The Hopeless Romantic's Guide To Life

I wish I remember that chocolate lab’s name. He was old. And Fat. So fat. His brown coat- maybe it was black like our dog? The further I try to look back the harder it seems to be to remember. Regardless. it was dark. He was loyal. Such a good boy. Hardly had to be tied up.  He followed his boy around all the time. In fact the only way I remember the boy is with the dog panting next to him at his feet.

We were all young. The kids in the neighborhood kept it real. Everyone went to the elementary school a block away. They walked together from all over.

The boy’s mom always had to coax the dog back in the house after the boy crossed the street with the other children. The dog always seemed intent on making sure everyone made it to school on time.

I didn’t go to that school. I’d load up the old van and mom would drive me to my private school about 10 blocks away. The dog didn’t care too much about me. He knew I went elsewhere- somehow.

The boy with the dog lived across the side street in the upstairs apartment of a blue house. It wasn’t a big apartment, none of them were on our street. Just a bunch of half rehabbed victorian homes sheltering the working class blue collar man on a brick street. I spent a lot of time in my room at a young age. Some Sunday afternoons, my family would pile in from church and after lunch I’d clean my room and listen to a radio show for kids. Many times I’d pass my window only to spot the boy with the dog sitting on the roof together. He always sat the same way- knees pulled to his chest, bottom on his heels, worn sneakers holding him in place gallantly on the black tar roof, dog resolutely sitting beside him.

The only way to get to their apartment was up a steep set of open, wooden, cheaply assembled steps climbing practically straight up at the back of the house. Once inside you were hit with the overwhelming smell of cigarettes. A stench that only hung around because the downstairs tenants smoked like chimneys regularly for 20 years. I digress. By the time you caught your breath you had to climb more wooden steps, that had to be original to the house, up to a landing. The wood on these steps was loud to walk on. The whole house knew when someone was climbing them. For as much noise they made they might as well have been hollow. The wood was so aged, it was nearly black. On this landing was the door to the apartment and a window which also was so old and rickety with single pane glass and wood frame it had to be an original to the house. This was his escape window.

I watched him climb out once and wished I could do the same. Getting away from the frequent yelling would have been a sweet release. Each day I spotted him I’d wave. He’d wave back. Sometimes we’d make faces at each other. But usually he looked like he was out there to think. Or get away from something. I assumed his parents fought like mine did. When his mother would catch him out there she’d scold him and make him come back in. But I always admired his system. He had a good spot there. No one inside his home could see him from their windows. Sometimes I think I was the only person in the whole neighborhood that knew he climbed out there so often.

The Boy and his Dog seemed to grow up faster than everyone else in the neighborhood. The summer of 4th grade he shot up several inches and made more of an effort to be friends with the girls. He kept some of the meaner kids in line just by coming out to play with us. No one dared shove a stick in someone’s bicycle spokes while he was around. I never saw him bully anyone or get angry. He was just tall. And that made him king.

Just before 5th grade started his family moved away.

My parents eventually bought the blue house and fixed it up. Those wooden steps are still there though. The cigarette smell still lingers faintly, the steps inside are still loud as the trumpets on judgment day. The windows got replaces and the outside paint job was improved upon the summer I turned 16. It’s still blue.

The neighborhood hasn’t changed much. New faces, less trees, maybe some fresh paint in places but over all its still the same place I grew up. My family moved when I turned 13 to a nicer neighborhood. Life marched on. Boys came and went. Graduation arrived and passed. Careers were started. I didn’t think much about the boy and his dog until the 17th of March, 2016.

A seemingly small story fluttered across my facebook news feed but a name caught my eye.

A local man who had enlisted in the Air Force right out of high school three years prior had been killed. He wasn’t even in a war zone. Stationed in Japan, this boy, now a man with a wife, was riding his motorcycle off the base, lost control and hit a light pole and died. His body was being brought back home to be buried.

I stared at the name for a long time in silence. I excused myself from work and gave myself time to let the info settle.

I hadn’t seen him in more than 10 years. It didn’t surprise me he had joined the Air Force. I didn’t think I would notice him if I passed him in the store but the military photo the news provided was a reality check. This boy was just taller. He didn’t look any different than the little details I had somehow kept in the back of my mind. The smile and facial features were exactly as I remembered him. Just. Taller.