East of Puppertowne

“Beach, beach, beach, beach, beach, beach,” he repeated in a singsongy voice that honestly got me a little excited. But the more excited he sounded the more I poured it on until we were both jumping up and down acting like two mad marionettes tangled up in their strings.

I loved him for this. Sure he wasn’t the brightest star in they sky but he treated me well and I could tell he loved me. When he got excited and all wound up, I would just egg him on to get even crazier. He was so easy to manipulate but I could tell he loved it.

We go for lots of long, interesting walks. This is really one of my favorite things. The air is so alive with the sea breeze and the shells and a rotting herring a seagull must have dropped… Must be what heaven smells like. I always want to explore more but he never really lets me. Sometimes I feel a little like I’m his prisoner. Usually I am tethered to him but when I am not… Oh what great fun! I don’t know if he thinks I’ll escape and never come back or if I’ll get hurt. I don’t know why he is so protective of me but he’s been this way for 15, going on 16 years now.

To be honest, I don’t get around like I used to. And even though I am truly excited, I am getting to the point where my body just doesn’t do what I want it to do.

Our favorite place is the trails though Cape Henlopen State Park. That’s just East of Puppertowne. The sandy soil and the pine trees make for a cool comfortable walk even on the hottest summer day. And the trail is soft on these old toes. Sometimes we take the trail to the World War 2 tower. He loved this trail and would tell me all about the towers and what their purpose was. You see a long time ago there were the fellas called Nazis. Evidently they were just about the worst people to have ever existed. He would tell me how their leader would get them all fired up. Brainwashing them. That would allow them to do terrible things on his account. He would tell them how bad foreigners were and kept them in cages. They felt they were the superior race. Which I didn’t understand the first couple times he told this story but it turns out that some people think they are better than other people. And instead of letting these inferior people be, they feel the need to hurt them. These towers had guns in them. He told me they could shoot a 2000 pound shell 25 miles off the shore. Now I’ve never seen a shell anywhere near that big, so sometimes I’m pretty sure he just making stuff up. I mean can you imagine the clam that came out of that shell? But he talks and I listen. That’s mostly our agreement.

Sometimes when we we got to the tower he and I would part ways and I could wander. And I always wandered right into the tower. Now no one is supposed to go in there, but I never learned to read too well, so I figured I would just play dumb. The walls were made of stone and were wet with the sea air. It was mostly dark except for a few rays of sunlight. They would glimpse upon a winding staircase. I can’t climb to the top anymore. Just too many steps. But when I was younger, I would race to the top and go the lookout and pretend I saw German boats coming ashore. And then I would run down the steps as fast as I could, alerting everyone to man their stations. We always heroically fought them off and I always got a medal of bravery. But that was all in play and a long time ago now.

We drive up to the parking lot. It’s less crowded than usual. I think he likes it less crowded. Me personally, I’m indifferent to it. Sometimes when its crowded there are just more things to check out and I like a little interaction sometimes. I mean it’s just me and him at home. I am definitely the more social of the two of us but he’s polite and friendly. Awkward and a dufus but a very sweet soul.

He knows this trail so well. It’s like he’s been on it a thousand times. Honestly I don’t know how old he is. He may have been around since the beginning… whenever that was. You don’t have to be smart to know stuff. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen him do one intelligent thing except he has a trick where he’ll open a can with some kind of opener device. Other than that I doubt I’ve seen him do one reasonable thing. The walk seems longer today. It’s been feeling longer for a while. Lately if we go too far he ends up carrying me back to the car. Today was one of those days. Cars are such a fantastic thing. We used to have one that went right out onto the beach. Probably nothing better than that. But people started getting sick and couldn’t be around each other. He called it a pandemic and one day he came home with a new car. But this new one was old. I could tell it had been around a long time. It used to be that he would go to work almost every morning and come back around dinner time. But since people started getting sick he mostly stayed home. He’s busy doing stuff but all I ever hear him talk about is not knowing how he is going to pay the bills. For me, a place to sleep and some food in my belly and I have all I need.

We came around a patch of pine trees and brush. “Look!” He shouted with a whisper. “Deers! You see those deers? Do you?”

I could tell he was getting excited and I was too. If I weren’t tethered to him I would have gotten after them. They prance around sometimes like they’re just trying to tempt me. Deer were everywhere. You couldn’t walk a few feet that didn’t smell like deer. And squirrels and rabbits too. But as interesting as that was, I really came out on walks to get information. He would read the paper, I went on walks. Everything I needed to know was out here. Not just who was here before me but what they had been up to, and I found that most curious. Sometimes I could tell that they had found a rotting herring and just fell all over it. Honestly, everything you really need to know you can tell by just paying attention to who came before you. But as much as I love walks, I like spending time on the bed just curled up next to him.

Nights might be my favorite. Its quiet and I feel like I can hear for miles. And when the sun starts to peak through the darkness just above the trees, the world begins to wake up. But tonight I can feel a kind of weakness coming over me.

“I don’t know how long you’re capable of living but I hope you never die.” I told him. But he never really learned to understand what I say. He always would just do stuff at random when I talked to him. Sometimes it worked out pretty well and other times I had to wait a long time for him to finally guess right. Nothing like having to pee and he keeps giving you little nibblets of food or pats on the head! Now this food was yummy and chewy and smelled so strong of what… well I don’t know but it was delicious. He would go out hunting and bring the goodies back in these paper bags. And in those bags were smaller bags that were sealed up… but I could still smell those little foody bits.

I was getting weaker. I could feel it and I sensed he knew it too. He's been constantly by my side, only getting up for a few minutes before coming right back. He positioned his leg so my head was resting on his lap. Never saw water come out of his eyes before. Another miracle he can conjure up. Why God gave so many gifts and abilities to someone so dimwitted is a mystery. Maybe I’ll find out soon enough though. And if he does die someday I will be waiting for him. And we’ll go catch some “deers” or give them a good run anyway.

I sure loved our walks. I can picture us running side by side. Sometimes we would watch the sun go down. I felt like that’s what we were doing tonight. “Just need a little nap my lovely human and tomorrow will be a new day.”

End