We had been married maybe six months and were enjoying the home
we purchased on the GI Bill. My beautiful, long-haired redhead—no longer long-haired
and no longer a redhead, but still breathtakingly beautiful—decided we needed a
dog. Six months of marriage had been enough to teach me that total and complete
acquiescence greatly trumped any attempt at Pauline male dominance.
So she found a dog, and thus began a, so-far, 46 year-old
family protocol. Feeling Biblical that day, we named him Jeremiah. He was a
mutt, black with orange circles above his eyes, perhaps evolutionarily designed
to convince predators that he was awake, when actually he was sleeping, which
was most of the time.
Having grown to adulthood, he discovered the joy of eating,
or attempting to eat, anything left within reach. He particularly enjoyed my
treasured edition of Victorian poetry, but he shunned no potential meals. This
brought him into contact with Marcel the Mystery Plant.
Marcel was a gift from a neo-hippy friend named Wes. With a gnome-like
appearance and a taste for all things from the 1960s, he was a favorite with
young kids who hung out at the Art Center. Thus, we understood it when he
brought us a small container of soil and a mystery seed, explaining that some
of the kids who gathered at his place were untrustworthy, whatever that meant.
We planted the seed and cared for the resulting plant. Of course, being good Methodists, we had no idea what kind
of plant it was, but we nourished the slender young thing, awaiting our
friend’s return for it. Going through a Gaulian phase, we named it Marcel.
It had grown to approximately a foot in height, with nice,
long, serrated leaves when Jeremiah noticed it. It sat in a quiet corner
of the kitchen where watering was simple and, since we feared there was
something vaguely sinister about it, out of sight from most visitors.
Well anyway, Jeremiah quietly watched Marcel grow, giving us
no indication of impending “planticide.”
Then one Sabbath morning, Marcel was gone, nipped down to soil
level. Jeremiah lay beside it with the spots over his eyes doing a sort of “ping-pong”
dance over the most innocent-looking canine face one could imagine. Every once in awhile,
he would make this dog-moan, like Lassie had just walked by wearing a bikini.
It got worse. Brenda was cooking breakfast when her mother
called to inquire about any intentions we had of attending church services that
day. It took some time for her to employ her best prevarication skills and get us excused.
When she returned to the kitchen, the remnants of an entire package of raw bacon
lay scattered about the kitchen floor.
An emergency?
She thought so, and demanded that I find a vet who answered
calls on Sunday. For once in our marriage, I refused a direct order, saying, “You
call one and explain what just happened."
We compromised. I sat in a chair and watched Jeremiah for any
sign of seizures or fits. He had none. Rather, he just belched bacon grease for
several hours, hummed tunes like “Come on Over to the Other Side,” and from
time to time looked up at me and said, “Far out man.” His eye spots danced in rhythm
with the music and he would shake his head from side to side, especially when he
did, “Don’t Bogart That Joint, My Friend.”
We lost a pound of bacon that day. Jeremiah lost his innocence.
Marcel lost his life. Our friend Wes lost his safe house, and the 1960s lost
some of the allure that had drifted with us along a smoke-filled path through
time.
Jeremiah stayed with us, apparently un-phased by the
experience, for 16 years. I don’t like to talk about the day he passed over the Rainbow Bridge, so we’ll
leave him with the memory of moaning, “
My Sweet Lady Jane.”
 |
Yeah, I know. She's never
held me like that. |
