Hard Times - the Story - Part 11

A few months before I left Momma and Daddy to move to California, there was a hurricane that flooded mass areas of the city. I remember the big ones - like Betsy - but I only remember one thing about this one: the dog that washed into my townhouse living room. I opened the door to investigate the storm damage, and a 25 pound terrier mix male floated in with one of my shoes which had been on the porch. The other shoe was in his mouth…

He paid no attention to me. He planted his four paws on the soaked carpet, shook his short hair with a vengeance, then lifted his leg on my coffee table. He turned and - I swear this is true - winked at me! The arrogance of this little criminal! I couldn’t turn him back out into the flooded city - so I lured him into the kitchen with some left-overs - and set up his “prison cell”. I planned to release him in the morning…

He left without complaining. He didn’t look back. He didn’t wag a “thank you”. But he was back that night. I shut the door in his face. He let out a high, mournful yodel. I took a shower to drown him out - hoping he would leave. But when I turned the water off, I could hear his sad song. That dog was pissing me off…I opened the door to confront him, and he put his paw onto the threshhold, so I couldn’t close it - like the proverbial annoying salesman - and belted another howl.

I let him in…and the next morning, I put him out…and the next night he was back again. I put up signs; I advertised for a “found dog”…nobody claimed him.

It was never official - I planned to leave him behind when I moved. He was not my dog. And he made it perfectly clear that I was not his master. Every morning, he left the house, and every evening when it was dark, he returned. I began to wonder what he did during the day…

I was taking a walk one evening, and spotted him sitting at a red traffic signal. When it turned green, he strolled across the street. He had a cocky gait, a fast pace, and an arrogant, (there is that word again), tilt to his head. He came home that night - and many nights thereafter - bleeding, chewed on -but satisfied. He was a fighter…I imagined that if he could sing, he would croon "I Did It My Way"...

I named him “Oliver”, after my Daddy…and in the spring of 1972, I loaded him in a green VW van for the move to San Francisco. I don’t know if Daddy was flattered that I named this scoundrel after him, but when he’d make long-distance calls to me, he’d always ask how Oliver was doing. We had a script…

”Oliver is a bad dog, Daddy”.
“But he has never left you, little girl.”

Earl’s daddy left him when he was eight years old. Antoine Manuel Vince packed his clothes and never returned to his four children or his wife. He “shacked” up with a woman for a few years…then became a preacher.

Although God intervened in the car crash to convince Earl to marry Eva, he refused to compromise all of his freedoms. He made a deal with Momma that he would marry her - but he would still travel with the horses. He also told her that he didn’t want any kids. “Not cut out to be a father…”. She got pregnant, and he left her. He returned on his son’s third birthday.