Cormac: The Tale of a Dog Gone Missing

by Sonny Brewer

  I socked John Luke on the arm, and hopped to my feet. “There you have it,” I said. “We’ll get a puppy. But right now let’s get pizza!”

  We piled into my Jeep, talking all the way to the restaurant about getting our new doggy. On the drive home from Benny’s Pizza Shop, with the boys occupied in the backseat, I told her it still bugged me how easily the boys had given in to Zebbie’s new home with Drew.

  “Well, the boys know Drew, and they both like him and Linda to visit,” Diana said. She told me that John Luke had asked her if Drew would bring Zebbie to visit sometime. “The way Dylan put it,” she said, “was, ‘Can we borrow Zebbie if we want to, Mommy?’”

  Still, it seemed to me, I said to Diana, that they were over it, man. I had even mentioned to Drew how quickly the boys let Zebbie slip from their lives. He’d repeated his belief that we didn’t have rapport with Zebbie. Drew had preached, “Y’all didn’t have it with the Zebulon. I do. Linda does. You were simply an instrument, brother, in the universal intent to set things right. Get over it. Move on.”

  Diana and I talked on the drive home and mostly she agreed with Drew. “Zebbie was a surprise when you brought him home. We’ll all be in on this one together,” she said, “and we can do some things differently.” We agreed that our poor experience with Zebbie living indoors, the new dog would be an outside dog. I suggested installing a dog door on the screened back porch, effectively eliminating the need for a doghouse. “With liberal inside visitation,” Diana offered.

  “That should suit everyone,” I agreed.

  The backyard was already fenced, but when we got home, even though it was the dark of night, I took my flashlight and announced I would go outside and double-check for low spots where a pup might be able to get out. Diana and Dylan plopped down at the kitchen table, while John Luke switched on the television.

  The backyard was quiet as I walked slowly along the fencerow, training the flashlight beam on the bottom of the chain-link fabric. I wanted to let my mind settle. It had been another slow day in the bookstore. I’d sold only three books all day.

  An owl called from a dark treetop somewhere very near, and I switched off my light. Three blocks away another owl answered. I looked up, but could see nothing, only tree branches and deep shadows. I wondered, would the owl almost directly above me go to the other? Or would the other leave its branch and wing on over this way? For ten minutes I stood in the dark listening to the exchange between the pair until, finally, the more distant bird ceased to answer.

  “Too bad, old man,” I said. I turned on my light and completed my survey, satisfied the new dog would stay in the fenced yard. Then I walked to the corner of the yard where there were no trees. I switched off the light and waited for my eyes to adjust to the darkness. I looked up at a million stars, pinholes in a black cape draped over the world. I waited for a moment in the quiet. When I was standing at the back door ready to go inside, the owl from off in the night decided to get back on line. The close one responded right away. “I guess that’s one for not giving up,” I muttered, then opened the door into the kitchen. There, on the table warmed by the room’s yellow light, lay Dylan’s coloring book, open. His crayons were scattered about on the table. I looked at his handiwork, and was closing the book when I saw the freehand drawing he’d done on the inside front cover. It was a big red dog.

  FOUR

  HIS FATHER’S NAME was Rock. His grandfather’s name was Bear. When the man on the phone told me this, I was encouraged. I was searching for a rugged but good-looking male, and this could be just the place to get our Golden Retriever puppy, a fellow we might name King. I knew the naming of the pup would be a challenge. Diana and the boys and I had been known to pour ourselves into hot debates on lesser matters. I thought with a chuckle that I could always suggest we Google a list of names.

  On the other hand, Diana and John Luke and Dylan and I had all given a unanimous nod to a Golden for the family dog, so there was a fair hope of agreement on a name. Whatever the dog’s name finally, a Rock and a Bear should add some manly gristle and good looks to the gene pool.

  “And you don’t run a puppy farm, right?” The man on the phone told me no.

  “Come on out to the house,” he said. “You’ll see my dogs, and you’ll be satisfied I’m telling the truth.” His voice reminded me of Wilford Brimley, with some Garrison Keillor nuances. “We’ve got four puppies left. Two boys and two girls.”

  He hadn’t said two males and two females. His pups were boys and girls. That was good, I thought. I told the man on the phone that I’d load up my family and come to see his young Golden Retrievers the next day.

  On Saturday morning, I asked Pierre to mind the bookstore for a bit, something Pierre had repeatedly offered to do. He seemed not to mind leaving his own store under part-time supervision. “I’ll swap stores with you, if you want,” Pierre often joked.

  “One of these days,” I said, “I might surprise you and take you up on it. So don’t offer lightly, mon ami.”

  I had my coffee, then paid a visit to Belle, who warned me to be patient as I looked for a dog. She said Goldens are so popular they’re often overbred, and many are too lean and look more like short Irish Setters.

  “A good Golden will be blocky and muscular,” Belle told me. “What you’d expect a fine Lab to look like, with a handsome square head and a strong muzzle.” I told her I’d found the son of a Rock, the grandson of a Bear. She laughed and told me it sounded promising.

  I went by the bookstore and talked to Pierre for a few minutes. He’d lost the password to the computer. I wrote it on a note card and taped it to the counter underneath the laptop. While I was doing this, he said he thought I should take a couple years’ break before getting another dog. “It’s not for me,” I said. “It’ll be a family pet.”

  “Sure thing,” he said, nodding, his eyebrows raised.

  “Besides,” I said, “it could take two years to find the right dog.” He shook his head, and walked me to the door. I drove home to pick up Diana and the boys. We all piled into the Jeep and drove toward Bay Minette, a small town twenty miles north of Fairhope. Diana held the driving directions.

  “You know,” I said, as we got closer to our destination, “I had sure hoped we’d find a puppy through a reference from someone we know, not though a classified ad.”

  “But all our referrals we got came from people whose Goldens look more like Setters, and you said Belle said…”

  “I know. But this seems so, so…”

  “Like shopping for a used sofa,” Diana offered.

  “Exactly.”

  “Well, let’s just have a look. A look won’t hurt.”

  “No,” I said. I was silent for a moment. “But, you know, looking for a puppy should be that: looking. We haven’t looked at a single pup, Diana. We’ve just been talking,” I complained.

  “Just relax,” she said. “Life is good.”

  “If this is a puppy farm…”

  “Sonny!”

  “Sorry, honey,” I said. “Isn’t this my turn coming up?”

  Diana nodded, and I turned onto an unpaved side road of smoothly packed crushed white oyster shells. It was a comfortable ride up the long drive, lined with pruned azalea bushes and young live oaks. We wound our way up a low hill to a two-story brick colonial with white columns. An ebony black Chevy Silverado gleamed on a concrete parking pad.

  “Not the Deliverance setting you were imagining, huh?” Diana asked.

  “Whatever I imagined,” I said, “it wasn’t this.”

  An old man walked around the corner of the house followed by a prancing and beautiful dark-red Golden Retriever, obviously the mother, her quartet of puppies wending and stumbling at her feet. The man wore faded jeans, boots, and a cowboy shirt not tucked in. He pinched off a piece of biscuit he was eating and handed it to the mama dog. He ruffled the fur on her head.

  “How do, folks? You’ve come to look at my pups, I reckon.”

  “Yes, sir,”
I said, my eyes on the puppies, not the man.

  “Tell them boys to come on up here,” the man said. “You got to get the little ones together with the little ones to get this right.”

  Diana and I exchanged looks, smiled, and nodded to the boys, who clearly understood they were being given a special invitation. John Luke and Dylan rushed forward and dropped to their knees. All four puppies surrounded them. The man in the cowboy shirt stepped forward and extended his hand. “My name’s Jack Bennett.”

  “I’m Sonny Brewer. This is my wife, Diana.”

  “Pleased to meet you, ma’am.” He nodded to me, “Sir.” Then Mr. Bennett turned his attention to the dogs and the boys rolling and giggling on the grass with puppies all over them. Mr. Bennett approached the mama dog. She wrapped her body around his leg and leaned her entire weight against him.

  “Look at that,” I declared to Diana.

  “What?” she asked. “Where?”

  “At the mother dog. I swear she smiled.”

  “Of course, she’s smiling,” Mr. Bennett said. “She doesn’t always. When she does, you can be sure she okays the adoption.” I decided this was not a puppy farm where dogs are merely inventory. This man’s dogs were about as close to family as four-leggeds could get.

  “You know how it goes when you wade through a litter of puppies?” Mr. Bennett asked. “How one little guy’s tail is wagging just for you? You step back. He follows. You take a side step, he follows.”

  “I could see that,” I said.

  “Don’t look now, but there’s a reddish-brown pup who’s been shadowing you since you stepped out of that vehicle of yours…” I was surprised when I looked at the ground near my feet and saw the puppy there.

  “Now, that’s what you call bonding, Mr. Brewer. I don’t often see it that pure and natural. No, sir, not many times.”

  The adoption seemed fated. I dropped down on my knees and patted my thighs. The puppy was a ball of fur the color of Ann-Margret’s hair in those movies where it was between red and auburn. He crawled immediately into my lap. Diana got the attention of our sons. She pointed to me snuggling with the nipping, wiggling pup. John Luke and Dylan glanced quickly at their playmates, and, realizing they had not singled out one puppy from the others, ran to join me.

  “Want me to get your checkbook, Sonny?” Diana leaned against the fender of the Jeep, her arms crossed, a smile for me.

  “Oh, I have to pay? I thought maybe—ah…”

  “That I’d buy lunch? Sure,” Diana said.

  “Better take what you can get there,” Mr. Bennett said, his eyes twinkling. “A dog’ll sometimes rob your bank, you know.”

  “Okay,” I said. “My checkbook’s in the glove compartment. I’ve got a pen.” I picked up the little dog. His mother came to investigate. She decided I made the grade, I guess, because she smiled up at me as I held her boy, then walked away to join her other children. The puppy had longish legs that dangled below my forearm. He turned his head and began chewing on my whiskers. His breath was hard, like a cigar smoker’s, but his honey-brown eyes fended off criticism. Maybe he was practicing his chewing technique for the furniture at our place, or, he could be hungry. I knew that I was ready for a nice lunch, and asked, “Do I get to pick where we eat?”

  “Anywhere at all,” Diana said.

  I put the pup down and wrote the check, while Mr. Bennett filled out the AKC forms for his registration. I had not even thought about the pedigree, said I didn’t think I’d file the papers, that it wasn’t important to me. Mr. Bennett suggested otherwise, made the point that it helped track the dog if another owner should acquire “this fellow.”

  “No, sir. Not a chance. No one else acquires this fellow but the welcoming ground at the end of his long life.”

  “It’s your choice, of course, to register him or not. And I do hope it works out that you two never part company,” Mr. Bennett said.

  “Look,” I said. “Can there be any doubt we are made for each other?” The little dog had sat when I put him down and hadn’t moved since. He just stared up at me with his pink tongue hanging out.

  On our ride home, Diana motioned with her head toward the backseat, where the boys and the puppy were all in a tangle with each other, laughing and squealing.

  “Yes,” I said, a few miles later, “this dog, excuse me—this fellow—is one of the family. He’s a keeper no matter what.” At a stop sign, before taking off again, I turned and looked at the puppy in the back seat. John Luke and Dylan were now sedate and looking out their side windows. The young Golden, maybe twenty pounds at three months, was stretched out between the two boys, completely still, with his muzzle down on the seat but his eyes wide open. He looked straight at me, and I was so captured in his gaze that I didn’t see the car pull up behind me at the stop sign. The driver in the car behind me blew his horn, and I got underway again.

  “You know,” I said, “we talked about naming him King. Be we can’t just settle for King. That could be any old king. But Cormac as in Cormac Mac Art, who ruled County Meath in the third century and was ‘wise, learned, valiant, and mild.’ Now that’s a kingly name.”

  “Now, how can you know such a piece of trivia? You made that up, Sonny Brewer,” Diana said.

  “No,” I said. “I know of Cormac Mac Art because I looked into the background of Cormac McCarthy’s name. I’d love to name our dog Cormac, and we could think of him as a king.”

  “I like Cormac alright, I suppose. You did write the check, after all.” Diana turned toward me. “If I help you sell the name to the boys, can we dispense with the hyperbole about ancient Irish kings? It would be such a chore to go through all that when someone asks how he got his name.”

  “Ah, yes, lassie,” I said, “let ’em know ’tis Cormac McCarthy for whom we be namin’ the pooch. Aye, and done it is, then.”

  Several of my customers at Over the Transom have heard me say that Cormac McCarthy’s literary craftsmanship is unexcelled, have heard me preach that McCarthy’s penchant for infusing violence with a love of language is exquisite. I believe, and have hand-sold the opinion, that Cormac McCarthy’s unblinking eye catches man’s blood-smeared meanness in the glaring light of his particular art and renders it required viewing. It occurred to me that Mr. McCarthy might not be flattered to share his name with such a sweet, doe-eyed fellow as the Golden Retriever in the backseat of my Jeep. But, if Cormac McCarthy knew that I was a bookseller specializing in used and rare volumes, that I’d invested $750 for a first edition of Blood Meridian, then perhaps he might not judge his name taken in vain.

  I shifted my musings to the rumble in my belly, and suggested we stop off at a little café that served blue-plate lunches, “a meat-and-three place” as Drew called it. I made up my mind to order the fried chicken and turnip greens and mashed potatoes and green beans. “Mama Joe’s would be great,” Diana agreed, “but what about—” she paused, “Cormac?”

  “I didn’t think of that,” I said. “Hmm. Well, I don’t want to leave him alone in the Jeep for that long. I guess we’ll just have to skip it and go on home.” Printed on the cover of the folder Mr. Bennett had given me were these words: I will take care of you. And so I would, and it would mean sacrifice, beginning with the blue-plate special at Mama Joe’s. Mr. Bennett had said it might rob my bank; it would cost money to keep Cormac. And what had Diana said? Commitment. It would take some of that, too.

  “Oh, well,” I said. “A homemade peanut-butter and jelly sandwich doesn’t sound so bad.”

  By the time we pulled into our driveway, both the boys and the dog were asleep in the backseat. Diana cautiously, quietly opened Dylan’s door. I opened the other. John Luke’s eyes popped open right away, as soon as I laid my hand on his shoulder. He stepped out of the Jeep and ambled awkwardly toward the house. “What’s for lunch?” John Luke asked and disappeared inside. Dylan slept on his mother’s shoulder. They, too, went inside. I was left alone with Cormac.

  Almost as if he had been waiting f
or the chance of some privacy, the young Golden opened his eyes but kept his muzzle down on the seat. I bent down, putting my elbows on the car seat, and brought my face close to Cormac’s.

  “So, want some peanut butter, Cormac?”

  Cormac stretched his face toward mine and licked my chin. I closed my eyes and let the pup slobber me down good. “Well, come on, pal. I hope you like crunchy.”

  FIVE

  I SAT ABOARD the swiveling stool behind the sales counter at the bookstore. I kicked the Birkenstock sandal off my right foot and stroked Cormac’s head with my toes. He sat on his haunches looking through glass display case at the knees of the man on the other side of the counter.

  I had rigged a gate at the open end of the counter to keep Cormac from roaming about the bookstore. Some customers were uncomfortable with him. Most days, I left Cormac at home to play in the yard, to chase any squirrels that dared explore the ground within the fence. He was healthy and active, with a great appetite, and had grown fast. At six months, he now weighed about thirty-five pounds. The first couple of weeks I had to remind the boys not to hand over table scraps, though now and again I did treat Cormac to a teaspoon of peanut butter.

  My daughter Emily stopped by the store on her way back to college. She’d come to Fairhope to her mother’s place for the weekend. She walked in with a rawhide chew-toy for Cormac. “I can only stay a minute,” she said, taking the wrapper off the chew. Cormac knew the treat was for him. His whole being was invested in his eyes and nose as he strained to detect what Emily was about to hand over. “My dog loves these things, too,” she said. She told me her young Boxer was in the car, that she’d just got him one of the same chews at the pet supply store. She said she needed to get on the road to Tuscaloosa, gave me a hug and said goodbye, giving a little tug on Cormac’s ear. “He’s sure good looking,” Emily said. With zero modesty I agreed, following her to her car and giving Charlie a pat on the head. Emily said she had tests and a big paper to write and wouldn’t be back to Fairhope for three or so weeks. “I’ll call when I head back this way,” she said. She pulled away from the curb and I saw Drew walking down the sidewalk.