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The waning weeks of my parents’ brief and unseemly marriage included an attempt by my stepfather Bobby to make amends with my sister, who despised him. She called him “The Dashing Dumbbell” and “Tall, Dark, and Dull.”
She would constantly question our mom Rosie about the marriage. “Mom, he may be good-looking, but he’s the dullest human being I have ever known,” she often said. “He has no hobbies or friends, and just sits on the couch, smoking his smelly pipe, clearing his throat ‘ahem’ every ten seconds, reading his Archie and Jughead comic books and mumbling ‘Ein, shtein, shtein shtein -whoops!’ every time he reads anything funny. It’s like something out of The Twilight Zone!”
Accordingly, I believe Bobby’s attempt at making amends with my sister was actually a passive-aggressive act of vengeance when he presented her with a cute little white cocker spaniel mix puppy for her birthday.
She promptly named the puppy “Mimsy,” which I soon changed to “The Demonic Dog.” While most puppies are playful, Mimsy would growl and bite at the slightest touch. Her aggression usurped every attempt at discipline.
She also wouldn’t eat.
So we took her to a vet, wearing heavy gloves to avoid bites. The dog snarled and promptly bit the vet, drawing blood. The vet then sedated the dog and examined her overnight, finding nothing physically wrong. She suggested that the dog may be suffering from a rare condition called “rage syndrome,” which caused Mimsy’s hyper aggression along with her manic and unending barking.
The vet supplied special doggie treats to increase Mimsy’s appetite, which the dog sniffed and ignored. (I eventually found out, purely by accident, that she would eat McDonald’s burger patties. Hence, I would purchase 14 Big Macs a week, seven for Mimsy and seven for me.)
My sister, fearing that the dangerous dog might be euthanized, carefully removed her from the vet, and claimed, “My brother and I will care for Mimsy,” which was sister talk for “I’m outta here.”
Thereafter, I became Mimsy’s owner/ exorcist, and learned to cope with her demonic behavior. I quickly found that she could not be left alone, indoors or out, as her frenzied, continuous barking drove us and our neighbors apoplectic. Her barking affliction set the stage for a horrendous Father’s Day ordeal.
It began when my Italian American stepfamily’s beautiful, raven-tressed princess, Cousin Donna, decided that she would prepare her father—Uncle Dante—his favorite dish, stuffed breast of veal, for Father’s Day.
When I arrived at my Nonna Kate’s Broadway Victorian, Cousin Donna was furiously cooking in the fragrant kitchen, while her mom, Aunt Margaret, supervised. She was so busy that she didn’t insult me with her usual zinger, “Here he is, the fat wonder!” Instead, she handed me a slice of very tender, savory veal and said, “Taste this.” I gobbled it down and began to praise its deliciousness, which Cousin Donna appreciated.
Suddenly, I heard Mimsy’s frenzied barking, as I had left her outside in the back yard. I also heard grouchy Uncle Mingo yell, “Shut that gawdam dog up! I can’t hear myself think!”
I had to move quickly, but Aunt Margaret stopped me and said, “Gil, we can’t find Dante. He usually goes to the Club House Bar on Park Street, but they won’t answer the phone. Maybe you can walk your little dog over there and tell him to come home for dinner?”
Just as Uncle Mingo yelled, “Gil! Gawwwdammit!” I grabbed my ill-fitting white Stetson hat, pulled up my ill-fitting baggy jeans, and walked downstairs in my equally ill-fitting too-small fancy cowboy boots, which made me walk pigeon toed. My mom had purchased the clothing and boots from a “Big and Tall” mail order catalog, and nothing fit.
When I got downstairs, Uncle Mingo looked at me, laughed, and asked, “Why are you dressed like a fat cowboy? You’re so big that your horse would have to ride you! Now get that noisy mutt the hell out of here!”
I grabbed Mimsy’s leash and let her drag me out of the backyard, down Broadway to San Jose Avenue, then northwest to Park Street. We crossed Park Street near Williams Brothers Market (now AutoZone), and up Park Street to the Club House bar. I held Mimsy’s leash in my teeth, pulled up my loose pants, pulled down my loose Stetson, and opened the door.
Forgetting that I had the leash in my mouth, I yelled, “Hey Uncle Dante!” With that, Mimsy pulled free and began trotting and sniffing up Park Street.
Just as I bellowed, “Oh no!” my Stetson immediately fell off and my pants fell to my ankles, revealing my red and white polka-dot undershorts. The bar denizens went into drunken, vocal hysterics.
“They say everything’s bigger in Texas, but not that big!”
“Hey cowpoke, you better lasso them britches of yours, you’re indecent!”
“Hey cowboy, don’t they have tailors in Texas?”
As their fun (at my expense) went on, the bartender yelled, “Dante’s on a roll! He left a while ago. Go check the Buckhorn (now Lucky 13) and the Pop Inn. He’s too loaded to go further than that.”
I thanked her, pulled up my pants, put on my Stetson, and walked outside, where to my amazement, Mimsy greeted me with a snarl and a bark. As I happily bent over to grab her leash, she took off again, charging up Park Street toward Encinal Avenue.
Stumbling painfully forward, pigeon-toed, I tried yelling at her with the special names I had given her. “Come here, Mimsy, little tunja bunja, little ooja booja maker! Come here, daddy’s little noodge!”
Mimsy ignored me and kept on trotting, across Encinal Avenue against the light.
“Oh no!” I yelled again, as car brakes screeched and horns honked. When the smoke cleared, Mimsy sat on the corner looking for me, in front of the Buckhorn.
Then I heard, “Hey buddy, pull up your pants!”
A customer of Universal Liquors across the street had witnessed my procession with great disdain. He kept on yelling. “What are you, some kind of exhibitionist? Walking down the street in your drawers, mumbling a bunch of nonsense? Pull those pants up before I call the law!”
I waved at him, yelled, “Sorry!” and then pulled up my pants as I trudged wearily toward the wayward dog.
Mimsy waited outside the Buckhorn but when I crossed Encinal Avenue toward her, she bolted back up Park Street toward Central Avenue. When I opened the Buckhorn’s door and yelled for Dante, a wag at the bar yelled, “Hey Marshall Dillon, your pants are falling down. Want to buy my belt? Twenty bucks!”
As his inebriated buddies roared with laughter, the bartender told me where I could find Dante. “He’s at the Pop Inn. Don’t let him drive!”
As I walked out the Buckhorn door, I saw Mimsy waiting. She yipped at me and took off again. How she managed to make it almost to the Pop Inn (now Mo’s Wine Bar) by crossing Central and Santa Clara avenues and not getting hit by a car is a miracle.
She saw me enter the bar, holding my pants with both hands. I glanced over to the Pop Inn’s legendary “Hangover Square” and saw Uncle Dante, very deep in his cups. Because of the Stetson, the bartender couldn’t see my young face and detain me, so I walked up to Uncle Dante, grabbed his arm, and whispered to him, “Uncle Dante, it’s Gil, your nephew. Your daughter made a special Father’s Day dinner, stuffed veal, so give me your keys and let’s go.”
Surprisingly, he didn’t demand another drink, and quietly followed me out the back door, to where his van was parked. I locked him in the passenger’s seat, said, “Wait a minute,” then sneaked down the alley that led from the rear of the bar to Park Street.
Sure enough, Mimsy was waiting by the bar’s front door, and to my great fortune, she was distracted by a couple walking toward her. She began growling and barking at them as I stealthily grabbed her leash. She whipped around, snarled, and tried to bite me, but I was too fast and got behind her. I pulled her back up the alley, grabbed her midsection, and placed her in the back of Uncle Dante’s van.
I drove to Nonna Kate’s house, and carefully walked Uncle Dante into the dining room, where the rest of the family was waiting and applauded.
Then I excused myself and went back to the van to tend to the frenetically barking Mimsy. Before I opened the rear door, I yelled, “Mimsy is a good dog, her daddy’s little ooja booja maker.”
But Mimsy didn’t respect her daddy on Father’s Day. She leapt from the van and trotted away, never to return.
The story is true, and some of it happened at [email protected]. Gil’s writing is collected at AlamedaPost.com/Gil-Michaels.
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