Questionably Fabulous

I feel the need to preface this blog with an interpretation or a warning of some sort.  I want to say that the lesson here is that you should follow your instincts, trust the inherent connection you may feel to another living thing and believe that there isn’t always a black or white – that most of the time there is infinite grey when it comes to hard decisions.  But, knowing the writer the way I do, its possible that none of this is true and that its really just a weird story.  Regardless, here it is.  

I used to be a painting consultant for the Hartford Chapter of Habitat for Humanity.  And when the volunteers weren’t capable or confident of working at certain heights or didn’t have the requisite ladders, our crew would come by the lend a hand.  

I was asked to meet a project manager at a site to answer some technical questions, which I agreed to do, providing we could do it early.  I got to the site, in the tough north end of Hartford at 6:15 AM.  I found the house, a huge three story Victorian, and parked across the street.  As I was getting out of my van I me the eyes of a dog lying on the front porch of the house next door.  We held each other’s gaze for a long moment until he got up, walked to the street, looked both way before crossing and came right up to me.  And then he said, in a perfectly understandable voice, “Take me.  I’m yours.  I’m meant to live with you.”  

I petted his head, doubting what I’d heard.  Dogs do not speak, at least not in English.  He was not young, long in the tooth, matted hair but not mangy, and probably had worms judging from his distended stomach.  I judged him to be a street dog, yet there was something unmistakably majestic about his bearing and presence.  

He accompanied me as I circled the house a couple of times, making notes and every time I stopped, he too would stop and sit.  I sat on the front porch writing up recommendations and he lay next to me.  The manager arrived and we circled the house and talked.  We agreed that I’d come back the next week with the crew to do the high work.  

As I was about to leave and contemplating a dognapping, I whistled and he materialized immediately.  There were two little heads peering out of a second floor window next door, I called up, “Hey, you guys know this dog?” hoping they’d say something like “Nah, he’s just an old dog that hangs out here.”

But instead they said, “Sure, that’s Jake.  He lives downstairs.”  Jake walked with me to my van, again looking both ways before we crossed the street.  I petted him good bye and again there was something in his gaze that forced y eyes to linger.  

For the next week I polled all of my friends on the politics and cultural (in)sensitivity in approaching a north end family with a solicitation for Jake.  Would an offer of $50 help?  For no matter how it was put, it was going to sound like a white boy telling a black family that their dog was better off with him.  ”Follow your heart,” some friends said.  ”you’d deserve to have your ass kicked” said others.  I pondered long and hard and decided that when I returned to do the work I’d ask the family if I could take Jake to a vet and then to a groomer.  

So a week later I’m back and all day long I’m looking for Jake.  The next day as a a woman emerged from the first floor apartment next door I quickly descend the ladder and introduced myself.  I told her that I’d met her dog last week and that I had some soup bones for Jake.  ”He’s not around” she told me.  ”Oh, that’s ok,” I said, “I’ll be around here tomorrow and the next couple of days.  Perhaps I could give them to him then.”  

“No” she said, “we put him down a few days ago.”