The Promise

The Tacoma Narrows Bridge was built to span the Tacoma Narrows strait between Tacoma and the Kitsap Peninsula in Washington. It opened in July of 1940. It promptly collapsed 5 months later, putting it at the top of the Biggest Engineering Blunders of All Time list. It is a textbook example of elementary forced resonance, with the wind providing an external periodic frequency that matched the natural structural frequency. In other words, something you want to avoid when designing a suspension bridge. This dramatic video shows the bridge wriggling in the wind with all the structural integrity of a licorice whip, just before it took it in the pooper and collapsed in a 42 mph gust. About 43 seconds in, you see a car ‘parked’ in the middle of the roadway. It is not unoccupied. There is a dog in it. Tubby, a black male cocker spaniel, was the only fatality of this doomed design disaster. His owner was driving with Tubby over the bridge when it started to vibrate violently. Mr. Sissyboy fled his car, leaving Tubby behind. Two bystanders attempted to rescue him, but Tubby was too terrified to leave the car and according to news reports of the time, he bit one of the rescuers. Tubby died when the bridge crumped, and his body was never recovered. Now, I’m not saying that driving over a bridge flapping in the breeze like that isn’t absolutely terrifying. My adrenals give me a squirt of JP5 just stopped in traffic on an Interstate overpass and I feel it vibrate just a little. Being a contestant in The Great Suspension Bridge Rodeo and wishing I was Sister Bertrille is difficult to imagine. But, I can say I wouldn’t abandon my dog. Why is that so easy to say? The Promise. The one I made to Nicky, the same one I made to Java and the same one I’ll make to the as yet unsigned 3rd baseman on this team.

The Tattoo

I will have this tattoo someday. It will be on my chest, directly over my heart, life size. But not until that dark day comes. It will be how I remember Java, my best friend and shadow for almost twelve years now, until my day comes.

Long Live Java

The Rescue

Mean Streets
The first installment in the Nicky's Nine series

"Nicky is a 6 month old Staffordshire/Black Lab mix who came to us from a City Pound where the euthanasia statistics are sickening. There are technicians who, unfortunately, spend a good part of the day euthanizing these poor dogs, simply because there is no space. When Nicky was brought to the euthanasia table, the technician noticed how especially sweet he was and refused to put him down! With a little research, they found us and we were delighted to have him. This little boy was meant to live. He will fill your life with love and laughter."

Three and a half years ago, I was looking at rescue sites. Three months before that, I wanted to see how many of Life’s Top 10 Stressors I could pile on at once. I resigned from a job I had been at for 11 years, started a new job, bought my first house and moved, all in the space of about a month. Then, when things calmed down some, I decided what the hell, I think I’ll get another dog. I need to be over stimulated. One of my co-workers said “Check this rescue place out. That’s where I got Chewy.” Nicky was the first dog I saw when I visited the site. He was also the last-because I stopped there. Between this photo and his 'story', I didn’t need to see any of the others. I was at the place the next day. He had been found wandering the streets of Harlem at the tender age of 5 months.

And, so rare these days, something that actually lives up to the advertizing claims: he has filled my life with love and laughter. More than words can describe.

---AUTHOR'S NOTE---Originally, The Miracle was listed as the first installment in the Nicky's Nine series and The Scare was listed as the second. Then it dawned on me that Nicky's first flirtation with fade to black was before he and I ever crossed paths, without which we would never have crossed paths. So the installments have been renumbered accordingly.

The Trauma

When Java was just over a year old, he started going mountain biking with me. Actually, I did the biking, he just ran along. He couldn’t get the whole pedal thing. We had become permanent fixtures at this huge wooded area that was popular with the rocks and roots crowd. There was a river winding through it, some pretty gnarly technical trails and even some man made obstacles that kept me honest and gravity guessing. That day, it was pretty wet and muddy as it had rained heavily the night before. But I was excited to get on my new bike. I remember the time I first brought Java to the head of the trail into this place. He was only six months old. Ears flat to his head, tail tucked in, he was terrified by the dark, foreboding tunnel disappearing into the forest with its thick canopy.

I enjoyed watching him bolt this way and that, into the river and out again, climbing the steep bank through sheer will. He would be ahead of me on the trail and as I passed him, he wouldn’t let me get too far before he would stop what he was doing and run after me. Whether he was ahead or behind me, when I made a turn onto another trail, I would yell “this way” and he would make the indicated course correction. To this day, when I want him to go in another direction, I stretch out my arm, point and say it, he usually takes the hint.

As usual, this day I was riding over rock walls, 2’ wide trees fallen across the trail, waterfalls, and anything else in the way. And mud. Lots of mud. I could feel the wet six inch stripe up my back from where my ass met the seat to my helmet. Java was in his usual position as tail gunner. I heard him let out quite a yelp. I braked hard, popped out of the pedals and dropped the bike. He was sitting in the middle of the trail holding his left front paw up in the air. Initially I thought he injured his paw or his leg. He just sat there, his look saying “Now what do I do? What is this badness?” My first thought was he had opened a gash across his pads. Before I could take the two steps to him, he began to bleed from his chest. Oh shit. WTF did you do, buddy? OH SHIT! Holy shee-it. This isnt good.

As I looked around to see if there was anyone nearby to help, several thoughts blistered through my mind. Java’s life depended on an emergency surgical intervention. He was losing blood fast. It’s almost 2 miles back to the car. Oh, and while I’m at it, try not to piss myself. I actually yelled “Help! Somebody help!” That was useless and retrospectively, more than a little embarrassing. Like I was Nell Fenwick lashed to the railroad tracks, calling out for Dudley Do-Right. Unfortunately, Java was the only witness to my sissy boy impression.

Java wasn’t walking anywhere and I wasn’t riding anywhere. That left only one mode of transportation- I had to carry him out. I knelt down in the mud and put one arm around his chest and the other around his hind quarters. OK, Einstein, try standing up now. Not that it was too difficult standing up with 75 lbs of dog in my arms, the hard part was going to be the 2 mile “walk” holding him out in front of me while he slowly bled to death. Putting Java down along the way while my arms recovered wasn’t really an option. There had to be a better way to do this. If I could just get him up on my shoulders, that would work. Try getting a large dog up on your shoulders like a mink stole. Aint gonna happen. In addition to bike shoes and sunglasses, I was wearing a t shirt, black spandex bike shorts and a bandana. I removed my t shirt and turned it upside down-neck down/waist up, and put Java into it through the waist with his hind legs sticking out of the sleaves. Then I pulled the waist up around him like a sack. I lifted him up in front of me with a handful of t shirt in one hand and a handful of collar and neck in the other. In a move that would have made any Yogamaharishi proud, I managed to get him around up onto my back and then onto my shoulders, kinda like a mink stole. I took my bandana off, balled it up and stuffed it between my back and Java’s chest, right on the wound in an attempt to slow the bleeding. I left my new $2400 bike in the mud where it fell without a thought and started making my way back to the car.

Java. You gotta love him. I sure do. He’s just had a stick jammed into his chest, he’s slowly bleeding to death, he’s almost 6 feet up in the air and he’s licking my face as if nothing is wrong. Or, he is saying ”yes daddy, I love you and I know you are trying to save my life, but please hurry, it hurts, why does it hurt…” We passed a few people on the trail. We must have been quite a site- a half naked, tattooed man with blood pouring down his chest and a large dog in some sort of bundle around his neck. Surprisingly, or not, all looked but didn’t offer any help or even say anything. A guy riding in on a bike stopped. “Holy shit, you need some help?” “Yeah, my car is down in the lot. Can you take my key and drive it up to the head of the trail?” The key to my Subaru wagon was on a bead chain around my neck. “Just pull it off!” He yanked the key and jumped back on his bike. “Leave the key under the mat.” I shouted as he rode away. That would save us half a mile.

Java’s gums were getting gray, a sign that he was going into shock. I was walking as fast as I could. Running pounded him too much. We finally reached the trail head. As I heard my cleats hit pavement, the car came into view, parked on the street. I finagled the door open and laid Java down on the back seat. One of the old blankets was on the seat where I had tossed it the day before. Needless to say, I ignored all traffic laws on the way to the vet. During the 4 mile trip, I thought about what had happened. Like a car going too fast to successfully negotiate a curve on wet pavement, Java had slid into an 18” long branch that was sticking out from an old tree that was lying at the side of the trail. It had quite a point on it. OUCH! Like on people ambulances, I called the animal hospital while en route and advised them what had happened and that I was coming in with a dog that probably had a pnuemothorax and was in shock.

3 days (and $1800) later, Java was good to go. And I mean go. Nobody would know from watching him go tearing around that he was just released from the hospital after surgery for a punctured lung. You go boy!

The Tour

Lighting check before the Nick Fest show, Jones Beach July 2008.

The Scare

Lose the Ammo
The third installment in the Nicky’s Nine series

A quiet Sunday evening. Until I couldn’t find my signed copy of American Psycho. God, I hate that, I just wanna go out and, well, nevermind. For weeks, I couldn’t turn around without tripping over it. Now, I needed it and apparently it had found that annoyingly troublesome wormhole in my office. Tossing the place seemed appropriate. I threw a few things and started dumping drawers. In my peripheral vision, I saw Java give Nicky that “oh brother, he’s going off again” look. Whatever. Ah, here it is. Much better.

A short time later, I notice Nicky sniffing around on the floor where the contents of one of the drawers was dumped. That’s when I realized he was interested in several .357 magnum Black Talon rounds lying there on the carpet. “GET!”, “GO ON!” I said in a raised voice as I rolled my chair back from the desk. I shooed him away and leaned over and scooped them up. Instinctively, I counted them. One, two, three, four…Four. Only four. Then I remembered that the friend that had given them to me only gave me five. Ok, so where is the fifth one? No. That cant be. Nicky didn’t just eat it, did he? Nah.

Take tennis balls for example. I cant take my eyes off of Java when he has one and he stops running around. First, he just looks at me while he holds the ball in his jaws and clenches and releases. Clench/release. Clench/release. All the while I can hear the air hiss out of it and then rush back in. Hiss/rush. Hiss/rush. Oblivious to what sounds like strong opposition from the tennis ball, he lays down, his eyes glaze over and he becomes The Ball Terminator. As the endorphins pump through his body, he decides he’s hungry and gee, wouldn’t a tennis ball make a tasty snack? That’s when I must relieve him of the object of his pleasure. Otherwise, I’ll be woken up in the middle of the night by the awful retching noises he makes when its time for a good case of Wilson’s revenge.

Nicky, on one of the other paws, can do some serious yellow shredding himself. But the key difference is he wont eat the pieces. Just makes a neat little pile on the carpet between his paws, very fastidious indeed. If I were a surgeon and had time to kill and a lot of glue, I could sew that tennis ball back together, missing nary a piece. I’ve found initially unrecognizable lumps of plastic on the floor. As I inspect it, I think “Well, I hope that wasn’t important.” Later, when I’ve figured out what it used to be, I notice its all there in its entirety, just in a different shape.

As I got to thinking about it as I’ve been known to do, I began to get a little paranoid. What if? What if? WHAT IF? Holy shit, what if he did swallow it? Oh My God. The thought of Nicky exploding was more than I could bear. It was as terrifying as it was far fetched. But it was as persuable as the chances of it were infinitesimal. I called the 24 hour emergency vet clinic I had dealt with when Java caught a face full of skunk a few years back. The tech told me that certain metals are poisonous to dogs and are routinely removed surgically. But it was the visual of a dog (no, not one of mine) friggin blowing up that was working on causing me to become unhinged. The display on my freak meter was starting to resemble the threat board at NORAD at DEFCON 1. Wait! I can defuse the whole thing if I can just find .357 #5. I began to re-toss the office. I started to take things out of the drawer just below the one that started this mess. The stapler, my late Father’s Harvard ring, and a full speed loader for the now infamous .357 Colt Python. The contents of the drawer became a pile on the floor. #5 was still MIA. The pile became contents again. 20 minutes of “redecorating” the office produced no stray Black Talons.

So, of we go, into the night. It was a quarter past 12 when we got to the pet ER. Thrilled that he and I were going somewhere, just the two of us, having left Java sprawled out on the bed at home, Nicky jumped out of the car with his tail all aflutter and the “OK, now what, ha, ha?” look on his face. We were the only ones in the waiting room. I felt more than just a little stupid when I walked up to the counter and said “Ah, I think my dog may have ingested some live ammunition.” I felt a little better when I saw the card on the counter that read “Feeling more than just a little stupid telling us what happened to your pet? Don’t. Rest assured, someone else has done something even stupider.”

Thankfully, as was my first impression, Nicky was out of ammo. Oh, the relief! I hope any future visits to the ER are as positive an experience as this one was. A few days later I was pondering the location of the mysterious missing fifth round. I was going over the events when it dawned on me. I opened the lower drawer and reached for the speed loader I had removed while taking inventory that day. Yes, it was full, but there were five standard rounds and one Black Talon! So, that means it was there the whole time and I actually held it in my hand, twice. Jeez! Anyway, that was the best $275 I ever put a match to.

The Nosh

Cant eat PB&J without milk, right? I love watching them eat peanut butter. I think maybe they might think the same about me.

The Snow

It finally stopped snowing. The storm that had started almost 48 hours earlier dumped 28” of the white powder, what they call Utah Fresh out west. It hadn’t gotten above 22° the whole time. The wind kept up a sustained 25 mph, often gusting to 35-40, creating impressive drifts on the leeward side of everything. Now it was a glorious, crisply cold winter day with not a cloud to be seen. The neighborhood was an alien landscape of perfectly smooth expanses of crystalline white, dotted with lumps and bumps. The smooth parts were the front lawns of the homes on the street. They started at the doorstep of one house and stretched unbroken to the doorstep of the house on the other side of the street. Wait minute, street? What street? Those lumps and bumps were the tell tale signs of hidden cars. All in all, the work of a typical winter Nor’easter.

Java loves the snow. He’ll go into romp mode the minute he steps out of the house. There is a school thats a 2 minute drive from home, we often go up there because it has a huge playing field. Though it is bordered on 2 sides with woods that I need to watch and make sure he doesn’t disappear into, there is a lot of room to maraud and throw the ball or the kong. On the third side is the parking lot. When there is fresh snow, he can’t wait to get out of the car and play in it. When I toss the kong, he is on the job and goes charging after it. If the snow is deep enough, he “porpoises” as he runs-jumping out of the snow with each stride, going airborne and then landing 5 or 6 feet away and then taking off again. When he gets to the hole in the untracked snow where the kong disappeared, he does his best polar bear imitation and half stands up on hind legs and pounces on the hole. When he comes down, he buries his head in the snow right up to his shoulders, farther if it is deep enough. He loves it and I love watching.

The 4th side of the field drops off at about 40° to the running track below it. The vertical drop is easily 5’, more to one side. The wind had been blowing perpendicular to the drop for most of the storm. Now that steep slope was just a subtle grade of maybe 10°. That drift was pretty deep. I knew where it dropped off, but Java didn’t. I stood at the edge and tossed the kong down, what used to be, the hill. He’s already has a running start and launches himself off terra firma, expecting to ‘land’ on what appears to be the ‘ground’. WHUMP! He disappears as he hits the surface and just keeps going! Just like Wile E. Coyote hitting the pavement when another one of his intricate contraptions from the Acme Corporation fails him again. I couldn’t stop laughing! It has to have been one of the singularly most riotous things I have ever seen. He reappears as an albino, in posession of the kong, and has to drop into 4 paw low to fight his way back up the hill. He would try to do his porpoise move but that wasn’t happening. Each time he tried the upstroke, the weight of the snow would stop him short and his front end would drop back into it and he would come back up with a fresh pile on his head and repeat. At this point, I couldn’t tell which one of us was having more fun. He’s laughing, Im barking and when he gets to the top, we do it all over again. Neither of us could get enough. That was a good day.

The Sentries

The Loss

When I saw this photo of this poor woman about to be separated from her dog, I immediately experienced two intense, visceral emotions. First, I felt my fists and jaw clench in marginally controlled rage that anyone, any agency would take the position this was necessary, regardless of the logistics. Cheryl Cook's dog Trouble may very well be closer to her than anyone, anything in her life, without which it may not be worth living. The second emotion was a deep sadness for her, and for myself, if such a fate were ever to befall me.

I would, as the saying goes, 'take a bullet' for my dog. As a matter of fact, in Ms. Cook's situation, that's the only way I could be separated from my dog. He is, without a doubt, this man's best friend.

Safeties off.

The Miracle

Nicky’s Christmas Miracle
The second installment in the Nicky’s Nine series

It was December 23rd, 2005. Java and Nicky had just finished running themselves silly at Nell’s Rock reservoir. Usually, I park, leash them, and walk on the trail into the woods. Once down the trail about 100 yards, I remove their leashes and “release the dogs!” Off they go in a mad dash to see who is going to chase who. They tear back and forth, barking and generally engaging in genuine, unbridled joy. Java is the more independent of the two. He is more of a sniffer than a player, keeping his nose to the ground because he must investigate, what I believe to be, every trace of animal life, wild or domesticated, that might lead to something he can chase. It’s like he is just a 90 lb nose on four legs. He will go wherever it leads him, most of the time running out of sight on the twisting, densely wooded trails. Nicky on the other hand, is much more attached to me, rarely being out of sight more than just briefly. At times, he will chase after Inspector Knows but always turns around and comes racing back down the trail to make sure I am still following him. After confirming the absence of my absence, he does another 180 and off he goes. Flash back: 9 months ago, when I drove Nicky home from the rescue shelter. He was so anxious, he peed, pooped and puked in the crate on the way. Java didn’t care, he had his head out of the window sniffing for wildebeest. When we got home, I let him out of the crate/car in the garage. He charged me, burying his head in my lap and was trembling so furiously I thought he was having a seizure. That’s when I made The Promise: that I would protect him from all threats, real or imagined and that he was finally home.

When we’re done and they’re plum tuckered out, we make our way back to the car. I’ve learned my lesson about keeping Java on leash because he will bolt if he sees a cat, a squirrel, a deer. That’s not Nicky’s MO, and he was off leash. 48 hours after the shortest day of the year, it was dead dark by five. The small gravel parking area is just off of a two lane road that can get busy around that time. 50 yards from the entrance, there is no shoulder on either side because it goes across the reservoir. With only guard rails between pavement and water, there is no room for discussion.

For some unknown reason, just as we were reaching the car, Nicky bolted out of character, across the lot and out into the street. I saw him run down the near shoulder in the direction of the water. Just at the point where the shoulder goes D. B. Cooper, I watched my black dog make a ninety degree turn and run directly across the road, and without signaling. I was able to see him, moments from being knocked from this life into the next, bathed in the headlights of the car that was traveling towards him, about to cross the water and hit my dog. The next thing I know I hear myself screaming uncontrollably in a paroxysm of pure panic, like a terrified ten year old sucking up the first 85 degree heartline roll during his first ride on the Ultra Twister at Astroworld (duct taped to the nose of the first car).

My view of Nicky was cut off by the car as it abruptly braked, the rear end moving in the direction of where all dogs go when they die, the front end compressing to the pavement as if genuflecting to Sir Isaac Newton. As the PVCs I started throwing were actually tripping over themselves trying to maintain a left ventricular ejection fraction compatible with life, or at least consciousness, out of nowhere, I remembered something about acceleration and force vectors and that every object in a state of uniform motion tends to remain in that state of motion unless an external force is applied to it. Nicky was about to have an external force applied to him: the dog I swore to protect on one side of the equation and a 3500 pound Buick on the other, as illustrated below:

(N)m2(gmV)3 = Ø(N)

Nicky’s mass squared times the velocity of a General Motors product cubed, yields, well, you don’t have to be a genius to follow that one. I remember I could feel Dread, a precursor to The Darkness, in descension. It's always darkest just before it goes pitch black.

When the car finally stopped bouncing on it’s Bilsteins, I was sprinting towards what I was sure was a fatal error. I couldn’t see Nicky. The sense of extreme apprehension I could feel crawling over me like high quality Window Pane bordered on the reverential. And then, what do I see? Squinting in the high beams, Nicky, fresh from a failed interview with God, comes trotting around the front of the car with that look on his face. We’ve all seen it. The “Oh, I meant to do that” look. Ho-ly She-it. I didn’t know whether to embrace him or mace him. I went with the former. Anyway, I’d used the last of my pepper spray the night before. To this day, I swear that dog and that car simultaneously occupied the same space, if only for the briefest of moments. But even a nanosecond gets to keep its dignity. It couldve been 1 billionth of a second and it could have been an eon. It might have been both, I don’t know. But time acts out in some mighty peculiar and mysterious ways when it has to accommodate a miracle.

The Twins

The Warning