by Robert Rodi
It’s one of the best briefing speeches I’ve heard—and a particularly apt message for me today, even though I’d already set my mind on keeping my cool and not allowing blunders and foul-ups to sour my mood. Given the way Dusty’s been performing lately, I can use all the reinforcement I can get.
As it happens, Dusty turns in a perfectly respectable run, his best ever in this class; there are just two refusals—one too many for open. So we don’t qualify, but it’s a near thing. In novice it would’ve been a perfect score. I give Dusty a manly back rub and tell him how pleased I am. “Just keep it up, boy. I mean—no pressure, or anything. But that was great.”
Our standard run goes better than usual too. So well that I think, “If I can just get him over the teeter we’ll be home free.” And a diabolical little gambit occurs to me in midrun, so that when we’re making our approach I shout, “Walk it!” which is my command for the dog walk. The way I figure, if Dusty’s really nearsighted, he won’t notice the difference till he’s halfway across, and maybe sheer momentum will keep him going after that.
But I should know better than to underestimate the little guy; he sails off the teeter like a swallow from a Capistrano rooftop.
All right, then. No Q in standard either. We finish the run to polite applause, and I feel the initial pricklings of irritation along my hairline. I close my eyes and remind myself, “No matter what happens, I’m going home with the world’s best dog.” When I open my eyes again, the world’s best dog has his snout stuck up the anus of an affronted looking Braque du Bourbonnais.
All that’s left now is our FAST run, and this is the one I’ve been waiting for. I’ve got a good feeling about it. Dusty’s been running well all day, I’ve plotted out a plan of attack that emphasizes all his strengths, and the send bonus is a simple pair of jumps well within his comfort zone. If I can just get up enough speed, he’ll be over them before he knows it. Everything is aligned to make this a qualifying run, our first in a very long time.
Finally, our moment comes. The dog before us finishes and I lead Dusty out to the line. “This is it, boy,” I tell him. “Make me proud. We’re going home winners tonight!” I remove his leash and collar, toss them behind me, then turn expectantly to the timekeeper.
“Go when ready,” he says.
“All right, boy,” I say. “Over!” And I propel myself forward, leading him toward the first jump. He follows—he clears it beautifully.
And the whistle blows.
I stop in my tracks; I can’t believe it.
“Thank you,” the judge says. “Run concluded.”
“What?” I say. “But . . . why?”
There’s the slightest hint of a smirk on her face as she replies, “That was the finish jump. Thank you again.”
I look back. Good God, it’s true. In my efforts to talk up Dusty’s confidence, I walked him right past our first jump to the one next to it. The one that automatically stops the clock. We started and finished our run in the exact same second.
And it’s not Dusty’s fault; it’s mine.
Oh, sure, most people will tell you that whatever goes wrong on the course is the handler’s fault, but rarely is it so incontestably the case as it is now. People in the crowd are actually laughing at me. Several individuals come up and say, “Don’t feel bad, I’ve done exactly the same thing.” But they look like the kind of people who require spoon feeding, which sort of discounts any solace I might find in them. They might as well be chanting, “One of us! One of us!”
Fortunately, my All Fours colleagues are watching someone else’s run and have thus missed this apex of ineptitude. I sit down in the empty crating area and feed Dusty half a dozen whitefish-and-potato biscuits. He’s certainly earned them more than I have. After each one he licks his lips, leaving big wet smears on either side of his face. He’s as thoroughly unpresentable as ever, but when I look at him I no longer see the rodentlike creature I adopted against my better judgment. What I see is a gifted athlete whose potential I unleashed and with whom I went on to win an actual agility title. That we haven’t won anything since has been a persistent sore spot with me.
I consider whether I ought to set some sort of deadline—some date by which, if we’re still treading water, I can just give up and get out. Retire from the game for good. Then I remember: I already have a deadline. When I originally undertook this endeavor, I gave myself a year. One solid year to see how far Dusty and I could go. Well, that still gives me a few months. Why not stick them out? If fate doesn’t want me running agility anymore, fate can just bloody well step in and stop me.
Little do I realize I’ve just violated a prime rule of life which is: “Don’t give fate any ideas.”
CHAPTER 29
A Break in the Battle
It’s my usual morning routine; I go through it almost without thought. I sling my gym bag over my shoulder and head out the back door. I open the garage, throw my bag in the car, and then double back to the yard to pick up some dog droppings I spotted en route. It just takes a few moments to scoop up the few new piles—fresh this morning, by the smell of them—then I step out to the alley to deposit them in the garbage bin. Just a small detour before I hop behind the wheel and head to my club for a workout.
The next thing I know, my leg goes out from under me and I’m hurled to the ground. As I fall, I feel a terrible shuttling of my right ankle—like a telescope closing and then opening again.
It all happened so quickly, I have to sit there, blinking, and assess what’s happened. But it isn’t complicated; it’s an accident of the simplest kind. I command myself not to panic, even as I feel the first salvo of pain.
Fortunately, Jeffrey is working at home this morning. I take my cell phone from my jacket pocket and dial him up. “Could you meet me in the alley, please?” I ask.
“Could I—Excuse me?”
“I just slipped on a patch of ice and I can’t get up.”
Despite having said this, I try to rise as soon as I flip the phone shut, but my ankle won’t support any weight at all, and the attempt sends electric shocks of agony up my leg. I give up and lower myself back to the concrete, and it’s then that I notice that the bags of shit I’ve just picked up never actually made it into the trash; instead they’ve flown open and spatter painted me with feces. I utter a low moan of black despair.
Jeffrey appears a moment later, still pulling a fleece over his head. “I’m covered in dog crap,” I tell him.
Recognizing that this is the least of my problems, he insists that we go to the hospital immediately—shit-smeared jacket and all. As I shimmy out of the way so he can pull his car out of the garage, I manage to slide myself directly through a puddle of soggy snow.
“My ass is all wet,” I complain as he comes around to help me into the passenger seat.
“We’ll deal with that later,” he says slightly exasperated.
En route, I try to de-poo myself with the help of some paper napkins from Starbucks I have in my pocket. It’s really not working. If anything, it’s just grinding the mess into the fabric.
“Do you think it’s broken?” he asks.
“I’m pretty sure. I think I heard it snap. With any luck I’m wrong and it’s just a sprain. Is the smell bothering you? It’s too cold to open a window . . .”
“Never mind the goddamn smell,” he says a bit testily. I open the window anyway and toss the napkins through it. I think I read somewhere that Starbucks napkins are biodegradable. Still, I pledge to make yet another donation to Greenpeace.
Within ten minutes I’m seated in the emergency room at Swedish Covenant Hospital. Jeffrey used to work in media relations here, so he knows all the doctors. I should be in good hands. But the longer I wait, the greater the pain. In fact it becomes close to deranging, and I’m suddenly aware that I’m making rather startling noises. I can tell by the look on Jeffrey’s face that he’s growing increasingly alarmed, and the other people in the ER seem to inch away from me by degrees. I can’t blame
them; I’m the crazy, smelly, damp man who’s alternately mewling like a kitten and barking like a sea lion. I might even find it funny, if my brain weren’t at present trying to tear itself right out of my skull.
The ankle has swollen hideously, despite being held in by the collar of my boot. It’s pretty clear that this is no mere sprain. Sprains don’t induce this kind of shrieking torment. This is a fracture. Possibly a bad one.
I’m finally wheeled in to see the bone specialist—one Dr. Stamelos—who takes me in for an X-ray. “I’m going to have to hurt you,” he says as I lie beneath the giant lens. I tell him he can’t possibly make the pain any worse than it already is. He gives my foot a twist and I get a lesson in not saying stupid things. Later Jeffrey will tell me that my bansheelike stream of expletives (in both English and Italian) echoed down the corridor to the reception desk and caused several veteran staff members to momentarily blanch.
“Sorry,” Dr. Stamelos says with an apologetic grin. “Necessary angle.” Then he gives me a Vicodin and rolls me out into the hallway, where I lie abandoned on a gurney. But it’s all right, the medication soon helps bring the world into some kind of rational order again, and by the time Jeffrey locates me I can breathe, even speak. Still, any hope that I might return home and continue my day as planned is pretty much dashed.
The X-ray reveals a break of sufficient seriousness to require surgery, which is booked for the day after tomorrow.
In the meantime, my leg is strapped in a splint up to the bend in my knee, and then encased in an enormous cast. As the technician applies this, he steals a glance at my X-ray and says, “You’ve broken this ankle before?”
“No,” I say, “never.”
He shrugs. “Funny, looks like it.” But he’s just a technician so I pay no attention.
It’s only later, as I sit in the car being driven home, a new pair of crutches propped over my shoulder, that I recall I did indeed injure this very ankle when I fell on the ice up at Hounds. Oh, and prior to that, when I’d kicked that miserable rottweiler. It now seems entirely likely that I weakened the ankle in that first incident, worsened it in the second, and now, inevitably, broke it to bits this morning.
The irony is not lost on me as I hobble into the house, past my own dogs, who skitter away in fright from my clacking crutches. It will be several weeks, at least, before I’m able to walk them again. In the meantime, I’ll have to hire a service to do the job for me. In attempting to protect my dogs, I’ve rendered myself incapable of looking after them.
I have to crawl like some kind of tree sloth up the stairs to the bedroom, where I am at last able to change out of my wet pants. I pull myself up onto the bed, position myself over the pillows, and drop onto them, utterly limp. I’d like nothing better than to nap. My body, broken and traumatized, craves it, but my mind is racing. Banking, shopping, cooking, laundry—the list of daily activities I have to desist, defer, or delegate is long and daunting. How the hell is anything going to get done if I’m not able to do it? There’s also the matter of a freelance job I’m supposed to have finished by the end of the week. I’ve blithely procrastinated because I was confident of my ability to slam it out in just a day or two of intensive, last-minute labor. But now I’ve got to have surgery in two days and my schedule—not to mention my ability to think linearly on these “supersize ’em” painkillers—is up for grabs.
And then, as the icing on the cake, I recall that my next agility trial is just a little over two weeks away. I certainly won’t be able to drive by then. Out of desperation I briefly consider hiring a car service. Arriving in a Saab 9-3 garners me enough dirty looks; pulling up in a Lincoln Town Car with a driver in a jacket and tie would be pushing my rep right over the edge. Plus, even if I did manage to get there, hello, I still wouldn’t be able to run the damn dog.
For the fist time something like grief gets hold of me, and I have to choke back frustrated tears. Never mind the house falling apart because I can’t lift a finger to maintain it; never mind going broke because I have to renege on a job at the last minute. The thing that gut punches me, emotionally, is the thought of ending Dusty’s career on this frustrating, downbeat note. “So much for my vaunted ambition,” I tell myself. “So much for seeing how far I could go in a year.” Which is really just self-pity, and I know it. I had already accepted some time ago that Dusty and I were not cut out to go very far. Swift progress just isn’t on Dusty’s one-year plan.
But through the miasma of misery, I begin thinking about our last run, when I led Dusty entirely astray. He was all set to Q and I sabotaged him with my stupidity. I can’t help but wonder if I’m the bad apple: what if I’ve hampered Dusty’s success? What if he’s stalled due to my limitations? That we haven’t won anything in months has been a persistent sore spot with me. But I’d never considered the possibility that perhaps I’ve taken Dusty as far as I can. That he might be better off if I turned him over to a different handler—someone with a fresh approach, who might be able to break through the impasse I’ve reached with him.
I put the brakes on this increasingly self-pitying train of thought. This is all just foolish speculation. There’s no guaranteeing Dusty would perform better for anyone else. In fact there’s a strong case to be made against it. After all, there’s his unfailing misanthropy; he flat-out refuses to warm to anyone other than Jeffrey and me. Hell, he won’t even go near anybody but Jeffrey and me. So that settles it right there. He’ll have to wait for me to recuperate.
I’m about to drop the whole matter and return to more urgent considerations when Jeffrey himself appears with a cup of hot tea, triggering an entirely new idea. “This should help you relax,” he says as he places the cup on the bedside table. “Anything else I can do for you?”
“As a matter of fact,” I say, my mind suddenly working furiously, “there is.”
“What?” He stands upright and wipes the steam from his hands onto his jeans. “More pillows?”
“Not even close,” I say, pausing theatrically for a moment. “What would you think about running Dusty at his next agility meet?”
He glances over his shoulder, like I might be talking to someone behind him. “Who, me?”
“I’ll fill you in. It’s not for a couple weeks. You don’t have to do both days, only Sunday, if you like. I just hate for him to miss the whole weekend. We had so much momentum going after the last trial.” I’m talking like a lunatic—I can see it in Jeffrey’s aghast expression. But I can’t stop. “There are at least two of Dee’s Thursday classes before then. You can go and train in my place, get up to speed.” He’s looking more and more dubious, so I add, “I’ll come along and give you moral support. Come on, it’ll be just the once. How bad can it be?”
At this point Dusty bounds into the room and onto the bed, then settles down next to me and heaves a contented sigh. Jeffrey looks from him to me and says, “He’s really your dog, though. Always has been.”
I muse on this a bit. A working relationship between Dusty and Jeffrey might drastically alter their entire dynamic. So much so that it might supercede Dusty’s and my relationship even after I’m back on my feet. The whole arc of this past year has been my journey with Dusty, how far I might take him. Now that I physically can’t take him anywhere at all, I realize that I have to put aside my own ambitions and let someone else have a shot. It’s high time I reminded myself that this is about Dusty, not me. And if Jeffrey can supply the spark that pushes him just that little bit further, I’ve got to accept that. For Dusty’s sake.
“That’ll change when you start working with him. You’ll be amazed. Trust me on this.” I tell him about Dee and Keith—how he ran her dog when she was laid up. I decide not to say how well that worked out for them.
With the weight of precedent against him, Jeffrey can only agree—which he does monosyllabically, then shies away.
After he’s gone, I lie there looking at Dusty, who’s curled up asleep on the edge of the mattress. Things could indeed change when Jeffrey
takes him over. But all this is useless speculation. They haven’t even taken their first jump yet. Possibly they’ll be a disaster together. Not that I want that—or do I? No, of course I don’t. Anyway, it’s silly getting all worked up about it now. Especially since I’ve got plenty of more immediate problems hounding me.
Like, how am I ever going to get any sleep with four pounds of masonry clamped to my leg?
CHAPTER 30
Hop Alone
The Yahoo! group, on hearing my news, immediately dubs me Hopalong. This for some strange reason gives me a swell of pride I never imagined a nickname could incite—I really feel part of this group—and I take to signing my e-mails that way.
Jason suggests I learn to stand in the middle of the ring and just point Dusty to the obstacles. He’s kidding, of course; he knows full well that for Dusty pointing would be, well, pointless. Diane is closer to the mark when she suggests I get a Segway. And Dee commiserates by retelling the story of her own shattered ankle. “I broke mine on the front step to my house,” she writes, “but I told people at trials it was while I was skydiving naked. It made a better story. It happened just when I was chasing Darby’s MACH. Running in a cast builds character!” And in fact I do remember her teaching class while on crutches. Men may have the edge over women in sheer physical strength, but, ye gods, they beat us cold when it comes to stamina.
Since running in a cast is not something I care to consider, I try gently, and in small doses, to acquaint Jeffrey with agility’s rules and conventions. It’s not terribly difficult stuff, but he listens with a kind of vaporous “this isn’t really happening” demeanor—as though he thinks I might in a few days toss aside my crutches, pronounce myself cured, and then go on a ten-mile jog. Or maybe it’s all so simple that he’s just humoring me by even appearing to listen and is counting on everything falling into place when he gets to class.