Posted on February 11th, 2010 by Scraps.
Categories: Words, Old Posts.
This story has a happy ending.
Several weeks ago the building of my friends Patrick and Teresa acquired a stray dog. She walked in as though she belonged there, and by the time a neighborhood search had conclusively turned up no one with a lost dog of her description, she had thoroughly ingratiated herself with the residents. She splits time between at least two of the apartments, and is now named Blossom.
Tonight a bunch of us went up to the roof to watch the firewroks over the east river. Blossom came up too, and she didn't seem scared by the noise, just trotted around in the heat with her tongue out, apparently having a fine time. We lost track of her. After a while, I heard, in the distance, several rooftops away, "Whose dog is that?" I was a little worried about her being so far away, so I got up to see where she was. I couldn't see her. Susan noticed me looking around and said "Are you looking for Blossom?" "Yeah," I said, "I just heard those people way over there wondering whose dog she was. But I don't see her." We both walked over to the next roof and peered around, but neither of us, I think, wanted to make a big deal of searching for her; there was only so far she could go. "I'm sure she's okay," I said stupidly. "I'm sure you're right," said Susan. We knew Blossom was a very social dog, and was probably just hanging with some folks. We turned back to the fireworks.
A couple minutes later a young woman walked up to us. "Is that your dog?" she said. No dog was in sight, but we knew it must be Blossom; we said yes. "She's fallen off the roof," said the young woman. We stared at her. We were five floors up. "She's fallen off the roof??" I said. "What, to the ground?" We started moving, slowly at first, the way people do when they want to think that something isn't really very bad. Then I started running across the roofs. I heard the woman say to Susan, "No, down to another roof. To the church." I knew that building, about six roofs away; I couldn't remember whether it was one story or two storeys shorter.
As I skipped from roof to roof, all the groups of people knew what was going on, and several people asked me if it was my dog. "Yes," I said shortly, not wanting to slow down for more explanation. People closed in behind me. I reached the end of the roofs, and looked down at the church roof: one storey down. Blossom looked up at me and whined. Then, thank god, she ran around in a circle, and I could see she wasn't limping or noticeably injured in any way. I had the presence of mind to turn and yell over my shoulder, "She's okay," which no one had bothered doing. Then I thought about getting down to Blossom, and what I could do when I got there. It was about a twelve foot drop, which I thought I could manage okay, but she was already spooked and running around, and she kept dashing to an edge and looking over. I talked to her and she would look up for a second, then start running around again. After a few seconds Susan arrived, and as soon as she started talking to Blossom the dog stayed in one place trying to climb the wall. Someone on the roof we were on said we could go down their stairs and someone from the church building said we could go up theirs; we decided that Susan would stay and talk to Blossom while I went over to the church roof.
This turned out to be a little more complicated than we thought, since no one was waiting downstairs to let me into the building, and no one responded to buzzing. I went over to the fire escape to see whether I could jump up to it. I couldn't. I went back to the building and pounded on the door until someone grumpily let me in; when I quickly explained what was going on, she let me go through her apartment to the fire escape -- the door to the roof was locked -- and I climbed up it, knowing I could never get Blossom down it, becuase it was ladders, not stairs.
I got to the roof, and two guys were there; they'd probably jumped down. Blossom was spooked again, but she came over to me right away and started bumping me. I sat down and she climbed on to my lap. Susan was still leaning over the rooftop above; I told her we couldn't get the dog down the stairs or the fire escape. A guy up on the higher roof said he could bring a ladder; we decided that the the three of us on the church roof could hand Blossom from person to person up the ladder -- none of us felt confident that we could carry fifty pounds or so of dog up the ladder by ourself if she decided to panic.
While we waited for the ladder, I patted Blossom and talked to her, and she settled down. I took her head in my hands and said that was the most damn fool stunt I'd heard of a dog pulling in ages. She licked my face. I told her I was missing the fireworks. She licked my face again. After a few minutes in which my face was licked about every ten seconds, the ladder arrived, and after putting Blossom on her leash for whatever psychological value that would have, I handed her to the first guy, and he handed her to the second guy, and he handed her to Susan, and she was up to the proper roof in a few seconds without a hitch.
We ended up with about thirty new acquaintances from the surrounding buildings; when I left the building a few ours later to go home, a group of folks on the street asked me if the dog was okay. I assured them she was. They all think the dog is mine now; I suppose she is now, a little bit.
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