OKLAHOMA!

“Damn! He saw me!”

I caught a glimpse of the Oklahoma State Trooper turning off the highway median, in our direction.
“Damn!” David repeated, slapping the steering wheel and eyeing the rearview mirror.
A flash of lights.
“Uh-ohhh.” That would be me.
We pulled over.
“Well, at least we don’t have any drugs in the car.” I said brightly.
When David glared at me I nearly shat my pants.
“What do you mean?!” I yelped through jaw lock.
He jerked his head toward the back of our pickup just as a man in khaki F-Troop wear approached the driver’s side window.
I crossed my legs.
***
“What’s the matter, Son? Road getting’ away from ya?”
F-Troop asked. A challenge, not a question.
My bowels were pond scum. I smiled weakly.
“Licenseandregistration,” he barked.
David shrugged and, hanging his head, handed him his license and said, “Well, Officer, there never really is an excuse to speed, is there?”
“I’ll need your registration, too,” F-Troop said, eyeing him curiously.
With poorly disguised, shaky hands, I turned the knob to the glove box and immediately shoved both hands in. Dear God I promise to do volunteer work every weekend for the rest of my life and do pro bono work for MADD and Partnership for a Drug-Free America if only You please-oh-please don’t let there be weed in this glove box, I prayed.
My prayers were answered.
I found the registration and threw it at David as I slammed the glove box shut.
F-Troop went back to his vee-hickle and, as if he had X-ray hearing, I savagely whispered, “How fast were you going?”
“Eighty five,” said David with a shrug.
“In a what, a sixty five?”
“Yep.”
“Oooo. We’re going’ DOWNTOWN,” I said.
“Maybe,” he said, and shrugged again.
****

When he returned, F-Troop looked David in the eye, gave him a quick nod, and handed him his “documents.”
And let us go.
“Slow it down, Son. And drive careful, now.”
David checked his rearview mirror, waved to F-Troop who, I kid you not, saluted him back.
“You lucky shit,” I sneered, waving and smiling stupidly. David let him pass us and then pulled our vee-hickle out, trailer in tow. He grinned at me and said, “I know.”
I smacked him on the arm, which made him grin even wider. So I smacked him again. He started to chuckle. I ignored him and so he said, “You know what’s really great, though?”
“What?”
“That the Trooper dude didn’t ask to see your license.”
I have a clean record, so I asked, “Why is that?”
“Because it’s in your purse and -”
Just then Woody began to scratch on it. The dawn.
“ –I put that bag of weed that Woody found in there.”
“What if he looked in there?!”
“He didn’t, though. So what are you worried about?”

LAST NIGHT: PRESENT DAY

*****
Death smells like mushrooms.
I lean over and kiss Woody’s furry little face for the umpteenth time. This thought is like a cloud in front of sharp, shooting, all-at-once pain that I have never known before. My Baby is dying and there’s not a damn thing I can do about it, so … I will never eat shitake mushrooms again.
I look him right in the eyes and ask, “Are you ready to go now? Because I’ll – gulp – help you.” He gives me a panicky look that, to me, screams, “Hell, no!”
I vowed years ago never to keep Woody alive because I am the one with separation issues. My job, it seems suddenly so clear to me, is to help him make the journey to Dog Heaven, or wherever it is that’s next. But I also know this is the hardest walk I will ever take with m’boy.
He looks up at me with the same searching brown eyes I fell in love with nearly fourteen years ago. We lived in San Diego then – clear across the country and a lifetime ago, literally. As I sit here in our South Florida living room I suddenly hate it and all it represents: the last house we lived in together, my best buddy and me.

SECOND NIGHT: SAN DIEGO

14 Years Ago – San Diego CA
SECOND NIGHT
We are in the living room watching an old re-run of Cheers when David yells out, “Woody!”
The puppy is racing around the couch at lightning speed. He has a subscription card from a magazine in his teeth, but he’s so small that he keeps stepping on the card. He is doing this all so fast that it sounds like a playing card stuck in a fan.
“Woody. Yes! What a perfect name! Like the original surfboards! Like Woody Harrelson! Like-“
“Wood!” David says.
“Yeah.”
“ ‘Woody!’ Hello, Woody. Do you like your new name?”

*

SAN DIEGO: FIRST NIGHT

San Diego, 14 years ago

FIRST NIGHT
“He’s a dog. Therefore he will sleep in his dog bed.”
I point to a folded towel on the floor.
David laughs as he dives onto the futon. “You call that a ‘bed’?”
“Well, yeah,” I say. It did look a little sad. I picked up the little pooch and just as I began to lower him onto his terry cloth mattress he nuzzled his nose into my chest.
David chuckled into his pillow. “Yeah, this is gonna last.”
“Now, now, little puppy,” I say. “Here’s your bed. Sweet dreams.” I set him down and crawled into bed.
“Eeeemeee-mew-eemeeee-“
I peer down and, in the moonlight, is the little guy, peering up at me.
“Meeemeeee, eeee, neeeee.”
To hell with it.
I scoop him up and he scampers all over us, mountains o’ blanket fun.
“Gee, that lasted long,” David says. “C’mere, buddy.”
“No, let him sleep near me!”
*

PRESENT DAY

*
The thing about Love is, it starts out easy, and then the hard part begins.
Today’s the hard part.
I was chopping up the chicken from the Wendy’s sandwich I just brought home for Woody. He has not eaten in two days, and I am frantic. He hobbles into the kitchen, on a mission for the door. “Okay, Buddy, you’re ready to go out already? Okay.”
I open up the door for him and he steps out and pees all over himself and then like a wilted daisy his head dips down to the ground, and I choke, “Nooooooooo,” as I scoop him up and hold him to my heart.
“Can you come home?” I am on the phone with David, holding Woody who is floppy as a rag doll but still alert, in my arms. “I- think- Woody’s… dying.”
“I’ll be right there,” David croaks.
***