WHAT’S A DOG DOING IN MY TRUCK? – OR HOW “PIP” POPPED INTO 3 ACES.
Whenever you pull alongside a big truck and glance up at the driver, you may spot another face staring down at you, that of man’s best friend. Truth is, many drivers – not to put down their womenfolk, at home with the kids – welcome a dog’s company. Reciting your troubles to a canine pal won’t get you any answers; on the other hand, it won’t produce any criticism. When you’re all done kvetching to your four-legged friend, what you will get is an impulsive slurp or two on the kisser accompanied by an enthusiastically wagging tail. Your long haul pooch is happy just to have you all to him or herself.
A trucker faces often impossible delivery deadlines, grueling hours behind the wheel, arguments with his dispatchers, and telephone battles with the home front – if there’s anything left of the marriage after a few years of regional or long-haul driving. You want to rest assured there’s no one breaking into your cab while you’re in a truck stop shoveling down a meal or enjoying a good, warm shower; a snarling beast steaming up the windows of your truck is a wonderful deterrent.
Including a dog in my 3 ACES story was a natural development. Besides, I genuinely like dogs. (More, next week, about two dogs that have made a difference in my life.) Oddly enough, over nine years of long haul driving, I never took a dog along with me. Teaming with a trainer, when I first broke into the business, I was too involved to think about a dog. Finally alone, I found myself selfishly occupied exercising my new found knowledge trying to survive without an accident – far too busy, I felt, to consider caring for another living being in the cab. Being a loner at heart, I continued over the next 8 years as I was, alone – something I came to regret late one night on the south side of Chicago. Despite being forewarned about sleeping on the street in the old stockyards area, I tried catching a few winks in the cab. Two thugs attempted a break-in, and, by the Grace of God, failed.
“Pip,” the name I gave my three-legged beagle/bull terrier, entered the 3 ACES story for two reasons. Firstly, my heroine, Dawn, needed a major mental uplift to snap her from the downward spiral Abner found her in when he rescued her, bag and baggage, at a Texas truck stop. Secondly, I wanted, at long last, to correct my mistake of not having a dog in my truck, even though truck and dog, at the time I began writing the book, would both have to be imaginary.
Pulling an injured and terrified Pip off I-75, north of Corbin, Kentrucky, was an act of my imagination as well, but I needed some help when it came to detailing the amputation of his right rear leg. In this, I was guided at the offices and surgery of a local, Endless Mountains Veterinarian, Dr. William McDonough. Taking charge of Pip’s recovery, Dawn gradually snaps out of her funk; dog and woman bond in a deep relationship. Pip merely tolerates Abner; his love of Dawn is boundless.
In preparing to write 3 ACES, I reread one of the greatest dog stories of all time – Jack London’s THE CALL OF THE WILD. I wanted to study London’s incredible technique of telling a story entirely from the dog’s point of view. This I ultimately chose NOT to do. I was satisfied in garnering a narrator’s feel for being in Pip’s head, the better to describe his movements and reactions to events in and around the truck.
It had been some time since I’d been around dogs of my own, so at the same time I began a careful study of the behavior and reactions of “Jack,” a beagle thoroughbred owned by a good friend of mine, Don Miller. Don lives handily in the Endless Mountains village of Mehoopany. not far from my own Button Top where much of 3 ACES was conceived and written.
A number of – dare I call them paranormal? – experiences occurred during my writing of 3 ACES. The one involving “Pip” took place in an auto repair shop on Mile Hill, a stone’s throw west of Tunkhannock. I was at the counter discussing a problem pertaining to my old 5th Avenue Chrysler when a growling dog emerged from under the counter, studied me carefully, quieted down, then laid his head against my leg and begged to be petted. Imagine my shock when I realized it was a bull terrier/beagle cross, marked identically to the dog I’d been setting down in my book…it WAS Pip!
It always seemed strange to me that as much trouble as my cover artists had been put to in coming up with trial faces of Dawn, then Abner (the toughest, by far) there had never been a moment’s difficulty conceiving Pip. Pip sprang onto the cover as nimbly as if the space had been reserved all along for him. Alas, Pip’s tale ends prematurely; my dog dying a hero’s death, protecting Dawn.
One of my three cover artists, a devoted animal lover, delivered the harsh news that, in instigating Pip’s death, I was toying with fire by pointedly “killing off” the star-crossed animal – that it was I who would suffer, at the hands of my readers! No one regretted this dreadful plot turn any more than I, but there was no turning back; the story had cast itself in stone. It was left to me only to pass on the details to the readers. (You can see that each of the 3 ACES – Dawn, Abner, Pip - had me, at that point, firmly by the throat and would not release their grasp!) So far, I’ve been fortunate in having no repercussions. Perhaps my readers have felt, as I hoped they would, that Pip’s death was heroic enough to let the writer slip quietly off the hook.
