Dog Days

Manny and Drazil had been married for 42 years. They had had five children (that they rarely saw), 3 grandchildren (so far), 2 Fords, 4 Buicks, 2 Chevy’s, a Plymouth, and cats. Lots of cats. Drazil wouldn’t own a car built by “one of them countries…” and “by-gooly-gawd Manfried, I … ” wouldn’t have a dog. Manny hated cats but loved dogs and his heart had an empty space that only a dog would fill. But Drazil declared, “No dogs!” So no dogs.

They never fought because Manny refused to. They never talked although Drazil never stopped talking. In fact, after 42 years almost the only time Manny ever even got a word in edgewise around the house was when he went into the bathroom and shut the door. Even then, Drazil would just crank it up a notch or two and go right on blathering about what she had given up and how unfair life was and how she should have married Tommy Thompson who made good money selling insurance and how she should have listened to her mother. (Manny also wished she had listened to her mother.)

Somewhere in the middle years Manny had declared independence, if even for just a short time, and took an evening walk. Every night after dinner he would help Drazil clean up the table and do the dishes (he really did love the girl; or at least, used to) and then he would announce, “I guess I’ll go for my walk.” He would then turn for the door and struggle through all the verbal reasons why he was a no-good, lazy, rambling, shiftless… until he made it out the door. “Why, oh mamma? Why?”

At first, Drazil had tried to go with him, telling him she just knew he was planning on cavorting with that Jezebel, the widow Mary Turner down the block. But Manny hit the sidewalk smoking (figuratively, not literally) pretty good for an older lame guy with a cane, and big fat Drazil just couldn’t keep up with him. (He’d almost had a heart attack the week he’d had to speed pace the old lady to get her to stop interfering with his “alone” time. And his bum lag had hurt for a month. But it was worth it. Oh yeah. Worth every ice pack he’d strapped on that killer.) Then she tried to follow him. But he was wise to her and managed to find a couple of good spots to hide. Fact one of them gave him a clear shot into that Jezebels’ Mary Turner’s bedroom and since she never put the curtains down and since she did, in fact, have some mighty interesting habits... oh well, not part of this story. Anyway, night after night after night Drazil would beat him up with words until he got out the door.

Over the years he’d settled on a fairly regular path, walking over across the town’s narrow commercial corridor and down to the end of the nearer of the two jetties. He’d been in the Navy in his free years and loved the sea and some nights he would just stand on the end of the jetty and stare off over the water for long periods. He liked to walk up and down the docks, admiring whatever small ships were tied up in the town’s small harbor. He would usually walk to the end of the farther jetty before turning for home and would thus walk back into the life that he’d never planned and surely didn’t want.

So for more than 20 years Manny had declared his independence and had gone out for his nightly.

As I said, they’d been married for 42 years when it happened. Or didn’t, depending on your point of view.

Thursday night, in May, year of the married, 42, Manny cleaned off the table, helped with the dishes, and announced that he was going out for his nightly. And out he went.

He was usually gone about an hour but occasionally things heated up at the Turner house and he’d be out about an hour and a half. And on very rare occasions, like the night he’d made friends with Rufus, a neighborhood dog, he’d be out for close to two hours. But the May night was different.

Every night as soon as Manny left, Drazil would either call Beatrice Mitchell or Roxanne Bonafuco, both long time friends and fellow … talkers. They’d spend Drazil’s empty air time going on and on about whatever it was their brains had glommed onto for that particular night which was usually nothing.

But that May night, Drazil called both of her buds and used up the air time for each account. After three hours she finally hit a dead spot and actually shut up for the grand sum of 2 whole minutes. Then she realized that Manny had been gone for over 3 hours and she started to get mad. “I’ll sure give him a piece of my mind when he gets home,” she thought, never realizing that she’d already given about 300 times her whole mind over the years. It was just amazing how she could disgorge it.

When 4 hours passed she started to get worried. And when the clock hit the 6 hour mark she got scared and called the “… no account shiftless, overpaid…”cops.

The cops figured Manny was probably laid out somewhere on a neighborhood sidewalk from a heart attack or stroke and they began to canvas the neighborhood. After about an hour of that even the cops began to get concerned and they sent in some detectives. By that time a full fledged search was about to start.

They looked for Manny for two whole days but finally and eventually they found his cane at the end of one of the far jetty. After spending almost four days on the case and having to interact with Drazil for what seemed a couple of years during that 4 day period, the detectives threw up their hands and did the math. Since nobody had located a cadaver in the common areas of the hood, and since Manny didn’t have any funning dealings or strange behavior in his history, they called off the search and officially listed Manny as a Missing Person, probably drowned.

Drazil ended up with a hole in her life that she had to fill so she got a parakeet. She talked to that parakeet for hours and hours but it wasn’t like having a real man to organize. She just really needed to express herself. (After about a week, the parakeet, who didn’t mind the cats but dear god woman SHUT UP! also wanted to express himself. He began earnestly praying to the Parakeet God, “Please, please, PLEASE somebody slip a gun into my cage so I can blow my brains out!”)

So time went on. And after 7 years Drazil was allowed to finally list Manny as officially dead. In due course she filled out all the official paperwork and filed for surviving spouse social security benefits.

Lo and behold, the SSA came back and said, “… recipient currently receiving benefits…” What the…???

Several letters were exchanged and the gist of it was that Manny or somebody who claimed to be Manny, was still receiving benefits. And, “Further, we are sorry to inform you that privacy laws preclude us from informing you of the recipients’ address of record…”

Why that dog! ‘If he … if I find, when I find…”

But she never did find him. And Manny, or whoever, kept his social security benefits and now also had his freedom.

Oh yeah and by the way. Drazil never put it together. Spent too much time depressing that suicidal parakeet. That Jezebel, the widow Mary Turner? Left town about two days after Manny disappeared.

That double dog!