Tips for Living(48)

The sketchbook I gave you on your twenty-eighth birthday is by far the best.

I remembered the price Picasso’s portrait of Dora Maar fetched, and I slipped the notebook into my shoulder bag. I couldn’t bring myself to trash it.





From the Pequod Courier

Letters to the Editor

Dear Editor,

This paper’s push to reduce the Pequod Police Department’s budget and earmark those funds for bike paths and solar street lighting is nothing but a politicized press pandering to liberals and jeopardizing public safety. The double homicide committed at Pequod Point this week is proof positive that our citizens need more protection, not less. Unless you want to start seeing vigilante groups patrolling the streets of Pequod, I strongly suggest that the Courier change its position.

Sincerely,

Mona Slattery

Pequod Citizens Oversight Committee





Chapter Twelve

“Pow!”

For a second, he looked stunned. Then he jerked violently backward. Struggling to stay upright, he lost the fight and fell at my feet. After a few whimpers, he closed his brown, almond-shaped eyes, went limp and lay still as a stuffed toy. One dead dog.

“Attennn . . . shun!”

The spunky Jack Russell snapped to life and sat up on his haunches. Lifting his left paw to his spotted white muzzle, he gave a snappy salute.

“At ease, Serpico.”

Tail in full wag, Serpico jumped up and bounded toward the Barcalounger for a pat from his master before prancing back to me on the couch.

“I’m so impressed with you, Serpico!” I said, scratching behind his perky, triangular ears.

I was also impressed with the robust, sandy-haired young man sitting in front of me, glowing like a proud papa. Eric Warschuk had changed radically since I’d come to interview him six months ago, the day his pup arrived.

“He’s pretty great, huh?” he said, grinning.

Back then, the twenty-four-year-old former marine lance corporal was dangerously underweight and couldn’t look me in the eye. Afghanistan’s goodbye present to him the month before his tour of duty ended was an IED that blew his left leg off below the knee. Since coming home, he’d moved in with his mother, a school bus driver and single mom. He’d been depressed, unemployed and in counseling for PTSD. Melanie Warschuk had learned about the Canines for Heroes program and encouraged Eric to adopt one of their rescues—dogs that had been mistreated and needed a loving home. A Jack Russell was an unusual candidate for a vet service dog. Typically, they were larger breeds like German shepherds and Labs, but this one had excelled in his training. He had the heart of a Saint Bernard.

During those first hours with the adorable new pooch, Eric had seemed lethargic. He’d answered me in monosyllables. But he’d transformed since then and become positively chatty. Before aiming his pistol finger at Serpico, triggering the dramatic death scene I’d just witnessed, he’d made me coffee and talked my ear off about the great girl he just asked on a date and about his new dog-training business. He said Serpico was responsible for it all. I wrote down his quote in my black-and-white composition book—I always bring it along for notes when I’m on a story: “There are triggers: a noise, a smell or the way the light looks. They blast me back to that road outside Kandahar. Serpico knows what’s going on. He comes over and licks my face. He snaps me out of it, fast. I named him Serpico because he’s got my back. The little guy saves my life every day.”

I moved from scratching Serpico’s ears to rubbing his tummy. Maybe I needed to adopt a Serpico to bring me out of my black moods? We could take care of each other. Instead of searching for my life’s meaning, I could create meaning by loving a dog.

“You seem like a nice lady,” Eric said.

I looked up at him, perplexed.

“I saw you on the news.” He shook his head. “It must be tough for you. Man, the killers are everywhere. You don’t have to go to Kabul.”

I sensed the interviewee was about to become the interviewer. I stopped rubbing Serpico, stood up and extended a hand.

“Thanks for your time today, Eric. I’ll let you know when we’re going to run the story.”

Serpico rolled onto his back and started singing high notes. He was begging me for another belly scratch. I bent over and gave him a few parting strokes.

“She didn’t like dogs,” Eric said.

“Who?”

“Helene Walker. She was mean to him.” He nodded toward Serpico.

I hesitated, and then sat back down.

“You knew her?”

“No.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I still have a tough time sleeping some nights, so I hang out at the Thunder Bar and watch the bowlers. I used to get loaded before I found Serpico. Now I bring him along and nurse a few Cokes. He’s like my AA sponsor.”

The dog pawed me for more tummy action. I pulled him onto my lap and obliged.

“Anyway, it was late—the place was empty. This was back in early September, around Labor Day, I think. Stokes was closing out the register. I’d just paid my check and was about to go home when Helene Walker showed up. She told Stokes she thought she’d left her favorite scarf there a few days before, when she’d come in for a drink. She asked if he remembered her, if he’d found it. Funny time to look for your scarf, I thought. While Stokes went to check the lost and found, Serpico trotted over and gave her leg a sniff. She kicked him off.”