Intelligence and mischief looked back merrily at me. Henry had concocted a test for me: a kind of baptism by fire. “Yes, I do. How about bringing George over here?”

  Unwittingly I replied, “Sure; where is he and what is he?” I looked around the room, expecting to see a cat, a dog, even a stuffed animal. My glance fell on a large, boxlike glass structure across the room.

  “George is my boa,” Henry smirked. “Would you get him for me, please?”

  A snake! I was an excellent nurse, in high demand. I knew that I could walk out of there anytime before I actually accepted the job. Considering the situation, I looked at Henry. Boy, this kid is cute, I thought. I glanced around his room. Piles of automotive magazines, books, notepads and pencils littered the folding table that served as Henry’s desk. Race car posters and photos of football heroes hung on the walls. Here was a real boy, a tiny teenager, shriveled with disease, yet with humor intact and a flair for the bizarre. Always a sucker for a good-looking face and ready for a challenge, I knew I wanted the job.

  “So, uh, how do I pick him up?” I asked, looking into the glass-walled cage containing what appeared to be a gigantic, coiled rope big enough to anchor the Titanic.

  Henry chuckled. “Very carefully. Grasp him gently behind his head with one hand and support his body with your other.”

  “That’s it? That’s the extent of your instructions?” I asked. I opened the hinged lid and felt the cold reptile with my trembling fingers. The snake moved ever so slightly at the touch. I can do this, I thought. I waited a moment for a surge of courage. But it didn’t come. One deep breath, and I took the plunge, grasping the enormous George and lifting him slowly out of his cage. Before I completed the lift, several feet of the beast swiftly wrapped tightly around my arm. “I can do this,” I repeated over and over to myself.

  Henry watched silently and intently as I crossed the room, bearing the heavy length of pure muscle.

  “What do you want me to do with him?” I asked.

  Henry said, “Just put his head and upper body on my lap. George enjoys being petted.”

  That was my introduction to George. As the months went by, it was apparent that George was a great—if not the sole—motivator in Henry’s life.

  It was difficult for Henry when we took a rare excursion in public to eat at McDonald’s or visit the bookstore. People stared rudely as Henry laboriously ate his meal or tried to flip through the books with three fingers, the only appendages still responsive to his commands.

  But each week, we went to the pet store to buy food for George. After Henry was meticulously bathed, groomed and coiffed, I’d carefully place him in his wheelchair and push him out to my car. Next, after much maneuvering, I’d tenderly strap and pillow him into the passenger seat, fold up his chair and fit it into the trunk. This all took about two hours; two grueling hours for me, two painful hours for Henry as we both struggled not to hurt his delicate body—an impossible task. What a testament to Henry’s devotion to his gigantic pet.

  One time George turned up missing. Henry’s uncle had visited over the weekend and left the top of George’s cage open. His parents and I looked everywhere in the elegant yet spartan home, streamlined for easy mobility for Henry’s wheelchair. There is nowhere for George to hide, we thought. But we couldn’t locate the snake anywhere.

  A month went by. Henry was surprisingly calm, convinced that George would reappear in due time. I felt bad for Henry, but I couldn’t honestly say I missed George in the least.

  I arrived early one morning and went in to awaken Henry. There was George, stretched almost full-length beside Henry as they both slept. I was shocked by my own reaction, but I found the sight one of the most charming I have ever seen. George had finally won me over!

  Over the following months, Henry continued to deteriorate, his body coiling tighter, his breathing becoming more labored. Yet he maintained the use of those three fingers, doing his school work and spending hours stroking George. Three frail fingers determinedly kept the loving connection of boy and boa—even to the last day.

  On that final day, Henry wrote me a note. I found an envelope with my name on it on his desk. I was touched, as I had grown to care deeply for the valiant boy. He started the note by thanking me for helping him so much with George and, acknowledging my reluctant fondness for the snake, said he knew he could count on me to care for George now that he was gone. I panicked for a moment until I noticed his P.S. Under a smiley face, Henry wrote that I didn’t really have to worry—the U.P.S. man had agreed to take George.

  Oh, Henry, I thought, you’re still teasing me. But I did make a point of stroking George fondly one last time before I left.

  Lynne Layton Zielinski

  Socks

  When I was about six or seven, I had a little mutt puppy named Socks. Socks and I were inseparable buddies for the half year he was with me. He slept at the foot of my bed. The last thing I felt at night and the first thing I felt again in the morning was his warm, wiggly form. I loved him with a love that has dimmed little as the years have passed.

  One day, Socks turned up missing. A neighborhood rumor circulated about someone seen coaxing him into a car, but nothing could ever be proved.

  Socks stayed missing, and I cried myself to sleep for many nights. If you’ve never lost a dog, then you don’t know the feeling, but believe me, it only slightly diminishes with time. My parents tried everything to get me to brighten up, with no apparent luck. Maturity and years healed the wound so that it was no longer visible, but it remained inside me.

  One day, many years later, my feelings resurfaced. My family and I were visiting my parents at their wooded acreage in northern Michigan when our tagalong family mongrel, Buckshot, turned up missing.

  Old Buck was a pretty good hound. He resembled a big, lovable bear cub more than he did a proper dog, and this day he decided to see what was on the other side of the mountain.

  His disappearance hit my seven-year-old son, Chris, especially hard, since Chris figured that Buck was his personal property. The other kids were fond of the dog too, but not like Chris.

  Chris was the archetypal freckle-faced little guy with missing teeth and chubby cheeks. He had the knack of looking sad and pitiful even when he was happy. When he was broken-hearted, the angels held their breath.

  Chris worried that his pal was gone forever, and looking at my son, I could feel the years peel away. I saw myself and Socks all over again. The old pain came back.

  The rain started falling softly as I hoisted myself into my Jeep and began driving back roads, stopping to call Buckshot with a disturbing touch of frenzy in my voice. In my mind’s eye, I saw Chris out in the rain wearing a slicker that was way too big, searching with falling hopes.

  Miles later, with a throat scraped raw from screaming, I still hadn’t reduced the family pet to possession. Back at the cabin, I parked the Jeep and took off on foot, avoiding Chris’s eyes, not wanting to admit that maybe a city-bred dog could get irretrievably lost in all that wilderness.

  I struck out for the depths of a quaint little piece of real estate the locals refer to as Deadman’s Swamp, muttering under my breath about dogs and their hold on small boys. If you’ve ever wandered around alone way back in the woods as nightfall is setting in, then you know what kinds of tricks your mind can play on you. I felt my vision fog up. The old pain was resurfacing.

  After five miles of walking, screaming, running and sweating, I sat down on a slab of rock near an open meadow and tried to sort out how I was going to tell the little man that lived at my house that I couldn’t find his dog.

  Suddenly I heard a rustle from behind me. Whipping around, I saw old Buck bounding up to me with that where-the-heck-have-you-been attitude that runaway dogs muster up when they’re finally found. We rolled on the ground together, my frustration dissolving in the wet ferns. After a bit, I put the dog at heel and we half stumbled and half ran back to the cabin.

  When we came out of the woods, my son with t
he long face, my own father and the vagabond pooch grabbed and hugged one another. That was when it hit me.

  I felt as if I had been transported back in time to witness a homecoming I’d hoped for but never experienced. My dad was there, looking thirty again. The little boy hugging the spotted hound was me—a quarter century ago. And old Buck? He was another much-loved mutt who’d finally found his way back.

  Socks had come home.

  Steve Smith

  Jenny and Brucie

  Jenny Holmes struggled with her weight every day of her young life. When she was twelve, she wasn’t heavy, but she thought she was because she wanted to be thin like a model. An aspiring gymnast, Jenny also wanted to be lithe and wiry, like the Olympic athlete, Nadia Comaneci. She didn’t lose weight until she was sixteen. Then she lost twenty pounds in the aftermath of a breakup with her first love, a sort of vengeance upon him. Her long battle with food and weight began. This occurred over the course of twelve years, during which time she tried again and again to lose weight, only to gain it back each time.

  Little did Jenny know during those years that the change in her self-image would have nothing to do with low-fat shakes, counting calories or even giving up ice cream and chocolate. It would be a gift from a dog.

  Brucie appeared in Jen’s life on her twenty-ninth birthday, a gift from her husband, John. Jenny was the happily married mother of two by then. She owned a successful small business selling custom-printed T-shirts. Trying to keep a sense of humor about her efforts to lose weight, she designed one for herself that read, “Those who indulge, bulge.” No one else ever called her “fat.” At five feet, four inches and 150 pounds, her legs were muscular and her hips thick, but her torso was slim. She had become a woman with a woman’s shape, but she still hated her backside. Jenny continued to long for the straight, thin, boyish look of a model.

  Brucie, a yellow Labrador pup, came complete with big kisses and a bouncy personality. He was never intended to be a diet aid; he was meant to be a running partner. John loved Jenny just as she was, but he knew that Jenny always seemed more at peace with herself and her body when she ran. He couldn’t work out with her himself because he had a bad back. So that job was left to Brucie.

  In the beginning Brucie and Jenny ran only fifty paces at a time, each set mixed with increments of one hundred paces walking. I don’t look foolish starting this way, thought Jen, because Brucie’s bones are too young to make him run much harder. She was right, and Brucie’s early limitations gave her time to start slowly without feeling awkward.

  After ten months, though, Brucie was old enough to run several miles a day and Jenny was fit enough to keep up! They logged the miles together every day.

  Prior to Brucie’s appearance in her life, one of Jen’s problems with exercising had always been staying motivated. Everything she read advised pairing up with a running partner. Human exercise companions, however, always let her down. One moved away. Another collected running injuries the way some people collect stamps. A third simply quit. She knew that her last exercise companion was cutting out when he made excuses like, “It’s my turn to do the dishes”—at six o’clock in the morning! She hated to admit it, but she had let others down in similar ways. Jenny expected the same from Brucie. She knew that he would run with her, but she didn’t count on the pup for help with motivation.

  Wrong! The first morning that Jen wanted to stay in bed, Brucie licked her face. When she buried her head under her pillow, he dug her toes out from beneath the blanket. Jenny tucked in her toes more tightly, but Brucie jumped onto the bed. After she pushed sixty pounds of Labrador off her, he whined and thumped his tail against the wooden floor like a drummer. He quieted down when she hushed him, only to return to licking her face! That morning and every one thereafter, Jen and Brucie ran.

  Jenny didn’t think that she had the courage to face the winter running, but Brucie was undaunted. Shaking his head with disbelief while the dog pranced in the snow and barked outside of Jen’s window to awaken her, John decided to give his wife a warm, lightweight set of winter running clothes. Spring brought mud and rain, but Brucie still wanted to run, and what could Jenny do? They had endured freezing temperatures and snowdrifts together. Surely they could manage a bit of slush and sogginess. Besides, she had become Brucie’s running companion, too. She could no longer even try to say no to the wide brown eyes that gazed at her every morning when Brucie came to her with his leash in his mouth. Sometimes he even delivered her running shoes to her.

  They ran together for ten years. When arthritis and age kept him on the step waiting for Jenny to return from a workout with a new puppy, Brucie didn’t seem to mind. He would lie with his face between his paws until he saw them loping into sight, then his tail would thump excitedly against the porch. When they got to the driveway he eagerly walked to see them, his whole body quivering with delight as it had when he was a puppy.

  Brucie died last year. Jen, John and their kids scattered his ashes along a wooded path where they had frequently run together. Today Jen continues to run with her new dog as well as her growing children. Just like Brucie, they don’t let her sleep in on rainy Saturday mornings.

  Jenny still makes T-shirts for people, but no more “Battle of the Bulge” shirts for her. She’s working on a shirt to wear in the Boston Marathon next spring. The front shows a hand-painted Labrador retriever. On the back Jenny stenciled, “Brucie, this one is for you.”

  Cerie L. Couture, D.V.M.

  An Extra Ten Minutes

  When you rise in the morning, form a resolution to make the day a happy one for a fellow creature.

  Sydney Smith

  On Monday afternoons at two o’clock, Beau and I would arrive at the Silver Spring Convalescent Center on Milwaukee’s northeast side of town for an hour of pet therapy with the seniors who lived there. We’d walk the hallways greeting everyone on our way to the hospitality room, where residents would come to pet Beau and bask in the adoration of this beautiful, happy, ten-year-old, ninety-nine-pound Doberman pinscher. You’d never know this was the same dog that arrived at my doorstep eight years earlier so beaten, scarred and scared that as soon as he made eye contact with you, he’d lie down on his back with his feet up in the air and pee until you petted and soothed him into feeling safe.

  On our first visit, as we walked through the canary-yellow Hallway One, I heard an elderly man’s excited voice, thick with a German accent, streaming out of room 112. “Ma, Ma, the German dog is here! The German dog is here!”

  No sooner did I hear the voice than a wrinkle-faced, six-foot-tall, white-haired pogo stick of a man was greeting us at the door, swooping his big, open hand and strong arm across the doorway, inviting us in. “I’m Charlie. This is my wife, Emma. Come in, come in.”

  When Beau heard Charlie’s friendly, enthusiastic voice, his entire body went into his customary wagging frenzy and lean-against-your-thigh position, waiting for a petting, which was immediately forthcoming from Charlie. As we walked into the room, a frail but lively eightyish, violet-haired Emma sat in bed, smiling, patting her hand on the bed. All she had to do was pat once, and Beau, leashed and always obedient, was up on the bed lying down beside her, licking her face. Her eyes teared up as Charlie told us that he and Emma had immigrated to the United States from Germany during World War II and had to leave their beloved Doberman, Max, behind. Max, according to Charlie, was the spitting image of Beau.

  The next door, room 114, was home to Katherine, a woman in her seventies who had stopped talking a few months earlier and had been living in a catatonic state in her wheelchair for the past month. No amount of love, hugs, talking or sitting had been able to stir her. I was told her family had stopped calling or visiting, and she had no friends. When Beau and I walked into her room, a small light was on next to her bed and the shades were pulled. She was sitting in her wheelchair, her back toward us, slouched over, facing the viewless window.

  Beau was pulling ahead of me with his leash. Before I could get a
round to kneel down in front of her, he was at her left side, with his head in her lap. I pulled a chair up in front of her and sat down, saying hello. No response. In the fifteen minutes that Beau and I sat with Katherine, she never said a word and never moved. Surprising as that may be, more surprising was that Beau never moved either. He stood the entire fifteen minutes, his long chin resting on her lap.

  If you knew Beau, you’d know that even ten seconds was an eternity to wait for a petting. As long as I’d known him, he would nuzzle whatever person was closest to his nose, whine, soft-growl and wiggle his body against them until they were forced to pet him, or he’d lose interest and find someone else. Not here. He was as frozen as Katherine, head glued to her lap. I became so uncomfortable with the lack of life in this woman that, much as I wished I felt differently, when the clock chimed 2:30 P.M., I rushed to say good-bye, stood up and pulled the reluctant Beau out.

  I asked one of the nurses why Katherine was catatonic. “We don’t know why. Sometimes it just happens when elderly people have family who show no interest in them. We just try to make her as comfortable as possible.”

  All the wonderful people and animals who blessed my life flashed in front of my eyes, and then they were gone. I felt what I imagined Katherine must be feeling: lonely, lost and forgotten. I was determined to find a way through to her.

  Every Monday thereafter, Beau and I made our rounds to the hospitality room, stopping to make special visits in room 112 to visit Charlie and Emma, and in room 114 to sit with Katherine. Always the same response—Charlie waving us in and Emma patting the bed, waiting for Beau’s licks, both so alive. And then on to Katherine, sitting desolately, no sign of life except for her shallow breathing.