Until Tuesday: A Wounded Warrior and the Golden Retriever Who Saved Him

by Luis Carlos Montalvan

  It was amazing how comfortable and natural my parents’ house felt, both for Tuesday and me. It had a fenced backyard, so I let him run and fetch whenever we had a few spare minutes. He loved sleeping with me in the big upstairs bedroom, and like the rest of us, he loved the smell of Mamá’s cooking. He hit it off instantly with Papá, who can be a pretty stern judge of character. On the first afternoon, while my father read his newspaper, Tuesday snuck up behind him and jammed his head through the crook in his arm.

  “Don’t pet him,” I warned, as my dad laughed out loud.

  It was an odd request, I know, but Lu had hammered into my head that for the first month at least, no one was to interact with my service dog. No petting, no bumping, no talking to or distracting Tuesday while he worked, which of course was all the time. Rick and Mary, my old classmates from ECAD, weren’t even supposed to let their spouses touch their service animals. These were not our pets; they were our life support systems. Our bond was essential, and Lu didn’t want anything to interfere with the “pack of two” mentality we needed to thrive.

  So that was the refrain of the weekend.

  “Don’t pet Tuesday.”

  “Don’t pet Tuesday.”

  “I’m sorry, but you can’t pet Tuesday.”

  My sister was down from New York City with her two dog-loving children, and I must have told them that fifty times. Christina and I lived a subway ride away, but we never visited each other. She had a family, I told myself, and I didn’t want to intrude. In reality, I didn’t want to face her. She didn’t understand me, and I suspected she was disappointed. She might even have been scared of me. And now here I was, completely confusing her kids.

  “Why can’t we pet Tuesday, Tío Luis?”

  “Because he’s not a regular dog. He’s my service dog. He works for me. That’s why he wears this red vest, see? He’s really smart. He brings my shoes and supports me on the stairs and reminds me to take my medicine.”

  They must have thought I was totally out of my mind.

  Mamá was the more complicated problem, but I didn’t push her to accept Tuesday. Sure, I had Tuesday turn on and off the light switches the first night. I had him open the kitchen cabinets (“Open”), retrieve his bowl (“Get it”) and then place it on the kitchen counter (three commands: “Up,” “Reach,” and “Drop it”). I didn’t try to convince her, I just wanted her to see what an extraordinary dog Tuesday was. He was well-groomed. He never barked, unless I commanded him to speak. He sat quietly under the table for our entire Thanksgiving dinner, only occasionally sticking his nose up into my lap to ask politely for a bite of turkey. After being told once, he never again walked on Mamá’s favorite rug, which for her may have been his most important trick.

  He had produced a profound change in my life, something I knew my mother comprehended. I was more focused on the present and less apt to spiral into damaging thoughts. I slept better. I was more social. I was more confident in my body. And, as my mamá no doubt appreciated, I drank less. Much less. Sure, I drank a healthy quantity of wine at my parents’ that Thanksgiving, but it wasn’t out of necessity. I wasn’t trying to drown my problems or quiet my mind. It was social drinking, taken a sip at a time, and for my mother, I think, that was reason enough to give thanks for Tuesday. And to hope.

  “He’s a well-behaved dog,” Mamá said as we left. It wasn’t love, and not quite respect, but from the woman who had given me countless manners lessons when I was a child, it was a start.

  “Thanks, Tuesday,” I told him on the train ride home, throwing my arm over his shoulder like an old friend. You never know how much you want your parents’ approval, even in your thirties, until it’s gone.

  CHAPTER 14

  SMOKED

  Every dog must have his day.

  —JONATHAN SWIFT

  Back in Brooklyn for the long winter school break, I settled into my New York–sized apartment with my suburbs-sized dog. In a burst of credit-wrecking optimism, I had purchased a queen-sized bed for the two of us to sleep in together. It took up one entire room of my two-room apartment, so I started using the bed as my desk when I researched the war and, in particular, the inefficiency and corruption of the New York City Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA) regional office (which led to a shake-up in top management), of which I and thousands of other veterans had been victims. As part of our daily training, I taught Tuesday to stay off the bed while I was working, and then immediately got in the habit of slapping the comforter and telling him, “Jump on, Tuesday. Jump on, big boy.” He jumped right up and snuggled beside me. When I finally turned off the computer several hours after turning off the lights, he lay down next to me, his hot breath in my face. I always put my arm around him and talked to him. He nuzzled me gently in return until I fell asleep. Then he left my bed and curled up on his bed on the floor.

  I missed his warmth, but otherwise the sleeping arrangement didn’t bother me. I knew Tuesday was only a few feet away, and I knew he was watching and listening to me. Every time I woke up from a nightmare, disoriented and wondering whether I was in Sunset Park or Al-Waleed or a bombed room somewhere in south Baghdad, Tuesday was standing beside the bed, waiting for me to reach out for him. When I lay awake staring at the ceiling, I listened to his breathing, and I let it be a quiet rhythm for my thoughts. After a few minutes, I’d hear Tuesday stir, followed by the pressure of two paws on the bed and then, finally, the warmth of his breath. Tuesday always knew when I was awake.

  I bought him dog toys and rubber balls to keep him entertained. I wasn’t ready for the world outside, and besides, it was winter and the nearest park was fifteen blocks away. So when Tuesday and I weren’t working on commands, I sat on the couch and bounced tennis balls against the wall of my living room. Tuesday loved the chase, but the room was so small it took him only four steps to cross it. He was a smart dog, though, and he soon figured out that the best technique was to romp two steps for momentum and then, with a small leap, slide into the wall, turning over and slamming his rear into the plaster before scrambling back to me on clicking paws. He could easily do this thirty, forty, fifty times in a row without getting bored. It wasn’t great exercise, but Tuesday always came back with his tail up and a tennis ball—or a sock—stuck between his teeth. Tuesday brought my shoes and socks to me every morning so I wouldn’t have to bend over and put pressure my back. I can’t tell you how many days were ruined, before Tuesday, because I wrenched my back bending over for my shoes, but it was far too many. Now Tuesday ruined my socks instead of my day. He loved to wrestle with them on the way back from retrieving them, and half the time I delicately slid slobber-covered socks into my desert combat boots.

  When I went out for anything other than class and the VA, it was usually at night. Most people in Sunset Park avoided going out after midnight, because the crime rate in the neighborhood was high. Muggings and burglaries weren’t common, but the groups of loitering young men on Fifth Avenue and the other commercial streets felt more intimidating and aggressive late at night. It was commonly assumed among the regular Joes that the people out late in Sunset Park were not the type you wanted to run into.

  I didn’t mind the nights. The threat of attack didn’t worry me—after all, I was trained for that, and what could be worse than Baghdad?—and I liked the streets being deserted. The biggest challenge for me was navigating the streets during the day, when people were everywhere.

  The defining state of PTSD is not fear. That’s a complete misunderstanding. The defining state of PTSD is hypervigilance. Psychologists describe it as the flight-or-fight syndrome, because PTSD is essentially the superaroused state normal people enter when they are suddenly in danger, the one where the blood rushes to your head, your muscles coil, and your breathing slows. You are in survival mode, ready to fight or flee for your life. For ordinary people, it only lasts a few seconds, but for combat-scarred veterans like me, hyperarousal was a near permanent state.

  In Achilles in Vietnam, a groundbreaking b
ook about PTSD, a veteran scolded his therapist, who is also the author, for being oblivious to the world. They had walked on the same street many times, but the therapist never noticed. The veteran, on the other hand, had not only watched the therapist but knew all his habits and quirks.

  In Sunset Park, I felt exactly the same way. Most people walked down the street oblivious to the world around them. I could see it in their eyes, and I was both jealous of their mindless sense of security and appalled by their carelessness. I analyzed everybody I passed, watching the expression on their faces, their body language, the way they held their hands. I took note of the way they dressed and the places they looked. If a person glanced at me twice, I locked onto them as a potential threat, and I remembered that not just for the next five minutes but for days and weeks as well.

  It wasn’t just people. In my hypervigilant state, I was acutely aware of the environment around me. I was seeing things in sharper detail, hearing individual sounds more clearly, picking individual scents out of the thick New York air. The smell of gasoline and sewer sludge, the tang of Middle Eastern cooking spices, took me right back to Iraq. I wouldn’t see Iraq. Most veterans like me don’t suddenly think we’re in combat or have visual flashbacks like movie scenes. I experienced the feeling of being there: the adrenaline, the hyperarousal, the awareness of imminent danger. My mind jumped at every movement in an upstairs window, calculating the probabilities, while my eyes scanned doorways, parked cars, and garbage bins. Especially garbage bins. They were always overflowing with bottles and wrappers, the perfect place for an improvised bomb.

  Most people hate rats. Tuesday loved them. He’d strain way out over the edge of the subway platform for a better view of a rat. They were a close third on his excitement meter after trains and squirrels. I didn’t mind the live ones; they were harmless. The dead ones, though, made me nervous. In Iraq, insurgents hid IEDs in animal carcasses, so I never went near a dead animal.

  Or a soda can. Insurgents could place enough explosives in a soda can to blow off your arms and half your face. They did it all the time. In Sunset Park, my mind was constantly searching for soda cans. I didn’t avoid them—that would have been crazy, right, to cross the street to avoid a soda can?—but I knew exactly where they were, and I wasn’t going too near them.

  None of this was a conscious effort. It took place in millisecond bursts deep in my mind, but instead of staying in the subconscious as it does for ordinary people, the warnings were being sent in a constant churn into my conscious thoughts. My mind was wheeling in a dozen different directions at a thousand miles an hour every time I stepped onto a crowded street. That’s what brought on the anxiety, the constant checking, checking, checking to determine if I needed to act.

  Medicine helped. The right prescription drugs took the edge off my mind even better than alcohol. But nothing soothed me like Tuesday. There was something about seeing him a few feet in front of me, walking calmly, that eased my mind. He was trained to recognize the unusual, after all, and to alert me at the slightest hint of danger. When I jumped at shadows, I saw him out of the corner of my eye and thought, Tuesday’s calm so there’s nothing there, everything is fine.

  Of course, Tuesday wasn’t always calm. He never panicked, but he was occasionally distracted, especially in those early months. This was understandable. How could a dog, even one as well-trained as Tuesday, not be distracted by the blaring music, flashing lights, passing cars, and crowds on Sunset Park’s Fifth Avenue? Many service dogs could never make it in New York City. There is too much stimulus. Too much concrete instead of grass. It’s a unique assignment, to say the least.

  But knowing the difficulties didn’t make Tuesday’s lack of focus easier for me. When Tuesday was distracted, I felt unsure. In the years ahead, I learned to read his reactions. I knew when his mind was wandering, when he was merely interested in something (Squirrel! Urine-smelling tree!), and when he was alert to possible danger. Knowing Tuesday’s mood calmed my mind, because I could trust his vigilance. Today, I can walk down the street distracted and carefree because I have faith Tuesday will alert me to danger. In those early months, before I’d learned to trust his instincts, Tuesday’s greatest contribution was his presence. He was my point man, walking slightly ahead of me, symbolically leading the way. He was a buffer against the world, but also a diversion. If they were going to look at me, most people looked at Tuesday first, and that was a relief.

  Still, I preferred the night, especially in the winter, when it was too cold for anyone to stand outside for long. That December, I bundled myself up many nights, slipped the service dog vest on Tuesday, and headed out to the convenience store or the all-night liquor shop, where the bulletproof glass partition meant I never had to come in contact with another human being. It felt good to be outside, where the air was fresh and where Tuesday bounced along beside me, happy to stretch his legs after long hours inside. The streets, I suppose, held a vague menace, the spindly trees along my block throwing shadows over rusted iron railings, the streetlight buzzing yellow at the end of the block. The houses where women sat on folding chairs during the day leaned darkly, the paint peeling, music thumping softly from an open window.

  At the bottom of the block was Fifth Avenue—Brooklyn, not Manhattan—the main commercial strip. The night opened up here, with a wider street and sidewalks, and although most of the buildings were shuttered, the streetlights kept the shadows back against the walls. It was one block to the liquor store, two blocks to the all-night convenience store, and even in winter groups of young men loitered on the sidewalk, leaning against cars or storefronts. They were punks, mostly, young guys with too much time on their hands, but they never worried me. Sure, I limped, but I leaned on a big wooden cane known as a Bubba Stik. And in my hypervigilant state, I was studying them from a block away. By the time I was close enough for trouble, I knew their group dynamic, their mood, and their intentions. There was no way they could take me by surprise.

  And they never tried. I was more than six feet tall and muscular, even slouched in my black coat. I had long dark hair, full stubble, and a grim expression, so I didn’t look like someone to mess with, especially not with a large dog at my side. Tuesday may have been a tenderhearted golden retriever, but he was three feet tall and eighty pounds of muscle, and there weren’t many street punks who wanted to mess with a dog like that. Besides, neither one of us showed any hesitation. We never made eye contact, but they were wise enough to know it wasn’t out of fear. I was coiled and, in some subconscious part of my mind, ready for a fight. Sometimes, I think, I was hoping for it. I kept my knife deep in my pocket for that reason. I didn’t want it to be too easy to reach.

  After the liquor store, we often walked a few extra blocks down Fifth Avenue, then up a side street to Sixth Avenue, then back down to my block. At the corner, there was a small park. It was called Rainbow Park, according to a small green sign, but it was nothing more than a concrete slab containing a basketball court with no nets and two handball courts separated by a concrete wall and surrounded by a twenty-foot chain-link fence. Tuesday always gave the leash a little tug and glanced at me as we passed the park. I knew what he wanted, but I didn’t like the idea. The park closed at nightfall. Cops regularly drove down Sixth Avenue, and they would question someone out late. It was that kind of neighborhood. I wanted to indulge Tuesday, but I didn’t like to think about that kind of scrutiny.

  Then I realized the back handball court, behind the concrete wall, wasn’t that visible from the street. I thought about that fact for a few weeks, ignoring Tuesday’s tug on the leash, until one night, just after the New Year, Tuesday and I ducked out of the house and headed up the hill to Sixth Avenue. It was after midnight. I could see our breath like white clouds, but the tapping of my Bubba Stik was the only sound. Tuesday was walking a few steps ahead of me, pulling slightly on the leash. He wasn’t wearing his service dog vest, so he knew something was up, and I could feel his excitement. When he saw the park, he shifted towar
d it, a move so imperceptible only someone with a leash in hand would notice. Despite his polite suggestion, he expected me to turn down Sixth Avenue, as always, but this time we crossed over to the fence. There was no lock on the gate. I pushed it open and led Tuesday to the back handball court. The streetlights were on along the side street, but the concrete wall between the courts cast a dark shadow. Slowly, I knelt and unhooked the leash, bending from the knees to preserve my back. Tuesday stared at me with his natural smile, reading my face. He was excited, but he waited, silently, a perfectly behaved service dog. I shifted my cane to my left hand and pulled a tennis ball from my pocket.

  “Do you want to play, Tuesday?”

  He stood up, ready to run but not breaking eye contact until I winged the ball against the concrete wall. As it went bouncing over his head, Tuesday leapt, turning in midair as it sailed past his teeth. I laughed as he took off running, tracking the ball down in the corner then jogging back to me with it clenched in his teeth.

  “Another throw, Tuesday?” I said, slinging the spit-covered ball.

  He missed again, then sprinted after it. By the time he reached me with the slobberball, he was already a little winded.

  I threw it again. Tuesday chased, the ball bouncing wildly off the concrete court. I threw odd angles and high hard ones, trying to bounce it past him each time. I expected him to get tired, but the more Tuesday chased that ball, the more he wanted to run. In the Army, we have an expression: “getting smoked.” We worked out in the early morning, pushing ourselves until the sweat poured down our skin. As the day heated up, the sweat evaporated until, on really punishing days, a cloud of water vapor rose off our shoulders like smoke. By the time I was tired of throwing tennis balls, Tuesday was smoked. It wasn’t sweat, since dogs don’t sweat, but heat was rising from his core and right off the top of his head. He stood looking at me through a pale cloud, huffing giant breaths of smoke, his tongue dangling and a look on his face I recognized from my own time getting smoked, back before my injuries: exhaustion and joy. He could have run for days.