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Max

By Jim Colombo

(This story has been accepted for publication)

 

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Copyright 2001 Jim Colombo

 

Prologue

I never wanted a dog, especially a small dog, but somehow Max found me five days after the Loma Prieta earthquake shook the San Francisco Bay Area on October 17, 1989.

 

 

It was a few minutes after 5:00PM, October 17th, 1989.  My parents were leaving

 

for dinner to celebrate their forty-eighth wedding anniversary when suddenly the ground

 

shook and twisted for twenty seconds. The Loma Prieta earthquake rolled in from Santa

 

Cruz fifty miles away.  It registered 7.1 on the Richter scale at Berkeley.  Sixty-two

 

people were killed, cities were isolated for days without electricity, highways and the

 

Bay Bridge were damaged, and the World Series was postponed. The Marina district in

 

San Francisco burned for two days.  With all of the chaos, somehow Max found me and

 

changed my life.

 

The earthquake shook Tuesday and by Saturday most of the cities were getting

 

electricity again.  Sunday was the first normal day after the earthquake, so I went

 

grocery shopping. When I returned there was a dirty towel, or maybe it was a piece of

 

rug, rolled up on our doormat. I drove into the garage and brought the groceries in the

 

kitchen.  I opened the front door and the beige rug wagged its tail, and paced back and

 

forth, limping on its rear right leg.  It was dirty and had a red elastic collar with a jingle

 

bell attached.  I never thought about having a dog, especially a small dog.  I thought that

 

it most likely belonged to a neighbor, and that I would keep it outside in the back porch. 

 

In a couple of weeks someone would claim it and we would go on with our lives.  It was

 

a male dog.  "Okay, come on in, Max," and as if he knew that he would stay for seven

 

years, he hobbled in, wagged his curly tail, and danced for joy.  He looked like he was

 

smiling.

 

Two weeks passed and no one claimed Max.  I had looked in the lost and found

 

section of the newspaper to see if there was a notice for a small dog lost in our

 

neighborhood.  I bought a leash so I could take Max for a walk in the park.  Maybe

 

someone would recognize him.  If he had a dog tag, I could have found his owner, but

 

he came to me wearing a red elastic collar with a jingle bell.  Maybe the owner was a

 

little old lady.  I took Max to the SPCA to list him as a found dog so they could match

 

him with their lost dogs report.  No match was found, so I took Max to the vet for a

 

check up. The vet said that Max was a Lhasa Apso from Tibet, about a year old by

 

looking at his teeth, and if Max had papers, he’d be worth about $750.  I had given Max

 

a bath with Ivory soap the day he found me.  Now that I knew that I had a dog of status I

 

gave Max a bath with Alberto VO5 shampoo with conditioner.  Boy, did he shine.  He

 

looked like a $750 dog now.

 

Max slept on one of my old flannel shirts with a blanket underneath.  He was an

 

intelligent dog.  I put newspapers in the far corner of the porch and I took him to the

 

newspaper and said, “PAPER, PAPER,” and touched his backside.  My wife laughed

 

and reminded me that cats go on newspaper, not dogs.  She continued, ”Anyway, dogs

 

don't know what you’re saying.  To them it is all bla bla bla.”

 

After dinner I checked Max, and not only had he peed on the paper, he had

 

pooped on the paper as well.  "Good boy, Max,” I said and petted his head.  Max

 

danced around my legs.  I showed my wife how smart Max was.  "He got lucky," she

 

said.

 

Max had an enlarged right eye that looked like it was going to pop out.  He got

 

confused and lost all of the time because he could never understand direction.  He

 

couldn’t remember how to get back to the porch where his food was if he wandered to

 

the back of the yard.  Eventually, he would find his spot by trial and error.  I thought that

 

Max had a problem, so I took him to the vet to have his right eye examined.  He was

 

blind in his right eye and by the way he seemed disoriented, possibly retarded.  One

 

month had passed and I was getting attached to Max.  I asked the vet to give Max a

 

complete physical and all the necessary shots.  No one had claimed him, so he was

 

mine now.  I registered him with the SPCA and got a dog tag.  Max got lost twice and

 

we got phone calls about a lost dog named Max.  We kept Max in the backyard after the

 

second time.  I bought a doghouse for $10 at a garage sale.  Max liked it and spent

 

many comfortable afternoons watching the birds eat his food and drink his water. 

 

Max was very affectionate and followed me everywhere I went.  When I drove my

 

car, Max sat on the passenger’s seat.  I would start the ignition, then turn to pet Max on

 

the head, and then grab the steering wheel.  Sometimes Max would stand on his hind

 

legs with his front paws bracing himself on the dash.  When I would start to step on the

 

brakes, he sat back on the seat.  When he saw children, he would bark and lose his

 

balance. Most of the time he looked out of the window and enjoyed the breeze. A few

 

times I had to slam on the brakes and he lost his balance, falling on the floor.  Max

 

always look surprised, like how did I get here? 

 

When I watched television and sat on my favorite chair Max would find a tiny

 

corner to wedge into. Then he gradually worked his way onto my lap.  Sometimes he

 

curled up in my arm and lay on his back with his paws hanging at his side. During the

 

day when I was at work, he slept on my chair. 

 

Max loved Halloween.  Every time the doorbell rang, he barked and ran to the

 

door.  The little children thought Max was a puppy because of his size.  I think Max was

 

just as happy to see them as they were to see him.  He ran around the children and

 

smelled them.  They laughed and Max danced sideways, then in circles. 

 

During the day Max and the local dogs had a network that they used to exchange

 

gossip.  The dog four houses down barked, next the neighbor’s dog, then Max, and

 

finally the dog across the creek barked.  It would be silent for a while, then began again

 

with the dog four houses down.  When Max barked, he put everything he had into it. 

 

His rear legs bounced off the ground and his tail pointed straight up.  One year Max

 

sent a Christmas card to the next door neighbor's dog and signed it with his front right

 

paw.  I thought that Max was right handed.   

 

Every night Max and I went for a walk.  He stopped at the same light poles,

 

hedges, and trees each night and sniffed, circled, and retrieved e-mail.  He was a small

 

dog and by half way he would run out of signatures when he raised his leg.  When we

 

went camping, Max slept in between my wife and me in sleeping bags.  Some nights

 

Max had dreams and barked in his sleep; maybe a big dog was chasing him.  He

 

twisted back and forth, and mumble-barked.  Fortunately, my wife is a sound sleeper,

 

and never heard Max mumble in his sleep. 

   

I began to realize the gift I had with Max the next time I went to the vet for Max's

 

yearly shots.  There was a blind man with his Seeing Eye dog having a distemper shot.

 

The blind man’s balance was $50.  He told the nurse that he only had $20.  When the

 

blind man went inside with his dog to greet the vet, I gave the nurse $50.00 and told

 

her not to say who had paid his bill.  I gave the nurse my business card, and asked that

 

when this blind gentleman's dog needed veterinary care, to bill me at the address on the

 

business card.  I wanted to leave before the blind man returned, but a little girl liked Max

 

and was petting him. The blind man returned to the nurse with his dog and was

 

concerned about his bill.  I was standing alongside of him with Max.  When the nurse

 

told him the bill was paid, he looked surprised. 

 

"How can that be?" he asked.      

 

"Someone has paid the bill,” said the nurse. 

 

"Who?  Where are they?  I want to...."

 

I shook my head, no.  The nurse told him that the man had gone.  I didn’t plan on

 

being there when the blind man returned.  The look of joy, the emotion of happiness and

 

relief that the bill was paid that he displayed was priceless.  I had never planned on

 

helping the blind man.  It was an impulse.  We sometimes walk into a situation and hope

 

that we do what is right.

 

Six years passed and I noticed that Max missed going on the newspaper once in

 

a while.  He no longer pranced when I shook his leash.  Max spent most of his time

 

sleeping and eating.  He had difficulty jumping onto the couch and sitting with me, so I

 

picked him up and he slept by my side.  I took Max to the vet and he told me that Max

 

was degenerating fast. I asked if he was suffering. The vet said, “No, he’s not.  Dogs

 

like Max do not live a long time like other dogs. He might live one more year.”

 

Sunday morning October 20th, 1996 was almost seven years to the day.  I went

 

to greet Max as I had every day for seven years, and tell him how happy I was that he

 

found me.  Max just lay peacefully on his side with his tongue hanging out his mouth. 

 

His eyes had a blank stare.  I sat alongside him and began to recall all of the fun we had

 

and the joy he gave me.  I had lost a very special friend.  I sat with Max for about an

 

hour. I just couldn’t say good-bye.  Finally, I wrapped him in the flannel shirt he liked so

 

much and took him to the SPCA.  When I arrived, the attendant knew by the look on my

 

face that I had lost  a friend.  He removed Max’s dog tag, took my buddy, and walked

 

away.  As I walked out my eyes were moist. There was a void in my life.  I sat in the car,

 

turned on the ignition, and I turned to pet Max as I always have.  He wasn’t there.  Then

 

it sunk in. He was really gone.  I began to cry.  I don’t know how long I sat in the car and

 

stared at the dog tag in my hand.    I recalled each Halloween and how excited Max got

 

when I opened the door and he saw the children. 

 

His memory lives on and the birds still drink water from his bowl by the

 

doghouse.  I miss you Max.             

 

 

 end:jpc

 

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