Not long after PMI, the Polly Murder Incident, Doc told Dork in front of the entire family during supper that Dork had to sell all his hamsters, including Tiny.
"Why?" cried Dork.
"Because of what you did to Gordy's hamster," the old man answered. Doc's not so old, but "old man" is a saying a lot of my buddies and I use for our dads. Also, we call our mothers "old ladies," which they aren't, really.
After Doc gave Dork his orders, I was in my bedroom, reading a Little Lulu comic book. Dork was in the parlor, crying like a baby with a poop-filled diaper.
"Poetic justice," I thought, whatever that really meant. Doc said that whenever somebody he didn't like got something he deserved. And because I don't like Dork--
Dork cried a river for three days straight, but Doc held firm.
Naturally, I laughed. Not in front of anyone—or out loud—mind you. And just as naturally, Dork pleaded with Mother to change Doc's mind. And naturally, she tried her darndest to help her favorite child with a Napoleon complex, but to no avail. Doc was having none of that.
"Killing Gordy's hamster has to be addressed," I overheard Doc tell Mother, "and this is how we are addressing it, understand?"
She held her tongue. It was a wonder of wonders that she had no comeback.
All this time, the Peterson boys were busily selling hamsters to just about every kid in town. That's why Dork couldn't even give his hamsters to anyone, much less sell them.
His friends, hoity-toity guys with big deal parents who ate and drank at the Bullseye Country Club every Saturday night, wouldn't even think of owning those "little brown rats."
So, Dork got this bright idea. He'd sell Tiny and her brood back to Paul and Glen Peterson.
“Sell?” I asked him. “Did I hear right? Why not just give them to the Petersons?"
As usual, Dork was too smart by far.
About ten minutes before he was going to take his cage and hamsters to the brothers, I ran over to their house and told the brothers what Dork had in mind. Paul told me to hide in their parlor before Dork arrived. That way, I could enjoy the show that was going to take place without Dork knowing it.
The brothers and I heard the knock on the door. "Now, be quiet," Paul warned.
Glen couldn't help himself. He was in stitches as Paul opened the door.
"I can't keep my hamsters anymore," announced Dork. "I'd like to sell them to you, cheap."
(What a salesman).
"So," Dork continued, "I'll sell you my female and her eleven babies, plus the cage, for five dollars."
Glen now had a reason for his laughter. "I'll tell you what we'll do," he said. "We'll take them off your hands, that is, if you pay us a dollar."
"Two dollars," intervened Paul, the smarter of the two.
Glen turned to his brother. "You think so?"
"That's what I said, two bucks."
"Well, you heard him. It's two bucks," agreed Glen.
"That's highway robbery," rallied Dork.
"Take it or leave it."
"I'll leave it," said Dork, turning around and heading back home.
Afterward, the Petersons and I laughed so hard we had tears in our eyes. I even got a side ache.
At supper, Doc asked Dork if he got rid of the hamsters.
"No, the Petersons—" Dork looked long and hard at me, like Mother did sometimes when I displeased her for some reason or other, which was often. "—who are Gordy's best friends, insisted I pay them two dollars."
"I would've paid if I were you," advised Doc.
"I won't," said Dork.
"Or else," said Doc.
"Or else, what?"
"If those hamsters of yours are still here two days from now, I'll ground you for a month, that's what. Then, I'll get rid of them."
"Why don't you stomp them to death?" I offered.
"Gordy." Doc gave me the evil eye. "That's enough of that, or else I'll ground you for a full year."
Dork laughed out loud.
Needless to say, I kept my trap shut from that point on.
The very next day, Dork carried cage and hamsters over to the Petersons. I was already there, waiting in the parlor. With two bucks in one hand and the hamster-filled cage in the other, Dork tried to hand both to Glen.
Instead, Glen backed away. "Uh-uh," he said.
"What do you mean, uh-uh?"
"Uh-uh means it's three dollars now."
"That's right," agreed Paul, "and if you turn us down and come back even in one minute—sixty seconds—the price is gonna be four dollars. We've got too many hamsters as it is." (The Petersons never were able to sell their hamsters to hospitals for scientific research as the ads in the Superman Comic book stated. In fact, nobody in town could sell them to any hospital in the world).
"Look, I don't have another dollar on me," said Dork. I'll have to go home and raid my piggy bank. Will it still be three dollars if I do that?"
"To show you where my heart is," said Paul, "I'll allow that, but my brother and me won't wait any longer than fifteen minutes."
"Can I keep my hamsters here?" asked Dork.
"No," replied the brothers at the same time.
I almost laughed out loud but didn't because I didn't want Dork to know I was there.
The kid with the Napoleon complex rushed home in order to break his piggy bank, and after he paid the Petersons, our home was, once again, without a pet of any sort.
Maybe a week later, Crazy Annie shouted out my name as I was riding on my doodlebug past our house. I sometimes went around and around our block on my doodlebug maybe twenty five times. I stopped the arm pumping. As usual, while Annie stood on the stairs, she was as nervous as all get out. She tried to talk but couldn't.
"What do you want?" I asked.
"We're--" She couldn't say another word.
"We're what?"
"We're—"
"Speak up, will you?"
"Ooooooooh," was all she could utter while just about shaking all the curls from her hair—which was totally impossible. Crazy Annie finally blurted, "We're going to get a puppy."
"What did you say?"
"I said—"
Again, nothing came out. So, I saved her. "I know what you said. Who said we're going to get a puppy?"
"I heard Father tell Mother that we kids ought to have a pet."
"Was it night or day?
“Why?”
“If it was night, Doc was drunk. That’s why."
"It was during the day, only a little while ago."
"What did he say exactly?"
"He said he's going to find us one."
"Oh yeah?"
For at least a month, which seemed like a year, I waited patiently and, I admit, anxiously, for Doc's return with our puppy once he finished his late afternoon house calls.
You see, each weekday afternoon, after Doc left the office, he drove on country roads and visited Arpin and Vesper farmhouses, where he had a lot of patients. Most of those patients, I swear, smelled like cow manure.
After he'd visit with them, he drove to Riverview Hospital in town and spent some time there, visiting his bed-ridden patients. Most would never make it out of there alive. That's why Krohn and Berard Funeral Home would pick them up in their hearse.
Next, he'd drive up Sand Hill, just outside the city limits, where a lot of poor families lived. They needed a doctor, too.
Poor people really liked Doc. They'd tell me so, once they found out I was one of Doc Hoffman's kids. You see, Doc was a Socialist. I discovered that after I asked him about a counter-cross-stitch framed sign he had on the wall of his waiting room. It spelled out two words, "Socialized Medicine."
"What does that mean?" I asked him.
Doc shrugged. "Someday I'll explain that to you."
I didn't wait for that day to arrive. Instead, I asked my second grade teacher, Miss Wren, what those words meant.
"It means your father wants the government to be in charge of our medical care and for taxpayers to pay for it. Your father's a Socialist," she said, appearing as if someone was forcing her to suck on a lemon. That's when she added, "That is, If he's not a Communist." Miss Wren didn't like Doc because he had more education and knew a lot more than she did.
Being a Socialist is why Doc charged fifty cents to farmers and Sand Hill families. For his in-town patients, he charged a dollar.
And as you can guess, Mother was a Republican. She voted for Dewey.
Doc voted for Truman. Truman's birthday fell on the same day as mine, May 8th. Thus, I sided with Doc. I, therefore, was a Democrat. Most kids in my class at Irving grade school gave me a hard time because I was for Truman. "Phooey on Dewey," I'd shout before school and after school and at recess times, twice a day, as well.
They'd return with, "Truman ain't human."
After Harry became President, I even penciled a letter to Ol'-Give-'em-Hell, announcing that we shared the same birthday. He never answered.
After that, I didn't care for Truman very much. Besides, I thought his daughter, Margaret, was kind of not good looking. In my next letter, if there'd be one, I would write that he didn't play the piano as well as I. And besides, Margaret was ugly.
Mother told me if I had written my letter to Dewey—that is if we shared the same birthday—he probably would've sent me a birthday card with a dollar bill in it.
(I don't know about that).
Well, anyway, I stopped waiting anxiously for Doc's house call returns because he didn't bring us a puppy. Fact is, one day I began thinking Crazy Annie must've made up that story. Wouldn't you know? That's the same exact day when Doc brought home our new pet.
"What did you say his name was?" I asked Doc as I pet the licking, skinny dog in our kitchen.
"Bones. That's what I'm calling him," said Doc. "See his rib cage? It's in plain sight. I don't think he's had a full meal for a very long time. Or else he has worms."
"Yuck, worms. Where'd you buy him?"
"I didn't. We found each other."
"Where?"
"On a gravel road outside of Arpin. He was sitting alongside the road, looking forlorn and downright depressed. I stopped the car and called to him. He almost smiled, I swear, before he waggled his tail ninety miles an hour and jumped into the Oldsmobile."
"Dogs don't smile," I said.
"Bones does. Of that, I am certain. He seemed to be saying, 'Take me home, will you? I want to be the Hoffman family pet'."
"You're fibbing. He didn't. Did he?"
Doc laughed as Doc, the Third, my oldest brother, James, entered the kitchen. "What's that?" asked my nose-in-the-air brother, a high school big deal freshman, soon to be a nose-in-the-higher-atmosphere sophomore.
Crazy Annie and Dork came running. "Is that our dog?" Annie was breathless. Which was usual.
"It is," said the smiling Doc.
"And who's going to clean up after the mess he leaves?" demanded Mother. She took in a deep breath and then added, "I'm not."
"I will," I said.
"Me, too," chimed in Crazy Annie.
"I'll do it," said Dork.
(Like heck you will, I thought).
"I won't," claimed my oldest brother, Doc, the Third. "I'm not going to clean up any disgusting dog shit or wipe up its piss. No way."
"Watch your language, young man," commanded Mother.
(Young man? I'm a young man. Doc, the Third, is fourteen years old. In no time at all, he'll be old enough to vote and be drafted into the Army).
The reason he's Doc, the Third, is because Doc, my dad, has the same first, middle, and last name as his father, James Joseph Hoffman, Senior. So Doc's real name is James Joseph Hoffman, Junior. Because Mother and Doc named their first born James Joseph Hoffman, as well, that makes him the James Joseph Hoffman, the Third. I dared not call him Doc, the Third, or he'd beat me to a pulp.
Back to Bones. He was no six-week-old puppy that I dreamt about ever since Crazy Annie told me Doc said we should have a pet. Bones was maybe six months old, or so, black as a pile of coal dust, except for the top of his paws that were as white as Casper, the talking ghost. Truthfully, Bones looked like a long-legged Polish sausage with a rib cage.
"Why?" cried Dork.
"Because of what you did to Gordy's hamster," the old man answered. Doc's not so old, but "old man" is a saying a lot of my buddies and I use for our dads. Also, we call our mothers "old ladies," which they aren't, really.
After Doc gave Dork his orders, I was in my bedroom, reading a Little Lulu comic book. Dork was in the parlor, crying like a baby with a poop-filled diaper.
"Poetic justice," I thought, whatever that really meant. Doc said that whenever somebody he didn't like got something he deserved. And because I don't like Dork--
Dork cried a river for three days straight, but Doc held firm.
Naturally, I laughed. Not in front of anyone—or out loud—mind you. And just as naturally, Dork pleaded with Mother to change Doc's mind. And naturally, she tried her darndest to help her favorite child with a Napoleon complex, but to no avail. Doc was having none of that.
"Killing Gordy's hamster has to be addressed," I overheard Doc tell Mother, "and this is how we are addressing it, understand?"
She held her tongue. It was a wonder of wonders that she had no comeback.
All this time, the Peterson boys were busily selling hamsters to just about every kid in town. That's why Dork couldn't even give his hamsters to anyone, much less sell them.
His friends, hoity-toity guys with big deal parents who ate and drank at the Bullseye Country Club every Saturday night, wouldn't even think of owning those "little brown rats."
So, Dork got this bright idea. He'd sell Tiny and her brood back to Paul and Glen Peterson.
“Sell?” I asked him. “Did I hear right? Why not just give them to the Petersons?"
As usual, Dork was too smart by far.
About ten minutes before he was going to take his cage and hamsters to the brothers, I ran over to their house and told the brothers what Dork had in mind. Paul told me to hide in their parlor before Dork arrived. That way, I could enjoy the show that was going to take place without Dork knowing it.
The brothers and I heard the knock on the door. "Now, be quiet," Paul warned.
Glen couldn't help himself. He was in stitches as Paul opened the door.
"I can't keep my hamsters anymore," announced Dork. "I'd like to sell them to you, cheap."
(What a salesman).
"So," Dork continued, "I'll sell you my female and her eleven babies, plus the cage, for five dollars."
Glen now had a reason for his laughter. "I'll tell you what we'll do," he said. "We'll take them off your hands, that is, if you pay us a dollar."
"Two dollars," intervened Paul, the smarter of the two.
Glen turned to his brother. "You think so?"
"That's what I said, two bucks."
"Well, you heard him. It's two bucks," agreed Glen.
"That's highway robbery," rallied Dork.
"Take it or leave it."
"I'll leave it," said Dork, turning around and heading back home.
Afterward, the Petersons and I laughed so hard we had tears in our eyes. I even got a side ache.
At supper, Doc asked Dork if he got rid of the hamsters.
"No, the Petersons—" Dork looked long and hard at me, like Mother did sometimes when I displeased her for some reason or other, which was often. "—who are Gordy's best friends, insisted I pay them two dollars."
"I would've paid if I were you," advised Doc.
"I won't," said Dork.
"Or else," said Doc.
"Or else, what?"
"If those hamsters of yours are still here two days from now, I'll ground you for a month, that's what. Then, I'll get rid of them."
"Why don't you stomp them to death?" I offered.
"Gordy." Doc gave me the evil eye. "That's enough of that, or else I'll ground you for a full year."
Dork laughed out loud.
Needless to say, I kept my trap shut from that point on.
The very next day, Dork carried cage and hamsters over to the Petersons. I was already there, waiting in the parlor. With two bucks in one hand and the hamster-filled cage in the other, Dork tried to hand both to Glen.
Instead, Glen backed away. "Uh-uh," he said.
"What do you mean, uh-uh?"
"Uh-uh means it's three dollars now."
"That's right," agreed Paul, "and if you turn us down and come back even in one minute—sixty seconds—the price is gonna be four dollars. We've got too many hamsters as it is." (The Petersons never were able to sell their hamsters to hospitals for scientific research as the ads in the Superman Comic book stated. In fact, nobody in town could sell them to any hospital in the world).
"Look, I don't have another dollar on me," said Dork. I'll have to go home and raid my piggy bank. Will it still be three dollars if I do that?"
"To show you where my heart is," said Paul, "I'll allow that, but my brother and me won't wait any longer than fifteen minutes."
"Can I keep my hamsters here?" asked Dork.
"No," replied the brothers at the same time.
I almost laughed out loud but didn't because I didn't want Dork to know I was there.
The kid with the Napoleon complex rushed home in order to break his piggy bank, and after he paid the Petersons, our home was, once again, without a pet of any sort.
Maybe a week later, Crazy Annie shouted out my name as I was riding on my doodlebug past our house. I sometimes went around and around our block on my doodlebug maybe twenty five times. I stopped the arm pumping. As usual, while Annie stood on the stairs, she was as nervous as all get out. She tried to talk but couldn't.
"What do you want?" I asked.
"We're--" She couldn't say another word.
"We're what?"
"We're—"
"Speak up, will you?"
"Ooooooooh," was all she could utter while just about shaking all the curls from her hair—which was totally impossible. Crazy Annie finally blurted, "We're going to get a puppy."
"What did you say?"
"I said—"
Again, nothing came out. So, I saved her. "I know what you said. Who said we're going to get a puppy?"
"I heard Father tell Mother that we kids ought to have a pet."
"Was it night or day?
“Why?”
“If it was night, Doc was drunk. That’s why."
"It was during the day, only a little while ago."
"What did he say exactly?"
"He said he's going to find us one."
"Oh yeah?"
For at least a month, which seemed like a year, I waited patiently and, I admit, anxiously, for Doc's return with our puppy once he finished his late afternoon house calls.
You see, each weekday afternoon, after Doc left the office, he drove on country roads and visited Arpin and Vesper farmhouses, where he had a lot of patients. Most of those patients, I swear, smelled like cow manure.
After he'd visit with them, he drove to Riverview Hospital in town and spent some time there, visiting his bed-ridden patients. Most would never make it out of there alive. That's why Krohn and Berard Funeral Home would pick them up in their hearse.
Next, he'd drive up Sand Hill, just outside the city limits, where a lot of poor families lived. They needed a doctor, too.
Poor people really liked Doc. They'd tell me so, once they found out I was one of Doc Hoffman's kids. You see, Doc was a Socialist. I discovered that after I asked him about a counter-cross-stitch framed sign he had on the wall of his waiting room. It spelled out two words, "Socialized Medicine."
"What does that mean?" I asked him.
Doc shrugged. "Someday I'll explain that to you."
I didn't wait for that day to arrive. Instead, I asked my second grade teacher, Miss Wren, what those words meant.
"It means your father wants the government to be in charge of our medical care and for taxpayers to pay for it. Your father's a Socialist," she said, appearing as if someone was forcing her to suck on a lemon. That's when she added, "That is, If he's not a Communist." Miss Wren didn't like Doc because he had more education and knew a lot more than she did.
Being a Socialist is why Doc charged fifty cents to farmers and Sand Hill families. For his in-town patients, he charged a dollar.
And as you can guess, Mother was a Republican. She voted for Dewey.
Doc voted for Truman. Truman's birthday fell on the same day as mine, May 8th. Thus, I sided with Doc. I, therefore, was a Democrat. Most kids in my class at Irving grade school gave me a hard time because I was for Truman. "Phooey on Dewey," I'd shout before school and after school and at recess times, twice a day, as well.
They'd return with, "Truman ain't human."
After Harry became President, I even penciled a letter to Ol'-Give-'em-Hell, announcing that we shared the same birthday. He never answered.
After that, I didn't care for Truman very much. Besides, I thought his daughter, Margaret, was kind of not good looking. In my next letter, if there'd be one, I would write that he didn't play the piano as well as I. And besides, Margaret was ugly.
Mother told me if I had written my letter to Dewey—that is if we shared the same birthday—he probably would've sent me a birthday card with a dollar bill in it.
(I don't know about that).
Well, anyway, I stopped waiting anxiously for Doc's house call returns because he didn't bring us a puppy. Fact is, one day I began thinking Crazy Annie must've made up that story. Wouldn't you know? That's the same exact day when Doc brought home our new pet.
"What did you say his name was?" I asked Doc as I pet the licking, skinny dog in our kitchen.
"Bones. That's what I'm calling him," said Doc. "See his rib cage? It's in plain sight. I don't think he's had a full meal for a very long time. Or else he has worms."
"Yuck, worms. Where'd you buy him?"
"I didn't. We found each other."
"Where?"
"On a gravel road outside of Arpin. He was sitting alongside the road, looking forlorn and downright depressed. I stopped the car and called to him. He almost smiled, I swear, before he waggled his tail ninety miles an hour and jumped into the Oldsmobile."
"Dogs don't smile," I said.
"Bones does. Of that, I am certain. He seemed to be saying, 'Take me home, will you? I want to be the Hoffman family pet'."
"You're fibbing. He didn't. Did he?"
Doc laughed as Doc, the Third, my oldest brother, James, entered the kitchen. "What's that?" asked my nose-in-the-air brother, a high school big deal freshman, soon to be a nose-in-the-higher-atmosphere sophomore.
Crazy Annie and Dork came running. "Is that our dog?" Annie was breathless. Which was usual.
"It is," said the smiling Doc.
"And who's going to clean up after the mess he leaves?" demanded Mother. She took in a deep breath and then added, "I'm not."
"I will," I said.
"Me, too," chimed in Crazy Annie.
"I'll do it," said Dork.
(Like heck you will, I thought).
"I won't," claimed my oldest brother, Doc, the Third. "I'm not going to clean up any disgusting dog shit or wipe up its piss. No way."
"Watch your language, young man," commanded Mother.
(Young man? I'm a young man. Doc, the Third, is fourteen years old. In no time at all, he'll be old enough to vote and be drafted into the Army).
The reason he's Doc, the Third, is because Doc, my dad, has the same first, middle, and last name as his father, James Joseph Hoffman, Senior. So Doc's real name is James Joseph Hoffman, Junior. Because Mother and Doc named their first born James Joseph Hoffman, as well, that makes him the James Joseph Hoffman, the Third. I dared not call him Doc, the Third, or he'd beat me to a pulp.
Back to Bones. He was no six-week-old puppy that I dreamt about ever since Crazy Annie told me Doc said we should have a pet. Bones was maybe six months old, or so, black as a pile of coal dust, except for the top of his paws that were as white as Casper, the talking ghost. Truthfully, Bones looked like a long-legged Polish sausage with a rib cage.
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