Ode to The Jake

or Taking "Dumbass" To A Whole New Level




I want to preface this by saying that I'm not an animal person, not particularly. My allergy to cats is of a mythical power, something that only those who are allergic to bees or penicillin (like both of my genetically defunct parents, thanks) or anyone else who has ever had to mutely wave a clutched medical ID bracelet in front of a paramedic can appreciate. And I'm not much of a dog person, probably because of this. I like dogs, okay, I do, but I don't call them "kids" and have them over for "play dates" or scramble eggs for them or anything. You should know, in all fairness, that I'm having to type this with one hand so I can pet The Ears of The Jake. What I'm saying is that I'm a big liar. I scramble eggs for Jake and his friends all the time, except for that one kid who likes his hard boiled.

And I think we all know that The Jake Loves Him Some Chicken Insides.

Anyway. Jake's a good dog, if soft dogs who lick a lot and groan when they lie down and sigh and pout and pirate socks are "good". He's The Jakiest of all The Jakes, and he's particularly Jakey in Mexico, where he prances and frolics and refuses to swim like only The Jake can. This is winding to a point, I swear to Christ.

The place in Mexico is a charming four-story walk up. Jake takes the stairs like a champ, meaning that he stops and lunges and pulls my arm off at every single landing. This is going up. If he's that excited to get inside, you can only imagine how stoked he is to get down where all the dead fish are.

So Saturday morning, almost 6:00, and it's me and Randy and The Jake and two of us are sleeping but one of us has his head mashed on the top of the mattress and he's this close to shitting himself, partly because he knows we're at the beach (the place with all the carcasses) and partly because he just likes to shit himself. Randy either coyly pretends to be sleeping or actually IS still sleeping because he's so completely insensitive that he doesn't have to fake it. Either way. I get up, grab the leash, and try to unlock the door through all the jumping, scrabbling paws.

Now, should I have stopped and hooked the leash up? Oh. Absolutely. Did I? Oh. Nuh-uh. Why? The Jake pulls. And who's he going to bother in the open-air hallway, right? If there are any unprotected toddlers smeared with butter and Doritos downstairs, I figure I'll strap him in there. So Jake takes off down the hall, and I'm sort of trudging after him, and he rounds a bend, and I follow, and he rounds another bend, and I follow, and then there's the end of the hall and the staircase is on the left and the giant window is dead-ahead and I watch, ten paces back, as my eight-month old The Jake leaps cleanly out of the window on the fourth floor of the complex without missing a stride.

I stand where I am for a beat, and I'm thinking too many things. First, I'm thinking that this CLEARLY DID NOT JUST HAPPEN. My dog did most certainly not just take a forty foot jump out a window. I'm also thinking that, given that it did in fact occur, there's no way that he's coming away from this with anything but critical injuries. I imagine the groundfloor schematic, and I know it's comprised of a chain link fence, a concrete seawall, two square feet of grass, a brick sidewalk and a concrete sewer cover.

The landing was a second later and audible. Jake screamed, and I screamed, and I attacked the staircase. All the way down I'm trying to figure out how I'm going to move The Delicate Jake Who Still Weighs Fifty Pounds Even Though He's All Broken by myself, and where in the shit I can TAKE him. It's almost six in the morning. On a Saturday. IN ROCKY POINT. I can either get him drunk or get his hair braided. I'm not sure I can get him x-rayed.

So I bolt out onto the ground floor and Jake is huddled on the grass-- ON THE GRASS--on all fours, but crouched. He's not moving and he's curled up on his legs. I run to him, crying and sobbing, and I hug him and kiss his little face and cry some more because my dog is dying and there's nothing in the world I can do about it because I'm a shitty person who didn't leash my dog and he jumped out a window.

The Jake looks at me in the eye, and it's still the same look, only it's more "DID YOU SEE ME JUST JUMP OUT THAT WINDOW?" than usual, which I take as a great sign since I had decided that the eyes still being in the head would be a good sign. I wipe my nose and I shakily tell The Jake to "wait", and I start backing away from him. Where am I going, you ask? To blindly throw shells at the fourth floor until I randomly hit our unit's patio? Where said shell will skitter softly to a halt and fall into a shell coma, totally NOT waking up Randy because it's not a ten-pound boulder and I'm me?

No. Shut up. And it doesn't come to that, because once I get about twenty paces away, The Jake cocks his head and takes tentative steps toward me. Which is the most positive sign yet, not because he's able to move, but more because The Jake has never "waited" more than three seconds in his whole Jake life. This is normal behavior. He walks and then wags and then PEES. I'm in shock. I take advantage of what has to be the calm before the internal hemorrhage storm, hook his leash (fool me once) and take THE ELEVATOR back upstairs.

The crying begins again once I get within sight of our unit. I'm out of control. Randy thinks I've been stabbed.

"Jake just jumped out the window."

"What?"

"ON THIS FLOOR."

He looks at me and I look at him and we both look a the dog (who's staring at both of us like we're big pussies) and then we sort of laugh. Because, you know, with the dog right there and ALIVE and everything, it is pretty fucking funny.

We spent the next thirty hours watching The Jake for any signs of forty-feet fall behavior. Without finding much. Every so often I'd look at Jake pouncing into the ocean, half a crab in his mouth, and I'd say to Randy, "he really should have broken his legs. Like, all of them." And Randy would reply, "He should be dead." Or I'd see him guzzling down the Iams and I'd remark, "Wow, all of his teeth should have been pulverized. His jaw should have shattered." And Randy would say, "He should be dead." Or he'd be sleeping curled on his side on the tile and I'd look at Randy and say, "All of his ribs should have been crushed. I look at that window and I look at the ground and his ribs should be fucked." And Randy would turn the TV up and say, "Jesus, Erin, he's a DEMON, okay? He's the goddamned devil. He should be DEAD. DEAD WITH NO RIBS OR TEETH OR LEGS." That answer makes more sense than LUCKY.

In conclusion, The Jake is fundamentally fine. He's the antichrist. He has had some issues which I've dealt with medically, but I'll spare you the gory details until you Microsoft Paint me your rendition of The Jake jumping out the fourth floor of the condo complex. Jumping, landing, after... whatever. Paint it. Make it a reasonable size. Save it as a GIF. Send it to me.

I'm tired now. And I feel like a bad person. A bad person who can't believe that she forgot her fucking camera.