One Thanksgiving Night

When I was very young -- before the pain of arthritis became my companion and lover -- I went to my uncle's house for Thanksgiving. He wasn't the family's favorite uncle for a variety of reasons, but mostly because he didn't run with the pack. There was something about him though that I liked in a very soulful way. It was in his eyes, that something, and it drew me to him every time we came within sniffing distance. His name was Rob, and even he admitted it wasn't a dog's name, but then, like humans, we don't get to choose our names. And I wasn't called Creak then, either. My name was James. Creak came much later after my second family took me in, and after Rob died.

But that Thanksgiving day, Rob and I, although he was much older, were inseparable. We got firewood together, chewed the edge of the carpet by the front door together, and when I fell asleep between his front paws, I dreamed of running and sunlight and owners who always had one more dog biscuit in their pocket. And Rob let me dream. Because then, it was my job to be a puppy, and that Thanksgiving day, it was his job to let me be one.

Down the street two other dogs lived under a porch. Their caretakers mistreated them and kept them on edge, and Rob and I talked about how we might be able to help them have the best Thanksgiving they'd ever had. The emphasis on best was Rob's, but it was emphasized for my benefit, not theirs.

We agreed that after dinner we would take some turkey down to them. "But," I said, "do you know how hard it is for a puppy to put turkey in his mouth and not eat it?" and Rob said, "yes, he knew, but that today wasn't going to be only about me, and that I was going to have to try a new feeling - thinking of another dog.

"It's the only feeling in the world you can be truly thankful for," Rob said. "Thinking of another dog's well being is the highest emotion, the most difficult action a dog can take, and the most rewarding," he said, through those eyes that kept me riveted to him.

So we started off together, after both of us had eaten too much food and the football game was at the moronic part where the dog and Native American mascots were running around on the field while the marching band was playing something with 102 beats per minute. We each had a piece of turkey in our jaws, Rob with a leg and me with a breast that had a wing off to the side which I put in my mouth and used as a carrying handle. As we walked through the frosty leaves that crackled under our paws, I realized I was drooling and, as full as I was, I couldn't stop thinking about how good that turkey tasted, but I held off taking the two bites that would have put it past my tonsils.

The turkey became the focus of my being, and, at the same time, I became hyper sensitive to my foot steps, my breathing, my fur moving in waves as I walked, the wind, and the smells of the world filtering through the turkey. Rob was ahead a few steps and although it was dark and cold I could smell his leadership. Maybe, I thought, that's why some of the other dogs didn't like him. He wasn't their leader. He was mine and I felt very secure.

I felt a piece of turkey break off from the wing, move across my tongue and down my throat. It tasted wonderful. Better than any of the turkey I had eaten that day. I didn't tell Rob, and I felt badly for having eaten another dog's turkey, but soon I forgot, and I was feeling the air and our mission and the look on those dog's faces when we brought them our Thanksgiving present. Then I considered that it wasn't our Thanksgiving present, it was theirs. We were bringing their Thanksgiving present.

Then I saw Rob stumble and immediately smelled danger, and stopped, frozen in my tracks. I bit into the turkey wing and the breast dropped to the ground. Rob turned around and asked if I was OK. I said yes. I didn't ask if he was OK because I was the puppy and I had forgotten that he said today wasn't going to be about me. So we kept walking, but I still smelled danger, even though, with the wing gone, I had my teeth sunk into the meaty breast and could taste the meat as well as the marrow. But I didn't say anything. I must be wrong, I thought, because Rob would smell danger, too and tell me what to do. So I kept on walking, but there was a new unsettled scent in the air that I couldn't identify and it kept me from feeling my fur waving in the night breeze or the rhythm of my paws on the potato-chip autumn leaves. It was the scent of death. But I know about death. If I couldn't eat it, sniff it or retrieve it, it didn't exist.

As we came up to the porch where the two dogs lived, I was thirsty. We approached slowly, but we knew they knew we were coming. They smelled the turkey and us and for a minute I thought I smelled danger again, but it was just them. They knew Rob and he introduced them to me. There was a comfortable scent and only after a few minutes was I able to understand that it was because there were no human scents under this porch. It was all dog. Under here every dog knew his place. Rob was the leader. I was the puppy. One of the dogs, King, sniffed me hard and long. It was youth, Rob told me, that King wanted to remember. The other dog, Mike, barely looked at me, and, being the puppy, I was used to much more attention. Mike instead tended to Rob, licking his hind leg while Rob lay down in a dirt bowl of a bed with an earth birm on the windward side. Rob was smiling. Mike was attentive and King was pacing. No one was eating. It was very strange. Four dogs with turkey and nobody eating, I thought to myself.

Soon the three of them were talking in a language I couldn't understand and I looked at Rob but his eyes were closed and his speech was slow. I walked around to the other side of the earth bed and froze. Mike was still licking Rob's hind leg which was nearly severed from his hip. I started shaking and leaned in to smell the raw flesh. Mike growled and I backed away.

I listened hard. New chemicals were racing through my brain, and began to understand what the other three were saying. Rob had stepped in an old, rusty trap that both Mike and King knew about. Their owners had put it there to catch raccoons.

Mike moved away and I moved closer to Rob, licking his leg in slow deliberate movements. I didn't know it then, but Mike knew as a puppy, my saliva was loaded with antibiotics, so he let me lick Rob's leg for nearly an hour. But that scent was strong. The scent I know now is death, and soon I understood what Mike and King already knew. That Rob would die under the porch on Thanksgiving night. And that night, as well as most of the days that followed, were not going to be about me anymore.

Then a very strange event took place. I became comfortable with not being the center of attention as I devoted all my energy to making Rob comfortable. And the more I gave, the more I got. I mean, the more I thought about making Rob's last minutes on earth as comfortable as possible, the more I summoned up every ounce of love and attention to give to Rob, I seemed to signal to King and Mike to settle in behind me, to feed me their energy so I could work harder. Mike kept his body close to mine providing heat and King lay down across the wind taking it's full autumn force leaving a calm center for Rob and me and Mike.

When Rob died I stopped licking and stood up. My joints were stiff when I realized I hadn't moved anything but my head and tongue for the past two hours. I looked around for a newspaper when Mike motioned me outside.

When I returned, they were both standing over the turkey. As I approached and looked down at the breast and leg, they started to eat slowly. I wasn't hungry. I watched them eat and wondered where Rob was now, and where he would be tomorrow. I vowed to remember his smell. They finished without choking on a bone. These were dogs who knew how to make a meal out of food that humans think dogs can't eat. These were survivors.

We looked at each other and as I turned away from them, we all knew I would be back.

As I walked home I thought about Rob's caretaker and his house, and my caretaker, and how I could explain what had happened. I was an older dog now and thankful that I had a warm place to sleep, people who loved me, two new dogs who respected me, and a dog whose scent would guide me forever.

Today when my arthritis becomes unbearable, I find another dog with arthritis and remember again that the world isn't all about me as we trade our pain for each other's energy just like the four of us did under the porch that night.