JACK

I can’t think of anything interesting to write about. Not much is happening here in the Caicos islands. Providenciales is about what I expected. It’s ballooned from less than a thousand souls when I visited thirty years ago to over twenty-thousand residents. Her staggering number of resorts are heavily dependent on tourism and they are seriously feeling the pinch. So I decided to employ my "Way Back Machine". I’d hate to lose my audience, assuming you’re even out there.

Boot Key Harbor
There’s been a dog yapping in the anchorage for the past hour. It started when a security alarm went off inside one of the beach houses. The boat owner’s dinghy is up on the shore, well out of earshot of the incessant yowling. I can see having a cat onboard in case of mice. But a dog? I don’t get it. They tend to fall overboard for one thing. Come to think of it, so do cats. But they’re strong swimmers. One couple keeps a net slung over their stern. Some mornings they awaken to a very pissed off wet pussy. 
However when a pooch goes in, that’s it. You gotta fish ‘em out. Our buddy Bob was recently roused in the dead of the night. Something was slapping against the side of his boat. He almost disregarded it, but decided to grab a light and went outside. Bobbing in the beam was his Jack Russell barely treading water.
I’m pet-less and proud. It is too much responsibility, for openers. But I had a dog once; “Jack.” This is his story:
Home was a tiny bungalow near downtown Atlanta. Towering sky scrappers were visible from my front porch. The neighborhood though was a bit eclectic. We had renegade chickens for starters. They lived down the street on the land trust, along with some goats, a sweat lodge, a drumming circle and a tree-climbing society. It was Northern California with a southern twang. The chickens would occasionally wander off of the property and cruise the neighborhood. Then a naïve neighbor started feeding them, so they began showing up daily. Eggs began appearing under her bushes, then they hatched. Soon scores of baby chicks covered the quarter. The hens did the best they could to muster them. Unfortunately, our street was a popular cut through for frustrated commuters. Small splotches crowned with yellowy down soon littered the road. I had a couple of “Caution. Chicken Crossing.” signs made to no avail.
Next door to me lived Melvin, along with his aging mother in her house. Melvin was pretty useless. He subsisted by being on the dole after he had successfully claimed a bogus injury from his all too brief employment phase. His chosen profession was alcoholism. At this he excelled. You’d hear the first can crack open around 10 a.m. The pop would continue throughout the day. Around sundown, a quart bottle would appear. The gurgling would last into the wee hours, often accompanied by him screaming at invisible demons in the darkness. 
Mamma disapproved, or so I heard. You never actually saw her. Hitchcock’s “Psycho” came to mind, but a neighbor told me that Mamma did indeed exist; however, she was deathly afraid to leave the confines of the house.
One morning a rosy little puppy appeared on their porch. Dwight, Melvin’s drinking buddy when he wasn’t in the slammer, filled me in on why. Melvin would frequently pass out in his living room with the door wide open and Mamma was afraid of being robbed. So Melvin took a cab to the dog pound. After spending two weeks on the porch, the pup disappeared. That’s when I heard howling coming from over their fence where t hapless pup had been chained to a tree with a short lead. It turns out Mamma was also afraid of dogs, so it got relegated to the back yard. And there he remained in the winter wind, rain and cold, completely freaked out.
This I couldn’t allow. I hatched a plan to snatch him. I considered it fool proof. I even had a safe house. Late one evening, I stood in my kitchen steaming hot dogs. In these I secreted dog tranquilizers I’d gotten from a sympathetic vet. Over the fence they went. I heard the animal greedily scarfing them down. Then I went to bed. At 4 a.m. I woke up and donned my darkest attire. I peered over the fence. The pooch was passed out cold. A few well thrown rocks confirmed it. Chain cutters in hand, I stole around to their side yard. I was a foot away and about to cut the chain when he awoke, barking furiously. Mission aborted, I leapt the fence and dove back into my house where I heard Mamma holler for Melvin who snored peacefully on the front porch.
Life can be blessed with irony and a week later an ambulance pulled up to my curb and two attendants loaded Melvin into it. The neighbor filled me in. The previous night's weather had been especially bitter. Blind drunk, Melvin had stumbled out the back door where he tripped and fell, likely over the dog chain. He was instantly paralyzed.
“Mamma” he droned in the dark of night. 
“Melvin?” she answered from the safe confines of her bedroom.
The neighbor said the dialog repeated itself throughout the cold night, because Mamma wouldn’t leave the house.
In the morning, the neighbor noticed him lying in his back yard covered with a thin layer of frost. She called 911. 
The following day a group of relatives reluctantly appeared. They’d come to figure out what to do about Mamma. She refused to leave; not because she loved it there. She just wouldn’t venture out of the door. A cousin agreed to stay with her until things were sorted out, but the dog had to go; Mamma insisted.
“Know anyone who might take it?” the cousin asked me.
“Sure” I replied. “I believe I can help y’all out.”
And that’s how I got Jack.