Westley

One last Browns game …

We spend our last day together as we have spent so many days in Westley’s big, beautiful life: watching the Cleveland Browns lose. Westley doesn’t watch much; he mostly sprawls out on the carpet, puffy eyes closed, and he tries to get a fitful sleep. His back left paw quivers. Every now and again, he looks up at me as if to say, “Really? They’re still starting that quarterback?”

“Yeah,” I say.

“Do we still care?” his eyes reply.

“No,” I say.

And then he lays his head back on the carpet and breathes unevenly.

The girls surround him, hug him, kiss him a lot. In his younger days, Westley would rebel against their constant affections. He’d headbutt them sometimes. He’d sneak off and hide in a closet sometimes. Now, he takes all the love without comment. Maybe he’s too exhausted to push back. Maybe their tears placate him.

We named him Westley after the Man in Black in The Princess Bride. We came up with the name on his first car ride home. He seemed to like the name, if you consider throwing up on Katie as an endorsement. He always did have a weak stomach. He loathed car rides. We would see other dogs in other cars, their little faces stuck out the window, tongues wagging in the wind, the very picture of happiness.

Then we’d see Westley in our back seat, standing unsteadily, refusing to sit, refusing to get anywhere near the window, looking seasick green. “We’re almost there,” we’d tell him again and again. He expressed skepticism.

That was his default position. Skepticism. He seemed to be deeply skeptical about even being a dog. He refused to do dog things. We’d throw a ball and yell “fetch,” and he would just look at the ball, then look at us, then look at the ball, and then look back at us as if to say, “Why did you throw the ball all the way over there? Now you have to go get it.” We’d try to give him crunchy dog treats, the sort that other dogs will smash through walls to get, and he would sniff at them for a moment and then walk away.

He preferred chocolate.

He preferred chocolate no matter how many times we had to induce vomiting.

Westley did love to be chased. That was his one dog concession. He loved to stand just a step out of reach, taunting us, and then we’d run after him until we got tired, and then he’d stop and stand just a step out of reach again, taunting us.

Mostly, though, he just loved lying down at my feet while I wrote. He’d look up at me constantly as if to say, “Are we done?” He’d get perturbed if he saw me getting distracted by something on the Internet. He’d actually bark. Over the years, I’ve received scores of pitches from tech companies about amazing new apps that limit distractions. I’d laugh at them. They never invented anything as efficient as Westley.

“Woof!” he’d bark loudly; Westley had a loud bark.

“Shut up!” I’d say unkindly.

“Woof!” he’d bark again.

“I’m almost done with this car-washing video; I just want to see how clean the car is at the end,” I’d yell.

“Woof!” he’d bark again.

“FINE!” I’d shout. “I’ll get back to the baseball story.”

And he’d put his head down and rest until he caught me straying again.

Westley was a funny dog. I don’t mean funny in the dog sense that he’d do wacky things. I mean he was legitimately funny. He had excellent comedic timing. His favorite movie, no joke, was Monty Python and the Holy Grail; we would put it on for him when thunderstorms came. He’d watch closely, as if trying to memorize the lines and feel the rhythms. He particularly loved the Black Knight scene. It’s just a flesh wound. That got him every time.

And he’d pull off his own jokes all the time. He loved finding piles of clean clothes and just digging through them, sending them flying all over the room, and then crashing on top of them so that they had to be washed again. He so enjoyed going through my closet, grabbing jeans and shorts, and rifling through the pockets. I’d say half my pants have holes in the pockets because of Westley.

He loved it when I put my keys in a pocket, and they fell straight through.

He loved having his photo taken. His parents were show dogs, and he often gave off that Liza Minnelli vibe.

He never thought any picture was complete without him.

But I don’t mean to say that his humor was always high-brow. At least half of his jokes involved flatulence. There was definitely some Mel Brooks in Westley.

This is the Westley I try to think about as we hate-watch the Cleveland Browns on our last day together. It isn’t easy because he’s breathing heavily, and he’s twitching, and he’s in pain. He tries to be stoic about the pain — stoicism is as much a part of Westley as skepticism — but we know. He can no longer walk without help. He can barely see. He cannot hear. The doorbell rings, and nothing used to set off Westley quite like the doorbell. He’d jump up, start barking, and race to the front door. He loved meeting new people. Even a doorbell ringing on television would get him jumping.

Now, he lies perfectly still.

I want to ask him how to end this. I’d ask him questions like that all the time. We’d be in the office, the girls off at school, Margo off tutoring kids, and I’d ask, “Do you think I should start with the story about the father or end with it?” He’d look at me knowingly, as if he was about to say something, and he’d keep looking at me like that, and then I’d stand up to take a little walk around the couch in the next room, and he’d come walk around the couch with me, and together we’d somehow figure it out.

But he can’t walk around the couch with me now. He can’t lift his head to look at me for very long. Westley was there for us for fourteen years, fourteen beautiful years and he made us laugh, and he made us mad, and he made us feel loved.

“This is the last time I’m watching the Browns until they get rid of that quarterback and stop treating us fans like dirt,” I tell Westley. He does not look up.

I know how he’d end this piece.

He’d end it with a perfectly timed fart.

But I never did have his timing.