Duffy to the Rescue (The Duffy Dombrowski Mysteries)

by Tom Schreck

  By Ginny

  BROOD serves Virginia, Maryland, D.C., West Virginia and parts of Pennsylvania and Delaware. They place around 150 dogs per year. That is 150 homeless houndies re-homed forever. Wow!

  Chris Williams from BROOD has some stories to tell:

  When Lilly was rescued by BROOD she was in terrible condition. She had been in a shelter in southern Virginia and was aggressive when examined initially by our vet. The vet could not even do a complete exam.

  The reason for her attitude became clear. One of her rear toenails had curled around and grown up through the pad and out the other side. The pain must have been excruciating with every step she took.

  Another toenail had also grown into a pad, and she had several teeth with exposed nerves. Her pain was overwhelming and she was lashing out at anyone who tried to help her.

  BROOD arranged and paid for her surgery and Lilly is now the happy and healthy dog in this picture. Her sweet personality emerged once she was freed from her pain and cared for in a loving BROOD foster home. Unlike many abused dogs, Lilly was rescued in time. Lucky for her, she was taken in by BROOD where we go to great lengths to save the dogs and give them the care and housing they need.

  Annie is another dog that was saved by BROOD this year. Her story is as sad as Lilly’s.

  Annie was given up by her owner to a local Humane Society that called BROOD. She spent her entire life in an outside kennel and was full of whipworm, heartworm and had as severe an ear infection as we have ever seen. She had never enjoyed the warmth of a home during her seven years.

  On the relinquishment form, her owner wrote that “a light slap when needed” was how she disciplined Annie. Years of neglect had taken their toll on Annie’s health and spirit.

  BROOD spent months getting Annie the medical care she needed. She was at a veterinary clinic for several months and was later under the care of a dermatologist who was able to get her raging ear infection under control using very specialized drugs.

  Today Annie is in great health and is the sweetest, most loving dog you could ever hope for. BROOD took in a dog that did not know what it was like to be a companion and who was in a lot of pain and returned her to good health. She now shows her gratitude by wagging her tail constantly and her eyes show her happiness.

  Hundreds of dogs like Lilly and Annie are put to sleep every year. Organizations like BROOD make sure that every Basset Hound that can be saved, is saved, and placed in loving homes.

  * * *

  This nose rules the world;

  no nose like a Basset Hound’s

  proboscis supreme.

  —Ginny Tata-Phillips

  Photo: By Kim Bruck AZBHR

  * * *

  Hounding Duffy

  By Tom

  “Has Al always been a Muslim?” TC said and sipped his B&B.

  “Far as I know. We’ve only been hangin’ out the last few years,” I said.

  Al sipped his beer. Actually, it was more of a slurp than a sip. Al drank Schlitz like I did and he didn’t hold it well.

  “Duff, didn’t he work for them Muslims?” Rocco said. “He was on one of those terrorist shelves wasn’t he?”

  “Terrorist shelf? You mean he worked in the store room?” Jerry Number One said.

  “It’s terrorist cell isn’t it?” TC said.

  “No, fellas, it was nothing like that. He worked for the Nation of Islam, the American Muslims. He worked in the security division, you know finding missing people, bomb detection, that stuff,” I said.

  Al had spilled or drank his draft and was drooling on the bar.

  “He’s really only half black, I’m surprised they took him,” TC said.

  “He’s black on top that’s what counts,” Jerry Number Two said.

  Al was oblivious to the discussion or he at least ignored it well. It was a skill I envied since I started hanging out at AJ’s dive years ago.

  Al half slid, have jumped off his stool and walked toward the back of the bar.

  “Duffy, Duffy! He’s—goin’ do—ah shit!” AJ said. Al had just taken a leak in the corner.

  “Damn it, Duffy, you can’t bring your dog in here if he’s goin’ whiz all over everything.”

  “Damn bastard hounds don’t mind no kind of obedience,” Rocco said.

  “I thought those Black Muslims were supposed to be disciplined.”

  “Idiot—we’ve been over this. It’s not Bastard Hound. They’re a French breed and their name was shortened from the lengthy ‘Los Basket Hound of Normandy.’ You see, because they were built low to the ground they were mistook for baskets” TC said.

  “What kind of basket weighs 85 pounds?” Jerry Number Two said.

  “Maybe I got that wrong. Maybe it was because they could fit in baskets,” TC said. He was losing confidence.

  “I don’t think putting Al in a basket would be a good idea,” Jerry Number One said.

  “Try to put that basket on a shelf...terrorist shelf or not,” TC said.

  “Bastard Hound would pee all over you,” Rocco said. I was mopping AJ’s floor when Kelley the cop, and last remaining regular, came through the door. He took his usual spot by the TV, which happened to be right next to where I was mopping.

  “Second job, Duff?” Kelley said. His face remained dead panned. It always did.

  Al, by the way is a Basset Hound, black on top, white on the bottom with a little brown mixed in here and there. He was asleep, not on any terrorist shelf, but on top of one of AJ’s tables and he was snoring. For the record, Allah-King is his full name and he flunked out of the dog program with the local Nation of Islam outfit a few years back. Al flunked out not because he wasn’t good at tracking or identifying explosives; it was more because the bow-tie brothers didn’t care for his hygiene. He wound up with a client on my caseload at the clinic who asked me to take care of him and then she went and got murdered. Al and I became roommates.

  Kelley was half way through his Coor’s Light and was turned toward the TV. He was watching ESPN Classic run a repeat of a poker game.

  “Fun having a pet, isn’t Duff?” Kelley said without turning toward me. He may have been interested in “The Flop” or “The River” or whatever the hell they call it when they turn the cards over. I figured if the networks were going to televise card games then “The TV Haircut of the Week” couldn’t be far off.

  “When’s your next bout? Shouldn’t you being doing roadwork or something?” Kelley said.

  “Scar tissue over the eye hasn’t quite set yet. I’m not supposed to get hit for three more weeks,” I said.

  “That’s a shame,” Kelley said. He hadn’t turned away from the TV where some longhaired cracker with sunglasses and a string tie was raking in his winnings.

  “So what’s new in the exciting world of crime stopping?” I said.

  “Oh big, big doin’s at the county nursing home—high level stuff.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Some low life is ripping off the old folks. Whoever it is, is stealing stupid shit...five-dollar radios, old sweaters, stuffed animals. Hard to figure, but the residents are pissed.” Kelley finished the bottle and nodded at AJ for another.

  “What’s that all about?” I asked.

  “Who knows?” Kelley took a gulp from his fresh bottle. “Why do you think I come here and drink—you think it’s for the intellectual conversation or the animal husbandry?”

  On cue, Al flopped himself off the table, landing on the front paws, that looked like he bought them off a mastiff, and waddled over to Kelley.

  “What’s up Al? How you been?” Kelley said and reached into his jacket and threw Al his nightly sausage.

  Al caught it on the fly as effortlessly as Johnny Damon, then turned and headed back to the corner, probably to take another whiz. I decided it was as good a time as any to call it a night.

  I got to work the next morning a little late. My barking alarm clock went off at 4:30 and he doesn’t have a snooze button so I had
to get up and fill his dish to shut him up so I could go back to bed. Then he objected because I didn’t garnish his breakfast with the sardine that he had grown accustomed to. It was after the can of sardines that I decided to crawl back into bed, which was just one of the series of mistakes that I made this particular morning.

  Breakfast does two things to Al—it makes him sleepy and affectionate. I don’t mean to suggest any cross species Brokeback Basset Mountain deal going on but Al likes to get in bed with me and curl up. I don’t know if you’ve been French kissed by a hound with sardine breath but it has the tendency to inspire nightmares. I can’t recall exactly what I was dreaming but I remember something about Shamu the whale... and me being violated. I decided then and there that I was through with Al’s breakfast garnishment and he could complain all he wanted.

  I actually have two jobs or, more accurately, two ways of making money. My full time gig is a counselor for Jewish

  Unified Services where I counsel welfare people who are having trouble navigating their way through life—or at least having problems keeping their welfare checks coming.

  I’m also a low level professional fighter, what’s known as an “opponent” in the trade. In my last fight I got cut over my right eye pretty good so I had to stay away from the gym for a while. The thing is, I love to fight and I can make a decent buck because I’m a heavyweight and I’m white. Right, wrong—that’s how it goes in this business. It also doesn’t hurt that I’m good enough to beat guys who suck but generally not good enough to beat the guys who are real contenders. That makes me the perfect opponent because my record looks good, some of the guys I’ve fought went on to be good and therefore when a manager puts me in against a guy they can say, “He fought so-and-so and got knocked in eight. My guy will knock him out in five!” It’s a strange business.

  I found social work even stranger though and I managed to keep my day gig even though Claudia Michelin, the director, hated me and was doing everything she could to fire me. The Michelin Woman, as I called her, was a pancake short of 300 pounds and, besides simple carbohydrates, she lived for regulations and the corresponding paperwork. I didn’t and that’s where we didn’t get along.

  “Duffy, may I see you in my office please?” Claudia said as she walked past my cubicle.

  That was never good news and it usually meant that I was about to be written up for something I didn’t do or something I did, that I shouldn’t have. I toyed with the idea of pretending I hadn’t heard her or just heading to the break room for some bad coffee but I decided it was just better to get it over with.

  “Duffy, as you know, we’ve identified your charting as one of your valued outcomes,” she said without making eye contact with me. “Valued outcome” was social work speak for your notes suck and you better get better at them.

  “I’m trying to improve. I really, really value the outcome of ...uh...better notes,” I said. The Michelin woman ignored me and continued. “There’s a twelve week in-service on improving your charting skills that starts today and

  I want you to attend as part of your individualized plan for meeting your valued outcome,” she said still looking down at her desk.

  “Twelve weeks on writing notes?”

  “Yes, it is the comprehensive state program that I think you will find of great value. It is at the county nursing home and your attendance, which I will monitor, is mandatory.”

  The idea of 12 weeks of two-hour sessions on how to write better notes less than thrilled me but it did mean I would be out of the office and away from Claudia. That was an outcome I valued.

  “When’s it start?” I said. “The first session starts this morning at 10:30 am. Please be on time,” she said.

  I got in the Cadillac and threw in Elvis’s ‘68 Comeback 8-track and listened to “Baby,What You Want Me to Do?” and “Lawdy Miss Clawdy” and thought about how easy it sounded to make good music. I guess that’s the point about what made the King so good. In my El Dorado Elvis was my constant companion and it made the half-hour drive seem like no time at all.

  The county nursing home was built about 10 years ago and it was supposed to be homey. It was all on one floor and it had furniture that looked like the type seniors would’ve had in their own homes but when you got on the furniture you realized the fabric had some sort of plastic coating to protect it from... well, you know, accidents. Despite the attempts with the furniture, the faux wooden beams and the fake fireplaces the place still wreaked of institutionalization. It also had that funky smell that, the best I could figure, was part urine, part disinfectant and part old people smell. The smell alone bummed me out.

  Knowing I was going to have to listen to two hours of how to improve my paperwork was also affecting my mood. I got to the multi-purpose room and checked out the crowd of social work types who were busy picking over the donuts and drinking the brownish water that passed for coffee out of little Styrofoam cups. I was trying to make up my mind about going for the last toasted coconut or not when I saw my old friend Jane come through the door with a clipboard.

  “Duff, what brings you here?” Jane said. She was in her late forties but looked older. She was a recovering alcoholic who now worked in the counseling business.

  “Claudia thinks it will help my paperwork skills,” I said.

  “Yeah, she can dream, I guess.” Jane had worked with the chronic alcoholics and addicts at the county jail and we had worked together often. She knew my penchant for avoiding paperwork.

  “What’re you doing here?” I asked.

  “I’m the director of professional ed. I got out of the direct counseling biz a while ago.”

  “Ah, Jane, old buddy—does that mean you’re in charge of the attendance?”

  “Among other things...”

  “So if someone by chance, hypothetically, left early you wouldn’t necessarily, hypothetically, do anything with that info, would you?” I said and winked. “Nice to see you haven’t changed, Duff.” She thought for a second. “After the session starts I go back to my office. As long as your name is on the sign in you’re all set.” She winked back at me.

  “Jane, you’re the best.”

  The session started and the trainer who was this old guy that had worked with the state for 200 years began to read from the regulations. I was out of the room before he got through his first sentence.

  I headed through the corridor of the professional wing and made a wrong turn and wound up in one of the residential wings. There were names on the doors to indicate what resident lived there and there was a lounge area at the end of the hall that had a big TV. Headline News was on and there were a half a dozen residents sitting around not paying attention to it. I continued down the hall until one of the names froze me in my tracks.

  Antonio Cappielli.

  Cappy was a professional featherweight in the late 30’s right up through the 50’s. He was good enough to have fought for the world title twice and that was back when there was one world title. He also spent years as a sparring partner for Willie Pep, in my book the best pound for pound fighter of all time. Yes, I put Pep ahead of Ali, Louis and Robinson and anyone else you can think of. Pep was in a plane crash, spent six months in a body cast and then made a comeback and won the title again. That’s all I ever needed to know.

  Up until two years ago, Cappy worked for the boxing commission and he was at all the shows doing odd jobs. We got to be good friends and I could listen to him all day talk about sparring with Pep. The fact that he was in a nursing home probably wasn’t a good sign and my first inclination was to head out but my internal barometer told me to go in and visit.

  I knocked lightly on the door and waited but got no response so I ducked in the room to see if Cap was around. He was on the other side of the room with his back to me throwing punches into the air in front of the closet mirror. He was hunched over with age and it made him look tinier than his 5’4” inch frame. He had on navy blue sweat pants, a wife beater undershirt and cheap sneakers that
closed with Velcro. When he threw his shadow punches I could see his triceps and lats flex—not bad for a guy who was 91 years old.

  “Cappy...Cappy...Cappy,” I said getting louder with each yell. The third time got his attention. “It’s me, Duffy.”

  He squinted and looked at me hard trying to figure out who I was.

  “When’s Pep comin’? We’re supposed to spar. I know he’s the champ but I’ve been waitin’ all day for him. It ain’t right,” he said.

  “Cap, I’m Duffy Dombrowski—you’ve seen me fight when you were with the commission,” I said. He just made a face out of frustration.

  “He’s been confused since his gloves turned up missing,” a voice from behind me said. It was a middle aged Mexican woman who worked as a nurse’s aid or whatever they were called now.

  “His gloves?”

  “He had these very old, beat up gloves. He slept with them and they showed up missing yesterday. He hasn’t been good since,” the Mexican woman said.

  “I ain’t got my gloves—who took my gloves? I always wear those gloves when I work with Willie. I need my gloves,” Cappy said. “Shit, where’s my gloves?” He stopped shadow boxing and put his hands over his eyes and started to cry.

  I didn’t know what to do but I felt sick inside. “Cap, Cap, easy kid,” I said. “It’s alright I’ll get you some new ones. The new gloves are better now anyway.”

  “I want my god damn gloves! The ones I always use with Pep.” He shouted at me and then he crawled into bed and balled himself into the fetal position and started to cry. I glanced at the nurse’s aid who had a blank look on her face. “He’s been like that since the gloves have been gone. No one knows what to do,” she said.