Saturday, July 18, 2009

Beaufort



I drive my mother to Boston for her haircut. She kisses Beaufort and I good-bye because she is going on vacation and Beau is coming with me.

Beaufort, Beau, is named after his hometown in Ireland: Beaufort, Co. Kerry. My brother, Patrick, wanted to name him George after the Irish farmer who's farmhouse we were renting when Beau, the runt of George's Border Collie litter, zealously ran into the kitchen and leapt onto Mom's lap. Four summers later in Massachusetts, Beau is herding blue birds, bugs, squirrels and Ford pickup trucks.


Today, the radio is temporarily broken and the cars on 93 South resemble babies crawling through sand for the first time. Oh and I only have two gallons of gas in the tank. When I can, I bumper to bumper off the highway and pull into the closest gas station. I reroute the GPS and the British boy inside the machine (a voice we chose and downloaded) tells me to take a right out of the parking lot. I do. The boy proceeds to guide me through every notoriously dangerous neighborhood of Boston.

In the backseat, Beau anticipates the kennel. In the front seat, I anticipate to be shot. To pass the discomfort of long red lights, I begin to sing every song I know. Beau's eyes close. So I sing until my seat belt is unbuckled.


Inside his crate that night, Beau begins to cry. So I sing. My songs keep him from crying, but they do not keep him from farting and Beau's below the tail blows boom an inconsistent drum line to every song I sing. I sing until he is asleep.

At 1:30 a.m., Scott climbs out of bed and Beau nearly turns over the crate with excitement. Morning? I think he thinks. I let him out for a moment, but once out, he begins gagging and coughing. We take him into the small bathroom across the hall and roll up the rugs. Beau circles the bathroom spitting up. I follow him with damp toilet paper. When there is a dry moment, we run to find our pants and glasses.

Outside, the sky busily makes rain, lightning and thunder. On one side of the driveway, Beau hunches over, spitting up. On the other side, my husband, Scott, hunches over, sneezing. Beneath the shelter of the garage, I stand watching.


At 6:30 a.m., I wake up and open Beau's crate. After he pees outside, we run back in, jump into bed and sleep for two more hours.

Later in the day, I call Mom. "It was trash day, yesterday. He probably just ate some trash, he'll be fine." That explains it.

2 comments:

  1. OH, my God, Rachel! I sat here all by myself getting visuals and laughing out loud. You are good, girl! You better start submitting this stuff to someone to be published!

    Love, Kathy

    ReplyDelete
  2. I just read it again - this is a riot!!

    ReplyDelete

A Wise Friend

A wise friend is akin to a book of old wisdom.  A book of bone and soul and skin. A book that breathes and speaks and eats. A book with a so...