A bit of humor from The New Yorker, May 12, 2008:
The growth overtook Grover’s mouth and he could no longer eat. “Please,” I begged my father. “He needs to go to the doctor.”
“Well, we’ll see how he does,” he said, waving me away. . . .
Grover died.
—From “A Wolf at the Table: A Memoir of My Father,” by Augusten Burroughs.
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“That’s not true,” [Mr. Burroughs’s mother] said, then quickly corrected herself. “I should say we have different memories.”
—The Times.
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She is writing her own memoir.
—Same article
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I’m not naïve. I knew the reviews might be bad, like that hatchet job in Dog Fancy. What I did not expect was to be sucker-punched by Oprah, or denounced from the floor of the U.S. Senate, or the mass crap-ins on my lawn. The price of truth, I guess.
I wrote “Tyrant Rex: His Life as My Dog” as a much needed corrective to “Speak: A Memoir,” and I stand behind my version, which costs three dollars less and contains many never-before-published candid photos of Rex.
His name is Rex, by the way, not Roo, or Rowr, or Bow Wow, or whatever it is he’s calling himself these days. He’s also a mixed breed, not a rare Arubian Cunucu, or part dingo, as he has variously claimed. I know, because I raised him from a pup. I was the one who taught Rex to sit, to heel, to speak, and to speak English. His first word was not “out” — as much as that serves his current political agenda — it was “eat.” I was there, and so was my chicken Parmesan. My therapist can confirm this.
I never struck Rex. If he now flinches at the sight of an open hand, he does so instinctually (or possibly for effect). I may have, on one or two occasions, rubbed his nose in something or other, but this was a widely accepted dog-rearing practice at the time.
Rex did, I’ll admit, beg me to take him to the doctor to check out a “lump” that he found. But, you have to understand, he begged for everything: for scraps, for ear scratches and tummy rubs, to go out at all hours of the night, to yet again rent “The Lion King.” (He just barked all the way through.) I would have happily taken him to the vet, if not for the simpering, and if not for the fact that we had been to the vet three times that month, twice for “anemia” that he attributed to a lack of “wet meat” in his diet, and once when he thought he was having a heart attack, which turned out to be the UPS guy. What Rex leaves out of his telling is that I did eventually take him to the vet, and the vet told him exactly what I had told him: the lump was his testicles. And let the record show that it was Rex himself who insisted that they be removed. Why would I force sterilization on a dog who could talk, if I am as greedy as his attorneys contend?
As Rex’s fame grew with that ridiculous talk show (he scores an exclusive with Kim Jong Il and asks, “Do you own cats? You smell like cats” — please), his begging turned to growling. He barked and expected me to obey. He demanded wet meat, first cows by the carcass, then more exotic fare. He’d see something on the Discovery Channel and expect it in his bowl that very evening. He wanted to “taste all the animals,” he told me, and once confessed his desire to “eat the last of its kind.”
The cats.
God forgive me. I did procure the cats.
But Rex ate them. In all likelihood, he is still eating them.
Need I point out that there remains one animal he has not yet tasted? (To my knowledge.)
Around the time that he won the Peabody, the biting began. First, little nips at my heels for motivation; later, vicious bites on the calves and buttocks. (He was always careful not to break the skin.) One morning, I awoke to find him on my pillow, jaws agape, his fangs resting on my throat. He stood, licked my Adam’s apple, jumped off the bed, and trotted away without saying a word.
The success attracted fleas; Rex lost himself in a cloud of sycophants and agents. He was doing a tremendous amount of catnip, even though it had no pharmacological effect on him. I pleaded with Rex, “Quit the show—we can make ends meet with the occasional corporate gig and go back to being what we are: a master and his dog.” The next afternoon, I’m sitting backstage when one of Rex’s pack sidles up to me and whispers, “Rex doesn’t want you hanging with us anymore.” Just like that. Rex could have told me himself. But he sends Danny Bonaduce.
The revisionist memoir was inevitable, I see now. Rex’s true, loving upbringing didn’t jibe with the Rex myth. Still, it hurt. I couldn’t go into a Starbucks without his eyes piercing me from seven thousand counter displays, accusing me of unspeakable crimes against Canidae. I chose to remain above it, until I read that “Speak” was being made into a movie, with the part of me being played by Danny DeVito.
My reaction has, I believe, been measured and meticulously documented. If anybody is interested, my book can be purchased directly from www.tyrantrex.com. I will have nothing more to say publicly, except to extend my hand and issue one final, heartfelt command:
Rex, come home.
* * *Rü responds: It saddens me that Mr. Doyle has chosen such a public forum to discuss what is, despite my celebrity, a private matter. Clearly, we have different memories of my owned years. Pending litigation prevents me from commenting further, but I would like to add that while I no longer call Mr. Doyle my master, and in spite of everything, I consider him my best friend. . ♦
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