A Story

Once upon a time a man and his wife, for reasons that they never discussed, decided together to get a bulldog. The wife loved animals and quickly became fast friends with the new puppy, whom they named Tucker. The man was also excited about the new addition to their family and spent many hours with Tucker, playing and going for rides in the family pickup truck.

Over time, though, as the wife and the puppy (who was growing up rather quickly) grew closer and closer, the man found himself occupied with Matters of Consequence and had little time for Tucker. He was never mean, but he was rarely interested. One day, the couple, for reasons they never discussed, decided together that it was time for another pet. This time a kitty-cat, whom they named Princess. The wife was excited -- it had largely been her idea -- but it was the man who, to everyone’s surprise, was most deeply taken with affection for their newest arrival. He carried the Princess from room to room in their house and took the time to stroke her soft fur and talk to her. She sat on his shoulder when he sat at his desk and typed, and in the afternoon, when the man came home from work, the two of them would chase ping-pong balls across the hardwood floors or follow a dancing broken bit of shoestring through the air. The Princess was allowed to do whatever pleased her. She and the man quickly grew to love one another deeply, though it remained for the wife to do the work of taking care of the kitty -- changing the litter box, keeping the food dish full, providing the water, arranging any trips to the veterinarian.

So worshipful of the Princess did the man grow that when she began to bite and scratch the wife -- always out of pure spite -- he did nothing to correct her. He was always able to make some excuse for his Princess’s nasty behavior or, failing that, at least to be conveniently unaware. He even forbid his wife to have the kitty de-clawed, leaving her instead with nearly perpetual scratch marks, the deepest of which scarred badly.

Neither was the dog immune from her nastiness, though by virtue of his personality -- he was content to retire and avoid the cat when she was feeling bloody -- and of the nature of his relationship with the kitty, he met with less physical torment.

And all the while Tucker, who never bit anyone, went ignored by the man, who had been so proud of his puppy when he had first arrived. Tucker wasn’t pretty like the Princess, didn’t do amusing (if self-aware) tricks like the Princess, didn’t smell as sweet as the Princess. And so he gradually stopped coming to the man for affection -- he was, after all, smart enough to know he wasn’t good enough and to avoid the inevitable, if tacit, rejection.

Funny thing though, the man seemed to be something of an exception to the rule, for everyone else who knew Tucker loved him. The very things that unsettled the man about him -- his disregard for self-promotion, his gentle good nature, his easy acceptance of his own un-handsomeness, his playful friendliness -- made him a favorite of almost all of the people who would come to visit the man and his wife. While Princess would carry herself aloofly through a room full of people when it suited her and bite when her mood told her to, Tucker kept to himself until approached and then simultaneously absorbed and exuded affection and love to any who offered it. This baffled the man, who didn’t understand why anyone would be so enamored of Tucker, especially with Princess somewhere nearby.

As the years passed the man was less and less interested with his wife’s dog and more and more enchanted by his Princess. The kitty bit and scratched the wife to such a degree that all that was visible on the outside of the once beautiful woman were scars overlapping scars. None of her original soft, sensitive skin remained, but still the cat would tear at the scar tissue.

Years later, when the man and his wife had grown old, and the dog and the cat had grown up, the man began to wonder if all of the people who came to visit, who loved Tucker, might not be onto something he didn’t understand. He thought he’d get to know his wife’s dog. So he found a ping-pong ball and let Tucker out of his cage -- though the smell was terrible. He bounced the ball toward the dog’s nose, but it only made him cross-eyed and confused, and when Tucker began to think about chewing up the ball, the man took it and told him he was wrong.

Several months after that the man decided to try again, but dangling a broken shoe string in front of Tucker’s face was no more successful than the failed ping-pong ball experiment, so he sat down to read with his kitty in his lap and (almost) silently cursed the dog for snoring and smelling bad and being stupid.

And then one day, the man realized that he hadn’t tripped over (or had to clean up after) the dog for several days. When he asked his wife where the Tucker was, he was confused by her answer. Tucker had gotten free and wandered off, she said; in fact he’d been gone just over a year. At first the man didn’t believe his wife. After all, how could the dog have been gone for so long when he himself was just now missing him? But the wife insisted that it was true, and in retrospect, many comments made by visitors to the confused man and his scarred wife confirmed her story. (Such was the nature of the man’s relationship with the dog that when friends found out that he hadn’t noticed his dog’s absence for the better part of a year, no one was surprised.)

“What happened?” he asked, amazed that she would let their dog get away.

“One day he just started walking,” said the wife, who had a year ago opened wide the door for her friend Tucker after having seen the cat scratch him arbitrarily for the last time.

“How sad,” thought the man, and looked at his kitty who had just drawn blood again from the wife.

“At least Princess is okay.”