Experience would soon teach me that the only sounds in the early morning were the distant hum of lobster boats traversing the bay to pull up more traps, that the late-afternoon breeze always required a fleece, that you could walk a hundred yards into the absurdly clear—and cold—water at high tide and still be no deeper than your waist. It was a far, far cry from anything and everything I’d known as a kid, which was Nantasket Beach in Hull, Massachusetts, where Paragon Park and the 25-cent arcades were the backdrop, or Wessagusset Beach in my hometown of Weymouth, which was constantly being shut down for high fecal counts. I was, instantly and eternally, in love.
I was there courtesy of a close college friend, Peter Kelley, whose parents had the uncommon wisdom—and money—to buy a ramshackle cottage across the quiet street from the beach in 1961, then never let a renovator or designer anywhere near the place. He brought a group of us there the afternoon we graduated from school, so the “holy shit” moment was in every way a collective one.
My college friends and I would come to learn all the charms of Kennebunkport, most important and especially the back deck of the Arundel Wharf, the single nicest bar in America, where we would sip gin and tonics and ice-cold beers as whale-watching boats and fishing vessels navigated the tidal river at the day’s end. We would stand there while the fizz of the tonic water tickled our sunburned wrists, until light gave way to dark, until polo shirts gave way to jackets, until there was barely a square inch of our legs that hadn’t hosted a mosquito, all the while talking about the triumphs of our past and the dreams of our future and wondering how it could ever get any better than this.
It did, for most of us. There were marriages and promotions, births and successes, all recounted year after year when we got together on those same spots, whether the sands of Goose Rocks or the forgiving fairways of the Cape Arundel Golf Club or the welcoming environs of the Wharf, where the bartenders truly did know our names—and our favorite drinks. Somebody’s wife or girlfriend once joked, “I don’t know how you guys ever have any new stories to tell when you stand around all the time and talk about your past.” But somehow there always were new stories, which only got better and funnier in the retelling.
I couldn’t wait to introduce Harry to Kennebunkport back in the day. I didn’t think it was possible for anyone to love Goose Rocks any more than I did, but he somehow topped me. He would dig in the sand, plow through the small waves, wade in the crystal waters, and sometimes just pad along the shore next to me with a ridiculous smile on his unfailingly handsome face. His presence led me to stay, year in, year out, for every summer of his ten-year life, in some of the most dated rental cottages along the beach, the only ones that would take a dog, but it didn’t matter, because it was me and him in Maine and that’s what counted most. We would be on the beach early in the morning. We would be back on the beach in the early evening. The women with us may have changed, when there were women with us at all, but we stayed the same. Always damp, he would ride shotgun in my car, nose out the window, breeze in his ears, lying in the doorways of stores in Dock Square as I ran through whatever errands invariably poked into my days.
That last summer, August 2004, was at once the best and worst. I never knew joy and sorrow could be so intricately entwined. Harry was sick and getting sicker. I rented a beautiful new house about a mile or so from the beach for the whole month, a contemporary farm with a sprawling back deck overlooking forest and fields. We slowly walked Goose Rocks every morning, Harry merrily trudging beside me, a smile on his face, eyes squinting in the early sun. I don’t imagine dogs can recall the past, but maybe so, and if they could, he was thinking of all those times from years gone by when he would be ripping across the sand, leaping to catch a long toss on the first bounce, swerving into the surf, paddling through the river, digging holes so deep that the only thing you could see was his tail and the constant whoosh of sand. He was such a different dog now, gray around his whole muzzle, mature beyond his years, drinking in the scenery, smelling the salt that filled the air.
Then we would sit in the soft sand by the dunes, Harry and I, in the warming sun. He would gaze toward the water, eye the younger dogs that were loping through the surf, make a feint at digging a hole but then quickly stop and look at me, somewhat amused, as if he were saying “Remember when?” If he could have said “Thank you,” he would have. I could, so I did, hugging him close, his damp fur against the grain of my weathered polo, nuzzling his ear. “You’re the best friend I’ll ever have,” I’d tell him again and again and again.
By the second week or so in Maine, I basically stopped doing anything else—no golf, no midday trips to the beach when he wasn’t allowed, no long dinners out, no nights at the Wharf. I knew then what I know now: there would be a time, too soon in this life, when I would give anything I had to reach back and spend another hour with this incredible dog. I wanted to savor what I had left, and I wanted to be there for him after all the being there he’d given me.
One day, my mother and sister Carole, two of Harry’s favorite people on the planet, arrived for a visit. When they walked through the French doors into the house, Harry literally dived under the coffee table and refused to move. My mother started to cry, thinking it meant he was about to die. My sister was shocked. I could only laugh. Harry wanted exactly the same thing as me, which was time for just the two of us together, and he looked at them as intruders who might take him away.
We lived out our month in solitude, the beach in the morning, the back deck every afternoon, Harry sprawled on the wood, me tapping at my laptop, and at night, we’d drive into town for a plate of fried clams, then head back home to read, the Red Sox playing on the car radio amid their remarkable August surge on the way to the World Series. That last evening on an empty beach, we both lingered until all the light had drained from the sky. We sat in the soft sand down by the far river. I did a few sit-ups to try to create the veneer of normalcy. Harry licked my nose, as he always did. I looked at his gaunt face and said, “Harry, I don’t want you hanging around for me. I know you’re in pain. When you want to go, just let me know and I’ll make sure everything is just right.” He looked at me as I spoke, and then he looked away.
An old Bill Clinton quote kept coming to mind: “It doesn’t take long to live a life.” And a dog’s life comes and goes far too fast.
Walking off the beach that night, I knew Harry would never see it again. He had watched me packing a couple of hours before, so I suspect he knew it as well. Still he came, reliably, readily, bravely. What mattered wasn’t so much where we were or what we were doing but the fact that we were together. Harry was calm until the end.
When Harry died about a month later, back in Boston, I thought, maybe even worried, that my love of Kennebunkport would die with him. But it didn’t. The next year, I bought the house where we had spent his last August. I placed a photograph of him sitting on the beach, soaking wet, tennis ball in mouth, prominently on the living room wall. Morning walkers on Goose Rocks still asked about Harry. I can still see him in the water, smell the beach on his fur, picture the breeze blowing his damp ears. Those memories, the many things we shared, make Maine even more vital and ever more tranquil a retreat for me—my favorite place in this world.
On another August afternoon, a few years later, a rooster named Buddy made his virgin trip to the house, and the Maine I knew would never be the same.
From the moment Pam lifted him from the soft blankets that covered the passenger seat of her Toyota SUV and placed him gently on the terra firma of the state of Maine for the very first time, young Buddy was a bird in distress.
It didn’t take a member of the Audubon Society or a third-generation poultry farmer to see why. His beady little eyes darted around the perimeter of my yard with a mix of fear and scorn. What he saw was a vast forest, sprawling fields, and quiet meadows dotted with wildflowers. What he didn’t see was a fence or nice neighbors who would bring him corn and imported cheese. He didn’t see one lawn flowing into an
other. He didn’t see simple ornamental bushes that provided safe and vital shade. No, he didn’t see any of that.
If you’re a human, which I am, the fields and forest provide a respite from the crowded concrete of the city, an opportunity to commune with nature, a tranquil massage for the mind. It is quiet but for the cackle of the occasional hawk and the nighttime howl of the distant coyote. It is remote, and it is peaceful.
For an overly domesticated bird, specifically a chicken, and especially this particularly pampered chicken, every inch and every moment of this unfamiliar setting represented a monumental threat to his increasingly self-important life. The woods where I saw nature, he saw predators. The fields where I looked for clarity as I typed on my computer keyboard, he saw as spawning grounds for beasts that would eat him alive. The clear blue skies overhead, with their regular display of nighttime stars, were the perfect habitat for flying monsters who could swoop down and carry him off in one jaw-clenching bite.
So what Buddy did, once he quickly calculated the score, was draw a deep breath into his puffed-out chest, hold it there for a moment, and then let out a crow so deep, so long, and so loud that it all but shook the needles from the ancient scrub pines that made up so much of the surrounding woods. And then he did it again and again and again, until his pointy little head seemed ready to explode off his fat neck—and so did mine. He did it until Pam finally leaned down and cheerfully said, “Poor Boo-Disk, you’re not used to it up here, are you?” Buddy clucked a soft acknowledgment to her that, no, he wasn’t used to it up here, didn’t particularly like it, and preferred to let people and creatures know about his feelings. And then he went back to warning the rest of the natural world not to mess with him.
I looked at him a little nervously, thinking, Okay, he’s going to calm down. I mean, he’s got to calm down. It’s impossible to keep screaming that loud without putting yourself into a state of total exhaustion. “You’ll be okay, Buddy,” I said, trying to sound sincere. Of course, the thought occurred to me that maybe his enemies really were lurking lustily in the woods. I could only hope. God, I love the state of Maine.
As I listened to Buddy’s incessant crowing, something else, some blur, some frantic, foreign motion, caught the corner of my eye and seemed equally alarming. I whirled around to see Pam emptying out the back of the car of bikes, special blankets, pillows and dolls, scooters, coloring books and craft kits, coolers filled with unusual foods, grocery bags, and, of course, luggage, many pieces of colorful nylon luggage. Christopher Columbus didn’t pack this heavily when he was in pursuit of the New World.
Buddy screeched through it all. Pam was stacking everything in neat piles by the stairs that led up to the deck as if Buddy weren’t even there at all. The happy kids were dragging horse jumps they had brought across the lawn I had just mown, leaving divots in their wakes. The two dogs were looking at me as if the world as they knew it was coming to an end. And it was—their world, my world. I just didn’t know how to explain it to them or to admit that I had invited this on myself.
The dogs and I had arrived in Maine a day earlier to get things ready for our vacation. I did yard work. I opened all the windows and let the house breathe, watered the flowers, took a long sunset walk on the beach with the hounds, sprawled on a teak lounge chair on my beautiful deck and read a book to the quiet sounds of nature, grilled a ribeye for dinner, watched the Red Sox, and fell into a deep, satisfying slumber. It was my life, or at least one part of my life, okay, maybe a fading part of my life, and I loved it.
And now here were Pam, her kids, Buddy and—look what else!—the two rabbits, which Pam began lugging upstairs in their cumbersome cage. “I know you wouldn’t want Dolly and Lily to be all alone,” she said, flashing a smile that she knew I couldn’t resist. My old life was crashing into my new life or, more accurately, being overwhelmed by it, here on my favorite stage set, which is Maine. I looked at the kids excitedly jumping around the yard, shouting to their mother “We want our bathing suits!” I heard Pam cooing to the rabbits “You girls will love it up here!” I watched the rooster crowing his guts out. I thought about the past and the future and told myself—really, convinced myself—that that was the way it should be, the good and the bad. I grabbed a pile of Pam’s luggage and began the monstrous task of taking it all upstairs.
Buddy, it ended up, had a strategy for dealing with nature: he did everything in his power to avoid it. That meant he wanted nothing to do with the lawn, which undoubtedly contained a veritable buffet of delicacies for him, things like worms and ticks and various other delicious bugs. He went nowhere near the growth that ringed the yard. He wouldn’t so much as look toward the fields that I thought might have helped him discover his true chicken.
No, what he did was climb up the half-dozen or so steps to the mahogany deck that spanned the entire back of the house and try pecking his way through the glass doors that led into the living room. He pecked and pecked and pecked, pausing only long enough to defecate on the flooring that I was so irrationally proud of you would think I had nailed it together myself, big black-and-white gobs of feces that hit the wood with a cringe-inducing splat. When he wasn’t pecking and splatting, he was screaming at the top of his lungs, warnings to predators lurking in the woods and pleas to the girls inside to protect him from the ruthless dangers of this godforsaken place.
“Come on in, Boo,” Caroline, the younger, said, opening the French doors. He proudly walked inside, left another gift on my hardwood floors, and hopped up onto the white couch to join them for a quick show on TV before the beach. When I finished lugging their belongings upstairs, I sputtered at the unfolding scene. The chicken eyed me warily, and the girls basically ignored me. Actually, Abigail tossed her arms around his neck and proclaimed, “Poor Boo-Boo’s not used to it yet.”
The girls, being exactly that, were easily distracted, and moments later they raced outside to ride their scooters and jump their horse jumps and shout again to their mother that they wanted to get ready for the beach. Buddy sat on the couch, suddenly looking a little less comfortable, with me but a few feet away.
“C’mon, pal,” I said, trying to lure him back outside through the open French doors. He looked at me as though I had absolutely lost whatever tiny mind I ever had.
“Come on, Buddy, seriously,” I said. No movement whatsoever, except for his little head twitching. Maybe I was imagining things, but his eyes were trained on the television set as if he weren’t quite done watching the show. I walked over to the closet and pulled out a broom, which made him leap through the air and scurry beneath the kitchen table, squawking all the while. The kids were playing on the driveway. Pam was upstairs unpacking. I pulled one chair out, and he hid beneath another. I pulled that chair out, and he moved into the corner, clucking and barking. I had no idea what I was going to do, but finally, mercifully, Pam appeared, took measure of the situation, and calmly declared, “Buddy, out!” He dropped his head and waddled back out the French doors he had entered, softly cawing his protests but doing exactly what she asked.
My sense of victory was fleeting. Once outside, young Buddy resumed his crowing regimen, never stepping on the grass that we had wrongly figured he would love. Chest full, chest empty, beak to the sky, beak to the ground. It was as if he were a windup doll you’d buy at a joke store to annoy the living hell out of someone you truly didn’t like.
“Why don’t we just drive down to the beach?” I said to Pam, unable to hide my exasperation.
“We can’t now,” she said. “Let’s let Buddy settle in. I don’t want to leave him when he’s this emotional.”
Emotional? Emotional! Try tyrannical. But either way, the impact was the same. I was trapped in a hell of my own making. My tranquil getaway house, this place where I used to laze on the deck for hours at a time with music softly wafting through the doors, where I used to come on brilliant autumn weekends to escape the noise of the real world, where I would quietly write columns for the Globe, was suddenly a bad Sart
re play: No Exit.
“Hey, Brian, can we use the paint in the basement to draw some lines in the driveway?” That was Abigail, giving me a somewhat urgent and breathless look as she popped her head in the door. I looked out the window and saw several cans sitting in the grass, Caroline about to pull the lids off them. I also saw a bunch of logs spread out over the lawn. How could an entire state suddenly feel like a shoebox?
“Abs, no on the paint. And what are the logs doing in the yard?”
“They’re our jumps,” she said proudly before bolting back outside.
Pam shut the doors to keep Buddy from getting back in, which in itself was odd for me, because I liked everything wide open, nature as part of my living room and my living room as part of nature. If I sound like a Crate & Barrel catalog, so be it. The doors, however, only spurred Buddy to scream louder and longer. I stood there frozen in my own kitchen for a moment, almost disoriented. The day before, every door and window had been open. Colorful butterflies had fluttered across my deck and I could all but hear their wings flap. The dogs had been wet, exhausted, and content. The yard had been quiet. My mind had been at ease. The only real tension had involved whether to head into town for dinner or grill steak at home.
And now this: kids dragging logs across the grass I’d worked so hard to grow; rabbits defecating in a cage on my second floor; a rooster screeching bloody murder outside my door; a girlfriend telling me I was basically a prisoner of my own chaotic house. I looked at Baker, who looked back at me, and we both seemed to have an identical thought at the exact same time, that being “How did this happen to us?” But what should I do? Should I get in my car under the guise of running errands? Should I pull a Harry Angstrom and never come back? Should I throw a tantrum to let people know who’s really in control? Should I put up with this lunacy until everyone returns home and then take the appropriate steps to make sure it never happens again?
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