The goddess of dogs

By Mary Sharry
Sun contributor
If someone hadn’t stopped me, I might have sacrificed my own life for the life of a certain dog when I was only nine years old.
I loved dogs, abhorred inhumane treatment of them, and wept over a story about Beautiful Joe, a dog whose ears had been cut off by his cruel master. When Skippy, my dog, died I offered prayers to his spirit. Before an orange-crate altar — a shrine displaying his photo, some candles, and bits of his fur, I proclaimed myself the Goddess of Dogs.
Soon after my sanctification and then my parents’ divorce, I went to live in Detroit with my grandparents in the parsonage of the church where Grandpa was a minister. My new home was a Tudor-style structure with mullioned windows, textured plaster walls, and carpets that smelled of jute and shoe polish.

Tall elms lined the street of my new neighborhood, which was a cultural mix of Germans, Poles, Belgians and Italians. Grandpa carried a good amount of Scots-Irish blood in him. I was an almost unidentifiable breed of mongrel.
Two doors away lived an Italian family who never seemed to speak in normal voices. They shouted. Through the autumn air you could hear insults coming from their house. The expletives were a mixture of their native language and broken English, which blended into a third tongue. These sounds were often accompanied by the howl of Toby, their pet beagle, and a corresponding “Shut Up” response.
Emilia, the daughter of this family, became my best friend. She confessed to me that she wanted to be a nun when she grew up. I confided my passion for canines, and told her I thought of becoming a veterinarian when I grew up although I did not go so far as to reveal the real me — my goddess self.
Emilia’s hair was dark, and her brown eyes reminded me of Skippy’s. I was fascinated by the faint growth of hairs over her upper lip and, although I never told her, I envied her possession of that shadow of whiskers.
Sammy was Emilia’s brother. Freckle-faced and red-haired, he was eleven years old, and mean. He didn’t resemble his sister at all, which made me consider how dogs could be brother and sister, but not littermates.
One afternoon Sammy came running down the sidewalk toward Emilia and me with Toby at the end of a leash. Toby’s toenails scraped along the pavement as his little legs tried to keep up with Sammy. I pleaded, “Slow down. Wait for Toby. You’re hurting him.”
“Sic ‘em,” Sammy said and unhooked the little dog’s leash, but instead of attacking, Toby ran to me and licked my arms and wrists, gratefully wagging his tail.
* * *
Emilia’s grandfather lived in the basement of her family’s brick bungalow. The basement smelled of cigarettes, garlic and salami. Down there, from a clothesline, hung sausages and spicy pepperoni, which the old man made just as he once did in the Old Country.
The grandfather slept on an army cot, and would venture upstairs only to go outside to his garden. When the old man spoke, his voice rolled through thick phlegm and jagged brown teeth. His heavy, accented words were difficult to understand. I pretended not to hear him when he growled at us kids to stay out of his tomatoes, even though we were nowhere near his garden.
* * *
My goddess transfiguration came about one day when I was outdoors in my Grandpa’s backyard. From there I heard the slam of the screen door at Emilia’s house and Toby’s distinct hound dog yowl. Her grandfather hollered and cussed in his ragged voice, “You goddam beetch, ah-ma gonna keel you!”
I looked across the two driveways that separated the backyards between our houses and saw the old man swing Toby through the air by the collar. The dog’s glossy ears flew at angles, his legs hung limp, and I saw the terrified white of his eyes.
Swiftly, I ran over there and wrapped my arms around the middle of that horrible human beast. I kicked at him while he dragged the helpless hound across the concrete. The old man let go of the dog. Toby slunk around the corner of the house. The remains of a sausage lay upon the pavement. Now the furious monster’s hands were on me. His grooved yellow fingernails pressed into my head, my shoulders, my arms. My face was buried in smells of sweat and putrid tobacco.
Suddenly, an even greater force wheeled me from the red face of the old man. I heard my own Grandpa’s stern voice say over and over, “Now see here. Now see here.” He must have heard the commotion from upstairs in his bedroom and rushed over to Emilia’s.
Other than the black Sunday robe he wore in church, I had never seen him dressed in anything besides a white shirt, black vest and trousers, and well-shined black shoes. Here he was in his stocking feet, clad only in a white t-shirt and trousers with suspenders that looped about his hips. Amazingly, he scolded, not Emilia’s grandfather, but me. “Stop now. Here! What is the matter with you?”
I cried out, “I hate him. I hate him.”
Grandpa apologized to the other old man for my behavior. Hot, my hair matted against my wet cheeks, I screamed, “But he tried to kill the dog. He tried to kill Toby.”
Grandpa said, “You get home.”
My shoulders heaved with sobs, my feet pounded into the pavement and then across the lawns. What the two men said to each other, I don’t know; but when Grandpa returned he called me into the living room and told me to sit on the couch. I sat firmly, my arms folded tightly, my lips pressed together. I would not look at him.
“Don’t you ever do anything like that again. Don’t you know that man was so angry he might have harmed you?”
Golden light filtered through the elms as I sat on the front porch that evening. Toby trotted up the sidewalk and sat next to me on the porch step. I stroked his shiny ears. Maybe I had put myself in harm’s way that day, but at the time the thought had not entered my head. I only knew I had to act. Any goddess would have done the same.