Have you ever started a project with the best of intentions, only to have it fizzle out, momentum-wise, partly through? Maybe you revisit it every so often, once or twice a year, try to get some momentum going again, figure out a way to move it closer to done.
IÕve found that this happens a lot, and if it happens to something I and I alone have worked on, I donÕt feel too badly about it. IÕve got a couple of half-done manuscripts that fall into this category. Someday, I think, I hope, IÕll get back to them.
The half-done projects that really start to really haunt me are the ones I have involved other people in, mostly volunteers. Things like short films, which I started to work on in earnest back in my late 30s and early 40s after finding some success writing for a few television projects.Ê
TodayÕs story is born from one such never-finished project, and IÕm hoping by turning it into a podcast, I can lay it to rest in my brain. And, if it all works out, there should be a short video that goes with this episode out on my social channels and on petebrownsays.com.
This is a story about Timbuktu.
Not the city in the African country of Mali. I mean the dog.
ItÕs kind of hard to write about one of our dogs (we have four as I am writing today) without giving a cursory background of my lovely wifeÕs dog problem. Because she loves dogs, and especially the unloved dogs: Puppy mill rescues, street adoptions, disabled dogs, hard-to-housebreak? All the better. We brought two dogs home with us at the end of our two years of service in the Peace Corps. How do you get two dogs out of Russia? The short answer is bribery. And a lot of it.
We have been married for 23 years, and in that time we have had 8 dogs, and again as many that we found homes for?Ñ?16 by my count at this writing. ThereÕs just not time to run through them all, or how we found them forever homes, or cared for them until their passing.
Until quite recently, one of my wifeÕs self-soothing activities was browsing through pictures of adoptable dogs on the websites of local animal shelters. Somehow this activity is connected to me being Òemotionally unavailable,Ó just so you know, but when she yearned to adopt a fourth dog this past November (and just so you know, 4 is the maximum number of dogs our township allows you to have, which we know because we looked it up), when she wanted to adope a fourth dog, it came with a signed agreement that she would stop browsing these websites and bringing home more pooches.Ê
Now me, for much of my life, IÕd have told you that you I like dogs. They can be fun and comforting and, I suppose Òemotionally available.Ó But my liking of dogs has kind of more or less been beat out of me over hundreds of messes I have cleaned up over the years, of thousands and thousands of dollars we have spent at the vet, of a smell that I just canÕt get out of my nose anymore.Ê
After we adopted one dog, in fact the dog IÕm writing about today, my wife hired a doggie masseuse for him, who came to our house and gave him a massage. This is exactly what it sounds like: basically, a woman who is somehow crazier for dogs than my wife was paid to come to my house and vigorously pet one of them for 30 minutes, for which we paid her 50 bucks.
I drew a hard line that day. No more doggie masseuses.
And honestly, I wish I could roll with the chaos dogs bring more gracefully. But the more dogs we have over the years, the harder it has become for me. I suppose this is in part me aging, and also in part, 16 fucking dogs, come on, people! I took my family to Ireland for a week earlier this year and it cost me more to have the animals taken care of than our AirBnB in central Dublin cost for a week!
So I wouldnÕt say I love dogs anymore. I love my wife, and thus I realize that dogs are gonna come with that. But the truth is, IÕm feeling more than done with them, like IÕve paid my dues and at the end of the day, I feel like IÕve earned some dog-free years. IÕm not going to get them, I know, but a guy can still dream. What I will get, again at the end of the day, by which I mean today, as I write this, at the end of a long workday, will likely be a mess in the house that my kids, who are technically supposed to take the dogs out when they get home from school, will have successfully ignored until I get home from work. In fact, there may be more than one mess, because we had the plumber doing work in the house today, and plumbers make dogs nervous and that just seems to make the dogs want to poop more.
Ok?Ñ?enough about our long history of dogs, although, quick aside, my wifeÕs biography could legit be subtitles ÒA long history of dogs.Ó.Ê
TodayÕs story is about just one of those dogs, and the many-years-long project that came with him.
When my kids were in Pre-K and First Grade respectively, I was traveling a good deal for work, 2 or 3 weeks out of every month. We were very briefly down to one dog at this point, a little white poof a dog we had adopted in Russia in 1995 and named Ripken, after Cal Ripken, Jr, who that year broke Lou GherigÕs record for consecutive baseball games played. And having just one dog was great! You could take care of him and manage our little ones without much fuss. But my wife cited my frequent travel as the basis of her expressed desire to Òget a big dog,Ó which I suppose is hard to argue against when youÕre the one doing all the traveling. We had a few false starts with some big dogs before we ended up adopting, for reasons I am still unclear on, an emotionally disturbed Labradoodle we named Talulah.
But this story isnÕt about Talulah, or if so, only in the most cursory ways, because with two dogs, including one big dog which allegedly was for our increased protection, I happily considered our family out of the dog market.
Then one day, I got a text message with a photo attached.Ê
I know that sounds weird now, but in the pre-smartphone era, it took a bit of doing to even take a photo, let alone attach it to a text message. And that my wife, a Luddite at heart and something of a technology black widow, had managed it, immediately caught my attention.
So I downloaded the attachment on my phone, which took about a minute?Ñ?for realsies?Ñ?and opened the photo. It was a down-the-snout shot of a chocolate lab sitting inside what looked to be a playpen on a public sidewalk.Ê
I know these shots well. The Òadoption eventÓ photos. IÕve gotten hundreds of them since then from my wife and kids, all with the same entreaty: PLEEEEEEEASSSSE can we adopt this dog?
Why do I always have to be the bad guy?Ê
IÕm just trying to be reasonable about things like the amount of work a dog is, and how many years that work goes on, and the amount of money they cost, and also, you know, THE AMOUNT OF FUCKING DOGS YOU ALREADY HAVE IN YOUR LITTLE SUBURBAN HOUSE.
So I triple-tapped a reply to my wife. (Triple-tapping was how you used to have to type text messages. Each number had 3 letters assigned, and you got the letter you needed by tapping it once, twice or thrice.)
(ASIDE: That was the first time I have ever used thrice in my writing and IÕm experiencing a momentary thrill having done so. Unlike dogs, I still love words, I guess.)
HereÕs what I carefully triple-tapped back: ÒIf you get that dog, you can name him ÔDivorce.ÕÓ
This became an oft-repeated story in our house. Even my young kids learned it and entertained their teachers with their retelling of it.
<Mattes/Parken telling story>
In the days that followed, my wife and kids mounted an advocacy campaign for adopting this dog. In fact, if thereÕs anything I hope my kids have learned from having these dogs all these years, itÕs how to build a grassroots advocacy effort by enlisting like-minded souls to your cause and then just wearing down the opposition through sheer tenacity.
The lab, who was called Rusty by his foster mother, was disabled. His disability was this: his back legs donÕt bend, as if his knees have been fused straight. It sounds as weird as it looks. His two back legs come down at an angle from his hips, and to get around, he uses them like a single pogo stick to bounce around.Ê
My kids were 4 and 6 at this time, and at breakfast every day my son would ask if today was the day we went and got the new dog. My daughter, only 4 at the time, would say things like ÒDad weÕll get the dog and youÕll make a movie about him, OK?Ó
At the time I was writing for a television/video game hybrid property, and I was realizing that I could do a much better job of it if I got my production and post-production skills up-to-speed. So I had started taking video production courses again at the local arts college, where my fellow students called me Òthat one old guy in class.Ó This was an astute tactic by my then 4-year-old daughter, because making short films was something I was beginning to do and enjoy with some regularity.
StillÉwe were full up on the dog front, as far as I was concerned. So I was unphased one morning, my wife brought me a cup of coffee while I was still waking up and said ÒI had a dream last night, a real clear dream.Ó
I braced myself. Her dreams can be pretty weird, and despite 20+ years of marriage, a lot of them still throw me for a loop.
ÒIn my dream, you said we could adopt that dog and that we would name him Timbuktu.Ó
ÒThat sounds like a nightmare,Ó I said, holding the line.
ÒCan we get him, pleeeease?Ó she said.
ÒCome on,Ó I said. ÒDonÕt make me the bad guy.Ó
But the truth is, I am the bad guy.Ê
I just donÕt think we, as a family at this point in time, can manage three dogs, one of whom is disabled. I donÕt think we can afford it. I think it would provide a regular inflow of the kind of challenging chaotic situations that I am particularly poor at handling. I think that 125% of our energy is taken up just managing two kids. And then thereÕs George CarlinÕs line, which IÕve always found to be true: pets are just future tragedies for your children. (I think that was George Carlin; IÕve not had much luck in sourcing it otherwise.)
A few days later, over my lunch hour at work, I drove to the local Half Price Books to sell a box of paperbacks. If youÕve never done this, let me give you a quick tip: Get a figure in your head of what you think the books are worth, and then figure out what 1% of that figure is. Because thatÕs what theyÕre likely to offer. And so be it?Ñ?theyÕre trying to build a business on books, for chrissakes. And what is your alternative? Take them home and store them? Give them to Goodwill? ItÕs just that if you let something like the handful of change Half Price Books is going to offer you for your books upset you, youÕre going in to the transaction with the wrong idea.
I had a good 20 or so decent quality mysteries to sell back, and I was happy to receive the princely sum of $2.25 for them. And as I turned from the sell-back desk with my receipt in hand, I stopped in my tracks.
There before me was a table, beset with a mountain of copies of the same book, which is how HPB sells remainders, I suppose. The book was a paperback by Paul Auster, who is one of my favorites. But it was the cover that grabbed me: it had a photo of a brownish-looking dog looking to camera. The title, in red letters, stretched above: Timbuktu.
And my stomach sank and I said ÒOh, shitÓ out loud.
So I guess we should talk a bit about signs. Not, like, store signs. I mean signs from the universe. And if I believe in them.
I want to say in some small way, I think all of us believe in signs, or feel like there was some higher significance to a coincidence in our lives. I donÕt know that I believe signs are all around us if we tune into them, as some say. But I do think if you get a weird feeling in your stomach as youÕre experiencing a coincidence, it may be you subconsciousÕs way to tell you to pay attention. Because thatÕs what I felt that day, looking at this mountain of books called Timbuktu. I didnÕt see the sign so much as I felt it.Ê
And I know this is different for everybody. When I explained this story to a friend of ours, she snapped ÒThatÕs not a sign. A sign is when your doorbell rings and itÕs the virgin Mary standing there telling you to adopt this freaking dog.Ó
So, we all have our own bar, I guess. For me, I bought a copy of the book (which was $2 by the way, so the amount I had gotten selling back my box of books just covered it), and that evening when I got home from work, I sat down on the bed, took a deep a breath and told my wife IÕd go look at the dog.
<Jodie remembers>
Now, IÕve come to know myself truthfully enough to understand stand that Ògoing to look at a dogÓ usually means we end up getting the dog. In fact, I think thatÕs 100%. One time my wife was bent on adopting a crazy energetic black lab named Scout and when I tried to raise my concerns that he seemed like a bit of a handful, we still ended up bringing him home, where he was, in fact, more than we could handle, plus he was intent on eating our little dog Ripken. Still, we gave it a go for two solid weeks before I stepped in with an ultimatum and took Scout back to find a family better suited to his needs.
Rusty, as he was then known, was being fostered by a retired woman named Helen who lived in a trailer in a rural area of the next county up. She had some land and fostered a lot of dogs. There was at least 10 or 15 running around when we visited.
And IÕll tell you this: Despite his disability, Rusty got on just fine with the pack, tearing around the yard and trying to get one of the tennis balls we flung about it. I can tell you weÕre had dog adoptions from the pound where little guys with big eyes look pleadingly at us through the fence and beg us with their eyes to bring them home. Rusty did none of this. He scarcely looked our way when we called him, and when he did stop by to smell the kids, he covered them with a righteous slobber.
ÒSo what do you think?Ó my wife asked.Ê
As if still deluding myself that this wasnÕt a done deal, I said ÒI donÕt know. He seems like a good dog, but IÕm worried about the work.Ó
ÒWhat do you mean?Ó Helen asked.
ÒI mean, all the extra work having a third dog is going to bring,Ó I said.
Helen tilted her head and looked at me questioningly. Technically, three dogs was about 1/5th the number she took care of, so it probably sounded like a good deal to her.
As you might guess, we brought him home and named him Timbuktu.
Here are a few of the surprising things we learned about Timbuktu after he came to live with us:
1. He was hella strong. Despite his rigid back legs, he went on four and five mile walks with my wife almost daily. To get through the dog door to go out back, he basically lifted himself onto his front two paws and handstand walked his way through.
2. He had different ideas about being a downstairs dog than we had for him. By which, I guess we thought heÕd sleep downstairs when we turned in each night. I was younger and stronger then, but carrying him up the stairs was still a dicey proposition. Luckily, one I didnÕt have to do. Instead, he pulled himself upstairs, step by step. HeÕd put his front paws two steps up, and then lift his back legs up a step. Then heÕd pause and breath like this, then heÕd do another step. YouÕd know he was working his way upstairs because youÕd hear the thump, thump thump.
I donÕt want to imply that Timbuktu was like a tiny, needy dog who has to be with you at all times. He was not. He was true a dogÕs dog, wolfing his food down in 30 seconds and washing it down with big drinks from the toilet. But he wanted to be where everybody was, so up the steps he climbed, bro.
3. If you were taking Timbuktu on a walk, it was highly likely you were going to end up in a conversation with a stranger. Most dog people, I think, are used to this. They always stop on their walks to talk to each other. They ask questions about the gender and breed of the other personÕs dog while the two pooches circle each other nervously, wrapping leashes around the humans legs as they work their way in to smell each otherÕs buttholes. And inevitably, one dog wonÕt like what he smells and growls and snaps ensue and you yank your dog out of there by his leach and back off a few feet and look for a way out of the conversation. IÕve stood by while my wife has had this scenario play out at least 250 times in our lives.
But with Timbuktu, even non-dog people would stop to ask about his legs. And heÕd lay down on the sidewalk or the trail and let them pet him while they talked to us. If other dogs were around, it was pretty rare that thereÕd be any truck between them and Timbuktu. He was just like that one dude you know that itÕs impossible to be mad at. Timbuktu. The dude.
4. He had it out for geese in a big way. When we walked him past a retention pond near our home, he took off after them with a vengeance, and when they fled into the water, he charged in after them. Which is how we learned he could swim.Ê
For a short time a few years back, we lived in a house with about an acre of land, on which we raised six chickens, of which Timbuktu was in constant pursuit. And also, in case youÕre wondering, chickens poop way more than dogs. If IÕm no longer a dog person, then for sure IÕm not a chicken person.
Shortly after we adopted Timbuktu, a request came in from a friend to see if Timbuktu could visit her husbandÕs church one Sunday. I think he was giving a sermon about making the best with what you got, and Timbuk was going to be his visual aid.
My wife said yes, no problem and conveniently forgot that she was otherwise engaged that Sunday, meaning, more or less, that IÕd been volunteered to take him, and in case you wondered, IÕm not a huge fan of church, but especially a not a brand new one where I knew nobody and my wife wouldnÕt be around to help out with the friendly chit-chat. I struggle to do folksy.Ê
ÒBut donÕt worry,Ó my wife told me. ÒIÕm taking Timbuktu there for a visit on Friday afternoon so he can smell the place.Ó
For some reason, she thought this made up for volunteering me for this duty. In truth, it just meant that Timbuktu was going to have more experience with this place than I was. Maybe he could be the folksy one.
Friday afternoon came and my wife and daughter drove Timbuktu to the church and met up with the maintenance lady, and they brought him into the sanctuary to smell around. Which he did. He smelled the pews and the hymnals. Smelled the organ and the carpet. He smelled the little cup holders. Smelled the steps leading up to the altar. And while my wife and the maintenance lady chatted about his legs, Timbuktu swung his behind over to the side and dropped a deuce.Ê
Right on the altar.
And, not to get too graphic here, but he was adjusting to a new dog food, and wasnÕt, um, solid at the time. More like soft serve ice cream, IÕm told. Which was a shame, because, at that moment, a wedding party was starting to arrive for their rehearsal.
Yikes.
When my wife told me this later that evening, I looked over to where Timbuktu was laying, looking around, bopping his head up and down and panting like he does.
ÒHey Timbuktu,Ó I said. ÒDid you go drop a deuce on the altar of a church?ÓÊ
In response, he closed his eyes and bounced his head up and down and panted away, just cool as a cucumber.
ÒMy man,Ó I said to Timbuktu. ÒMy man.Ó
***
Timbuktu was forever surprising us with what he could do, and delighting us with his always positive demeanor.Ê
<jodie insert>
I donÕt think I ever saw him in down spirits, even as he got older and getting around grew more difficult. Even as his nuzzle grayed and we had to carry him in and out, up and down the deck steps, even when he spent most of his days laying down and waiting for four oÕclock to roll around, which was when heÕd push himself up to a seated position and yelp like a puppy until we came and fed him.Ê
This was a different kind of bark than his happy bark, and yet still different from the yelp he made when he was stuck because of his legs and in need of assistance. Come to think of it, he was a pretty good communicator for a dog. Actually, I think he could give my teenage son a run for his money in the communications department, since he, my son that is, has mostly reduced his speech to different sounding grunts.
And as for making a movie, we did, my daughter and I, shoot some footage every few months. We did interviews one day?Ñ?in fact those kiddo voices you heard up top in this episode were from that time. Nowadays, theyÕre surly teenagers and sound like this <sample> and this <sample>.Ê
One day we decided we wanted to get some shots of Timbuktu chasing geese, but we wanted to get them from his perspective. I envisioned a shot from just behind his head, his nose poking into the center of the frame as it chased down geese.
To get this shot, I borrowed a GoPro from a colleague. GoProÕs were rather new back then, and not nearly as many people had them as they do today. I tried to figure out a rig Timbuktu could wear to get this shot, but everything I built tipped over as soon as he began bounding after the geese.
So we changed tactics and instead, I mounted the go pro to the end of a 10 foot PVC pipe, and tried following him around with this rig. And it seemed to be going well until he dove into the retention pond to swim after the geese. I waded in after him, thinking of the beautiful shot I was about to get?Ñ?TimbukÕs nose pointed toward some geese as he swam, the golden hour sunlight bathing the water in oranges and yellows.
Yes, thatÕs what I was thinking as I waded in to get the shot. In no way did I think, hey, maybe thereÕs a steep dropoff in this pond, which in fact there was, because I was only a few feet in when I took a step and found no bottom to meet it, and down I went, completely submerged. I donÕt know how deep it went, but I never hit the bottom before I managed to swim back up, grab the PVC pipe and head for shore.
The footage of that shot, by the way, is pretty hilarious. And if all works out as I am hoping, you can see that shot and some of the other footage we took of Timbuktu over the years in a short video over on PeteBrownSays.com, or on the Facebook page for the show.
***
IÕm afraid IÕm not going to be able to give you the ending you want for this episode, which IÕm guessing you know by now.Ê
Timbuktu passed away this past summer, closing his eyes one last time and bopping his head up and down, cool as a cucumber.Ê
In fact, weÕre down to two dogs now as I finish this essay, and theyÕre pretty small chihuahua-dachshund mixes (or chi-weenies, as theyÕre known).Ê
But out of all the dogs weÕve had over the years, Timbuktu is the one I think of most often, almost every day, in fact, since he passed, right around four oÕclock in the afternoon, when sometimes, I swear, I can still hear him yelp.
Godspeed, Timbuktu.Ê
My man.