Worthy Witness

Today was Sunday, a perfect afternoon to have a dinner party.  Everyone who came brought an item of food:  dessert, green salad, pasta salad and fruit.  We provided the soup.  It was a nasty, cold May day, and beef barley  was a good choice for all, except for OJ, our pug.  He dined on pig’s ear that  one of our guests  had brought him.   ” Ug!” I thought as I unwrapped the plastic casing that held the brown-flecked ear.  I asked, “is it real?”  Everyone was focused on the food, and no one answered, so I thought, “No, it can’t be real.”

OJ took the ear and went into his bedroom.  Yes, he has his own room in the vintage Federal home on the river.  There is a door that leads to the enclosed  deck that overlooks several gardens.  Since the door was open, he chose to chew his ear there.  When the guests left three hours later, he was still in the same inert position.  Except for the chewing, he was lying perfectly still on his belly with front paws holding the object now turned gross. Initially the shape of an ear, it had been stretched and pulled until it resembled a ribbon of taffy.

We offered the dog a cookie; he wouldn’t accept our bribe.  I said, “Hike OJ!  Let’s go the car.”  He stopped chewing for a moment, but then thought better and resumed a  recumbent stance.  We waited, and it was cold with the door open.  Nothing could separate him from the ear.  ”Unless,” I thought, “we opened the freezer door and he anticipated licking the ice cream bowl .”  My husband and I went into the kitchen, making all of the attendant noise, opening the door, slamming the frozen box of ice cream onto the counter, taking down the bowls.  It was at that moment that OJ trotted  into the kitchen; he had left the ear on the deck.

Acting swiftly as only seasoned team workers can, my husband grabbed the dog’s collar, and I ran to the deck.  Picking up the slimy ear, I gave it my best throwing arm beyond the stand of trees at the garden’s edge.  It soared over the stone wall and then, I envisioned, down the hill until it plopped into the river.