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Robert A. Mills

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PEPE
12/22/2012 9:23:04 AM

One blustery Christmas Eve in Western New York Pépé le Moko came into our lives. He was a tiny black poodle just weaned from his mother, and Patti Zorno owned him, along with a half dozen siblings.

Patti Zorno was a crazy woman. In her late thirties, she might have been the original groupie: wild-eyed, frizzy-haired, heavily made-up, well perfumed, wrapped in cheap furs — obviously and forever single — she hung around the television studio and besieged the staffers with gifts of jewelry, clothes, and money, mostly fifty dollar bills that were always clipped to a Hallmark card of syrupy, stupid sentiment:

“TO KNOW YOU AND KEEP YOU ALWAYS NEAR IS TO LOVE YOU, EVEN THO IT IS UNREQUITED! Patti”

She invariably came in after the receptionist had gone home, and that particular Christmas Eve she caught me in the lobby at 7:15, just as I was leaving. Under her arm was a cardboard box; in the box were seven puppies.

“Merry Christmas!” she exploded. “Pick out any one you want! One for everyone — the white one and the two beige ones are female, all the rest are little boys! Which one you want? You get first dibs!”

I chose the tiny, solid black one and headed for the elevator.

“There is a card stuck to his ear!” she cried. In the elevator I crammed the dog into my Burberry pocket and opened the card (there was a $100 bill inside).

THE POODLE’S NAME IS PÉPÉ, HE IS FRENCH. BE GOOD TO HIM, MON AMI. MERRY XMAS! AMOUR, PATTI.

In the car I looked the puppy over. “Welcome to chaos, Pepe,” I said, cramming the animal back into my pocket.

I had told my erstwhile wife I would call on her elderly Aunt Deirdre, who at ninety-one would be spending her last Christmas before departing this mortal coil. She had pneumonia and was at Park Avenue Hospital. When I entered, the lady at the desk stopped me.

“That a dog you got in your overcoat pocket?” she asked.

“No.”

By the time I got home, the kids were in bed. My wife asked me if I had stopped to see Aunt Deirdre.

“I did.”

“How was she?”

“Dying. Look what I got the kids for Christmas.” I showed her the poodle. “His name is Pépé.’

“Peppy? I hope he is a male. What’s his last name?”

I thought for a moment. Peter Lorrie came to mind. “Pépé le Moko,” I said, inspired.

“Well, you gotta take care of him, not me. If his pee-pee thing is peppy, I know where his name came from. Hide him on the back porch until the kids wake up. They will think Santa brought him.”

Conscious of the fact it was 22 degrees and snowing, I found a shoebox, wrapped Pépé in a warm towel, and the next morning I told the kids maybe Santa left them something on the back porch.

“What’s that noise I hear out there?” I asked, fiendishly the manipulator.

Of course, Pépé was frozen solid, stiff as a board. “Is he dead?” four-year-old Barbara asked. “Naw, said six-year-old Bobby, “he’s just sleepin,”

I promptly put him in the oven and set it on low to thaw him out. He lived 16 years, in four different houses, before hanging up his collar and leash.

We had a fine Christmas that year in 1957. In fact, Pépé le Moko was still going strong when the kids finally got married and moved away. I moved out in 1968, leaving the dog with my ex-wife.

Copyright©2012 by Robert A. Mills, all rights reserved

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