When Terry moved from Atlanta into my three-room cottage above
the Castro, the dog was as thrilled about it as I was. After all, this
new guy brought him treats and rubbed the insides of his ears and
engaged him in long, intimate conversation. And Willie showed his
gratitude by learning a stunning array of new tricks: how to circle the
block off the leash, how to sit, how to wait dutifully at the curb until
Terry gave the signal to cross the street. It was a new era suddenly,
rife with possibilities. A certain easy symmetry had come to our
household, and Willie knew it.
We've moved twice since then, first to a walk-up penthouse in the Mission District, where Willie entered middle-age and began to write his memoirs on the upholstery. Then, last year, Terry and I bought a house on the edge of Sutro Forest, thereby adding dirt and shrubbery to Willie's growing roster of urinary pleasures. He's become grumpier with age, I'm afraid. The little Pit Poodle can't walk to the mail-box without attempting, however unsuccessfully, to terrorize the neighbors. At home, though his ursine charm remains intact, he's grown ever more demanding, never satisfied with a two-handed backrub when a four-handed one is possible.
Who knows what's behind all this need? I suspect he never fully recovered from a time in the early '90s when Terry and I spent our winters away from him. On a larky impulse at the end of a long book tour we'd bought a farmhouse on the South Island of New Zealand. Since Willie would never have endured the brutal six-month quarantine required by that country, we decided to leave him home with our friend Steve, who, in spite of serious concerns of his own, had sweetly agreed to house-sit.
Willie adored Steve, and enjoyed his company immensely, but the dog pined for us nightly, Steve said, waiting solemnly at the top of the stairs for our imminent return. We were gone five months the first year, three the second, building our nest on a golden slope above the South Pacific. And though we strung a rope hammock and planted a lemon tree and left saucers of milk for the hedgehogs, the place never seemed completely ours without Willie there. A portrait of our absent companion, sent to us by our artist friend Darryl, became the chief icon of our Kiwi house. In the style of a hokey '50s postcard, its message read: "GREETINGS FROM WILLIE, POODLE OF ENCHANTMENT."
So maybe Willie has a right to be nervous. He knows how much it hurts to be left behind and doesn't plan on letting it happen again. Though we sold the place in New Zealand almost two years ago, Willie still keeps a wary eye on the hall closet, where the dreaded black nylon luggage is stored. And when Terry heads on off on his frequent day-long rounds of shops and doctors and drugstores, and doesn't return by nightfall, the dog will sit anxiously by the door, inventing scenarios.
At times like those, I wish we had a common language. I would tell Willie not to worry, that Terry will be home any minute now, no worse for wear, that the evening will still be ours to share. But I would also have to tell him, as best I could, about the dark constancy that has shaped our lives for the decade the three of us have been together. I would explain why Steve never comes to visit anymore and why, in spite of all the good things we both feel about Terry, we might not always have him with us in the bed.
"Kiss Patrol" is reprinted from Dog People: Writers and Artists on Canine Companionship, recently published by Artisan. © 1995 Armistead Maupin.