Episodes 11 and 12: He Who Stays Put

Jenny and Seth and Jerry Garcia

Many thanks to Gini Chin (again!) for the marvelous photo

Excerpt of Episode 11:

Seth means many things. One of them is this: “He who stays put.”

In her first twenty-two years on this earth, Jenny drifted from place to place. Her mother, whatever-spirit-there-may-or-may-not-be-rest-her-soul, was a self-proclaimed hippie who didn’t want to be tied down. After her mother passed away, her father moved frequently in an attempt to find some place that would fulfill his longing for space to breathe, he later told Jenny, but also where he would feel he was meeting the minimum requirements of fatherhood.

Jenny emancipated herself at the age of seventeen and then continued as her parents had begun. She couldn’t tell if she was peripatetic by nature (on her mother’s side) or just by habit (on her father’s side), but either way she couldn’t seem to settle, until she found herself on Looser Island, pregnant, alone, but somehow, finally, home.

So she named her baby Seth.

Read the rest of the episode, and subscribe here https://sharilane.substack.com/p/he-who-stays-put

Excerpt of Episode 12:

Jenny and Seth were vegetarians, and she worried they’d have nothing for a carnivore, but the dog seemed quite willing to join them in their lentil stew. He ate and ate, and and allowed them to rub away some of the mud and the stench with warm wet towels soaked in castile soap. Then he fell asleep. Seth sat near him, resting one hand on the dog’s head or his hind quarters the whole time.

That night, the dog slept in Seth’s bed.

They did the responsible thing, and put up posters, copied on the post office copier without payment (though that thought hardly made a dent on Jenny’s conscience, under the circumstances). Jenny also notified Genevieve Macy of the online Looser Island Bulletin, who included a note in the next bi-weekly newsletter.

No one claimed him.

Fourteen years after becoming a parent, Jenny decided it was time to act like an adult. She brought Jerry Garcia to the vet for shots and to get the gash on his leg looked at, treated him for fleas, and even registered him with the county. In fact, Jerry Garcia was probably the only dog on Looser Island who was registered, and Jenny felt inordinately proud of herself.

When it was time to choose a name, Seth wanted to call him Fred, or maybe Leon, but this time it was Jenny who put her foot down. Her father loved the Grateful Dead, raising his daughter on “Ripple” and “US Blues.” She declared the dog would be called Jerry Garcia, and she brooked no argument on the matter.

Read the rest of the episode, and subscribe here https://sharilane.substack.com/p/episode-12-he-who-stays-put