"Best Friends"
by David M. Fitzpatrick
Bannon was my best friend from the
day I met him in 1951. Rock and roll was just beginning to make
waves, although the waves of any national trend always seemed to
ripple into Maine last. I was eleven that year at Christmas, and
more than anything I wanted a dog, but Dad always said dogs were too
expensive to own. He remembered the Depression all too clearly, and
was more interested in keeping his family secure after he’d returned
from the War with his skin intact.
But Dad had just gotten a
promotion, so things were looking good. He worked at the Bangor
Auditorium, and the voters had just approved building a new
structure that was to be a major boon to Bangor and even the region.
He’d gone out for a pack of Lucky Strikes on Christmas Eve and when
he returned, he said, “Jimmy, I forgot something in the car. Would
you get it for me?”
I wasn’t dumb; I knew there’d be a
present there, and as I rushed outside, visions of the new baseball
bat and glove I’d wanted danced through my head like the Boston Red
Sox chasing a postseason chance. But nothing could have prepared me
for swinging the door open and coming face to face with the
frightened, innocent face of Bannon staring back at me from over the
edge of a wooden crate.
And the moment I saw him, I knew he
was “Bannon”—for Jim Bannon, star of the Red Ryder flicks I’d
enjoyed at the Park Theater downtown. He was the cutest mutt ever;
big, worried, brown eyes stared at me as his little
white-black-brown furry body quivered nervously. He was just a
puppy, cowering on a wool Army blanket, and I cried out in
excitement and scooped him up, and within minutes he wasn’t afraid
anymore. For the next twelve years, he and I were inseparable.
He was full-sized by his first
year, and by then nobody could imagine us apart. Every day he’d
whine when I headed to school, and he’d always be there with wagging
tail and happy barks when I returned that afternoon. He’d always
help me when I raked leaves or shoveled snow, and when I picked up a
paper route delivering the Bangor Daily News, he went with me at
five in the morning, regardless of the weather, and never
complained.
On lazy summer days, he’d cool off
with me in the Kenduskeag Stream, and later we’d lounge together in
the shade of a giant pine. At Bangor High School I took up cross
country running, and I’d jog all over town with Bannon always at my
side. He’d even keep up when I bicycled, and when I got my driver’s
license he rode shotgun in my dad’s 1942 Buick Roadmaster. Driving
that beautiful old tank was heaven, but having Bannon riding with me
made it all the better.
A group of bullies thought they’d
kick my ass one spring day as I was heading to the new auditorium to
meet Dad, but there was Bannon to protect me. He drew blood from all
three before they backed off. You can imagine how miserable my
friend and protector was when the school wouldn’t allow him in for
my graduation; he had to wait out in the old Buick. He was always
miserable when I had to go anywhere he wasn’t allowed, and doubly
ecstatic when I came out and we were together again.
I took a job out of school driving
a delivery truck for a hardware company on the waterfront, which
meant Bannon had to stay at our apartment alone all day. My guilt
wasn’t completely alleviated even when I came through the door to
his happy barking, as he jumped on me like Dino in the Flintstone
cartoons. I mentioned it to my boss and he didn’t see why Bannon
couldn’t ride with me. From then on, Bannon was there in that ’48
Ford F-1, proud as ever, my faithful co-pilot. He still got left
home alone sometimes, like when I attended classes downtown at Beal
College in slow pursuit of a business degree, but otherwise we were
inseparable.
The years rolled by as I got older.
They put up a big Fiberglas statue of Paul Bunyan in Bass Park, but
I didn’t care much about local developments; I’d discovered women.
Girlfriends came and went; if I was lucky, they visited my
apartment. Bannon always understood my needs, and he grudgingly
accepted them. But once the women left the apartment, I was always
forgiven.
My grandfather, who had worked deep
in the North Maine Woods at the turn of the century, died in 1961.
It was my first death experience; Grandpa John was my only living
relative besides my parents, and I’d never had to handle such a
trauma. But people die, my father said as he comforted me, and
things change. And there’s nothing we can do but accept it and
change with them.
Big changes were coming to Bangor
in 1963, with urban renewal on the verge of destroying most of the
city’s character. But a bigger change happened to me: Bannon got
sick. He’d been so healthy despite the increase of gray in his fur,
but one day he couldn’t stand and wouldn’t eat. I immediately took
him to his vet—Dr. Mallory, who practiced for years over the river
in Brewer—and discovered the shocking truth: Bannon was old. He was
arthritic. His heart was weak. His liver was failing. I was crushed,
and my own heart almost gave out when Dr. Mallory recommended
putting Bannon down.
There was no way I could do that to
my best friend. When Bannon decided to leave this world, he’d go,
and I wouldn’t hurry him along. I took him home with bottles of
medicine and prepared for my best friend in the whole world to die.
He got worse every day. I think he
knew it was coming, but he kept struggling with his pained body to
come to me, to sit with me on the couch, to follow me around… to
just be with me, no matter what.
The final night of his life
arrived. I knew he’d go in his sleep, and I knew I had to sit with
him. I lay with him on my bed, listening to his short, labored
breaths, and I held him. And I started crying.
He looked up at me through hazy
eyes, sad and confused, as I bawled like a baby and told him how
much I loved him, how he was my best friend, and how I couldn’t live
without him. I held him tightly, and I know he could sense what I
was thinking.
“I don’t want you to go,” I said
amidst my tears. “You’ve made me who I am, Bannon… I can’t be me
without you.”
I fell asleep that night with my
arms wrapped around him like that eleven-year-old little boy back in
1951.
#
I woke the next morning to Bannon
excitedly lapping my face. It took me a moment to figure out what
was happening, and when my head cleared, I realized he was standing
over me, ears perked up and tongue lolling. He yapped at me as if to
say “Get up, silly, I’m better now.” And he was, too—he looked like
a new dog. In fact, his shiny coat seemed ten years younger, with no
gray at all. His face no longer sagged. His bright eyes sparkled
like stars, and he had all the energy of a puppy.
Dr. Mallory ran all the tests he’d
run the week before. No sign of heart disease, no liver problem, and
no arthritis.
“If I didn’t know better,” Mallory
said, “I’d say this was a different dog.”
Who was I to argue? My best friend
had a new lease on life. He was twelve years old now, and I
understood he probably still didn’t have much time left anyway; but
any time bought was better than nothing.
#
After years of haphazard classes, I
finished school and opened an accounting practice. I should have
worked for someone else until I’d built up a repertoire of clients,
but no accounting firm in town would have let me bring Bannon to
work. The first three years were tough, and I worked a few side jobs
to keep afloat, but I made it. And every day, Bannon was with me. He
took his job as office sentinel as seriously as he had co-piloting
the hardware delivery truck.
I met Linda at an all-night
moonshot party on July 20, 1969. The daughter of a client who owned
a major fish market in Bucksport, just downriver, she was an
astounding woman who accepted everything about me, including Bannon
being my best friend—and eventually my best man. Bannon was a little
nervous at first, especially when Linda moved in, but he adapted. We
honeymooned on Lake Champlain in Vermont in June of 1971, and Bannon
went with us.
I remember the specific date the
second time it happened: October 21, 1975. I’d just watched Carlton
Fisk hit a home run at Fenway in the bottom of the twelfth to win
Game Six of the World Series against the Reds—what many considered
the greatest World Series game ever played. I was flying high with
Red Sox fans all over New England.
But the game had no sooner ended
than Bannon started hacking, and he coughed up some blood. It was
almost like he’d politely waited for the Sox to win the game. I took
him back to the vet early the next morning, to the same Dr. Mallory
who had cared for him since his first checkup in early 1952. Mallory
pronounced Bannon the victim of some horrible gastrointestinal
malady. Further tests indicated a host of other age-related problems
developing.
“It’s to be expected, Jim,” Mallory
said. “Twenty-four years old… that’s pretty rare for a dog.
Especially considering his remarkable recovery twelve years ago.”
Euthanasia was mentioned, but once
again I took Bannon home. It wasn’t tax season, so I could afford to
take a lot of time off. That night I held him and cried, telling him
what he meant to me and how I didn’t want him to go. He looked at me
through his glazed, dying eyes, and I knew he understood how I felt,
and what I meant.
I held him all night long, and I
never even knew the Red Sox lost Game Seven and the World Series.
And I didn’t care. All that mattered was Bannon.
The next morning, he was better. Like before, he seemed a decade
younger. Healthier, more color in his coat, more strength and
energy… almost like he’d been born again. Linda couldn’t believe it,
but somehow I could.
* *
* * * * * *
*
But Bannon's strange ability to cheat
death is only just beginning...
To read the whole story, order
Candlelight #3.
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This
is one of those stories that I wrote and thought everyone would love it
and want to publish it, yet it was rejected by countless publications. At
least most of those rejections came as "I loved it! Just not right for me"
type of rejections. I was very pleased when it was picked up to be in the
final issue of Candlelight.