From my first best-unselling novel, WILLIAMSBURG RATS: A MANNY"S TOUR OF DUTY:
We headed down Bedford Avenue towards Main Drag, just around the corner from my building. Once we passed my street we were hit by the unmistakable stench of the BARQ Animal Clinic, and I was just about to start bitching about all the worthless cats stinking up the place when I saw something new: there was a pile of puppies in the window in the front of the building, rolling around and playing together in a cardboard box half-filled with shredded-up newspaper. I couldn’t take my eyes off them. I slowly walked up to the window.
“You gonna stay here?” Dave asked from behind me.
“Yeah.”
“Cool. I’ll be right back.”
I didn’t answer. My mind was on the day Chuck was born. After meeting Chuck when he was a few minutes old, I popped out of the hospital to get some fresh air and a soda when I came to a window just like the one I was looking into. There were six tiny puppies, each about the size of a rat, and they were having such a ball wrestling and rolling around on top of each other that it was hypnotizing. I couldn’t stop staring at them. As I stood there I declared that as soon as Chuck was old enough I was going to bring him to see the puppies, and the kid would lose his mind watching them have so much fun. I remember swelling with pride that the kid had just been born, and I already had an event planned that would forever bond us together.
I never got around to bringing Chuck to see those puppies. Who knows why - life has a way of speeding by without stopping to let us do all the things we mean to do, and I guess I could add “bring Chuck to see some puppies in a window” to “everything else.” But looking at the puppies a year and a half later, I knew there was one thing in the whole world I wanted to do: buy one for Chuck. After all, every little boy needs a dog.
And then I stumble onto these fellas and it all comes together 🤣
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