Wayne
It was 2002, three addresses ago, and I was losing the game in house-training Daisy. Hours were spent out on the teeny strip of lawn in the apartment courtyard, shaking her leash impatiently while she sniffed up one blade of grass and down the next. I knew that, in a few minutes, I’d scoop her up and take her back inside, where she would immediately squat next to the door and unload her bladder. Then I’d slide down the wall in despair (and drama) and cry.
Twilight was setting in, and my attitude was plummeting with the sun. Just one win, Daisy. Give me one win here.
Photo by Greg Dale
“Well, what do we have here?”
I swung around and saw an older man, laden with shopping bags and smiling at Daisy. He set down his parcels and dropped to one knee. Daisy waddled over to accept his worship.
I tossed him my polite stranger smile and enjoyed a few minutes chatting with him. He was from Iowa and had just moved into the complex a few days ago. Daisy obligingly squatted and did her business while we talked.
I couldn’t keep Wayne at polite stranger status for long, and I don’t think that was how he operated with anyone. After that first night, I saw him frequently, and he always had a smile for me and a scratch for Daisy, who worshiped him. He was full of funny stories that he shared while walking Daisy in the evenings a couple of times a week. If I stopped by his apartment to say hi, he’d pour me an Italian margarita before I cleared the threshold, so then of course I had to sit down and stay awhile.
“Did you know that ‘margarita’ is Spanish for ‘daisy’?” he asked.
“Well, cheers to that,” I said, and we clinked.
After about a year, he moved across Plano to a town house near where I worked. A week later, he called me and said, “You should move here too; it’s great!”
It was, so I did. Our friendship continued: occasional dinners, TV watching, margarita-drinking. I met his family; he had a son, Matt Clark, and a daughter my age. Wayne’s brother, visiting from Iowa, looked exactly – EXACTLY – like him. He had a wonderful family, I thought. Iowa folks are good people.
After another year, I decided to buy a house, so I did. My house-warming gift from Wayne was a garage door opener (which he installed) and a toolbox. Not a girly toolbox but a working set of tools that I still use 13 years later. One February night about a week after I moved in, I called him around 9 pm, frantic. I’d just spent 15 minutes running up and down the streets of my neighborhood, hollering, “Daaaaisy!” <sob> “Daisy!!” <sob sob>
“Daisy’s missing! I can’t find her.” <another sob> “She was in the yard, but now she’s not, and—“
“On my way,” he said.
Wayne rolled up his truck 20 minutes later. As he got out, we heard a very familiar bark coming from the direction of the flower bed of the house next door. Daisy, recognizing her beloved friend’s voice, decided to come home from her adventure.
A few months later, Wayne built a house up near where I lived a few streets over. Every now and then, Daisy and I would walk over for a margarita and a scratch.
One December, he brought over his Family Handyman magazine; in it were the schematics for a bookcase.
“What do you say we make this?”
Never mind the creature; check out that bookcase.
Sure, I was game. So we got the materials from Home Depot, he brought over his tools and space heaters, and between Christmas and New Year’s, we made my bookcase in my garage. Mostly he built it, and I “helped.” Next to Daisy and Alfie, it’s my most prized possession. If there’s ever a fire at Chez Shasta, it’s the thing that I will carry out on my shoulders after I save the dogs.
Wayne passed away a few years ago from illness. I miss him. I still think of him every time Daisy, Alfie and I walk past his street. I think of him when I use my toolbox or garage door. I think of him when I drive by our old apartments. Every year, I think of him the day after Justin Jones’ birthday, which is Wayne’s birthday. I still have our last text message string; I can’t bear to erase it. I think of him often, and I miss him.
