Loose End: Koko Returns

I'm guilty of thinking of only myself. My memoirs, me, me, me. I forgot to tell you what happened to Koko.

You might recall that Koko is the presumably half Schnauzer, half Springer Spaniel that was ostensibly a 1951 Christmas present to me, but really was Dad's dog. On my 4th birthday my Mother scared him off, and he ran away, after he freaked her out by lapping up my blood.

He came back a week later, before Alaka'i returned. He appeared out of the tall grass in front of the house as my parents and I happened to be outside and he sauntered up with a big sheepish-looking grin.

I would have interpreted the grin as a sign that he came to realize that being fed daily beat foraging, and a desire to kiss up to us and get reinstated as the family dog.

My Father interpreted the grin as proof that Koko got laid.

Later, we heard that a family about a mile away was trying to get rid of some mongrel puppies born to their bitch. Dad said that cinched it, good old Koko got some action and knocked that bitch up.

That came to be Dad's public story of that time. Whenever we had guests over, and the subject of the dog came up, as it always did even if Dad had to force it up, Dad would tell the guests how he didn't believe in fixing male dogs, it's inhumane. Then he would say, beaming proudly, "Sure, there was that time that he ran off for a week and we found out later that he knocked up a neighbor bitch, but all of us men got to sow some wild oats, am I right?"

My Mother called it Dad's vicarious adventure. I asked what "vicarious" meant. She said, "You'll understand when you're older," so I thought it was dirty.

Never a mention of the real reason Koko ran off. When the neighbors with the female dog asked if our dog could be the sire, my parents said he'd been in the house or under leash the whole time.