We all hated Brad Donovan from the moment he set foot in the dog park. No, I take that back. We didn’t like him even before he got there. We heard him on his cell phone from half a block away. You should have heard the voice on this guy. Imagine a machine gun and a parrot got together and had babies. Squawk-squawk-squawksquawksquawk. That’s what Brad Donovan’s voice was like. Always on his phone, like some kind of big shot.
Let me tell you something. There are people I’ve seen at the dog park for years and I don’t know their names. The dogs’ names? Sure. There’s Huckleberry, Scooter, Lollie, Roscoe. My Sparky, of course. What can I say? It’s a dog park. I go there to let Sparky pee, run around a bit, sniff the other dogs’ asses. You know. Dog stuff. It’s not like I’m there to make friends.
Now, my wife, Marie, when she was alive, she knew everyone’s names. But that’s just how she was. Marie was the kind of person who’d find out a stranger’s entire life story just standing in line at the grocery store.
Me, I’m no good with names. Why then, you may be asking yourself, do I know Brad Donovan’s name? Here’s why. Every morning, he’d walk into the dog park yammering on his phone. Brad Donovan here, let me talk to so-and-so. Brad Donovan here, what’s the status on such-and-such? So, yeah. Everyone within earshot knew Brad Donovan’s name, like it or not.
Brad Donovan had a Weimeraner named Beau. I’ll never forget the first time I saw Beau. I thought to myself, now that’s a good-looking dog. Regal is the word that popped into my mind. Sleek and silvery, with amber eyes. A real high-class dog, not like the mutts you usually see around here.
You know how people say dogs are like their owners? One look at Beau and you’d probably assume he was an arrogant jerk just like Brad Donovan. But no, Beau was a great dog. Very friendly. He’d sometimes come over to me and I’d give him a little scratch behind the ears. You could just see the intelligence in his eyes. It was almost like a person looking back at you.
Sparky, on the other hand? Not the brightest. Now, don’t get me wrong. Sparky’s my boy. If it weren’t for Sparky, I probably wouldn’t get out of bed in the morning. But let’s be honest: Sparky’s not impressing anyone with his powers of intellect. I’ve never even been able to teach that dog to play fetch. And believe me, I’ve tried. I’ll throw the ball and when he catches up to it, he just stands there wagging his tail, looking back at me with his tongue hanging out.
I once said to Marie that Sparky was hands down the dumbest dog we’d ever had. You would have thought I had insulted our only child. “Don’t you talk like that in front of him,” she said. As if this dog, who couldn’t even fetch, suddenly understood English.
We never had a dog when our son was growing up. But when David went off to college, Marie needed someplace to put all that mother-love she had in her. Sparky’s our third since David moved away. And now, with Marie gone, it’s just me and the dog.
Like I said, Sparky’s my boy. But Beau, let me tell you, that dog was special. He had this dignified way about him. And, boy, could that dog run. Watching Beau chase a ball was like watching an Olympic athlete. Hell of a dog, Beau.
That’s what I said to Brad Donovan that first day. He’d just gotten off a call and Beau came trotting over to him with a ball.
“That’s a hell of a dog,” I said.
Brad Donovan turns and looks at me and barely moves his head. Like it’s too much for him to acknowledge the fact that I’ve complimented his dog. Just a twitch of the head and then he’s off, pacing and yelling into his phone again. One of the regulars — lady with a golden lab named Honey — catches my eye and we both kind of shrug, like What’s the deal with this guy?
Brad’s still on the phone when he puts the leash on Beau and heads for the gate. Now, it’s a two-gate system, right? Pretty standard for dog parks. You go out the first gate into a little fenced-in area and then there’s a second gate out to the sidewalk. That way, if someone is coming in and another dog rushes the gate, the dogs aren’t out in the middle of the street before you can catch them. There’s even a sign, with big, bold letters: FOR THE SAFETY OF ALL DOGS, PLEASE CLOSE GATE.
Well, of course, Brad Donovan isn’t paying attention because he’s a big important hotshot on his big important phone call, and he leaves the first gate wide open. So, a bunch of us are yelling after him to shut the gate, but he’s in his own little world. He’s already out the second gate by the time I catch up with him and shout, “Brad Donovan!” And let me tell you, he stops dead in his tracks, absolutely gobsmacked that I know his name. As if he hadn’t spent the last half hour pacing back and forth shouting, Brad Donovan here. Brad Donovan here.
“Are you trying to get someone’s dog killed?” I say. “Didn’t you see the sign?”
Brad Donovan stares at me. A long hard stare. “Sorry, pal,” he finally says, and walks away. Sorry, pal. Can you believe that?
The next morning, a few of us regulars are talking about last night’s Dodgers game, and the next thing you know, we hear Brad Donovan’s squawk coming towards the dog park. As he enters, I make a joke about how I should have brought my ear plugs, and the other guys laugh. But Brad’s oblivious, of course. Just pacing and yammering into his phone.
Pretty soon, I notice that Sparky is obsessed with Beau. It’s embarrassing. He just trots around, staring at Beau, and follows him all over the dog park. When Brad Donovan throws a ball, Beau chases the ball, and Sparky chases Beau. When Beau brings the ball back, Sparky stands off to the side, watching Beau with this goofy dog-smile. I just know Brad’s going to say something about it, and I’m already getting annoyed.
Marie could always tell when I was getting worked up. She’d lean in and catch my eye. Raise her eyebrows at me. Sometimes she’d say something like, This guy isn’t worth getting upset about, and I’d snap at her and say I wasn’t upset. But she was always right. She knew when I was getting riled up even before I did.
Anyway, Brad doesn’t say anything. He’s so busy with his phone call, he doesn’t even notice Sparky following Beau around like a goofball. And it doesn’t seem to bother Beau that he’s got a groupie. He’s like a benevolent king. All the other dogs look up to him and want to be near him, and he just takes it in stride.
Brad Donovan comes back the next day, and the next. Pretty soon, you could almost call him a regular, except he’s always talking on his phone, and never to any of us. Sparky keeps following Beau around the dog park, but Beau doesn’t seem to mind. Brad keeps forgetting to shut the gate. Not every time, but every few days, he just walks out, talking on his phone, and doesn’t shut the gate until we yell at him.
One day, Beau comes to the dog park not with Brad Donovan, but with a woman. Very pretty, but not fussy-pretty, you know? Jeans, t-shirt, ponytail, warm smile. A natural beauty. Turns out it’s Brad’s wife, Amanda. Surprisingly, she’s very friendly and down-to-earth. The expression better half was made for this situation. You couldn’t help wonder why a woman like that would marry a jerk like Brad Donovan.
We learn from Amanda that Beau’s original owners were serious dog-show people, and they gave Beau up because he had a heart murmur. Turns out Brad is the producer of a popular TV show. I haven’t seen the show myself, but I tell Amanda that I know my son likes it. I tell her David lives in Seattle with his husband. I don’t tell her that it’s been almost a year since David has spoken to me.
Here’s the way I see it: women are the glue. I’m sure David would say that’s sexist, but that’s how it seems to me. It’s always the women who connect people, hold them together. Marie held David and me together. She’s the one who called, who made plans for us to do things. She’s the one who made us a family. My mother was the same. If it weren’t for her, writing letters and sending Christmas cards, my father probably would have lost touch with his own family.
If Marie had been alive, she never would have let me skip David’s wedding. She would have told me, That is a hurt you can never take back. Of course, if she hadn’t died, we would have gone to the wedding together. I know it hurt David when I said I couldn’t come because there was no one to take care of Sparky. He thinks I don’t approve of his marriage. And he thinks I love the dog more than I love him. I can’t blame him. It was a lousy excuse.
I tell you, I don’t know what I’d do without Sparky. He may not be the brightest, but every morning he’s there, wagging his tail, looking for his food, scratching the door to go out. Because of him, I get up. I get out of the house. I talk to people. It’s been two years, but the regulars at the dog park, they remember Marie. A couple of them even came to the house to walk Sparky when Marie was sick, and for a while after she died.
If Amanda had kept coming to the dog park, things wouldn’t have happened the way they did. But she only came that one time, and after that we’re stuck with Brad Donovan. The man is just irritating, you know? The constant yammering on the phone. His superior attitude. And the gate. That’s the thing that really sticks in my craw. We tell him over and over, but he just can’t be bothered. Like he’s too important to trifle with such things as closing a gate.
One day, he does it again, and I’ve just had it. I see him unlatching the second gate and the first one is standing wide open, so I walk towards the gate, calling his name.
He’s already out on the sidewalk by the time he hears me.
“Oh crap,” he says. “My bad.”
I’m really steaming now. “Seriously. How many freaking times do we have to tell you to close the damned gate?”
Brad’s eyes get wide for a second, but then he just kind of laughs and shakes his head. “Sorry,” he says, and starts to walk off. Can you believe that? Just starts walking away.
“Brad!” I yell.
He spins around. “What?”
“You still haven’t closed the gate,” I say.
Brad stands there staring at me. “You really expect me to come back inside and close the gate?”
“Yeah, Brad,” I say. “That’s exactly what I expect you to do.”
“Dude, you are literally standing right next to the gate.”
“You expect me to close it?” I say. “Oh, that’s right, Mr. Big Shot. You couldn’t possibly be troubled to do it yourself.”
Brad does this little head shake, turns around and starts walking down the sidewalk.
I slam the gate, hard. Brad doesn’t turn around, but flips me the bird over his shoulder, and I yell, “Asshole!”
When I turn back around, I can see I went over the line. Some people won’t meet my eyes and others look at me like they don’t know what to say. Marie would have talked me down before I got like that. I call Sparky, but he’s off in the far corner of the dog park, gazing at Beau’s retreating figure.
For the next few days, I avoid the dog park and instead take Sparky for walks in the neighborhood. But I can tell he misses seeing the other dogs. And then I realize I haven’t spoken to anyone for days, unless you count at the grocery store when the bagger asked me if I wanted paper or plastic. So, we go back to the dog park, and it’s actually not that big a deal. I talk baseball with the regulars. And when Brad Donovan shows up, he doesn’t even notice me. He just does his usual. Pacing and talking on the phone, oblivious to everything and everyone around him.
I’m talking with some of the regulars about the Dodgers’ newest pitcher, and at first I don’t even notice Brad leaving the dog park. Not until he yells, “Oh shit,” and I see the first gate wide open, and Sparky sprinting past Brad and Beau, out the second gate and into the street. A Prius screeches and just misses Sparky, and then there’s a sickening metallic crunch as a Jeep rear-ends the Prius. Sparky scampers sideways and keeps running.
By the time I reach the second gate, Brad Donovan and Beau are trying to catch up to Sparky, who is zigging and zagging. A lady out for a jog manages to grab Sparky just as he reaches the other side of the street. Brad Donovan, still holding Beau’s leash, takes Sparky by the collar with his free hand and leads him back across the street to me.
Once I have Sparky back, and check him over, I really lay into Brad.
“What is the matter with you? You idiot! This is why you’re supposed to close the gate, you prick,” and so on.
Brad is red in the face and out of breath and keeps saying, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”
The lady in the Prius, who is about to burst into tears, asks if Sparky is okay, and once she finds out he is, she starts berating me for letting my dog run loose and telling me that I should be the one to pay for the damages to her car. The guy in the Jeep perks up, like he just got a Get Out of Jail Free card, and joins in, saying it’s my fault he ran his Jeep into the Prius. Believe me, I nip this right in the bud and tell them it’s all Brad’s fault for leaving the gate open, and then I really get in Brad’s face and say this is what we’ve been trying to tell him about closing the freaking gate and now look at what he has done.
I’m still yelling at Brad when Sparky starts yelping and crying, and trying to pull away from me, and I realize I’m scaring him. I try to calm down. I stroke him under his chin and tell him it’s okay, but he won’t stop whining and I can barely hold on to him, and that’s when I see he’s trying to get to Beau. And at first I think Beau is asleep, right there on the sidewalk, and I think, My God, look at him. Nothing rattles that dog.
Brad calls Beau’s name, but Beau just lies there, completely still.
I stare at Beau and can’t make sense of what I’m seeing. Sparky keeps crying and whining and trying to get to him. And then Brad falls to his knees and starts pushing at Beau’s chest and calling his name. And Beau doesn’t respond at all, his body limp under Brad’s hands.
Then there are people running towards us and Brad is crying and incoherent, and one guy says he can drive them to the animal hospital, and Beau flops in Brad’s arms as he carries him to the man’s pickup truck. Sparky’s still whining and yelping as they drive away.
You know, when I was a kid, my father told me that boys don’t cry. I never once saw my father cry. Not when he lost his job. Not when his brother died. Not when my mother died. Sure, I cried when I was a little boy. But I grew up and grew out of it. That’s what was expected. The first time I cried as an adult was when Marie died. And even then, I only cried a little. He never said so, but I think that disappointed David.
I don’t blame David for thinking less of me. I felt inadequate to grieve Marie as she deserved. I’m not a person with a big heart. Not like Marie. Or David. My heart is puny. Losing Marie was like falling into a chasm. The loss was so enormous it just couldn’t fit in my pathetic little heart.
When I got home the day Beau collapsed, it was like every sadness of my life came pouring out. I cried for that beautiful, beautiful dog. I cried for Amanda, and even for Brad Donovan. I cried for Marie. I cried for the mess I’ve made of things with David. How I let him believe I didn’t love him because I was too afraid of how it would feel to be at his wedding without his mother.
When I started to cry, it was like drowning. Like being flooded with more feeling than I could take. Sparky — poor, dumb little Sparky — sat there through it all with his chin on my knee. And after a while, he nudged my hand to let me know it was time for dinner.
Once I started crying, I was afraid I’d never stop. But I did. I don’t know how I’m going to explain all of this to David. But I’m going to try.
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