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Pooch and Pocket-Hole

An odd spot to relax.

By Victor Javier OrtizPublished 3 years ago 7 min read
1

A woodshop, after all, is like a serial killer’s foxhole from an 80s paperback. The table saw holds a knife to my neck and dares me to slip up and send a finger flying. The noise is terrible and industrial and droning, and the noise can gum up the ears and make them buzz. At night, laying in bed, my ears buzz. Handling the machines for so long, the vibrations become part of the hands, and the hands feel tingly and dead. Like gums at the dentist when they’re shot up in anesthetic.

And after all that, sacrificing the body in many ways and maneuvering round danger and dust, the damn stools I make still clip-clop. Like a dog missing a leg and having to hop around on just three.

At some point, the use of my hands showed me that creation was hard and that it hurt and that it was, in fact, stressful. That seems like the part about creating that no one talks about. And that stress, and that hurt, rewards a sliver of fulfillment when it’s done. And that’s okay. Life’s a sliver. Fulfillment is rare.

*

I was always concerned when the stray would come in. A chihuahua the size of two fists. White fur. Brown spot round its eye. Missing a leg and having to hop around on just three.

“Get out of here,” I would say. “You’ll hurt your ears.”

He wouldn’t. He’d pat his paws around, whimpering low, and then lay on the sawdust on the floor. Lay there and watch. When I would take a water break, so would he. I’d pour some in this funky bowl that was Fiesta colors, pink, teal and orange.

So I named him Fiesta.

*

It’s not like I did it for cash or took commissions or anything. I made stuff for around the house. Crooked stools. Frames that rocked on the wall if you pushed on the corners. Frankenstein hutches made from old vanities and cabinets. They never looked quite right, but then again, neither did I.

So, it was just natural a 3-legged chihuahua that clopped around bow-legged and hunched over was my shop’s mascot.

I got the idea to shop him up a fake leg, like the ones that made the top page of reddit, dogs wheeling themselves around and people going, “aww.”

I sketched it out, a convoluted mess that looked more like Rube Goldberg's nightmares than a medical instrument. Hindsight is 20/20 and all that, because I made the thing anyway. It took four days or so, on and off, sanding here, problem-solving there. Stuck a caster wheel on the bottom, and vamonos, let's go.

I zip tied the thing to a dog harness, and then wrangled slippery Fiesta and put it on him.

It was way too heavy, and he slipped out of it instantly.

But it was the most I’d ever laughed in the shop.

*

Over the years, Fiesta got fat and tired.

I’d made him a little couch with these really nice turned legs; an elevated holder for his Fiesta bowls (got him another one for food); a dog house that was supposed to be mid-century modern, but was more mid-century murder to look at.

That said, my stuff got neater, straighter, truer and plumb (terms I stole from Woodtube to sound like a serious woodworker; I'm not).

Fiesta became less and less of a stray, but he’d still wander off occasionally and he’d greet the neighbors. He was the size of two fists, but he commanded a whole block.

*

Fiesta’d take, sometimes, up to a week before he came back to the shop and plopped his little fat body on his couch. This one time, though, he just didn’t. It’d been three weeks and I spent that time configuring and re-configuring version 7.0 of the prosthetic leg. Enough money’d been sunk into the project that I may as well have bought a legit one, but you can’t lead a Vic to water and make him drink.

It’d get lonely in there. It was just me and the pawprints that Fiesta left behind on the sawdusty floors.

*

So, I started going out to look for the little guy. Asking neighbors and such. Checking the pound. Nothing. I’d leave food in his bowl in case he came back. It’d been a month and two weeks now. His couch had collected dust, so I vacuumed it. But mostly, I stayed out of the shop. I’d lost my urge to create.

One night, I was having dinner and a furious sound came at the door. Almost like some person was trying to get in. I was chilled. Fork in my mouth, I was not ready to get robbed, especially with an armory of torture devices in the shop ten feet away.

But I listened closely. It was a scratching sound on the door, like little paws. Fiesta’s paws. I opened the door and he came in, belly bulged like nothing else.

So, let’s scratch out he. Fiesta was a she. Fiesta was pregnant.

She was ready to pop, and the next day, she did. Four little Fiestas, a variety pack. One with a spot, one without a spot, one that was only spots, and one that was unlike the others, blonde. Fiesta was a great mama, though fierce. Just like any Latin mother.

*

So, within the next week, Fiesta nursed her pups. I kept them in the house to keep ‘em safe. I vowed to take ‘em to the vet and get ‘em spayed and neutered as soon as possible. I didn’t want to make that mistake again.

In the meanwhile, I started making the pups their own couches. It was so easy that time. The wood cut like butter, and it sanded smooth as the pups’ bellies.

I can’t say it was easy to see to all those pups and a mama. It was a difficult time. A fecal time, even. But, like all things, I pushed forward hoping life grew neater, straighter, truer, and plumb.

*

I had just finished version 7.0 of the leg. It was a thing made of pvc and it felt, for once, sturdy and light. But, I couldn’t find Fiesta. I worried that she’d taken off again, off to the streets, wherever it was she went.

I took off across the neighborhood looking for her again. Nothing.

But, as I got back home, I saw her sleeping under a palm tree in the front yard. She must’ve been there and I just hadn’t seen her in my panic.

*

Fiesta didn’t wake up from her nap under the palm. She didn't wake up ever again.

The puppies kept me up all night crying for their mama.

They didn’t know I was crying for her, too.

I’d gotten up at some point and I visited the shop. I took a drill and saw and I went to town on all the things I had made for Fiesta. I took it all apart.

*

So, I’d realized she’d need to be buried right away. Next morning, I wasn't so much in the mood to create, but I forced the work, building her a proper casket. How morbid, to saw away at the lumber that would wrap my little mascot in her grave. I used the lumber from the stuff I’d taken apart in a blind rage the night before.

It seemed appropriate to put the cushion from Fiesta's couch inside the casket. It was, I thought, one of her favorite things.

All assembled, straight and true and plumb and proud, there was still something off about it. It wouldn’t come to me what.

I took a break to feed the pups and it hit me. Rather, I hit it; Fiesta’s bowl, knocked over, the one in Fiesta colors, pink, teal, orange.

I put the pups back to sleep in their little nest and zipped back to the shop. I took my cans of spray paint and I did the casket up in Fiesta colors, pink, teal, orange.

*

So, I spent the afternoon digging away in my backyard. It was so much harder to dig a deep enough hole than I thought. By the time I’d had Fiesta’s plot opened up, I shook with exhaustion. It was a long day of creation.

Creation for death.

I buried little Fiesta and I told her I missed her, and I planted a palm tree to mark the grave.

*

So, Fiesta is gone and the shop is silent of her little clip-clopping steps. But they’ve been replaced by four-legged freaks. How odd you must feel to have four legs, I tell them.

They run in the shop and slap themselves around on their couches. I made four little couches but they all crowd in on just one. Go figure.

I’m using my hands to build them their own little dog houses, in the mid-century modern style. Hopefully this time they come out right.

I’m not gonna lie, though, all this creation stuff is stressful. And that stress, and that hurt, rewards a sliver of fulfillment when it’s done. And that’s okay. Life’s a sliver. Fulfillment is rare.

Fiesta's Androgynous Glory

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