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My Best Friend [1]
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Date: 2023-05-06
My friend Sheba
My Best Friend
I met my best friend in 1972 when I was a 23-year-old Vietnam vet. While attending a nearby community college and volunteering as a Homestart teacher's aide two afternoons a week for extra credit for a psych class. With Homestart you take 3 or 4 under-priviledged kids, and rotate from one’s home to the next each week for the classes. It was the most basic of things, since they really lacked the stimulation that your normal family setup would supply. There was a handsome slow-witted blonde-haired 5-year-old boy named Bobby for example I remember, who was too-thin and always dirty, as was his unkempt hair. I remember I'd tried for an entire school-year to teach him the color green. "Grrreen grrrass," I would say, and he could say it too, but he never caught on. See, the yard of their three-decker had dry dusty dirt that met the sidewalk that met the street just like all of the tenements, and I really don't know that he'd ever even seen grass before, such was the sadness of his story. I have no idea if he were color blind, but he had an aura about him of mental and emotional deprivation and lack of inquisitiveness. We brought the kids to our town’s firestation one afternoon, and he did have a bright open smile of real happiness as he sat in the the seat of the hook-’n-ladder. It was the only time I ever saw a look of stimulation on him. We never made a connection like a kid might if someone young and enthusiastic came newly into their life. It was more that he’d been told what we’d be doing and went along with it. He didn't know any numbers, and he didn’t learn blue from looking at the sky, or "red firetruck" from the fire station, either, but grrreen grrrass has always stuck with me.
But I told you that is when I met my friend, and it is. On several occasions Bobby's dad would be home, or come home. He was a handsome guy, too, only in his mid-20's, with dirty dirty-blonde hair unkempt too, and smelling of whiskey and being a little more blunt and intimidating than the teacher or I would wish. Maryanne was her name, only in her 20’s, but she'd told him outright several times if he couldn't talk decent and not drink he couldn't be around when we taught. Didn’t phase him any. One such day there came a barking from outside, incessant and loud, which made the father leave us to go there and within moments there was the short screeching yelp of pain and the barking stopped. When he returned I noticed the old Timberland work-boots and I couldn't comprehend why that'd just happened.
"I'm getting rid of her tomorrow," he said with no feeling so that it seemed that was where Bobby got his lackings, but it might've been just an attempt at an excuse.
"What kind of dog," I asked. Shepherd-Collie, a year-and a half, Sheba, he answered in succession; a name that I always thought meant Queen of Something-or-other. It was really a big step for me, but after I’d witnessed everything from this class I had to do something.
“I’ve got a ten o:clock class tomorrow and can be here a little after 11. Wait till I come before you take her," I offered and he said ok.
The next day between classes I went there, 11:10 am, to find he had not waited; she was already at the pound, and not knowing what she looked like I headed straight there. I didn’t have much of any impression of him anyway, and as much as this didn’t make it any worse, really, my disappointment didn’t make it any better, that was for damned sure. I’ll admit I cursed him and what he did, the dirty bastard, and I cursed him more than again as I drove there. In the military they’d call my attitude toward him as “silent contempt” after that, but I didn’t have to be silent once I left and so I let my disgust out in my car, the fucking heartless asshole. And it made me feel all-the-worse for that poor kid he probably calls his kid and that’s all. And right now I only wanted to find my dog.
Well, as I drove up I saw that it truly was a building nondescript, one story, long and rectangular with grey-painted cinder-blocked walls with only long thin linear windows high up near the gutter, which had 1” holes drilled into the bottom so that the rainwater poured in sequenced streams past the windows; and a flat corrugated-metal roof with only the slightest pitch going front to back to accommodate said rain. Inside was a swept but stained and dirty cement corridor with ample-sized cages on either side with a tall door and ceiling that a tall man could easily walk into, measuring 8’ side-to-side and 10’ back for each dog. The cages themselves were all metal mesh about the same as you’d find on a chainlink fence except the configuration went straight squares up and down and sideways instead of diamond, so that if you stood at the front of the building you could see all of 100’ down to the wall at the end. I walked it's length with the keeper, telling him the story as we passed this and then that not-too-scruffy-looking dog, but with each one I wondered who the person was who could drop their pet off here, especially as each eagerly approached their door anticipating they could be the one you choose. THAT was tough. I’m such a schmuck when it comes to anything emotional and I’ll tell ya I woulda taken any one of them with me that I passed, but I was here for a reason.
I was feeling kinda anxious as we reached the last two enclosures, and I told him again how I had no idea what she looked like. On the next-to-the-last cage on the right there was a primmed and really pretty medium-sized toy collie, fluffy and clean and good-natured and wagging its tail. It really caught my eye and I smiled. It woulda been an easy take. But then I looked over and could see through the front of its cage, past the open-link wall into the next stall and I spotted a grungy cowering skinny Shepherd-Collie, and with determination said without hesitation, "That's my dog."
I don't remember what it cost to free her, twenty bucks, maybe and, shit, sans leash I debelted my pants and used it. And she didn’t leave her cell or come with me so much as I towed her stiffened and resisting body all the way down the corridor and outside to my old red Datsun then lifted as gently as I could by the leash, her struggling not to, into the driver's side as I got in. Still in that flinching cower she fell flat against the tops of my feet as they rested on the clutch and the brake so that we weren’t going anywhere just yet. I tried “It’s okay” a couple of times but she of course didn't know if we were headed somewhere more insidious than what she'd already seen in this short life, and I had the worst time pulling her collar to the floor of the bucket seat beside me. I know if she coulda managed her way under any seat she would've. I tried coaxing her up onto the seat, to no compliance and I finally headed out with her there pressed flat on the floor. No words would comfort her, that I knew, but I did talk cooingly to her with the “it’s okay’s,” and after a short while I pulled over, and said "I'll be right back" as I left and went into the store and came back, then at home led her that same demeaning way around the side of the house and up the stairs of the porch and into my mother's kitchen. I gave her some water and tossed the half-pound of hamburg into the skillet and delivered it medium-rare to her there in a plate on the floor. I guess we'll just have to say that she woofed it down like we know only a starving dog can do, and I placed a small amount of milk there beside her just as she finished, saving the Alpo till later.
She came to me after that, still cowering, and fell lowered before me as I fell too to my knees and petted her head and the side of her face and talked softly and tried to comfort her. She lay there with her chin on the floor and me petting away for some time. Then after a while I figured I had to and led her to the bathroom for her first bath.
Now this was a pretty big dog that I didn't know, and she certainly didn't know me, and that hamburg had brought not enough trust for me to be picking her up and into the bathtub. She struggled, putting legs forward and back and to the sides, and finding obstacles to entry that one would just not believe a dog could have the where-with-all to find. Maybe if it were a cartoon and then it would be funny, but believe me, it was not and it was not. It turned out the sound of the faucet scared the shit out of her, but that was the first of a few lessons to be learned. I coaxed and pushed and demanded and yelled and finally got her sitting in a large quickly-blackening puddle of warm tub-water, and now with the faucet turned on again as I began emptying the first of it, she started to rise to leave, and with legs sliding in all directions, me yelling to stop and pushing her back down, I tapped her, a light hit on the head and said, "No!" She turned quickly from away to facing me directly and snarled a real snarl just inches from my mouth. Our eyes were locked like she was just waiting for my next move. It was a shock but I had to catch myself quickly. "Oh no you don't," I demanded, and smacked her just the same way, and right then and there we both found what we wanted. I think she expected the hit to be tenfold, to tell ya the truth. All of this was new to me too, but when I realized I'd stood up to her facedown, I think she knew at the same time she'd found her place too. She settled down unhappily finally into the deepening water, and accepted the first of a lifetime of Prell shampoos, me saying, "Good dog," or some-such, she not impressed with the fucking pretty-talk. When I finally said "Okay," she instantly knew what THAT meant and quickly stood, and I cradled her out, arms wrapped behind her hind legs and around her chest, and gently placed her on the bathroom rug, and before I had the foggiest idea what was happening as I reached for the bath towel she covered the floor, the walls and me with her shake before I could even start to dry her. But dry her I did, first with one towel then another and a third, then later she heard me making love to her with my voice, for the first time the "ohhhh, pret-ty, pret-ty," as her coat fluffed into that new-coat fluff that only Prell and my hairbrush and that dreaded early-70's hairblower can bring. Another noise she just despised. And somewhere there, somehow on that bathroom floor, her getting pretty, me fucking soaked, I think we both knew the same thing...she'd found herself a daddy, and I'd found myself a dog.
Now I know I need to tell you just a few more things, three things, really, about the weekend I met my best friend. First, that first night was a test. I knew that. I left her there on my back porch overnight with a kind word and a hug and kiss, and lo and behold next morning I found her there curled up and lifting her head at the opening kitchen door, and she came in with just a bit of ease for some loving and breakfast.
Second, when my folks came home the next day, Sunday, from their weekend at their camp, I managed to hide her overnight till they went to bed. Next suppertime when my father got home from work he told me the strangest thing had happened. He'd gone out for his five-block walk to catch his ride, and when he opened the door he'd found this friendly dog on his back porch, who'd trotted next to him all the way to the busy square at the top of our street where he figured he'd better tell her to go home, and she had turned and left him. In the meantime that day I introduced her to my mother and at last beg she very grudgingly agreed to the adoption. And believe me, it was a hell of a lot harder that that one sentence, or this one, can impress.
“But she has to be tied out back," she said. Oh boy…….
And that is the third part of the story about how I met Sheba. I didn't like it, but I tied her to one of the old 4x4 studs that supported the tall railed porch that sat right outside my second-floor bedroom, and no sooner had I gone inside but that familiar incessant barking began, exactly as it had that very first time I had heard it from the dirt yard outside that tenement kitchen just 3 days earlier. That scared me.
“You've gotta stop that," with that “stee-rike one” voice every mother uses as only a mother can.
“I will,” I sighed reluctantly.
"Don't worry, I know what to do," having no idea what to do. And I did, I did. I went out the door and over to the stairs on the back side of the porch and sat there a few minutes petting her. And she was calm and quiet and I guess I have to say, happy. In fact the barking had stopped with the opening door, like she expected what was coming. And then it hit me, like a great big puzzle and the last piece was just fitting into place like it belonged there. Suddenly I knew why it was happening, and I said that.
”Ohhhhhh, noooooo, I know what the problem is, Shebe. You’re a people-dog!” I hugged her untied her and hugged her again.
“You’re. My. Dog. Come-on," and nev-er tied her up again.
She slept on my bedroom floor that night and was my best friend through 16 more years. Of course she slept next to me, cuddling more than not, on my floor-level king-sized waterbed and ate her share of people food for all of her life. Okay, pork chops and my own home-made I-talian spaghetti I guess were her favorites, and you can cut it up if you like, but don’t go easy on the pasta or the sauce and don’t forget the grated parm. But I cooked my own meals and she had her share of everything. I’d always made her back off, and she knew what I meant, while I ate alone at the tiny kitchen’s tiny table, but every time I looked up at her stretched-forward body with her paws out, her body and those longging eyes had gotten a few inches or a foot closer till….and I never saw her as much as flinch, ever….till I stopped everything with an over-powered or out-maneuvered (out-smarted) “awww-right….” and then it was a real happy a meal for two. After all, she was the best dog in the world, you know. And I was the luckiest guy in the world. I had me a people-dog.
[END]
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