Robert Reed - Roxie

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ROXIE

by Robert Reed

In “Roxie,” Robert Reed poignantly depicts the tragedy of death and

the wondrous gift of life. Commenting on the story, he tells us that,

“while my daughter is lobbying hard for a new dog, I have, so far,

resisted every urge.”

* * * *

She wakes me at five minutes before five in the morning, coming

into the darkened bedroom with tags clinking and claws skating across

the old oak floor, and then she uses a soft whine that nobody else will

hear.

I sit up and pull myself to the end of the bed, dressing in long pants

and new walking shoes—the old shoes weren’t helping my balky arch

and Achilles—and then I stop at the bathroom before pulling a warm

jacket from the front closet. My dog keeps close track of my progress. In

her step and the big eyes is enthusiasm and single-minded focus. At the

side door, I tell her to sit and hold still please, and in the dark, I fasten the

steel pinch collar and six-foot leash around a neck that has grown

alarmingly thin.

Anymore our walks are pleasant, even peaceful events—no more

hard tugging or challenging other dogs. A little after five in the morning,

early in March, the world is black and quiet beneath a cold, clear sky.

Venus is brilliant, the moon cut thin. Crossing the empty four-lane road to

the park, we move south past the soccer field and then west, and then

south again on a narrow asphalt sidewalk. A hundred dogs pass this

ground daily. The city has leash laws, and I have always obeyed them.

But the clean-up laws are new, and only a fraction of the dog-walkers

carry plastic sacks and flashlights. Where my dog has pooped for thirteen

years, she poops now, and I kneel to stare at what she has done,

convincing myself that the stool is reasonably firm, if exceptionally

fragrant.

A good beginning to our day.

We continue south to a set of white wooden stairs. She doesn’t like

stairs anymore, but she climbs them easily enough. Then we come back

again on the wide bike path—a favorite stretch of hers. In the spring,

rabbits will nest in the mowed grass, and every year she will find one or

several little holes stuffed with tiny, half-formed bunnies.

On this particular morning, nothing is caught and killed.

An older man and his German shepherd pass us on the sidewalk

below. Tony is a deep-voiced gentleman who usually waves from a

distance and chats when we’re close. He loves to see Roxie bounce about,

and she very much likes him. But in the darkness he doesn’t notice us,

and I’m not in the mood to shout. He moves ahead and crosses the four-

lane road, and when we reach that place, Roxie pauses, smelling where

her friend has just been and leaking a sorry little whine.

Home again, I pill my dog. She takes Proin to control bedwetting,

plus half a metronidazole to fight diarrhea. She used to take a full metro,

but there was an endless night a few weeks ago when she couldn’t rest,

not indoors or out. She barked at nothing, which is very strange for her.

Maybe a high-pitched sound was driving her mad. But our vet warned

that she could have a tendency toward seizures, and the metro can

increase their likelihood and severity. Which is why I pulled her back to

just half a pill in the morning.

I pack the medicine into a handful of canned dog food, stinky and

prepared with the senior canine in mind. She waits eagerly and gobbles

up the treat in a bite, happily licking the linoleum where I dropped it,

relishing that final taste.

Before six in the morning, I pour orange juice and go down to my

basement office. My PC boots up without incident. I discover a fair

amount of e-mail, none of it important. Then I start jumping between sites

that offer a good look at science and world events. Sky and Telescope has

a tiny article about an asteroid of uncertain size and imprecise orbit. But

after a couple of nights of observation, early estimates describe an object

that might be a kilometer in diameter, and in another two years, it seems

that this intruder will pass close to the Earth, bringing with it a one-in-six-

thousand chance of an impact.

“But that figure won’t stand up,” promises one astronomer. “This

happens all the time. Once we get more data, this danger is sure to

evaporate to nothing.”

* * * *

My future wife was a reporter for the Omaha newspaper. I knew

her because in those days, a lot of my friends were reporters. On a sultry

summer evening, she and I went to the same Fourth of July party; over

the smell of gunpowder, Leslie mentioned that she’d recently bought a

husky puppy.

Grinning, I admitted that I’d always been intrigued by sled dogs.

“You should come meet Roxie sometime,” she said.

“Why Roxie?” I asked.

“Foxie Roxie,” she explained. “She’s a red husky. To me, she sort

of looks like an enormous fox.”

Her dog was brownish red and white, with a dark red mask across

her narrow face, accenting her soulful blue eyes. Leslie wasn’t home

when I first visited, but her dog was in the backyard, absolutely thrilled to

meet me. (Huskies are the worst guard dogs in the world.) Roxie was four

or five months old, with a short coat and a big, long-legged frame. Sitting

behind the chain-link gate, she licked the salt off my offered fingers. And

then she hunkered down low, feigning submission. But her human was

elsewhere, and I didn’t want the responsibility of opening gates and

possibly letting this wolfish puppy escape. So I walked away, triggering a

string of plaintive wails that caused people for a mile in every direction to

ask, “Now who’s torturing that poor, miserable creature?”

Leslie and I started dating in late October. But the courtship always

had a competitive triangular feel about it.

My new girlfriend worked long hours and drove a two-hour

commute to and from Omaha. She didn’t have enough time for a

hyperactive puppy. Feeling sorry for both of them, I would drop by to

tease her dog with brief affections. Or if I stayed the night, I’d get up at

some brutally early hour—before seven o’clock, some mornings—and

dripping with fatigue, I’d join the two of them on a jaunt through the

neighborhood and park and back again.

In those days, Roxie lived outside as much as she lived in. But the

backyard gate proved inadequate; using her nose, she would easily flip

the latch up and out of the way. Tying the latch only bought a few more

days of security. Leaping was easy work, and a four-foot chain-link fence

was no barrier at all. A series of ropes and lightweight chains were used

and discarded. Finally Leslie went to a farm supply store and bought a

steel chain strong enough to yank cars out of ditches. Years later, a friend

from Alaska visited, and I asked sheepishly if our chain was overkill. No,

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Robert Reed - Roxie

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