Missing Pieces

The reactions were generally predictable. Lots of leg crossing among the men, a more maternal empathy from the women. Eli knew something was up -- somehow figured out that getting "snipped" probably didn't mean a haircut. He amped up the obstinacy for a few days. It only strengthened my resolve.

I received periodic updates from the vet's office, His staunchest fan, Jenn, assured me she had showered him with hugs and kisses when she arrived in the morning. As soon as he was all sewn up, Jenn texted me to tell me all went well. When he woke up, the doctor called to fill me in on the details. When I finally retrieved him, his stumpy tail -- no longer overshadowed by the equipment below -- wagged as it always had. He looked as devastatingly handsome as always, content in spite of the perennial sad droop of his boxer eyes and the oversized lampshade on his head. I was overcome with relief. Even a friend's taunt that I had emasculated another one didn't bother me.

The lampshade lasted about fifteen minutes. I decided I would just be vigilant, monitor him closely to make sure he didn't lick his wound. I kept him away from other dogs who might try to help him out. At the first hint of a slurp, I wedged my left arm between his head and his missing pieces while I did whatever else I needed to do with my right. He had been sent home with sedatives and pain medication, and -- I'm not gonna lie -- I took a bit of guilty pleasure in administering both like clockwork.

Oddly, the only comment that got to me came from the most unexpected source. The homeless woman who has made our town her home -- the paradoxically articulate straggler who sleeps in an enclosure by the train parking lot and does her morning ablutions in the Starbucks restroom and spends the rest of her day in the local library -- asked me how Eli was doing. She has known Eli since he first arrived. From the beginning, she would follow his other admirers when she saw us outside Starbucks, politely awaiting her turn for a faceful of licks. She hangs back, and everyone else gives her a wide berth while pretending not to. She wears everything she owns, and she doesn't shower the way we "homefull" people do. Eli is the only one who doesn't seem to notice, or care.

I told her he seemed to have come out of it unscathed. (I was still telling myself that the lampshade was the worst of it.) She told me what a shame it was, that Eli would not be able to reproduce, that Eli was now the end of the Eli line. I had not even thought about that, except maybe when someone once suggested I breed him and make some money off his good looks and infectious droopy grin. She continued on, remembering a childhood pet of her own, how devastated she was when her parents did to him what I had just done to Eli, how she hated the thought of him not being able to live on in his offspring.

It does seem a shame. Not just that there will be no more little Eli's, but that this woman, once a young girl with two parents and a puppy and a roof over her head, a person who speaks with more intelligence and compassion than many people I know, sleeps in a parking garage and bathes in a coffee house sink and lives, during business hours, in a library. She is engaging, and people smile at her and talk to her wherever she goes, but there is always that tiny hint of discomfort. On both sides.

Except when Eli licks her face. It makes me think twice, at least for a moment.