4.4.02:
... But they had come home from California the other month and the house smelled horribley like poo and Sam (on spring break) and Bryan and their parents found the house sitter, Sam’s friend Alex in the basement drawing something and they yelled at her why didn't you notice the piles and piles of dog shit on the living room carpet and Alex merely said grasping at straws that she just couldn’t get over Ruby’s horrible smell, which masked everything. Bryan’s mom was furious so Bryan took the dogs outside gently and noticed that Ruby did smell horrible, as though she had rolled in poo... but something sicklier. Bryan decided right then and there, although it was a school night and ten ‘o clock at that, to give both of the dogs a good bath (and even though it wasn't summer). He went inside and got a flashlight and went back outside and found the containor of dog shampoo and screwed the end of the hose into the faucet-end (it was low to the ground and his knuckles scraped and his thighs hurt from running around all day with the plane flights but he tried to concentrate and bend the unbendable hose-end to a fourty-five degree angle and he finally got the flashlight button to stick and the hose to screw in rightytightyleftyloosey) and he reached over and tried to pull Ruby by the collar over towards the shampoo and hoseend but she insisted on lingering by the glass doors framed by wood to stare into the lighted scene plaing out there between Alex and Bryan’s parents. Bryan knelt down beside her to whisper in her ear when he noticed dried mud all over her front part-neck and chest area. He sniffed at it and smelled the poo-smell and fingered the matted fur, trying to pull the poo off: she must have rolled in it. He realized in the light from the inside that the mud was blood and pus and the horrible smell was from then infected cut that laced down her front and Bryan screamed and started to cry hysterically. Ruby sniffed at his tears, confused, and the door poured open and Bryan’s parents rushed out and examined the dog’s front gently and Bryan’s mom hugged him very close. Bryan’s dad went inside to find the yellow pages and found a 24 hour emergancy animal clinic, whcih, even though it was in Imperial, Bryan's dad decided to go to. Sam allowed the use of her Jeep Cherokee and she spread a red and white checked picnic blanket (they had brought the dogs on so many camping trips remember when it was so cold outside in the thin nylon tent and Ruby was warm she helped and she loved to sleep on the soft teal sleeping bags in general when he would have friends spend the night they would have to kick Ruby off of the ends of their sleeping bags, but sometimes Bryan just let her sleep and worked around her) over the bottom of the back, snivelling, crying over her estranged childhood that was too far away to ever call back. And Alex cried too, hard, through assurances that it really wasn't her fault at all. Maybe it had been his fault, had he tugged her too hard one day? Had he? But Bryan’s dad lifted up Ruby into the back of the suv, where she sat up sometimes to sniff the outside air pouring through the part rolled-down windows and sometimes she layed down, during turns bracing her claws agsinst the plastic beyond the blanket through Bryan’s attempts to steady her. Bryan had come with his dad and only his dad, though his mom said, very sadly before they left: make sure there's nothing else they can do. So they drove about and finally found the place and they pulled up in front, as it was now very late on a monday and parked and the leash was attached to her collar and when Bryan's dad opened the trunk-panel-door Ruby hopped out and shook herself off and wagged her tail and panted as they entered the very white building. They went into an examining room and the doctor came and told Bryan and his father that Ruby would have to have been very sick for such a shallow cut to have become infected so badly and fast and the fluid in her stomach must make her very uncomfortable and through the added strain of keeping herself alive she was breaking down muscle mass. The doctor went on to say that they could give her more antibio-otices but those would only keep her alive for a few weeks and they would not take away the pain, as nothing really could, now. And so Bryan said goodbye to his dog, to his lady, he patted her head and kissed the top of it as he had so many times before and scratched behind her ears where there had once been clumps of fur but now it had thinned out so much. He stroked her back and felt her spine quite clearly through the thin yet so radient fur still and, as the doctor left her and Bryan and Bryan;’s father alone for a few mintues to say goodbye Ruby went over to the glass door and whined, just once, softly. She didn;t want to die and he didn;t want to die and he could remember so clearly when the dogs would be in the yard and he would come home they would hear the cr pull up and Ruby would bark so resoundlingly, a roouf to Boot’s castrated riiif. Bryan’s heart broke. He couldn;t stand to watch her die, so he let the doctor take his dear by the hand and lead her into another room, her tail sashaying softly behind her. Bryan’s dad paid at the desk, and an orderly came out, too soon, they couldn;t possibly have done it yet, and asked if they wanted the collar, bright pink with a red stain where the clasp was. Bryan couldn’t speak, but his father said,
“No, that’s all right. No wait. Let me have the tag.” So he took the tag off and gave it to Bryan;s father, who pocketed it and hugged Bryan as they left the hospital, the leash doubled up and cluched in Bryan’s hand.
