I had composed a valiant little ode that I murmured to myself whenever I saw my mortal enemy. It made me feel strong while safely postponing any real dangerous action. I vow this, Scar, with all my might!
Someday I'll beat you in a fight!
It was a silly little couplet, and I thought I could do better; I wanted, actually, to try to rhyme the word confrontation, now that I had a greater and more sophisticated command of language. But I simply hadn't gotten around to it yet; I'd been so busy with my career.
As for Wispy, and my search, I simply repeated as a little talisman Wispy, sister, hear my rhyme—
I'll seek you till the end of time!
(I had originally composed till the end of my life, which I felt was more truthful and accurate, but as a poem it was simply too amateurish.) I had some small hope that my repetition of the verse might magically cause her to reappear someday. But in my wanderings during those months with Jack, there was never the slightest glimpse. Sometimes I would see a little female who reminded me of my sister, but on close examination, on an exchange of sniffs, there was only disappointment and the awareness that the world was very full of little crossbreed females with mottled fur and inadequate, crooked tails.
I always returned to Jack after a stroll. I had no inclination to stray from the place of greatest comfort and camaraderie.
Similarly, in the early days with the photographer, there were countless opportunities for me to run off. There were no leash, no cage, no conditions. I remained because he was kind, because he fed me pasta, and because his plaid bathrobe had a pungent and agreeable smell.
Now things had changed. Now the dog walker had a hideous retractable leash, which of course required that a collar be placed around my neck. The photographer had a new cashmere bathrobe, which made me sneeze, and shared pasta seemed a thing of the past. Now I was famous and rich, and my food was served to me in a Santa Fe pottery bowl that was embellished with my name, PAL, on its side. But I no longer had the freedom to walk away.
During the day, when I was working at various locations, there were always guards, off-duty policemen hired to hold back the crowds who waved and whistled at me. The Jeep was a thing of the past, relegated to the garage, and I was whisked from spot to spot by limo. While the photographer talked business on the cell phone, I pressed my nose sadly against the tinted glass, no longer worried about the smears, only longing for a life beyond the confines of what my own had become.
At each new location I would be collared, leashed, and led to a place where I was told to attend to my bodily needs. Sometimes a bowl of water would be brought, or a dry-tasting biscuit would be handed to me by one of the assistants. Then I would be led to my spot at the side of a thin person—sometimes male, sometimes female, sometimes apparently neuter—in new-smelling clothes. My leash and collar would be undipped, and someone would say sharply, "Sit. Stay." If, restlessly, I shifted positions or turned my head, the sharp voice would command me again, and there would be a veiled threat in the tone. No one called me by name.
Once again I had become "The Dog."
I no longer took pride in my pose or my sneer. I simply did my job, watching fruitlessly for some unattended moment when I could simply walk away.
It came, finally, on a spring day when we were shooting a commercial for antihistamine tablets. We were assembled on a golf course quite far from the city. We had been more than an hour in the limo: time for the photographer to make four lengthy phone calls and read the entire Wall Street Journal.
The script called for me ("The Dog") to sit at the edge of the green, watching attentively as two golfers wearing baggy trousers on their legs and visors on their heads attempted to hit the ball a few inches into the cup. Each one, interrupted by a sneeze, would miss. The crowd (forty people hired to stand around the green wearing light-colored clothes and animated facial expressions) would send up a groan at each miss. Then, as the failed and allergic golfers looked on in dismay, handkerchiefs to their noses, The Dog was to walk over and nudge the ball into the cup. Then I was to sit there and sneer at the camera while the crowd cheered.
It made absolutely no sense, and I have no idea why they thought it would sell antihistamine tablets. But they were paying the photographer a huge sum of money for the use of The Dog, and to me, it was just one more job in my increasingly lethargic life.
I hadn't composed a poem in weeks.
Then, suddenly, as I sat at the edge of the green, looking theatrically alert and interested (despite my total boredom), there was an alarming clap of thunder. A few drops of rain fell. The golfers looked up, confused. I could see the photographer cover his camera quickly, to protect the lens.
The sky darkened and a lightning bolt outlined a jagged streak at the horizon. The hired crowd, feeling heavier raindrops, headed for the cover of the trees.
I sat and looked as I had been instructed: alert, interested. In truth, I was becoming more and more interested as I saw that everyone was dispersing and that they were forgetting The Dog.
The photographer was packing his equipment very hastily into cases. The two actors who were playing the roles of the golfers ran to a car.
"Get away from the trees!" someone yelled. "It's dangerous under the trees!"
Someone else yelled, "It's dangerous out in the open!"
Another crack of thunder, much louder, and a streak of lightning, much closer, sent everyone scattering chaotically. I heard shouts, rain, thunder, and cars starting. But I did not hear anyone say "Come!" in the sort of commanding voice that alerts you to the fact that they are calling a dog.
So I simply walked away. My walk was casual at first, for I expected at any second to hear the familiar "Come!" But after a moment I began to trot. Then, gradually sensing my freedom, I stretched my legs into a liberating lope. In a moment I had traversed the fourteenth fairway, jumped a fence, and found myself completely alone, running with blissful abandon down a country road through a rainstorm.
Stay!: Keeper's Story
I was thoroughly wet and exquisitely happy. My magnificent tail, profuse even when dripping, flowed behind me.
I'm free I'm free I'm free I'm free!
To which there was only one obvious second line:
I'm me I'm me I'm me I'm me!
Poetry had returned.
Stay!: Keeper's Story
Stay!: Keeper's Story
Chapter 10
"CAN I KEEP HIM?"
There. That was what a child was supposed to say when a dog followed him home.