Murphy's New Home

Murphy’s new home

(For Rich & Sandy. Christ with white hair and the most beautiful smile. God’s choicest servants. This story originally appeared in, “The people of fire.” but I thought with a few changes it could fit in this latest Jack the Nose books. I think the Master really likes these Jack the Nose stories because he keeps waking me up out of my old brown leather chair and hands me another one to write. Jack is great fun and I hope you enjoy him as much as Jesus and I do. F.C. Aug 2020.)

They called him Murphy and the name almost fit. Almost. As dogs go Murphy was a happy one. Not crazy jump up on your car when you pull in the driveway and scratch the paint happy. Not Doug from the movie Up in your face stupid happy. Just happy. Dogs have a spiritual connection with their owners and know when they have finished their errands and turn towards home. Depending on his mood he might be sitting next to the front door in his sphinx position waiting for his masters to come through the door. Or he might be in his donut in the family room and lift an eyebrow when they walked in. His greatest compliment however was to stay sound asleep on his back with his paws pointing towards heaven when they came home trundling the bundles over him as he blocked the hallway into the kitchen.

It was his greatest compliment because what he was saying was, yea, I could roll over, yawn and do the downward dog but we’ve gone way beyond all that. The three of us understand each other like white on rice. She starts a sentence and I bark the rest of it. You start a bagel and when your back is turned, I finish it. When you walk through the door, I show my complete and utter faith in you and have brutally disciplined myself to ignore every doggish instinct hardwired into my DNA to leap awake, bark like an imbecile, slavishly pant, loll my tongue, drool on your shoes and ruin her nylons.

Instead of all that I just lay here in deep trusting sleep. Like Isaac laid on the altar by Abraham I am laying these weary bones on this hard floor trusting you will not step on me with either her killer stilettos or your freakish size twelve’s a normal person would use as water skis.

It goes without saying master and I don’t need to remind you that is a sacred trust between us and once a trust like this is broken it can be almost impossible to repair without lavish praise, endless tugging sessions, hour long walks with unlimited sniffing privileges and no yanking and half the steak still on the bone tossed into my bowl at least …three times! Three or four times. Four is good.

If you looked at it one way it was a kind of a Kayne West you should be honored by my lateness thing. The other way, the Murphy Way was I trust you enough to put it all on the line each and every day. You feel me dog? Murphy was a happy dog. He was not a Cavalier King Charles spaniel. He was a mutt but he was good at soothing jangled nerves. He had a terrier face or at least some terrier in there. He did have some spaniel in him maybe. He probably had a bunch of things in him. His hair was grey and brown with some streaks of black in there. If he were a cat, you would call him Calico. He didn’t shed which was good but you almost wished he did because his hair was unruly in the extreme going every which way. In his eyes, in his teeth, across his back in swirls of color and fur.

Snow didn’t stick to his coat so he could bound through the Illinois drifts and came out clean as a whistle leaving a brown path in his wake. It was like a bird in a dust bath to get rid of fleas. Murph would take a snow romp then walk indoors his coat gleamed with freshness.

He was a skilled psychologist. He could read his master or mistress and tell when there was no joy in Mudville. He’d leap up on the green couch he was not supposed to be on and sit next to them with his face turned away. After a moment they would pet him but he still kept his face turned away. Finally, they would gently turn him to face them and then he had them. Ok he’d say. Now that you’re ready to talk tell Murph all about it. He’d listen with rapt attention and they felt better sharing their burden. Sometimes after one of his counseling sessions he’d nuzzle mama’s glass of wine and she would loudly protest. Then she’d look both ways and whisper, “Okay, just a sip. He’d dip his muzzle and delicately lap up half the glass in a half-minute never once dripping a single drop on the sofa. He was a class lush.