Charlie by Mike Hancock
I swallow another shot of whiskey as I think about the poor dog. Half-dead. Lying on his side, immobile, barely moving as he labors to breathe. His left eye is covered in a milky film from the cataracts that leave him almost blind, and his right eye is only marginally better. His coat has turned to an old matted gray. His body has developed the swayback, malnourished look of all old dogs. But still he lingers, day in and day out, there in the kennel inside the workshop in the backyard. I sit on the bed that I slept in as a child when I came to visit my grandparents. Maw Maw is fast asleep in her bedroom and I’m staring with a drunken focus at the wall, thinking about the dog. Charlie.
Charlie is a wire-haired fox terrier and in his prime was a rambunctious, feisty, lovable little dog. Only Charlie was born crippled, his hind leg deformed. Dad and Maw Maw doubted he would live. There wasn’t just the botched-up leg. He was a runt, one of those undersized puppies which tend to get kicked out of the feeding frenzy and are left to die. So Dad supplemented his mother’s milk with formula from a baby bottle. Did that for the few weeks it took for Charlie to get some density in those fragile bones, and soon he was running around with the rest of them, albeit with a funny little gait. Dad was like that, taking over when others don’t. Dad usually sold most of the pups from his litters, always getting top dollar because of the dogs’ great