Bushington’s Box

    He’s dead, we think.   Maybe, but dogs are burrowing creatures and Bushington was or maybe is a rascal and we keep finding things.  Now, if he was a normal dog, we might find treats, bones, perhaps a small dead animal, but he was/is Bushington.  You know how you look at certain things and it reminds you of what happened with that thing, like the teddy bear that was a gift from your deceased grandmother.   So, we go through the house and find oddities of Bushington and it brings back some memories and secrets we never knew.  

     So, I pull down the stairs to the attic and look in Bushington’s safe where he kept his PDA, but again, his PDA is gone.   So, I feel the bottom of the case and the bottom right moves:  It’s a false bottom. So, after some prodding and pulling, I pull the false bottom out and then I see them:   pictures somehow torn from magazines (I think) and I don’t mean pornography, but things we wouldn’t let Bushington have. 

      The first thing on the pile is a real estate ad.  Bushington had a home; our home was his home, but he wanted his own, wanted independence.  He wanted responsibility.  What kind of dog wants that?   Maybe it’s like the kid that wants a pet, but then doesn’t walk it, feed it, or play with it.  We did all those things with Bushington.  

     As I look further in the chess, I see a picture of a dog in a pink tutu and beside this dog are six chihuahua puppies.  You were fixed, Bushington; you couldn’t have puppies.  Besides, we’d have to potty train them and we didn’t want more dogs.  We wanted you, Bushington, even though you were a PITA (Pain in the A#%).  

     Underneath this is one of the college applications you tried to fill out.  The University of Ottawa. It said you wanted to get a degree in medical engineering.  That doesn’t make sense either.   A degree, a house, a girl dog, puppies, it’s like you thought you were human. I mean, you did use a PDA and escape from my office, but you were a dog.  A naughty dog at times, but a dog nonetheless. 

    There’s some loose change in the bottom of the basket,  but nothing to write home about.  

*

    This is Bushington or Bushington’s Spirit, depending on how you read the last stories.  Daddy thinks he knows everything, but he’s wrong and I left clues around the house in what could be called a time capsule, but it’s spread around the house like a jigsaw puzzle. My nickname on the street was Picaro.  Imagine a scavenger hunt time capsule, that’s what I gave my adopted family.  Well, they adopted me, but, you understand.  I left a scattered time capsule.  

*

    So, I show the family the things Bushington hid.  Then, Sean says he thinks he recognizes the dog in the tutu, but it was in a magazine (I think), so maybe Sean read the magazine and threw it out before Bushington stole it from the trash.  Maybe.  

    But we keep finding things.  Once, dinner was done and my wife put the orange peels in the garbage disposal.  The disposal ground, slowed, then stopped.  She tried turning the water hot, but it didn’t work, so we called the plumber.

    The plumber finds handcuffs with a book explaining how to escape any lock.  Maybe that’s how he got out of his collar/leash.  Maybe.  I thought he just wiggled out.  But he studied this.  Then, further down the drain the plumber finds a book in a plastic grocery bag by Harry Houdini about how to get out of straight jackets and pick locks.   Escape?  Escape where?   Why?

*

    I was tired of having no control.  This family kept trying to control me.  Decide where’d I’d be and what I’d do.  It gets old and so was I.  After a certain age, no one would want to have puppies with me and I couldn’t mount anyone, because I’d get arthritis.  I’d seen it in the dog park 56 times.  So, I planned my escape, I planned the reverse neutering, but “ the well laid plans of mice and” dogs. . . 

*

    We kept searching.  What was Bushington thinking?   Then, we found on page 257 of Houdini a picture of the dog that was in the pink tutu upstairs, but she had on I white dress with a dress train.  Why a train?   He didn’t.   We hadn’t gone on vacation in years and besides, he was neutered, so there’s no way.  There’s no way.  

     Then, after two weeks, we found it.  There was a corner of a rug in the family room, which wasn’t glued down well and underneath the rug was a door that opened up.  Think about a door opening the opposite of the attic door.  Under the door was a framed sheet of paper.  Believe it or not, Bushington had gotten a marriage license.  What kind of a moron would give a marriage license to a dog?   But, who and where is, I looked at the license:   Merry J. Smith?  

     I tried looking in the phone book and there are over 200 people with the last name Smith:   It’s  hopeless.   I don’t know if Bushington really had a wife or if this was more bulls#%^.   Maybe a fantasy?   But, a few days later, I walk outside and see a neighbor walking a dog and it looks like Merry, so I stop the lady walking Merry and ask what her (the woman, not Mary) name is and it’s Bob (short for Roberta).  I ask Bob if Merry has puppies and Bob looks at me puzzled

     “How did you know my dog’s name?” she asks. 

     “Does she have puppies?” I ask. 

      “Yeah and I don’t know how.  She got fixed,” Bob says. 

      “Who’s the puppies’ dad?” I ask? 

      “I don’t know.   I always had her inside, but . .”

      And then I thought of Bushington’s book by Houdini.   Bad Bushington.  

    But Bob and I talked about it.   Even though he could be a son-of-a-bitch, my family and I did still love and miss Bushington (considering he’s really dead), so me and my family decided to look at the puppies (for adoption)?and there was one that had a mischievous smile and a certain look in his eye.   He licked Roberta and we decided to take him  home.  And if we thought Bushington was bad . . .