Princess was pretty and sweet, but she had a gene for luxating patella, which meant that her puppies could come out crippled if the father dog had the same gene. She had already produced one affected puppy that had to be put to sleep. As a breeder she was worthless and needed to go to a pet home.
A woman called to inquire about Princess. She said she was a nurse at a nearby hospital and wanted a pet, and would send her roommate to take a look at the dog. Within half an hour, a small Datsun pickup with a camper shell pulled up in front of our house. We had assumed her roommate was a woman, and we were surprised when a man got out of the vehicle, briskly walked up to our front screen door and knocked.
He looked to be in his early forties, short and plump, with black hair clipped in a military-style flattop. His face was greasy and he had a couple days growth of thick black stubble covering his face and neck. He wore big oval-shaped tortoiseshell-framed eyeglasses that gave him an owlish expression. His torn and filthy t-shirt looked and smelled as though he had been wearing it for days. His jeans were similarly dirty and his steel-toed work boots were caked with dried mud. Mom gave me that look that indicated she really didn't want him to come inside, but in the interest of selling the dog, she was polite and invited him in.
He timidly walked into the living room, then walked back to the door as if to leave. He then turned around and took a couple of short steps towards us and staying near the door, he said,
"I-I-I-I- c-c-came to see th-th-th-P-P-P-Poodle. I-I-I- am B-B-Bob, P-P-Portia's roommate."
Clearly the guy was very nervous and shy, and he had a terrible stutter.
I brought out Princess, perfectly groomed and wearing pink bows. She ran over to Bob and jumped up on him in greeting, her little puffy tail wagging happily. Bob picked her up, looked her in the face, and then put her down.
"P-P-Portia will like her. Here-here-here is the m-m-m-money." He took out his wallet and pulled out $50 in cash. As he reached over to hand the money to Mom, I noticed Bob's hands. They were hairy, and his fingers were blackened with greasy filth. He wasn't just dirty from a hard days work in the garage. His appearance and body odor suggested that he may not have bathed in weeks. He was a weird, dirty, and all-around gross little man. But, he was a cash-paying customer, and the sale was made.
Mom took down his name and address and wrote up a receipt. He took the receipt, picked up Princess and without another word he abruptly walked out the door. Mom commented on how weird and quick the sale went, and that was that. We probably wouldn't have given Bob another thought, except one hour later his truck pulled up in front of our house again. I figured that Portia didn't like the dog and was making him return her. Bob got out of his truck, walked to the back, and opened up the door on the camper shell. Out jumped three shaggy little dogs. Princess was not with them. The three dogs followed Bob up our front steps and onto the porch where I stood, dumbfounded. I asked him if they were his dogs.
"Th-th-th they're P-P-Portia's dogs," he replied.
I gathered the three friendly little Poodles up in my arms and looked at them. They seemed healthy enough, but they had not been groomed in several months, if ever. One was silver, another was chocolate, and the third was black and white. Bob seemed very proud of them and introduced them as S-S-S-Socrates, Chi-Chi-Chi Chiffon, and Na-Na-Na-Napoleon. I couldn't let them leave Eagle Street in their current condition, so I opened the front door and asked Bob if he minded if I took them in the back and cleaned them up a bit. Mom gave me a funny, "why are you leaving me alone with this guy" kind of look, but then invited Bob to have a seat, and she brought him a can of pop and a brownie. For the next 2 hours, while the matted dogs were getting clipped and bathed, Mom sat and listened to Bob and started to learn his story.
Bob worked as a welder for National Steel and Shipbuilding Company. He lived in nearby Old Town with Portia the nurse from Sharp Hospital. He was born in Chicago, and his mother, who had wanted a girl but got a boy instead, died when he was a little kid. His father, who could not relate to him and called him a sissy, subsequently married a woman who didn't like Bob either. The two of them mocked him and put him down all the time. He knew they did not love him or want him around, so he joined the Navy to get away from home. Now 43, he had never had a close physical relationship with anyone, not even his roommate Portia.
When I came out with his dogs, Mom had us pose a couple of them on the couch for a photo.
One ironic twist to this story is about Princess. She had puppies the following year for Portia, and when Bob brought them over for me to groom, I examined their knees and found nothing wrong with any of them.
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| After a few months, Bob let his guard down and got silly for this photo |
Bob was a mysterious person with deep secrets. But Mom enjoyed the challenge of drawing out stories from complex characters like Bob, and as years went by, we learned more than we wanted to know. His strange and sad story cannot be summed up properly in one article. Stay tuned for more.
