CHARLIE DER UBERHUND
Sir Charles races through the kitchen from the front hall, around through the den and back completing the circle returning into the kitchen, stiff rear-legged hobbling about the table, lumbering at an odd gait, royally straddling his big red and glistening, around the table right into the diningroom, settling on in for the kill of sorts. My unspoiled view from the kitchen table: he snaps his head down and under and catches it, holding it in the suction of his mouth, fervently working himself all twisted in excitement, toppling and collapsing onto the carpet at a better more comfortable vantage. Charlie slurps fast and furious in a pace, his lower portion flopping against the floor as a fish turns out of water, thumping faster and he finishes himself off in grand fashion. Looking up panting, lolling tongue, a dog smile, and his whole snout seems wet.
When the sister's friends showed up the night with him as a white ball of pup, pure-bred white German shepherd though why his ears drooped we were assured he was just a baby not grown into them, homeless, the ASPCA gas chamber, and though the cats knew better standing off on the periphery with big tails, voices gravely low, we took him in, our new dog.
Dad built a small pen in the backyard, I helped painting the wood white. Charlie made the white mud and dug himself trenches out all over until we lined the whole pen with watermelon-sized creekstones, but by then he'd doubled, tripled in proportions and could jump the fence just for fun. Another fun was chasing after and retrieving the bricks we'd heave down the back hill.
Charlie likes the downstairs bathroom, cool, blue carpet to lie on, that big porcelain bowl of fresh water, occasional captive company. We are briefly at my house, me my girl Jenny and our friend Alec, I reassure his directions to the bathroom. Charlie trots along at his flank. Charlie's other trick is to suddenly cut in front, darting on into the bathroom ahead of you. We hear Alec agree to let him stay. The splattering sounds creep from under the closed door in the stillness of the house, and right through it Alec's shriek, repeated, his words, "No, stop that!" A piercing chortle, "Stop that, quit it, please, stop doing that, ohh," shaking laughter. Alec flushes and returns, face disturbed, ashen rose, words lisped in astonishment: first Charlie had flicked out that old tongue lapping at his stream of piss, working upward to the source, started licking his thing in motion which was too much, the screams then fending the rest of the time for his privacy without loosing aim.
Now Charlie jumps up so happy, his front paws in the sister's lap as she sits on the couch watching television; so happy, she pats the top of his hard head, flat dog head, scratching the lines of his happy face, ears, base of the ever droopy ears, pet the dog, happy dog--Charlie feels so good he starts on inching out and happy and excited by attention buries his muzzle in the most embarrassing region of her crotch, even better, and his hindquarters go hunching in agreement, one of her legs between his two and clenched and bigger and frenzied, and pushed off, thrown off, fists pummeling his shoulders, dumb dog hide, "Gross!! Stop that!"
Charlie the wonder dog strolls into the den. I sit on one end of the couch, not watching television. My mother occupies the other end; in front of us my dad seriously completes the triangular scene standing then squatting. It's so hot and humid as any afternoon in mid-August would be. I am trying to explain to my parents why I don't want to go to college in the fall after all in about two weeks. I've grown rather fond of simply hanging around the house all day, taking my old buddy Charlie for long romps in the woods, and naturally staying up most of the night.
My reasons are numerous, but hidden right now; hanging around the house never counts; faced with the actual discussion I grasp for them, all the others, those elusive straws stuck way away in my brain, I squeak, anything close to it all sounds stupid and whiny, I say, "I don't want to share the same room with someone I don't know."
I say, "I don't know, I just can't bear the thought of having to share a communal bathroom with all these other guys I've never met who'll invariably hate me on sight, first glance anyway, I don't know, I just don't want to. I don't know. I guess I'm not explaining myself very well."
Charlie lies in the middle of the floor taking a bath. My dad prefaces with how he used to feel that way, but then he was in the Army, and barracks, and a whole bunch of other guys and he got over it and Charlie is long cleaning one particular part. I feel the conversation hanging a sharp right towards pure cliché, to a salivatory background, we keep trying to have our serious discussion while Charlie sprawls flipping thump-thump side to side servicing himself--call him insatiable--grunting sucks while we all pretend to ignore him until my dad straightens up with a shout, strides over to the dog immersed in his pride and kicks Sir Charles a couple swift brutal boots to the ribs and crotch.
The only other marks Charlie left on this world were a large crumpled dent in the hood of a Volkswagen and the memorably resonant thud which everyone in the house heard clearly and immediately understood.