Me and Mr. Jones

My sophomore year of college proved to be one of those electrically-charged, the-most-important-year-of-my-life type of years. The previous summer I had lost my virginity. I was living in an art-commune with some of the most creative minds at my school. I was taking courses in writing and photography, and I was always on the verge of a breakdown.

After seven months I had lost most sense of reality, and had decided to move out of the house (which was less about art and more about drinking, dance, and orgiastic pleasure) and into a mostly deserted dorm building with my beautiful friend, Steffen. Steffen and I lived next door at the end of the hall on an otherwise empty floor. We took long study breaks and made fresh orange juice in the bathroom. We sat on the floor and cried during the Columbine shootings. I was studying Logic and performing in a stage version of A Clockwork Orange.

It was during this time that I met Dorian. (see also Muffin and Chip)

A summer drive in the country, and just like that he appeared. Racing alongside the car, smiling with tongue wagging in the air, he appeared and I couldn’t leave without him. I stopped the car, convinced him to come and see me with a ham sandwich, and we drove off together into the sunset.

Dorian was beautiful, which was why I decided to name him Dorian (after the man who was always beautiful). I actually decided on Dorian Oscar Gray, as both a silly acronym and a tribute to the book that established for me the power of gay love and desire. Basil Hallward was in love with Dorian. And so was I…

Dorian had a funny habit of crouching to pee, instead of lifting his leg. It was an idiosyncrasy that I found amusing, so I pointed it out to some friends. It was at this point that someone posed the question: “Why exactly do you think Dorian is a boy?”

“Whaddya mean? Why isn’t he a boy?”

“Only girl dogs pee like that.”

“Well, he has a penis, so I suppose he is just a confused boy. Kinda like me.”

“Have you ever looked?”

I realized that I hadn’t. I didn’t realize I needed to. So I looked. Hmph, I thought. Where’s his penis?

“Hey, I can’t see his penis. Where is it?”

“Nowhere. Dorian is a girl.”

Hmph, a girl. This is a problem. I can’t change her name. I like her name. Well, perhaps Olivia? Yeah, I can change it to that.

So Dorian Olivia Gray and I lived together for several weeks. I woke up early and walked her, then returned after every class for a cuddle or a play, and then more walks in the evening, and then when she napped I did homework. However, I realized that she didn’t have enough room to play, so she lived in the “environmental” house on campus for the rest of the semester. And at the end of the semester, we prepared to go home. Well, to my parents’ home.

Unfortunately I hadn’t finished my final papers, so Dorian and I moved in with a music professor, a friend of a friend. What was so interesting about this time was that Dorian would howl (as if a wolf at a moon) whenever I would leave the apartment. That, and the fact that the professor was trying to seduce me. But, the pure alto sounds of her howls helped me realize the extent of our connection.

Dorian drove home with me to my parents’ farm, and lived there for several more years. She was eventually run over by my mother, which was an accident that happened while Dorian was following her car to church. Mother was afraid that Dorian may be hit by the oncoming car, and so swerved to distract her. However, Dorian bolted in front of my mother’s van.

Before that tragic ending, however, Dorian enjoyed several years of romping and playing. Unlike Chip, Dorian enjoyed to roam, but not far from her food and shelter. The only sad thing was that I was a bad owner, and found it cute when she jumped on me or playfully bit. The problem was that she then jumped and bit everyone she loved. However, she bit me more because she loved me the most. I loved her, too. The only non-sister woman who has felt this love. Go figure.

So, just as Blurt eventually adopted a string of kittens, I too was blessed with a long-term furry friend. It took a move to the country, and some few years of growing, but one day my mother was ready to stop by the Mennonites large blue house which we always passed on our way home. The sign read “Puppies $5 a piece” and I was allowed to pick anyone I wanted. Well, I hadn’t had much time to think about this, so I ran through my list of requirements for my new puppy: 1) must be the best puppy in the world, 2) must be a boy. After explaining this to the woman in the white dress who wore a white cage-like thing over the bun in her hair, she told that there was only one male puppy left. She pointed to the bushes that ran along the side of the house and told me he was hiding in them. Sure enough, cowering below the branches was a cute little boy who also, it turned out, was the best puppy in the world.

His name was Chip, (sister’s recommendation, and a nice continuation of the food theme) and he was part Spitz and part Border Collie. This means that he grew to be a medium sized dog with a predominantly black coat of hair on top which was complimented by the white hair on his undersides. His face had little tan spots under his eyes and a white line down the nose, and his tail was a gorgeous, shaggy spiral of black with white stripe in the spirit of Pepe Le Pew.

That bushy tail was his trademark, his calling card, and the reason he was often mistaken for a skunk.

Chip pranced like a deer and snuffed like a bloodhound. He played frisbee, and tag, and slept in my tent whenever I decided to camp out in the backyard. Because he was foreced to live outside on our farm, he canvased the countryside looking for adventure. As the years passed, Chip proved himself to be the best dog in the world.

And just like his human counterpart (me), Chip began to grow restless on the farm. He began to take weeklong trips, fathering countless bastard children (sorry Bob Barker!), and worrying me to death. But he always came back. I would see his beautiful tail running through the field, and then he’d pounce up into my arms and lick my face for hours.

Then one day he didn’t return. His food bowl was left untouched. And for the second time in my life a dog broke my heart.

Four years later Chip showed up, pouncing and licking. But he had no tail. Just a stub, flapping in excitement. I spent the night sleeping next to him on the grass, searching his face for a clue as to what happened. The only thing he could tell me was that the world was too big to stay in one place. And that it isn’t good to be too attached to things. In the morning he left, never to return.

Well, they are stories, actually. But I figure that if Blurt can win you over with her tales of the kitties, I’ll bet I can at least get some attention with my own memories of some wonderful puppies. Three wonderful puppies, to be exact. And we all know that three is the magic number.

The first of these puppy-pals was short-lived (an unfortunately poignant pun). Muffin arrived from heaven (I assume because I don’t remember where we got him) when I was still a very young boy living with the family in a rented house in the downtown (literally at the bottom of a hill) portion of our little midwestern village. Muffin, a beagle, pre-dated Ebony (if memory serves, which it often doesn’t) in our family as the first live-in-the-house pet. Muffin was a golden puppy and my very best friend, the first living creature I probably connected with in any meaningful sense, despite the fact that he only lived with us for a matter of weeks.

Because space was tight in our little rented house, Muffin was sentenced to live in the “utility” room in the rear of the house, the same room with washer/dryer and a door that lead out to the backyard. This was fine because he had his food and water dishes, and brown tile that I’m sure he may have peed upon if there was nowhere else to go. Muffin was the ideal puppy, bouncy and beautiful, with a face that not only a mother, but literally everyone in the world, could love.

Muffin’s mortal enemy was none other than our landlord who decreed from on high that we were not to have dogs in the house. Even in the back room. And despite my tears Muffin had to leave. So, he left, after only arriving a few weeks beforehand. My parents took him to the pound. Or, the “animal shelter,” as they called it, a place (they promised their sad, young son) that would help Muffin find a home and family to live with and be free.

Now did I mention that Muffin was the posterchild for all the pretty puppies in the world? Well, he was. In fact, the pound saw fit to place an ad in the paper with someone holding Muffin up for the world to see and love and come and adopt. And because I no longer had a Muffin to walk on the leash, I had to cut this picture out and tape it to the now-empty collar and drag it down the street. (True story, ask my parents or my Blurt if you don’t believe me.)

Now, one can only spend so much time walking around a newspaper cutout, he eventually has to comfort himself with the truth of the world that all good puppies will live long and happy lives. So I called the pound daily to make sure that Muffin had been adopted. The first thirteen days I called they always told me, the boy who loved him, that he was still waiting. And although they never mentioned it, I know that he also missed me as I missed him. Well, all of this was to change on the fourteenth and final day I made my call: “Oh, we only house animals here for two weeks, and then we put them to sleep if they aren’t adopted.” Did I mention I was six years old and loved my Muffin so much I walked around a picture of him taped to his old leash and that I was happily calling to check on the status of my beautiful friend and his happiness? Well, all of this was the case when the idiot on the phone talking to me thought it appropriate to explain that it was pound policy to murder my dog.

Well, my resourceful parents decided to console me with a gift. Ironically, this gift was a Pound Puppy named Muffin. The sad-faced stuffed animal wore a red hooded sweatshirt just like the one I always wore and could sleep in my bed and never had to leave. And it should be noted that he has never left. Ever. In fact, he’s there right now, take a look: