Life Will Be the Death of Me: . . . and You Too!(18)

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One day, when I was around fifteen, I went foraging through the attic and found the pictures of my brother, head caved in, crumpled among rocks. I saw the pictures most parents would have made a better effort of hiding. His head, his chest, everything was crushed. Blood splattered the rocks above him. His limp body with his torn flannel shirt and jean shorts.

The mountain rangers and paramedics said he would have died instantly. Lucky for him, I thought, looking at those photos. The rest of our pain was taking forever.





There are many things dogs can do to make you feel like a better human being—like run toward you. For the record, I’m not one of those people who cares more about animals than humans, but I am someone who knows that loving a dog makes you a kinder and fuller person.

I don’t have such luck with babies—and the feeling is mutual—so when I realized dogs were receptive to me, I returned the favor. My obsession with Chow Chow mixes came alive only when I rescued Chunk and was told he was a Chow mix. After six years, I decided it was time for Chunk to have a sibling. If Chunk was my firstborn, then Tammy was the stepdaughter that I loved almost more than my own blood. Tammy was a tramp, and that’s what I respected about her the most.

The minute I saw her, I knew she was my dog. First, she was a Chow mix and she had the purple tongue to prove it. Second, everything about her screamed Guadalajara. She looked like she had survived more than one street fight, and possibly one with an animal that wasn’t a dog. She had one dead ear, alopecia on her ass, a very scantily clad tail, and a gait that hinted she had withstood hip-replacement surgery. Tammy was essentially a build-a-bear, and I knew that with some maternal attention from my cleaning ladies and some serious nutrition, I could turn that gait into a swagger. She was exactly the type of dog who could pull off an ear piercing.

    We rescued Tammy from a facility in Long Beach—where, for the record, my cousin Molly said the following: “You can’t get that dog. She’s the ugliest one here.”

I didn’t think she was ugly. I thought she gave new meaning to the term “underdog.” There was nothing ugly about her—scrappy, maybe, like she could have been carrying a pocketknife. She needed me, and whatever her name would turn out to be, I knew I needed her right back.

Even though Molly is twelve years younger than I am, she’s smarter and more capable than I’ll ever be, but in this particular instance I knew I had the ability to see what would be overlooked by most everyone else. That’s the great thing about Molly: she knows I’m right about the things that get me in the gut. If I want to give a stranger $10,000 and she thinks they’re going to spend it on crack—just because I met that person in a crack den—I will defer to Molly. She’ll say something along the lines of, “Let’s sleep on that, and if you still feel that way in the morning, then we’ll do it and you’ll have my full support.”

That means no.

    In this instance, Molly knew I meant business. I was rescuing Tammy and was going to give her what she needed—some real-life pampering. Someone to show her she was special. After all, when I get dogs, they aren’t just being rescued by me, they are getting the love and attention of my cleaning ladies, my assistants, my dog walker, and everyone else who either works at my house or meanders through it on a regular basis.

Older dogs are special because they have had more rejection. Their hope is gone and, even though no one seems to know exactly how old any rescue dog is, when you adopt an older dog you are cramming their last years with love and giving them the security that comes with knowing they have a home. I have always believed you can erase bad memories with twice as many good ones. Maybe “erase” isn’t the right word. Maybe “dim” is a better word.

After the people at the rescue center cleaned up Tammy, the two women handling her adoption told me that she could be a really beat-up four-year-old or she could be twelve, and that I should ask my vet for clarification when she had her first checkup. When the rescue presented Tammy to us, they had placed a little pink bow in each ear—the full-bodied ear and the limp one. She looked like a harlot. Once we got her in the car on our way home, we removed those embarrassing gender labels from her ears and got down to business.

“I feel like we have two names to choose from,” I told Molly on our way back to my house. “Bernice or Tammy.”

“Or Destiny,” Molly said, with the dog sitting on her lap looking at the 405 freeway in awe. “Destiny is totally underused.”

    The first night I had Tammy home I had some people over for dinner. I picked her up and placed her in my lap, facing me, leaving both of her curiously stiff front paws positioned around each of my hips. Mary craned her head over the dinner table, amazed, and said, “Is she hugging you? I’ve never seen a dog do that.”

“Chelsea’s making her,” Molly told Mary. I wasn’t making Tammy do anything. I was showing her the seating options available to her, and one option was on my lap, facing me. Chunk would never sit on my lap—a) he was just too big, and b) he valued his personal space. I had finally found someone who didn’t.

Tammy’s teeth looked like she was from London, so when Tanner took her to her first vet appointment for a once-over, the nurse called and told me she may need to have all her teeth removed.