Chapter Twenty-Six: All Dogs Don’t Go to Heaven
Taylor always had an ambivalent relationship with Rhett Butler Black, a black dachshund who, at the time of his initial “kidnapping,” was six years old. For the first six years of Rhett’s existence he had been a bane to Taylor, and a blessing to Courtney, who was the family’s dog lover. To Courtney, Rhett could do no wrong or so it seemed. Rhett was an irksome mutt to Chad because Rhett, not liking Taylor’s brother, had once climbed up into the open cab of Chad’s truck and left his calling cards on the driver’s seat, both the number one and the number two “cards.”
I certainly had no luck with dogs. I took Courtney’s previous dog Gretchen out for a walk one night and she died on me, keeled over and croaked. Bad heart it seemed. I returned to the house with a dead pooch in my arms and from that time on I became rather fatalistic about animals in my life. But Rhett, like the girls, went back and forth between two houses and, on occasion when Pam’s neighbors complained of Rhett’s barking, Courtney would bring him to sanctuary at my house. But Rhett and Taylor never seemed to hit it off and Rhett, on more than one occasion, had left his calling card in Taylor’s room.
The girls had named the dog after the fictional blockade runner from Charleston in Gone With the Wind although our Rhett yapped as much as Charles Hamilton, I thought. But what child would ever name a dog “Charles Hamilton.” I mean the wimpy guy died of measles for heaven’s sake!
Rhett’s only saving grace, as far as I was concerned, was his penchant for climbing the rubber tree in the backyard. I thought he must be half-cat for he was as sure footed as a feline.
But one day after watching The Princess Bride, Taylor got the idea of kidnapping her sister’s dog. In the film a “rodent of unusual size” or R.O.U.S was mentioned, and the ugly giant rat reminded Taylor of Rhett. So one day after school Taylor got home before Courtney and emailed her the following ransom note:
Courtney,
So you thought you could escape me? NEVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I have your little Rooskie Doodles (which was one of Courtney’s nicknames for Rhett). Yip yip yip! That’s him now. He hasn’t taken much of a liking to his muzzle and little doggie chains that hold him as I allow rabid squirrels to dance in front of his cage, taunting him without end. Well, by now, you know the drill. I DEMAND $100 BAZILLION or I always wanted to know how weinersnitzel (sic) soup tasted and the old man (Dad) here is fattening up your precious little doodlebug every day. So if you ever want to see the little rat again I expect my $ in the next 24 hours. I think that is only fitting that as I write this, The Princess Bride is playing in the background—a sure sign that R.O.U.S. has only a short time left.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Signed
Xxxxxxx
Over the years Taylor repeated the kidnapping of Rhett, grabbing the dog and her bike and cycling to the other parent’s house to drop the dog off.
I admit I was complicit in the kidnapping of Rhett and encouraging Taylor’s mischievous creativity. She put a great deal of love into a practical joke, I thought, and sometimes now I envision her playing practical jokes in heaven, putting one over on St. Peter perhaps.
Later, after Taylor died, my sister-in-law visited Cassadaga, the Psychic Capital of the World in Central Florida, and informed me that Taylor was on the other side helping young souls in the transition from life to death. Like her mother who was an M.S.W., Taylor dreamed of being a social worker and, I like to think, perhaps she was now a “Soul-cial” worker. I don’t dismiss anything anymore. I have had God work in my life and, I truly believe in angels. They may even walk among us. Or fly if you prefer.
Rhett died a few years after Taylor, but the movie title All Dogs Go to Heaven was made before Rhett came along, and if the movie makers had known Rhett they probably would have changed the title to Most Dogs Go to Heaven. Somehow I think Rhett might be yapping his lungs out in the Other Place, for he was a hell of a dog.
* * *
Although Taylor went to public school, she was a member of St. Joseph’s Catholic Church and one day she was asked to speak to the parochial school’s 8th graders about what she had gone through and how her faith had sustained her.
Of course as Taylor’s father when I reread that diary entry I just substituted the pronoun “she” for “he” in the last sentence of her entry.