by Tom Ryan
Firefighters, bank presidents, children, school principals, store clerks, trash collectors, and homeless men alike made sure he was greeted by name.
Atticus also became a fixture in some of the restaurants around town. There was one where he sat on a chair at a table inside and they would bring him chunks of chicken or turkey. At another he would have pizza or a bagel. In other restaurants I’d wait while he trotted back into the kitchen and I’d hear the chef or the owner exclaim, “There you are! Have I got something good for you today, Atticus!”
The irony is that while I already had an identity in Newburyport and Atticus was developing his own, over time the two merged and we became known as “Tom and Atticus,” much as a husband and wife lose their own identity in public. It was understood that if I was invited to a dinner party, so was he. If I was invited to the opening of a new business, so was he. If not, we were no-shows.
When friends were sick in Anna Jaques, the local hospital, and I would go to see them, Atticus would come along, too, and sit right on the bed next to the ailing patient. Dogs weren’t typically allowed in patients’ rooms, but that all changed for Atticus the day I visited my friend Vicki Pearson, a well-loved businesswoman and community leader who had just been elected to the school board. Right after the election, Vicki was diagnosed with a horrible cancer that snaked up her spine like a killing vine. When I visited her room the first time, she asked that I bring her nephew into the hospital to visit with her.
I turned to the nurse and wondered quietly if Vicki had had too much morphine in her system, because I had no idea who her nephew was or where I’d find him. Vicki heard this and spoke weakly through dry, cracked lips. “Of course you do. You live with him.” She then told the nurse, “My nephew’s name is Atticus M. Finch.”
In the following days, Atticus was a regular on her bed. She couldn’t lift her arms, but she could move her fingers. She used them to feed Atticus treats, and when they were gone, her “nephew” would lie down next to her and rest his head on her thigh while she gently fluffed his floppy ears.
It was Vicki, before she was sick, who demanded we eat only at restaurants where Atticus was allowed to join us whenever we met for lunch. And it was Vicki who thought nothing of having him sit in a chair at the table while we both shared our lunches with him.
She’d call me up and say, “Lunch?”
“Great,” I’d say. “Where do you want to go?”
“Oh, I don’t know.”
“What are you in the mood for?” I’d ask, even though I knew better. For we always ended up in the same place—the Purple Onion. Vicki loved their sandwich wraps and salads. But more important to her, they had a few tables outside so Atticus could join us.
Atticus loved those days when I delivered the ’Toad, and he loved the preceding nights—driving along nearly every street in the city for the home delivery, discovering small (and sometimes big) packages of treats left out for him on stoops by little old ladies and men. When the morning arrived and the stores opened, we’d go store to store, dropping off copies of the paper, Atticus collecting greetings and treats.
On delivery night he sat placidly in the passenger seat even when I left my car door open, when I walked up to a house to deliver a paper. However, whenever we arrived at Vicki’s house, usually around 11:00 P.M., he would follow me up to her front door even though he’d never been there to visit with her and no treats were ever left for him. Somehow he seemed to understand that this was where his friend lived.
In the first few years of his life, Atticus had become that rare breed known as a Newburyporter. It didn’t matter that he was a dog, especially since no one treated him like one. People were excited to see him and excited to greet him. You can only imagine the looks on his friends’ faces the day he surprised them in his new bicycle basket.
I bought a bicycle and special-ordered a large, reinforced steel basket to sit on the front handlebars. It was big and strong enough to hold him. I had every intention of taking my time getting him used to riding in the basket, lined with a fleece blanket to soften the ride. I expected it to take a couple of weeks.
My plan was to just sit him in it the first few days. The next few days, I would put him in it and push it around the parking lot. Eventually I would try pedaling with him in the basket. I have no doubt that Paige’s suggestion that I carry him in the beginning was the reason he trusted me so much that first day I put him in that basket. He looked at me expectantly yet calmly, as if to say, Well, what are you waiting for? I then pushed him around the parking lot. He gave me the same look. What the heck. I got on the bike and pedaled. Much to my own surprise, he didn’t bother to lie down but sat up much like E.T., the extraterrestrial. He was my hood ornament while I pedaled around town, his marvelous floppy ears catching the wind, his happy mouth open to swallow it whole. He appeared to be flying. Friends everywhere greeted him with glee whenever we pedaled by, and he soaked it all in.
Before long he learned the word “bump.” If we were heading for a pothole or railroad tracks or a slight curb, I’d say “Bump” and he’d lower his center of gravity to absorb the shock and then sit right back up again after the turbulence passed.
Atticus and I had learned to trust each other. Little did I know how important that would be in the coming years. And the time would come when Atticus and I would need Paige more than anyone else. But, for now, Paige had been right when she told me, “Y’all will work it out.”
We had.
3
Big Changes
From our first days together, Atticus and I had a morning routine. We rose with the sun and drove out to Plum Island for a walk on the beach. When we were done, we’d go out for breakfast at Mad Martha’s, Kathy Ann’s, or the Fish Tale. Sometimes I would eat with friends, while at other times I sat alone. Either way, people approached me to share news and gossip. After breakfast Atticus and I went to city hall and made the rounds to see what was going on. Then we worked our way through the downtown.
We had regular places we stopped at and favorite people to see. There was Bob Miller, a friend who was a financial adviser with an office right across the street from city hall. He was always upbeat, a man in perpetual motion who could keep many things going at once. Then it was over to see Steve Martin, a fiery retired marine who had an opinion about everything in town. He owned Ashley Barnes, an upscale furniture shop on Pleasant Street. We’d drop in on Esther Sayer at the Inn Street Barber Shop, and she always had gossip. Next we’d see Gilda Tunney at her card store and stop by Fowles News and hang out with Pat Simboli. Atticus would sit on Pat’s desk, a six-pound paperweight on his pile of papers, and we’d both listen to him expound on what was wrong with the world. Only Pat could bitch and moan with a smile on his face and make you laugh no matter how bleak his forecast. After that it was off to say hello to Linda Garcia at Abraham’s Bagels. She always welcomed Atticus inside, and on the day a customer complained that he shouldn’t be inside because of health reasons and threatened to take his business elsewhere, Linda thanked him for doing just that. From there it was over to John Farley Clothiers to sit down with John Allison, who owned the store with his wife, Linda, and DeeDee McCarty, their tailor.
We usually stayed a little longer with John and DeeDee, because I’d never met any people as enthusiastic about their lives as these two were, and I enjoyed it when they regaled me with their latest endeavors. John had taken up mountain climbing in his fifties and DeeDee was always off skiing, running races, snowshoeing, or hiking. I was amazed at their energy and could listen to their stories for hours. They were both meticulously dressed, as you would expect of people who sold expensive clothing. John was a small man with a spring in his step. He had distinguished-looking short white hair and a neatly trimmed mustache, and he resembled, more than anyone else, the top-hatted fellow from the Monopoly game. DeeDee was tall and statuesque and could fill the room with her confidence. In the store th
ey were polished and polite, but I saw a different side of them when there were no customers around and they talked of their latest physical exploits. They each had the breath of life to them, and it was clear that while they made a living at the store, their true passion could be found in the great outdoors. I envied them and eagerly awaited each new chapter.
From Farley’s we walked down Water Street to the Tannery, a collection of unique shops that had once been an actual tannery in the era when mills thrived in Newburyport. It was owned by David Hall, the rare developer who was environmentally conscious. He was a businessman who looked to make money, but not at the expense of the community. My friend Vicki Pearson worked for David, and whenever we came in, she made time for us. It didn’t matter what she was doing—and she was always busy doing something—she’d put it aside. I was smart enough to know that this wasn’t because of me but because of Atticus. In Vicki’s world, dogs were far more special than people.
After saying good-bye to Vicki, we crossed over to Jabberwocky Bookshop, which was also at the Tannery. It was one of those rare shops some communities are lucky enough to have where you could see much of the city come and go. It was a true center of activity, a stimulating but comfortable place. After I browsed the latest books, we visited with Paul Abruzzi, the manager, and Laini Shillito, the bookkeeper.
We went to all those places and others around Newburyport because it was my way of putting together the stories for the next issue of the Undertoad. My competition, the Daily News, had been in business for more than a hundred years, and its reporters could sit at their desks and wait for news to come to them. But I wasn’t that established, and I worked out of my apartment. So I took great efforts to go out and discover what was going on in our little corner of the world. The best way to do that was to see people and listen to what they had to say, and it always worked.
Wherever we went on our walks around downtown, Atticus was by my side and was greeted by everyone we visited. These people were our extended family, his aunts and uncles, and from the very first day they knew to treat him as I did—like an equal. There was no cooing baby talk, no high-pitched squeals. They talked to him as if he were an adult. Even in those first weeks, people said, “There’s something different about him.” And they meant it in the best way. They marveled at his almost-human demeanor, his self-assuredness and comfort, and they asked me how I got him to be that way. I gave Atticus much of the credit and joked that it was easy when the dog was smarter than the man. I also talked about things Paige was teaching me, and it always came back to her simple dictum to carry him wherever I went.
But there was another component to the way I raised Atticus that I kept to myself. I didn’t want to go into it, because its roots were complicated. From that very first moment I held him in my arms, I treated him the way I wish I’d been treated when growing up. Rarely did I make a command. Instead I politely asked him to do something. I’d say, “Would you have a seat, please,” or “Please wait here for me.” When he complied, I said, “Thank you.” In short, I didn’t treat him like a dog but like a friend. My Catholic upbringing simply referred to this as the Golden Rule: Treat others as you wish to be treated. And it worked wonders.
One of the reasons I treated Atticus this way went back to another bit of advice Paige Foster gave everyone who bought a puppy from her: “Whatever dysfunction you have in your life, that little dog will magnify it, so you best be ready.” As with all of Paige’s advice, I took it to heart and pledged to do my best by this little life she had entrusted to me. For that’s exactly what she’d done. Paige took pride in matching up her “babies” with the right people, and she thought nothing of showing up at a delivery point to meet her Louisiana customers who came prepared to pay her cash and, after sizing them up, refuse to sell them the dog.
Because of Paige’s advice, I not only paid attention to his every need, I also paid more attention to myself and decided it was a good time to begin improvements. If Newburyport gave me a hometown and Max gave me a home, it was Atticus who gave me a fresh start.
Fate had thrust Max into my life, and we changed on the fly and made do the best we could. In many ways he and I were alike: a bit neglected, a bit beaten up by life, and a bit worse for wear. But during the year and a half we were together, we bridged the gap between dog and man and formed a little family. For both of us it was life the way we’d always wanted it to be. My life had changed with Max when he reminded me what I was missing, and I liked it.
I was aware that it would change even more when Atticus arrived, because as a puppy he’d need constant attention. But I had no idea just how much it would change.
In the process of taking care of Atticus and creating a home, I started taking better care of myself. It began in little ways. We took progressively longer walks, and that helped me lose weight. I lost even more when I followed the South Beach Diet, and the more I lost, the better I felt and the farther Atticus and I walked.
But the most dramatic change occurred when we went away for a long weekend. In seven years in Newburyport, I’d never taken a vacation and I’d been out of town for only one weekend. It had been all Newburyport politics all the time. However, just a few weeks after Atticus arrived, I accepted a long-standing invitation from Gilbert and Gilda Tunney to use their second home, an old farmhouse in the Mad River Valley of Vermont.
The house sat on the side of a hill in the middle of nowhere. The closest neighbors were a herd of cows that grazed up against the fence abutting the sprawling backyard. This delighted tiny Atticus no end, and he sat respectfully at the fence and gazed at the large group of huge “dogs” with black and white markings not unlike his. The cows were just as curious about him and crowded against the fence to see the tiny “cow” with the floppy ears that looked more than a little funny. It wasn’t long before they were gently touching noses through the fence. Thanks to those cows, and the trees and the rolling backyard filled with lush green grass, and chipmunks, squirrels, and butterflies, Atticus thought we were in heaven. I wasn’t quite so certain, for I wasn’t used to peace and quiet and having nothing to do. But after a couple of days of being anonymous and not checking e-mail or hearing the constant hum of downtown Newburyport or the ringing of my phone, I eventually relaxed. By the third day, my shoulders were no longer tense; I was sleeping through the night and waking up refreshed. On the fourth day, I took the greatest pleasure in lying blissfully on my back in the grass and taking inventory of the whitest clouds I’d ever seen as they sailed across a deep blue sea of sky. When it came time to return to Newburyport, I put it off for as long as I could.
Atticus and I returned to that old farmhouse several times over the next couple of years. When it was being used by Gilbert and Gilda or one of their friends, we stayed in Stowe, Vermont, twenty miles away, at an inn that catered to dogs and their owners.
To the casual reader, the Undertoad hadn’t changed in the least bit. It was still hard-hitting and controversial. But it was changing, if only in the slightest way. My “Letter Home” to my father now appeared in every issue of the paper, and I wrote about our journeys to Vermont, or losing weight, or being able to walk up State Street without losing my breath. Of course there was always something in those letters about Atticus as well, for it seemed he was the catalyst of all that change.
That column served an important purpose for my paper—and for me. Not only was it a different, more relaxed and intimate style of writing, it also lightened the mood. Before I’d started printing my letters to my father, the paper was unbalanced, filled with the politics of politics, and I felt guilty about all the dirt I was uncovering. But the column also served another purpose. My father, who still lived in Medway, some eighty miles away, had never been to Newburyport, and since he wasn’t comfortable driving that far, even as a passenger, he would never see it. So I described the city to him, and my readers loved the way I portrayed it and how I wrote to my father. I never talked about our trou
bled past but rather focused on the positive things he’d done in my life.
The trips Atticus and I took to the gentle mountains of Vermont refreshed me and added new life to my columns. They allowed me to take stock of my life and return to write about the heroes and scoundrels of Newburyport and then escape again. It also gave us a place where no one knew us, a place where I could literally put my feet up and relax. There was no need to constantly check the rearview mirror of my car to see if we were being followed. There were no slashed tires and no angry readers complaining about what I wrote.
I so loved that farmhouse in Waitsfield that I did the unheard-of and invited David and Eddie, two of my brothers, up for a weekend. It was the first time in twenty years when at least three siblings had spent a night in one place together. Such things just weren’t done in the Ryan family. We weren’t a close group. We were but survivors of the same shipwreck, and there was little interaction among us. We got together for a few hours each Thanksgiving and Christmas, but other than that we rarely talked or sent e-mails, and this often drove me crazy. I could stand on a street corner in Newburyport, meet a stranger, and know more about him in ten minutes than I’d found out about any of my brothers and sisters in forty years.
The naturalist John Muir might as well have been talking about my family when he wrote, “Most people are on the world, not in it—have no conscious sympathy or relationship to anything about them—undiffused, separate, and rigidly alone like marbles of polished stone, touching but separate.” That was us: touching but separate.
I once asked David how that came to be. “Why do I feel like I’m the only one who smiles and laughs and has a good time? What happened to everyone?”
David thought for a moment and shrugged. In his parched, matter-of-fact tone, he said, “I think Dad beat it out of us.”
