O lucky lucky lucky me, I murmured to myself before I fell asleep.
Stay!: Keeper's Story
Stay!: Keeper's Story
Chapter 5
I SETTLED IN AND stayed with Jack, the man who called me Lucky. He was not always as honest as one would like a human to be, and he was not particularly clean, a thing that matters to dogs.
But he was kind. From his collected coins, he always purchased a can of dogfood first. (I preferred, actually, the beef stew intended for humans, but Jack thought that he was doing me a favor by purchasing food designated for dogs. It is a mistake that humans often make.) Then he stocked up on his own favorite treats, California jug wine and a bag of bacon curls. We dined together each evening, under the bridge. He always dipped a plastic bowl of water for me, from the river. could easily have stood at the edge and lapped, but he seemed to like the niceties and the togetherness, so I drank from a bowl as he refreshed himself from the jug.
Sometimes he toasted me. "Here's to you, Lucky!" he would say affectionately, raising his jug toward the sky. Then he would scratch my ears, and I would lick his hand in acknowledgment.
At night I slept curled by his side, the two of us under the sheet of tin that he called home.
"I had a bed once, Lucky," he told me one evening as we arranged ourselves for sleep. "And a house. But things turned bad."
Having never lived in a house myself at that time, I probably did not fully appreciate the downward turn his life had taken. The tin roof over us, the plastic bowl, and the dependable can of food, though not a name brand and certainly nothing like the entrées from Toujours Cuisine, seemed home enough for me.
"Yessir," he said mournfully, "I had a home once. And a family."
I lamented with him the loss of family, having suffered through it myself. So I looked up at him mournfully, encouraging him to talk more.
"Yessir," Jack went on. "Had a wife once, Lucky. But just look what happens. You make a dumb mistake or two. Then it all falls apart."
He pulled the ragged overcoat around his shoulders and shifted on the hard ground, trying to get comfortable. I snuggled closer, to warm him. We dogs do not suffer much from the elements, furred and sturdy as we are. But the weather was turning colder now, and Jack seemed frail and easily chilled.
I wondered what his dumb mistake might have been. It could not have been worse than my own. I was haunted by the fact that, like a coward, I had concealed myself on that fateful day when my own family had disappeared. Every day I remembered and mourned my small sister, Wispy. I could still see the look in her brown eyes as she peered down uncomprehending from the arms of the man who had said he would arrange for her to be put to sleep.
I hoped her sleep, wherever it was, was comfortable and that she had someone who cared for her with the same tender concern I felt from the man who called me Lucky.
My own sleep was often interrupted. The place that Jack had chosen for a home, though scenic, with the river nearby, and convenient to the busy streets where he made his uncertain living, was not at all safe.
Among the persistent and irritating dangers were the rats. I knew about rats from the alley that had been my first home. They had been a constant source of concern for Mother when we were small, for the rats that had frequented the alley were actually larger than new puppies and might even have viewed us as food. Mother always growled and lunged ferociously into the dark corners before she settled us for sleep. Sometimes we would see one flee, its thin naked tail scuttling away in response to Mothers threat.
Once when Mother was away, I had actually rescued Wispy from a confrontation with a rat. The creature had advanced with stealth and taken my sister by surprise, cornering her. By the time I noticed the event unfolding, Wispy was paralyzed with fear and it appeared that the rat was about to pounce upon her and bite. I was still young, but I simply mimicked my mother, growling as ferociously as I could and lunging toward the yellow-eyed rodent. Fortunately, he was
Stay!: Keeper's Story
taken by surprise and fled, for I do not know if I could, at that young age, have beaten him in a fight.
Now, of course, I was much larger. But the waterfront rats were larger, too. Jack laughed at them and shook the tin roof to make a rattling, thunderous noise, which startled them away. But they always waited, there in the distance immediately past the light of our evening fire, which reflected their eyes in the darkness. The empty unwashed cans from our dinners attracted them with the smell of food. Sometimes, while Jack slept, I would hear the clink of the metal containers as rodent life licked and bit at what few rotting morsels were left.
I stayed vigilant, even while sleeping, and the slightest noise startled me awake. Again and again, without his knowledge, I protected Jack as the rats approached in the dark. A menacing growl, I found, kept them at bay. But they were always there, waiting, and nighttime became an ongoing battleground.
Though my growth to adulthood enabled me to protect Jack from the rats, it meant that I was no longer as reliable a source of income for him. My puppy fluff coarsened into thick adult fur which was not as soft to touch, though it was handsome fur in its own right, I felt, much like my mothers. My legs, once stubby, grew long, and rather than stumbling cutely over my large feet, I had grown to fit them and taken on the stance and gait of a mature dog. My repertoire of cute puppy mannerisms, like the small frightened yip and the tiny playful growl, no longer attracted passersby to smile at me and drop quarters into the hat.
But Jack was clever. One morning he carefully straightened the bent earpiece of a pair of sunglasses he found in a trash can. He added a cane to his costume, and when we took our place on the street, he changed his chant. No longer "Food for a hungry puppy," now his appeal was "Feed my guide dog, feed my guide dog," and the coins flew again into the receptacle.
In a way it was not completely dishonest. More and more, as time passed, I did become his guide, even though he could see. He was not well at all. He coughed uncontrollably in the night and seemed to lose his appetite for food. His bacon curls went unconsumed, at least by him; for me, they became an extra helping of dinner, and I believe the grease gave an added sheen to my adult coat.
One cold night as Jack slept, shivering, and I lay beside him, watchful and worried, I heard a new sound out beyond the dark perimeter of our space. My ears came to an upright position and I listened alertly. There was the constant scuttle, hiss, and chatter of the rats. But a new sound had been added. I heard furtive, heavy movements in the dark.