Skinny Boy

“Skinny Boy’s constipated again,” she said. “It’s been three days! What did you let him eat?”

“I never let him eat anything but dog food!” he snapped back. “You’re the one always has to stop and talk and doesn’t pay attention and he gobbles the seaweed.”

She’d just come back in out of the rain. She started toweling her black dog off. Her wet hair hung miserably down around her face.

“There you are, baby,” she crooned to her ten-year-old dog, filling his water dish. “Want some water, baby? There you go sweetie.”

She truly pandered to Skinny Boy; seldom to her husband. Her husband was jealous, but somehow, the deep softness of her voice as she coaxed dripping Skinny Boy got straight to his heart as it always had, back when she talked to him that way. Some days, he resented Skinny Boy bitterly. Some days, he loved that stupid Poodle. Some days, he could really see why she did. Some days, he hated himself for hating a stupid dog.

Countless times, before she got up in the morning, out in the cold, dark garage, he’d climbed into his worn-out rain gear and stood out on the beach in the buffeting weather waiting for Skinny Boy to – git ‘er done. Countless times, waiting on Skinny Boy, he’d gripped the corners of an end of a poop bag, held the taught edge up to his mouth and blown and blown, trying to get the opening to separate, but found out he was blowing on the wrong end of the bag. And when Skinny Boy’d finally assumed the position and done it – why, the bizarre sense of success was palpable! He could walk Skinny Boy home and go in and report with a smile that, “Skinny Boy did it!” and their day was off and running.

But today, it was all about bitter resentment and rain and he knew it would dribble cold down the back of his neck, rain gear or not.

“I’m gonna take him out again,” he told her. “Give him another try.”

“I don’t see what you can do. I’m just going to have to take him up to Newport to the Vet today for sure.”

But, see, it was worse than doggy constipation – a lot worse; it was their Anniversary and he hadn’t been able to think of a single thing to get her – not even a decent card; they were all too corny or sappy or made a joke out of twenty-nine years of voluntary monogamy with a woman who still seemed to him to be some sort of gypsy – a magical shape-changer.

“Don’t worry, hon,” he managed to say. “I’ll just step on him out there. It’ll come out of him like toothpaste.”

TWENTY-NINE YEARS! She’d had to live with this type of humor. Right now, she was only pretty sure her husband was joking.

But an hour later it was still raining cats and dogs and blowing a full gale and with a hopeless thud of the back door, he and Skinny Boy headed out to produce. Normally, Skinny Boy towed the holder of the other end of his leash. But not today. Today, Skinny Boy hurt.

“Our twenty-ninth,” he thought to himself with a deepening sense of doom.

Suddenly, an angry realization hit him. Half a mile from home, clear the hell down by the boat ramp, he stopped dead. Both he and Skinny Boy stopped still in a lake-like puddle. Had he even organized himself enough to bring along a poop bag? In nervous irritation, cussing himself, he started frantically searching his six pockets. Too many pockets. Just then, less than a mile out over the ocean, simultaneously – Flash! Slam! BOOM! Lightening, then thunder struck. Skinny Boy froze still. He shrank. His head and tail drooped. Watching Skinny Boy tremble in abject terror, he knew it was over – the hope that doggie constipation wasn’t permanent. He knew, too, suddenly – too suddenly, that he was never going back – never going home, never could stand to face her empty-handed on the Anniversary of their wedding.

“Do you think we should get married?” he’d asked her more than thirty years ago. It hadn’t really been a question. They had, though – gotten married. They figured they added up to something. They didn’t know what. It was all a dream that blotted out the World. They were different, but it didn’t matter. They loved each other.

So, hopeless, he and Skinny Boy kept walking numbly through the rain – just monotonously covering distance, heading for high ground, mindlessly ascending. He started up Eckman Creek Road. He knew it just diminished to a narrow, over-grown log track that eventually led miles back up into a snow-line-high area called Desolation Saddle.

In the western woods, clear-cuts grow back with a jungly vengeance. The road was a groove through the black trees. He passed a ghostly, abandoned RV. Somebody had pulled a big section of the aluminum skin off. Shredded pink insulation hung in soggy clumps. Two flat tires. He knew he was looking at a dead dream. He got more depressed. Two hours? Three passed? Who could tell? No more thunder. No more lightning, just the half over-grown, weedy log road tunneling through the silent, dripping forest, winding away into a chilling Infinite.

It struck him, though, that he could let Skinny Boy off leash!

It should have made a difference. Normally, off leash, Skinny Boy immediately realized his freedom and took off running in big arcs, then circled back, waiting for a stick to be thrown or – gittin’ ‘er done.  This time, though, Skinny Boy just stood still and stared at the wet brush sagging under the soggy weight of Winter.

All of it steady elevation gain, five, six miles, he guessed he and Skinny Boy’d followed the empty old road. He guessed they were up now about twelve hundred feet. Under his rain gear, he was sweating. He started to worry about hypothermia. They weren’t that far from the saddle. He guessed, too, they weren’t alone as it felt. And it was getting dark. Predators’d be moving around now - lurking behind the impenetrable gloom of the black forest – looking for mortality to eat.

With a visceral squirm, he remembered he was bare-handed. Quickly, he glanced around in the murk. He shrugged. He saw nothing to worry about. Then he remembered that’s how it is in the jungle of the western woods; they see you first. He reminded himself thankfully that the last rifle season was over for the year. He wouldn’t die that way. No. Not accidentally blown away. He could turn and head back down right now, but he could also be getting stalked right now. Worst, Skinny Boy hadn’t – gotten ‘er done.

Just then, without a sound, it was over.

Out of thin air, right in his face, they were blocking the road – the Elk. The huge shapes of the herd of at least a dozen bigger-than-horses Roosevelt Elk plugged the road, towering unpredictably in their lanky power. Ten yards away, a giant bull Elk with a rack wide as the back end of a pick-up truck shook his head; ready to defend two immediately visible calves, it lowered its huge rack ominously.

Game On! Skinny Boy exploded into Super-Retro-Puppy! He didn’t bark. Speeding, he circled and leaped crazily around one of the calves. It froze still. The giant Bull puffed and tried to wheel to face Skinny Boy, but couldn’t keep up.

Game Over was just as abrupt. Quite naturally as could be, Skinny Boy’s back end caught right up close to his front end. He assumed the position. He started. Seizing their queue, the Elk all stepped silently back behind the dark curtain of their western woods.

By the time Skinny Boy was finished, the road was empty and silent as before.

In disbelief, habitually fumbling for his poop bag, he walked over and gawked down at what Skinny Boy had accomplished. It was trophy-sized. Coulda easily mistaken it for bear skat.

By this time in my life, I’m somewhat of an experienced writer, but there is just no way to describe the stupendous numerosity of the facets of my sense of pride on our twenty-ninth as later, I handed my wife that bag of still warm dog shit.