August 6, 2010; The Intervention, Part I

As I said the last time, Skeeter was a mess. Lot's of pacing and bitching about doctors and nurses and never being better. I thought it was same old, same old. Then, my friends, last Monday it got decidedly worse.

It was late, late at night and I had gone for a sip of water, as is my wont (and which is necessary should I decide to piss in the bed before Boo-Boo gets around to walking me), when I noticed a smell in the house.

Let me make a few things clear about dogs and smells. First, yes, we do love the smell of garbage and shit and, indeed, anything organic which touches something deep, deep inside of us: something amniotic, maybe. But we also notice a lot of other smells that animals—including you—give off that have very little to do with the organism and much more to do with...jeez, I don't think anyone has every actually had to verbalize this before...well, let's call it spirit. We know when you are in love. We know when you are excited/happy and excited/scared because you are spritzing smells all over the house that get into our nose and change the way we act.

But here, late Monday night, there was another smell. It's a hideous smell that is impossible to describe accurately. There are hints of sadness, undertones of fatalism (try and describe that smell!), and a lot of confusion and that is a smell I can describe only by what it does to the animal that smells it: it sets off little electric charges in the brain; confusion tries to be contagious and sometimes is. But when the smell of confusion is mixed with all those other odors it means only one thing: despair.

The hair on my back prickled automatically. This was not good. This was not good at all. It was coming from Skeeter's bedroom. I went to his door and listened. I could hear his breath. He was awake. I whispered, "Let me in."

"No," he said quietly.

This time I hissed, "Let me in NOW!" He said nothing and he did not let me in. The good thing about this old slum is that everything in the house is crooked and nothing really fits...like doors. So it only took a couple of pushes with my head and paws to get into Skeeter's bedroom.

"Get out," he mumbled. "Leave me alone. I have things to think about."

I ignored him, hopped on the bed and noticed he was curled in a fetal ball. I went right up to his face, my nose almost touching his, and said, "I know what you're thinking about."

"Good for you," he said and added, rather nastily I thought, "Your breath stinks." He turned away and adjusted his fetal ball position at the other side of the bed.

"Why?" I said quietly.

"Because I'm useless. Because this doctor shit will never end. Because I'm not a good friend to my friends or a good mate to my mate. Because I already owe thousands of dollars and may never be able to pay it back and it's only going to get worse. Because I don't feel well...ever. Because I'm talking to my fucking dog. Becausebecausebecause..." His voice drifted off.

I stared at him and began to worry. I am ill-equipped for this kind of thing—this milk-of-human-kindness stuff. I shuddered. The consequences of what he was thinking were enormous. For one thing Boo would go into a tailspin and I might not get fed for days! Second, it took both of them to give me the attention that I required; one person is simply not up to the task and with Boo aging very fast, there was little or no likelihood he would ever find a replacement for Skeet. I'd have to run away! I'd have to live on the streets! I'd have no bed to pee in!

"Snap out of it!" I hissed at him angrily but knew that this would not be enough. Instead he let out a long, low sigh of a sound and the smell I talked about became stronger. Almost overpowering. That's when I noticed the array of pills on the bedside table: the tranqs and painkillers and anti-depressants and I could see, rather too clearly, how this might all play out.

I jumped off the bed and went to the kitchen and hissed again, "Hey!"

Nothing.

"Hey! Get in here!"

Still nothing.

"Goddamnit," I growled in Dog Speak, "get your spotted ass in here."

And there he was, splayed out under the kitchen table. He had a cigarette dangling out of his mouth, as usual, and that celestial smell of opium-but-not-opium came with him. He hardly moved when he said, "Hey little dude, you are harshing my buzz!"

"Wake up. We have a big problem!"

"'We?'" Cosmo said, as he pulled his huge body to a sitting position, looking particularly stupid in the doing because his eyes were rolling about and his head was whacking the bottom of the table.

"Yes, 'we.'" I nipped his legs and he slowly rose to follow me. "We have to do an intervention."

"Oh! Drugs?" Cosmo said and he followed me into the bedroom, weaving about all the way.

"Something like that," I said and wondered if this would work.