March 14, 2013
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Ella
This is my father’s old friend, Ella. I run down to Haleyville on average about two to three times a year, often short visits that involve a lot of driving to get there and back, and I tend to have other things to think about besides the neigbhbor’s dog. And change happens slowly in Alabama. Those of you who have read my musings for a long time probably know Ella’s story.
In the beginning she belonged in the house known as “Joys”, which is a cross between a.) Yankee listening to a Northwestern Alabama drawl and cutting out (this time) a few too many vowels, and b.) the habit of referring to entire families, their possessions, probable geographic locations and even their worldview all under the umbrella of the name of one individual. “Joys,” drawled over an Alabamian tongue has more vowels than I can properly represent (that same tongue can load three vowels at least into the word ’here’ AND turn it into a question at the end) but it sounds to my deadened ear like ‘Joyce’. I lost a whole string of conversation with Waylon and Betty about dogs in the neighborhood because I was wondering who the hell ‘Joyce’ was. What she was actually saying was “Joey’s.” Joey lives on one side of the drug dealer’s house, Betty and Waylon live in the other side. And in the beginning, Ella lived at Joey’s.
Okay, I skipped a step. “Joey’s” includes Joey, Tina, Matthew, Matthew’s younger brother and Matthew’s younger sister. There may be a fourth child. Ella was Matthew’s younger sister’s dog. I sadly don’t remember the child’s name. And the whole progression made perfect sense. They are an active family and Ella came without proper dog manners and they adapted around her. Ella informed them she was a member of Neighborhood Watch and needed to be outside at night, so they chained her in the back yard. This did not suit, so she barked. All night. Night after night. “Joey’s” began to enjoy a little negative evening press. So they just opened the door and out she ran.
And ran. And ran. And ran. And–this will surprise you–when she came home again, she sported a suspicious belly bulge, which turned into six puppies, some of which found new homes and at least one of which moved down the street and continued to roam the neighborhood for another two years.
Dogs in the neighborhood began ‘clumping up’. I know this because Jenell fussed about it. Everywhere we turned, there were dogs clumping up (meaning there were three and four dogs wandering the neighborhood where once there was only one.) Dogs began volunteering to live on or near Maple Street in Haleyville, Alabama. This was attributed to some unnamed woman down the street who was notorious for just randomly feeding dogs whether they were hers or not, but I never met the woman and her name was one of those uniquely Southern names which, wrapped in a Northwestern Alabama drawl and drenched in vowels, I never was able to translate into any Yankee equivalent.
Betty and Jenell ‘clumped up’ and whisked Ella to a vet, successfully ending her puppy-making career. And then because she was supposed to stay ‘quiet’ for a few days, Ella went inside Betty’s fence to be tended to. This happened at least five years ago. Now when I got to Maple street and look around for Ella, as often as not I find her inside Betty and Waylon’s fence. She no longer barks at night, keeping the neighborhood awake, because she has a chair in Betty’s guest bedroom where she nests instead. They do let her out during the day, and when they let her out, Ella patrols her neighborhood, one stop always being to check to see if my dad happens to be outside. If he is, she sits on him.
The last time I was in Alabama was sometime last spring. There were five or six dogs clumped on the edges of people’s lawns. When I asked whose dogs they were, the white one belongs down the street, and the others were unknowns. One of those unknowns had been around for two years. This time I didn’t see him. In fact, I didn’t see very many strays at all, at least on Maple street. I saw Ella. The white dog. And I heard a great deal about a new dog in the neighborhood who lives over at ‘Joy’s.’
Yes. Joey and his busy family were coming home from Florence when they found three puppies beside the road. Two were dead: the third one they brought right on home with them because ‘the kids’ wouldn’t leave him. And then, apparently, they tied him in the back yard.
It gets complicated from there because: there is the drug dealer’s house (which used to be Melissa’s, and is now empty because the drug dealers–who may or may not actually deal drugs–had their electricity cut off a month ago and so they disappeared, reappearing at odd times during the day and night to apparently just sit in their old driveway and remember the good times) and then there is Waylon and Betty’s house. Waylon and Betty have very firm ideas on how you should treat a dog. You should feed it, in their estimation. You should give it water. You should never put it on a chain. Ever.
It also gets complicated because while Betty was describing the discussions that went on between near-neighbors about the treatment of their dog, she referred to the person she complained to as “Joys”, but her specific conversation appeared to take place with Tina. I knew where Tina lived: I did not know where Joyce lived. I expect some of the flavor of her story was lost on me. It appears that Joey’s have a new dog (that’s exactly how they say it “Joey’s have a new dog” just like, “I need to carry her on down to Birmingham”) and every day Waylon and/or Betty walk over the hill and feed and water Joey’s dog. I don’t know for a fact that Joey’s don’t feed or water their dog: I know that Waylon and or Betty do. And I know that as it gets warmer outside, that chain is going to become a bigger issue.
So the next time I go to Alabama, I expect to find Chloe, who started out as BettyandWaylon’s dog, Taco, who Waylon found for Betty recently to remind her of a dog she lost a long time ago, Ella, who is Joey’s dog, and a long-haired, “pretty” maybe-border-collie-mix all living happily behind Betty and Waylon’s fence.
Rescue done slightly differently in the South, but a rescue, nonetheless.
