The Stardust Lounge_ Stories From a Boy's Adolescence - Deborah Digges [37]
Once Buster wandered through our gate and was lost for an afternoon. Banking on the basset hound Rufus's strong sense of scent, we instructed him, “Find Buster, Rufus!” and Rufus had pulled us with authority on leash through the backyards of Amherst, but, as it turned out, in the opposite direction.
Buster had wandered down to the retirement home a few blocks from us. There he was befriended by the residents and the nursing staff, who let him wander about the halls while they called the police.
“I'm so relieved he's safe,” I said to the nurse leading me to the dayroom where Buster sat eating potato chips fed to him by a man in a wheelchair.
“He has epilepsy” I told her.
“Well, honey don't worry” the nurse responded as she knelt to pet Buster. “He's come to the right place.”
If Eduardo instilled in us the idea of fairness, then Buster gave us the opportunity to practice through our shared responsibility of his care. His condition demanded discipline—we must get him fed and medicated by seven or by mid-morning he would be seizing.
And when seizing, he couldn't be left alone. Someone needed to be with him. Often the local vet kept an eye on him the days I drove into the university. Like the retirement home staff, the clinic allowed Buster the run of the office. After school it would be Stephen's job, rain or shine, to go to the vet's and walk Buster home, have him fed and medicated as well as feeding Rufus, and G.Q., and the cats, by the time I walked in the door at seven.
Because a ride in the car calmed a seizing Buster, I sometimes took him in to Medford with me, stopping at rest areas to let him pee, wandering around the area a bit with him so he could stretch his legs and explore, then loading him back in the car. Were this the case, I needed to leave an hour or so earlier than usual. His needs insisted that we plan our days; at the same time we must be willing to depart from our plans.
Maybe Stephen promised friends he'd hang out after school. Maybe I was tired and could have used an extra hour's sleep. Or maybe I was working on a poem. Things must be put aside in deference to Buster. Because he was so lovable, earnest, and good-natured, Stephen and I worked willingly together for his best interests.
We learned that Buster might seize if things were stressful. Stephen's loud rap made Buster twitchy a sign we learned might bring on a seizure. Shouting drove him trembling into a corner.
We adjusted the music and our tempers. If Stephen and I disagreed about something, we kept our voices calm, or stepped outside to figure it out.
In our efforts to care for Buster, we needed to keep in touch with the other's schedule. The fall Buster came to live with us Stephen convinced me that beepers for both of us were a good idea.
I didn't like the idea of beepers. Unless one was a doctor, beepers seemed to suggest illicit activities. Stephen's friends at the Park School had used beepers for such purposes. And I knew that teachers at the high school frowned on them.
But in those first months when we were learning to care for Buster, Stephen convinced me. And so we purchased a pair of beepers, opened an account, invented codes for each other, and used them to communicate.
Each time Stephen's beeper was confiscated at school, I called, to the surprise of the counselors, to say that Stephen owned the beeper with my permission, that he needed it to communicate with me regarding our epileptic bulldog, and may he please have it back?
And Stephen learned not to flaunt the instrument, or allow friends to call him at school. “They could take it away for good,” he said one night. “And then how would I know if Buster needed me?”
Through Ed's intervention and our love for G.Q., Rufus, Mugs and her kittens, and now Buster, we began to create a home, a family of humans and other beings