by Tom Ryan
He squinted a lot and needed drops put in his eyes, but he could see again. He was back to bouncing lightheartedly along trails, scampering up rocks much bigger than he, and drinking in the views. He was back to being the Little Buddha.
He had fun climbing mountains and spent a good portion of each hike waiting for me. We had lovely weather in which to enjoy the views. On Saturday we hiked Mount Pemigewasset in the morning and Welch-Dickey, the same mountains we’d climbed right before his surgery, in the afternoon. On Sunday we walked along the ridge of the Squam Range overlooking Squam Lake.
Pemigewasset and Welch-Dickey are big-bang-for-your-buck peaks. I didn’t want to push him too hard so soon after surgery, but I wanted him to be on mountains where he could enjoy the views from the top with his new eyes. We lingered on each summit that Saturday. There was no hurry.
On Sunday we hiked up the wonderfully rustic Doublehead Trail and walked where moose evidently roamed in great numbers (there were signs of them everywhere) over rock and root, with occasional glimpses afforded typically only to angels and birds, as we looked down on the soft, heavenly green and blue of spring trees and a deep lake. It was a perfect day and a perfect hike.
Atticus moved over those mountains as he always had. The only way one could tell that things were a bit off was the strange shaved areas about his legs, throat, and abdomen where they had poked, prodded, injected, and scanned him.
One attractive, well-scrubbed woman of means back in Newburyport saw him the day after his surgery and was so impressed by his haircut that she wanted to know what to ask for when she brought her dog to the groomer the next week.
“It’s called the Catara-Thyroid Cut,” I told her.
For all his walking, climbing, and sitting, there was something else about that weekend that moved me even more. It was something within Atticus, and it was evident in his encounter with an easily overlooked creature.
We were happily skipping down Mount Pemigewasset when we encountered the tiniest rodent I’d ever seen. It was sitting on a rock in the middle of the trail and was frozen with fright when my size-twelve hiking shoe nearly squashed it into mouse heaven. Not being an expert on the genitalia of mice, I couldn’t say whether it was a male or a female, and it seemed like a rather personal question to ask, as I have discovered in my past dealings with sexually ambiguous humans. For means of convenience, I’ll refer to him as Templeton. (Can you tell I’m a reader? A mouse and a dog come face-to-face on a trail, and each is given a literary name, thanks to E. B. White and Harper Lee.)
I stopped short, and Atticus sat nicely by as we took stock of Templeton and Templeton stopped quivering and appeared to be taking stock of us in return.
I snapped a photo of Atticus and Templeton together, then offered the little rodent a small square of cheese that was as big as he was. I was delighted when he accepted and took tiny bites while I held it.
In my clumsy attempt to get a better photo of Templeton and Atticus sitting facing one another, I frightened the mouse, and he ran off and found refuge in the most unlikely of places: between Atticus’s legs. I say “unlikely” because miniature schnauzers are terriers that were bred for ratting. It’s one of the reasons Atticus always chased the squirrels of Moseley Pines. So Templeton’s choice of a safe haven was ironic to say the least. Under some other dog, Templeton would have ended up a nice snack, and even under the Atticus of old he would have been less than a mouthful of savory, crunchy fare.
The previous November on the Avalon Trail, Atticus stood above me as I struggled with my Lyme disease on a hike. He had a nearly dead mouse dangling from his mouth. I was strangely saddened to see him taking the life from a creature of the mountains and asked him to release it. As he did, it hit the snow and writhed in pain. I slid on a heavy glove and held the mouse in my hand so it didn’t have to die on the cold snow while Atticus sat next to me looking down at it. We had a man-to-dog talk that day, centering on reverence for life, and I tried to explain to him that what he’d done was not cool and that I wished he wouldn’t do it again. I reminded him that we were only guests in the mountains.
Now, had anyone encountered us that day, we would have been a strange sight: a man holding a mouse, talking to a dog about reverence. But that’s the way Atticus and I went through life, and, strangely enough, it worked for us. We stayed with that mouse until it stopped moving and then laid it to rest.
Some may think that was a silly thing to do, since a dog like Atticus was bred for such things, but little did I know that our gentle talk that day would mean something to him. For not only did he not kill Templeton, he allowed him to find shelter beneath him and simply sat looking down on him in a curious manner for several minutes. Templeton evidently felt very safe, for he sat there nonchalantly cleaning himself after his meal. We all stayed that way for quite some time.
I wasn’t really sure what to think of Atticus that day. I’d always known he was different, but it was one of those moments that surprised even me. When I relayed the story to my friend Parkie and told her about our talk the previous November, she noted that maybe it wasn’t the talk—perhaps Atticus had been transformed by the kindness of all those people who’d believed in a little dog enough to send money so he could see again.
Whatever it was, Atticus had broken the chain. (Emerson said, “Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist.” Although “only” a dog, Atticus would have impressed Ralph Waldo.)
For generations the traits of Atticus’s breed had been carried forth, and it was instinctual for him to go after rodents. And yet under the trees on the side of Mount Pemigewasset, he chose not to. He had accomplished what most people fail to do—change.
It was a simple but profound moment for us.
I thought about it for days. As always, our time in the mountains had me thinking about my father. Atticus had done something my father couldn’t, or wouldn’t, do. He’d changed who he was.
I would like to believe that my father had tried to change who he was. Why else would he have embraced classical music and great writing? Or Jack and Bobby Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey and the change they wanted to see? Why else would he admire the great men of history? How else would he have been awed by the grandeur of the mountains?
He loved beautiful things and was moved by them. He knew what he wanted; he just didn’t know how to get there. At least that’s what I tell myself when I give him the benefit of the doubt. But I’ll never know, for there were things he didn’t talk about, and he remained forever a mystery. In his book A River Runs Through It, Norman Maclean summed up my frustrations with my father: “It is those we live with and love and should know who elude us.”
In some ways his failure at finding happiness in life became my real quest. I would go to the places he wanted to get to. Mostly I made it, thanks, in part, to some bread crumbs he’d unknowingly dropped on his own journey, and to a most unique little dog.
Several days after our encounter with the little rodent up north, we returned to Susan Hayward for one of several postoperative checkups. At the end of it, we were given permission to start hiking again.
21
Dinner with Frank Capra
One minute.
That’s how long it took me to like Maureen Carroll, the specialist with whom Atticus had an appointment at Angell Animal Medical Center to look into his hyperthyroidism. She was confident, professional, attractive, accomplished, funny, she had a great smile with a hint of mischief about it, and she wore heels in a place where everyone else went for the comfort of tennis shoes. But it had nothing to do with any of that. I fell for her because of something she said: “Hello, Atticus.”
Two words. It was that simple.
But they were two words I’d never heard Susan Hayward say. I can’t remember Dr. Hayward ever talking to Atticus. But Maureen Carroll talked to him throughout our checkup. After all, he was the patient, and of course she talked to me as well
.
Maureen Carroll got it, but so did everyone else we encountered that day at Angell, from the receptionist who checked us in, to the custodian who said hello, to Maureen’s vet tech, Ann Novitsky. At one point Ann took Atticus out of the examining room to draw some blood and get a urine sample, but she carried him back in a minute later, saying, “I think he wants to be with you when we do this.” Ann got it.
Angell is one of the best animal hospitals in the world. It’s a huge place, bigger than some small-town medical hospitals and they deal with thousands of animals a year. Because of that, I was expecting we’d get lost in the shuffle. Our experience with Susan Hayward had been less than warm. She was a fine surgeon, and I was thankful she’d done a great job on Atticus’s eyes, but I never got the impression she was totally invested in him.
I wanted something more. Maureen, Ann, and Angell gave us that.
They understood that Atticus was my family, but they also realized he was special on his own. In her notes to John Grillo, Maureen Carroll wrote, “Quite an amazing dog.”
She read Atticus perfectly. She would later say, “He speaks English with his actions.”
I told Maureen about the ultrasound and how the specialist never saw the tumors he expected to see. I asked her if there was a chance the blood tests were wrong and that Atticus didn’t have hyperthyroidism.
“No, most likely not,” she said. “We’ll run some tests, and when we get the results, we’ll have an idea of how to move forward.”
We left the warmth of Angell and drove back to Newburyport under the darkness of night, knowing that it would take a week to get the test results. But even in facing the unknown, there was something about the people at Angell that made me believe that if we were in for a journey down a long, dark trail, we would have good company.
Atticus and I drove to Plum Island late that night and listened to the ocean’s song. We sat on the beach and looked up at the stars. A week was a long time to wait.
I felt Atticus’s little body as he leaned up against me and thought of the end of Sarah Williams’s poem “The Old Astronomer”:
Though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light;
I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.
Of course we weren’t the only ones waiting for the test results from Angell. It seemed as though most of Newburyport was as well. In their kindness they were stars in the darkness.
Because so much money had come in for Atticus’s medical bills, I told people we didn’t need any more. That would change if the results showed us we had a lengthy, drawn-out fight on our hands.
But there was an existing fund-raiser planned, and it would go on. Paul and Paula Breeden and their son Matt owned Bottega Toscana, a quaint Italian restaurant less than a block down State Street from us. On our nightly walks, if the restaurant was still open, Atticus would stand on his hind legs and peer in through the glass door. If there weren’t many customers inside, the Breedens invited him in, and he’d run back to the kitchen, where they’d give him a meatball. If it was crowded, which it was on weekends, people would look up from their dinner to see either Paul or Matt drop what he was doing to bring a meatball out to Atticus, who sat patiently waiting on the stoop.
The Breedens had offered to close the restaurant to regular business and hold a fund-raiser for Atticus. They’d charge twenty dollars for a plate of meatballs and spaghetti, salad, and bread, and ten dollars would go to the Friends of Atticus.
But what happens when you throw a party and no one comes?
It was held on a Tuesday and started at four in the afternoon. When the doors opened, Atticus sat outside waiting for people to arrive. No one showed.
At five o’clock a couple and their baby came in, but that was it. Forty-five minutes later, it was still empty. I felt terrible for the Breedens. They’d sacrificed a night of business for Atticus. I apologized to Matt.
“Hey, it was worth a shot,” he said as he looked a bit sadly at Atticus sitting by himself. But just as Matt finished talking, the door opened.
By six it was busy.
By seven there weren’t enough tables, and a line formed out the door. We had to make people leave after they ate so that others could come in. But no one wanted to leave!
By eight-thirty all the food was gone, but people kept coming. Everyone stayed, and the laughter and love rang throughout the restaurant.
Some had tears in their eyes when they greeted Atticus, but most were in great spirits. Some didn’t come to eat, simply to drop money in the basket on the counter. Almost everyone was from Newburyport, although a few hikers made the hour ride from Boston to pay tribute to the Little Giant. Bartenders and waitresses working in other restaurants sent over portions of their tips.
There in the middle of all that joyous raucousness, surrounded by so many of his friends, sat a little dog. With his new eyes, he squinted up at people as one by one they approached and greeted him. They talked to him and petted him, and many snuck him a meatball.
It was an amazing night. He was George Bailey at the end of It’s a Wonderful Life!
Eventually everyone left, and it was just Matt, Atticus, and me. We sat at a table, and my head was spinning. So much had happened. A little dog had touched a community, and they had come out to say, “We’re here for you.” We sat and talked about the night, and right then a police cruiser pulled up outside and its lights went on.
“Oh, boy, here we go,” I said quietly. A cop rapped on the door, and I readied myself for the worst, because it was Newburyport and I was the editor of the Undertoad. We had just finished an uplifting night, but reality had come knocking.
Matt opened the door, and the officer walked up to where I was sitting, looked at Atticus in the restaurant, where he was in violation of the health code, and dropped some money in the basket.
He smiled and said, “Good luck, Atticus.”
But Atticus didn’t need luck. He had friends, and many of them. Or at least that’s pretty much what Ann Novitsky said when she called me from Angell that night telling me there was no sign of the hyperthyroidism. The blood tests showed that Atticus was completely normal. It was as if it had never existed.
I couldn’t believe my ears.
“But how can that be? I thought Dr. Carroll said the other tests were probably accurate,” I told her.
“I know! I asked her the same thing,” Ann said. She then said something about the power of friendship, or maybe the power of prayer. I couldn’t really tell what she said—I was laughing too loud.
The American College of Veterinary Ophthalmologists has a trademarked motto: “ . . . that light shall prevail over darkness.”
It certainly had for us, in more ways than one.
22
The Promise
I’d like to tell you that we woke up the next morning and everything was perfect, but that wouldn’t be the truth.
I woke up to relief and gratitude, and that lasted for a couple of days. Then came the crash. It was inevitable. From before the start of winter when I fought Lyme disease, to our successes and failures throughout the winter months, to returning to Newburyport, to Atti’s blindness, we’d been on a roller coaster.
Once I learned that Atticus was going to be okay, I started to decompress. I collapsed into myself again. I felt the way I had when we first came back from the mountains in March: wasted, uninspired, as if I were just going through the motions. I knew my future wasn’t with the Undertoad, but it was how I made my living and I needed to concentrate on Newburyport for the time being. It was difficult to do. In many ways I’d already broken away from the city and was ready to move on, but there was nothing to move on to.
Making matters worse, even though Atticus’s eyes improved, I tore my calf muscle on a hike on Mount Carrigain. The only way to heal it was to rest it, so Atticus and I settled back into our Newbu
ryport lives, and without the mountains we both languished.
That’s when I made a most unlikely decision. I loved Newburyport, and it was clear that at least part of Newburyport loved me (and Atticus) back. The way people had come to Atticus’s rescue proved it.
I needed to do something other than write the Undertoad, and I followed the advice of some people I liked and trusted when they suggested I run for mayor.
Now, that was a hoot to some folks. City hall’s greatest critic wasn’t just running for elected office, he was running for the most important office in the city. It gave people something to talk about. The response was what I expected. My critics attacked, my supporters loved it. And there were a few in the middle who didn’t know what to think. But I knew I could count on many of their votes simply because they’d be curious about what I’d do as mayor. And I believed I would be a good mayor, since first and foremost I knew the city and would listen to its voices.
However, if I managed to get elected, I imagined myself as a one-term mayor. It would be two years and out. In order to do the job right, you couldn’t be too much of a politician. There’d be tough decisions to make, and I’d step on some toes. I’d demonstrated in the Undertoad that I wasn’t afraid to take a stand for something I believed in, but it was a good way to make enemies. I joked with some of my friends that I might become the first mayor of a Massachusetts city ever to be assassinated.
In order to get onto the ballot, all I needed to do was get the signatures of fifty registered Newburyport voters. I had those in the first two days.
I was confident I’d do well in the election. My five opponents lacked experience and visibility. Yes, I was controversial—anyone who takes a stand on the local issues is controversial—but I believed that would work in my favor in a field of mostly unknown candidates, because even the least educated voter would know who I was. The primary election would be in September. The two candidates with the most votes would face each other in November.