Cameron knew Oscar could never be happy for him, but thought he'd at least understand.
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Last winter, Cameron was in a rut. Two years out of college, still living with his parents, smoking weed every day. He still smokes every day now, but he smoked every day back then and it was worse. He smoked, and then spent all day thinking. From time to time, he would have new and exciting thoughts. Not thoughts, but ideas. Ideas for portraits he would never paint, instruments he would never play. The ideas you have when you're high. The ideas that are just thoughts.
Some days he would think the same thought over and over and over again, from breakfast (2 p.m.), straight through lunch (8 p.m.), until dinner (1 a.m.). You're not doing anything. You're not doing anything. You're not doing anything. You're not doing anything. You're not doing anything. You're not doing anything. You're not doing anything. You're not doing anything. You're not doing anything. You're not doing anything. You're not doing anything. You're not doing anything. You're not doing anything. You're not doing anything. You're not doing anything. You're not doing anything. You're not doing anything. You're not doing anything.
Cameron didn't share his thoughts with others. It wasn't an unwillingness to open up, but he felt there was never enough time. If he tried to share one thought, he would have to explain the thoughts that led him there. Knowing he'd be misunderstood in the end, he would spend the whole conversation clarifying, contextualizing each breath. He would find himself explaining what it was like to think at all. He found it easier, as he found with most things, not to try. Maybe he was depressed, but that's not something he would admit until it was dealt with.
One day, though, when things were particularly bad, Cameron confided in his mother. He told her how he was always worried, and asked if she worried like he did when she was his age. "No," she said, one hand on the steering wheel. Her other hand gestured towards his music on the car stereo, "Something else."
They were driving to or from the grocery store. He never outgrew going to the grocery store with his mother. Even now, in his 20s, she would still let him eat a muffin from the bakery section while they shopped around. "And one muffin," she would tell the cashier at checkout.
"But then," his mother was testing the waters with a cannonball, "I had a job when I was 23." She could tell Cameron was upset about something, and she didn't want to add to that, but it had been long enough. "I really think you need to start sending out applications again, son. Maybe start paying dad and me rent."
"Can we not talk about this?" Cameron turned his music up louder, and they stopped speaking the rest of the way. When they got home from their errand, he darted past his mother unloading groceries out of the trunk, and up to his room to grab his grinder, rolling papers, and a dog leash.
"I'm taking Oscar for a walk," he announced as he hurried his family's beagle mix into his harness and out the front door.
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Cameron liked to take Oscar with him to get high on the benches along the river trail behind his neighborhood. Cameron didn't have to think around Oscar, about Oscar. Oscar was comforting. He made that prolonged eye contact that dogs make, and it helped bring Cameron back down to earth when he would smoke too much. As soon as he would get worked up, Cameron would look into Oscar's endless brown eyes, everything would go silent, and they would walk home.
Cameron's bond with his dog was a particular point of pride for him. They met over a decade ago, when Cameron's parents took him to the shelter for his birthday and told him to pick a puppy. The weight of this decision knocked him to the floor. He understood what it meant for a puppy not to be picked, and he cried the whole drive there, knowing he was on his way to not pick 50 puppies.
They met some of the puppies, played with others, and somewhere in passing Cameron and Oscar were introduced. But when it came time to pick, Cameron was still catching his breath. He ended up with a retriever of some sort, Tessie, thinking she was the only dog that his entire family might like, though none would love. She was the best solution. His father paid the desk, and they had Tessie in a harness and leash by the time Cameron changed his mind.
"Wait!" he shouted. "What about that one? I didn't get to see that one, did I? The beagle." Everything went silent.
"This guy? Oh, yeah that's Oscar, you met him. He’s a beagle mix," Kim, the lovely shelter volunteer, replied.
"No I didn't. I want him, can we have him? He's the dog that I want." Cameron thought he understood what it meant for a puppy not to be picked, but he didn't think twice about Tessie in that moment.
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