she leaped to her feet, turned from me, and ran into the garage, where I had left the door open.
She had been lethargic for some time because of her sickness, so her energetic exit surprised and then alarmed me. I followed her into the garage, where I saw that she had sprinted to the rack on which we hung her collars and leashes.
She looked from the leashes to me, to the leashes, to me. I realized this food allergy, which previously had been expressed solely through vomiting, was about to have an effect at the other end of the dog. Trixie needed to poop. Now.
Quickly, I put on her collar, put my hand through the leash loop, and she took off. As I gasped to keep pace with Trixie, she ran the length of the long garage, to the man door beside the big roll-up.
Just beyond this door was the driveway and, to the left, a large yard graced by a double colonnade of California pepper trees, where we often played fetch with a tennis ball. Although it was nearly four o’clock in the morning, although no one but I would be aware that she violated her toilet tao, Trixie would not trot twenty feet to the pepper-tree lawn and void there. It was, after all, our property, sacred territory. Instead, she raced up the driveway, into the night, pulling me with her.
Halfway between the garage and the driveway gate, she turned right, up another length of driveway that led to the motor court. Her toenails click-click-clicked on the quartzite paving, and my feet raised loud slapping sounds as I staggered wildly after her, hoping not to be pulled off balance. She ran across the motor court, down a set of stairs to the front entrance, through the front gate, and up a 160-foot-long wheelchair ramp paralleling the entry stairs that descended to our front door.
This circuitous route equaled at least one and a half football fields. At the end of the breathless journey, Trixie stepped off our property, squatted on our neighbors’ front lawn, and instantly had explosive diarrhea.
Standing in the cool night, under a fat moon, I said to her, “You are the best dog in the world. But I like our neighbors, so I still have to clean up the mess.”
For the remaining years of her life, wheat and beef were removed from Trixie’s diet. She never had another bout of gastrointestinal distress. But I was motivated to stay fit just in case she ever again had to make a five-hundred-yard diarrhea run.
On the day we had adopted Trixie, Mike Martin had worried that because of our compulsive neatness and our need for order, we would find our lives disrupted by a dog. Instead, Trix was so fastidious, with such a natural sense of propriety, that we had to rise to her standards.
In the new house, Linda and Elaine shared a large office with plenty of roaming room for Trixie, who spent part of each weekday there because Linda walked her at 11:30 and 3:30.
In addition to the toilet tao that prohibited her from pooping on our property, Trixie was discreet about other matters biological. She did not want us to look at her when she was doing either number one or number two, so we had to stare off into the distance or into the sky, as though contemplating weighty philosophical issues.
She allowed us to bag her leavings, but while we gathered them, she often turned her back or stared off into the distance as though contemplating weighty philosophical issues. The times I caught her watching me at this task, she always appeared incredulous, as if my motives were beyond comprehension.
One afternoon, as Trixie dozed on her dog bed, Linda and Elaine were busy at their desks. Suddenly a ripe aroma filled the room. Neither of them remarked on the smell as it dissipated. But when it bloomed again, Elaine declared, “Linda, dear, please remember, I’m a delicate flower with refined sensibilities. I’m withering here. Whatever you had for dinner last night, never eat it again if the next day is a workday.”
“Nice try,” Linda said, “but we know which one of us lives on Metamucil.” When Elaine insisted she was innocent, Linda said, “Well, it isn’t me and it certainly isn’t Trixie.”
At that time, Trix had been with us over seven years, and if she had ever passed gas around any of us, it had been odorless.
Recognizing each other’s sincerity, Linda and Elaine exchanged a glance of disbelief, for a moment speechless, then turned their attention to the dog and simultaneously said, “Trixie?”
They couldn’t have been more shocked if they had seen the Queen of England spit tobacco juice on an antique carpet.
AS FAR AS I know, I’m the only writer who has appeared often on the best-seller list but who has never done a national or even a multi-state book-publicity tour. I also have never stabbed my wife, as Norman Mailer stabbed one of his, nor have I dissed Oprah Winfrey, as Jonathan Franzen did, nor have I faked a bad-boy history and invented a colorful past as James Frey did: I am a publicist’s worst nightmare.
I dislike most publicity, aside from radio interviews, which I enjoy because of the energy and intelligence of the folks who work in that medium. Besides, I can do six hours of early-morning radio programs with bed hair, without shaving, with sticky-bun stains on my T-shirt, and listeners will assume that I’m as scrubbed and as perfectly coiffed as Donny Osmond on his way to church.
Cubby Greenwich, the writer who is the protagonist of my novel Relentless, has my aversion to publicity and explains it better than I can: “Protracted self-promotion drains something essential from the soul, and after one of these sessions, you need weeks to recover and to decide that one day it might be all right to like yourself again.”
I do as much publicity as feels fair to my publishers—and as little as I can persuade them is fair. In 1998, I was new to Bantam Books, having published one novel with them and having delivered a second that awaited publication. When they asked me to do the CNN biography program Pinnacle to support the release of Seize the Night, I probably grumped a little, just so everyone would know what a humongous and debilitating imposition it was, no less traumatic than open-heart surgery, but I agreed.
Trixie had been part of our lives less than a week when the producer, film crew, and program host for Pinnacle came to Newport Beach to spend two days with us. Already, we could not imagine life without her.
The day before the CNN folks showed up, Gerda and I took Trixie to meet her veterinarians. She was scheduled for a full physical and, of course, for a bath and grooming to ensure that she was properly fluffed for a national television appearance.
We did not yet realize that our veterinarians would become such an important part of our lives. Good ones give you the confidence to entrust your furball to them, they gentle you through scary crises, and one day they help you to bear a most devastating loss. We found two fine vets in a practice near us: Bruce Whitaker and Bill Lyle.
For almost nine years, Trixie went to their office for medical attention and also once a week to be bathed and groomed by Heidi, for whom she was always quick to present her belly in greeting. Often when we went to pick up Trixie, she was not in the holding area at the back of the facility, but roamed free with the women who worked up front at the receiving station. A couple of years later, Heidi told us that she didn’t cage our girl after a bath because by her presence she calmed other dogs that were nervous about being bathed.
On our first visit, we were amused when the receptionist said, “Dr. Whitaker, Trixie Koontz is here for her appointment.” Trixie was now Trixie Koontz, officially a part of the family.
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