Lucky

Lucky was a Walmart dog. Erica and the girls found her outside the exit door. She was a pup, playing with her brothers and sisters inside a cardboard box. A few months before, Erica and I had started talking about getting another dog. I think she was free. At the time we were living in a central California town that turned out to have a thriving meth industry.

Lucky was the girl’s dog. Angela’s obsession with the movie 101 Dalmatian’s led to her name. By then, Jake was seven, and while he loved and protected the girls, he was his own dog. It didn’t mean he’d lose sight of the girls when Erica took them across the street to ride their bikes at the school. It seemed like a good parent move for Angela and Whitney to have a dog they could grow up with. Having a dog teaches responsibility for another living being. It’s a lesson that the best relationships are built on love and respect, from that comes trust. You’re tended to, by tending to, Anne Lamott wrote in Imperfect Birds. It also seemed reasonable that Jake would like a companion. That was a mistake I’ll never repeat.

Jake could have cared less about Lucky. He tolerated his bunkmate by barely acknowledging her. I think he felt that he didn’t ask to take her under his wing and be her mentor. The ninety-pound lab/retriever mix was too busy plotting or executing his next adventure, alone. Yet, in one of the strangest sights you’ve ever seen, Jake would let Lucky sit on him. Somewhere there’s a picture.

That was over twenty years ago, and Franki and I still laugh about it. In our shared driveway, behind the store and before the two rental homes, Jake would lay in the summer sun. He seemed so peaceful on his side, thick legs and massive paws stretched out for maximum exposure to nature’s heat lamp. To the rear, opposite his legs, Lucky would sit high on Jake’s hip. For hours there they would be, seemingly in deep thought as to the meaning of their lives. Franki has said, “Deni. I think of them, in that position, as the dog version of The Thinker.”

Lucky had a shiny black coat, and may have had lab in her, but she was not a black lab. Her fur was short, and while it did well to repel water, it didn’t have the thick, waviness of a lab. Even though she was thirty pounds smaller than Jake, she still lacked the bear like paws and thick legs of a lab. What she did have was a tuft of fur that stood up along the ridge of her back. It could scare people into thinking she was being aggressive. In reality she was the sweetest dog I’ve owned, and only wanted to be friendly. When people turned in fear walking away from the yard sale at the back house, I knew I needed to do something. The easiest thing was to shave down her tuft. It grew back too quickly, and people were even more scared of the dog with a shaved tuft on her back.

It wasn’t just her coat that scared people. She had pit bull in her. You could see it in her blocky head with thick muscular jaws. Her coal black nose never discolored, unlike Jake’s. On her chest was a patch of white fur she loved to have scratched. Who wouldn’t? She loved Franki.

A long weekend trip to New York City for Erica and the girls left me an empty house. Back in the day a scenario like that was a dream come true. I love my wife and kids, but to have the house to myself was sometimes the space I needed. Too much time then loneliness sets in.

Saturday, after work, I checked in on Lucky, grabbed a couple of beers then went next door to Franki’s. Jake had passed a few months before. It was Lucky’s time to live her life, out from under Jake’s shadow.

A storm blew in hard that night with violent wind and rain. I was in the kitchen, not even halfway through my first beer, when the power went out. “Hey, would you mind if I brought Lucky up? I’m worried about her being home in the dark.”

“Of course. You can’t leave her alone.”

I knew it was a big step for Franki. As a child she had been attacked by a dog. Physically she was okay, but mentally she was forever scarred. Who wouldn’t be? My height challenged friend, had been around both Jake and Lucky a few years by then, and she trusted them, but at arm’s length. We could all respect that.

Lucky was so appreciative of Franki that she went straight to her, tail wagging. She whimpered with joys of happiness that made us both laugh. From that moment on Lucky made her way into Franki’s place anytime she could. There was always a bowl of water waiting for her. She learned that by bouncing her nose off the screen door to the stoop, she could open it enough to get her snout behind it and throw it open. From there it was a short run up the stairs. Franki rarely shut her door.

One mud season Erica, the girls, and I spent our two-week Easter vacation in Florida. Erica’s parents had a place there. Franki said she would watch Lucky. During the day she was busting her ass at the waterpark, doing her part to be ready for opening day. Beth and Josephine worked at the insurance company. Their office was streetside of Franki’s building, and across the driveway from our store. Franki got a call at work.

“Hi, Josephine.”

“Hi. Hey, listen. We can hear Lucky crying in the Silva’s house. She’s probably lonely. Can we bring her over here while you’re gone?”

“I’m sure she would love it.”

Back then locals didn’t lock their homes or vehicles, like they do now. There was no point. The town was so small that if something was stolen, or broken into, word would get out, and the suspects dealt with. Except for the store’s front door, we never locked our place. I think it was only after four or five years that I knew where the keys to the buildings were. Chad Merriman’s father once left a key in his truck’s ignition so long it rusted in permanently.

Erica was visiting friends in Washington the weekend Lucky passed. It was dark, and the girls and I were coming home from something. On the floor, next to the kitchen table, were two chairs tipped over on their sides. Lucky lay next to them struggling to breathe. I comforted her and called the vet. They said I could bring her in. There would be a $200 charge. I told the girls to say their goodbyes because I didn’t think Lucky was going to make it. The fourteen-year-olds knelt next to her and rubbed her gently and kissed their dog.

The vet was an hour away. I lay her on the back seat of my truck, and drove like a mad man, doing ninety miles an hour on a fifty-five mile an hour highway. The entire time I told her I loved her, and that she was going to be okay. Just stay with me. Once we get to the vet, you’ll be all right. Just stay with me, Lucky. Stay with me. I was almost there when the back seat went quiet.

In the parking lot the vet came out. Heartbroken, tears flowing down my cheeks, I picked up her lifeless body and put her on the gurney. An ocean of sadness fell over me and I could barely get words out.

The vet pulled back the flaps of her cheeks. “Her gums are white. She died of heart failure. There was nothing you could have done.” There was no charge.