"Equity On Tour"

 

[As readers of Rick On Theater know by now, I have an occasional series of articles on this blog describing jobs and professions in theater that few even avid theatergoers know much about.  I’ve covered stage managers, dance captains, swings, understudies, and wig-makers; now I’m posting an article from Equity News (vol. 104, no. 4 [Fall 2019], entitled “Equity on Tour”) which features interviews with union members who work on national tours of Broadway shows.  I couldn’t imagine a more appropriate article to post on ROT.] 

“ALL IN A YEAR: EQUITY MEMBERS BUSY WITH NATIONAL TOURS IN 2019”

Perhaps the only thing harder than making a living on stage or backstage is doing so while touring. And yet, there are now more members doing just that than at any point since the last recession. With interest in touring only continuing to grow, Equity News sat down with seven tour veterans – a mix that included stage managers, an understudy, principals and chorus – to find out what they have learned from life on the road. Special thanks to Kevin McMahon, chair of the SETA [Short Engagement Touring Agreement] Committee, for helping to lead the conversation. What follows is their conversation and their lessons, edited for space and clarity.

WHAT WOULD YOU TELL A NEW MEMBER BEFORE THEIR FIRST TOUR? 

Kevin McMahon: For me, it’s “bring less.” You don’t need it. If you do need something, you can buy it.

John Atherlay: It’s okay not to know the answers; ask questions. And don’t try and fake it.

Christine Toy Johnson: I’d pass along some great advice I got from my friend Jose Llana right before I left town. He had just come back from two years on the road with The King and I and suggested these top three things:

1. Ziploc bags will be your friends. (Now I have reusable ones, and they are my friends.)

2. You don’t need that much stuff. You may have a couple of parties where you really want to dress up, but he said he started the tour with five suits and by the end was down to one black blazer, which he used for all press and opening nights.

3. You don’t need to lug around gigantic, Costco-sized lotions and shampoos. Normal sizes are good!

Andrew Bacigalupo: Know we’re not brain surgeons. It’s serious, we’re all professionals, but everything doesn’t have to get elevated so quickly. There doesn’t have to be stress. This is something we want to do, so let’s enjoy doing this. There’s a lot of pressure to be perfect because everybody’s watching, but really, everybody’s in this together.

Marina Lazzaretto: It’s important to find the things that bring you joy and do them in every city. For me, I plan my workout in every city. I find the places that I want to go to, and that’s what brings me joy, and I plan my life around that.

David O’Brien: I go on websites like TripAdvisor to see the top ten things to do and try to do at least one of them in each city; something to get me out of the theater so I don’t lose my mind. I would definitely advise new people to take advantage of the cities they’re going to, because it’s such a great experience to travel the country.

Sid Solomon: I’m a big fan of meeting people. My first Equity job, I spent two years touring with The Acting Company, which is a very different kind of touring model where you’re very bus-and-truck, one night here, one night there, in very small towns.

I did everything that I could to try to meet people who lived in those places. Sit down at a restaurant that’s known as a place where people from that city go and start a conversation. The country is wide and vast and filled with lots of different kinds of people, and the people in the city are the ones we’re there to do the show for. So, every opportunity that I could take to just meet somebody and find out what their life is like felt to me like it enriched my ability to do the work that I was in that city to do.

McMahon: Most of my good memories of my years on the road revolve around the stuff that we did with my friends, like that the trip on the balloon in Albuquerque with “O’B” (David O’Brien), trips to the dog park with all my dog friends on the road . . . that’s a part of living. That’s your life.

O’Brien: We have 14 dogs on our tour now, Kevin!

HOW DO YOU STAY HEALTHY ON THE ROAD?

Johnson: Come From Away is like a 100-minute long sprint, and I find I have to prepare myself in a different way than I have for other shows. As much as I do love seeing as much as I can of the cities I’m in, I am also very conscious of not having a mindset that I’m on vacation. The only reason I’m away from my home and my husband and my dog for most of the year is to do the show.

So I’ll do whatever I need to do to be at my optimal energy for the show. It’s all about balance. I am a writer as well, and part of the leadership of Equity and the Dramatists’ Guild, and I chair a few committees. I get up at 6:30 or 7 in the morning just naturally. When it occurred to me that I needed to be at my optimal energy 12 hours after I got up, I realized that I had to really be mindful of structuring my day for both physical and mental wellbeing. It took me months to set up the parameters so that I could do this.

I don’t do meetings on Mondays anymore because even if it’s a travel day or golden day; it’s a day off. I don’t do meetings after a certain time in the afternoon because I have to reset my body clock and take a little nap or be quiet. Now I don’t really do a lot of things after the show, except for on Sundays, and it seems super boring sometimes, but for me it’s all about making sure that I am at my peak performance level at all times. I’m proud to say that (as we speak) I’ve done every single performance of our run so far.

Lazzaretto: I want to talk about food on the road, because I think it’s particularly difficult to feel your best and to perform your best when you’re consistently eating out at garbage restaurants. I make it a priority to find a Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s in each city. I travel with a plate, a bowl and a kitchen knife so that I can have my normal diet, food that I would eat at home, in my hotel or in my Airbnb. And that helps me maintain my optimal body health for my show.

Johnson: Same. Exactly. It’s absolutely vital to do that.

Solomon: It has always been my experience that people who do what we do tend to be creatures of habit. We were touring with a lot of first-time-touring people, and it was really important for all of us to accept the limitations of touring as quickly as possible, to understand that for as much as you have a dedicated routine at home, there are realities to being on the road. The sooner you’re willing to figure out how to maintain as much of your routine, as many of the things that make you happy on a day-to-day basis, you should do that. For me, it’s light in hotels. I need there to be some light in my room, and I will go back to the front desk and ask for a room with better light.

My health suffered for the first six months of the tour because I’m an outdoor runner. We were in cold weather cities a lot, and I had a really hard time adjusting my exercise schedule.

Atherlay: I don’t do workout routines very often because my schedule changes at the drop of a dime, so I tend to walk around a lot. I listen to Sirius Radio, and I just see the different sites. I’ve been touring long enough that I’ve seen them all, so I know where to go that gives me peace.

I also tend to find the closest hotel to the theater so that I can go away between shows or after rehearsal and before the show, so my day is broken up. I’m not spending 12–13 hours in the theater, but maybe four or five, then going away for two hours and coming back. It refreshes my brain and relaxes me a lot.

YOU BRING UP A GOOD POINT. WHAT DOES EVERYONE DO FOR MENTAL HEALTH?

Bacigalupo: We’ve been talking about mental health on my tour recently. I think, as Christine said, we’re not here on vacation. We’re not there just to have fun in the city. We’re there to do the show. Some people go out after the shows, to this bar or that place with an “always on the move” mentality. I think it’s important to realize that I wouldn’t necessarily do that while I was at home, so working on the road I don’t need to feel the pressure to do that either. It’s okay to have time to yourself.

McMahon: I couldn’t agree with you more, Andrew. Sometimes you’re 50 years old and you feel like you’re back in high school with the parties and who didn’t get invited to this thing, and you have to step back and like realize, okay this is just for now. This is just this week, and next week we’ll be in a different city. It will all be different.

Lazzaretto: For my own mental health, it was important to realize early on in my experience that you don’t have to feel like you have to be everyone’s friend. If we worked in a normal office, you wouldn’t feel obligated to spend all your time with every person you worked with, so it’s okay to realize that not everyone on your tour is going to be your friend. You do your work together, and you can be pleasant and nice to each other, but you don’t have to feel bad if you’re not invited to something. You don’t have to be everyone’s friend. It’s okay.

O’Brien: I’m sober. I’ve been sober for 29 years, and it has its specific challenges on the road. And that is my staying healthy. A lot of it has to do with having my dog, finding people that aren’t in that party mindset. It can be done, but it’s much more challenging on the road.

STAGE MANAGERS: HOW IS YOUR ROLE DIFFERENT ON THE ROAD COMPARED TO DOING A SIT-DOWN PRODUCTION?

O’Brien: There’s so much more to it on the road, which is why I like being on the road. So much of my career was in New York, and I always found it to be a challenge, especially on shows that did run a long time. I was on Cats for five years. Five years in New York is to me tougher than five years on the road. The excitement of going from city to city and being in a new theater and a new environment gives everything a new energy.

Atherlay: I’m with O’B. I much prefer the road. We’re in Toronto at the Mirvish, and it’s our first theater without a crossover. So we had to go in and figure out what costume changes need to be moved where. And focusing the show where we are – our second stop didn’t have box booms, so we had to move everything to the front and deal with the challenge of making it look the same without the same positions, which is very, very difficult.

But I’ve been around so much, a lot of cities become second homes to me. I know the challenges in Toronto, what we’ll have at the Golden Gate in San Francisco, what we’re going to have in Cleveland when we get there in a couple of weeks. But it’s the challenges I prefer.

Bacigalupo: When you’re always moving, there’s more of a “we’re all in this together vibe,” and it’s a whole different atmosphere to the show.

WHAT TOOLS DO YOU USE TO GET YOURSELF ACCLIMATED TO A CITY?

McMahon: I always go on Trip Advisor, and there’s a new Facebook group I think a lot of us belong to called Tour Talk, where people share advice on cities and actually give tips on hotels, which was very helpful to me on my last tour.

Solomon: I have for a very long time kept a membership to the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, and they have an extensive reciprocal membership program for not all that much money that gets me free entry into art museums in basically every city. And so early in each week, I would go and find the major art museum in the city. It’s usually in the center of town, and it usually has some deep rich history about how it was founded and it tends to be such a part of the civic identity of a city, that it tended to tell me a lot really quickly.

Johnson: I eat a 90% Paleo menu, so I will Google “Paleo + [name of the city]” and find the restaurants that fit the bill. There’s a small group of us that likes to find a good restaurant to go to on the first night in a city, so I make the reservation and find something that’s a treat for all of us. I also start with locating the nearest Whole Foods, because you can do wonders with a rotisserie chicken and a box of salad.

O’Brien: On our tour now, we have a group of people that love to eat breakfast, so we find breakfast restaurants in our cities. It’s been great.

Bacigalupo: On every Tuesday or every load-in day, we do a management lunch where company management and stage management go out together. There’s a lot of excitement in the days before we to go a city about where we are going to lunch on Tuesday. And then just the stage managers, the three of us, always do brunch sometime in the week, and it’s important to us to have the time that’s just our department to check in.

Lazzaretto: To me, the people who know the city the best are the locals. I like to find a yoga place in every city, and I talk to the people in class there. They tell me where their favorite restaurant is or what their favorite art museum is, or what else I shouldn’t miss.

McMahon: I couldn’t agree more. I used to talk to the dressers, and I would research the dog parks and ask the people there what they like, and I’ve never been steered wrong.

DOES ANYONE HERE TRAVEL WITH THEIR FAMILY?

Johnson: My husband Bruce and my dog Joey travel with me often but not full time. In the first year of Come From Away, we had four children traveling with us, five dogs and at least two or three spouses full time. My company has been extraordinary about welcoming all extended family to everything we do, which has been, I think, really essential to the inclusive happy family feeling that we have in our show.

McMahon: For me, my husband Doug and I have a five-week rule. We had to see each other, physically, at least once every five weeks. That was the absolute rule.

Atherlay: I have three kids. My two boys grew up when I was doing Beauty and the Beast, so I was home for them. When I started touring again, we put a map on the kitchen refrigerator. My ex-wife would pinpoint where I was, and when I would call them, we’d talk about time differences and seasonal differences, and I got them to figure out what the country was. Before computers and texts, our communication was phone calls. My daughter, who is now 18, would visit me on the road because her mother’s grandmother lived outside of Chicago. Four or five times when I was playing Detroit, they would be driving home from Chicago and stop off to spend the weekend with me, to the point where when she was in first grade, my daughter told everybody at school that her daddy lived in Detroit.

It’s about communicating. It’s about talking and sending postcards and showing your kids where everything is. And now my daughter is studying theatre management in college.

Bacigalupo: I have a boyfriend that I started seeing last summer, before I started this tour. We didn’t get quite to seeing each other every five weeks, but we haven’t been apart for more than two months at a time. It’s important to have somebody that you can go to who’s not involved with the show. It helps to realize there’s a world outside the isolated bubble of the tour. I don’t think I could have made it through this tour without having someone I could go to as a sounding board who’s not really involved with the production.

WHEN YOU HAVE A CONTRACT THAT IS EXPIRING, HOW DO YOU DECIDE TO RENEW OR NOT TO RENEW?

Johnson: For all of us, I think you check the boxes: do you love the show? Are they treating you well, both salary-wise and globally? Are you artistically fulfilled? Kevin, you taught me this. If you have at least two of these three things, it’s easy to stay.

I think I can speak for everyone in the Come From Away company – we feel so invested in the message of the show. No one ever wants to be out. No one ever wants to not do the show. The people that left didn’t really want to leave; they had children going to school or other commitments that they needed to tend to.

For me, the positives outweigh the negatives (being away from home), so it was not a hard decision to stay for year two.

Solomon: Our situation was a little different in that we opened the first national tour the beginning of September and we closed in the middle of August. So the first national tour came to an end, but we knew the show was going to continue on for a second tour on a new contract.

Once we knew what the details of the contract were, there started to be conversations with the cast about continuing on with our show. If you haven’t seen The Play That Goes Wrong, it’s very intricate. It’s complicated. It’s very dangerous. And the more people you have who have done it before, the better off you are.

I loved my time on the road. I loved the tour. I loved the show. I love the people. Understudying the show is a particular challenge. I was not in the same kind of physical pain the rest of the cast is on a daily basis, but the mental anguish of not only keeping that show in my head but being prepared for it on a nightto-night basis was its own special kind of thing.

For me, it simply came down to having to be away from my wife and my dog and my family. My whole life is here in New York. Another minimum nine months on the road just wasn’t the right choice for me right now. And for me that’s actually kind of a big deal. All I ever wanted to do is work. No job is too small, no role is too small. I just want to be doing something all the time. So I’m kind of proud of myself. It was time to look for the next adventure.

Lazzaretto: I think that the number one thing for me as I’m evaluating whether or not I want to continue a contract is: am I still growing as an artist? Am I feeling stagnant? Is there more I can gain from this specific production?  What is the level of my happiness doing this job? Whether I’m going to be happy is the most important.

Atherlay: I look at how I’m being treated. I look at what they offer me to renew. I’ve been very fortunate so far in that I’ve been treated very well. I don’t believe in just leaving work. It’s not in my nature.

Bacigalupo: With stage managers, we don’t really have a contract renewal, we’re just here until we’re not here. I had an opportunity to leave the show for another show earlier in the year, and I felt such anguish about leaving this creative team. I have so much respect for them, and I care about them so much, and they have really helped my career move forward, so I felt a big responsibility to them.

I felt a lot of responsibility for the show. Everybody is replaceable, but I was in the room when the show was created. I know why we’re doing this move, not just that we’re crossing to this number at this moment. And I think a lot of that gets lost in translation as you pass the show on to another PSM.

O’Brien: The only thing I would say is the same as Marina. I left Wicked once because I felt I wasn’t as happy, and I wasn’t serving the show – I was not doing my best job at that time. I thought I needed to take a break from Wicked, and then once the position opened up again, I came back because I realized the show makes me happy. But I will leave a contract if I feel like I’m not doing it justice.

WHEN YOU HAVE A CHOICE FOR HOUSING & TRAVEL, WHAT FACTORS DO YOU CONSIDER IN MAKING THOSE DECISIONS?

McMahon: For me, I’ll tell you that Marriott Rewards Points were as important as my 401(k). (Laughs) If there was a Marriott, I knew there would be a consistent quality of housing, and they’re usually pet friendly.

Johnson: Because we’ve traveled with so many pets, our company manager has made sure that all of our housing has been pet-friendly. I generally stay with the company because I like to be around them, and I don’t like to travel home from the theater by myself. It’s most important for me to be really near the theater if possible, because I like to get there early and also go back to the hotel in between shows to rest. One other thing: the presence or absence of refrigerator and microwave. That’s really important too, because otherwise, you know, you can’t have your rotisserie chicken and a box of salad if you don’t have any place to put them to keep them cool.

O’Brien: I will also look at the company choices and look at ratings, just because where I’m living is so important to me. I will be miserable in a place if my housing is bad.

Bacigalupo: I have stayed at an Airbnb twice on this whole tour in the past year. I get super anxious about Airbnbs – there seems to be a lot of pressure in finding the best Airbnb, the closest Airbnb, the cheapest Airbnb. It’s like a full-time job. It’s too much stress to figure out, so I’ve stayed in the company option most of the time. Even if it was a more expensive option, I would still pick the company hotel, because I knew that if there were issues with the room, if the water doesn’t work, if there was mold, the company would take care of it.

And I do the same for travel. I know a lot of people do their own travel between cities, but I do Monday load-ins. The stress of a flight delay if I paid for the ticket is a lot higher than if the flight’s delayed and the company’s paid for it, because if I don’t make it to load-in, the company will help to figure it out. That takes all of that stress away from me.

Atherlay: Location is important to me, especially with my schedule. And sometimes the pricing is ludicrous, but it’s par for the course. Like Andrew, I’ve had too many actors spend too much time complaining about the Airbnb: that it’s not what they what they signed up for, it’s not what was advertised. I find the hotel is important because it’s my peace of mind. If it is a bad hotel, someone’s going to take care of it and fix it or move me or upgrade me or something.

Lazzaretto: I feel the same. Proximity to the venue is always top priority for me. I’m one of those people who’s splitting my time between the hotels and Airbnb dependent on the length of stay. If we’re somewhere for a week, I’m more likely to just choose the closest hotel option. If we’re somewhere a little longer, I like to have a kitchen.

HOW DOES BEING IN THE UNION AFFECT YOUR TIME ON THE ROAD? ARE THERE TIMES YOU’VE TURNED TO THE UNION FOR HELP?

McMahon: Speaking personally, I know I was on the phone a lot with my reps. Our tour had a lot of new members on the road, and they didn’t understand the rules and working conditions. I was deputy, and I became a teacher for a lot of people about Equity and the contract. The union was incredibly helpful to me in every capacity.

Solomon: Something both being a union member and now being a union officer had me very mindful of on the road was how I interacted with other workers on the road.

Especially when you are living in hotels, taking taxis, going to restaurants – you are constantly interacting with the hospitality industry. And so many of the workers that you are interacting with are unionized workers; sometimes they’re workers who are trying to unionize. I did everything I could to be as mindful as possible of being respectful to fellow workers. Whether that was being mindful of appropriately tipping at hotels, or in cities where there’s a difference between how people are paid to drive – a licensed taxi as opposed to just getting in somebody’s car for Uber – I tried to err on the side of that being mindful to how I was contributing to the way another person made their living.

Lazzaretto: I learned so much about our union and the contracts from Kevin when I was on the road with him. The one thing I like to tell new members in the shows I’m doing is not to be afraid to call the union. It’s there to help you and to be a resource. Call your rep, ask them questions. They’re all so lovely and helpful and willing to give you the information.

McMahon: Being a deputy also becomes a teaching experience for new members. I took that duty very seriously.

Johnson: One of the things I’m most mindful of is our 401(k). That’s an awesome thing that’s part of a negotiated contract. I’m especially grateful to be on a long-term job, having a long-term contribution from the employer in place along with my own.

Atherlay: I have a philosophy, and I teach my deputies all the time, that the words in your agreement are as important as the words in your script. I find that Equity has always been very responsive towards me when I do call with an issue.

O’Brien: With Wicked, we get a lot of new people, new people to Equity who have just signed their first contracts. One of the things that we started on this tour: when a new person joins, we do a meeting. The company buys them dinner, and the associate company manager and my first assistant stage manager go out and explain everything about the road. Then we have a separate meeting where we talk to them about how to use their deputies. And it’s been working really well.

Bacigalupo: In the past two years or so, when I moved to New York, I joined committees and I came to membership meetings. And I think that having the knowledge is such a huge help to understand the bigger picture of what’s going on, to understand what the rulebook rules are, what the agreement is. It’s so interesting to see the reasoning behind the things in these agreements. It’s so cool what you’re doing at Wicked to explain this to people, opening up the agreement and going through it together – I just wrote that down and might steal it for the future.

*  *  *  *

[I’m a dog-lover, so I wanted to include this little sidebar to the Equity News cover article.  ~Rick] 

“HAVE DOG, WILL TRAVEL”

One of the things that makes life on the road a little easier is being able to travel with a pet.

“Right now, we’re so fortunate we can even take our dogs to the theater, like we have like six dogs at the theater every day,” said Marina Lazzaretto. “They hang out in the dressing rooms. Gandalf even has his own Cats costume. I wouldn’t tour without him. Like, I can’t imagine my life on the road without him. He brings me so much joy and like he brings so much joy to other people at the theater and at the hotel, too.”

Caring for an animal on the road can be a challenge. Once Lazzaretto found a good veterinarian in Oklahoma, so she makes a point to stop when she is in the area and take Gandalf to visit the veterinarian they’ve come to know.

Stage Manager David O’Brien drives himself from stop to stop so that he can travel with his dog, a 55-pound rescue mix. “I actually adopted him on the road,” said O’Brien. “My other dog, Charlie, was 15 and passed last year. I was without a dog on the road for about five months. Having one makes all the difference in the world to me.”

“A pet can really be the key to everything – making sure that we have the normal thread of joy in our lives,” said Christine Toy Johnson, who often travels with Joey, a six-year-old Westie. “How we navigate that, and when we find that is supported by the people we are working with – that is really just everything.”

*  *  *  *
MEET THE INTERVIEWEES

JOHN ATHERLAY

John is Production Stage Manager with The Band’s Visit. Before that he spent two years on a cruise ship. Other touring experience includes Cabaret, Blithe Spirit, Porgy and Bess, Anything Goes, Fela! and Man of La Mancha.

ANDREW BACIGALUPO

Andrew was the Production Stage Manager on the recently concluded Charlie and the Chocolate Factory tour. Prior to that, he toured with Elf: The Musical, The Sound of Music and Million Dollar Quartet.

MARINA LAZZARETTO

Marina is an actor currently on the Cats tour. Before that, she toured with American in Paris, Wicked and Come Fly Away.

KEVIN MCMAHON

Kevin is chair of the Short Engagement Touring Agreement (SETA) Committee. In addition to serving as a Western Principal Councillor, he toured with Wicked for six years and with Bright Star for one year.

DAVID O’BRIEN

David has been the Production Stage Manager for Wicked on the road for seven years. Prior to that, he did 17 Broadway shows and tours of Chicago, Cats and White Christmas.

SID SOLOMON

Sid toured as an understudy on The Play that Goes Wrong. It was his first experience on a commercial tour as an Equity member. He also serves as Equity’s Eastern Regional Vice President.

CHRISTINE TOY JOHNSON

Christine is an actor on her second year of the first National/North American tour of Come From Away. Previously, she has toured with Cats, Flower Drum Song and Bombay Dreams. She is chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Committee and an Eastern Principal Councillor.

Short Takes II

DOG THING

I ran an errand over on 6th Avenue late one afternoon and while I was walking back, I saw a dog do the oddest thing. (Okay, it wasn't as funny as a dog walking on his front paws, but that’s a trick; this was just the dog's natural—not to say normal—behavior. I think.) This guy was walking his black-and-white pug in front of me as I came east on one of the cross streets back to 5th. All of a sudden, the dog just stopped and I figured it was going to poop or pee or something. But it just lay down in the middle of the sidewalk—for no observable reason I could detect—but not in any usual canine prone position. It went down straight—with its front paws stretched out straight forward and its rear paws straight back and its head on the pavement between his front legs. I used to call this "The Bear Rug" when my own dog did it (but he did it at home, not when were out walking, and when he was already lying down, not directly from a standing position.) Can you picture this? Boom—and its flat out on the sidewalk! I actually burst out laughing aloud—and I commented as I passed the guy that I hadn't ever seen a dog do that.

A RANDOM ACT OF KINDNESS

When I went home from the library, taking the bus as I usually do, I discovered that I had no more fares on my MetroCard. I usually check when I get on the subway up to the library, but I just forgot to look this time. Of course, on the bus you can't recharge the card and you can't pay the fare with bills, and I didn't have exact amount in coins. I was about to get off the bus—I'd have gone down the 5th Avenue entrance to the subway on the same corner and refilled my card, then either taken the subway home or gotten on another bus—when a young woman behind me offered to treat me to the ride. I accepted the "loan" of her card, but I reimbursed her the cost of the fare. She nearly refused, but I didn't think it was right since I wasn't without the fare—just without the right form of payment. Now 'n' then, people are just nice for no reason at all—a random act of kindness. How 'bout that!

PROUSTIAN MAGIC

I watched Wim Wenders's Wings of Desire on TV one night, a decidedly odd movie to start with. (It's Wenders, so I guess that's a given.) It's about two angels who hang around Berlin and watch as the humans live their lives until one of them decides he wants to become human and experience life himself. (Nicholas Cage's City of Angels is a remake/adaptation of Wenders's movie.) One of the oddest bits is that one of the human characters is Peter Falk—as himself; there are several references to his TV role as Columbo. He's making a Nazi-era movie in Berlin, and the angels hang around the set for a while. (It turns out that Falk himself is a former angel. In the movie; I don't know about real life—though I guess he is now.) None of this, however, is relevant to this reminiscence. The movie was released in '88 and meanders around odd parts of Berlin, including some sites near sections of the wall (which didn’t come down until the next year). I'm not sure I can make this make sense—I've never articulated it before—but at one point, one of the angels crosses a street and passes in front of a row of buildings that all looked as if they dated from the immediate post-war period—'50s and '60s or thereabouts. It was only a few seconds of film, and it wasn't in the least significant to the movie, but it made an odd connection for me. For those few seconds, the scene could have been anywhere in West Germany where those kinds of buildings were ubiquitous in the early days of my family’s time there in the early ‘60s. They were just little shops—bakeries, groceries, tobacconists, and so on; I don't even know what they were, but it could have been any street in any West German town where new buildings had been erected to replace older ones that had been destroyed in World War II—they went up fast as Germany was recovering, and they all looked alike. All of a sudden, and just for a second or two, I was right back there in '63 in Koblenz, the Rhine River town where my family first lived in Germany, in those first weeks and months when my brother and I moved there to join my folks. It was the oddest kind of nostalgic sense—sort of Proustian, I guess. I reexperienced a feeling I remember having, but never tried to describe or even, really, recognized until much, much later. It was this absolutely certain feeling that here I was, doing this extraordinary thing—living in a foreign country—that I knew was both unique and special and exciting.

I was just 16 and had never been anywhere off the East Coast of the United States and one skiing trip to Quebec, and we were living not in an American enclave or a housing compound, but right among the Koblenzers, shopping in their stores—no PX or commissary—and so on. And, this was 1963—how many American teenagers lived in Europe back then? I never said this to myself in words, but I knew I was on an adventure. Now, I know I'd thought this before—especially when I went back to Germany in the army in the ‘70s, and most clearly when I went back to Koblenz ten years after I first arrived there—but I know I've never tried to put this into words of any kind—not even in my head. As I said, at the time, I had this sense, but it wasn't remotely verbal and I never recognized it except maybe subliminally until years later. (What 16-year-old is that introspective, I guess.) I'd be out in town for whatever reason—shopping, exploring, meeting Dad at his office, wandering with a friend (who more than likely would have been the French kid I got to know there, which made it all the odder: an American foreign service brat and a French army brat hanging out in a small German city)—and I'd take notice of the German shops with German signs, the German people on the streets, the German kids. Everything was alien—but fascinating. And this feeling would come over me—"I live here. This is now my home. I'm actually doing this." None of those words occurred to me—I'm putting those in now—but the feeling was there. This only happened in the first months or a year—after that I got very blasé about living in foreign parts, and later, when my dad was transferred to Bonn, we lived in an embassy compound where all our neighbors were Americans and our surroundings were an approximation of an American suburb. But those first months in Koblenz, the Germanness of it all, the newness, the strangeness, was actually palpable. I was doing this really, really, different thing—and I knew it. All this came back to me in that brief piece of movie, just because the setting looked vaguely familiar. (Ironically, the rest of the movie didn't remind me of my days in Berlin at all—even though I consciously looked for things I might recognize. Only the monuments were familiar, not the streets or neighborhoods.) Very strange.

MORE PROUSTIAN MAGIC

I watched another old flick I taped off TV one night. It wasn't a terribly remarkable movie as far as cinema goes, but it had some startling, small moments of reflected reality. Not Realism—reality. The movie was The Big Lift with Montgomery Clift, made in 1950 about the '48-'49 Berlin Airlift. It was made on location in Berlin (using both local German actors for the German roles and actual military personnel for all the army and air force characters except Clift and Paul Douglas). Most of the little things that hit me were about life in post-war Germany and occupied Berlin. As odd as it may seem from a chronological perspective, life in Germany was not very different in the early '60s when I was there as a kid than it was right after the war when the movie was made. Less rubble, more prosperity (just beginning), but otherwise, it was still "post-war." (Of course, it was also the Federal Republic of Germany by then—no longer Allied occupied territory.) Berlin, even in the '70s, when I was there ten years further on, was still occupied and, except for new uniforms (and still less rubble), plus the addition of the Wall (built starting in 1961), things were much the same in many ways as they were right after the war ended. It was a time warp, in both instances. For example, one character says he checked someone, a German, out in "the Document Center" and found a record of her from the war years. The Berlin Document Center was, in fact, the records repository of the Third Reich's official files, and it was in the American Sector of Berlin so we kept it as a resource. (I was an intelligence officer in the army: a Special Agent, just like they say on TV.) It was one of the agencies we always checked when we did background investigations of a German native who was old enough to have lived in the Third Reich. (Mind you, this was all the official records, so a file might reveal only that someone was an old-age pensioner, had been a dues-paying member of the musicians guild, or had held a job as a school teacher in Frankfurt. Only occasionally did a file check of the BDC reveal a criminal record or service in the SS or something nefarious.)

Anyway, it was just a passing mention of something actual, like the brief description the pilot of Clift's plane gave of flying into Tempelhof Air Force Base on their first flight in from Frankfurt. ( I suppose only someone like me who'd been over there would have known whether those details were made up or not, but that's kind of the point: who’d really care about that kind if accuracy—and yet, there it was). The Soviets controlled the airspace over what was then their occupation zone of Germany (later East Germany) and restricted Allied flights to a very narrow corridor. Plus, Tempelhof, which closed in 2008, was actually in downtown Berlin—you land over city buildings, and the movie showed this, both from the air as the planes landed, and from the city as planes landed or took off practically outside apartment windows. (In my day, only specially certified pilots were allowed to fly in and out of Berlin. One of them was the newly-appointed CO of the air base, Colonel Gail Halvorsen. In 1948-'49, he became a hero to the children of Berlin—in the '70s, the adults running the city—he was known as the Candy Bomber because he dropped Hershey bars from his plane whenever he flew over the city on his landing approach. I knew Colonel Halvorsen—his daughter was a member of our theater group, which met at Tempelhof—and once when I took an Air Force hop into Berlin from Wiesbaden, he piloted the plane. My little brush with actual history.)

But what most often caught me in Big Lift were the little bits of German culture and custom that were incorporated in the movie. In one scene, set in the apartment of one of the German characters, a group of people are sitting and standing around late in the evening, drinking and nibbling—a kind of impromptu celebration. A neighbor comes in, a woman who lives in another apartment in the building. She's just arriving from work, and stops in to say hello. When she arrives, she makes the rounds of all the people, stopping at each person and shaking his or her hand and saying, "Guten Abend." When she reaches the last person, she says she's tired and off home to bed and immediately reverses her route, shaking all the same hands in reverse order, saying. "Gute Nacht," as she works her way back out the door. That's so German—the formal, hand-shaking greeting of each and every person present, even though you don't plan to stay, and then doing the exact same thing to say good night. In Germany, at least back then—they may have caught the American casualness disease since my day—you can't just stick your head in the door, wave, and say to everyone at once, "Hi. And good night," and then leave. It couldn't have been realer if it had been a documentary! And there were other, briefer bits, too—like the vendor in the subway who sells loose cigarettes. You could still buy individual cigarettes in much of Europe when I was in school there—a pack was relatively pricey even in the '60s.

There was one other real note the movie struck—more in line with my old job in Berlin. While he's visiting a woman he had met, Clift meets a neighbor who stops in at the woman's apartment. They introduce themselves to one another and chit-chat briefly, then the man takes a seat by the window and takes out a pad and makes notes as planes land at the airport. (I told you, the planes flew right by the windows!) Clift asks the man what he's doing. "I'm a Russian spy," he answers matter-of-factly. Clift is taken aback slightly, as you might expect. He asks if the man's not afraid that Clift might report him. "The Americans know I do this," he states. "And the Russians know that the Americans know." He also explains that because the Russians don't believe the newspaper announcements of the airlift's progress—since the Russians lie, they assume everyone else does, too—they insist on getting their own statistics. Since the official reports are accurate—the U.S. wants everyone to know what they're doing; it's good propaganda—he tells Clift that he leaves out one or two flights, just so the Russians feel they're getting "real" figures. Later in the movie, he has stepped out of the living room briefly just as a plane comes in to land. He sticks his head around the corner, then smiles at Clift and says, "That one was just American propaganda!"

Anyway, the man tells Clift that the Russians are spying on the Americans with 20,000 agents in Berlin, and the Americans are spying on the Russians, only with just 10,000 agents. Both sides know that the other side is spying, and that each side also knows that the other side knows. It's all very absurd, sort of Kafkaesque—but not inaccurate. When I was an intel officer in Berlin in the '70s, not only were the Russians (and the East Germans, of course) spying on us and we on them, but, obviously, the French and British were also spying on the Russians and vice versa. But the Allies were also spying on each other. And there were spies in Berlin from Bulgaria, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and other Soviet Bloc countries, all spying on everyone else—including each other. There were even Chinese spies operating in Berlin—countries with no obvious need to be in Berlin. Berlin was espionage-central in that era—the counterpart of, say, Lisbon in WWII. With the possible exception of Saigon, Berlin in the early ‘70s may have had more spies per capita than any other place on Earth. It certainly had spies from more countries and agencies than anywhere else. (I'm sure there's a comedy of errors in this somewhere!)

The first day I reported to our offices, which were in the headquarters compound which also housed both the Brigade command (one-star general), the military governor's office (two-star general), and the Minister's office (the highest-ranking diplomatic officer in Berlin, just below an ambassador), I noticed two black Russian sedans parked, one by each exit from the compound. (Russian Moskviches or Volgas were easy to spot: even in the early ‘70s, they looked like something preserved from the late ‘40s.) I asked about them, and my sponsor told me that they were almost always there, just watching, taking notes and probably photos—and that within an hour of my arrival, the Soviets knew my name, rank, and assignment. (Military Intel personnel wore civilian clothes on duty and were all addressed as "Mr." or "Miss" outside the office. When we had to wear fatigues—for the firing range, say, or during an alert—we wore no branch or rank insignia, only the "US" device. Our addresses and phone numbers were unlisted, and our cars were all registered in Munich, 66th MI HQ, not Berlin. We weren't clandestine, but low profile.) By the same token, I got info copies of the transcripts of the wiretaps from Potsdam, the Soviet military HQ in East Germany. The Cold War was mighty crowded in Berlin!

MORE BIG LIFT RECOLLECTIONS

By the way, at the start of The Big Lift, there’s a voice over that explains how the Soviets started the blockade. The VO describes how the crossing points (the famous Checkpoint Charlie, for instance) were all closed, the trains halted at the border of the Soviet Zone, and the Autobahns connecting Berlin to the Allied zones were denied to Allied traffic. The airlift defeated this action and the Soviets never tried it again—but they did keep up the same tactics on a sporadic and short-term basis. Every few months, they’d stop the supply trains from West Germany (we called it The Zone, left over from days of the occupation; in the days before the U.S. recognized East Germany, that was officially called the Soviet Zone of Occupied Germany, or SZOG) and keep them on a siding for hours, maybe a day. On another occasion, they'd stop all the traffic on the Autobahn—official Allied traffic was restricted to one designated route through East Germany between Berlin and Helmstedt on the border, a 110-mile drive—and back cars and trucks up at one or another of the checkpoints. (Another thing the Soviets loved to do on the Autobahn was to make us deal with the East German guards instead of the Soviet ones. They knew we weren't supposed to do that before recognition—we were supposed to demand to see a Soviet official. They knew there wasn't anything we could really do out on the highway. When they did that, we'd have to report the incident when we got to our destination, either in Berlin or Helmstedt.) There were also occasional "incidents" at Checkpoints Alpha, Bravo, or Charlie, engineered as an excuse to close them for several hours. (These were not the same as real incidents that also occurred at the checkpoints every few weeks. People were still trying to escape from the East even as late as the '70s. Every month or so, there were shots fired at one of the checkpoints; then everyone would scramble.)

In the movie, there are several scenes of Berliners shoveling debris into wheelbarrows. The wartime destruction, still in evidence both in the early ‘60s when I lived in West Germany and in the early ‘70s when I was in Berlin, had to be cleared by hand because the deprivations of Germany after the war, especially in Berlin, made gasoline-powered machinery unavailable. In addition, the post-war unemployment was so great until the Wirtschaftswunder—the Economic Miracle—of the 1960s that hiring out-of-work Berliners to clear the rubble served a benefit. (The woman with whom Clift falls in love in the film works clearing debris.) What the movie doesn’t tell is that most of that debris was taken to a site in Wilmersdorf near the Grunewald, Berlin’s forested “Central Park.” The rubble was piled into a mountain named Teufelsberg (“Devil’s Mountain”), the highest spot in the city at about 365 feet. On top of that mountain the Army Security Agency, the military counterpart to the NSA, built an elaborate spy site called Field Station Berlin, the most secret place in Berlin. Usually just called Teufelsberg—the facility was known to insiders simply as "The Hill"—was located in the British Sector even though it was a U.S. site. (The Brits had a small section on the site, but essentially we just shared whatever poop we got with them and the French.) Everyone knew it was there—you could see the bulbous towers and antennas, looking like some futuristic city, from many parts of Berlin—but very few who didn’t work there knew what went on. (One of my classmates from the Russian language program was assigned to the companion listening station in Helmstedt and despite my clearances as an intel officer, he couldn’t tell me what he did, aside from the obvious: listening in on Russian transmissions. The transcripts I got from Potsdam, which I mentioned in passing above, came from FSB.) I don’t know when Teufelsberg was competed or when FSB was built, but I suspect that when the airlift was going on and even in 1950 when The Big Lift was filmed, it didn’t exist yet. Even if it did, the film probably wouldn’t have been allowed to mention that that’s where all the rubble was heading. Now, of course, it’s all over the ‘Net!

Thespis

On New Year’s Day, the dog believed to be the oldest in the U.S.—perhaps even the whole world—celebrated his twenty-second birthday. By one formula, that makes him 101 in human years. Uno, a cocker spaniel in Sherman Oaks, California, may even have several more years in him, but he’s already outlived the conventional age-limit for dogs, usually figured at about 16 years.

On 24 December last year, the Times published a column about another “four-legged elder,” Otto, a brown Lab who was just about to turn 11 (human equivalent: 75). All this has put me in mind of my last dog, the successor to Sobaka (see “Sobaka: A Memoir,” 31 July 2009), a little Jack Russell terrier mix I named Thespis. (Thespis is the mythological first actor of the Greek drama.) Like ‘Baka, Thespis was adopted as an adult from a private kennel in New York City; I brought him home one winter afternoon in 1990, about six months after I returned from a year’s teaching upstate and 2½ years after ‘Baka died. It had taken me a year to decide I was ready to take a new dog into my life, by which time I was in the temporary stint in Oneonta; when I got home, it took me six months to find the right companion. (Aside from any personal requirements, my parents in Washington had moved into an apartment building with rules about dog size—and my mom had some ideas of her own. Since I brought my dog with me when I visited, I had to make some effort to meet their criteria, too, if I could.)

At any rate, I did finally settle on this little mutt, the only male of five siblings who’d been rescued from a pit bull breeding and training kennel. (I never confirmed this, but I imagined that these and other small dogs were the targets for attack training or fighting for the pit bulls.) I’d been calling the shelters to ask if they had any small dogs for adoption, and I kept hearing the same answer: No one’s bringing in small dogs. Finally the Humane Society replied that they had this Jack Russell mix, but I didn’t even know what a Jack Russell was at the time. Well, I went up to East 59th Street near the Queensboro Bridge and the Manhattan terminal for the Roosevelt Island Tram to check out this prospect, and I found a cute, if funny-looking, brown-and-white dog of about 20 pounds—about five or ten pounds heavier than my parents’ condo permitted. I figured my pet wouldn’t be a resident dog, though, so I could fudge the criteria some, especially since the limit was really set so owners could carry their dogs through the building’s lobby, in the passenger elevators, and on the residence floors, and I could easily carry this little fellow.

The Humane Society allows prospective adopters to take the dogs for a walk in the neighborhood, so out we went. The dog’s kennel name was Alpha—Alphie, for short—because he was the first of the five siblings. The others were Beta, Gamma, Delta, and Epsilon (called Eppie, the only one of Alpha’s sisters I ever met). As we walked east on 59th Street, past a small park—really nothing more than a wide sidewalk with some benches along the abutment for the bridge—Alphie strained at the leash towards a pair of HS volunteers who were exercising other kennel residents—but he paid absolutely no attention to me. I was just an inconvenience: some guy holding him back from running across the street to greet his friends. In fact, Alpha ignored me pretty much through the whole walk, but even so, when we got back to the HS shelter, I decided this was a shot I’d better take since I’d been looking for so long with no other prospects—unlike my choice of Sobaka, whom I immediately fell for as soon as I saw him.

The adoption people at HS sketched out his background very briefly—the rescue and all—and showed me that Alphie had a slightly deformed mouth. (His lower jaw was shorter than his upper, which protruded like a severe overbite, but it wasn’t noticeable unless you pulled his lips open to look). They told me he was about two years old, but afterwards when I took him for his pre-adoption check-up at the vet clinic downstairs, the medical records indicated he was about three, so there was a discrepancy about Alphie’s actual age. (When I registered my new pet, I put down his birth year as 1988, but I always knew he could be as much as a year older than that.) Like most shelters, HS had a guarantee period during which a prospective adopter can bring a pet back if the match doesn’t work out. (I had been ‘Baka’s second adopter; the first family to take him couldn’t keep him when he turned out not to be very good with small children.) I wasn’t very confident that this would work out, but I decided to take a chance anyway because I was being so unsuccessful otherwise.

So Alpha and I walked home from 59th and 2nd to 16th and 5th, and I tried to make friends with him along the way. When I had brought ‘Baka home the same way, we were great friends by the time we reached Madison Square (which, I recall, is where I settled on his new name), but Alphie wasn’t being very companionable. This choice was looking less and less likely. We got home and I introduced my guest to his bowl, his bed, and some toys. These last were mostly old socks I’d knotted into a big ball at the foot and then turned inside out. Sobaka had never played with toys, so I didn’t have any around. To my delight, Alpha took to these makeshift playthings avidly. Anyway, I let the dog explore the apartment on his own and went to sit in my bedroom and read. Soon, the dog came in and pretty unceremoniously climbed up into my lap. I guess he decided that with no other humans around, I was all there was—and that was fine under the circumstances. He abandoned his reserve, and that was it for me—I lost all my reservations about my new companion. We were okay—and I renamed him Thespis.

No sooner did Thespis start getting used to his new digs than he began displaying some of his habitual, and frequently very funny, behavior. Some, I decided, was derived from his Jack Russell heritage, like the way he played with his new sock chews. (He turned out to love these so much that I just kept making them as I wore out socks and Thespie chewed up the older ones.) He used to throw the sock toys in the air and chase after them. It was so funny to see him get confused when the toy landed on top of a piece of furniture instead of the floor where he expected it. He'd run over to where it should have landed and look all around, apparently wondering how the thing could have disappeared that way. Then I'd retrieve the toy for him and he'd be off tossing it up again immediately. It was also funny to see him pounce on the thing, grab it in his mouth, and shake it while he growled ferociously. Very macho for a little guy. I found out later that that's exactly how Jack Russells kill their prey when they hunt small rodents—what they were bred for. Turns out Thespis was play-hunting instinctively.

Other conduct was what dog shrinks apparently consider compulsive behavior. He chased his tail, spinning on his own axis three or four times, then he’d stop and look up at me with what looked like a doggy smile as if to say, ‘See what I can do? Aren’t I just a hoot?’ (I’m convinced that dogs know.) I’d always crack up. Thesp was also extremely agile—he could almost always evade me if he saw me coming to pick him up, something he didn't like. (I did it anyway!) He used to delight in running through the apartment at full speed, dashing around the furniture as if it were a canine obstacle course. He made a circuit around the living room, weaving in and out of the furniture, and then ran into the bedroom, went to the far side of the bed and dove under it, came out the other side, and ran back into the living room, where he started the route over. He did maybe two or three laps at a time, and he did the whole routine daily or more when he was an adolescent. I stopped whatever I was doing and just watched in amazement—he never once hit or even jostled a piece of furniture—and just howled with laughter at the whole escapade. I also always wondered how he got under the bed that way until one day I happened to be standing at the foot of it when he did his thing. I dropped down instantly and watched him propel himself under the bed. I had always pictured him literally sliding on his belly, like a baseball player coming into home plate. It turns out he dropped down into a ground-level crouch and sort of doggy-paddled himself along with his legs—at quite a clip, mind you—as he slid on his tummy. What a sight!

Finally, there was behavior that I suspected was related to his past at the pit bull breeder’s. Thespie had small scars and nicks on his face and ears that suggested some rough treatment, perhaps from the pit bulls or perhaps from the other dogs left to roam the kennel, and I imagined that he hadn’t had an easy time before he was rescued. Thespie wasn’t an aggressive dog, so I don’t think he’d have fought back; he probably just protected himself and kept out of harm’s way if he could. So when he grabbed mouthfuls of kibble from his bowl in the kitchen and came out into the middle of the living room and dropped it on the floor to eat piece by piece, I just assumed that was the way he’d made sure to have some food for himself without having to fight over the bowl. Another possibility was that he just didn’t want to eat alone, so he came where the people were. In either case, when he finished the mouthful he brought out, he’d go get another and repeat the process. Eventually, he just ate at his bowl.

Little by little, Thespis abandoned all these habits, though it took years in some cases. One behavior he never quit, though—at least not until he got really old. Thespis had his own definition of how much attention was sufficient. ‘Baka had been content to wait quietly, chewing on one of his "bones," until I decided it was time to play. But Thesp was a real attention-whore. When he decided he'd been left alone long enough, he came and poked me with his nose. If I was sitting at my desk, he’d stick his nose through the arm support of my chair until I quit working or reading or whatever and petted him. If I didn't respond quickly enough, he’d lay his chin on my knee and look up at me. That always worked! And heaven forbid I should stop! Very demanding. (Notwithstanding a sore arm, I never resisted, either.)

Like Sobaka before him, Thespie turned out to be a great pet. Oh, both dogs had their foibles, some of which were even serious. (‘Baka, for instance, was violently aggressive with other animals. I could never walk him without a leash and I had to have him specially trained to make his aggression manageable when he was around other dogs.) But for the most part, they were terrific companions. They were markedly different from one another in several ways, though, diametrically opposite, in fact. Aside from appearances—‘Baka was pretty, dark-colored, long- and wavy-haired, somewhat big (35 pounds); Thespie was funny-looking, short- and straight-haired, light-colored, smallish (ultimately 25 pounds: he gained weight after the kennel)—and their difference in attention-seeking needs, their personalities were contrasting. ‘Baka was relatively calm (except that problem with other animals); Thespie was hyper (a Jack Russell trait). Sobaka didn’t play with toys, though he’d chew on a rawhide or nylon bone for hours; Thespis loved to toss around almost anything he could grasp in his mouth, especially those old, knotted socks. ‘Baka hated riding in cars (and even got carsick enough to need medication) and had to be lifted up into one if we went for a drive; Thespis loved to get into cars, even a stranger’s if he happened to be passing by one when the door opened. ‘Baka wasn't much for playing by himself, but he was great at playing with me—catch, tug-o’-war, wrestling; Thespis wasn't much good at playing with me, though he was terrific at playing on his own. Neither dog, however, was especially demonstrative—they weren’t lickers, though Thesp would sometimes lick the back of my hand—but they were both devoted to me. And they both hated to be left behind, either at home alone, where they moped near the door until I came back (they used to bark then, too, for a few months after I got them), or outside a store when I couldn’t take them in with me. (I never left them on the sidewalk unless I couldn’t avoid it and knew I’d be in and out fast. Otherwise, I’d save that errand for another time.) Until they each got too infirm to walk long distances comfortably, we used to take really long walks all around lower Manhattan—down into SoHo or even TriBeCa, deep into the West or East Village, or over into the far west of Chelsea.

Thespie didn’t like crowds or loud noises (like a metal garage door opening or closing right near him). Still, we’d go off for jaunts on decent days, sometimes walking through the Greenmarket at Union Square (where he’d scuttle under the vendors’ tables whenever I stopped to look over some produce or baked goods), circle back through the park, go off into the East Village—maybe down to Astor Place or over to Tompkins Square—and then meander back home. Whenever we turned back toward home, no matter how far away we were or in what part of town, he’d start to pull at his leash. He knew we were on our way back somehow and always reacted this way. I had had to find a different kind of attachment for his leash because he never figured out that pulling so hard against the leash was choking him. This contraption, called a Halti, went around his snout and the lead attached under his chin. When he tugged, it would pull his head up and he’d stop yanking so hard. (It’s the same principle as pulling the reins of a horse.) Ultimately he learned not to pull at the leash, but people on the street saw the straps around his nose and thought he was wearing a muzzle and sometimes asked if he bit or was unfriendly. In reality, of course, he was the timidest dog on the street, I suspect. Strangers frightened him and he’d try to hide behind me, winding the leash around my legs, to get away from anyone who tried to make friends with him on the sidewalk until he got much older and mellowed a little. Eventually he’d let little kids pet him without running around behind me, but only if I crouched down next to him and put my hand on him somewhere to reassure him it was all right. Even so, I could see his eyes widen and feel him tense up, ready to bolt if things didn’t go right in his estimation. Right afterwards, of course, I’d give Thespie a good rub somewhere like the top of his head or under his chin, or I’d scratch his belly, and praise him so he’d understand he did a good thing. I don’t know if he really believed me; I suspect he may have been indulging me.

When my father was in a nursing home and we used to spend all day with him, I brought Thespis because it was too long to leave him. He had no training as a therapy dog, but the staff, who encouraged me to bring him whenever I came, very much welcomed him. The other patients made a great fuss over him when I brought him into the ward, even though all he did was hang out. My father used to respond to him, too, before Dad got too sick—but he’d been a dog person all his life and he knew Thespis from before the nursing home. When Dad moved to the hospice where he died, we’d spend all day there, too, so Thespie went along as well. He was welcome there, too, and one time when I had to step out of Dad's room—the staff was changing his bed or his pajamas or something—one of the nurses asked if I’d take Thespis over to another patient's room. It turned out to be a young man who was dying from AIDS or one of the AIDS-related illnesses, and Thespis got up on his bed and the guy petted him and played with him until the young man got too tired. The patient’s friend made a point of finding me later and thanking me for bringing Thespie. I know that Thespis, and Sobaka before him, always used to make me feel better, almost no matter what. On a rough day, even the anticipation of finding Thespis waiting for me would buck me up on the way home from the subway or bus.

About two or three years before his death, Thespie began to deteriorate. I noticed a white patch in his right eye which turned out to be a cataract. It had already blinded him in the one eye and the other eye would soon follow, but the doctor was also worried about glaucoma and put him on medication to reduce the pressure in his eyeballs. In the end, I had to have his eyes destroyed chemically to avoid removing them, but his sight was gone by then. Little by little, Thespis started into a physical decline which took away most of the good parts of his life, though I was assured that he wasn’t in pain. He just wasn’t having any fun. Except for his eyes and a touch of arthritis, he was in good health so far. I wondered sometimes, however, if I was keeping him around when I shouldn't, but everyone I talked to, including his vets, said that he wasn’t in pain or discomfort, so there was no reason to consider putting him down yet. Thespie, of course, didn't know he had no life; he just thought that was the way things were supposed to be. At his age, though, things could change on a dime. Eventually, they did change, of course.

In 2003, Thespis gave me a terrible scare. I woke up the Sunday morning before Memorial Day and found that he'd peed and crapped on the rug he slept on. I thought it was just an "accident"—which he had from time to time anyway (incontinence was beginning to rear its head)—until I saw that he was lying in part of the pee—something he'd never do. (He was also under a table, which wasn’t a habit of his, either.) I cleaned up a little and then went to take him right out, and I discovered he couldn't stand up! I also saw that his eyes were all bugged out, way more than at the height of his glaucoma (his eye pressure had returned to nearly normal as a result of the ablation), and then I saw that his head was bobbing around like Stevie Wonder when he sings. I got really scared—I thought Thespis' eyes had swollen so they were pressing on his brain. I scooped him up and grabbed a cab to the Animal Medical Center. We got there at about 9:45 in the morning and a doctor saw him immediately to assess him, but then we were left alone in the examining room for hours. I sat there petting, stroking, and talking to Thespie, fearing the worst—until I noticed that all his symptoms were disappearing. By the time the doctor came back, Thespie looked perfectly normal, and he even walked from the exam room. The vet said his eye pressure was normal now, and that the episode may have been caused by a tumor, but he didn't know without an MRI or CAT scan.

The doctor wanted me to see another vet the next day (which was the holiday), but Thespis' regular eye doctor wouldn't be available, and the other clinic would be closed until morning, so I'd have to go on spec and hope the specialist there could see him. I didn't like those options, and I decided to wait till I could speak to our regular ophthalmologist, so I called her and left an urgent message and e-mailed her the details of the episode. She called me on Tuesday and said the episode was probably something that sometimes happens with older dogs and wasn't necessarily symptomatic of anything—and that all of what the emergency doctor saw had been normal for Thespis; they weren't changes or deteriorations. (Some of his symptoms, like the peeing/pooping, may have been the result of fear and my ministrations during the hours we were alone may have been the reason they all subsided.) She agreed that he didn't need to see some third doctor and that his next scheduled appointment with her would be fine. She really put my mind at ease—I was wondering if I had made a bad decision and was jeopardizing Thespis' life. He was perfectly normal afterwards—for a superannuated puppy, that is—though I still watched him every time he moved (or didn't move) and checked to see that he was breathing when he was asleep.

I kept envisioning Sobaka stumbling around like Lee Marvin's drunken horse in Cat Ballou, and then collapsing. I saw myself rushing him off the AMC at 3 in the morning when I knew he was done, and having him euthanized. All this was going through my mind for days until I heard back from Thespis' regular doctor. I knew Thespis was at the end of his life, and that at 15 or 16 he’d really outlived most dogs, but he seemed okay for the most part, and I didn't see the purpose in putting him down just because he was no longer convenient or fun. As long as he wasn’t in pain or anything—and his doctor assured me he was okay on that score—I wanted to keep him around for a while longer.

A year or so later, Thespis had gotten really old. Along with his blindness, he'd become a crotchety old man. He wasn’t really incontinent yet, but he no longer had the waiting power he used to so I had to take him out every four or five hours. That meant he couldn't make it through the night without a walk. So I took him out at about 3 or 4, and when I woke up sometime in the early morning I took him out again then lay down for another hour or so. I’d had to give up going out to eat before theater or spending the whole day in the library because it meant leaving Thespie too long, but I figured I owed him. In December 2002, the New York Times published an article on superannuated pets. The article focused on dogs, and the "old" ones it described were 13 to 15. Thespis was already 14 or 15 when that article came out, a sort of canine Methuselah—older than the oldest animal in the article. (Uno, the dog now considered the oldest in the U.S., would have been about Thespie’s age, between 69 and 73 in human terms.)

By the following year, those seizures had become noticeably more frequent, weeks rather than months apart. He wouldn't have many more days left. I planned the usual trip to Washington for the end of 2005.

Then, just after Christmas, I had to say goodbye to Thespis. I said I was never sure how old Thespis was, but I know he was my companion for about 15 years. The effects of his advanced age, somewhere between 17 and 18 (81 to 85 for people), finally became too much for me to feel he could go on without discomfort. I was more than willing to manage most of the infirmities with which he was plagued—arthritis, blindness, incontinence—but one thing ultimately became too hard to put him though any longer—the seizures. For a long time, they had been brief and seldom, and he seemed to recover from them immediately. But starting the week before Christmas, he began having these attacks frequently, one night even several in a row. I thought this might be an aberration, but when he had three attacks and then four during two brief walks and he seemed unable or unwilling to walk after they subsided, I realized he was at the stage where he must be in distress and I couldn't hold on to him into the New Year. He died quietly with my mother and me petting him gently as he went to sleep.

Even after many weeks and even months, I still missed him and wondered what I would do with the things he’d left behind. I also still caught myself thinking, ‘I have to take Thespis out now’; then realized that I didn't. He’d often been my principal excuse to get out of the apartment, especially on a lousy day. I had to readjust many of the tasks I performed for 15 years as an adjunct to walking him—getting my paper in the morning, dropping letters in the corner box, picking up my mail in the afternoon, stopping by the ATM at night for the week’s cash, and other quotidian chores I always took care of on the way out or back with Thespis. Even now, after four years, I sometimes forget to get my mail and my newspaper can sit on my doormat into the afternoon because I don’t go out first thing to walk the dog anymore. The routine that he’d generated over a decade-and-a-half no longer had an anchor and it just dissipated.

Lots of people compare having a dog with having a child. Despite obvious parallels, of course, the situations are very different in many ways. One difference is that a child eventually grows up and becomes independent of the parents. Gradually, the relationship changes. A dog always remains dependent on its human companion. In a way, it was as if I’d had a toddler in my house for 15 years. And then he was gone.

Sobaka: A Memoir

I have had two dogs since I moved to New York; both were adopted from shelters and both stayed with me for a long time. I grew up with dogs in my home when I was little, but those were “family dogs”; Sobaka and Thespis were mine alone. Thespis, my last dog, simply got very old--he was over 17 at the end and just couldn’t go on; but Sobaka fell victim to a brain tumor when he was around 14 and ultimately didn’t recover and I had to put him down early one morning. He was my first dog as an adult; I adopted him shortly after I got out of the army and had moved to New York City. When I commuted to grad school at Rutgers, I took him with me to New Brunswick because I was on campus all day long, often into the early morning hours. He lived in my car and I tended him and walked him between classes--and he even came to a few with me. (I taught an acting class in an old studio in the basement of a freshman dorm. Sobaka hung out under my table--unless, that is, he got excited at something that happened in class. Then he’d spring up and start barking!) I became known to people on the East Brunswick campus where my program was located as the guy with the dog.

I adopted Sobaka from a private shelter in the city; he was 13 months old and had been brought in originally by owners who were moving somewhere they couldn’t keep pets. The dog had been adopted once before, but he wasn’t very good with small children--he thought they were little animals, and he’d chase them--and he’d been returned to the shelter. I’d been calling all the local shelters looking for “a beagle-sized dog” for weeks with no luck when Bideawee, on 38th Street near the East River, said they had a “beagle-mix” available for adoption. I hightailed it up to the shelter and walked through the adoption kennels, looking over the prospects. None were what I was looking for, but this one dog, a long-haired tri-color with a sweet face, just seemed friendly and playful even in his cage. But he was obviously a fairly large dog, maybe 30 or 35 pounds, and I had a small studio apartment. I left the building in disappointment, but the dog was still on my mind and I turned on my heels on the sidewalk in front of the shelter and went back in. He was just so damn pretty! “I’ll take him,” I declared. So I filled out the paperwork and got a leash and so on, and learned that my new dog’s name was Trouble. Ick! What a terrible name! It couldn’t help but give the animal a complex or something. (I learned later, not being an opera buff, that Trouble is the name of Cio-Cio-San’s child in Madame Butterfly.) So, on the walk back down to 15th Street and 5th Avenue, where we would live, I divided my time between making friends with my new companion--not a hard thing to do; he was very friendly--and thinking up a new name for him. By the time I got home, I’d decided. He was really just a dog dog--nothing special except he was handsome, a real mutt. He was a sort of Everydog. One of my friends said later my dog reminded him of the Thurber dog in the New Yorker cartoons. (I described him as a canine Churkendoose because, though he was registered as a beagle-mix, his appearance suggested there were a fair number of breeds in that “mix.”) I didn’t like the sounds of Chien or Hund as names, the French and German words for ‘dog,’ but Sobaka (suh-BAH-kuh), the Russian word, sounded perfect. So, my dog became “Dog” (to anyone who knew Russian), ‘Baka for short.

I used to know a luggage repair shop near Herald Square, up in the mid-30s. The place was on an upper floor of an old highrise and I took an elevator up and it let me out in a wide hallway opposite a long window in an otherwise blank wall above the service counter which rose to about waist height. When I took something in for repair or alteration, I walked up to the window and gave my bag or portfolio to the woman, the wife and partner of the man who did the work, and told her what I wanted. There were usually no other people in the place, and little by little the woman and her husband got to know me a little, enough to pass the time of day. One afternoon, I walked uptown with Sobaka and took him along with me up to the shop. No one was at the counter when I walked up, and you couldn’t see Sobaka at my side from the other side, so when the woman came up to serve me, she could tell I was talking to “someone” but couldn’t see whom. I explained that I had my dog with me, and he rose up on his hind legs so he was tall enough to put his front paws on the counter (he could do this in my kitchen, too, which wasn’t always such a cute thing), and the woman could see whom I was talking to. Now, two things here: One, unless they hated dogs, people made a fuss over Sobaka because he really was gorgeous. Two, this couple were Russian. So, Gospozha fussed a little over the dog and I introduced him to her, saying in Russian, “Ego zovut Sobaka.” Now, Gospozha thought this was the funniest thing she’d ever heard. To her ears, what I just said was, ‘His name’s Dog,’ and she called over to Gospodin and laughed as she told him this guy had a dog named Dog!

‘Baka truly was a good-looking dog. Soon after I brought him home, I noticed that his markings were nearly perfectly bilaterally symmetrical--as if some artist had designed him by drawing one side of him and then folding the drawing in half. He was registered as a tri-color--black, brown (tan, really) and white--but he was really four colors because several of the brown patches were russet, like the color of an Irish setter. He had four white socks on his paws and brown, floppy ears that ended in black fringe. The only markings that weren’t symmetrical were some black freckles on his white muzzle. I even took some photos of him with the idea of trying to get him into commercials or in the illustrations on pet food boxes. Unfortunately, I learned that animal agents weren’t interested in mutts, only purebreds. Besides, ‘Baka turned out to have a serious drawback as a canine model. He was totally devoted to me. I obedience-trained him, but he wouldn’t learn “stay.” He knew “sit” and “down” and “come,” and so on, but he wouldn’t stay put for more than a few seconds, and then he’d run up to me wherever I was. If I ever got him on a set and he’d get in place for the shot, once I walked away, he’d run right after me. So much for the dreams of fame and fortune! (But it was endearing, as you can imagine.)

By the late ‘80s, ‘Baka had had arthritis and a heart murmur for years. I knew he would die some day soon, and I thought I was prepared. Apparently I wasn’t. During the summer of 1987, Sobaka developed a hacking cough. Because of his heart problem, I became worried and took him to have an electrocardiogram. That proved negative, and the cough was diagnosed as bronchitis. Even though the coughing persisted, I was relieved that ‘Baka’s heart was no worse. Shortly after the cough developed, I noticed a lump forming on the underside of his tail. It was small, but I was worried again. When the lump got worse, I took him to the vet for an examination. The lump turned out to be a tumor, benign or malignant was never determined; the doctor also said Sobaka had developed peripheral cataracts. At his age, the surgery to fix these problems would have been more dangerous than the illnesses. The doctor predicted Sobaka would likely die of old age before either problem could cause difficulties. In a sense, the doctor was right.

So I waited, watching for more signs that Sobaka, still handsome and as sweet-faced as a puppy, was deteriorating. The dog, who used to respond immediately to my call, whistle, or even mere movement toward the door or his leash, now barely acknowledged my return home from work. Occasionally when I came in the door or awoke in the morning and found him lying motionless on his side, I’d think, ‘My God, he’s died in his sleep.’ I’d lean down to feel his breathing, and he’d open his eyes. He wouldn’t move right away, but at least I’d know he was alive.

All this time, Sobaka never showed signs of being in pain. Moans and groans when he lay down or turned over I was assured were just like those of some older people--not really discomfort, but effort and exertion. In early middle age, I made the same noises myself sometimes.

Of course, ‘Baka wasn’t as much fun anymore as he was when I first adopted him. At a year old, when I brought him home for the first time, he’d run with me, chase sticks--never balls, though I never knew why--wrestle, and play tug-o’-war with an old sock. I taught him to play catch with grapes, which he loved. (Uncharacteristically for canines, Sobaka loved fruit. An old guy in my building used to delight in feeding him bananas and when I ate an apple, I’d give him the core which he’d gobble up in nothing flat.) Now, he just lay around and went for short, slow walks. Still, I knew I wasn’t ready to give him up. As long as life didn’t pain him, I’d put up with his occasional inconvenience and generally increasing neuroses.

Just when I’d settled into the idea that he had problems I had to watch, and that a decision whether or not to operate might soon have to be made, something more immediately threatening happened. One evening in April 1988, while my parents were visiting from out of town, Sobaka seemed unable to find a comfortable place to lie. Moving around the room, he seemed to be going from one piece of furniture to another, his rear end fishtailing into a chair or a table as he passed. When he finally settled next to a chair near me, I moved over and began to pet him. I noticed a shudder each time he inhaled. I became concerned, but couldn’t figure out what could be wrong. My mother decided he might be having chills, so I got an old throw rug and wrapped him in it. He never looked up either when I left his side or when I tucked the rug around him. He stayed that way, wrapped in a rug, with my mother sitting on the floor on his right and me in the chair on his left, for an hour. Normally, he’d have hated being covered that way and would have shaken off the rug or climbed on top of it.

All the time we were debating whether or not to take him to the emergency clinic. We couldn’t imagine what the problem could be. None of Sobaka’s other medical conditions lined up with this as far as we could tell. When the shuddering subsided, we decided to wait until morning and call a vet.

On his evening walk--which I had to coax him into--he continued to list to the left, leaning against walls like Lee Marvin’s drunken horse in Cat Ballou. He didn’t want to walk at all at first; I had to cajole him until he began to move very slowly. I kept him out only until he’d done his business, then returned home where I put him to bed in one of his usual spots in my bedroom and covered him with the rug. He seemed content to lie under the cover, and I went to sleep with one ear attuned to ‘Baka’s every move or sound. Usually Sobaka changed location frequently during the night. He was free to wander anywhere he wanted, as I kept my bedroom door open when I was alone. With my parents visiting, I habitually closed the bedroom door so the dog wouldn’t wander about and disturb their sleep. Now, of course, he stayed put anyway. At about 4 a.m., however, he crawled out from under the rug and moved elsewhere. He moved again at around 6. I was encouraged--maybe he was coming back around and would be fine in the morning.

At 7, I got up to get ready for work. Sobaka seemed fine, though sluggish. He had long ago stopped greeting the morning with much enthusiasm, so it wasn’t very surprising. He was, at least, alive and awake. I got dressed to take him out. On his walk, though he wasn’t as resistant as the previous night, he still listed to one side and seemed to lose control over his back end. I came home and reported this to my waiting parents. We decided I should go to work--a train commute across the Hudson to teach high school in suburban New Jersey. At 9, my folks would call the clinic where Sobaka was treated and describe his symptoms. I planned to call home from work at 9:30 to see what was decided.

On the train ride to work, I couldn’t stop thinking about Sobaka. His hound-dog face with the floppy, spaniel ears and soft, brown eyes kept looking at me. For thirteen years, ever since I’d adopted him from the kennel, he’d been an ever-present responsibility. I couldn’t go out without planning for his needs; I had to walk him in all weather without fail, regardless of my own health; he had to be looked after if I went away; I had to rent a car and take him with me when I visited my parents in Washington; I had to get him checked and vaccinated regularly and clean up after his accidents and illnesses. Sometimes my life seemed to revolve around Sobaka. For thirteen years I did all that and knew that he was worth it. But I never anthropomorphized Sobaka. He wasn’t my “son”; he wasn’t a person. He was my pet--a dog. I thought I was being very rational about my attachment to Sobaka. Now I was wondering what my world might be like without him. When he was “visiting” my parents without me, it was always strange to come home and not find him waiting. I’d often call out as I opened the door before I remembered he was away. My schedule seemed very empty because it didn’t include our regular walks through the neighborhood. I’d save table scraps, only to remember I had no one to give them to. My plates went unlicked.

But on these occasions, I always knew Sobaka would be back. Either my parents would return him to me in New York, or I’d go to Washington and bring him back. It was always just a few days or a couple of weeks, and I knew where he was. Here was the real possibility he might be taken away forever. What would I do after thirteen years? My parents were the only people I’d ever lived with that long--no other living thing had been my companion for so long.

I got to work and went through the routine of getting ready to teach my first class. At 9:30 I decided my parents must have called the clinic and would know something. I phoned home. My mother answered. She had spoken to the clinic, but the vet hadn’t been available. She was to call back after a little while; I’d call her after 11. I taught my first class then rushed to a phone to call home again. The doctor had said Sobaka may have had a mini-stroke, and he would make room in his schedule to see him.

A stroke. It made sense, but I hadn’t anticipated anything so . . . fatal. None of Sobaka’s other medical problems were really life-threatening. Even if the tumor proved cancerous, old age would have taken him before the cancer could. But a stroke was different. It could kill him anytime--or leave him paralyzed or something. It could happen during the night or while I was at work or anytime--and I would be unable to help him. Now my imagined fears had reality. Sobaka might actually die--not in a year or so, but now. My being several hours away didn’t help calm me. At the same time, I felt vaguely silly. Sobaka was just a dog, after all. If I told a fellow teacher how I really felt, I’d be laughed at. I knew my teenaged students wouldn’t understand.

In the end, informed that Sobaka needed to be watched carefully for the next several days, we decided my parents would take him to Washington with them. I couldn’t stay with him because of my teaching job. We also discussed the possibility of euthanasia. While he was away, he had a crisis during which he couldn’t walk at all, but he came out of it after a few days. A family friend in Washington who is a veterinarian examined him and explained that dogs couldn’t really have strokes, but he was unable to diagnose Sobaka’s problem. My parents brought him back to New York. A few days later, he relapsed and I rushed him off to the Animal Medical Center for another examination. I thought another doctor, a specialist, might have better luck. If not, putting Sobaka to sleep began to look like a very likely possibility. The doctor did settle on a diagnosis: an inoperable brain tumor. There was only one feasible remedy, an experimental drug that might shrink the tumor enough to restore Sobaka’s mobility. There was no guarantee the medication would work, and there was a potential side effect that I would have to watch closely for. The drug often caused internal bleeding.

After three days of administering the medicine, ‘Baka suddenly got up and walked. I had gone out to get a newspaper, leaving him in his place in the hall. When I got home, he was gone; I found him standing in the bedroom, leaning against the wall. I actually shrieked with pleasure. I was certain he was all right and would recover. It took several more days before ‘Baka would go out for a walk, but I believed he would continue to improve. My elation was unwarranted. Less than a week later, Sobaka began to deteriorate again, and ended up unable to walk at all again. The doctor advised increasing the medicine dosage, but Sobaka didn’t respond. I finally resigned myself to the obvious: Sobaka would never recover and could not continue in his present condition. I made an appointment to have him euthanized over the weekend. I began to feel mildly depressed, and couldn’t shake the feeling. The reality of what I refused to face for several weeks was now unavoidable. I was going to lose Sobaka and there wasn’t anything I could do about it. I thought I had come to grips, at least intellectually, with the decision, and made plans for a summer trip on the basis that I wouldn’t have ‘Baka to care for. I waited for Saturday morning.

Suddenly, in the middle of the night the Monday before the day of the euthanasia appointment, Sobaka began to whine and yelp. I couldn’t find anything outwardly wrong with him, and he seemed to stop if I got on the floor and held him. As soon as I let go and went back to bed, however, he started again. Then I noticed bloody saliva on the old quilt I was using for his bed. I knew then that the predicted side effect of the drug, internal bleeding, had begun. Realizing that Sobaka couldn’t last through the night this way, and certainly couldn’t wait until Saturday, I dressed quickly and carried him out to the street to get a cab to the Animal Medical Center. Now that he was obviously in pain, the situation was different. I could no longer put off what I knew I had to do. I held Sobaka in my lap on the ride to the hospital and talked softly to him the whole way. He was quiet the entire trip, but kept looking up at me. I guess he expected me to make it all right as I had always managed to do all our lives together. I had started to cry silently and hugged Sobaka. The cabby asked if he was sick. “He’s dying,” I said. The driver didn’t respond, and I was just as glad.

At the hospital, I rushed up the ramp to the clinic, Sobaka cradled in my arms like a child. At three o’clock on a Tuesday morning there were few other patients there, so I was ushered right into an examination room. The attending vet went right into action, recognizing the symptoms of internal bleeding. She began to give orders for immediate medication, but I told her not to try to treat him. I explained the circumstances and told her that I had already had an appointment to have Sobaka put to sleep the next Saturday. I asked her if we could just do it now. She said yes and ordered the injection. The doctor asked me if I wanted to be with him when he was injected. I said I did; I couldn’t imagine letting him go without my being with him to hold him and comfort him as he went to sleep.

The doctor explained what would happen so I knew what to expect. She would inject Sobaka with an overdose of barbiturates, and he would literally go to sleep; then his heart would stop. Actually there were two injections. The first just made him sleep; the second stopped his heart. It took a few minutes, and I held Sobaka while he lay on the metal table and talked to him so he would know I was there with him. It happened just as the doctor described: he just closed his eyes and I felt his heart stop beating. The doctor offered to let me stay with Sobaka while the paper work and the bill were prepared, but I couldn’t stay and look at him lying on the table as if he really were just asleep. I left the examining room and slid the door closed so I couldn’t see him. I couldn’t stop sniffling and tearing, and I felt embarrassed, though no one seemed to notice.

I paid the bill for the euthanasia and went home. I put away some of ‘Baka’s things, washed the towel I had wrapped him in and the shirt I had worn because they had blood from Sobaka’s saliva on them, took a shower and went to bed. It was about 4 a.m. on Tuesday, a school day, of course, and I couldn’t skip work. I got up a few hours after going to bed, dressed for work and called my parents to tell them what had happened. They had planned to come up on Saturday so I wouldn’t be alone, and I didn’t see any point in that now. For the next several days, I managed to get through the school day without obvious problems as long as I was working. On the train and during breaks, the depression returned and I often had to hide tears. A forty-year-old high school English teacher can’t be seen crying in the hallway; it isn’t seemly.

Generally I managed to get through the remainder of the term without incident, although once I almost lost it in class. My ninth-grade English class had been watching the film of Romeo and Juliet, and the crypt scene, with Juliet supposedly dead on the tomb and Romeo kneeling beside her, was set up exactly like the examining room. Fortunately, I was standing by the open rear door to the classroom and slipped out for a few seconds until the scene was over. Even now, years later, I can’t picture the scene of Sobaka’s death without tearing. There are several pictures of both my dogs around the apartment, and they always remind me of one or another of Sobaka’s or Thespis’ silly habits. I keep telling myself that they were just dogs, and that 14 and 17 are the usual canine lifespan or more. None of that really makes any difference. I still miss them.

It took me over a year to get another dog after Sobaka died. Since Thespis, another adopted mutt, died almost five years ago now, I still haven’t gone looking for a new pet. I don’t think it’s the prospect of losing another dog that deters me. I tell myself--and anyone who asks why I haven’t gotten another dog--that I just haven’t gotten the energy up to do the looking. Even so, I often miss having a dog around, especially when I see someone enjoying the companionship.