pat willard

I tried to ignore the dog pacing before our house. We were moving in a month and through the day, between visits to the liquor store for more empty boxes, I kept telling him to move along.

“Ah, Mom,” Sam whined when he came home from school. “Look at him.”

The black and white dog was beside him at the door–so big that even sitting his head reached my six-foot son’s waist.

“Look at what?” I asked, not budging from the door.

“He’s shivering.”

“He’s not coming in.”

“I’ll keep him in my room.”

“No way.”

“Just for tonight.”

“Nope.”

“But why?”

“Brendan and Rose, that’s why.”

Brendan is a six-year old retriever mutt; Rose is going on fourteen and some kind of hairy sheep dog. At the time, we also had three cats (one has since died a gruesome death whose details I will save for another time), a hamster and two rabbits. I know how these things go because it’s how we got so many animals in the first place: one of the kids brings it home, says it’s only staying the night and, anyway, he’ll take care of it, and pretty soon his dopey parents are feeding, walking, nursing and usually sleeping with yet another of God’s creatures.

I held my ground this time, pulled Sam through the door and said, “forget it,” in my firmest voice. He slunk off to his room, slipping out a string of half-covered grumbles, while I turned my back on the monster outside.

Here’s what else bothered me about the dog: I had seen him somewhere before. With everything that was going on at the time, I didn’t spend much time thinking about it, but I knew the dog had some bad association for me. A half hour later, when my youngest son, Al, got off his school bus, he had to step across the dog who was now snoring on the top step.

“At least let me give him some food,” Sam pleaded.

“Yeah, Mom,” Al joined in.

Great, I thought, they’re ganging up. So I let them bring the dog a bowl of food and some water. I watched from the window while he loped around the kids, his great tongue sticking out of his mouth as he ran for a ball. He nuzzled against Al, laid at Sam’s feet when he sat with his friends on the steps next door.

That’s when I remembered where I had seen him–last Saturday, barking out the apartment window of a man I’ll call Tiny who lived down the street from us. Tiny had just been arrested for drug possession and endangerment of a minor (the police found photographs of young boys he had befriended). For the better part of a year, our block association had been working with the local precinct to get him arrested. My son will tell you he was fun to hang out with–Tiny had three or four video-game units (a few of which might have been stolen from us) attached to a big screen TV; he had all the latest games and was generous about letting kids borrow them. He counseled Sam’s friends to stay in school; he cooked good meals. What I will tell you is that he was a low-level drug dealer who gave out free tabs of acid and tried to seduce Sam’s most vulnerable friend; he succeeded with some younger neighborhood boys. Sam told me about the acid and his friend while I was driving him to school one morning. After I got home and parked the car, I sat for awhile trying to figure out how I could get into Tiny’s apartment to strangle him. Eventually, I pulled myself out of the car and called my husband, who calmed me down. Then I called the cops.

Now here was Tiny’s dog (Tiny’s landlord had kicked him into the street to rent out the newly vacant apartment), playing with my children. You see young men all over town with these kinds of dogs–powerful, muscular creatures wearing metal-studded collars, whose owners never use a leash in order to show their mastery over such fierce forces of nature. There was some pit bull in this one, but more Doberman; he was not neutered and his prominent manhood was surely a major part of his attractiveness.

But as I watched him with the boys, I could see the one fault in this dog; he was a mess of gentleness. Quite plainly, he was a sweet thing, rolling on to his back for his stomach to be scratched, standing guard over Al when the bully down the street came after him. In the span of a few hours, the dog took my children as his own. I hated his former owner, I hated what he had done to my son and his friends. But what I could see from the window was that Tiny had been loving and protective with this dog, something he was not, perhaps could not, be to his own kind.

And so, when I called the kids inside to do their homework, the dog came with them.

I confronted Sam; “You know whose dog this is, don’t you?”

“Yeah,” he admitted.

“Why didn’t you tell me in the first place?”

“You wouldn’t have given him a chance.”

“What’s his name?” I asked.

“Speedy.”

The dog very softly nudged his head under my hand. Brendan and Rose came up to inspect him–at her age, Rose has seen everything and Speedy didn’t bother her; Brendan, in fine male manner, barked, then trotted away. Speedy just sighed and closed his eyes as I stroked his long nose.
In our new neighborhood, one of two things happen when people see this strange pack of ours out walking–Brendan and Speedy bounding on their leashes ahead, Rose shuffling gamely behind–they either smile or move to the other side of the street. A couple have stopped and asked why we have so many big dogs. I always answer with a shrug, at a loss for an adequate explanation. All I know is that they earn their keep by warming my heart. Especially Speedy, who I see as a benediction. When I look at this great dog, instead of being full of anger and despair the way I was for most of the last year, I feel touched by scraps of sympathy–for him, for my son and his friends, and for Tiny’s wasted life.