Love Smells Like Crayons.

[Reprinted from 14 July 2009]

 

I was attending a church study group, but it was not at a church. A handful of us had gathered on a Monday night in a friend’s living room in a northern suburb of Detroit. The living room faced west and opened out over a lake through two enormous picture windows. The view of swans and sky and possibility was dazzling. Michelangelo would go silent here.

It was high summer. The days were long and the sunsets were longer. Despite the beauty, I was fidgeting because I was, well, alive. The group was debating the pros and cons of “patient endurance” (I was leaning toward “against it”) when the doorbell rang.

I leaped up to answer the door. It wasn’t my house, but leaping up for any flimsy reason is something at which I am gifted.

There was a man at the door. This house was in a remote location, down a long winding driveway through the woods to the lake. Anyone who came all the way to the door had to be determined. To do SOMETHING. If he was here to kill me, I had gone out with a beautiful view. If he was selling cookies, I would fetch my wallet. If he was a missionary of some kind, I would tell him he was preaching to the piano player.

The man was dressed in a t-shirt and shorts. He was about my age, about my size. Dark skin, dark hair, Latino. He was carrying nothing.

“Hi. I live across the lake,” he said, pointing, “and I couldn’t help but notice that people have been putting motorized boats into the lake from your easement out back. And see, we have some rules about…”

Damn, no cookies. And this sounds official. I’d better go get someone who knows something.

“Okay, hang on. You need to talk to Ben who owns this place,” I said. “I’ll go get him,” and I started to close the door. Then my inside voice yelled at me for my poor social skills and I apologized to the stranger. “I’m sorry. Come on in.” I smiled and motioned for him to follow me.

“So, what’s your name?” I asked, leading him down the hall.

“Ray. Ray Rosales.”

I halted mid-step. He nearly crashed into me.

I shook my head. Nah, couldn’t be. That’s a common enough name. I started walking again.

“Huh. I knew a Ray Rosales once. Where did you grow up?”

“Detroit.”

Full stop. No way. This is ludicrous. I spun and faced him. The right age, the right size, the same pretty caramel-colored skin… I wanted to sniff him.

“Where in Detroit?” My eyes narrowed and I dared him to answer correctly.

“Near Eight Mile Rd.”

My heart forgot to beat and I couldn’t swallow. I stuck out my hand to cover the fact that I was having a stroke.

“I’m Erin Waugh.”

“Erin…” he breathed. And his shoulder fell against the wall.

There’s that risk that you will say your name, and the other person will hear… crickets. And maybe you will try to nudge their recollection: “Don’t you remember when we…?” and the guy will say, “You’re a crazy person. Leave me alone.” But not this time. No, astonishingly, a real-live memory was staring back at me, as stunned as a deer on Eight Mile. Ray Rosales, the first “love of my life,” was standing in a hot hallway with me. And, judging by the way he was recovering, he remembered.

Ray Rosales had been my very first crush when I was 10 years old. My family lived in Detroit in the late 60’s just south of Eight Mile Road, and Ray and I attended Bow Elementary School. Ray lived one street over and he, like all the neighborhood kids, visited the Waughs’ “Kool-Aid House” every single day. (A “Kool-Aid House” is that one house on the block where the mom has a seemingly endless supply of snacks and drinks and “patient endurance,” and all the kids in the neighborhood know it and they swarm there like adorable leeches.) Ray Rosales and I rode bikes and played on the swings and fought with our little brothers.

At least that’s what we did in public.

Ray and I were also, as fifth-graders, both conveniently appointed to be on something called “Attendance Duty.” Or maybe it was “Pencil Sharpening.” Or “You Clean My Eraser, I’ll Clean Yours.” The details of this assignment were immaterial. What DID matter was that once a week, Ray Rosales and I had to collect some important thing from Mrs. Sullivan and, even more opportunely, had to deliver this important thing to an empty art room on the first floor. By ourselves. Together. To an empty art room on the abandoned first floor. I don’t know why it took two of us to deliver this important thing.

Well, maybe I do.

It was behind a desk in that darkened, unsupervised, adult-free art room, that Ray Rosales kissed me. My first kiss ever. A lot. Many. I liked it. A lot. To this day the smell of Crayolas makes me dizzy. And makes me stop in hallways so that people crash into me. Right there in that art room Ray Rosales and I pledged our undying love and vowed to get married and have two babies named Ian and Esperanza to satisfy our ethnic diversity.

But it was not to be. My father was transferred out of Detroit shortly after that art-room kiss (kisses, plural; the two of us volunteered for this terribly difficult assignment for weeks on end), and my family moved to Ohio. I had not seen Ray Rosales since I was 10 years old when we were both giddy with the responsibility of “some important thing,” yet here he was decades later, miraculously, leaning against a wall in a house in Michigan looking like he was trying hard not to get caught by Mrs. Sullivan.

I summoned my Christian virtue and invited him into the picture living room. The group was friendly and we all sat and chatted with Ray, looking out over the lake, trying to discuss the original reason for his visit, namely the invasion of zebra mussels and the introduction of, I don’t know, typhoid or something. I had sort of stopped listening. Ray kept losing track of his own story and turning to me with that 10-year-old’s smile.

“Hey, remember when I pushed you on the swing and you fell off?”

“Remember when we told your little brother to ‘go get lost,’ and he did?”

And the one he didn’t say: “Remember how crayons smell like desire?”

I know you’re wondering, so… Ray Rosales is married, has no kids, and is a tool and die maker in Warren. And, yes, he’s still cute as hell (and has all of his floppy black hair!). He lives right across a picture window from some friends of mine in Lake Orion, Michigan, in the same town as me, where, as the sign says, “Living Is a Vacation.” And sometimes a flashback.

I gave Ray Rosales my card and he gave me his phone number, and we will probably never see each other again.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go color.

14 July 2009

 

Rescuing the Busters by Erin Waugh, 16 December 2010

[This is a reprint from December 2010, but the fact that we still brutalize “pets” with impunity is just as valid.]

Part 1 – Buster Has a Very Bad Day, or a Good One  

The back story: on Tuesday, 14 Dec 2010, Bowie-dog and I went for a hike. This is something we did nearly daily; we were veteran trail-walkers. Even though it was not properly legal, Bowie ran on the trails leash-free, and so did I. It was bright winter day in Cincinnati, sunshiny and 16°, and we crunch-crunched happily up the hill through the snow.

“Bring it!” sang the rhythm of my two feet.

“Bring it! Bring it!” echoed the rhythm of her four.

“COME NO FURTHER!!” barked some vicious cur in the brush up ahead.

We stopped. That’s what you do when animals hurl Monty Python dialogue at you. But only for a second. I could tell that the barking was more tragic than aggressive. We crunch-crunched closer. There, under some frost-encrusted branches, was the source of the warning. This was no Black Knight. It was a terrified young pit bull protecting his newly-created “nest” with every ounce of energy left in his mangled body, which, judging by the emaciated look of him, was about 23 calories worth. His short coat was red and white, at least where it was not ruined by poorly-healing fighting scars. The insides of both back legs were feverish pink with urine mange. The white part of his left eye was angry red, the result of a choking injury. He appeared to have about 2000 ribs, all of which were quivering in the extreme cold and working hard to summon the last of his remaining barks to keep us out of the only thing he owned – these two square feet of matted brush. The energy expenditure of having to make any more noise was going to starve him to death. I backed up so he wouldn’t die of “famine from barking.”

“Son. Of. A. Bitch.” I said, throwing my hands up in the air, inadvertently yanking my Bowie. Fortunately I had not yet liberated Bowie-dog from her leash. Because Bowie is an extremely well-mannered dog, she did not feel the need to point out the fact that I was cursing quite rabidly to no one. And that I was also NOT making any forward progress on her normal run-and-shit-through-the-woods jaunt that she so looks forward to.

I pulled Bowie back away from the very frightened “Buster.” Somehow I had already named the pit bull. The pathetic red dog was now “Buster,” and Buster was still barking at us to get the hell away from his igloo of bent branches, even as he peed all over himself.

Me: “I have turkey jerky in my car.”

Bowie-dog: “Of course you do.”

Me: “And we’re going back to fetch some for Buster.”

Bowie: “Can I have jerky?”

Me: “No.”

Bowie: “Why? Buster is not even your dog.”

Me: “He is right now.”

I opened the bag of turkey jerky and walked back toward Buster’s lair. He barked. “STAY AWAY!” That hole in the brush was all he had. That, and some bright pink injuries on his face that were beginning to ooze. I threw a piece of jerky on the ground in front of him. He barked, sniffed, bent down, barked, gobbled. He barked even as he ate it. I think I heard him mutter under his breath, “Holy shit, this is good.” I threw another piece in the brush. I knew the jerky was way too salty for a dog, but in this emergency I was not going to worry about Buster’s kidneys.

I needed help. Buster was terrified and starving and injured. I couldn’t coax him out of his safe place, not even with jerky. And even though Bowie-dog is a gentle bear of a girl, Buster didn’t know that. Frightened, cornered animals are unpredictable. And his jaws still worked. And I was very fond of my fingers. I was generous, but not foolish.

I found the number for the SPCA on my phone, called. Tried to describe where we were. Good grief. I had NO IDEA where we were! We were at the beginning of a trail in a giant park. I did my best to tell the phone operator how to find us, and she promised a truck would be out there. Some time. Eventually.

I couldn’t just walk away from Buster’s hidey-hole. Someone else coming upon him might react to a barking pit bull with an abundance of hostility. And possibly ammo.

And another awful thought: what if a child came by? Or a smaller dog without Bowie’s wealth of charm? I couldn’t risk it. We had to stay.

Did I mention it was 16°?

We were dressed for the weather (especially Bowie-dog in her pimp fur coat), but we were dressed for MOVING. Standing around in the cold makes your toes brittle. And your attitude. And Bowie-dog was getting antsy.

Bowie: “Why aren’t we walking?”

Me: “Because we’re in a small crisis.”

Bowie: “Does it involve me?”

Me: “It does now.”

I ran out of jerky. Buster was so hungry that I think I could have fed him the entire turkey from “A Christmas Story” and he would still have room for mashed potatoes. I dug around in my car some more. I found an old box of shortbread cookies under the passenger seat. They were stale. Buster did not notice.

Bowie: “Those probably aren’t good for him.”

Me: “You want one?”

Bowie: “Yeah.”

Three hours. Three hours after the first phone call, three hours of pacing and placating and freezing and watching the sun sink lower. Three hours later the SPCA truck finally found us.

The driver was a quiet but sure young man named Brandon. Brandon was dressed in winter gear and a halo. Brandon spoke in the kind of low voice that might summon angels. Using only treats from his pocket and an obvious kindness that radiated from his eyes to his Timberlands, Brandon sweet-talked Buster out of his hidey-hole. Somehow Brandon calmly convinced Buster that coming out was better than staying in there. Brandon could have coaxed Bin Laden out of a cave. This kid was g-o-o-d.

Once released into the sunshine, the violence that had been visited upon this dog was breathtaking in its brutality. The dog was young. Months instead of years. Every limb was battered. His face was a hashtag of wounds. His skin hurt.

Me: “What happens now?”

Brandon: “I will take him to the shelter.”

Me: “And then what?”

Brandon looked down at Buster then at me: “And then, we’ll see.”

And he smiled. Sort of.

Bowie-dog and I headed home, drove through a car wash, and cried.

 

————————————————————–

 

Part 2 – What Happened to Buster?

I drove to the SPCA the following day to find out. I walked up and down the gauntlet of caged dogs. Oh, friends, do not take this stroll casually. Bring an anti-emotion shield. And a tissue. And possibly a gas mask. With the exception of a Romanian orphanage set down in the war zone of Darfur, this is one of most tragic walks of shame a human should endure. I cried past a hundred unwanteds. When I could breathe.

Our Buster was not in any of the cages, so I went to the front desk and spoke with a truly lovely woman named Carrie. I described Buster’s ordeal from the day before and showed her his picture on my phone. Carrie examined some paperwork, but I got the feeling she didn’t have to. She told me that Buster, or Dog #159 as he was known now at the SPCA, was “in the back” and would be held for five days … until. And the room got quiet. And Carrie smiled. Sort of.

“Pit bulls are illegal in Cincinnati,” she told me, not really wanting to say it. We looked at each other.

“In the back” meant that Buster was in the hospital part of the shelter. After five days, if Dog #159 was well enough to be put “in population” (by the way, Dog #159 was only five months old!!), the vet will determine what to call him, by which I mean, what BREED. See, she (the vet) can choose to call him a “terrier mix” or some other less inflammatory name besides the dreaded PIT BULL. And it was obvious that she HAD done so for other dogs, since, as I had cried through the cages earlier, there were dogs up for adoption that clearly had some (wink, wink) “Staffordshire Terrier” in them.

Is any ONE dog savable? Even a poster-child dog like Buster?

I don’t know. (Although I’m pretty sure Buster himself was rather grateful). But I recognize that the problem is so much bigger. Maybe (maybe?) we can make a difference by helping the system as a whole. I looked around at the under-staffed office and the crowded cages and the toxic ammonia smell (it’s visible) and I wished I were Bill Gates. Or at least Melinda. The SPCA, which stands for the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, is an extraordinary organization, but the work they do is like trying to stop gang wars with lollipops. And not even Blow Pops. But, like, Dum Dums, mystery flavor.

Fact is, they need money. So… maybe THAT’S what there is to do. Unless you can adopt all the unwanteds (and you can’t ‘less you wanna wind up on an episode of “Hoarders” and please… please don’t do this. Cuz then I’d have to come rescue YOU and take pictures of your nasty house, and your family would sue me for slander, and then I’d lose my computer and THAT CAN’T HAPPEN!!)

Maybe what we CAN do is send money to the places that CAN help, maybe the SPCA. Or any other organization that truly tries to help the abandoned and savaged creatures that we care so much about. Except when we don’t. It’s that old adage: “I can’t do it, but WE can.”

So, that’s my tail. Tale. Buster’s story. Did he survive this violent ordeal? I do not know. Was Buster the only dog that suffered this particular brand of wickedness? Hell, Buster wasn’t even the only dog THAT DAY to have been brutalized and dumped in a freezing public park. And that’s just in MY city. What’s happening in yours?

We love our critters. That was evidenced by the outpouring of kindness by every one of you who read the original posts of Buster’s rescue on my Facebook wall (in 2010). It moved you. It moved me to curse into the sunshine and cry inside a car wash. (That was weird, by the way. Try it.) But the job is bigger than us as individuals. So we ask organizations to do collectively what we cannot accomplish singly.

I can’t, but WE can.

This story is not about pit bulls. It’s not even about one dog. It’s about cruelty and the human condition. Maybe, by enlisting the help of the SPCA, we can feed, house, and warm Buster and all the Busters in our neighborhoods who are howling at people to “COME NO FURTHER!” because they don’t know how good a hug feels, even on an open wound.

Give to the SPCA. Merry Christmas.

(Also, please spay or neuter your pets. And possibly anyone who is cruel to animals.)

 

Erin Waugh

16 December 2010