A dappled dachshund lives across the street from the model
home where I work. She’s a little sweetheart, pulling and jumping on her leash
whenever she sees me outside, she knows that I carry dog biscuits in my pocket.
She’s eager to play the “guess which hand” game with me, pushing her wet nose
into each rounded fist, snooting for treasure. She’s a good girl.
But that’s not enough to erase the memories of the Tasmanian
Devils I grew up with. Although billed as dachshunds, I’m still unconvinced.
Our first one, “Weenie” was always the smartest mammal in the room. She taught
me how to fetch, rolling her ball under the couch or dropping it into the
toilet. Stepping back, delighted with herself and wagging furiously, waiting
for me to reach in and retrieve her smelly wet, tennis ball. “Fool” she was
thinking. I mistakenly thought she was my bitch but every day she proved it was
the other way around.
“This guy is MY bitch!” she wagged with glee.
I guess I was. But at least I was family. Weenie was
friendly and protective with family. It was just every other human and all dogs
on the planet that she took issue with. A Kamikaze dachshund, there was no
fence, glass door or leash that could prevent her eventual escape and attack.
She was a problem.
Weenie died under the double wheels of the garbage man’s
truck, running backward, biting and attacking in retreat. Not fast enough, a
bravado fueled miscalculation, with one quick misstep, she was two inches thick
and three feet wide. Poor Weenie.
Before her untimely exit from the stage though, Weenie had a
litter of pups and we kept the smallest girl to replace her. Lucy ramped it up
like a rabid Doberman on steroids, one with very stumpy legs. Great with
family, a nightmare streak of black fur and shark teeth to everyone else.
Lucy specialized in protecting our front door. Simply
ringing it once set her off like a cherry bomb under her pillow on the
overstuffed chair she believed she owned. That chair sat on the far end of our
living room where she could keep an eye on the floor to ceiling picture window
looking out to the mailbox. It was built with single panes of glass, 6 across,
6 high. In front of it on the inside was a pathway of tile that led from the
front door to the kitchen.
If anyone made the foolish mistake of coming up our stairs
to the front door, Lucy exploded from her chair, flying up into the air above
like the Roadrunner after Coyote planted TNT under her. Landing hard on the
wall-to-wall, feet a blur, she sped down the rug toward the picture window,
ready to throw herself onto any interloper. Especially if the interloper was
the mailman. She knew in her heart that he was up to no good. Her mother had
taught her about mailmen and garbage men. Not so much about their trucks
though.
It was on a particularly idyllic day in the neighborhood,
around noon or so, when a temporary mailman who didn’t know that it was best to
tiptoe up our stairs and make no sound, came whistling cheerfully up to our
mailbox. Lucy was sleeping hard in her chair; he was channeling Mr. Rogers in
his sweater and striped mailman pants.
Startled awake by his whistling call to battle, Lucy
awakened as if he had thrown cold water on her. She levitated, landed, got
traction on the rug, and sped straight at Mr. Rogers as he stuffed our mailbox
with what must have been explosives and death threats.
Lucy knew that shit had to stop. If that mailman was left
alone, he would probably want to mark his territory and pee all over our front
door.
Speeding out of control, Lucy hit the tile path in front of
the picture window, put on the breaks too late, smashed completely through the
glass window, and bit the mailman on one foot, then the other.
Fortunately, the hip Mr. Rogers wore tough Chukka Boots that
effectively prevented multiple ankle wounds. He was OK, Mom apologized and we
never saw him again.
Lucy didn’t have a scratch. We kept the picture window
curtains closed from then on.
None of it involved attorneys.
Dad was an attorney but I never really knew what that meant
other than a daily train ride into New York City and back. Mom took me to visit
him in his law firm one time. I saw a nice picture of him on the wall and his
cherished, law library stuffed with fat books with leather bindings. The whole
place was scary quiet and even more boring than the public library down by
Mindowaskin Park. After we left, I still had no idea what attorneys do. I
assumed they play a lot of solitaire, smoke Kent cigarettes, drink Cokes, and
eat cheddar cheese on Wonder Bread, just like Dad did at home.
It wasn’t until the night that the wall-paneling salesman
came to speak with Mom and Dad about Mom’s plans for the basement, that I began
to understand. Dad wanted estimates, the cost to put brown paneling on all the
walls down there. He could care less about brown wood paneling, but he very
much knew it was in his best interest to please Mom. That paneling was the
epitome of home fashion back in the day. Add a couple of tinny pole lamps and a
semi-circular sectional sofa and Boom! Movin on up!
But all Dad wanted was to please Mom by looking like he
cared, and to get an estimate. An estimate that would be the first of many.
The sales guy showed up after dinner, black sample case in
hand. Lucy was picked-up, restrained, whispered to, cautiously introduced, and
put back down while the adults talked. No problem.
Everyone was making nice while Lucy and I listened on one
side. Mr. Salesman made his pitch and bragged about the many colors and styles
of basement paneling available.
“Let me show you a few.” He offered.
He didn’t see Lucy doing her best Ninja imitation to blend
in with that black sample suitcase on the rug. Waiting in ambush as he reached
down, she jumped up like a black barracuda all teeth and crazy eyes. Kill that
devil hand!
Chaos, blood and excitement ensued. It was great. Lucy was
proud that she could finally prove her real worth but went into my bedroom and
hid under my bed just in case Mom and Dad didn’t agree. Under the guise of
“Let’s go into the kitchen and patch you up” Mom quickly ushered the bleeding
salesman into the kitchen to prevent him from bleeding on her wall-to-wall in
the living room.
A two minor puncture wounds that needed a rinse and some
Bactine Spray. Mom knew that it was the “Maximum strength antiseptic that kills
99% of germs”. It wouldn’t do squat for dog saliva contamination or rabies, but
it was handy. I watched the salesman’s blood circle the drain in our kitchen
sink as he cried and whimpered.
“I faint at the sight of blood!” he said as his knees
started to give away. Mom and I ushered him over into a kitchen chair as he
examined the two puncture wounds in his right hand. It had looked worse than it
was and he whined as if we had forcibly shoved his hand down the disposal.
As Mom tried to talk him off the ledge, I wondered where Dad
had gone. He was always the first one to take control in any sketchy situation.
He could handle any emergency.
As the salesman continued to whimper like a baby with a
skinned knee and make increasingly hostile sounds, Dad walked into the room. He
was holding a lined sheet of paper torn, from the three-ring binder that I used
in school. Picking up the hand in question from the clean kitchen towel where
it sat on display while the Bactine dried, Dad examined the offending raised
dots on the man’s palm and said: “No real damage here, I only see two small
spots. You’ll be fine. I’ve decided to buy your basement paneling though
without getting any additional estimates. Just sign and date this document.”
And it was done.
The salesman got a sweet order for paneling, and Dad got a
signed & dated legal document stating that the salesman gave up “all
potential legal proceedings against (a person or institution), typically for
redress”. AKA, he couldn’t sue Dad, even if his wound turned gangrenous and he lost the entire right half of his body.
The bottom line? Mom got her paneling, the salesman got a
sweet commission, Dad couldn’t be sued, and Lucy was largely overlooked,
falling into a deep sleep under my bed, knowing in her heart that she had saved
the entire family from some kind of murderous death.
What did I get out of it? When Mom smiled and said: “Aren’t
you glad that Daddy’s a lawyer?”
I had, by then, gotten a pretty good idea of what lawyers
do.
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