Stephen King - LT's Theory Of Pets

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Stephen King "L.T.'S THEORY OF PETS"

My friend L.T. hardly ever talks about how his wife disappeared, or how she's probably

dead, just another victim of the Axe Man, but he likes to tell the story of how she

walked out on him. He does it with just the right roll of the eyes, as if to say, "She

fooled me, boys-right, good, and proper!" He'll sometimes tell the story to a bunch of

men sitting on one of the loading docks behind the plant and eating their lunches, hi

eating his lunch, too, the one he fixed for himself - no Lulubelle back at home to do it

for him these days. They usually laugh when he tells the story, which always ends with

L.T.'s Theory of Pets. Hell, I usually laugh. It's a funny story, even if you do know

how it turned out. Not that any of us do, not completely.

"I punched out at four, just like usual," L.T. will say, "then went down to Deb's Den

for a couple of beers, just like most days. Had a game of pinball, then went home. That

was where things stopped being just like usual. When a person gets up in the morning, he

doesn't have the slightest idea how much may have changed in his life by the time he

lays his head down again that night. 'Ye know not the day or the hour,' the Bible says.

I believe that particular verse is about dying, but it fits everything else, boys.

Everything else in this world. You just never know when you're going to bust a fiddle-

string.

"When I turn into the driveway I see the garage door's open and the little Subaru she

brought to the marriage is gone, but that doesn't strike me as immediately peculiar. She

was always driving off someplace - to a yard sale or someplace - and leaving the godda

garage door open. I'd tell her, 'Lulu, if you keep doing that long enough, someone'll

eventually take advantage of it. Come in and take a rake or a bag of peat moss or maybe

even the power mower. Hell, even a Seventh Day Adventist fresh out of college and doing

his merit badge rounds will steal if you put enough temptation in his way, and that's

the worst kind of person to tempt, because they feel it more than the rest of us.'

Anyway, she'd always say, 'I'll do better, L.T., try, anyway, I really will, honey.' An

she did do better, just backslid from time to time like any ordinary sinner.

"I park off to the side so she'll be able to get her car in when she comes back fro

wherever, but I close the garage door. Then I go in by way of the kitchen. I cheek the

mailbox, but it's empty, the mail inside on the counter, so she must have left after

eleven, because he don't come until at least then. The mailman, I mean.

'"Well, Lucy's right there by the door, crying in that way Siamese have - I like that

cry, think it's sort of cute, but Lulu always hated it, maybe because it sounds like a

baby's cry and she didn't want anything to do with babies. 'What would I want with a

rugmonkey?' she'd say.

"Lucy being at the door wasn't anything out of the ordinary, either. That cat loved my

ass. Still does. She's two years old now. We got her at the start of the last year we

were married. Right around. Seems impossible to believe Lulu's been gone a year, and we

were only together three to start with. But Lulubelle was the type to make an impression

on you. Lulubelle had what I have to call star quality. You know who she always reminde

me of? Lucille Ball. Now that I think of it, I guess that's why I named the cat Lucy,

although I don't remember thinking it at the time. It might have been what you'd call a

subconscious association. She'd come into a room-Lulubelle, I mean, not the cat-and just

light it up somehow. A person like that, when they're gone you can hardly believe it,

and you keep expecting them to come back.

"Meanwhile, there's the cat. Her name was Lucy to start with, but Lulubelle hated the

way she acted so much that she started calling her Screwlucy, and it kind of stuck. Lucy

wasn't nuts, though, she only wanted to be loved. Wanted to be loved more than any other

pet I ever had in my life, and I've had quite a few.

"Anyway, I come in the house and pick up the cat and pet her a little and she climbs

up onto my shoulder and sits there, purring and talking her Siamese talk. I check the

mail on the counter, put the bills in the basket, then go over to the fridge to get Lucy

something to eat. I always keep a working can of cat food in there, with a piece of

tinfoil over the top. Saves having Lucy get excited and digging her claws into my

shoulder when she hears the can opener. Cats are smart, you know. Much smarter than

dogs. They're different in other ways, too. It might be that the biggest division in the

world isn't men and women but folks who like cats and folks who like dogs. Did any of

you pork-packers ever think of that?

"Lulu bitched like hell about having an open can of cat food in the fridge, even one

with a piece of foil over the top, said it made everything in there taste like old tuna,

but I wouldn't give in on that one. On most stuff I did it her way, but that cat foo

business was one of the few places where I really stood up for my rights. It didn't have

anything to do with the cat food, anyway. It had to do with the cat. She just didn't

like Lucy, that was all. Lucy was her cat, but she didn't like it.

"Anyway, I go over to the fridge, and I see there's a note on it, stuck there with one

of the vegetable magnets. It's from Lulubelle. Best as I can remember, it goes like

this:

" 'Dear L.T. - I am leaving you, honey. Unless you come home early, I will be long

gone by the time you get this note. I don't think you will get home early, you have

never got home early in all the time we have been married, but at least I know you'll

get this almost as soon as you get in the door, because the first thing you always do

when you get home isn't to come see me and say, "Hi sweet girl I'm home" and give me a

kiss but go to the fridge and get whatever's left of the last nasty can of Calo you put

in there and feed Screwlucy. So at least I know you won't just go upstairs and get

shocked when you see my Elvis Last Supper picture is gone and my half of the closet is

mostly empty and think we had a burglar who likes ladies' dresses (unlike some who only

care about what is under them).

" 'I get irritated with you sometimes, honey, but I still think you re sweet and kin

and nice, you will always be my little maple duff and sugar dumpling, no matter where

our paths may lead. It's just that I have decided I was never cut out to be a Spam-

packer's wife. I don t mean that in any conceited way, either. I even called the Psychic

Hotline last week as I struggled with this decision, lying awake night after night (an

listening to you snore, boy, I don't mean to hurt your feelings but have you ever got a

snore on you), and I was given this message: "A broken spoon may become a fork." I

didn't understand that at first, but I didn't give up on it. I am not smart like some

people (or like some people think they are smart), but I work at things. The best mill

grinds slow but exceedingly fine, my mother used to say, and I ground away at this like

a pepper mill in a Chinese restaurant, thinking late at night while you snored and no

doubt dreamed of how many pork-snouts you could get in a can of Spam. And it came to me

that saying about how a broken spoon can become a fork is a beautiful thing to behold.

Because a fork has tines. And those tines may have to separate, like you and me must now

have to separate, but still they have the same handle. So do we. We are both human

beings, L.T., capable of loving and respecting one another. Look at all the fights we

had about Frank and Screwlucy, and still, we mostly managed to get along. Yet the time

has now come for me to seek my fortune along different lines from yours, and to poke

into the great roast of life with a different point from yours. Besides, I miss my

mother."'

(I can't say for sure if all this stuff was really in the note L.T. found on his

fridge; it doesn't seem entirely likely, I must admit, but the men listening to his

story would be rolling in the aisles by this point - or around on the loading dock, at

least-and it did sound like Lulubelle, that I can testify to.)

" 'Please do not try to follow me, L.T., and although I'll be at MY mother's and I

know you have that number, I would appreciate you not calling but waiting for me to call

you. In time I will, but in the meanwhile I have a lot of thinking to do, and although I

have gotten on a fair way with it, I'm not "out of the fog" yet. I suppose I will be

asking you for a divorce eventually, and think it is only fair to tell you SO. I have

never been one to hold out false hope, believing it better to tell the truth and smoke

out the devil." Please remember that what I do I do in love, not in hatred an

resentment. And please remember what was told to me and what I now tell to you: a broken

spoon may be a fork in disguise. All my love, Lulubelle Simms.' "

L.T. would pause there, letting them digest the fact that she had gone back to her

maiden name, and giving his eyes a few of those patented L.T. DeWitt rolls. Then he'

tell them the P.S. she'd tacked on the note.

" 'I have taken Frank with me and left Screwlucy for you. I thought this woul

probably be the way you'd want it. Love, Lulu.' "

If the DeWitt family was a fork, Screwlucy and Frank were the other two tines on it.

If there wasn't a fork (and speaking for myself, I've always felt marriage was more like

a knife - the dangerous kind with two sharp edges), Screwlucy and Frank could still be

said to sum up everything that went wrong in the marriage of L.T. and Lulubelle.

Because, think of it - although Lulubelle bought Frank for L.T. (first wedding

anniversary) and L.T. bought Lucy, soon to be Screwlucy, for Lulubelle (second wedding

anniversary), they each wound up with the other. one's pets when Lulu walked out on the

marriage.

"She got me that dog because I liked the one on Frasier," L.T. would say. "That kin

of dog's a terrier, but I don't remember now what they call that kind. A Jack something.

Jack Sprat? Jack Robinson? Jack Shit? You know how a thing like that gets on the tip of

your tongue?"

Somebody would tell him that Frasier's dog was a Jack Russell terrier and L.T. woul

nod emphatically.

"That's right!" he'd exclaim. "Sure! Exactly! That's what Frank was, all right, a Jack

Russell terrier. But you want to know the cold hard truth? An hour from now, that will

have slipped away from me again - it'll be there in my brain, but like something behin

a rock. An hour from now, I'll be going to myself, 'What did that guy say Frank was?

Jack Handle terrier? A Jack Rabbit terrier? That's close, I know that's close. . .'An

so on. Why? I think because I just hated that little fuck so much. That barking rat.

That fur-covered shit machine. I hated it from the first time I laid eyes on it. There.

It's out and I'm glad. And do you know what? Frank felt the same about me. It was hate

at first sight.

"You know how some men train their dog to bring them their slippers? Frank wouldn't

bring me my slippers, but he'd puke in them. Yes. The first time he did it, I stuck my

right foot right into it. It was like sticking your foot into warm tapioca with extra

big lumps in it. Although I didn't see him, my theory is that he waited outside the

bedroom door until he saw me coming - fucking lurked outside the bedroom door - then

went in, unloaded in my right slipper, then hid under the bed to watch the fun. I deduce

that on the basis of how it was still warm. Fucking dog. Man's best friend, my ass. I

wanted to take it to the pound after that, had the leash out and everything, but Lulu

threw an absolute shit fit. You would have thought she'd come into the kitchen an

caught me trying to give the dog a drain-cleaner enema.

" 'If you take Frank to the pound, you might as well take me to the pound,' she says,

starting to cry. 'That's all you think of him, and that's all you think of me. Honey,

all we are to you is nuisances you'd like to be rid of. That's the cold hard truth.' I

mean, oh my bleeding piles, on and on.

" 'He puked in my slipper,' I says.

`The dog puked in his slipper so off with his head,' she says. 'Oh, sugarpie, if only

you could hear yourself!'

" 'Hey,' I say, 'you try sticking your bare foot into a slipper filled with dog puke

and see how you like it.' Getting mad by then, you know.

"Except getting mad at Lulu never did any good. Most times, if you had the king, she

had the ace. If you had the ace, she had a trump. Also, the woman would fucking

escalate. If something happened and I got irritated, she'd get pissed. If I got pissed,

she'd get mad. If I got mad, she'd go fucking Red Alert Defcon I and empty the missile

silos. I'm talking scorched flicking earth. Mostly it wasn't worth it. Except almost

every time we'd get into a fight, I'd forget that.

"She goes, 'Oh dear. Maple duff stuck his wittle footie in a wittle spit-up.' I trie

to get in there, tell her that wasn't right, spit-up is like drool, spit-up doesn't have

these big flicking chunks in it, but she won't let me get a word out. By then she's over

in the passing lane and cruising, all pumped up and ready to teach school.

'Let me tell you something, honey,' she goes, 'a little drool in your slipper is very

minor stuff. You men slay me. Try being a woman sometimes, okay? Try always being the

one that ends up laying with the small of your back in that come-spot, or the one that

goes to the toilet in the middle of the night and the guy's left the goddam ring up an

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StephenKing"L.T.'STHEORYOFPETS"MyfriendL.T.hardlyevertalksabouthowhiswifedisappeared,orhowshe'sprobablydead,justanothervictimoftheAxeMan,buthelikestotellthestory\ofhowshewalkedoutonhim.Hedoesitwithjusttherightrolloftheeyes,asiftosay,"Shefooledme,boys-right,good,andproper!"He'llsometimestellthestoryt...

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Stephen King - LT's Theory Of Pets

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