Ruffly Speaking (4 page)

I she calls “interspecies bonding,” and she pays pretty well for them, too. A female cleric with a canine acolyte? If you write for
Dog’s Life,
that’s the kind of story that brings home the kibble.

4

 After Rita left, I checked the
Boston Globe
that had arrived that morning. Morris’s long, newsy obituary must have appeared in the Sunday paper, which Rita or my third-floor tenants had removed from my doorstep to avoid advertising my absence. Monday’s
Globe
had only a stark paragraph midway through the list of death notices.

LAMB—Of Cambridge, May 8, Morris Duncan, age 52.Devoted son of the late Harold and Mary (Duncan) Lamb. A memorial service will be conducted at St. Margaret’s Episcopal Church of Cambridge at 11 a.m. IntermentMt. Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge. Late graduate of Harvard College. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to The Bedlington Terrier Club of America Rescue Committee, 113 Fillmore Drive, Sarasota, FL 34236.

It seemed to me that Morris would have made something of that “late graduate” business, but I couldn’t think what. In groping for the right clever remark, I found nothing but Morris’s absence.

Then I went to the guest room to start the work of filling in for Beryl Abrams, who edits the canine products section of
Dog’s Life
and ordinarily writes most of the evaluations herself. Beryl has Papillons (average height at the withers about nine inches), and some of the products I randomly pulled from the two big cartons left by UPS would have to wait until Beryl’s two bitches were safely delivered. A postpartum Papillon might enjoy recuperating on a tiny self-warming dog nest designed to retain body heat, but as soon as Rowdy and Kimi discovered what the little pillow did, they’d decide that, being warmblooded and vulnerable, it was a fun form of dinner.

Another product I’d have to return to Beryl or farm out to one of my dog-training friends was a leash with a snap at one end for the dog’s collar and, at the other end, a belt to strap around your own waist. The idea was Look-Ma-no-hands dog walking, but with
Alaskan malamutes?
My loyalty to
Dog’s Life
does not extend to kamikaze missions. Equally unsuitable in somewhat less terrifying ways were a tremendous number of sure cures for problems that Rowdy and Kimi failed to exhibit: chlorophyll drops to end bad breath, medicated pads to relieve itching, whiteners to eradicate tear stains around the eyes, enzyme tablets to reduce flatulence, a hot-oil kit to correct dry skin, foul-tasting furniture polish to discourage chewing, a package of Pee Wee housebreaking pads, and an ultrasound bark silencer and training device called the Yap Zapper. The Rowdy and Kimi Award for the canine product that a malamute needs least went to a flavor enhancer intended to tempt the appetites of finicky eaters. If I’d shined the Yap Zapper with the dog-repellent polish, seasoned it with chlorophyll drops and eye-stain eradicator, added a dressing of hot oil and enzyme tablets, and served the whole mess up to Rowdy on a bed of Pee Wee pads, he’d have wolfed it down, and Kimi would have fought him for her share, too.

The more I pawed through the remedies arrayed on the guest room bed, the more Rowdy and Kimi seemed like paragons of personal hygiene and canine good citizenship. Even so, I’d managed to identify a fairly large selection of products we could reasonably test out, including pet hair gatherers, pooper-scoopers, a newfangled version of the silent dog whistle, and—pity the poor manufacturers—a variety of toys, balls, and flying disks foolishly advertised as chew-proof and puncture-resistant. Hah! I wouldn’t guarantee a steel girder safe in the jaws or claws of an Alaskan malamute.

When I’d ended my preliminary survey, I packed a small box with paraphernalia to return to Beryl, and a few products to forget entirely: old gadgets with new names, dangerous toys, and, believe it or not, a square of indoor-outdoor carpeting patterned with the head of a rabid-looking Doberman and the words
Goahead. Make his day.
I stowed that box in the cellar, put everything else in the two big boxes, and dragged them to my study so they wouldn’t get splattered with paint when I freshened up the guest room for my cousin Leah, who was arriving in a month or so to spend the summer with me.

Then I took the dogs for a short walk, answered a phone call from a pleasant-sounding woman interested in adopting a dog from Malamute Rescue, added a couple of paragraphs to an article about rabies, and dialed Winer & Lamb. I didn’t expect Doug Winer to be back in the store on the day of Morris’s funeral, but I didn’t have any idea where Doug lived, and phoning Winer & Lamb seemed like the easiest way to get in touch.

The guy who answered had that lilting speech pattern that sounds so much like a regional accent that you’d swear that half the gay men in America came from the same hometown. Wherever it is, Morris originated else-where—New Jersey, in fact, as I’ve mentioned—but Doug obviously grew up there, as did several of the waiters at Winer & Lamb.

“I was a friend of Morris’s,” I explained. “I just heard, and I wanted to talk to Doug.” To my amazement, the guy said that Doug was out back and that he’d get him for me.

When Doug got on the phone, I told him that I’d just heard about Morris and was very sorry. In case my mannerly mother happened to be wasting her celestial time by listening in, I refrained from mentioning that Doug was working and that Winer &. Lamb was open on the day of Morris Lamb’s funeral. I didn’t make even the most oblique inquiry about the cause of Morris’s death, either. When on earth, my mother, Marissa, directed her attention principally to golden retrievers, and when she wasn’t training, grooming, showing, or tending to dogs, she was weeding her perennial garden, transplanting seedlings, laying tile in the house, or plastering walls. It’s possible that the perfection of heaven has left Marissa with more free time than she used to have. If so, leisure could have turned her maternal and hovery, I guess.

Doug, though, eventually rewarded my virtue by answering my unasked questions. “You must think it’s terrible for me to be here! We stayed closed until one.” Doug’s voice dropped to a whisper. “But none of them knows a
thing
about books, except Fyodor, and the silly boy has gone to Barbados! I was petrified someone important would have to pick today to drop in, and this is a dreadful thing to say, but we have been flooded with customers.” I could almost see Doug cup his hand around the phone in case one of the employees read his lips. “Saturday afternoon, you just could not
walk
through here without stepping on someone’s toes. To get to the register, I literally had to insinuate myself between bodies and slither through! And since we opened today, it’s been almost as bad up here, and the café is
worse.
They
need
me here! They just can’t cope. You never realize how many incompetent people there are in the world until you run a business. It’s very disenchanting.”

“Maybe it’s better for you to keep busy,” I said. Doug evidently didn’t need my support. “What choice do I have?” he exclaimed wildly. “They do terrible things! On Saturday, the afternoon of Morris’s
death,
I found Victor
seating,
actually seating, two very desirable clients at a table with
soiled
linen! It was disgusting—big spots of grease and coffee all over the tablecloth—and I had to step in and say, ‘Pardon me, ladies, but this table is very definitely
not
ready.’ There’s no excuse for that; you should just see our laundry bills. I sent Victor flying for fresh linens, and that’s absolutely typical.”

“Doug, every time I’ve ever been there, everything has been perfect.” The tables in the café that occupied the front of the store and, in good weather, spilled onto the sidewalk, had pale-pink tablecloths and napkins— cloth, not paper, and heavily starched. Even at the outdoor tables, the plates and cups were real china, white with a pink rim. Need I add that the silverware, although doubtless not sterling, was not plastic, either? Every table had fresh flowers.

Doug ignored my praise. “And you never can tell when SHE might appear, and Morris always dealt with HER himself. I couldn’t manage it. Whenever SHE’s here, I’m all nerves.”

Cambridge is highbrow Hollywood. I was at Winer & Lamb once when it actually happened. This was last winter, so I was indoors. A friend and I were having lunch at the café when Julia Child walked through and up the little half-flight of stairs to the book section. She acted just like a normal person, and the rest of us tried to do the same, but everyone at the tables began discreetly whispering to everyone else so that no one would miss seeing her, and then one of the waiters, maybe the erring Victor, broke the spell by dropping a tray. Crockery smashed on the floor, and coffee splattered all over. I suppose that it was exactly the kind of incident that Doug didn’t want repeated.

“She probably just wants to wander around and look at the books like everyone else,” I told him. “She isn’t going to need advice. If she finds a book she wants, she’ll just need to pay for it. You can handle that, Doug.”

“I can’t! The last time she was here, I was so nervous that when she finally left, I was bathed in perspiration.”

“Did she buy anything?”

Doug’s sigh whooshed across the phone line. “Irony of ironies. A book on edible flowers.”

The irony was lost on me. “Uh...?”

“You didn’t
know?
Morris
poisoned
himself with them.”

“But if they were—”

Before I had a chance to say
edible,
Doug went on. “But they
weren’t.
We think he was creating a
mesclun.”
Doug must have remembered that I was one of Morris’s dog people, not one of his food people. “Mixed baby greens—”

“A salad,” I said. “I know.”

“You know how random Morris was,” Doug said affectionately. “And he hadn’t even read the book, of course—he never did; he created—and he must’ve traipsed around the yard snipping here and there, and then tossed it all with a
chèvre
vinaigrette.” Doug paused. I had the sense of time passing. “I found him in the bathroom.” As an afterthought, he added, “Naked.”

“Doug, how awful for you. Was he...?”

Perhaps because Doug had spent so much time surrounded by recipes, he gave a nauseatingly graphic account of Morris’s death, almost as if I’d requested directions on how to re-create it myself right in my own kitchen—and bathroom, too, I guess—as I assume that you don’t. The gist of Doug’s story was that although Morris lived on Highland, only a few blocks from a fancy greengrocery on Huron, he’d spared himself the walk and the expense, too, I suppose, although Doug didn’t say so. In Cambridge, and probably elsewhere, tiny greens cost more per pound than lobster. Maybe they’re worth it. They taste good, and the ones you buy won’t make you sick. Anyway, when Morris finished harvesting a variety of infant salad greens from the raised bed garden that Doug had built for him, he’d foolishly added the leaves of what turned out to be a lot of poisonous plants.

Because of dog writing, I know a little about poisonous plants. Grass is harmless, but to be safe, don’t let your dog eat the leaves, stems, or flowers of any houseplants, shrubs, perennials, or annuals. A few—nasturtiums, for instance—are fine, but watch out for an alarming number of harmless-sounding things like azalea, rhododendron, lupine, delphinium, hydrangea, and foxglove. Foxglove? Digitalis. So make Rover stick to his Purina, and if you get in a creative mood and decide to make a really exotic salad, toss a few Pro Plan croutons on your lettuce, and leave the hydrangea—especially the hydrangea—out in the yard where it belongs.

According to Doug, however, Morris didn’t die of poisoning, at least not directly. As Doug explained in detail I didn’t want to hear, the plants made Morris so sick that he became dehydrated. Sometime on Friday night, he passed out. Then he aspirated his own vomit. Sorry. Compared with Doug’s description, mine is appetizing.

The part about spicing up the salad sounded like Morris. Also, in spite of the Bedlingtons, Morris wasn’t the kind of owner who reads up on all the latest news about canine diseases and household hazards. Morris ah most certainly knew not to substitute a choke collar for a regular buckle collar, and I’m sure he knew better than to feed chocolate to a dog, but that was probably about it. So Morris was responsible but not supereducated, Harvard or no Harvard. When he studied the dog magazines, I’m sure that he concentrated almost exclusively on show results. And the aspiration? It happens to dogs all the time. It’s one of the approximately two hundred solid reasons not to debark a dog and one of the main reasons a lot of veterinarians won’t perform the surgery, which leaves a dog vulnerable to—well, to aspiration. So, all in all, Doug’s story was improbable but credible. Even so, I didn’t believe it. As I soon learned, almost no one else did, either. We were dopes, of course. We assumed that since Morris was gay, he must have died of AIDS.