Small town Outcasts

Chapter 2. Puppyhood and Picking Out Trees with Daddydick

First, a note. The following is chapter two of a fiction story. I’m considering posting it as a serial. That’s a trendy idea right now. But how long would you follow something like this? I’d really appreciate your thoughts and comments. 

To say she is my dog wouldn’t be accurate. We have each other and nobody else. She’s not a cuddly, buddy dog. She’s loyal as can be, but always about 5 minutes from me. I could be cutting grass or changing the oil and do my little Sugarbear whistle, which is to sort of say her name in a whistle, and she shows herself. She doesn’t come running. We don’t even touch.

Whatever made this seem like a normal relationship must have been hard. To understand, I followed leopard lady into Peter’s Spa and Salon. This was a new world for me. It smelled like vanilla, peroxide, and fake ferns.

Inside she laid back, covered by the cape, head underwater, I could only see her stocking feet and her chins but she talked like we were face-to-face old friends and not a bit worried that Peter and the other woman heard every word. Peter squirted her hair off, toweled it dry and she never quit talking.

“Daddydick was furious when he realized I’d been harboring a stray and her puppies! He’d come home early. It was the afternoon the Hurricane rolled in. He was sitting on the porch watching Al Roker cover the storm when he heard whimpering. I swunny, he was furious. He’d have called the pound except for the hurricane closed everything. So he crawled right under the porch, right by the river birch tree, I don’t know how he fit, the fat asshole, but he scooped the momma and 5 puppies into a plastic laundry basket and took them away. I never asked to where.”

She paused, “You understand we call him Daddydick when he’s not around ‘cause he’s such a jerk.”

Peter pulled a plastic skull-shaped bag over her hair, dabbed water from around the edges, and ran his fingers behind her ears. Maybe that was the secret. Something in this place lowers barriers. She’s still talking when I catch back up.

“SugarBear was the runt and the only white puppy. That little outcast must have tucked into a hole in a cement block to escape his attention. She was my little secret baby. I pureed chicken and cream for her. She loves chicken now. We were a pair; we’d walk all through the country club. But only after all the men went to work. Never needed a leash cause she stayed right with me. When we got home, she’d go right under and anywhere I was in the house, she was right there too. Under me. Like a shadow. We lived like that right up until the grand-baby came and Daddydick was home all the time.  That’s when I had to find her a new home.”

I walked out of Peter’s Salon and sat in my truck with the door open till the a/c kicked in. I felt like I’d seen a movie about a place I knew but with different characters. I knew the porch, the TVs, and the hurricane afternoon. I knew her river birch tree and her husband. Back when the country club was a giant construction site, I’d worked with him choosing all the trees for the new roads. He’d park his Lexus, pull on some boots and walk the entire muddy site, kicking the tires of my tractors, getting off being with the worker types for a few hours. I knew his nickname wasn’t only because he was a jerk. I knew he was proud of it.

Now I knew why SugarBear never liked to get too close.