dog daze

chapter 31

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Tommy’s dog died in the dog days of that summer.

When Tommy texted me with news of his dog Waldo’s death, it had been a few weeks since I’d last seen him, but I knew I had to visit immediately.

I went to their front door, the red one, as an infrequent, unfamiliar guest might do, and rang the doorbell. Mr. Goodspeed answered, who I had not seen in months, but who somehow seemed years older and tired, perhaps only because he was not wearing one of his brightly colored shirts and ties, and instead an old Yankees sweatshirt, his grey head and face slightly unshaven.

“Jude! Come in, please,” he said. “How are things over at the ole corporate store in Albany?”

“Not bad,” I said, although wanting to make a concession, I also said: “Quality isn’t the same there, though.”

“No doubt,” Mr. Goodspeed said, letting me come inside. His wife was on the couch knitting, watching Wheel of Fortune.

“Hi, Mrs. Goodspeed!” I said. She looked at me in a way that allayed any fear she might try to breast-feed me again.

“Oh, Tim?! Tim, Jude Harris is here,” she said sweetly.

“Yes, I know, I’m right here,” Mr. Goodspeed said.

“He was such a sweet boy. Smart, too,” she said, going back to her knitting.

Mr. Goodspeed and I exchanged looks that said, “What are you gonna do?” He led me over to the stairs and called up them for Tommy to come down, which felt very unnecessary and inappropriate for our age. In the corner of their ceiling and wall by the stairwell, I saw a mass of living organisms, which upon closer inspection turned out to be a bunch of ladybugs.

“Wow, what the heck is that? Ladybugs?” I said, squinting at them.

“Yeah, infestation, fuckers are everywhere. I gotta call pest control. Apparently, it’s pretty common this time of year,” he said, although I had never heard of such a thing happening.

Tommy came downstairs clutching a little vase filled with Waldo’s ashes. Together we went out to the Goodspeeds’ backyard and into the Whispering Pines woods, where Tommy had a plan for them.

“You look good,” I told him as we went along the trail. It was true, he at least didn’t look strung-out or wasted, like he had been sleeping well at least. We passed the old birdwatching house where the ‘T’ Tommy had spray-painted was still there on the dilapidated brick.

“I look well,” he corrected me.

“Do you still clean up in here for the city?” I asked, observing a few empty chip bags strewn around.

“I haven’t really been doing work,” he said as we clambered across the creek from rock to rock.

“What do you mean? Like slacking off?”

“Like, haven’t been attending.”

“Wow, I’m sure your dad loves that.”

He shrugged. “I’ve been trying to figure something else out, but it’s been…difficult. He wants me to work at The Big T, but of course I cannot do that.”

“Maybe I could get you a job at the store in Albany?” I offered.

“The problem runs deeper,” was all he said as we reached the top of the Whispering Pine creek’s waterfall. “Shall we say a few words?”

I gestured for him to speak. He cleared his throat.

“Waldo, we stand here today to commemorate your journey from pup to dog, and from friend to hero. No one has been more loyal to me nor more compassionate than perhaps Jude here, who was also your friend from the beginning. It was you who, in times of darkness, led me outside to feel the fresh air; you who, no matter what my status, would sit on my lap, would lick my hand, would rely on me as a benevolent human, with love unconditional and unremorseful, even at my worst. You did your job, as dogs have done beside humans for millennia, although I hardly think there could be one who did it better. May you rest in peace, old friend. Jude?”

“Hear, hear,” I said. Tommy nodded and undid the top of the small plastic vase and knelt down to let the ashes wash away in the creek, down the waterfall and into the Mohawk, down the Hudson and to the Atlantic. He knelt there for a moment, the waters running over his knee, and buried his face into his hand and cried for a minute as I had my hand on his back.

“You know, Emma got a tattoo when her first dog died,” he said as we went back through the woods.

“She told me that,” I said.

“Why is it, Jude, that we always so strongly grieve the death of our first dog, or first pet, do you think?”

“I think it’s because they are us. They’re a piece of us dying. Our youth, really,” I said.

“And for people who haven’t really had the misfortune of death, it’s a harrowing experience when the first one goes,” Tommy said.

“You had your Aunt Liz pass away,” I pointed out.

“True,” he said. “Perhaps this is horrible, but I almost felt closer to Waldo than to her. Although, that’s a bit of an insult to his memory since I recall him being quite fond of Aunt Liz. Poor Waldo.”

We went up the trail we’d padded since sixth grade.

“How has your mom been?” I asked.

“Partially why I haven’t been working. It’s harder and harder to care for her. We’re thinking about hiring someone to stay with us to do it full-time.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, it used to be she was just confused and would do weird stuff from time to time and forget things, but nothing too crazy. She could take care of herself—brush her teeth, cook when she was hungry, go to bed when she was tired, stuff like that. Like she had functionality, but her short-term memory was sort of fried, short-circuited. But she is now subject to, let’s say, flights. She’s gotten lost twice now in public. Once, in the middle of the night, we found her out in the yard. So, it’s becoming an all-eyes all-the-time situation, and it’s tough for my dad to do it alone.”

I didn’t mention how on our vacation at the beach house she’d tried to breast feed me.

“That’s too bad,” I said. “I’m really sorry, dude. That sucks.”

“You were right that day, Jude-dude. At Kinderhook. My mother got hit by lightning somehow.”

“I’m not sure,” I said, even though I was.

“It’s difficult to believe, but it’s what happened. Somehow. An inauspicious event, some errant throw from Zeus. She’s still my mother, I love her, but what makes her her is gone now and where I got what makes me me is gone as well. I’m left with only my father, to whom I cannot relate at all.”

“You always were more like her than him,” I said.

“Thanks for coming today, Jude-dude,” he said, as we reached the trailhead back to his yard. “It’s not often these days that I have a reason to venture forth anywhere.”

“I wouldn’t miss Waldo’s send-off for the world,” I said. “I’ll text you soon and we’ll go on a long run, alright?”

He nodded, but his smile contained none of its historic playfulness, because he could feel as well as I that the tether between us was getting tauter and tauter.

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next (a final run)

previous (paris, jaylen, and the mayor)