Return of the Dead Dog
It has been a week since I wrote that wonderful little column about the disappearance of my old dog Hoover in the storm.
It was a lyrical essay linking two old dogs in the rain, full of emotional nuances and spiritual imagery that had him trotting off forever toward a distant horizon and me calling his name with tears in my eyes, like Shirley Booth in “Come Back Little Sheba.”
Well, forget it. The damn fool is back.
I came home from work one day and there he was in the middle of the living room looking bewildered as usual and trying to remember who I was.
My first thought was that he was some sort of spectral projection returned to haunt me for the rest of my life. I could see him floating above the bed like a manatee and drifting across the ceiling of my work room.
I crossed myself automatically and was preparing to run screaming from the house, which is what I do when faced with earthquakes, fires or resurrections, when my wife Cinelli said, “Thought you had lost your darling doggie, did you?”
She was standing just out of my vision and that gave me a start too. The woman has a way of popping up when I least expect her, which is why I check the room thoroughly before I sneak a forbidden martini.
“I was about ready to call an exorcist,” I said. “Is he real or is he ectoplasm?”
“He’s real,” she said. “I found him at the animal shelter. You write the sweet words but I’m the one who goes grubbing for the dog.”
“My God,” I said, “this is embarrassing. We can’t have him back after I wrote that touching essay. We’re going to have to kill him.”
*
What happened was someone found the dead dog Hoover wandering in the rain the day he escaped from his yard and took him in. He was no doubt headed for that distant horizon, but the good Samaritan, damn his soul, intruded.
The person kept Hoover for several days, during which time Cinelli checked the pound, and he wasn’t there. We figured he was lost forever. Even though he made a frequent habit of digging out from his yard, he had never wandered far and had never been gone long.
I recall saying to Cinelli after the third day of his disappearance, “He was such a dear old dog,” and her replying, “You never did like him. Hoover wasn’t even his real name.”
True. His real name was Brownie but everyone called him Barney until I began calling him Hoover, I’m not sure why. It made him slightly schizo.
“It doesn’t matter what his name was,” I said, “his personality was electrifying.”
Even when I gave him up for lost and began writing the column (a dead dog is never wasted), Cinelli kept looking. She is Italian and not one to give up easily. The Romans did not conquer the world by abandoning every little dog-hunting expedition they went on.
Eventually, the good Samaritan took the dead dog Hoover to the pound, and he was there when Cinelli went in for one last look.
“I couldn’t believe my eyes,” she said. “For a moment, I thought it was some kind of weird vision and that God had condemned him to be your puppy forever, the poor thing.”
“We’re both cursed,” I said.
The dead dog Hoover, meanwhile, managed a glare and began pacing around the fireplace clockwise, his toenails clicking on the tile.
I felt like I was in Hell.
*
It cost $32.50 to bail him out of the pound. Ten dollars was the basic fee, and $22.50 was for room and board. It’s about what you’d pay at Motel 6.
“What did they feed him?” I asked Cinelli. “The dead dog Hoover won’t eat just anything.”
“He does look skinnier,” she said, studying him, “but it’s hard to tell. He’s so old and kind of scrawny. But he’s here and he’s alive and I wish you’d stop calling him the dead dog Hoover.”
I’m not really disappointed that he has risen like Lazarus from a presumed state of demise. I have become accustomed over the past 18 years to him staring at me through baleful eyes and being forever underfoot and cringing at the slightest danger and barking at the moon.
What does bother me is disappointing all of those who had such a good cry thinking that my doggie was gone and I was in mourning.
I can’t count the number of letters, telephone calls and comments from people saying things like “You’ve got to go on despite your grief,” and offering to bring me casseroles.
I want to thank you all and apologize for the fact that the dead dog Hoover is, to the best of my knowledge, still breathing. So hold the grief and the casseroles, I have a feeling he’s going to be around for a long, long time.
