Chapter 5 - Dog on Deck

I stood at the railing of the ferry looking back at Seattle in the Friday evening twilight, a cloudless, effervescent white-orange blued sky.  Cars and trucks rattled along the Alaskan Way viaduct like Roman chariots.

One last time I looked up at the black box of the Seafirst building looming over the waterfront. I remembered those surreal elevator rides rocketing up through a dark steel hull planted on the hillside where once Douglas Fir giants lived.  Like water pumped up a giant trunk, accountants and lawyers in stifling suits pressed between layers of going nowhere dreams, walked from one box into another, sequestered into glass splintered offices with hissing conditioned air. 

I pitched my tent on the open deck and added a little addition to one end which would be Woody's suite, his playground, his living quarters for the next 36 hours. One small issue was that dogs weren’t allowed above deck.

That night in our little tent house, I fell asleep to the open water crush of large waves breaking, and a harmonica player blowing out sweet little notes. I fell away and dreamed, Woody at my head, his deep little doggie breaths eased in and out like a child’s.

The morning came, a cradle rocking clear and ebullient, the sun rising over cedar woman hills. Little Woody bounded in and pounced on my head. But I had to keep him in the tent all day and all night or he would get taken below into the soon to be sweltering car deck.

Outside, sleeping bag and bedroll characters spread out randomly. There were tripped out hipsters, journal writing loners, sleeping lovers, Eddie Bauer dressed outdoorsers, big-gut backwoods black bearded guys and girthy cigarette-voiced Alaskan roller derby queens. Strolling through this menagerie were a few cardigan and slicker wearing grey haired boxtowners who came out of their staterooms to snap pictures of us oddities.

The day was full, hanging around on the sunny decks—hotter and hotter, listening to guitar players, eating grocery sack food, and entertaining my stowaway prince dog of boundless energy inside the tent when he woke from one of his ten naps.  I got him somewhat to figure out where to take a pee, over in the corner on the newspapers and away from the groceries.  After that we played chew on hand, tug at socks, and other exciting games. 

Eventually, he would tire himself out and collapse on his back, his legs splayed open, surrounded by a collage of Triscuit boxes, paper towel roles, paper sacks, and beer bottles. He lay out amidst his trash heap, sawing logs like a drunken logger.

Next day, in the early afternoon, strangely the ferry turned around. It followed a meandering path back across the large open channel. We learned that a large English sheepdog down in the car deck had jumped out of the small round open window at the end of the deck to escape the suffocating heat. We all stood at the railing searching the open seas for his black head swimming frantically. I thanked my instinct for not keeping Woody below.

The English sheepdog was never seen again and the ferry slowly turned back to its northbound journey. A somberness passed into the souls of everyone on deck it seemed, an unspoken understanding of how deep a loss a dog can be.

It was growing stifling hot inside the tent and I left the flap open. When Woody escaped out of it one time I thought said, "Oh fuck it, let's see what happens."

Woody headed out into a new world of sea wind, sunshine heat, smells, friendly faces and AstroTurf under his little black foot pads.  Our tent and deck friends all around beamed approval at the appearance of our gangly exuberant eyed friend.  Woody wandered from one new object to the next, each a new country of smells: a boot, a Styrofoam cup of coffee, a backpack, a Walkman, a pair of sweatpants, a dangling hand from a snoring bearded guy. 

Against the rail, two young women sat in the sunshine spread out on their sleeping bags.  When they spied Woody they erupted in that quick, high cooing and bubble that women are apt to do in the presence of babies and puppies.  They called Woody to them, clucking and oohing and making the most ridiculous faces.  This excitement created the intended effect from the object of their affections.  Woody, all tail wagging and bright eyes, bumped straight towards them. 

He climbed up onto their soft sleeping bags. The women were delighted reaching forward, saying, "Ohh isn't he cuuuuuute", in this inhumanly altered pitch.  Just then Woody stopped short, squatted and laid out a huge stream of puppy pee right in the middle of their bags.  With their hands stretched out to embrace him the clucking of the two women stopped short, their faces changing from glee to shock to disgust.

Woody hopped off and rambled back to my feet wagging contentedly. I made all due manner of apology, but had to bite down a laugh from the innocence of it all. I had to clean it up fast and get around the corner and to let it out.  Woody the dog had shown me the first stirrings of his unerring clown skills.

Over the course of the next two days, I determined to be a little more vigilant on any further forays from the tent. I made a kind of game out of it, walking behind Woody as close as possible not looking where we were going but straight down on him as he bumped along in a crazy creative zigzag all over the deck checking out everything, making friends with everybody he met.  The two women didn't cluck and coo any more when he cruised by them but stared at me as if I were the antichrist.

It was getting on towards late afternoon of our second day at sea, cooling down at last, everyone on deck mellow and peaceful.

I was taking my rightful place behind Woody on his stroll, through tennis shoes and boots and books, and ice chests, a ball of yarn, and t-shirts, and a little baby’s face, who squealed when Woody slobbered his face with a quick little tongue. He scattered a Monopoly game (in progress) and turned over a Coke can, passed through wood shavings from a bearded man whittling, sniffed a wet towel, and nosed himself happily to a big black boot and began sniffing the end of. I followed the boot up to an ankle and then a black pant leg and up to an officer’s coat and hat on top of a big red face right in front of me that opened up its mouth and bellowed, "WHAT THE HELL IS THAT DOG DOING ABOVE DECK!"

"Um, oh" I stammered a bit. "It’s ah pretty hot.”

"YOU WILL GET THAT DOG DOWN BELOW NOW!” Mad shipman erupted in my face.

"Okay, yes," I said, scooping Woody up. Mad officer began to lead me away.

"Let me uh, get his box," I said, and turned back and walked to the tent. Mad officer heeled and followed me back the whole way. He stood in front of the tent as I bent down to unzip it. I reached inside for his shoe box, grabbed it, turned my body momentarily so mad officer couldn't see what I was doing, took the lid off, threw Woody across the tent, put the top on the box, zipped up the tent and stood up box in hand to face our accuser.

He then most officiously led us back along the ship. All of our new deck friends, said, "Bye Woody." I was led down three flights of stairs to the car deck, all the while carrying an empty box talking to it, “Its okay buddy. You’ll be alright.”

It had to be 95 degrees down there. “I’m worried he won’t make it in this heat,” I said.

“Keep a window open and you can come down every two hours when the deck is open to let him out,” Mad officer told me with no chance of parole. He proceeded to tell me all the regulations I had broken and what he could do to me for breaking them. I opened the car door, put the empty box on the seat, cracked open a window and said, “Bye Woody.” I backed out and quickly shut the door.

"Okay,” I said to mad officer, “I am really sorry about that.”

He left me and I went back up to the deck to stop Woody’s little squeak barks from getting us in a heap of trouble.

After dinner, I came out of the tent for a break and walked around the deck. An Alaskan fellow about 40 years old with a baseball cap was stretched out in a chaise lounge reading a book. He looked over the top of it, "Tell me something,” he said.

I raised my eyebrows.

"Was there anything in that box you took below?"

I shrugged my shoulders. Our little secret.  The guy nodded, let out a wry grin and went back to his book.

As the twilight began to play moonlight and silver on the water tops and the shoreline sent back only a message of deepened peace, I felt like my life had just begun.