stare into the double barrel of this economy. But that’s too dark for tonight’s dusk. On a brighter note, the Union Square farmer’s market is only hell on earth if you go after nine or on a weekend! Maybe tomorrow I’ll buy blueberries, early, and approximate a Maine grunt. My partner puts out a fire at work from afar (something to do with code?) as I sift through the chapbook of an old college friend. Kathryn Bratt-Pfotenhauer’s Small Geometries is a lovingly honed shiv that favors my fourth intercostal—I’ll take it with me on the M1 to the market.
9:42 pm: Celia is asleep, as is my partner. I will join them soon, but first I want to spend a minute alone with the moon. The grass of the back garden rustles like so many silver-capped waves; all buds are closed and the trees stand still but for the odd squirrel. It’s not an island off the coast of Maine. It’s not a dock in the Atlantic. I am alone. And I am happy here, for I have no wish to return to the low-hanging dawns of my adolescence. I miss only one aspect of Sirius in the summer: his face, brighter than our own sun. But I can wait for his winking return to the night sky in winter. As for the rest of him—the languid heat, the weak lethargy, even the heady lust—I gladly leave it all to memory.
As I write, I am looking forward to the frost on Wooster’s cobblestones and the irregular knit of a hand-me-down sweater. I can’t wait to see what Celia makes of the crisp, leaf-crunching days of autumn. Our first summer together has passed at once languid, lazy, and low, but also hectic, harried, hot and bothered—and brilliantly happy. She has changed who I am, and how I live in this city. And my Village shines brighter in the light of our little dog/star.
