A Dog Named "Heck"

The Colonel's father, the quiet and straight-shooting Mister Vernon, sat nursing a cup of hot black coffee (Gregory men don't drink iced or polluted coffee) and watching his bird-brained son's cloud of thirsty hummingbirds milling buzzily around a feeder just out of arm's reach.  For long, still minutes, broken only by the hum and chatter of the ruby-throats, the Gregory patriarch and his heir apparent (with no hair apparent) sat in the oak shade relishing the slightest of breezes blowing away the growing heat of a July morning.

"Almost comfortable out here this morning," the old man finally offered to the sparse conversation.

"Yessir."  

"Could use some rain."

The Colonel thumbed open the weather app on his phone.  "Nothing in the forecast for at least a week."

"Hmmmph. Whaddatheyknow."

"Well, it is July in Mississippi, Dad.  Ain't never much chance of rain in July."

Buzzing and chattering filled the warm air between them, again.  Sometimes bird chatter is preferable to the human kind.  But, as quiet as Gregory men can be on occasion, the urge to talk is often irresistible, and stray synapses fire to spark stories. 

"Inherited a weird dog, once."

"Sir?"

"His name was Heck.  Weird dog.  He belonged to my cousin, Al.  When Al went off to the Army, ole Heck took up with me."

"What kind of dog was he?"

"German shepherd.  Big ole scruffy, German shepherd.  Weird dog."

"What was weird about him?"

"Well, for starters, ole Heck had a broke tail.  He would follow me to Lee High School and run alongside my bike.  Got his tail stuck in my spokes once and broke a crook in it."

"Did that break him from following you to school."

"Naw. He just kept his distance."

"Ha! I bet he did."

"Weird dog.  Had a big chunk of brick that he chewed on like a bone."

"A chunk of brick?"

"Yeah, a big ole chunk of brick.  Ole Heck could hardly get his jaws around it.  He'd just chew and slobber, and roll his eyes like he was having a fit.  That brick bat had been kinda square, but Heck had the thing pretty well rounded off.  I tried to take it away from him a couple of times, but I could never pry it out of his jaws."

The patriarch looked off into the middle distance.  The birds buzzed and chattered.  The Colonel waited for the next story synapses to fire.

"Ole Heck carried that brick to school one day and one of the teachers saw him sitting on the front steps with that big ole brick bat in his mouth, eyes rolled back in his head.  She felt sorry for Heck, 'poor puppy has a brick wedged in his jaws!'  She knelt down and tried and tried to get the brick out of Heck's jaws.  She couldn't budge it.  Ole Heck just laid there with his eyes rolled back in his head, slobberin'."

"She stood up and asked, 'whose dog is this?'.   I just shrugged my shoulders.  I wasn't gonna claim that weird dog."

"Ole Heck got up and walked over to me, dropped the brick at my feet and turned and grinned at that teacher.  She glared at me for a moment and then stormed up the steps."

"Ole Heck went missing a few weeks later and my mother sent me out to look for him.  I didn't look too hard."