Stud Rites

by Conant, Susan

  Freida’s early-morning lacquer had developed cracks. It was now four or so in the afternoon. The judging was over for the day. In the ring, the hands-on portion of the judges’ education seminar had just started. The participants consisted of six or eight demonstration dogs and the usual dog-world combination of many women and few men. It won’t always be this way, you know. Modern science, I am happy to report, is already at work on a solution to the scarcity of men in the dog fancy. In the future, we’ll collect, extend, and chill them so they can be conveniently and inexpensively shipped all over the country to be warmed up as needed, just like sperm. As it is now, our human studs are hopelessly overbooked.

  The group surrounding Freida Reilly and Sherri Ann Printz at the national breed club’s booth, however, showed the underrepresentation of men that we temporarily endure. In addition to Freida, Sherri Ann, and Betty Burley, there were four or five other women. Victor Printz lingered at the edge, as did Tim Oliver. Taking yet another covetous look at the old sign from the Chinook Kennels and poking through a stack of collector’s item issues of the Malamute Quarterly, I wasn’t really part of the crowd.

  But back to Freida. Her badge was askew. Her short, tight perm was crushed on one side. The other side puffed out. Her head looked coyly tilted at an uncomfortable angle. Hanging upside down from her lapel was a dainty corsage of white baby’s breath and bruised pink rosebuds. The pewter malamute pin was now upside down. In a voice hoarse with overtried patience, she declared, ”Sherri Ann, you know as well as I do that a good six months ago you told me all about that lamp, in detail, and when you did, you asked whether I would like it for our auction, and I said yes, we certainly would.”

  Administering an unwarranted leash correction to the innocent Amber Waves, Sherri Ann fiercely defended herself: ”I very well may have happened to mention my lamp to you in passing, Freida, but I definitely did not offer it to you. In fact, I remember perfectly that at that point, I was thinking of keeping it for myself.”

  As if responding to some inaudible, invisible cue, Sherri Ann and Freida turned in unison to Betty Burley, who stared silently back at both of them.

  ”And furthermore, Freida,” Sherri Ann continued loudly, ”when I donated it to Betty to help save her poor rescue dogs, I did not do it behind your back, and-”

  ”You damned well did!”

  ”No, I did not! I made no secret of it. I did it right over here at Betty’s nice little booth, yesterday, right out in the open. Ask anyone! And it has been sitting there, on display, at Betty’s booth ever since then, as you’d know if you’d even so much as gone out of your way to stroll by there!” Anticlimactically, Sherri Ann added, ”Which you obviously have not.” Turning to Betty, Sherri Ann demanded to know whether Freida had even once visited the rescue booth.

  Taking a tiny step backward, Betty replied that she had no idea.

  Freida’s eyes narrowed. She nervously fingered one of the pewter puppy earrings. ”Well, Betty,” she began in a voice like permafrost, ”is this the thanks I get for all the support I’ve offered you? I gave you that booth space, and I slaved over the schedule to squeeze in your showcase on the evening that you wanted it. I gave you every single thing you asked for! And this is what I get?”

  I thought: Neither you, Freida, nor you, Betty, gets a litter of puppies sired by Sherri Ann’s Bear. And that’s why you’re both so mightily put out with Sherri Ann.

  Betty’s lips twitched. ”Why, Freida,” she replied, her voice oozing dignity and graciousness, ”I am absolutely astonished to discover that I have been operating on what is clearly a set of erroneous assumptions. I am particularly amazed to hear that the booth and the showcase are somehow my own personal property! Until this moment, I have assumed that the visible presence of rescue at this national was just as important to everyone else who cares about this breed as it was to me.” She finished with the trace of a naughty little smile.

  Freida really had been cooperative about the booth and the showcase. She couldn’t afford to be otherwise, Betty had maintained. No one running for the board of our national breed club could risk a reputation for opposing rescue.

  ”I am one hundred percent pro-rescue!” Freida snapped. Her pewter dogs danced. ”But you know as well as I do—”

  Shrugging her tiny shoulders and addressing a heaven evidently populated by rescued malamutes, Betty bulldozed on. ”Money!” she exclaimed, as if she’d just now discovered the invention of currency. ”Is that what this is about? About failing to meet the basic survival needs of the rescue dogs because some people are afraid that it will be money taken away from trophy funds, and they’ll have to go home without a lot of knickknacks and bric-a-brac and gewgaws that supposedly prove—”

  Heresy! And hypocrisy. The glass-fronted china cabinets in Betty Burley’s dining room were jammed with loot her dogs had won. I must admit, though, that I understood Betty’s attitude perfectly. The costly show trophies presented to other people’s dogs might well be junk, but by virtue of being won by one of my own dogs, even the most trifling bauble always became an inestimably precious icon.

  Freida’s face had turned an alarming red. ”Betty, you are getting carried—”

  ”Carried away?” demanded Betty. ”Well, if I get picked up and carried away, it’ll be the first help of any kind that anyone doing rescue has ever received from a lot of the breeders here!”

  An unfamiliar male voice mumbled in an undertone. Peering over my shoulder, I witnessed an historic moment: Victor Printz was uttering comprehensible words to a fellow human being. ”... more of Betty’s Christ damn sob stories,” I actually overheard him say. ”Don’t know what Sherri Ann thought she was doing giving so much as a plugged nickel to her and her bunch of mongrels.”

  Victor Printz was addressing a distinguished-look-ing gray-haired woman whose face I’d seen in show photos, but whose name I’d forgotten. She nodded to Victor. ”Most of this rescue business is a lot of crap.” Her deep, resonant voice brought her name and identity to me: Harriet Lunt, a member of the board of our national breed club and a lawyer who specialized in matters that concerned dogs. She published articles in the dog magazines about co-ownership agreements, stud dog powers of attorney, contracts between breeders and puppy buyers, and all that sort of thing. ”I, for one,” this cyno-legal eagle continued, ”don’t mind saying that I don’t believe in throwing away good money on trash dogs.”

  In my anger at Harriet Lunt, I forgave Betty Burley everything. Two pieces of paper had disappeared, and Betty had blamed me. So what! After years of fighting the vile opposition of people like this snotty Harriet Lunt, Betty had every reason for her incendiary temper. No matter what, Betty was always on the side of the dogs. Therefore I forgave Betty anything.

  ”I must say, though,” Harriet Lunt observed in a tone of condescending resignation, ”that sometimes at those god-awful rescue parades, the tear-jerking goes on for hours. At least their little performance last night was blessedly short.”

  Looking down at the old Malamute Quarterlys in my hand, I saw that I’d have to buy the top one. I’d torn the front cover. I’d ruined the bottom one, too. My grip had made crease marks, and the sweat from my hands would leave permanent stains. As proof of my honesty, let me report that I immediately paid for all five issues I was clutching.

  Then I swerved around and gave Harriet Lunt the kind of eye-to-eye stare that it’s dangerous to direct to a strange dog. Furthermore, when I spoke, I smiled very broadly, thus baring my teeth. ”Trash dogs, huh?” I said. ”Interesting perspective.” I added, ”My name is Holly Winter. I’m a columnist for Dog’s Life.” That’s true. ”But right now,” I said, meaning as of the last three seconds, ”I’m writing a piece for the Gazette.”

  Pure-bred Dogs/American Kennel Gazette: the official publication of the American Kennel Club, and one with which I have no connection whatsoever except, when I get lucky, as an occasional freelance contributor. ”And I couldn’t help hearing what you said just now,” I chi
rped, ”and when I did, I said to myself, ’Well, now, Holly, isn’t this someone with a distinctive point of view that AKC will certainly want represented!’ Because, you see,” I confided, ”with AKC so in favor of breed rescue, making the whole thing so politically correct, it’s unusual to hear someone express a divergent opinion.” I showed Victor my fangs. ”And you, too, of course,” I told him. ”So, if the two of you don’t mind, I’d just love to quote you. What did you say your names were?”

  With an indignant toss of her head, Harriet Lunt said that she couldn’t imagine what I thought I’d overheard. ”I, for one, have always been a very, very strong supporter of rescue,” she announced, ”and I know for a fact that Victor has been, too.”

  She gave me her full name and Victor’s. I promised to quote her. Now I have. Victor again broke his lifelong silence to inform me—Holly Winter, the eyes and ears of AKC—that his wife, Sherri Ann Printz, a top breeder, had donated a valuable item to Alaskan Malamute Rescue. Said precious donation to be auctioned off on Saturday night. His wife had made it herself. She’d used the hair of a legendary dog, a malamute, Ch. Northpole’s Comet, R.O.M.

  In her deep courtroom voice, Harriet Lunt added what felt like a contribution to the defense of Sherri Ann Printz. ”Sherri Ann is so proud of her beautiful lamp! Last night, at the end of our Parade of Veterans and Titleholders, she took me by the arm and led me right over to the little rescue booth so I could admire it. She can’t help showing it off to absolutely everyone. It is truly a work of art.”

  I wasn’t thinking about art, though. Or even about the lamp. What kept ringing in my ears and through my mind was Harriet Lunt’s voice. Jeanine has been sure about those cruel people: Men, she’d said damningly. Arlette had corrected her: Deep voices. Harriet Lunt’s voice was as deep as a man’s. She had a resonant voice: a voice that carried. And trash was Harriet Lunt’s word.

  ”I COULD HAVE strangled the pair of them,” I raged at Betty Burley. ”Simultaneously. One with each hand.”

  Betty and I were lingering just outside the ring, where the judges’ education seminar was continuing. Betty was studying the demonstration dogs. Maybe she was interested. Maybe she was avoiding eye contact with me. I’d reported only what I’d just heard; I hadn’t told her about Jeanine. ”Victor Printz is an ignoramus,” Betty decreed. ”But Harriet Lunt is a lawyer. She’s an educated woman. She should know better.” She sounded troubled.

  ”Speaking of knowing,” I said abruptly, ”I want to know what you know about James Hunnewell’s sister.” The whole sentence came out as a single word: IwannaknowwhatyouknowaboutJamesHunnewell’ssister.

  ”Not a dog in that ring I care for,” remarked Betty, who had once spoken admiringly of Rowdy, but only after she’d had two glasses of wine.

  ”That silver male is very nice,” I said.

  ”Nice? Really? Is that your idea of nice?”

  ”Yes,” I said. ”It’s one of them. Betty, James Hunnewell’s sister?”

  ”Will you look at those feet! Poor thing couldn’t make it one turn around the block!”

  ”Gladys Thacker. Gladys H. Thacker. The H must be for Hunnewell.” My reason for pressing Betty was the piece of surprising information I’d picked up from Detective Kariotis at the end of our interview. ”Gladys Thacker’s going to be here tomorrow,” I reported to Betty. ”I heard it from the state police. Well, she’s not necessarily coming here to the national, but to Massachusetts. The story is that she’s very concerned to see that her brother gets a Christian burial.”

  ”What does she expect? Hindu rites?”

  ”I have no idea. And who’s going to bury him here, anyway? They’ll release the body... Well, I can’t imagine that she’d have to come here and get it.”

  ”Well,” said Betty, ”we can only hope that this Thacker person has the nerve to turn up. I, for one, will be most interested to have a very lengthy discussion with her.”

  Betty, I believe, placed no special emphasis on the words ”I, for one.” My own ears added the emphasis. ”Betty,” I demanded suspiciously, ”did you show Cubby’s pedigree to Sherri Ann Printz?”

  Without answering the question, Betty huffily said that what Sherri Ann or anyone else may or may not have known, and may or may not have done, was a complete mystery to her. ”If you did not go through my tote bag and take that pedigree, and I do believe you, Holly, then I do not know who did.” Rocking her head backward in what I took to be the direction of the breed club’s booth, she changed the subject, more or less. ”A fine show of support I got back there!”

  ”I’m sorry,” I said, ”but I was dealing with something else. Remember? Besides, you were taking care of yourself fine without my help.”

  ”I wasn’t thinking of you,” she said, as if I’d have been useless, anyway. ”I meant everyone else, including Timmy Oliver. You’d think he’d—”

  ”You might,” I said. ”I wouldn’t.”

  ”I suppose Timmy is very peeved with me,” Betty reflected, ”but if he didn’t want my honest opinion of that poor bitch of his, he shouldn’t have asked. But, no, he just had to go and drag me out and show her to me.”

  ”Z-Rocks,” I said, ”is perfectly decent, and you know it. She’s just not in any condition to be here.”

  ”She is not outstanding,” Betty ruthlessly proclaimed. ”She is ordinary. And ordinary does not go Best of Breed at a national specialty.” Betty paused. ”Even under James Hunnewell. I don’t know what Timmy was thinking.”

  ”Daphne is a much better bitch,” I said, naming a frequent competitor at New England shows. ”She moves a lot better, and she’s always beautifully presented.”

  ”She usually beats your male,” Betty observed. ”She usually beats most of the other males, too,” I replied sharply.

  ”If it’s any comfort to you, Daphne’ll get her comeuppance tomorrow, because Casey’s here, and she won’t beat him.” Casey: Williwaw’s Kodiak Cub. I’d seen dozens of photos of the beautiful, top-winning sable dog, but I’d never seen him in the ring. Casey was supposed to be a great competitor, a master showman.

  A masculine hoot interrupted any further speculation about Casey and Best of Breed. ”Duke! Hey, Duke, come on over and take a look, man! They got your baby pictures here!”

  Startled, Betty and I turned around and stared at by far the largest group our rescue booth had ever drawn. At least thirty people were clustered around the booth. I briefly lost my mind. After all our pleas, our sob stories, our reasoned arguments, our cold presentations of fact, our appeals to conscience, finally! This overwhelming show of support. The crowd was utterly staggering.

  But Betty was not taken in. She was also not pleased. ”Gary Galvin has gone and done it again!”

  Yes, the video monitor.

  ”Don’t complain!” I whispered. ”They’re here! That’s progress.”

  When Betty and I had worked our way close enough in to get a good view of the screen, I realized that what we were watching had been converted to video from a film taken with an old home-movie camera held by an amateur hand. I couldn’t begin to guess the date of the show. When it comes to men’s clothing, I can tell a zoot suit from white tie, and I know whether Steve is wearing jeans or scrubs, but that’s about it. In some vague way, the judge’s suit—or maybe he wore a coat and tie?—looked old-fashioned. His hair was short. In contrast, by today’s standards, Duke Sylvia’s was long, and he had sideburns. But, oh my! Funny whiskers and all, the young Duke Sylvia was smooth. He was as good a handler as his knock-out dog deserved.

  ”Comet,” Betty told me, eyes on the screen.

  The dog in the grainy footage was tremendously powerful and consummately agile, as if he’d been sired by a linebacker out of a prima ballerina. Northpole’s Comet: He leaped out of the jumpy black-and-white footage with such vigor and style that you could hardly believe he was dead.

  The camera lingered on Comet. Then, as if fighting to move away, it jerked along the line of dogs in the long-ago ring.
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br />   Even then, whenever this was, Duke had been much too skilled a handler to outdo his superlative dog. Duke moved almost as well as Comet, and that’s a compliment to Duke.

  ”Hey, Duke, when is this?” someone asked.

  ”Don’t know.”

  ”Aw, come on. Who’d you handle him for?”

  ”Elsa Van Dine,” someone said. ”Elsa would’ve loved to see this. Goddamn shame.”

  ”Duke handled him for everyone,” contributed someone else. ”Himself, among others.”

  I hadn’t known. ”Duke, you owned Comet?” I was wildly jealous.

  ”Co-owned,” Duke said. ”For a while.”

  With a whoop and holler, a man I didn’t know darted to the monitor and pressed some buttons. ”Whoo-ee! Gotcha, Duke! Texas handling! And the kid didn’t have a clue.”

  Texas handling: trying to draw the judge’s attention to your dog’s good points by running your hand over them. It’s no more common in Texas than it is anywhere else. It is my theory, however, that the term originated when the novice handler of a Dandie Dinmont tried the ploy on the Only Law West of the Pecos, the legendary Roy Bean, the Hanging Judge, a terrier man himself. Bean resented the insulting effort to manipulate his opinion and swiftly dealt with the offender in his accustomed fashion—swift hanging. When news of the barbaric incident reached New York, horrified officials at the American Kennel Club dispatched an indignant letter to Judge Bean. The power to suspend for life, they explained, was the exclusive prerogative of the board of directors of the AKC. West of the Pecos or not, Judge Bean had acted in gross excess of his authority. In a postscript, the letter pointed out that the phrase ordinarily referred not to stringing up exhibitors in their entirety, but to suspending their AKC privileges. A man of action, the judge shot back the famous two-word reply that now hangs, appropriately enough, in the AKC’s offices: ”Same difference.” Just kidding. Have I digressed?