August 5,2019
He came to me handicapped but happy. His name was H3NRY, a front leg amputee. He used the remaining leg for balance and to make progress both forward and backward, situation depending. He found me by word of mouth and the Internet. Mariah Greenberg-Roncetti had recently started doing Dog’s work making regular pickups at shelters in Los Angeles County with a high kill rate. This was in the days before “No Kill” laws had been passed. She posted his story on a social media page, and this came to the attention of one of her digital friends and industry colleagues, Keith Wager.
Alexis B.had recently made the mistake of dating me and was renting a room in Keith’ shouse, whom I saw whenever I visited her. I knew Keith from the world before this one and as that goes we wound up survivors on the proverbial self-imposed shipwreck which requires spiritual intervention for daily reprieve and rescue. Keith saw the appeal online to fund Henry’s surgery and—unbeknownst to me—was prodding Alexis to convince me to adopt Henry. I don’t remember if she did, but what’s for sure is that Alexis’s presence in my life is the only reason why I got him.The other thing you should know is that Keith is one of the humblest men I know and it’s my understanding he gave a large chunk of the change that funded Henry’s surgery. These are the facts of fate, god, destiny, life, the indirect consequences of any choice made. They are incontrovertible as they are inevitable.
It was in September of 2009 when Mariah brought him from his foster home to me—what they call a “forever home.” The first thing I noticed was his gait. It was a curious, careful yet deliberate and perfectly executed gallop; a stumbly looking walk-trot that made his ears flop up and down and his gargantuan, elongated tongue flap out of his razor-edged mouth like a pink tentacle. The transaction was in person and at my house, I assume, so they could give the crib a once over. To verify that I wasn’t an animal hoarder, shady scumbag godbreeder or garden variety animal torturing psychopath. After I walked him around the house and yard, I gave Mariah the agreed upon rescue fee, and she left quietly so as not to confuse him. I was kneeled on the front room floor with him, just letting him get used to me. Talking to him. Looking into his eyes. She closed the door and when she did, he characteristically tadump ba bump da bumped over to it, tail flapping, butt wiggling and tentacle tongue protruding.
He looked at me as if to say, Where’d the nice lady go? and I said
Henry, come here.
And he did.
That was in September of 2009. Yesterday, Henry left me. I woke up and noticed something just wasn’t right. Parents will understand; an ever so slight change in his behavior that morning set off the warning lights,sent the adrenaline into tsunami mode. Something was wrong. Very wrong. His mouth and snout were cool, clammy and rubbery to the touch. He was on his haunches and barely wagging his tail or responding to any of the words that he normally did. I sent a text message to my mom, who offered to come from Whittier and go with me. I usually protest. He’s fine. Just gonna take him in and get checked out. He’s a survivor. The miracle bastard. Instead, I said OK.(I would discover later that she hadn’t driven in months. Mothers are prescient, wonderful beings and the closest thing to godlike seers on this planet. In hindsight, we say: My mother knew.) Mom came over. I picked him up. He hadn’t moved. He couldn’t even stand up.He was losing control of his bladder.
I picked him up, carried him out of his forever home.
And into eternity.
At the Vet ER, he was deemed critical and shortly thereafter went into cardiac arrest.They told us they couldn’t do anything else for him. They led us into the treatment room. They were doing CPR. He was struggling. Trauma conveniently allows the brain to be defensive about what’s being seen, heard and felt. None of that registered. I did what I knew I was going to have to do one day. Everything was 240 fps. And it was light speed. High Def Ultra 4k. And pixelated, deformed, liquid and indecipherable. The doctor was speaking in hieroglyphics that I couldn’t register: “…he has a splenic mass…common in older dogs…there’s nothing more we can do…internal hemorrhaging…I’m so sorry….what happened to his leg? Was it cancer…?” I signed the consent for the death row cocktail he had so stealthily avoided a decade hence.
Mom stroked him and fell apart; I whispered gently into one of his flipped back ears.
That I was there.
That it was OK.
That he was a good boy.
Such a good boy.
The bestest boy ever.
And then he was gone.
That lethal weapon whip tail finally and completely still to any kind of sensory provocation. The spotted belly still warm and pinkish. The mottled, brindle coat still shedding all over the damned place. Those hindquarter kangaroo sized clawboots would accidentally gouge no more flesh out of my bare feet. The crazy ass ears were still flipped back—inside out and pasted against the top of his speckled head. The remaining stabilizing petrified stone tree trunk front pawr that had carried him so far in life would bear his wiggling, panting, eternally gentle weight no longer.
Over the years, I got into this habit. I live alone and as anyone with a god knows, two minutes of absence is a day; a week is a year, and anything longer may be an unforgivable sacrilege in the world of a dog. My work schedule and job have invariably been synonymous with darkness. Night hours and where the worst humanity has to offer are the norm and not the exception. It could be daunting there. But sometimes no more daunting than the places my own choosing, undoing and circumstance. The places I sent myself. Oh, oh the places my brain could make you go! And through it all,of course, through my 40’s anyways, Henry would be there. The daily absences were, of course, due to work. I would come home, open the door and there he would be: A frenetic fit of ecstatic, sneezing, tail whipping, panting, huffing unconditional love.OhmyfuckingodyouarehomeholyshitIthoughtyouwerenevercominghomeIamsogladyoumadeit.You know, the usual.
That’s when I would lie down with him on top of me. For years on the psychiatrist couch portion of my sectional in the living room. Then, it would be in a storied maroon recliner accustomed to nurturing and rocking dependent souls. What I would do was this: I would scritchle the belly and rub the earzles and massage the pawrwheels and as I did this, I would take on his persona in The Henry Voice like he was demanding me to tell him TheStory—of how he came to be with me.
And I would.
Here’s that story–phonetically, emotionally and logistically accurate as I would tell it.And in a way I knew he understood. I knew this because as I told it, his excitement would dissipate and then he would inhale deeply and then…sigh. That was my cue: he was content…loved…safe.
Tellme the shtory master Tell me….
Once upon a time, there was a doggie named THE H3NRY. He lived in Kern County. He had a mudder, fodder, brudders and sisters, all Catahoula Leopard hounds just like hims. But he doesn’t know where they are anymore because one day he got lost and found himself alone, lost and roaming. What happened was he had a broken FRONT PAWRWHEEL and couldn’t move very well. He doesn’t remember what happened to it other than that pawrwheel didn’t work too well. They said he was under a twee in a neighborhood, a STRAY PUPPLES. Then the DOG CATCHER came and scooped him up and put him in a van. He was taken to THE POUND. There were alot of udder doggies there. The Henry didn’t like that place, no he didn’t. Didn’t like the smells and thought that bad things happened there but wasn’t sure what. And wasn’t too keen on staying to find out either, no.
The staff at THE POUND said, Hey look at that one over there. What’s hims deal? He’s spotted and cute. Oh, what’s wrong with hims? Looks like a broken front PAWRWHEEL, someone else said. The staff there liked hims awkward spotted stumbly pupples. The even gave him a name: HENRY.
Then one day, there was a commotion. THE MARIAH GREENBERG RONSHETTI came . Someone said she was there to pick up some of them other doggies. But not HENRY.
So-what’s the deal, here (Henry asked the other dogs) Who’s the nice lady?
Oh,dats THE RESCUE LADY they told him.
Ohyeah? What’s her deal? She gonna break us out of this fuckin place or what?This is some boolchit here man. Don’t like this place.
What Henry came to understand was that Mariah was an ANGEL and she was there for a scheduled pickup. Thing was, Henry wasn’t on that list. The staff at the POUND told her about hims. Said hims time was up and asked if she could throw him in the mix with the other dogs…He’s over there, they said, We named hims THE HENRY
MARIAH s aw that I had a broken PAWRWHEEL and said, oh my that’s going to be difficult.Well, just throw him in the mix. We’ll see what we can do for hims.
Allthe doggies were happy to leave that bad place. Someone called it DEATH ROW.Henry didn’t know what that meant, but knew it wasn’t good and figured some of the smells there were DEATH ROW smells.
The nice lady eventually took Henry to the DOCKTOR. That DOCKTOR said hims broken front PAWRWHEEL could not be fixed and it was gonna cost a lot of money to hackit off. So, they put HENRY’S story on the computer and a lot of nice peoples donated money for hims to go under the DOCKTOR’S knife.
They took Henry to DR OLDS and gave him the GOOD STUFF and out Henry went on the operating table. When he woke up the front PAWRWHEEL (and his BALLS– aint THAT some fuckin’ bullshit) were gone. They called it a TWOFER ONE SPECIAL. When Henry woke up, he didn’t notice much because he got along just fine.
From there, Henry went to the SUSAN KNOLL’s house to convalesce and await a FOREVER HOME. He was there for a few weeks suffering the dreaded CONE OF SHAME and when that came off, he was said to have been lounging and playing there. He even met some KITTLES at Susan’s house and got along with thems. (He no longer gets along with them kittles, though, I would tell him, because now he CHASES THE KITTLERS when on a WALK, and given the chance would rip them little fuckers apart, yesh.)
Then one day Mariah picked him up from Susan’s and he went on a long car ride. It was said that he was going to his FOREVER HOME. When he got there, he met THE MASTER. It was a nice house. They had wawa bowl, papa bowl, some toy toys and a leash and a sleepy bed. THE MASTER sat that Henry down and said Look here, you little miracle bastard. You and I, we are a team now. We are gonna have what’s known as a CONTRACT DEAL. You have some obligations to fulfill and so do I. Are we square?
Andthat’s what happened. That’s THE STORY. (I would tell him).
And I’ve been here ever since, Master? (Henry would ask) And you love me?
Forever and ever?1
[…]
The End2
The thing about having a dog like him…well there are many things. But the most remarkable was how complete fucking strangers would overwhelmingly start an interaction with both of us by asking “What happened to him?” I grew tired of telling people the truth so eventually became sarcastically creative in answering.Then, this got old. In any case, I got to thinking about this question,especially when I was out in the world. With my angst. My trauma. My inability to see things clearly. My self-inflicted wounds. My fears. During my darkest days, especially in the past 7 years, I got to wondering why the fuck people were asking about him. I mean really: They should be asking what happened tome.
I thought about the bigger picture—all of us. Our rationalizing, minimizing, denial-laden emotional scars and choices made because of dynamics unknown to us. Our flawed,self-absorbed ass backwards humanity. Our handicaps are so subtle, unobtrusive but so appallingly glaring. What if we walked around the world like that and asked each other
“What happened to you?”
1. “THECONTRACT DEAL” (as told by HENRY):
THE HENRYwill provide THE LOVE, THE LICKLES, AND THE LAUGHS.
THE MASTER will provide the PAPA (KIBBLE; FOOD; NOURISHMENT) TREATS and CHEWZY STICKS and CLEAN AGUA-WAWA and WALKS and TOY TOYS and sleepy beds and LOVE and THE SCRITCHLERS. He provides THE BATH and once a year A BIRTHDAY BURGER. And other times he’ll kick ne down with STEAKCHUNKS and BURGLE QUE. (And when he must go away, he takels me to GRAMMY-MAS and GRAMPAS. But what happens at GRAMMA ANDGRAMPAS stays there, so we don’t need to get into that, especially since you leavle me there.) Oh, and he takels me to the DOCKTOR, provides THE MEDICINES:the FLEAZLE medicine, EARZLE MEDICINE & PAWRWHEEL MEDICINE. He does all this because that’s part of THE DEAL.
2. There is areal ending to this story. But there is only one person reading this who knows what it is and it stays between the three of us.
Difficult To Cure 
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