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$98,000
Bulldog
by Kris Kline
"I think
I found it," my dad shouted as he burst through the door of
his elegant Florida waterfront home, shadowed by my mother,
Evelyn.
I turned
from the kitchen sink where I was concocting my renowned martinis
- shaken, not stirred. My smile of expectation collapsed when
I saw my mom's expression of disbelief. My 70-year-old father,
Clarence, clutched the real estate section of the Tampa Tribune
in his suntanned hands. For as long as I could remember, he
had been talking about relocating to a ranch in Alabama, but
so far no one had taken him seriously. As he held the classified
section toward me, I noticed a hastily drawn line circling
one of the ads.
"What's
this?" I asked, looking down at the paper.
"It's
a nightmare," my mother informed me. "Your father has finally
gone over the edge."
My eyes
quickly scanned the ad. It read: "Alabama/4-year-old bulldog,
$98,000, with extras including modern brick home on 48 acres."
For once
I was tempted to agree with my mother, but I kept my mouth
shut. I poured the chilled gin equally into each hand-designed
glass. Following our weekend ritual, we toasted each other
and took a sip.
"Perfect,
as always," my mother beamed. "Not really on my diet, but
that's the beauty of being our age."
"Shall
we adjourn to the lanai?" I offered, leading the way through
the dining room and out onto the screened porch that wrapped
around the back of the house overlooking the Manatee River
at one of its widest points. The view rivaled any and never
failed to elicit gasps of awe from anyone seeing it for the
first time.
"Dad,"
I said, skeptically, looking over the rim of my glass directly
into his intense blue eyes. "I don't want to take sides, but
look around. Are you sure you want to trade all this in on
an acreage in the boondocks of Alabama?"
"Of course
not," he said, as though I had lost my mind. I could feel
my mother relaxing for the first time since they had walked
in the door. "I want to trade it in for a bulldog."
With those
words our lives would change forever. Within two months I
had purchased their home and moved my art studio down from
New York, packed the folks off to Alabama, and was well on
my way to losing my position in the family as Mom's favorite
child. I was being replaced by a mangy, independent, bullheaded
canine named Bulldog.
My loss
of title wasn't immediate. In fact, it took a while before
Mom would even let Bulldog into the mud room from the garage.
His previous owners had kept him as an outdoor dog without
manners or decorum. As time went on, it became apparent to
me and everyone else that the furry interloper was moving
in, and Mom no longer liked me best. Bulldog ruled. He was
allowed to do all the stuff I'd wanted to do when I lived
at home. He got to go outside whenever he wanted to. Mom always
took him with her when she ran errands. She gave him ice cream
any time of the day and night. He never got yelled at for
being cross with strangers, and worst of all, Dad and I no
longer got first dibs on the restaurant doggy bags. Mom spoiled
that big, burly pet unabashedly and defended him steadfastly
when others dared make derogatory remarks about him or his
vicious-sounding growl.
They were
inseparable, and then one sunny fall day Mom died unexpectedly.
It had been just two weeks before that I had come up from
Florida for a long weekend. We had all picked turnips in the
field together. Now, sadly, she was gone.
I came
back up for the funeral and stayed on as long as I could,
but eventually I had to return to my studio and my work. As
I pulled the car out onto the highway headed south, I glanced
into the rearview mirror. There, standing in silhouette against
a backdrop of open sky and sweeping land, stood a man and
his dog. Suddenly I was filled with the knowledge that together
they would help each other through their shared loss, and
I knew that $98,000 for Bulldog had been a bargain.
As the
weeks passed, I felt a need to write a tribute to him, but
I am no wordsmith. I am an artist, and so I wrote his name
into his image. Every time I create a new drawing of a dog,
I think of Bulldog, and I am reminded that Mom liked him best.
Kris
Kline, is a freelance writer, and her husband Stephen Kline
is an artist living in Tampa, Florida, whose work has been
exhibited in the United States, Russia, Germany, Great Britain
and extensively in Florida.
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