Tell me do, something true

So, this was just after Christmas, and my friend Tin and I were trying to list Christmas songs that don’t suck.

There’s The Pogues, I said. Fairytale of New York. Of course, she said, and Run-DMC, Christmas in Hollis. I’d include I Was Born on Christmas Day by Saint Etienne, I said. I’m not sure I would, she said — but admittedly, it’s a cute song. Thanks for Christmas by XTC, I suggested. I know you love XTC, she said, but that song kind of does suck.

Before I could protest, she asked — Given that neither of us likes the usual Christmas songs all that much to begin with, what’s your current favorite? I didn’t have to think too long: it’s Why Can’t It Be Christmastime All Year by Rosie Thomas, I said. The lyrics are corny, I know, but they’re sweet-corny, and the music is just so happily catchy I can’t help but love it. And what about you? I asked her.

I’m not sure it counts, she said. I don’t know if there’s anything in it that’s directly related to Christmas. But it sounds like Christmas to me, she said. It’s Nightingales, by Prefab Sprout. You know it?

I know it, I said.

I love the opening lines, Tin said: “Tell me do, something true, true of you and me/ That we’re too busy living through, too busy to see.” So great, she said — and it makes me feel oddly chilly and warm at the same time. It’s heartstring-tugging stuff, but not too obvious, not like it’s the song equivalent of a Hallmark card with kittens frolicking on the cover.

Speaking of kittens, I said, my neighbor’s Persian just had a bunch, and she — my neighbor, not the cat — was looking for good homes for the little fluffies.

Tin was silent for a moment, then sort of sadly half-smiled at me, and said that she had never taken in any pets since Ratski died, and would most likely never will.

She can’t remember why they named the puppy Ratski. It had to be an “R” name, she and her siblings had decided, because their other dogs were named Ruffy and Rowdy. Perhaps it was because of the shape of his head: at a certain angle it seemed more rodent-like than canine. Not that Ratski was uncute, she stressed. He had this eager earnest affectionate look about him, she said — adjectives tumbling one after the other — a happy sappy satisfied look, even though his markings made it seem like he had two permanent black eyes.

And he could talk, she sighed. I waited for her to explain — perhaps say something about how he could bark in a way that resembled words, or use almost-human gestures or expressions to make his doggy thoughts known — but Tin just said, he could really talk.

He talked about food a lot, she went on. About dog food and human food and the joys of both, and about how some things seemed like they should be food but really weren’t. He talked about the smell of lechon manok and the smell of my used socks and his growing personal catalog of favorite smells. He wondered about the world beyond our neighborhood in Cubao, and told me about dreams he would have, or at least as much of them as he could recall upon waking. He told me about days and nights and how he yearned for both, in a kind of ecstatic never-ending cycle.

I looked at Tin. She was looking at her feet, and her hair was shielding her eyes from me.

There were many questions that I wanted to ask but at that moment they seemed irrelevant. I did hope that someday there would be opportunity enough and time to talk some more about years flown by, talking animals, unsucky songs, and, in a world of sullied wonder, what would be worth losing your heart to.