Mac, by Whitney Farmer – Un Pop Culture

December 7, 2011 Whitney Farmer 9 Comments

Whitney runs a rock music venue on the beach in L.A.. She has an M.B.A, and has been crying.

The joke goes, “What’s the difference between a PMS woman and a pitbull?” Answer: Lipstick.

I named him after MAC lipstick. After I had coaxed him out of the summer heat in Reseda into my car with water and chicken teriyaki and took him to the vet, I was told that he had wounds body and soul from being used as a bait dog for fights. I didn’t realize he was young because his skin hung in wrinkles off his bones like an old man and he had a grey muzzle. But the vet said that his hair had turned from trauma and stress. Initially, I was told that he was a lost cause. But then he allowed his feet to be touched during the examination, and the vet said there was hope.

I saved his life, and he – in time and over time – would save mine. His cigarette burns and torn ears healed, and his sagging skin filled out as muscles came together under his blue black coat that became shiny after having regular meals.  I took him everywhere with me in the car.  He rode shotgun because he got car sick in the backseat. The seatbelt hit across his massive chest in the perfect place to keep him safe as he stared down the occupants of cars next to him. He was unbelievably strong, and he was scary in the beginning: He wanted to show his love for me by killing anyone who got near. But he couldn’t tell the difference between the guy who had tried to pull me from my car in a parking lot one night and the traffic cop who pulled me over for doing an illegal U-turn. Being from Washington, U-turns were new to me. I would have gotten off with a lecture if Mac hadn’t silently flown through the air in an attempt to tear out the throat of the cop.  Because the same cop squealed with alarm, I ended up with a ticket to pay for witnessing his girly shriek. I can’t blame him. It was embarrassing to hear.

Mac adapted to luxury.  Each morning, he and the fully grown 6 pound Charley the cat would eat breakfast side-by-side in matching purple bowls. Then Mac would go to his toy basket and make his selection. His favorite was often the stuffed “Bill Gates”. He would toss the Microsoft effigy over his head and catch it in his crooked but pearl white teeth before vaulting onto the purple velvet sofa to complete the mauling. He reveled in the off-leash dog park at Victory and White Oak, the largest in the country. I once let him chew up an old Barbie to bits for a photo op, but I stopped it when the scene began to look too much like a monster devouring a California Girl. He pooped tiny plastic hands and feet for a couple of days.

We had adventures.  I took him everywhere I could with me, at first because he would destroy my apartment from loneliness but soon after because he was great company. He would talk in the car, and the more I would laugh the more he would try to make human sounds.  I had a meeting in a skyscraper on Wilshire once and reluctantly agreed to park in the valet area after the regular parking was full.  The attendant rolled his eyes at me with condescension when I suggested that Mac wouldn’t allow him to get in my car to move it.  He said it wouldn’t be a problem because he had a special way with dogs. We were both right: When I returned from my meeting, my car had in fact been moved. But it apparently had to be moved with a truck lift because Mac proved me right and had humbled the attendant so badly that we were banned from valet parking there forever after.

Mac was a good-looking dog. I’d walk him outside my apartment in Koreatown with his blue harness and leash, his muscles and shiny black coat making him look like a doggy celebrity. We once encountered a Korean toddler in Mac’s exact same harness while walking with his grandmother. The child looked at Mac, looked at Mac’s blue canvass restraint, looked at his own, looked with horror at his grandmother, then threw himself on the sidewalk for an epic but understandable tantrum. His grandmother and I couldn’t say one word of each other’s language, but we were able to communicate the nearly impossible necessity of not letting the child hear our laughter which could have scarred him for life.  Mac and I hurried away as the grandmother and I pressed our hands against our mouths to hide the hilarity while our eyes smiled at each other as we walked in opposite directions.

Things turned bad for me in L.A. when two contracts fell through. I decided to move to New York to start again, again. My little sister had an apartment in Brooklyn that allowed pets where I could stay while I looked for work, and a business associate had connections with investment firms on Wall Street where she offered to refer me. I decided that I was tired of trying to do things that were compassionate and I just wanted to make money. Kindness had left me wrecked. But in August, my sister called and told me that her building had sold and the new owners didn’t allow pets. As magnificent as Mac was, he wasn’t adoptable.  If I moved, it didn’t seem possible that I could find a home for him.  Or, someone would try to use him in fights again. When you save a life, you are responsible for it.  To protect Mac, I didn’t go to New York.  With some of the money I had saved for a move, I went to the mountains outside of Denver instead to be with my family and figure out what to do. I arrived on September 10^th.  On September 11^th, a plane landed in the office of the firm in the Twin Towers where I had wanted to start working the month before. If only the apartment building hadn’t sold…if only I didn’t have Mac.

Sometime later, I was in Berkeley for a performance of my little sister at Zellerbach when we got a call that our uncle had been admitted to the hospital in critical condition.  Mac was in a doggy resort for the weekend only, but I needed to leave immediately to be with my mom in Idaho to help her with her brother.  I was frantic about Mac because I didn’t know how long I would be gone.  I called my best friend Michael in L.A. and asked him to take Mac home with him until I could return.

It took 40 days and 40 nights for my uncle to fight and die, and then to be put to rest. I drove back into L.A. as the radio announced that it was the first day of Spring. When I called about Mac, I heard in Michael’s voice that he had fallen in love with the unadoptable pitbull like I had.  The devastation in my life wasn’t complete, and I entered a season when I had to leave the place I loved and travel to make a living.  As much as I loved Mac, I could only give him a lonely and uncertain life.

Over time I became Auntie Whitney.

I would visit him and them. I spent the night there once after a woman walked into my office and put a baby in my arms that belonged to the man that I loved. Mac slept under the covers with me that night in the guest room because he knew that he needed to save my life again.

Yesterday, Michael called and told me that Mac had had something like a heart attack, and that they had put him down.  He had been lying silent and still for hours, but had opened his eyes and given a dog kiss just before they gave him the injection.  To the end, he was still willing to do anything to take care of those that God had placed in his path.

The only option to the agony I feel now is not loving. And that thought is even more unbearable.

—

Quote of the Blog by Ed, Dude of Light and Fog: “This place is lousy with roadies tonight. Just lousy with ‘em.”