Just a Dog

by Michael Gerard Bauer

  That’s how I found out about Dad talking to Mister Mosely. One night I was going down the back steps with his dinner and I heard him. I thought he was on his mobile phone, but when I looked in through the lattice, he was just sitting at our old kitchen table, the one we used to have upstairs before we got the new one. I watched him open another bottle of beer and fill up his glass. Then he started talking again.

  I got a bit worried when I saw that because I thought Dad must have been talking to himself. But then he patted his leg and Mister Mosely’s big head came up from under the table so I knew that was who he was talking to all along. It was weird listening to Dad talk to Mister Mosely just like he was another person and asking him all these questions and everything. It was weird because after that Uncle Gavin thing Dad didn’t talk much about anything to anyone.

  I suppose it was wrong to listen to Dad when he didn’t know I was there, but I wanted to find out what he was talking to Mister Mosely about. I worked out it was about that time Moe went missing for two weeks because Dad kept asking Moe what he got up to and where he went and what his secret was. At the end he said, ‘But you came back, didn’t you, big guy?’ I remember that because when Dad said it he drank all his beer down in one big go. Then he said, ‘You and me both.’

  Dad sort of rubbed his eyes when he said that and it looked a bit like he was crying. He wasn’t but, because Dad never cries. Except for that time when Amelia drew all that stuff on Mister Mosely and that was only because he was laughing so much so it wasn’t even proper crying. Dad was probably just rubbing his eyes because he was tired or he had some dirt in them seeing how he was still all filthy and greasy from building roads.

  Every time I took Dad’s dinner down Mister Mosely was there with him. There were other times I heard Dad talking but I didn’t try to listen in any more. I felt bad about spying on him. Some people might think that was a strange thing for my dad to do, talk to a dog. But I don’t think so. Like I said before, we all talked to Mister Mosely.

  I bet old Moe thought it was crazy but, all these people talking to him when he couldn’t talk back. He probably wondered why we didn’t just talk to each other. I don’t know about Mum and Dad and Amelia, but I liked talking to Moe because I could say stuff to him I couldn’t really say to anyone else. And I knew Moe would always be there to listen to me.

  Well, that’s what I thought.

  23 Mister Mosely and the Stairs

  One day there was this big thump on the back stairs and I went out to see what it was. The thump was Mister Mosely falling over. He was about halfway up. He had our newspaper in his mouth and he was looking at me with his eyes all big and scared.

  I just thought Moe must have run up the stairs too fast and slipped. I thought he was just being ‘Un-co Moe’ again. Anyway, he got himself up all right but he was pretty shaky and he was limping too. I couldn’t see any cuts or bumps on him, but I told Mum and Dad about him falling down. They checked him over and said he seemed fine. Dad thought he was probably just a bit stiff and sore, that’s all.

  But Moe’s limp didn’t go away. Then it got worse. When he got the paper he was slower than normal and you could tell it was hurting him. In the end Mum made Dad take Moe to the vet to see what was wrong.

  That’s how we found out about the cancer.

  We didn’t find out straight away because the vet had to do some tests first. But when the tests came back that’s what the vet said Mister Mosely had. She said it was in his bones. She said she was sorry.

  I never even knew that dogs got cancer. I knew that people did, because that’s what happened to our Benpa, who was Dad’s dad. But the vet said dogs could get cancer too same as people and she said big dogs like Mister Mosely were the ones that got it the most. She didn’t know why that was.

  When we found out about the cancer I asked Mum and Dad if Mister Mosely was going to go to hospital like Benpa did to try and help him get better. But Dad said that would cost a lot of money and we couldn’t afford it and anyway it wouldn’t help much. He said the best thing to do was try and make sure that Mister Mosely was happy and not in any pain.

  I didn’t like the way Dad was saying that. I didn’t want Mister Mosely to be sick. He didn’t even look sick. He looked exactly the same as he always did except for the limp. I wanted Mum and Dad to take all the money I was saving up for computer games so we could help Mister Mosely. Dad just shook his head when I said that and Mum just cried.

  At the vet’s we got some special medicine to take home with us. We had to give it to Moe with his food. That was my job. I made sure he took it every single day and never ever missed out once. I wanted the medicine to make him better. I wanted it to make the cancer go away. But that didn’t happen.

  What happened was, it started to get harder and harder for Mister Mosely to fetch the paper. We tried to make him stop but he wouldn’t. We’d find him stuck halfway up the back stairs every day, breathing really fast and whining and with that black spot under his eye making him look really sad. One time he made it all the way up but then he was stuck there. We had to wait till Dad got home from work because Moe was too big for Mum and me to carry back down again.

  So what I did was, I taught Moe just to bring the paper to the bottom of the steps and drop it there instead of trying to bring it all the way up to the top like he used to. And Dad made a new place for him down in the laundry.

  It didn’t seem right not having Moe on the porch waiting for us. I thought I’d never see him there again. But I did. Just one more time.

  24 Mister Mosely Back on the Porch

  I kept giving Mister Mosely his medicine exactly like the vet said. But it wasn’t working.

  I knew it, because after a while just going out to the front yard and carrying the paper back to the bottom of the stairs was too much for him. Some days, like when the paper came early on Saturday morning and it was cold, Moe couldn’t even stand up. He’d keep trying though and he’d be whining and whimpering all the time and he’d only stop when someone went and got the paper and showed it to him. I guess then he knew his job was done.

  One Saturday when I was in the kitchen making myself some toast I heard Mister Mosely whining, so I went out to see what was wrong. He was at the bottom of the stairs. The big Saturday newspaper was on the step in front of him. It was the first time for ages that Moe had tried to bring the paper around.

  I helped him back to his bed and took the paper up for Dad. He was making a cup of tea. I was just giving Dad the paper when we heard Mister Mosely whining again. This time we found him up a few steps and trying to climb higher. He was all shaky and almost falling over. Dad had to take him back down before he hurt himself.

  But Moe just wouldn’t stay there. As soon as we got back to the kitchen we heard the whining again and then we heard a big thud and some scratching too. Dad and I ran out the back. Moe had fallen over and his legs were going everywhere and he was trying to stop himself from sliding down the stairs. Dad grabbed him and Mum came running out because of all the noise.

  Dad said, ‘Don’t know what’s got into him, but he wants to get up to that porch. Haven’t got a clue how he expects to get back down.’ Mum just looked kind of sad and said that maybe he wasn’t worried about that any more. I wasn’t sure what she meant.

  Anyway, we didn’t want Mister Mosely to keep hurting himself trying to get upstairs, so Mum made a bed for him on the porch just like she did way back when he was a puppy. When it was made Dad carried Moe all the way up. I got his bowls for him – his water bowl and the big silver one that Dad wrote his name on. We gave him some dry dog food and leftover gravy, but he didn’t eat any of it.

  Mister Mosely stayed there in his old spot all afternoon. When it got dark Dad carried him downstairs so he could go to the toilet if he wanted to and to see if maybe he would go back to the laundry. He wouldn’t. Every time Dad started to go upstairs Mister Mosely tried to follow him. That made Dad a bit cross and he called Moe a ‘stubborn old coot’, but h
e carried him all the way back up to the porch just the same.

  That night Mum let me sit outside with Mister Mosely way past the time I usually went to bed. Moe didn’t look as big and strong as he used to. I guess I was getting bigger too. It was funny thinking how I could ride on his back when I was little and how he would drag me along on my cardboard sled. But he was still the same old Moe. I put my finger on the black tear spot under his eye and I traced around the wonky heart shape on his chest, the one that Mum said was there because Moe’s heart was too big to all fit on the inside.

  I stayed up so late I fell asleep on Mister Mosely and Mum had to wake me up to go to bed. I remember how I patted Moe and gave him a bit of a hug and how his big tail thumped a couple of times on the floor. I left him there waiting on the porch just like always.

  Only I found out it wasn’t any of us that Mister Mosely was waiting for this time.

  25 Mister Mosely – Just a Dog

  When I woke up the next day the first thing I did was check on Mister Mosely. But the porch was empty. Then I saw Mum and Dad down in the backyard. Mum had her dressing gown on. Dad was beside her. Something was wrapped in a sheet on the ground between them.

  As soon as I got downstairs Mum came over and hugged me. She told me Mister Mosely had died during the night, only she said he’d ‘passed away’. She said she knew it was sad, but the good thing was, Moe wasn’t in pain any more. She said it was ‘for the best’. I didn’t believe her. I wanted to see Mister Mosely for myself, so Dad pulled back the sheet a bit. It looked like Moe was just asleep. But when I patted him he felt cold and he didn’t move.

  I didn’t want to cry, I really didn’t, but my eyes started stinging and something was sticking in my throat. I tried to think about those things Mum said. About how Mister Mosely wasn’t hurting any more and how it was sad but it was for the best. But I kept hoping none of it was true. I kept hoping that Mister Mosely was just trying to fool me like how I tried to fool him all those times when I came home from school and he was waiting for me. I wanted him to lift up his head and open his big eyes and start thumping his tail on the grass a million miles an hour the way he always did.

  Then Mum knelt down beside me and her face came right up close to mine. I could see her eyes were wet and she kept telling me how it was ‘all right’ and how Mister Mosely had a good life and how it was okay to feel sad, and I kept nodding and nodding and nodding because I knew it was all true, but mainly because I wanted her to stop saying those kinds of things so I could think about something else and about not crying.

  But I couldn’t breathe and I couldn’t swallow and when I tried to, it sounded like I was choking and then I was making those noises little kids do when they cry and I tried even harder to stop but it just made it worse. Then Dad said, ‘All right, come on, that’s enough. It’s not the end of the world,’ and he was right too, but Mum looked all angry at him and told him to leave me alone and that I could cry if I wanted to cry and Dad said I wasn’t a baby any more, which I wasn’t either. I really wasn’t.

  I didn’t want Mum and Dad to fight. I didn’t want them to get angry with each other the way they did that time with Uncle Gavin when Mister Mosely changed into something scary. So I tried to tell them that I was all right, that I wasn’t a baby, that I knew Moe had to die. But I couldn’t breathe properly and I couldn’t make any words come out, only stupid choking hiccough noises that just got louder and louder until Mum hugged me even tighter and that made it twice as bad and I couldn’t stop myself. Then Dad lost his temper and said, ‘That’s enough! It’s not like one of us has died. It’s just a dog, for god’s sake.’

  And that’s when it happened, exactly how I told you about already. That’s when my mum punched my dad. She just sort of stood up and turned round and she was shaking her head and staring at Dad like she didn’t know who he was. Then she hit him on the chest with the back of her fist and said, ‘Don’t you say that!’ And Dad just stared at her like he didn’t know who she was either and Mum started crying and hitting Dad’s chest as if she was trying to beat down a wall or something and saying, ‘Don’t you say that! Don’t you dare say that!’

  I just wanted it all to stop. I wanted Mum and Dad to stop looking at each other that way. I wanted Mister Mosely to jump up and stand between them and growl at them and show them his teeth and be big and strong and scary and make it all end. But he didn’t. He didn’t do anything. He just lay there wrapped up in that sheet.

  So I did it. I squeezed between Mum and Dad but I couldn’t growl like Mister Moe or be scary like him so I yelled as loud as I could for them to stop and I shouted, ‘I hate you!’ even though that wasn’t really true. But it worked just the same because Mum stopped hitting Dad and they stopped looking at each other and they looked at me instead. Then Mum started to cry like she did that day with the sheet and she just sort of let herself fall forward and her head hit on Dad’s chest.

  We stayed like that for a while, Dad just standing there and Mum crying and me stuck between them. And all the time Mister Mosely just lay on the grass all wrapped up and he didn’t move and he didn’t whine and he didn’t wag his tail because it really was true and I knew it.

  Mister Mosely was gone.

  26 Mister Mosely’s New Place

  We buried Moe in the back corner of our yard behind the trellis near the mango tree. Dad dug the hole while I watched and got water for him. It was a hot day and he was sweating a lot.

  The hole Dad dug was a big one and the sides were all neat and straight and everything. It looked like a person hole, not like a ‘just a dog’ sort of a one. When it was finished I went and called Mum. Grace was asleep in her cot. Amelia wasn’t there at all. She was at Grandma’s for the day. Mum said Amelia was ‘a bit young for all this’.

  Dad pulled back the sheet a little bit so we could see Mister Mosely one last time. I didn’t want to pat him and feel him all cold again, but Mum put her finger on his black tear dot just like I did on the porch. Then she touched the big heart spots on his chest and said, ‘way too big to fit inside. Way too big’ and sort of whispered, ‘It’s all over, Moe. No more pain now,’ before she got all teary and sniffy and put her arm around me.

  Then Dad wrapped the sheet back around Mister Mosely and carried him over to the hole. He had to kneel down and lean right over to lay Mister Mosely down in it. It looked a bit like Mum putting Grace into her cot. And it made me think of all these other things too like when Dad lifted Mister Mosely up from under the garage and that time at the vet’s when he carried Moe and me to the car and all the other times he carried Moe up and down the back stairs when the cancer made his legs too weak. I had to stop thinking about stuff like that because my eyes started burning.

  We didn’t say any prayers or make any speeches or anything when we buried Mister Mosely. Mum just said, ‘So long, Mister Moe. Thanks for everything.’ And I thought I was going to bawl like a little kid again so I had to blink my eyes and just stare really hard into the hole. That’s when I saw the stains on the sheet Mister Mosely was wrapped in and I knew it was the same one that Uncle Gavin’s blood went all over.

  Then Dad had to shovel all the dirt back into the hole. Mum said I didn’t have to stay and watch that if I didn’t want to. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to or not. But I did anyway. So did Mum. We stayed and watched and bit by bit Mister Mosely and that old sheet with Uncle Gavin’s blood on it disappeared under the dirt.

  27 Mister Mosely’s Bowl

  After Dad finished his shovelling, Mum went and got a packet of seeds and spread them all over where Mister Mosely was buried.

  The packet had ‘Mixed flowers’ written on the front. Mum told me that when the flowers started to grow it would be like a sign or a message from Moe telling us that he was okay and that we shouldn’t be sad for him any more. I guess Mum must have thought I was still a little kid like Amelia to believe that. I didn’t mind but. She was only saying it to try and make me feel better.

  Mum went back up
stairs then to make sure Grace was all right and I stayed with Dad to help him clean up and put everything away. After we did that I went back out to where Moe was buried. Dad came out too. I liked it there under the mango tree. It was quiet and cool and it was sort of hidden away between the trellis and the back fence. It was a good place for Mister Mosely.

  While we were just standing there Dad started talking. He said, ‘These things happen. It’s tough, but you just have to deal with them.’ He meant Mister Mosely dying. I told him I knew that, and he just nodded and said, ‘Good man.’ Then he was quiet some more. Then he said maybe we should have something with Moe’s name on it to mark where he was buried. I thought that was a good idea because then it would be a proper grave, so I said maybe we could use Moe’s old silver bowl seeing how it had his name on it already. Dad liked my idea and so that’s what we did.

  I went and got Moe’s bowl from up on the porch and I cleaned it up and Dad had a look around his workshop and found a big cement paver that was left over from when he made the front path. We painted it white. When it dried a bit we got some ‘liquid nails’ and we glued Mister Mosely’s bowl right in the centre of the paver so that his name faced the front. Then Dad showed me how to mix up some water and instant cement in a bucket and we took everything out behind the trellis.

  First Dad dug out a square shape in the dirt at the top of Mister Mosely’s grave. When he was finished I poured in some of the cement and Dad put the paver on top of it and tapped it down with a rubber hammer until it was level. Then he made the cement neat around the sides and we pushed the dirt back up to the edges.