Chapter 52 – Cadillac Eyes

I’m looking forward to going back,

A sojourn to the past.

They say you can’t go home again,

 But I know that in the end,

 I’m looking forward to going back—JWH

The mind is like the internet or vice versa. Sometime you hit a link that leads to another link and you spend the whole day linking up instead of getting down to business. Well, last week I wrote about the Silver Quaich and it made me think of the original one in ’97; which linked me back to what happened just prior to leaving for Scotland in July of that year. I must have blocked it out. Either that, or the Tramadol or Ibuprofen to block the pain of a root canal and a fractured molar has clouded my mind. How could I have passed over one of the most important events in my life? Even though I’m backtracking a little –here it is.

It was July of 1997 and Bridget Bardog was 16 years old and, as most dogs at that tenuous age, her health was failing. The five Haymers had booked a flight for Scotland scheduled to leave the last week in the month and we were worried about putting Bridget in a kennel. I knew it would most likely kill her and I couldn’t stand the thought of abandoning the poor girl; she would have thought the same thing, that I was abandoning her in her time of need, her last precious weeks, days or hours on the planet. Animals (especially dogs and cats) know these things. She didn’t have any diseases, no heart trouble, (all the years we spent together, me on skates and her pulling me along the streets of Los Angeles kept her in shape) the only problem was her age. She had lost a lot of weight and was incontinent. (What do you expect?) I would bathe her every day and still, I hate to mention, how horrible it was to see her rump covered in maggots. I would spray her with vinegar mixed with water and then brush the dead maggots off of her with a toothbrush. I knew it was time but I couldn’t let go. Fortunately, we adopted a male, black cat named Mowgli in 1996 and, as it turned out, he helped us through the hard time of letting go of Bridget and would earn the distinction of being the family’s once-in-a-lifetime cat. More about him later.

Bridget’s life-long friend and companion, Ginger, had succumbed to liver cancer two years earlier at the age of ten. We had to put her to sleep. I was going to take her to Dr. Woody’s before Donna got home but, as fate would have it, my MGB-GT (one of the most reliable cars I had ever owned) decided not to start. I tried everything I knew to get it going, cleaned the spark plugs, charged the battery, checked the points in the distributor—all good. As fate would have it, as soon as Donna got home, the car fired up. It was the hand of God intervening, waiting for my wife (who had a special attachment to Ginger) to come home to say a final farewell.

 But now it was Bridget’s turn to leave. I wanted her to live forever but I knew that was a child’s dream. At least, I hoped, she could pass on naturally before we left on our trip across the sea. On Sunday, during the final round of the British Open, it was unusually hot and humid here in Tennessee. I let Bridget out, as I usually did, to the place in our front yard where she would lie down overlooking the rolling hills and tree-lined hollows of Thompson Station. I was watching Justin Leonard fighting his way to the top of the leaderboard and had forgotten about Bridget. When I realized that I had left her outside too long in the heat, I panicked and went outside to look for hoping that it was not too late. I didn’t see her in her regular spot, so I searched high and low. I couldn’t find her. I remembered that when it’s time for animals to die, the sometimes go off on their own not wanting to burden their owners with seeing them in pain or misery. That’s what my Beagle, Sammy Fong, did in the seventies and I thought that was what she had done. Then I saw her. Bridget was lying in the hot sun in the neighbor’s front yard. She wasn’t moving.

I picked her up and carried her lifeless body into the house. I was in too much shock to cry, but I knew the tears would flow sooner or later. I gently placed her on the Indian rug in the foyer and called out for Donna who was in the kitchen making dinner. When she saw the poor dog she cried out, “Oh my God, no!” I didn’t realize she loved her as much as she did. I had forgotten that she had lived with Bridget for nine of the sixteen years—more than half the sweet dog’s life. Jonathan (Morgan wouldn’t come along for another two years) was out visiting with a friend and Daniel was in his crib taking a nap. Even though Daniel would have been too young to understand, I was relieved they didn’t have to see Bridget like that. I moved her body into the shed (my makeshift garage) and put her down on the passenger seat of my Austin Healey. She used to love going for rides in that car and I felt it was only fitting (even though she was in doggie heaven) for her to spend her last moments there.

I dreaded having to dig a hole and bury her in the pet cemetery on the side of the house, besides the ground was dry and as hard as cement. I decided to have her cremated and put her ashes in a beautiful black and gold urn Donna and I had gotten as a wedding present. The next day I took her body to Cedar Hills and they did the deed. Her remains are on my bookshelf now resting beside my favorite novels (Mulligan’s Tour is one of them.)

 A week later, we were on a plane heading for Scotland. It’s like she knew the dilemma I was in and let go of her life so I didn’t have to worry about her. Bridget Bardog was the greatest animal I had ever had the pleasure of knowing. I thought about the first time I saw from my kitchen window on Radford Drive. The emaciated Shepherd/Wolfhound mix running in circles on Ventura Boulevard she began sniffing an old lady waiting for the 150 bus that goes from Canoga Park to Universal City and back again. The bus pulled up and opened its doors, and the dog followed. A few minutes later, she exited, or more likely thrown off the bus, and then bolted back to the alley. I couldn’t believe what I was witnessing; like a scene from a Charlie Chaplin movie with the lead part played by a dog.

I went downstairs, and saw Jack (the retired aircraft mechanic that lived in the laundry room) and a few of his drinking buddies feeding the poor animal. “Hey Jack, whose dog is this?”

“He’s been hanging around here for a few days and we’ve been feeding him. Her name’s Bridget Bardog—at least that’s what we’ve been calling her.”

“Bridget Bardog? That’s perfect.”

I crept up to the dog, who began to sniff my crotch, and then lick my hands, which still had the pungent scent of hot dogs and mustard on them. “She seems to like you,” Jack said without any attitude at all.

“Do you think I could keep her?”

“Well that would be up to her, I think.”

I knelt down, looked at the dog, and then petted her head. “Bridget, you wanna be my dog? I’ll feed you the good stuff, walk you and take you for rides in my cool sports car, and even take you to the doggie doctor. I know you won’t like that part, but I’ll bet anything you have worms. I’ll be upstairs waiting. What do you say?”

The dog tilted his head, as if she completely understood. I went up the fifteen stairs that led to my apartment and waited. Twenty minutes went by and nothing. I looked out the window and didn’t see her; wondered whether I should go back down. That’s when I heard the clip-clop of claws scraping against the pebbled stairs. It was Bridget.

That was September of 1981. I had recently broken off my relationship with Marly, and now I had the much needed companionship, even though she was a dog, she instantly became my best friend. Problem was, being broke and gigs were scarce, I needed to get a job. It wasn’t only me now; I had another mouth to feed. I went back to Central Supply (the phone sales job I had in Hollywood, but they had recently moved to Van Nuys.) I soon was making enough money to pay the rent, feed us both and buy a Porsche 912, a poor man’s Volkswagen.

I’ll never forget the time I bought an ounce of weed and kept it in a baggie under my bed. I went out for a few hours and when I returned I saw Bridget passed out on the kitchen floor. There were remnants of green twigs and things in her mouth and I knew what she had done. I checked under the bed and it was gone. She had eaten the whole ounce, or at least that’s what I thought at the time. I freaked out and called my vet hoping I wouldn’t have the cops knocking on my door—but it was more important to find out what to do. Dr. Kim told me to douse her with Pepto Bismol and try to induce vomiting if I could. I then discovered part of the baggie in the kitchen by the fridge and was relieved to see at least half of the marijuana in the shredded bag. I poured half a bottle of the pink stuff down her throat. She shook her head in protest; struggled to her paws (even though she had walked into walls and her legs splayed too weak to support her weight) I knew she was going to be okay. But I had to make sure.

I drove her to Dr. Kim’s at Studio City Animal Hospital and concurred with my prognosis. He gave her a complete physical and then told me she had Cadillac eyes.

“Cadillac eyes?”

“Yes, but it is not too serious. The most important thing now is for her to rest and drink lots of water.”

“I soon realized that he (being from Korean descent) meant something entirely different.

“Oh, you mean she has cataracts.”

“That’s what I said, Cadillacs.”

I thought about the days she had pulled me (on my roller-skates) over the streets of Los Angeles, Burbank, Santa Monica and Venice. The dog had amazing endurance and it kept me in shape, too. That led to my meeting Maria, my pregnant, eighteen-year-old, punk rocker girlfriend that had run away from the domineering step mother in Germany. Maria had the baby and we gave it up for adoption (one of the hardest thing I ever had to do) and then I followed her over to the Fatherland. I had to come back to America, not because I missed my homeland or my family and friends (even though I did miss them a little)—I missed Bridget more.

I made a list of places we’d moved in and out of together over the years: Radford to Oakhurst; Highland, and back to Oakhurst; Mammoth Avenue in Van Nuys; then back to Oakhurst again; El Cerritos near Hollywood Boulevard; Washington Way in Venice:, Oakhurst yet again; Canton Drive in Studio City, where my parents had moved after getting thrown out of Oakhurst (because of Bridget and her three puppies born in May of 1982. My Mom and Dad kept two of the puppies and we gave one away to a neighbor); Camrose Drive, where they’d been living when I met Donna; 2107 Vine Street; 4711 Santa Lucia in Woodland Hills where Jonathan had been born; Chas’s guest house in Franklin, Tennessee...and finally the hundred-year-old farm house on Thompson Station Road where Daniel and Morgan were born, and who knew how many places she’d lived before I had found her. Fifteen places in her sixteen-and-a-half-years—that’s 115 in dog years. That night in July, 1997, Donna and I cried and laughed, and cried some more about sweet, loving Bridget Bardog—the once-in-a-lifetime dog who changed my life forever. The amazing dog with the Cadillac eyes.