Anybody’s Dog
Copyright (C) 2011 by Jerome Francis Lusa
Cover drawing by Jerome Francis Lusa
Smashwords edition
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is purely coincidental.
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each reader. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Preface
By the Author
Sometimes we don't fully understand a friendship until long after it is over. This short story posthumously explores such a relationship between a boy and a unique dog, but it could be about any friendship with an unusual or peculiar being.
When I was a child I had to end a relationship with a pet dog. My grandfather helped me put him down when it was his time to go. Memories of the backside of a barn, soft soil, and a worn shovel have stayed with me all these years. The present story reminisces of that time, but it also goes in another direction, for my dog was the usual kind. He wagged his tail, would shake hands with his paw and would sit on command. No, the present story draws from a very different kind of dog.
Jerome Francis Lusa
December 2011
Anybody’s Dog
The leaves have fallen and the pine needles are thick on the sidewalk. It's those pine needles that start me thinking of a dog from my youth each autumn. Rex was his name. I said goodbye to Rex many years ago at the end of a long walk with him and my Grandfather along an old path through my grandparents' woods. The path began in a grove of pines where it was covered with many years accumulation of their needles. The path and the woods no longer belong to my family; my grandparents sold the land years ago. But there are pine trees near my own house, and every autumn the dusting of newly fallen needles on the sidewalk revives in me the lingering and poignant memory of that trip long ago, which started with silent steps on soft pine needles and ended with a goodbye to my fair but odd canine companion. This is Rex's story.
Chapter 1 – The Path
When I was ten years old, I had to say goodbye to my dog Rex. It wasn't my choice. Rex was old, older than I, and he was ill. I didn't fully understand what made him ill. My mother took care of those things. I remember that he would sometimes stumble in his later years. And I recall being ambivalent about his passing. Rex and I got along, playing together at times, but mostly he disappointed me because he wasn't what I wanted a dog to be.
One Saturday morning, after telling me about Rex's failing health, my mother announced, “Tommy, put Rex in the car. We are taking him to Grammy and Grampy's house this morning.”
I didn't have a good feeling about taking Rex to my grandparents' house. We visited them often back then, almost every day after school let out, and most weekends. But we rarely took Rex. Someone would have had to watch him; otherwise he'd wander off into the woods and get lost for hours, or get all muddy in the swamp. I suspected something ominous, but tried not to dwell on it.