Morning Encounter

by Albert J. Manachino

part 1 of 2

Peculiar dilemma, that; I don’t know whether to be grateful or humiliated. The only reason it happened, of course, was that it was Friday. As a bad day it even supersedes Monday for me. A lot of people like it, however; I’m well aware of the TGIF syndrome.

Winter Fridays are worse than Spring or Summer Fridays, and an Autumn Friday is worst of all. Especially if it happens to be around four in the morning and I’m driving along a frost-kissed country lane with only a sleeping Weimaraner as company. It doesn’t even have to be the thirteenth; the Weimaraner makes up for it.

Understand, I’m not superstitious. I also know that old-time sailors refused to sail on Fridays and no doubt there was good reason; such as missing the happy hours sponsored by the local gin mills. Anything I undertake on a Friday turns into a disaster. As my wife June so eloquently put it, “You got a brown thumb.”

Annette slept through it all. To be fair, it wasn’t entirely her fault. Back in Royster, we’d stopped at an all-night diner for coffee and burgers. The counterman, who was also the short-order cook and very likely the manager, refused to let her in.

“She’s got a pedigree longer than yours,” I argued.

“That’s just it, Buddy, she makes me look bad. No dogs in this place.”

If I’d thought there was the remotest possibility of finding another eatery doing business, I’d have walked out. But, at that time of the morning, Royster was laced up tighter than a whalebone corset.

I looked into her expectant brown eyes. “OK, Great Gray Ghost, you’ll have to wait outside. I’ll bring you two burgers with onion and relish.” Annette growled; she doesn’t like relish. “All right, all right, make it dill pickle instead.”

That was much better. She yawned, stretched herself across the entrance in such a position as to cause as many unwary customers as possible to fall on their faces, and went to sleep.

The counterman put Annette’s order on a paper plate. I can’t think of a faster way of waking up a sleeping Weimaraner than by setting a plateful of burgers and French fries down a few inches from its nose.

I’d barely bitten into my own burger when the God-awfulest racket of a caninely altercation assailed my ears. I bolted the counter at Mach-two and got outside in time to plant a shoe into a very shaggy rump. The rump took off at Mach-four with appropriate sound effects and left me standing over a bloodied Weimaraner.

Annette looked at me sheepishly, or as sheepish as it’s possible for a dog to look. She assumed that “You shoulda seen the other guy” expression. I’d seen the “other guy”; there wasn’t a scratch on him.

The incident put me in a bad mood. “You’re under arrest for impersonating a dog,” I told her. She shook herself and blood sprayed in all directions. The counterman ventured out. “Where can I find a vet at this time of the morning?” I asked.

“No problem. No problem,” he assured me, “my brother’s one.” He gave me a name, an address and directions how to get there.

The vet was up and waiting. Evidently, he’d been alerted by phone. No doubt the counterman wanted to cinch down his kickback. Royster is the kind of town where you expect to be met at that time of the morning by a weatherbeaten, mustached old country character holding a kerosene lantern and chewing tobacco. I was wrong, he was chewing gum.

“Never expected to get a customer at this time,” he complained while leading us down a driveway to the rear of his house.

I quoted from the Hippocratic Oath, “The regimen I adopt shall be for the benefit of my patients according to my ability and judgment, and not for their hurt or for any wrong.”

He quoted back, “Neither rain, or snow, or gloom of night...” He got it all wrong. The traditional suspender dangled from his waist.

His place of business was a converted garage. I held the lantern while he fumbled the proper key into the lock. As expected, the key ring held ten keys. Of which, he did not know the purpose of nine.

The door finally opened and we entered. Fluorescent lighting had made its debut in Royster. Where I’d expected to see a quaint operating room, circa 1930, I was greeted by a relatively up-to-date wonder, circa 1950. The place was immaculately clean.

Between us, we managed to hoist Annette onto the operating table. Every time she shook her head we were splattered by flying blood. Once on the table she showed an admirable presence of mind. She went to sleep almost immediately. I’ve adopted much the same system in dealing with family crises.

Dr. “X,” as I shall hereafter refer to him, sponged off the bloody hide. “Her ears are ripped up,” he informed me, preparing a needle. “This will put her out a day or so. I don’t want her shaking her head for at least a few hours otherwise the stitches might tear.” He gathered up a handful of the loose hide around her neck and rammed the needle home.

Doc didn’t have any outdated magazines for me to amuse myself with while he sewed. Instead, he regaled me by talking about TV. I don’t watch TV. It is a Russian invention. It was perfected by the Communists and its sole purpose is to petrify American brains.

“...TV camera crew staying at the Royster House. They’re filming a lot of rural background for a science fiction show.” Here Dr. X mentioned a famous series I’d never heard of. “I love way-out fiction.”

“The presidential elections are just around the corner,” I commented pointedly.

Two hours and eighty-five dollars later he finished. I was poorer in pocket but much wiser about TV. I backed the Hackmobile to the door of his office. The rear seats could be turned down to form a bed and I set up a gorgeous red doggie mattress he’d sold me as an afterthought.

So there I was, driving along a deserted country road around four in the morning with the rear end of my little station wagon full of sleeping Weimaraner. No one has ever gotten around to installing street lighting on country roads and the moon was only so-so; the kind of semi-dark officially designed to encourage that completely isolated feeling. On either side of the road there were miles and miles of split-log fence that served no purpose except to remind me that I was all alone.

Around three, I had begun fighting a “To hell with it” feeling that kept urging me to pull over to the side and grab some shut-eye myself. A couple of things militated against this. The road was a good foot and a half lower than the farmland and only wide enough barely to permit two cars to pass. My thirteen-inch wheels could never negotiate those eighteen inches and it would be my luck to get rammed by another night-owl driver.

Proceed to part 2...