Here Goes Everything

I decided to post this on my blog because this is the story that started my whole career as a writer. I was a guest contributor on my best friend Bishop’s blog. But now he doesn’t have a blog so Mom thought it was a good idea to put it here. For posterities. (Whatever those are.) And also so you can meet my dad and Bishop. That is where I am now. Mom is in New York so I am with my dad. She texted Dad to kiss me and tell me I could call collect. She’s so weird. I can’t call. (I’m a dog, remember?) But i do collect rocks, if that’s what she means…

Well, here it is: the beginning of the beginning.

If you know Bishop you already know me because I am Bishop’s Best Friend and we are Always Together. In fact, we spend so much time together that his dad, Jason—that’s Mister Jason Ajax Mercer to you—is my dad, too. Well, not really. I don’t have a dad. My mom is a single dogmother. She says Jason is her Doggie Daddy but they’re not getting married no matter how much I hope and pray for it. Still, “Dad,” as I like to call him, tells people that he has one and a half dogs. I’m the half. I used to think that he was selling me short, or light, but it’s actually just right because I weigh half of what Bishop weighs. But enough about math, and enough about my very favorite subject (besides food): me.

I'm the little brown guy with his eyes open. I wouldn't want to miss anything! Everything is so exciting!

I met Bishop when I was zero years old and he was one and I used to fit under his four legs like we were two pieces in an eight-legged beast puzzle. From the very beginning Bishop was very nice to me even during a phase of my life that lasted 20 percent of my life so far when the most fun thing in the whole world for me to do was to bite on Bishop’s face—and most especially his ears. We like to play so much that sometimes Dad comes over to my house to fetch me just so I can keep Bishop company because otherwise Bishop sits and whines because he wants to play and Dad has to get kibble on the table—actually in the bowl (Bishop is NOT allowed to eat from the table)—and he can’t spend his whole life entertaining his dog.

So that’s the past. Last June, my mom put me in a plastic box, shoved a pill down my throat, and gave me to a man in a big cold building. Then I got thrown around and the whole world got dark and when I woke up, people were saying things like: “ciao!” and “gelato!” and “dove vai? I learned to pick blackberries and eat prosciutto and then I came back but I don’t know how long it was because I am a dog and dogs have no concept of time. So anyway, what I’m trying to get to here is Bishop it’s just that sometimes I get ‘stracted. It’s just who I am. Mom says it’s my puppy nature.

When I got back, Bishop seemed like the same ol’ bossy big brother to me, pulling at the leash when my mom told him to heel, barking like there was no tomorrow every time a human being walked by, and the thing my mom hates most: shedding! I didn’t know he was sick but then one day my mom was walking us on the hillside above our house called Hightower where all the houses have no streets, just pathways. Me and Bishop love it there because there is a mean fighting fluffy cat behind a fence that likes to terrorize us—but not as much as we like to terrorize him. So we were walking one day, and then suddenly there was a big drop of blood-red blood on my fuzzy snout. My mom thought I was injured, and she gasped, but then she saw that there was no cut under the blood. She did some ‘vestigating and found out that the blood had dripped from Bishop’s nose.

Dad said this had been happening a lot lately. And that he had been sneezing all summer long, which Little Jason—you have to be named Jason to be friends with my dad— thought was because Bishop was happy to see him. (People can be so weird.) The next day they took him to the doctor to see if there was a stick up his nose. Unfortunately there wasn’t. That’s when I learned that if there’s no stick up your nose, it means you have sinus cancer, which is what Bishop has. People say this is sad but I don’t know why. The only thing that has changed is that Bishop has no hair on his face. They said it’s because his future is shorter. I don’t know why this is sad. I am short, and I am never sad. Never. Except when Mom leaves. But then she is gone, and I forget to be sad. it works out very well.

I Am Special, Like the Olympics

Maybe I should have told you this before, but it just didn’t seem important. I am a Labradoodle. Actually, I am a miniature Labradoodle. Mom says people only hear what they want to hear and I guess they don’t want to hear the word “miniature” because when anyone asks my mom what I am, she says: “He is a miniature Labradoodle,” and they say: “Really? My friends have a Labraodoodle but he is twice as big,” and Mom says, “That’s because he is a mini” and they say, “Oh! Wow!”

Lots of people have never heard of Labradoodles, which is kind of surprising, I think, but Mom says that’s okay because Sara Palin doesn’t know that Africa is a continent.

A Labradoodle is just like what it sounds: a cross between a Labrador and a doodle. Oops. I mean a poodle. My real dad was a 14-pound poodle the color of a Hershey’s chocolate bar (yum!), and my mom was a 38-pound Labradoodle. She was beeeeeeeautiful. She had long wavy hair the color of whipped cream and peanut butter mixed together. She was so pretty and she smelled so good and I loved her so much that I licked her face all day long until one day my new mom came and kidnapped me.

Let me ‘splain. I was born on a fancy farm in Virginia with big black gates, where lots of baby doggies are born. One day, I was playing with my brothers when we were so little that none of us even had names but still I knew who they were. We didn’t put labels on each other. We just played and peed and pooped and slept and played and peed and pooped and slept. Oh, and we ate a lot. So one day we were playing as usual when one of the two-legged humans who came to give us food picked me up and handed me to another two-legged human with hair just like mine. I was scared at first but then I licked her face and I forgot everything before because I am a dog and dogs live in the moment.
She put me in the big metal machine that goes places. We stayed there for a long, long time because Mom said we had to go to Yew Nork, where I was going to live. I was a good boy and even when I peed on my Aunt Christy, they said I was a good boy. People are very funny but I don’t mean funny-funny. I mean funny-weird.

After I was kidnapped, the human person was my mom. She is much taller than me and she stands on two legs but her hair is just the same as mine, which is no coincidence. She says she picked me on purpose because she said that she didn’t want me to know I was adopted until I was older. I guess I am older now because I know, but the truth is I knew from the Beginning of Knowing. I am a dog and she is a human person so how could I not be adopted? Just because I am a dog doesn’t mean I am stupid.

My hair is the color of dulce de leche. It feels stiff like dried twigs instead of fuzzy, like socks (which I like a lot, a lot). Some people say I am “wiry” but I don’t know what that means because it is the only hair I ever had. Actually, that is not true. I change hair all the time. We call it “shedding” I’m not supposed to shed but mom says that’s what makes me Special. Like the Olympics.

I Am Happy

Hi, my name is Rufus, but you know that already. Right now, as I write this, I am wearing a bandana and waiting for the bus. I am going to camp. Or at least Mom hopes I am. My brother Bishop is going, too. He’s here right now because his dad, who is my dad, too, went to TenC. That’s a state, and that’s where his mom and dad live so that’s where he goes every year when it’s cold to get presents from a tree. Mom says that I wasn’t on the pick-up list for camp. Thankfully, the van is coming to our house to pick up Bishop so Mom is hoping they will take me too. She put a bandana on me, she says, for two reasons. One is that I am going to camp and she says people always wear bandanas to camp. The second reason is that Mom wants me to look extra cute to make sure they take me.

The truth is that I don’t want to go to camp. It’s snowing there. I don’t know what snow is but Mom says it falls from the sky and it’s frozen. I hope it tastes like ice cream. The reason i don’t want to go though isn’t because of the falling ice cream. It’s because I want to stay right where I am, cuddled up like a Potato Bug on my mom’s lap. She says I have to go becasue her lap won’t be here tomorrow, but I don’t know what tomorrow is because I am a dog so I live only for Today. Mom is going to New York, which is a small box with two rooms and three windows. I like it there even though it is a small box and I don’t have any dog friends there because I get to go to restaurants. Still, I like it here better. I like Here better no matter where I am. Mom says that’s the secret to my happiness but she’s wrong. The secret to my happiness is that I am happy.

My Name is Rufus

Hi, my name is Rufus and I am a dog. My writing career began yesterday, when I wrote a good-bye letter to my friends Ado and Bingo.  (They are dogs, too, and they are Italian. I have been in Italy for six months and they are my best Italian friends.) I never wanted to be a writer. I always just wanted to be me, which I found quite easy and very enjoyable. But then I felt a strong urge—exactly like how I feel when there’s a peanut butter jar open on the counter—to write to that letter.

I always knew I liked doing things. For instance, I like to lick people. I like to dig. And I like to play with rocks. (I love rocks. I’ll tell you about that later.) As I was writing to Ado and Bingo, I found that I liked that, too, and that I also had a lot to say. I wanted to ‘spress myself. Then my Aunt Tori, who is a writing teacher, told my mom she thought I had talent, so I decided to give it a try. I hope to make money off it one day.

I am not really an overnight success even though it might seem that way and the reason is because I am a dog and in dog days, I have been a writer for exactly two weeks. Still, my mom has been a writer for way longer than two weeks even in dog days—or even flea days—so even though she says she is proud of me, deep down, I think she might be a little jealous.

This is me, Rufus. I have a beard. I look like this pretty much all the time.