Life With a Dog

by guest blogger Jay Varner, author of Nothing Left to Burn. He will be appearing at Flyleaf Books on October 2 at 2pm.

This past summer, my wife and I adopted a dog.

Both of us discussed adding another pet in our home for years, but had always come up with excuses—how would the cat react, we’re too busy to train a puppy, is our house even big enough? We’d always wanted one of those monstrous and strong dogs that could pull an ox cart—preferably while loaded with an actual ox. We’d investigated the Bernese Mountain Dog and the Great Pyrenees, sweet, loveable, huggable animals that would require a new annex to any home. A pure bred of either breed would have required an off shore bank account to pay for not only the puppy but the truck loads of food required. And, down the line, the therapy we’d need after the big dog’s relatively short life ended.

We’d grown up around pets and understood not just the love they give, but also the inevitable heartbreak. So we knew how important it was to find the right dog for us.

In 1979, not long after my parents married, my father drove to a breeder near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania to buy a puppy, but what would really become their first child. There was never any doubt about what type of dog he wanted. When he turned sixteen, my father volunteered for the local fire company. By the time he graduated high school, classmates wrote in his yearbook, “Good luck and stay safe. (How many days has it been since a fire?)” Naturally, he wanted a Dalmatian.

During the days of horse-drawn carriages, Dalmatians came to be associated with fire service in America. The dogs interacted well with horses and often ran as the lead en route to a fire, clearing a path so fire fighters could arrive quickly. Though my father drove his pick-up truck to fire scenes, he wanted to honor the breed’s history.

As a young couple, my parents couldn’t afford the pick of the litter. Instead he saw a puppy considered defective by breed standards because of the large black patch on her head and ear. On the drive out of Harrisburg, they passed the Three Mile Island nuclear plant, where a near melt-down had occurred just days before. My father joked that the dog’s spots would glow in the dark. He named her Patches.

Dalmatians can be a tricky breed. They require a lot of exercise, are predisposed to deafness, and are sometimes difficult with children. When my mother became pregnant with me, people worried the dog would maul a baby. But the opposite happened—she started sitting next to my crib as though guarding me. She never seemed like a pet and, as I grew up, I called her my sister. Each day when I came home from school, she stood at the door, wagging her tail, waiting to see me. My father held her on his lap, allowed her to sleep in bed, and even bathed her in tomato juice when a skunk once sprayed her. One summer night, during a thunderstorm, Patches—who always quivered at the sound of thunder—ran down the cellar steps but caught a toenail in the carpet. After the crash, we saw her at the bottom of the stairs with blood pooling from her foot. We lived in rural Pennsylvania, long before the days of 24-hour emergency pet care, and my father called upon his emergency training. He wrapped her paw in a cold compress, pressed tight, and waited. Long after midnight, with a pile of bloody washcloths on the floor, we finally went to bed. I have no doubt he saved Patches life that night.

Unfortunately, nothing could save his. My father was diagnosed with cancer in 1988. He endured chemo treatments. He shed his hair, he puffed from steroids, and finally the disease reached remission. The bone marrow transplant was supposed to extend his life by twenty-years, but the cancer returned in the summer of 1990. A month later, he was dead.

My mother and I remained behind. And so did Patches. We’d always loved that dog, but knowing that my father had chosen her, we both understood that we had to take special care of her. As she aged, she started to wobble from hip dysplasia. Sometimes she didn’t make it to the door in time for bathroom trips. During winter, we wrapped her head with a bandana to shield her ears from the bitter wind and swathed her in one of my father’s old flannel shirts to keep her warm. She’d become an old lady, and my mother always said, she needed tender loving care. Part of that care was realizing when her discomfort outweighed the happiness we felt to have her in our lives. That was in 1996, and that had been the last dog I had.

That is, until this summer when my wife came home from a coffee shop one day and said, “How much do you want a dog?”

She’d met a young woman about to leave for med school. Unfortunately, she couldn’t take her beagle with her. Though she’d asked a few friends if they wanted to adopt him, nobody had given her a definite answer. If she couldn’t find a home for him in a week’s time, she would leave him at the ASPCA.

“He’s really cute,” my wife said. “And his name is Early.”

Early was at least a cute name. But a beagle? That wasn’t quite the beast of a dog I’d imagined. We’d try him out for a night or two and see what happened. Of course, once a dog comes into your home like that, it’s a foregone conclusion—he’s staying for good.

So now we have Early, the two-year old beagle. He nearly knocks me down with love each time I walk in the door. If my wife and I have had a bad day, he curls up between us on the couch and plops his head in our lap. He knows immediately when he’s misbehaved, such as eating the cat’s food or chewing on a pen. He’s nervous on car rides and stinks up the inside of my truck with pungent gas. Can you say any of that about people—except for maybe the gas?

And to think, we’d delayed this decision for so long, lost in the excuses of our daily routine. Let me tell you something—nothing you’re doing is as important as loving a fellow creature, and feeling his unconditional affection in return.

Each year for Christmas, I still give my mother a Dalmatian calendar. She opens it up and smiles at the beautiful dogs. Neither of us says a word, but we’re both thinking back to Patches. My mother looks at the pictures a bit longer and then always says, “None are as pretty as my girl. We lucked out with her.”

My parents and I did. I’m happy my wife and I now have as well.

From Barstool to Bookshelf

Bellied-up to the bar at The Cave recently in a rare moment of rest, I had the pleasure of sharing a beer with Pete. If you like books, but don’t know Pete, you should head as soon as possible to McIntyre’s in Fearrington Village. He is the best bookseller I’ve ever met and if there were a quantitative measure to bookselling, I’d like to see his world ranking. Often when he tells me about a book he’s reading I become so covetous to read it myself it may be a sin.

And of course, since like finds like, Pete and I were talking books or, more specifically, book business. Because there aren’t just books, there’s a book world, and it’s large and has some dark places. And recently a war has broken out. It’s one of those “price wars,” where, supposedly, the only wounds are deep discounts. The war’s over books, just ten particular books, which Wal-Mart last Thursday decided to sell for $10. Amazon followed suit hours later. And as those things go, the ten books now retail for $8.98. These are new, hardcover books from the likes of Stephen King, JD Robb, and John Grisham.

Now, I’m helping bring a bookstore into this book world. As I am sure an expectant father might look about and have momentary reservations about the world they’re bringing a child into, I too felt it. So, of course, I ordered another beer. Keg was tapped on my choice. I asked the bartender for a recommendation and she let me taste a couple until I found a suitable replacement. I almost just ordered a PBR—I know what it tastes like and it’s the cheapest. But I was in the mood for a good beer.

I wish I could say the analogy hit me right then, that having a good beer in a great bar with a helpful bartender and a good friend enlightened and reinvigorated me to the prospect of the bookstore. It took me a few days to see it and the analogy falters in a few places, but a good bookstore does share much with a good bar. A beer at a bar does cost more than a beer at Harris Teeter. But at the bar, you get the atmosphere and the knowledge of the staff. There is no Pete at Wal-Mart dot com.

Where the analogy falters, though, I think there may be lessons. Perhaps, as the price war may indicate, there should be PBRs of the book world. Those authors who churn out a couple of books a year to the widest audience possible should be cheaper. Sometimes I am in the mood for a PBR book. More often, though, I prefer a good book like a good beer. And sure, I realize that people go to bars to meet people and find dates, but could I offer that love may be truer found over a stack of books than beside a litter of empties?

--Land

How do you stand in relation to the potato?

Down in Greenville, SC at a book trade show in a refurbished convention center I had the opportunity to eat breakfast next to one of my favorite authors and barely mustered a word. It was 7:30 in the morning in a cavernous room with lights that gave us the healthy pallor of a vampire –but the most intimidating factor was the author, Padgett Powell, a National Book Award finalist, was there in promotion of his latest book, The Interrogative Mood, a book made up entirely of questions.

First sentence to last, his book, all ending in a question mark (¡And the Spanish version will have twice as many question marks!). How could I have the gall to ask him a question? I mean, I read the book and really liked it, its rhythms and language stuck like a song in my head—but in this case having read the book caused me to clam up. Even if he didn’t, I’d care if my questions didn’t measure up. So I spent the morning devising statements instead of questions to aim his way mostly inspired by the plate of food in front of me, like “instead of the patty, looks like they opted for the sausage link.” But I never said any of them and left the hall afterward like I’d left the iron in the hotel on.

Lunch that day brought slight redemption, as I had the good fortune to be seated at the same table as key speaker Pete Dexter, who has one up on Padgett Powell on the meaningless leader-board of literary achievement for having actually won a National Book Award. I admit I hadn’t read any of Mr. Dexter (something I quickly remedied with his latest: Spooner, a semi-autobiographical novel which has that perfect ratio of laughter to tears as the best sandwich has the perfect ratio of peanut butter to jelly).

Not only was his speech –a seemingly sloppy, but gilded-tongued bouillabaisse of the day’s events and main players, a pinch of self-deprecation, and summation of his novel – an experience I would have invented the Handicam and YouTube for, he gave me the chance for redemption. He said, “Padgett Powell is one of the greatest writers living today.” Apropos of I don’t know, and probably not an exact quote, and maybe it was just a swatch of a red carpet but I felt invited enough to engage Pete Dexter in a conversation about Padgett Powell. And it was easy, the conversation, probably because I hadn’t yet read Pete Dexter. Turns out they are old friends, but Pete Dexter talked like he was just a big fan, a good reader. It reminded me of the best part of being a bookseller, the chance to talk to people, strangers and friends, about good books and share the passion. And that books are a great way to start a conversation, whether your first line ends in a question mark, period or exclamation point.

--Land

Wow. Land, Sarah and I just returned from the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance show in Greenville, SC. We had a blast. The support from the bookselling and the publishing communities has been just so positive; what a wonderful world of people we're involved in. Everyone's been offering advice "create a budget, then burn it" and support "let me know when you're ready to put books on the shelf and I'll fly in and help". Now we just have to choose WHICH books to bring in for opening day... that's A LOT of homework.

The construction has been flying, I wish I had a stop-action camera in the store because walls seem to materialize and disappear within minutes... soon we'll be painting and putting carpet down!

First Night of Flyleaf Books

I had meant to start this blog post an hour ago, the inaugural blog post of Flyleaf Books, but I had only 50 pages left in the book I was reading. I wasn’t putting off the blogging, I just couldn’t put off the reading. The last 50 pages of John Irving’s latest, Last Night in Twisted River, delayed the pronouncement of one the most exciting things I’ve ever written: Sometime in November, Flyleaf Books will open as Chapel Hill’s newest independent bookstore.

But I’m still thinking of Last Night in Twisted River, of how good it was, how unshakeable the characters. And I want to pick up another book, ‘cause there is so much new good stuff out there, but I’m not ready yet. Irving threw a gut punch and I may need another day to recuperate until I’m ready to pick another book off my pile.

And maybe that’s what this blog is about, to keep you up to date, of course, on this exciting adventure, the people making it happen, the timeline of our opening, but mostly it is about books, no matter they gut punch or just tickle your feet.

--Land