What We Do For Love

I remember Benjamin, the smartest dog in the world and also the freest spirit imaginable, offspring of a big black lab, Mikey, and a little white terrier who was named Isaiah even though she was a girl, this being the '70's when hippies named their dogs and children randomly without much reference to gender. Mikey and Isaiah lived next door to one another and flirted desperately, all of us in the commune knew they were fated to make beautiful music together.

Benjamin was one of a litter of nine, and every puppy looked like a different breed, there were terriers and spaniels and cockapoos and greyhounds, and we studied them all, me and Karl and Katy, and chose the largest and fluffiest one to keep, really at random, I especially had no kind of judgment never having a dog growing up, only a parakeet, and as I recall, you didn't really pick out a parakeet, your father just brought it home one day and you said, oh how sweet, and then after a few months it flew out the window, at least that's what they told you.

Benjamin lived in the days before leash laws or if there were laws, we just ignored them, not in a defiant way, we were just oblivious. I mean, back then, our old Chevy pickup was stitched together with duct tape and Bondo, and Karl was working as a carpenter and I cleaned houses and danced with spirits and we all lived in the woods in a bohemian shack, we were ecstatic escapees from the middle-class and deeply in love. Benjamin was our true companion. He went on the job with Karl every day, explored and sniffed and napped, wandered through the streets and byways, if we went to a party he came, and every night he curled up at the foot of Katy's mattress, every morning he ate from his mixing bowl of feed-store kibble until he was full.

One February when it was really cold and the snow was deep between the trees we noticed that Benjamin wasn't eating much anymore. He looked fine, all brisk and shiny eyed, tail awagging, but sniffed at his food uninterested, turned away, laid down in a corner and panted happily, as to why we had no idea. After a few minutes he got up, trotted over to the door which was his signal to go out, and began to walk down the path to the main road a mile and a half away. Karl followed him, sneaking behind, watched as our carefree dog started digging in the snow, unburying the half-eaten, frozen remnants of a woodchuck and commenced to gnaw on it, chomping and growling in feral joy.

We decided not to kiss Benjamin till Spring.

Benjamin was always very good about coming home. Even if he went on an adventure, we could be sure to see him again when night fell. He seemed to have an unerring sense of direction and never got lost or turned around like Katy and I did all the time. But one day he failed to come back and we started to worry, in the morning we took the truck out and drove around on back roads hoping to catch a glimpse of him, and after a couple more days we began to get really scared that something had happened, that he'd been injured or run over so we drove farther afield, we asked around, we knocked on doors, have you seen this dog? Have you seen a shaggy black dog, not too big, with a red collar? But everyone shook their head no.

Now across the little valley that bordered our mountainside was an old farmhouse, and in that farmhouse lived a collection of strange folks we had never really gotten to know. Their spiritual leader was a woman who said she was a clairvoyant. I didn't believe in psychics. Karl didn't believe in psychics very much but a little more than me, because he thought he met the devil during a particularly intense LSD trip and couldn't be convinced otherwise. But we were both desperate to find Benjamin.

"I see him. He has hurt his leg, he is trying to make his way home, soon he will be home."

We were so relieved that Benjamin was alive. It was wonderful to have hope we would see him again soon. We were glad we had suspended any stupid skepticism and asked for her help.

The next day, Karl drove to a new worksite the other side of town, about 20 minutes away, I think he needed to dig out a basement to pour concrete. Anyway, he got flagged down by a fellow named Church we got to know when we first moved to the area, kind of a ne'er-do-well bad boy. When he was young he was real handsome but as he got older he became fat and brutal. But Church was still good-looking then.

He yelled out to Karl, "Hey, your dog has been hanging out in my garage for the last two weeks and if you don't get him out I'm gonna shoot the son of a bitch."

Karl said "What?" disbelievingly. Remember, he still had the vivid image in his head of Benjamin limping through the forest struggling to get home.

"Damn right," he said, "My dog is in heat." Church had a small three-legged female dog, sort of yellowish tan in color. She lost a leg in one of Church's rabbit traps but was still plenty spry.

Of course Karl jumped out of the truck immediately and headed to Church's garage and grabbed Benjamin and practically threw him into the passenger seat, and all day long he kept Benjamin close by, close enough to touch, and spoke very severely to him about not running after every three-legged floozy in the world, especially one owned by a man with a shotgun.