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Of dogs and divorce!
By Al
Ruechel | 08-14-02
I don’t think it is coincidence that
the same letters that make up the word G-O-D also can be used to
spell the word D-O-G. To a little boy growing up in a small rural
Iowa town my dogs were about as close as I could get to God. They
were my constant companions in the good times and bad, sleeping on
my bed, escorts on my paper routes, offering me the comfort I needed
in a world turned upside down by my parents divorce.
Let’s see, there was Skippy! My black
cocker spaniel. I don’t remember much about her except the picture
in my photo album. I’m wearing that old Gene Autrey cowboy hat.
Skippy is leaning on my knee with a red bandana around his neck.
There was Chico, a German shepherd mix, a regular Heinz 57. He spent
a lot of time out on my grandfather's farm. And I can remember three
or four other dogs that had sort life spans. Dogs didn’t seem to
live long in an agriculture community were rat poison was spread
around the grain elevators at both ends of the town and veterinary
care was just too expensive.
But of all the dogs I hugged and
buried none were a dear to me as King and Lassie. They were my
living guardian angels. Dad brought home King from the office one
day in a big old box. Some farmer had given the dog to dad to pay
for doing his taxes. I remember the event so clearly because it was
the weekend after Mom and my brother Bill had moved out of the house
for good. It took me another year or more before I finally
understood what a divorce was. I guess the dog was supposed to make
up for some of the pain of loosing half my family. Lassie came into
my life only a few weeks later, another puppy I found while digging
around the junkyard for hidden treasures.
King was a huge animal. It was clear
by looking at his feet and coloring he had some St. Bernard and
Husky tossed in to boot. I could ride on his back when he was just 6
months old. He didn’t bark much. He slept out back in a doghouse
made out of three old doors nailed together. Dad said he was
protecting the house. Each morning King would alternate between
pulling me and my bike around on the paper route, and checking out
all the garbage cans along the way. Those were the days when it was
safe for a 10-year-old to run around the small town of 800 without
worrying about molesters, bad guys, and abductors. My customers even
liked King. The Millers would always put a bone out on the porch for
him. They ran the local grocery store and had an endless supply of
those huge cattle knees that King could devour in the time it took
me to fold each paper and stuff it inside it’s holder.
Lassie was my bed companion. Half the
size of King, she always slept directly on top of my feet at the end
of the bed. She had those wonderful loving brown eyes and such a
sweet disposition. I can’t tell you how many times I cried myself to
sleep with my arms wrapped around her beautiful brown and gold mane.
At times I swear I could hear her whimpering along with me. Forget
what the psychologists say, divorce is a poison, a cancer that you
can never cleanse from your body, no matter how hard you try, no
matter how many tears you weap.
Yet, off all the adventures and
sorrows I shared with my dogs none was more remarkable than the time
King and Lassie saved me from the town bullies. My dad was a justice
of the peace in my hometown. Next to the town cop, he was the law.
Unfortunately for me, I was the son of the law. If anybody wanted to
exact any revenge for my father’s legal pronouncements I was going
to be the target. And with no mom at home to watch out for me I was
a perfect hit.
It was a Friday afternoon during the
summer. I had just returned from a baseball game with King and
Lassie in tow, or should I say King and Lassie had me in tow. I was
walking past McKinley’s old garage when somebody yelled at me to
come inside. Understand, this old building was kind of a hang out
for us with it’s papered over windows and large empty spaces. It was
far enough removed from the main drag nobody would hear us inside,
in bad enough shape no one would care what we did save starting a
fire. We even had an old hoop nailed to one of the beams inside to
kill time when it was raining or snowing outside.
I pushed back the old swinging door
following the voice up the retractable ladder leading to the second
floor. No big deal, it was probably one of my friends.
“Wurf? Is that you?” Wurf and I were
buds, closer than mud and just as smelly. I peered over the edge of
the floor. The next thing I knew the ladder was being jerked up to
the ceiling. Jumping forward I slammed onto my hands and chest in a
cloud of dust.
“Your dead you ------.” It was Rich
Hutzell and his cousin Butch. My dad had sentenced these guys a
dozen times for vandalism, arson, shop lifting, smashing car
windows. Their oldest brother had tried to rob the local bank by
running his car in through the front window. He was in the state
penitentiary in Madison.
“We’re going to mess you up good.
Don’t bother yelling cause nobody’s going to hear you.”
Remember I was just 10 at the time so
these two 17 year olds had no trouble putting me out of commission.
They wrapped an old T-shirt around my mouth and led me out onto the
roof of the building next door. Rich pushed me into the tree branch
hanging over the building and told me to climb down. I was more
angry then afraid. Wurf and I hated these guys. We threw rocks at
their cars and snitched on them every chance we could. They always
talked big, even popped Wurf and I in the mouth a couple of times in
the pool hall. They were so stupid how could they possibly do
anything to hurt me.
Geez! Then it hit me. Where were King
and Lassie? The Hutzells had locked them downstairs in the garage.
You could hear them both barking and scratching. King knew what was
happening and was he ever ticked.
“King! King… come on boy!” I had
managed to pull the T-shirt from around my mouth just long enough to
call for help. Rich grabbed me around the neck. This time I knew he
meant business. He threw me into the back seat of his brother’s old
Hudson, you know the one with the back seat worn so thin you could
see the straw sticking out from the wire coiled seat cushions. We
drove four blocks away to the old concession stand at the ball
field. It was way in the back corner surrounded by cornfields on
three sides.
This time Butch grabbed me and pulled
me out of the car. He dragged me behind the stand and threw me to
the ground. Then he pulled one of those huge old lady hatpins out of
a bag. I’d guess it was about a foot long with a colored blue bead
on one end.
“We’re going to stick you, you little
s----! You’re dad ain’t never going to do anything to us, no more.”
I kicked and squirmed as much as I could and even managed to land a
few blows to their privates. Butch ripped my shirt and tried to sit
on my legs while Rich fumbled on the ground for the pin. They got me
in the upper legs and in the butt a couple of times. I screamed a
lot but out there, next to a corn field and behind an old shed, no
one was going to hear.
I kept kicking and finally managed to
turn over on my stomach. Then, as Rich Hutzell stood above me with
his legs spread, I saw them. King and Lassie flying through the air
with teeth bared and fur raised like the scales on a dinosaur. I
later discovered King kept throwing his massive 135 pound body into
the old garage doors until he finally broke through the wood. He
also broke a couple of his own ribs.
Injury or not, King’s body now
resembled a defensive lineman in full stride. He hit Rich right in
the chest knocking him back at least 10 feet gasping for air. Butch
fell backward as Lassie began shredding the leg on his jeans. It
didn’t end there. As Rich tried to crawl away into the cornrows,
King grabbed him by the leg and dragged him like a huge bone back
into the open. Rich made the mistake of trying to kick King. My
guardian angel bit him hard in the upper thigh, so hard I could hear
a crunch.
“He’s killing me…. Your g-- d--- dog
is killing me!” Rich wailed and squealed. Meantime, Butch had
managed to pull away from Lassie and jumped back into the Hudson.
“Let go King…. King, let go! It’s
alright boy!” King reluctantly loosened his jaw around Rich’s thigh.
He had blood on his fur. He pulled back and stood over me defending
his territory, protecting his master. This was his line. Cross it
and you were dead.
The Hutzells never bothered me, not
so much as blinked at me ever again. I never told my Dad about it. I
told him all of those puncture wounds came from falling out of our
apple tree into the lilac bush. He believed me! The only other
person in town who knew what had happened was Doc Owen. He stitched
up Rich and set his broken leg without using any anesthetic, or so
he told me. Both Hutzells ended up in jail six years later on
attempted murder and armed robbery.
I wish King and Lassie had lived long
and happy lives. They certainly deserved it. King had to be put to
sleep shaking and shivering under our car suffering from distemper.
Some guy who offered me $200 cash for Lassie in the pool hall stole
her in the spring of that year. At least I’d like to think she was
stolen. The prospect of her dying the way King did would have been
more than this kid could have handled.
Psychologists say that children
create their own realities to deal with the things that hurt them.
Or they find substitutes or make believe playmates to comfort them.
Or pets take on a special role their parents can no longer fulfill.
It’s all psycho-babble when you are just ten. But it does explain
why I cried more when I lost my dogs then I did when I finally
accepted the fact my mom and dad had gotten a divorce.
Like I said, having a great dog is
about as close to knowing God as a kid can get. Preserved in my mind
forever, they were the only emotional escape from my crumbling
family around me. Yet in the end, like my family, there was nothing
I could do to mend the broken pieces or bring back my two dear
friends but sit in the upstairs bedroom and look out the window….
and cry.
Al Ruechel, copyright 2002, all
rights reserved
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