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The One Eyed Jack of Hearts (Part I)



I first heard the bark when Ma and Pa brought me home to the house on 4th and Annunciation for the first time. It was a wheezy, tired bark, which made me pause at first. “That’s odd, I thought. He sounds quite old, but there’s something in that bark that is dreamy and worldly.” In fact, even today, the yard still carries traces of that dreaminess.

I’ll hear his bark now and think little of it, but occasionally a cool breeze will waft a trace of it in through the back door or the cracks in the old cypress floor, and, without even thinking, I will leap up and cry to Pa and Ma to let me go out and meet that bark. Last time this happened Pa yelled at me as I leapt up. I was curled up around his head like a Russian fur hat, as he lay in bed reading a crime novel, and I hadn’t realized that I pranced across his face in such a frantic rush of barking that I pulled his earphones right out of his ears. “Ahhh, Fancy!” yelled Pa in a shrill voice, scrambling in a befuddled heap groping for his crumpled and tooth-pocked slippers, his hair mussed. Of course, I gave Pa a couple of apology licks on his cheek and forehead later, and he laughed in his way and covered me with little kisses.

The first time I saw Boudreaux, he was trotting along at the baseof the rickety chain-link fence that separates our two shotgun houses, sniffing around, barking wheezily at nothing in particular. I use the word ‘trotting’, because, well, how does one describe it in a nice manner, without making unwelcome implications? The word is inexact. He walked diagonally! And it seemed that the faster and more excitedly he walked, the more he seemed to shift side-ways so that he resembled a big crab skittering across the concrete. It is one of those things about Boudreaux that seemed to get under Pa’s skin. I could see the irritation rise in Pa’s face like the mercury in a thermometer. It wasn’t long until I learned what really caused this irritation.

I’ll just come right out and say it: Boudreaux was my first crush, maybe even my first love, however unrequited it may have been. I will never again think of New Orleans, without thinking of Boudreaux, even the rustling of leaves on a banana tree will always somehow be comingled with the pitter-patter of his labored walk.

Boudreaux is a Jack Russell Terrier. He’s about my size. I wouldn’t dare reveal my weight, but suffice it to say, we’re both toy breeds. He’s got handsome short white hair with reddish-brown blotches in all the right places. His trunk is rather rotund when contrasted with his skinny legs, but with the life he’s lived, one can understand.

The thing most people notice first about Boudreaux is that he’s missing his right eye. This might put people off at first. They see the sucked-in socket and back away, doubtful of how to handle such a dog. I first noticed this feature that first time I saw him trotting back and forth along our fence, and all I can say is: dreamy. Of course, this is the reason why he walks side-ways. Pa calls him the One Eyed Jack next door, but I know he is sympathetic, if not a bit intrigued, by the story of Boudreaux’s one eye. It’s possible that it’s the story of how I came to fall for him, and it might also be the story that keeps us apart.

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