Local Literary Allusions

Morning Duds

Yesterday morning while taking my West Highland White Terrier Dudley for his morning walk through our neighborhood, an electric garage door opened, followed by a car pulling into the garage as my neighbor waved to me. After I waved back and her garage door began to close, Duds and I continued around the circular sidewalk of the cul-de-sac only to be surprised again, this time by a man’s voice yelling, “Stella! Stella! Get back here, Stella!” The sound of his voice took me back to A STREET CAR NAMED DESIRE and Stanley Kowalski’s insistent utterance that his wife should come to him. Instead, this was the husband of the woman who had pulled into their garage. He was shouting at their miniature black poodle, who was en route to meet my Dudley, her long ebony ears flying behind her, in the most romantic way, like something out of the movie, LOVE STORY, and when she reached us, she and Duds nuzzled each other in a sweet little reunion as though they had been separated for years.

Stella!

Meanwhile, my neighbor reached us with abject apologies for Stella’s undignified and miscreant behavior. Relieved that he had arrived before what could have been an “interracial” incident, I chatted briefly with him as he swept up Stella in his arms and walked away. The look on Dudley’s face was one of sadness at having been separated yet again from Stella, whose little face looked over the shoulder of her departing master at Duds as if to say, “Don’t worry, I’ll get out the door again the first chance I get. Meet me at the corner tomorrow morning at seven.”

That’s why our otherwise quiet neighborhood can sound like a Tennessee Williams stage production at odd hours, when we hear a man’s voice crying, “Stella! Stella!” However, I wouldn’t have it any other way.