Giant George (27 page)

They’d shoveled
the sidewalks, which was a relief to us both, but unless we let George go
on
the sidewalk, he’d have to cross huge, growing mounds of new snow to get anywhere suitable to use. And every minute that passed the situation got worse. The snowflakes were coming down hard and fast now, falling in fluffy discs the size of quarters, backlit golden by the streetlamps. But while Christie and I were loving
the prettiness of the scenery, this was also the last straw of a long and tiring day—George was not happy about being out in this
at all
. He didn’t seem to have the first idea what to make of it. All he knew was that he really didn’t like it. This stuff came down, it stuck to him, it made him shiver, it felt icy and, worse, it was all over the ground beneath his paws too—something he didn’t like
one little bit.

“Like water, only worse,” laughed Christie, as we watched his reaction. Just as he did when he was a puppy by our pool, he was hopping around, alternately picking up his paws, looking not so much like a dog but a show pony—a show pony performing dressage, perhaps, or one of those prancing horses you used to see at the circus.

You could tell by his expression that he was seriously
Not Amused. And by his demeanor that there was NO WAY he was going to use the bathroom—not now that the bathroom had become an outpost of the Arctic. This was a dog who’d been born in Oregon but raised in Arizona, after all.

“We need to find somewhere dry for him,” I told Christie as
we walked down the street. We had both put on an extra layer of clothing since earlier, but it still felt like
the frosty air was seeping through it.

She stopped and waved a gloved hand around. “Yeah, but
where
, exactly? Look around you. There must be six inches of snow now, at least!”

“There must be a park somewhere—”

“Which will be covered in snow too—this is Chicago.”

I grinned. “But I’m guessing they still have dogs here.”

“Who are
used
to snow, honey.”

“But there’ll be
somewhere
.”

That somewhere
was proving to be pretty elusive. We walked the length of one block, and then we walked another, with George getting more and more preturbed as we did so. We walked so far that I wasn’t altogether sure where we were now, but finally we reached a big intersection.

The snow was beginning to settle on the roads, and George, we could tell, was becoming desperate. He was getting real antsy, sniffing
everything, looking all around him, shuffling his paws so his front and back legs were close together. He needed the bathroom pretty badly. “Let’s go this way,” Christie suggested. “Maybe there’s a—”

“No, wait!” I pointed. “How about that building over there?”

“Where? Which one?” She followed the direction of my outstretched finger, one hand clamped tightly around the scarf at her neck. With
the wind whipping around the corner, it felt fiendishly cold now. The tip of her nose, I noticed, had grown pink. “That place?” she asked. We both peered to make out
the building in the darkness, our vision obscured by the thickly falling flakes.

I nodded. “It’s some sort of community hall, isn’t it? Or, wait. Is it a church?”

I looked up, blinking the snow from my eyes. There was a neon-lit
white crucifix high on the wall of it, and, more importantly, for our purposes, it seemed to have an area out in front of the building that, strangely, the snow hadn’t settled on. We started across the intersection, which was empty of cars anyway, and as we got closer you could see the church had some sort of forecourt, an area of which was raised up, and looked like it might have been a garden.
Only it wasn’t, of course. This was Chicago in February. It would be a few months yet before anything would be growing there. The building was mostly dark; there was just one light burning inside, coming from a big window set pretty high in the wall.

“How weird,” commented Christie, as we reached the other sidewalk. “All this snow around us, and none on there at all.”

It
was
weird. The area
was uncovered, so it made no sense. And what was it doing here anyway? It was a small rectangular area, raised about six inches above the forecourt, and it seemed to have no obvious purpose. “That’s wood chips covering it, isn’t it?” said Christie, as we approached it.

I nodded. “Looks like it. And maybe that’s it. Maybe it’s warm—you know, like mulch around a plant keeps the heat in. Maybe that’s
why the snow isn’t sticking to it.”

“What d’you think it is? Some sort of remembrance garden, or something?” We both paused then, to contemplate the
potential impropriety of having George use a remembrance garden for a bathroom. Hmm. “Oh—I know!” said Christie suddenly. “Maybe it’s left over from the holidays. Maybe they had a crib and stuff set up here—a nativity scene. I’ll bet that’s it. I’ll
bet that’s what it is—hey!”

The “hey!” was because George had yanked violently on the end of the leash. He had no time to join in debates about religion right now.

It didn’t matter whether it was a nativity, a garden or a gift sent from heaven. To George it was just a bathroom, and, boy, did he need the bathroom. He was already beginning to squat, relief written right across his face, before
Christie had stumbled behind him up the steps.

“D’you think it’s okay for him to—” Christie had just begun to say, when behind us we heard a sudden, and very loud, banging. We both jumped. And then swiveled around. There was a shadowy face in the high window, and silhouetted in front of him was the unmistakable vision of an arm, and a fist, rapping furiously on the glass.

“Hey!” we heard him
yelling at us. “Hey, you out there!”

Christie and I exchanged glances. The temptation to make a run for it was powerful. Even at this distance, he looked seriously pissed off, and he sounded it, for sure. He’d also left the window now, so presumably he was coming out. But George, who was still peeing, was in no position, for the moment, to go anywhere.

Next thing, and it seemed he’d hardly have
had the time to
get down to us, we could hear the distinctive sound of a bunch of bolts being drawn back from behind the church’s heavy wooden doors.

“Hey!” we could hear him yell again, even before the doors opened. And something else, possibly something unrepeatable.

“Obviously not a man of the cloth,” said Christie. “C’mon, honey!” she added, giving a firm tug to George’s leash.

At that
moment, one of the huge church doors opened with a creak, and a man—a very angry one, the caretaker I imagined—was silhouetted, gesticulating, in the entrance.

“Hey!” he said again, pointing in our general direction. “You people letting that mutt go to the bathroom on my ground!”

He emerged from the doorway, looking murderous and big, just as George had finished and stood up again. The man was
approaching now, both arms waving furiously. It was very dark; there was no moon, so he couldn’t really see. And because George, like many large dogs, always squatted to pee, it was obvious that he thought we had allowed George on his “ground” to leave the church a slightly bigger offering. But looking at him, it felt like there was little point in standing around in the freezing cold debating
the issue. Besides, George was done, and no harm had been done either.

“Come on,” I said to Christie. “Let’s go!”

We headed off at a jog, the three of us, back down the snowy sidewalk. George, either traumatized, or thrilled by this unexpected bit of exercise (we thought the latter), had clearly forgotten he didn’t like all the white stuff underfoot, and was
bounding along beside us, tail thumping
happily, ears flapping. I glanced back as we approached the corner. The man was running after us.

“What the
hell
?!” I panted to Christie. “This guy’s seriously pissed at us!”

We ran on, for another fifty yards or so along the sidewalk, stopping only when we reached another intersection, a block along, to catch our breath and see if we’d outgunned him. By now, Christie was laughing so much she
was running out of breath, and a little steam had begun to rise from Georgie’s flanks. But now that his bladder was empty, he seemed to be enjoying himself immensely. His barking—presumably out of pure euphoria—boomed out like cannons in the heavy silence.

I turned around, by now prepared to try and reason with the man, to point out that our “mutt” had not gone to the bathroom on his “ground,”
merely peed, which (I was rehearsing my speech as I thought this) I really didn’t think God would strike him down for. But the man had stopped. He’d stopped a good forty feet back, and was just standing, and you could see he was squinting a little—squeezing his eyes up to try and make out exactly what he was seeing through the snow.

“He’s just realized,” said Christie, her words making little
white clouds in front of her. “We’re standing under this streetlamp, aren’t we?” she panted. “So he can
see
us. And I think he’s only just seen George properly. You know—for the first time. It was pretty dark by that church, wasn’t it? That’s why he’s stopped. I’ll
bet
that’s why he’s stopped.”

He couldn’t have heard her, but as she spoke, we watched
the man take a couple of steps backward, then
turn on his heels and jog back toward the church. His parting gesture was nothing more threatening than a scowl.

Christie and I laughed, though not so loudly that he’d hear us and get angry again. He’d clearly decided that some owners, or, rather, some dogs—very big ones—possibly weren’t worth having a big blowout argument with. Georgie, unimpressed, snorted out some air and once again started
hopping: he’d remembered that he didn’t like this snow one little bit.

“I think you’re right, hon,” I said to Christie. “I think you’re actually right. How great is that?” I rubbed my gloved hand over George’s head and back. “How great is that, Georg-eee, being the world’s tallest dog?”

“The world’s tallest dog,
ever
. Don’t forget that part,” said Christie. She slipped her hand in mine and we
turned to head back. “The world’s tallest dog, ever, who’s been on Oprah Winfrey’s ‘That’s Incredible!’”

“The world’s tallest dog, ever, who’s been on Oprah Winfrey’s ‘That’s Incredible!’ and who spent last night in the master bed in the best suite in the whole of the Omni Hotel.”

“The best suite in the whole of
Chicago
,” added Christie. “Because he’s a celebrated superstar now.” George huffed.
“With the most in-demand paw-tographs on eBay—just you wait. Hey,” she said, snuggling in a little closer. I let go of her hand and put my arm around her instead. “You think Annabel’s giving your mom and pop all kinds of grief?”

“I don’t doubt it,” I answered. “Isn’t that kind of in the job description?” Christie’s nose was now bright red. It was very
chilly. She looked beautiful, I thought—really
beautiful. “We’ll call them up,” I added, squeezing her shoulder firmly, remembering, as if either of us needed to be reminded, that this was the first time we’d ever been parted overnight from our little girl. “We’ll call them just as soon as we’re back at the hotel,” I said. “To see how she’s doing, and tell them we’ll be home real soon—and all about our trip. What an amazing day! What d’you
say, Giant Georgeee? What a day, eh?”

George had no answer, because George couldn’t talk, which was probably a plus, because one thing was for sure: George had developed a bit of a taste for superstardom, and we didn’t want him getting too full of himself. We didn’t want him changing.
Hell
, no.

After all, and it had never seemed so clear to me as that night, he might be an entry in
Guinness
World Records
, have a fan club, a website, a whole bunch of followers around the world; he might be unique, and a record-breaker and very, very famous; but the only thing that mattered was that he was part of our family—always had been, always would be. That was
really
what he was.

It was a good feeling for me too, being a part of my little family—the best feeling ever, in fact.

We reached the
final intersection. We were almost back at the hotel now. I kissed my wife, petted my dog.

Time to go home.

Since being crowned the Guinness World Records’ Tallest Living Dog, and Tallest Dog Ever, George has had a real taste of what it’s like to be globally famous. On the day of our appearance on
The Oprah Winfrey Show
, all the international news wires were on fire. Word spread very quickly about the new record holder, and news agencies
from around the world were hot to get a piece of him.

We were flooded with calls and e-mails over the next couple of days; it seemed just about everybody wanted to know about George now, and the requests for interviews and appearances kept on piling up. Sleep, for those few days, became a bit of a luxury, as Team Giant George—me, Paul and Dana—struggled to keep up with the sheer volume of communication
and make sure no query or request was left unanswered.

And the requests kept right on coming. All the big network news shows wanted to feature Giant George, and all the entertainment shows wanted him too—many of them dispatching crews to come to Tucson to meet us right away. It didn’t stop
at the Atlantic or Pacific either: TV stations from all over the world wanted to meet George, but flying
him internationally was out of the question, so they flew their people into Tucson instead. In those early weeks I think we entertained television and news crews from some half a dozen different countries around the planet, including Japan, Brazil and Korea, as well as Germany, Spain and Singapore.