The Best Bromance Ever

My best friend and I meet every morning to go for a walk in the woods.

It’s cold in Boston these days, well below freezing, but if you dress right, the crunching sound of frozen dirt and the smell of crispy maple leaves bring their own satisfaction.

My buddy almost always notices things I miss; the stream, he points out, keeps gurgling near the middle of the riverbed, but the periphery is iced over and solid. The snow melts more quickly at the base of deciduous trees than it does around conifers, and there are a surprising amount of animals up and about in the frozen morning.

We don’t say much because its cold, and its fun to watch our breath, visible in the morning sunlight, linger towards the sky in the frigid breeze.

I’m not all that tall, but I’m still a bit taller than my friend, so I get the rare experience of feeling paternal and fraternal all at once. It’s an odd experience, feeling so platonically responsible.

After about 15 minutes my pal stops and seems to want to say something. Then he squats and poops, at some very special place that only he knows is special, and I lovingly pick up his excrement in a plastic bag.

This is the best bromance ever.

His name is Corduroy, now 6 months old and a good 60 pounds, and he is the long awaited response to the endless questions and promises from the younger members of my family. My daughters swore to walk him, to feed and to bathe him, and my older child found him online through petfinder.com, a website that is simultaneously addicting and heart-wrenching.

And now, despite the promises of my progeny to walk and feed him, it is I who rouses at 6 AM, wearing the goofiest outfit I can tolerate that will still keep me warm, but Corduroy never, ever rolls his eyes at my plaid scarf and the corny hat with the ear flaps. He doesn’t do sarcasm. It’s not in his repertoire.

He is the most uncomplicated thing in my life.

I have never once received a text message from him. He doesn’t seem to care about twitter, and he is utterly disinterested in my CV or my academic promotion.

My dour Eastern European family has noted that it will be sad when he dies, but I am philosophical. It will be horribly sad, but still wonderfully uncomplicated. There won’t be all those discussions I wish we’d had. There will not be a plethora of unfinished business. It’ll be sad – pure and simple sadness. Uncomplicated. Pristine.

Once, Corduroy and I almost had a disagreement. I was non-chalantly throwing him chicken skin from the table, and he seemed ecstatic. Imagine, being happy over chicken skin! How great is this for a neurotic guy who aims only to please?

So, I give him one greasy piece, then another, and pretty soon I realize that it has to stop somewhere. I don’t know why I realize this…. Corduroy doesn’t think it should stop. I don’t really want it to stop. Still, I figure that he IS a dog and he DOES have his own food, and, plus, my dog-owning friends have advised against feeding him from the table. This doesn’t quite make sense to me, though. If I pick up his poop, then surely he’s worthy of the same chicken I eat. And, I’m only giving him the skin. But still, I am conflicted, and I therefore tell him that I’m done, trying for one of those dog-owner lies, because he sees me eating and knows I’m not done eating, just that I’m done feeding him.

He tilts his head, does that furrowed-brow thing, and then, as I hold the line for no good reason, he calmly walks to the other side of the dinner table and proceeds to become, ahem, calmly and rhythmically amorous with my wife’s leg. He’s looking right at me as he does this, but as my wife is facing me, Corduroy has to turn his head to an almost unnatural angle in order that our eyes might meet.

“Is this OK?” my wife asks. She has never had a dog, and until now her main pets have been our cats and a chicken that her scientist mother brought home from the lab in downtown Buffalo where she (and, I guess the chicken) grew up. Never once did the chicken hump anyone’s leg. She is baffled.

“Nope,” I say, instinctively knowing that it is expected behavior from my buddy, a compliment to my wife and an innocently articulated middle finger to boot. I swallow my green beans and explain. “Its uncouth. We’d like our dog to be couth.”

Corduroy is still looking at me, or my chicken, or both, and I tell him to stop having his way with my wife. He relinquishes her knee and wags his tail before retreating to his food bowl.

Good boy, I think, and I am satisfied and happy.

I really love my dog.