Chapter 36

I got up Thursday morning and made my trek to the bathroom. I was ready to go in when I heard whimpering and some frantic scratching on Mary's door.

I eased her door open and the puppy came bouncing out and took off down the hall. He got to the end, saw no way out and turned around. He shot past me and went into the kitchen.

I followed him and opened the back door for him. He shot out and ran over to the grass and squatted. He reminded me of myself when I've had to hold it in the car all the way home. I swear, he peed for a full minute. After that was done, he moved a couple of feet and took a dump.

As soon as he was finished, he looked at me and gave me a puppy dog smile and went up to the back door.

I let him in and he went through the kitchen and turned right down the hall. I heard Mary say "Oh, there you are" and came around the corner to see her picking him up and getting licked for her trouble.

It was the first time I'd seen her smile in almost two weeks.

She looked at me and kept smiling. "Thanks, Jackie. I guess I didn't wake up when he needed to go out."

"I think he wanted to let you sleep so he let me know he had to go when I walked by."

"Thanks anyway." She went in her room and looked at me almost as if I'd caught her doing something wrong, then slowly pushed the door closed. The message was clear that she wasn't quite ready for me yet but she wasn't so bad off she had to slam the door on me.

I walked over and stood in front of her door. "He needs to be fed and he's probably thirsty."

"OK."

"I put Barney's bowls in the drainer next to the sink."

We'd had a dog in the house from before I was born till a couple of years ago. When Mom and Dad got back from their honeymoon at Niagara Falls he gave her a wedding present - Sparky. He was just a mutt that Dad picked up at the pound. Dad used to joke about saving Sparky from Death Row. Of course, it was a couple of years before I came on the scene, but Sparky was the stuff of which legends are made. To hear my parents, he was Super Dog.

Mom and Dad were living in a one room studio apartment on the fifth floor of a building downtown. They were told they could keep a dog provided it didn't cause any problems. "Problems" covered barking, crying and shitting on the carpet. From what I hear, shit on the carpet might have been an improvement, but it was included in the rules. We're talking a fold out couch for a bed, a hotplate for a stove and a bathroom down the hall.

Dad always said that it was as if Sparky called out to him to be chosen. He stood about 4" tall and was almost a foot long. And he was almost round. Your classic roly-poly puppy.

He took to Mom as soon as he saw her. And he was extremely protective of her until the day we had to put him to sleep when I was 11.

Dad thought ahead and picked up a Sunday paper the day he gave Sparky to Mom. They spread paper out in the area of the room that they used for a kitchen and tried to point out to him how he should use the paper when he had the urge.

For what it's worth, I've heard from both Mom and Dad that the newspaper never got soiled. Sparky would let whoever was home know when it was time and he would run down the stairs ahead of them, wait at the bottom for the door to be opened and go out in the alley on the side of the building.

Sparky grew to be the size of a German Shepherd. He was the most gentle dog you could want. But don't try messing with any of his family. I remember a time when Mary was about four. We had a house by then and there was a home made swing in the front yard. I was next door playing with Jeff and Mary was on the swing. A kid a year or so older than her came up and pushed her hard enough to knock her off the swing. It looked to me like he meant it, he swore it was accidental. Be that as it may, Sparky grabbed this kid by the wrist and practically dragged him out to the sidewalk at the edge of the property and stood there, staring at him, daring him to try to come back on the property. Jeff and I were picking Mary up and brushing the grass off her knees while all this was going on.

The kid's mother came over about an hour later, banging on our door, yelling at mom how her dog ripped her child apart and how she was going to call the police and make sure he was put to sleep so he couldn't damage any more children. Mom just looked at her calmly and asked her to see the damage. The kid and his Mom checked over every square inch on both arms to find the tooth marks. I know Sparky would have pulled his arm off if he hadn't gone with him out of the yard and away from Mary but there wasn't a mark on him, much less a scratch or tooth mark.

When I was eleven, he got cancer. It was eating him up and we all said goodbye to our Sparky. Mom left with him in the car and came back alone. And then Mom sat down with the two of us and explained how she took him to the vet and what the vet did to him to put him out of his misery. No doggie heaven for Sparky, just a shot to put him to sleep and take away the pain.

It was tough to lose my buddy. And I know Mary felt the same. I think Mom felt it too, but she didn't push her pain on us. But I know that, besides Mary and me, he was the one thing that reminded her of Dad every time she saw him. Maybe even more than us. He came first.