Stay!: Keeper's Story (6 page)

He hugged me. He ran to the refrigerator, brought out a cold frankfurter, dangled it before my nose, and said, "Sneer."

Again I yawned. Bribery?
Mon dieu.

Abashed but learning, he returned the bribe to the refrigerator, stood in front of me, and asked politely once again. "Pal? Please? Sneer?"

So I sneered for him one more time; he flew into one more paroxysm of joy; and finally I licked his hand, acknowledging that we were partners and friends.

Thus my career began.

Chapter 8

T
HE PHOTOGRAPH OF ME AND THE BOY
in the collapsed muffin hat appeared publicly the next week, in a Sunday supplement called "Fashions of the Times." Both of us, the photographer and I, admired it extensively. He left the publication on the coffee table, open to that page, just in case any neighbors dropped by.

Late that morning I was lying on the floor, eating some leftover lasagna while the photographer, wearing his fuzzy bathrobe, worked on the crossword puzzle and sipped coffee. The telephone rang.

"Yes," I heard him say, "he's my own dog. What breed?" He glanced over at me.

I tossed my head and yawned.
What breed.
As if it made the slightest difference. It is a shallow human indeed who actually believes that the flowing, silky hair and disdainful face of an Afghan make it a more aristocratic dog than, say, a tricolored shepherd fathered in the Outback by a roaming herding dog with a few minutes to dally. The distinction of a dog lies entirely in its innate character and intelligence, coupled with the early training of a diligent mother. I would match my wits and virtue against a best-of-show anytime. And my tail, too.

Fortunately the photographer appeared to share my view. He winked at me, an odd human habit that I have learned to appreciate but have never truly understood. Then he shrugged, and said into the receiver, "Mixed. He's a unique mix."

Unique.
A pleasant word. In my mind, I coupled it with others like
physique
and
sleek.

A second caller asked my name and age. "Pal," the photographer replied. "His name is Pal. And he's, ah, young." He looked at me and raised an eyebrow. I raised an eyebrow back. I had no idea how old I was. Almost two, perhaps? Dogs' ages are measured strangely, anyway. I think I was sort of a teenager. But
young
sounded acceptable to me.

Some of the calls were inquiring about my fee.

Fee? Dogs are not accustomed to being paid. Watchdogs generally do it for nothing more than the satisfaction of guarding turf, or for the sheer arrogant gratification that comes from terrorizing humans. Although I felt no territorial urge and had no wish to frighten anyone, I had been a sort of watchdog in the nights with Jack. I had been a protector, and would be so again for anyone I loved. But I would ask no pay for simply following the instincts of my heart.

Guide dogs are not paid. Their motives are completely benevolent, and they find joy in shepherding their humans across busy streets, avoiding honking traffic. I had taken great pride in guiding Jack during those last weeks, when his frailty had made him needy. There is no fee for such devotion.

Hunting dogs ask no compensation for pointing to a grouse concealed in foliage. The admiration they receive for the nobility and precision of their pose is compensation enough.

And simple house pets find their complete reward in simply lying at someone's feet, being scratched, ruffled, and fed, chasing a ball from time to time and looking adoringly at a human. Money can't replace that kind of contentment.

I viewed myself as something of a combination of the various categories. Though never trained as a watchdog, I had guarded Jack's turf with authority, I felt; and though untrained as a guide, I had steered and directed him in his last weeks with patience and gentleness. I had little interest in hunting as a sport or game as a meal, but I could say of myself that I was adroit at the pose, and that my glorious tail would, if called upon, lend itself to the kind of vigilant stance that looks fine on a fall morning in the woods. Certainly, more than anything, I enjoyed being a pet.

But not for pay.

Curious, I listened to the photographer say that my fee was high. "Pricey," he said to the callers who were inquiring. "I'm afraid he's a pricey model."

That seemed to pique their interest, and they asked about my availability.

"Next Thursday?" I heard him say. "Well, I'll check my calendar..."

I woofed politely from my blanket and licked a bit of tomato sauce from my Up.

"I mean,
his
calendar," the photographer amended. "He's very much in demand."

Of course I wasn't, not then. I had posed once, sneered once, appeared in a newspaper supplement once, and that was all.

But before long I
was
in demand. Everyone who called wanted to book me for what they referred to as a "shoot."

I didn't like the sound of it. But the photographer, sensing my discomfort, stroked me behind my left ear and explained that it had nothing to do with firearms; it was a photo shoot.

"All you have to do is stand there and sneer," he explained, "and I'll get rich."

I raised my eyebrow at him.

"We," he corrected. "
We'll
get rich. Famous, too," he added cheerfully.

He closed up the newspaper, leaving the crossword puzzle undone, rinsed his coffee cup, and looked thoughtfully at me.

"Know what, Pal?" he said. "I'm going to have to give you a bath."

There are, I suppose, various and unique ways to ruin a Sunday afternoon. But this proved to be the worst. Never in my entire existence had I had a bath. My mother, when I was a pup, licked me clean often enough, sometimes quite roughly. Once I had played in a mud puddle near our alley home, and although I shook myself ferociously afterward, sending dirty water flying everywhere, my mother had nonetheless cleaned me endlessly, scolding all the while and warning my brothers and sister about the obvious damage a puddle could do to one's appearance.

Then I had lived for a long time with Jack. Jack and I did not take baths. The river, our only water source, was coated with yellow foam and did not lend itself to missions of personal hygiene. And it was a kind of badge of honor, I think, for Jack and me, that even encrusted with grime as we were, we maintained our dignity at all times.

Jack had confided once, chuckling, that one damp morning he had found a mushroom growing out of his shoe, at the place where the sole separated from the upper leather and had mildewed.

I was sorry that our language barrier prevented me from describing the mushroom to the photographer that morning. Fond as he was of Italian sauces on his pastas, I thought perhaps the possibility of homegrown mushrooms might have steered him away from his determined course toward a bath.

When I heard him filling the bathtub, I tiptoed silently into the bedroom and flattened my body until I was able, though uncomfortably, to slither under the bed.

"Pal?" I heard him calling. But I stayed silent and hidden.

"Pal?" He called again, and he was using a kind of falsely sweet tone, a pseudo-friendly voice. I disregarded it.

O silently, stealthily, safe in my lair!
If only—

As happens so often, I had not completed my couplet because I was searching for the perfect concluding rhyme. I was toying with the word
debonair,
or perhaps even the wonderful phrase
devil-may-care,
and how it could apply. But my usual problem—lack of awareness of my tail's whereabouts—betrayed me.

"Gotcha!" the photographer exclaimed. He grabbed the tip of my tail where it extended from the underside of the bed. From there it was just a brief and painful moment of tugging, and I was caught.

I submitted grudgingly to the indignity of it. I sat in a half-full bathtub and allowed him to rub dog shampoo into my fur. I gritted my teeth and kept my poise as he poured buckets of rinse water over me. I permitted him to wrap and rub me with a thick towel. Finally I let him aim a hair dryer at me for a few warm and terrifying moments and then scrape at me with a steel comb.

But I did not let him buckle the leather collar that he had somehow slipped around my neck. When he suggested it, I glittered my eyes and growled. The photographer was gracious in admitting defeat.

"Actually," he said, "I think it enhances your look, that primitive nakedness. We'll leave it as is. Good idea, Pal."

As if it were
his,
the idea. Ha. But he put the collar away in a drawer.

Before long the calendar was full, and my price, apparently, had risen. I watched as the photographer opened envelopes that contained checks, and heard him chortle with satisfaction as he put them away. He and I were busy every day, driving in the Jeep from location to location. It wasn't difficult work. For the
Vogue
shoot, I stood on the steps of the stock exchange beside a skinny woman wearing a long, billowing gown. When the photographer gave me the signal, I sneered and the camera clicked.

For a Calvin Klein ad, I posed, sneering, beside a man wearing nothing but a plaid towel and a bored look.

On the cover of
Gourmet,
I sneered at a picnic lunch on a Tuscan hillside. I sneered wearing a milk mustache in several publications and eventually on a billboard as well, and in
Vanity Fair
I sneered at a group of
paparazzi
blocking my path to a showing at the Cannes Film Festival.

I became a world traveler, adroit in airports and taxis, and added some Italian to the French I had understood since infancy.

I sneered at Paul Newmans salad dressing, raising millions for charity. I did a dogfood commercial, sneering at the competitor's product and then wolfing down a bowl (and oh, it was difficult) of crunchy liver-flavored nuggets. I sneered at Senator Strom Thurmond on a political poster. I sneered on the Jay Leno show, seated on a couch beside Cybill Shepherd, who tried to sneer back but collapsed instead in giggles, causing the shoulder straps of her silk dress to slip.

I did a calendar but turned down a guest appearance on
Oprah.
I declined to do an autobiography, though publishers called almost daily, offering the services of the most distinguished ghostwriters.

I began, of course, to have imitators. There was a German shepherd who could produce a voluptuous yawn on request, but it did not have the panache of my sneer. A matched pair of Pomeranians who could raise their upper lips in unison appeared on Dave Letterman's show but did not garner much praise or any further bookings. In truth, they were laughable. The photographer and I stayed up late that evening to watch them, but we went to bed satisfied that they were no more than a poor joke.

My frayed blanket, so permeated with my own history and scent, disappeared. I was upgraded to a dog bed filled with cedar shavings from L. L. Bean: a costly and impressive sleeping place but one that filled me with loathing. Toward the end of our first year together, the photographer and I moved from the shabby apartment to a fancier neighborhood three blocks away, into a seven-room, eighth-floor co-op with a river view, so that now, standing on the balcony, I looked down upon my own past. The apartment was decorated with a southwestern motif, with weavings and pottery everywhere and on the floor an assortment of costly Navajo rugs which I was directed to avoid walking upon. Everything smelled new and expensive and clean and completely without pungence or charm.

The photographer hired someone to walk me, because his life had become so busy with social engagements now that he was rich and famous.

The dogwalker, an unemployed actor, was a pleasant enough person but not at all sympathetic to my needs. He insisted on using a leash. I began to think seriously about running away.