RAISING CROW

Chapter 20. The Conclusion.

Reminder: this entire book is fictional, none of it is real.

For added enjoyment locate this song on youtube and have it ready to play where indicated:

Rachmaninoff: Piano Concerto No. 1 in F-Sharp Minor, Op. 1 - II. Andante

We're halfway into our second semester (March 1995) at UT-Galveston. Tom likes his job working in the kitchen of a locally owned Tex-Mex restaurant (and steak house). It's a family owned business, second generation. They kind of adopted Tom as part of the family and are teaching him the biz.

My grades are excellent, Tom's are better. Back at Caprock he was never a 4.0 student, here he's closer. At least on the university campus we don't see the blatant harassment like we did back in Amarillo public schools. We seldom dealt with it in our jobs either. I said seldom', I didn't say never.'

The culture of the residents of Galveston is different from Amarillo residents. It's a little bit Tex-Mex, a little bit Native Indian, a little bit Caribbean Island, and a little bit Christian. There are a lot of churches on Galveston Island and Galveston is roughly twice as big (in square miles) as Amarillo, but G-Island is tightly packed.

I think we were the only high school seniors to migrate from Amarillo to the Island. Most of the students here are from DFW and Houston, a few are from out of state, and one we met was from Marfa Texas which is over in far southwest Texas near the border. Tom said almost half of his classmates in the same degree program are lesbians, he said some of them were really nice looking too. He said something to me the other day "You know I hear if you go in the kitchens of the most expensive French restaurants in New York City, all the cooks are Mexican from some town near Mexico City!" I told him I saw that on cooking shows on PBS before. I told him he should be proud of his heritage. Then I paused briefly and told him he should be extra proud of his body too, someone should carve a marble statue of him naked with a boner.

One of my professors said the university will be closing J-School in the next few years as the number of students has gone down every fall.

A bonus feature of my trust fund was that my report cards also went to the lawyer who manages the trust. For every A grade he cuts me a check for $2,000.00, money I can use for anything. Since we're rather poor, we usually spent it on stuff to improve things at home, maintain cars, pay off unexpected bills, etc. We also decided to keep a secret fund, a portion of every payment I received went into a fund to help move Daniel down here if he decided to follow through with his promise. Emails came from him about two a week. He recently broke-up with Carlos, still lived at his parents place, still argued with his dad, and was secretly planning on moving here this summer (1995).

The money I decided to save up for his move was actually for him to live off while he got settled and found a job. When you're deaf finding a job can be tricky. He'll probably end up working as an interpreter in a hospital or teaching sign language.

The new apartment was especially hard for Crow. He cannot run free like he did in the school baseball diamond but I can take him off the leash inside the dog run if there are no poorly behaved dogs there too. There are no dog parks in our part of the island, but we let him run at East Beach sometimes but the weather is the biggest limiting factor, weather and time. Crow seems to dislike walking in the rain now. And here on the Gulf coast we sometimes had several days of non-stop tropical storms. There have been times when he asked to go outside then changed his mind once he saw it was raining hard. He sticks his head out the door, sees the rain and backs-up inside and goes back to bed or in front of the TV. He actually has like two beds, one in the middle of the living room floor another on the floor of our bedroom under the window.

I have a two-person Coleman sleeping bag on the living room floor and some old bed pillows, that's his bed there, plus he can sleep on the sofa. And in the bedroom he has the futon mattress under the window. I think he likes that spot because some wind leaks in around the window and he gets some whiffs of fresh air all night.

Crow's now five, few Danes lived past ten. A lot depended on their genetics and their hips. We met someone once years ago who had a Dane who lived to age thirteen but that's rare. Crow's behavior has changed a little and he's getting more stubborn and less cooperative (entitled).

His most common misbehavior is in the dog run, he tries to start shit with some other dogs, like there's a Dalmatian he dislikes. Because of his height he intimidates certain dogs, so he makes sudden movements which can really upset some dogs into thinking he's attacking. Anytime you get stranger dogs in one area the dog politics always appears. Years ago Crow didn't care about dominance, but now in the dog run he seems to have become a `shit stirrer.' I shout to him to CEASE but he does it anyway, so I have to catch his collar and walk him back home. He probably hates it because all the dogs know what it looks like and means when a human escorts a dog out of the park, it's like losing the battle. It's a form of humiliation they all understand, sometimes it makes it worse the next time they meet.

It's kind of like once the behavior rule is broken, it stays broken forever with the dogs involved. Then other dogs see it and join the gang.

Tom and I go out to eat which are really spy missions for his homework, papers he needed to write as he discovered new eateries here in the city and discovered what made them succeed or fail and what challenges he saw them dealing with. Sometimes we look in their dumpsters to see what brand names are on the empty boxes. We also look for statements from the delivery truck drivers to show what they purchased, the quantity, and sometimes the wholesale cost too.

Crow usually got the doggie bag contents, which caused him to put on about four pounds. We needed to get that weight off to help protect his back hips. We've discussed a longer leash and one of us on the skateboard. I cut back on his daily rations to help slowly lower his weight without him getting hungry.

We stopped using Tom's car (Maria's old Impala), it got run a little just to keep the battery from dying. It never got good gas mileage, it's hard to park too. Our main modes of transportation were skateboards and the city bus. We're thinking of buying one bicycle just to try it out. Tom is thinking about selling the Impala and buying a Honda scooter. Getting to work, the store, or on the campus a big issue is the rain. The rain is a big reason why bicycles are not very popular in Galveston, but skateboards are. I`ve even seen a few guys riding boards where someone installed a small gasoline engine on back, they sound like a gasoline leaf blower. But you can carry them into class and set them under your seat and nobody complains. I saw a couple in the advertiser paper for $300 new, they come with a throttle control on a cable but you use your shoes for brakes. They weigh about the same as a small chain saw.

People here sometimes wear rain coats, but mostly you adopt an attitude toward the rain and just do what you need knowing your clothes will dry out eventually, it's not the end of the world if you have to go to work in wet clothes. There is a clothing style you see around the island, people wear quick drying fabric clothes and kind of go about their business and if you get wet in the rain, so be it. That's life on a tropical island!

I also noticed only tourists and old people use umbrellas, but the locals all wear hats in case it rains or the sun gets in your eyes. Tom showed me some clothes in a catalog he got, board shorts that say you can go from beach to car in ten minutes and they'll air dry quickly. Problem is that stuff is expensive, like $49 for board shorts and $22 for a short sleeve button down shirt made from that rapid drying cloth.

There is an attitude here called Island Time, which means people afflicted with it seldom arrive anywhere on time because of rain delays or laziness or who knows what other reasons they may have. There are people who believe that only those born on an island can claim Island Time as an excuse for arriving 15 minutes late to work or class every day. When you're being interviewed for a job here they always try to find out how you are about Island Time and won't hire you if they suspect you're afflicted.

I read a newspaper article about Dan's lawsuit against the school and some teachers. The state already launched a criminal investigation into the AHS principal's secretary, she was arrested but bonded out on felony charges of willful neglect of a child. The article said she is expected to plea bargain for twenty months in a state women's prison (and four years of probation) in exchange for a guilty plea to multiple counts of neglect of a minor. She is barred for life from employment by any government agency. Dan emailed me and said he was in the court room for her sentencing. He had collected so much information against her they had to accept the first plea bargain offer, the hearing lasted 25 minutes. He said he saw her escorted out in county jail clothes but she never made eye contact, Dan sat along the walkway so she could see him but she kept her eyes on the floor. Dan said she fell long and hard from 18 years as school secretary to convicted felon. Dan also learned he was not the only student she destroyed reports of abuse.

I think Dan brings that out in certain people because he looks vulnerable (he chums the atmosphere everywhere he goes then wonders why he sees so many sharks), which attracts the attention of bullies, he said she was a hateful bully who wanted to dictate how everyone should act and dress at school. She said in court she believed Dan was pretending to be deaf to get special treatment.

In Amarillo the AHS principal was called to appear before the school board in a closed door meeting. It ended 95 minutes later when he left the meeting room red-faced and unemployed. The school board sent the records to the state and the teachers union to get him booted from future education employment. He was ejected from the teacher's union, and his Texas teaching certificate was permanently revoked, but he did not face criminal charges. Dan sent me a local newspaper article about that too.

The school corporation made an initial offer to settle Dan's suit out of court for $200,000.00 but Dan and his lawyer quickly declined, hoping to win in front of a jury. So far four teachers have been fired, kicked out of the union, and lost their teaching licenses in Texas for life. When Dan and I discussed them by email he said most of them would end up as real estate agents in other states.

He wrote: `Can you imagine them going to college for six years for a teaching degree and state license then lose it over something so stupid as harassing a deaf student for being deaf.' He told me he heard the Coach we got fired was selling cars at a GM dealer in Houston.

We saw newspaper photos of the main entrance to Amarillo High School, people made signs saying `Help Wanted' and placed them in the grass in front of the school. They started the school year missing several teachers and had to cancel several classes for the rest of the school year. AHS used to offer courses in German and French but due to the sudden teacher shortage the only language offered this school year is Spanish. And in Phys-Ed they no longer have tennis, soccer, or baseball teams, same cause for all of them.

Local TV news was saying it was a major embarrassment and cost for the community, and predicted a complete changeover next school board elections.

Now all schools are holding mandatory training for all teachers and staff about handicapped student's rights. Plus, gym teachers must now fully accommodate handicapped students, instead of insulting them publically. The school does not even have a principal this year, and the school corporation is facing possible bankruptcy.

Dan said it might be another year until they settle the lawsuit and cut him a check but he expects there will be more staff leaving at the end of the school year. He said their insurance rates will skyrocket once they have to cut a check for six million bucks.

Saturdays were our `date nights.' That's set in stone. We even bought a tiny simulated rock with a flat bottom we had SATURDAY: DATE NIGHT engraved, it sat on top of the TV, the upper part of the stone looks like an owl's face.

November 1995. Our second year of college.

Thanksgiving 1995 arrived, our first real break during the fall semester of our second year. We pledged to not do any school work on Thursday and Friday. Weeks ago Daniel asked if he could come down, so I bought him bus tickets and mailed them to Amarillo. He arrived late Wednesday afternoon before the official start of the holiday.

We planned on celebrating Thanksgiving together, a turkey with all the other stuff, Tom to supervise cooking, us to do the work. Daniel looked a little bit older a little thicker too. He arrived still wearing his hair over his ears, skin-tight black jeans and a tie-dye t-shirt with a backpack. And at our request he left his weed at home. I also saw he had a haircut, it's now only down to his upper-back, but he always kept it tied into a thin tail.

I picked him up at the Greyhound terminal near the airport. We walked to my little Honda car and drove straight home. We held hands during the drive to the apartment. He guzzled a tall glass of water and ate two pop-tarts within his first five minutes in our apartment. Tom got home about ninety minutes after us and the homecoming celebration started again. Crow welcomed Daniel in a traditional dog style, when Dan bent over to kiss the top of his head Crow nailed him with his tongue.

On the drive home from the bus terminal he told me his lawyer fronted him twenty thousand bucks to hold him over until the settlement check arrives, that was what he was living on until they pay. I asked what he purchased and he said only food because if he's going to move he can only bring what fits in a car trunk. He's planning on buying a used car soon, something small that gets good gas mileage.

I asked how his parents reacted to his sudden wealth and he said he cashed the check and never showed them the stack of 400 fifty dollar bills. He told me the school board is stalling because they don't have the money and they're in a bad financial situation, for six million they might end up closing one of their schools out in the county. Otherwise their insurance costs will be almost too high to afford. That was why the insurance company presented them with a list of people to fire, based on court room testimony. Dan said they're even eliminating positions at the school corporation offices in downtown Amarillo.

He said the new student handbook has a totally new set of rules for harassment and bullying which includes expulsion for certain first offenses. They are also installing thirty more cameras (at AHS) and added some in classrooms.

It surprised me Dan didn't have any great stories to tell about life in Amarillo, or crap at home, or work, etc. He was mum on the Panhandle. Dan said the lawyer was in negotiations with the state and the school corp. over a settlement, he is expecting a six million dollar payout. The lawyer is confident they'll pay because they're making financial changes now to cover the cost. Their insurance company will actually pay the settlement but the school will see a significant hike in insurance premiums which is what they are preparing for. And that is the reason why many more heads will surely roll.

While he was explaining the negotiation process Tom opened two frozen pizzas and added lots of extra toppings (mozzarella cheese, pepperoni, sliced olives, and slices of bell peppers and onion) to jazz them up and slid them in the oven. Tom called us over and showed us the ingredients list on the two pizzas and it looked like the warehouse inventory at a chemical factory. He was very disgusted but said none of the frozen pizzas in the store were made of quality ingredients.

Tom commented that it looked like Dan was talking and signing at the same time. I told him since he was tutoring people in ASL (in their homes) he was using it way more than he used to, once you got used to it, communicating with your hands and arms was hard to stop, eventually you do it without thinking about it.

He also announced that if we needed a shower, now was the time because the turkey would sit underwater in the tub overnight. Dan showered, I did not. Then I heard the water run in the tub. While Tom was drowning the turkey our pizzas were baking in the oven.

Twenty minutes later Tom got up again and returned with three beers. A minute after that he brought out one of the pizzas, it was sliced into quarters and set on the cardboard package on the coffee table. We each took a slice, and then he brought out the other one with one slice cut into smaller pieces for Crow. Dan fed it to him but he spit out the olives. We laughed when he spit them out like a fussy toddler.

It was funny because Crow was right there by the TV when he carried in the sliced pizza. He saw three young men but four pizza slices, so he kept glancing at me then at the one slice of pizza sitting there untouched. I held out my beer glass and he leaned in and sniffed it then licked his chops but backed away.

After dinner I got dressed to walk Crow while they cleaned-up. One nice thing about using the dog walk late in the day in the rain was nobody else was outside so I let him off the leash. He did his business and trotted back to me with a smile, we went back to the apartment. He spends most of his time in the dog walk with his nose to the ground. Crow has to crouch down to sniff the ground because his legs are too long. He kind of spreads his front legs apart to get low enough to sniff new turds.

I must say after watching Crow pee for many years that when dogs put scent in their urine it's a voluntary act most of the time, they have a gland they can squeeze while peeing or pooping to add extra scent, and each dog has a unique scent. When Crow puts a lot of scent in his urine I can smell it (ten feet away) and it's a nasty odor, but he's proud of it.

Back inside the place was mostly dark, everyone went to bed. Crow went to sleep on the sofa. Even the Great Dane knew that three boys in one bed meant possibly too much noise to sleep in that room. We talked for a short bit, Daniel got in bed between us as we chatted and toyed with his body briefly then we all fell asleep. Dan slept in the middle in the dog's spot.

Crow came in the bedroom and saw the crowded mattress, grumbled `harrumph,' and slept on the sofa. I think Crow fully understands male x male sex and doesn't care to be in the room.

I call the center of our bed The Dog Spot, but the truth is he rarely sleeps on our bed, preferring the ample leg room and freedom of his own bed. But once in a while he does sleep with us. He's slept with (or near) me since the day he was born so I mostly don't notice if he's in bed unless he wakes me when he's having a dream and starts boofing and running in his sleep. I wish I could see once what his dreams look like to him.

My guess is his dreams are like ours, like the real world looks but with some fantasy items, like maybe even huge monsters and giant size wolves with fangs dripping blood. He probably has dreams where he is the pack leader in an attack on a giant killer horse and his band of twelve dogs take down the giant in a gory fight in a Walmart parking lot.

Thanksgiving Day. (Thursday November 23, 1995)

Tom put our turkey in the bathtub full of warm water to thaw overnight. We already had all the stuff to make the extras: (instant) mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, (store bought) dinner rolls, and (store bought) pumpkin pie. He said he was going to bake the buzzard in a plastic bag again since it was a smaller size (5lbs) turkey. Once again the drumsticks would become dog food in the form of pulled meat with some gravy. Crow loved turkey meat and mashed potatoes with butter and gravy. We used real dairy butter not that margarine crap (simulated butter), but we used instant potatoes instead of real ones. Tom never calls them Instant, he calls them by their industry name: `De-Hy,' as-in: dehydrated. Tom told us we'd be shocked to learn how much De-Hy was exported by the USA every year, he said it's exported in 75 pound bags in cargo ships around the world. He said that instant potatoes and stacked chips in a tube are made from De-Hy.

It was cool and rainy today as a tropical storm was soaking Corpus down the Texas coast. I turned closed captions on the TV again and had Dan watch the forecast so he could see how different the weather was here than up in Amarillo, where it was easy to predict and seldom a surprise. Along the Gulf coast storms seem to pop-up out of clear skies.

During and after dinner we quizzed Daniel about his college plans and he said he decided on a Master's degree in Education and a teaching license and wanted to work with hearing impaired students and maybe do it for hire for home schooled students. He said he might write a textbook on how to home-school sign language to a deaf child.

Dan said he investigated how many hearing impaired people lived in the panhandle. That number gave him an idea of how likely he was to make a living teaching ASL in Amarillo. He's also considered teaching ASL on Saturdays at the public library, but without a degree they mostly don't take him seriously. Dan said the number of severely hearing impaired people in the USA was around 0.6% of the total population, in the panhandle that was about 2200 people. In Galveston it was estimated at 550 people. He said those were the numbers of people who would be severely impaired even with hearing aids, probably half of those would use sign language to communicate. Dan said Texas has one residential state school for deaf children, it's near downtown Austin.

We also had a serious discussion about him living with us for a while and what we expected of him as far as work and going to school. He seemed very serious about being a teacher someday.

The buzzard cooked at 325 degrees for three hours then Tom inserted the electronic thermometer probe with the long wire and the little box that sat on the counter.

The carcass was done at 5:35pm when the `done popper' popped out and the internal temp was 165 degrees. Tom pulled it out to sit on the counter for twenty minutes while we got the rest of the stuff made. Then we cut open the bag and Tom carved the breasts. Dan pulled meat off the drumsticks for the dog's portion. I boiled water for the mashed tayters and nuked the frozen veg mix (cauliflower and broccoli).

Crow stayed out of the crowded kitchen but you could tell he was just around the corner listening carefully for any mention of dog keywords. He understood the turkey was formerly a bird. I made the gravy and got plates ready on the counter, Tom reminded me to wash his food bowl. None of us wanted a salad but for desert I made a bowl of plain strawberry jello (last night), and we had a tub of Cool Whip ready to scoop.

Tom got three plates loaded with stuff but left desert in the refrigerator for when everyone was finished. I scrubbed his bowls and carefully loaded a pile of pulled dark meat with gravy and mashed potatoes with butter in his bowl and moved his stand into the living room. We decided to sit on the floor around the coffee table since the dining table was too thick with school stuff and computers.

We left the dessert in the refrigerator because we always have to be aware of what the dog can reach, his chin is higher than the kitchen counter surfaces so anything on the counters is in the dog-zone. I told Tom we needed to post reminders in each room about how high the dog can reach. It would not surprise me while we were eating and talking if the dog went in the kitchen and grabbed the pumpkin pie during our moment of distraction. So we left nothing out on the counter when we sat down to eat. Some people with Danes put a child gate across the kitchen door for that very reason.

Dan took his plate and was the first seated then Tom sat beside Dan while I carried the dog bowl stand near the coffee table and then I placed his nicely arranged Thanksgiving dinner, I already put ice cubes in his water. I was the last to sit down but Crow started eating as soon as I put his bowl in the iron stand. While we started eating we mentioned things we were thankful for, Dan said he was thankful for stupid school officials because they're going to give him a lot of money someday. Tom was thankful for good health and a decent economy on the Island. I was thankful for Dan and Tom and that Crow seemed to be doing well in his early retirement. Then Tom added he was grateful for the Martinez family who took him in as part of the family at work. As a joke I also said, "I'm grateful for Tom's dick!" We all laughed but at first Tom gave me a look like he was offended but it soon turned into a confident grin.

Would it be hard to believe that Crow finished eating first? He cleaned the bowl and ate the ice cubes in his water bowl too. I told Tom he got a thumbs-up from the dog, but we all complimented him on how the bird turned out, not dry at all. Tom was a fan of baking bags for chicken and turkey.

After dinner we checked and found that Blockbuster on Broadway was open so we drove over and rented two movies with Dan's deaf student discount card and got two for 99 cents. The two movies we rented were True Lies and Speed. Both had closed captions. That was the catch for his discount; he only got the half-off price on movies with captions.

We hit the rack around 11pm leaving Dan on the sofa with Crow. The next morning I saw Dan was asleep in front of the TV on the floor and Crow was stretched out on the sofa.

Black Friday November 24th 1995.

We got up early for a big breakfast. Tom started breakfast while Dan and I walked Crow. We walked all around the complex then stopped at the dog walk area where he pooped and pee'd just like normal. One thing nice about older dogs was they got into routines just like people and preferred to do it on a schedule. Danes aged fast, starting the day they're born. Most dogs were done growing around age 9-10 months. For Danes (and other large breed dogs) they were done growing around age 18 months.

On the walk back home Dan reminded me we needed to return the tapes before 11pm.

Since it was Black Friday the stores were too crowded and the traffic too heavy to go anywhere so we stayed home. The rain stopped around 3:45pm so we drove to one outdoor mall along Seawall Boulevard and walked along the waterfront with the dog and had to stop a few times to let people pet the giant black dog. On the way home we returned the movies to Blockbuster.

When we got home Tom made us a big order of baked French fries in the countertop convection oven. We used almost half a bottle of catsup and drank three beers each.

We played cards for an hour then went to bed.

Saturday (Nov 25th)

Today was Dan's last full day in Galveston. We went to the store and got more stuff, Dan wanted pizzas again and beers to but he produced a fake ID card and we stopped at a different gas station and he came out with a case of Coors in cans.

After some discussion I convinced our little family to tackle a long standing problem that took at least two strong men. We needed to handle a problem nobody wanted to talk about or deal with. There was no easy solution. The fix was going to be bad, possible painful, possibly damaging and maybe even cause serious injury.

The problem was Crow badly needed a bath but he hated baths.

Tom devised a plan to get him in the tub with minimal risk for injury or damage. There's also a risk for damage after his shower. We folded up the shower curtain so it sat up on the rod, got an extra bottle of Herbal Essence Shampoo, three used bath towels from the laundry basket, and stacked furniture to block access to the sofa and shut our bedroom door. I even went upstairs to advise our neighbors of the possible noise and dog screaming, we set the time for 3pm then the hour arrived.

With the summer heat and the frequent rains the dog had started to stink all the time like a wet Doberman, which was getting bad. Crow wore the stink like a badge of honor, but he was also shedding heavily.

Tom and I stripped to our underwear, Dan stood in the tub (naked) ready to start wetting him with a nozzle on a hose or a tall plastic glass, the sprayer nozzle on a hose, and a bottle of shampoo. Tom called Crow to the kitchen (which was near the bathroom). He grabbed his collar like he was going to walk him to the bedroom but he suddenly changed course at the bathroom door and Crow was immediately in struggle-combat mode. I think he heard something strange in Tom's voice and it put him on-guard right away.

As we wrestled Crow through the bathroom doorway Daniel (standing naked in the bathtub holding a bottle of shampoo) had a funny look of fear on his face. Even Crow knew once he was off the carpet he had no traction so he put up a big struggle in the hallway. He even started making a loud sound from his mouth, almost like groaning. I kept one eye on the sides of his face to see if he flashed teeth. If he'd snarled I would have grabbed his collar tightly and scolded him loudly, but he never showed teeth.

Luckily, Crow gets almost no traction on tile floors. But it took both of us to literally bulldoze him beside the tub and stop him from escaping. He struggled the entire way with all four legs alternately switching between PARK and full speed REVERSE. We all chuckled and tried not to get gashed by his sixteen protruding toe nails. I tried telling Crow he was going to be fine but he still fought back. I don't think he used all his strength, he could have bit us but didn't do that either, so Crow earned points for anger management. Once the bathroom door clicked shut he knew the war was over and he stopped struggling. But he wasn't in the bath tub yet.

Crow finally stepped (peacefully) over the side into the tub or we would have lifted him in. Admitting defeat he stood there with his butt facing the nozzle as the three of us (on our knees beside the tub) washed him top to bottom, ears to butt, paw to paw, and even his tail. The actual wash took maybe six minutes, wash and rinse. First, we got him all wet, but not his face. Next, Daniel poured a thick line of Herbal Essence Shampoo from his tail to the back of his head. Then the three of us worked it into lather and applied more to do his chest, his belly, all four legs, his neck, and his thighs. Daniel had to hand-wash his lower belly which included his boy parts.

We added more shampoo by hand to his chest and back legs. By the time it was our six hands rubbing his entire body half the bottle of shampoo was gone!

Once he was all soapy we hand scrubbed him while Crow stood there staring at the wall with a rather disgruntled expression on his face. About four minutes after the shampoo was applied we turned the water back on and Daniel worked the spray nozzle and we rinsed him off from head to toe, which took another five minutes to get all the soap off his fur. I could see the tub was thick with short black hairs. Daniel was beside him in the tub the entire time, his legs and feet were also coated with dog fur. During the rinse cycle I leaned over and kissed the side of his face but he never reacted, I whispered in his ear that he was a good boy.

I could almost hear what Crow was thinking when I told him he was a good boy, he said to himself: `This is what I get for being good?'

Dan shut off the water and Crow stood there dripping for about one minute. I stepped back toward the door and called him and he carefully leapt out of the tub and shook himself off and everyone got sprayed and that was the loudest moment of the entire production. We attacked Crow with three towels and vigorously towel dried him, he let me dry his face and then I cleaned his ears with about five Q-tips each. His ears are always nasty-gooey brown inside, but I think they're supposed to be that way. All that ear wax and goo keeps bugs out.

Finally, everyone agreed he was dry down to his paws so I opened the door and he took off like a shot running around the apartment, which looks funny. He literally goes berserk after every shower. That tells me it's highly stimulating to him, not torture like he pretends to act. We did not use hot water for his shower, just luke-warm so we didn't overheat him.

Crow ran around like a wild animal toward the sofa, but it was blocked, then the bedroom door but it was shut. So he ran back to the living room carpet and slid himself across the carpet trying to dry off, but it was instinct. He was already mostly dry from the towels. After he calmed down we let him to chill out on his bed in the middle of the living room. At first he laid upright on his bed, panting, and watching us closely. I watched the clock for 45 minutes then we put his collar back on and put the long leash on him and took him to the dog walk. He peed and then Dan and I took turns rubbing our fingers backwards across his body (pressing hard) and loosened huge gobs of black fur. It blew away as we removed thousands of short hairs all in one go. We did down to his knees and up to the top of his head rubbing hard, but he actually seemed to like the way that feels. But I am sure he felt the sudden loss of nearly 40% of his fur in one go. I spot checked on different parts of his body to make sure we got most of it, then I did his chest and front neck again with my fingertips.

While we were outside Dan commented to me that he really liked Tom's body too, I think that was the first time he saw him in underwear with good lighting. Tom never commented about Dan being naked for the shower project. Dan doesn't care who sees him naked.

Around 5pm everything was back to normal. Tom was assembling pizzas and I went to the coin-op and did two loads by myself or we'd have no towels the rest of the weekend. We really needed to buy more bath towels.

We had a discussion about the dog shower which was interesting. Tom said: "I think he acted like he knew it was coming."

Dan said to me, "You're the one constantly telling people that Crow listens carefully to everything we say, and he really does understand a lot more language than we'd ever realize. Remember, he was imprinted on humans, not his dog mommy."

I laughed then Tom said it seemed like he was fully prepared the moment I grabbed his collar he knew this was when the battle started. I said he knows he's shedding and we always give him a bath in the fall when he's at peak shedding, followed by a huge rub-down outside.

Dan signed to me that `...we may not think so, but Crow watches the entire apartment closely, all day, every day. He's learned that when we fold the shower curtain over the curtain rod it means dog bath today. Even if he never actually saw it he heard us folding it on top of the rod...' I spoke out loud what Dan signed and that made Tom smile and nod yes in agreement. Then Tom said he was sure he knew it was coming when he grabbed his collar.

At 5:30pm Tom put both pizzas in the oven, he said we needed another pan or a stone, I added that to the housewares shopping list. We used a folded strip of aluminum foil instead. We decided to buy a large square pizza stone so it could stay inside the oven all year.

Tom added sliced olives, onion slices, pepperoni, and Mozzarella cheese to the frozen pizzas, Dan said he'd never seen someone do that before and thought it was a great idea. Tom told him it was almost better to buy bare pizza crusts and start from scratch than jazzing up a Tombstone Supreme, which tasted nice but had a cheap shit crust. Again I made one slice for the dog and cut it into pieces but I had to pick off lots of stuff: onions, olives, and tomato. The rest of it was fine with his nose.

Dan asked why we shredded our own cheese instead of buying a bag at the store. Tom told me to translate, so he said when you shred cheese it quickly sticks back together unless you coat it with something to prevent sticking. He said most of them use cellulose (powdered-colored tree pulp or cotton plant waste) to prevent sticking. We didn't want to eat that crap so we always shredded our own cheese. Dan nodded yes, sounded like a good idea. Then Tom added that you never know what kind of pesticides were sprayed on the cellulose that coated shredded cheese.

He finished and looked around the room at us, cleaning his face with his long Great Dane tongue, tail swaying side to side, obviously happy. Crow walked up to me, I leaned forward, he pressed his face into my chest, I hugged him around his neck and gave him an old fashioned people hug then a kiss on the top of his head near his ear. I got a wet nose bump on the side of my face. I told him Tom cooked it he should thank Tom too, which he did, then Daniel too. Dan told Crow he smelled nice. But I think if Crow could talk he would have told Dan to take his `smell nice' comment and blow it out his ass.

Crow would insist he's a dog, so he should smell like a dog, not a 14 year old girl (my body -- my scent). So I would say, `Yah, but your stinky old dog body is in my apartment, it's my name on the lease, not yours. So we decided you needed to smell nicer, and tell Dan you're sorry for being rude.'

I would like to remind Crow it was me and Dan who bottle fed him, kept him safe and warm for the first four weeks of his life, around the clock. I'd remind him he spent almost three months of his life living between my stomach and my shirt.

While we had Crow outside for his post-shower rub-down Tom was in the bathroom rinsing the hair down the drain and wiping up the floor too.

While we rubbed his fur I told Dan that to a dog his scent is a huge part of his identity, when we bathed him we stripped him of how he wanted to smell in front of other dogs, so I was sure it really pissed him off but he got over it quickly.

One by one we climbed in bed, Dan crashed in the dog spot. Tom asked him to move up with us, he set his head on my pillow. Then we decided to re-arrange the bed and Tom got in the middle and Dan took his side. Tom was on his back and for a short time both of us rubbed his silky smooth hairless front side. Dan seemed to get stuck on his belly button hole, but he also leaned over and French kissed one of his marshmallowy nipples. It didn't take long before every one of us was yawning and falling asleep.

Sunday November 26th 1995.

I drove Daniel to the bus station early in the morning, like last time we hugged and tried not to cry on the way He reached up under my shirt and rubbed my chest on the four mile drive across town.

When we arrived there was one bus at the terminal with the luggage doors open and the driver checking tickets at the door. We sat there for a moment with him still rubbing my flesh. I lowered my arms to let him do anything he wanted. If we'd been earlier he might have blown me.

We got out of the car and grabbed his backpack from the back seat and I walked with him over to the bus, he got out his ticket, I softly told the driver he was deaf. Dan climbed on board and I walked back to my car and drove home and jerked off in the bathroom sink.

On a bus ride like that he cannot wear his hearing aids because they battery doesn't last that long and he had no way to charge them on the road, that's why I told the driver he was deaf.

He made it back to his bedroom about midnight that day. It was a mostly painless trip. If nothing else he got to see Dallas and Houston and the highway heading towards Oklahoma City. He said sometimes he sees recent tornado damage in Oklahoma. Dan asked me where JFK got shot, I asked if he was on the side of the bus with a view of downtown Dallas and he said yes. `Did you see the big ball on the tower?' That's Reunion Tower it's three blocks from where the shooting took place.

December, 1995.

My grades made it to the lawyer's office by mid-December and a week later I got my bonus check for $7000. I stashed part of it in my secret bank between the mattress and box spring. We went to my parent's for Christmas dinner and had a great time. Gram was having a hard time moving around, seems the cold wet weather made her joints stiff and sore.

Tom and I did dishes just to help out. Grandpa looked great, his same old sense of humor. I shared my report card (One B, the rest were A). Everyone was pleased. Tom never brought up his grades to the old folks but he was A's and B's.

A week later we went to a Happy New Year party for people in his class but it was mostly lesbians, so we left just after midnight and celebrated the New Year in the bathtub in our apartment at 1am. We had a great time anyway. Not sure why so many of his classmates were gay girls? Most of them had really nice bodies, some of them really looked boyish too. I saw a few with those telltale Amelia Earhart haircuts.

We sat together in the tub, him in back. We used Mr. Bubble and drank two beers each and lit two candles for lighting, it was very romantic and nice leaning back against his body in the warm water.

I asked Tom if he was turning into a lesbian and he laughed but never answered. So to punish him I let some water drain from the tub and got on my knees between his legs and blew him very slowly, but he didn't last long.

We both agreed that woman's bellies were usually very sexy but both of us were very opposed to belly button jewelry, it never looks nice and leaves a horrible permanent scar. Natural tummy always looks best. We also agree that pierced nipples should be a crime against humanity. Tom says "If you hate your nipples enough to jam a steel needle through them just pay a plastic surgeon to remove them instead and be done with it."

That evening Tom asked me an extremely private question, it almost upset me because it was embarrassing too. "So when your grandparents die are you their heir?"

I told him I thought all their wealth was already committed to the university, the new building going up on campus and the new parking lot beside it. I actually never considered who they would give to, did they intend to give it to their daughter? But she died young, so was I next in line. I had no idea, they never said anything to me but I assumed they had a very large nest egg, which was why they lived along a golf course in a very nice neighborhood.

April 1996. Near the end of our second year of college.

Spring break arrived in our third year of college, we were ready. The weather was fantastic, the beaches were pristine, and we were pumped for some fun in the sun. I researched where all the loudest beach parties were held (at the beaches along Boddecker Road). We drove to the ass-end of Seawall Blvd to East where hundreds of college age kids gathered to celebrate life and surviving college so far.

There were vendors, food sellers, campers, and tents everywhere. It sort of looked like a small version of Burning Man.

East Beach is a very large area with several places to find parties, you can take Seawall Boulevard all the way east to the very end and then take Boddecker Road and check out the sandy beaches, there's also Apffel Park Road and East Beach Drive, but stay away from the housing subdivisions, they have private security to keep the hoodlums away. It takes a lot of money to build a house just 400 feet from the ocean and they protect their neighborhoods from uninvited visitors.

If you want to walk on top of the barrier wall that juts out into the Gulf, it's about a 1200 foot hike beyond the end of Boddecker Road. That's usually where we take Crow to run around. During Spring Break there are huge sand castle sculpture competitions there and they draw an audience from around the world! This is also the place that Tom likes to drive to alone to sit and think, sort out his thoughts, calm down, get a new perspective. Sometimes Tom gets way too angry at life and needs time to calm down and get his brain reset, so the beaches along Boddecker are where he goes to meditate.

Back in February I got an email from Daniel that said he really wanted to move and re-start his life and go to our school. Tom and I had already reached our decision but forgot to tell him, we were willing to house him for a while so he could get his life going down here, but the free flowing sex would not be like before and we were adamant that there be no illegal drugs in the apartment. Daniel said he purchased a beater car and was intending to drive down sometime this year, not sure exactly when yet. I emailed Dan telling him of our conditions for his stay with us which he replied immediately saying he agreed and would start the process.

Spring Break 1996.

At East Beach we looked around trying to see how much of an obvious gay presence there was. I spied one rainbow wind sock on the antenna on top of an older RV on the sand. It was surrounded by about six tents, clothes lines, a couple camp fires, and lots of beach chairs and towels. As we inconspicuously walked closer we started to count and saw about five boys and maybe eight girls. There was one older couple, maybe 30's? They must have owned the RV.

What some people did on East Beach was they staked out a piece of land for tents and a camper, places for campfires and room for people to sit around the fire. They commonly used crepe paper rolls to outline their lot, most of them made an area about 60x60 feet unless it was just a car and a tent, which most of them were. There were some public outhouses on East Beach but I feared most of the pee went into the Gulf, so I never got in the water during Spring Break! If you got a hundred young men standing in waist deep water drinking beer in cans, guess where all the pee went!

Lots of groups on the beach made sand sculptures, things like a giant naked lady on her back, sharks emerging from the sand, sea serpents, or just raised letters to spell out their home town's name. Lots of groups made artistic displays on their property, sand castles were the most popular. Tom said he bet that sand sculpting was as old as humankind, very possibly the oldest form of artistic expression because it required no tools or money.

After parking the car we saw two guys our age sitting by a small campfire, Tom pointed they had an acoustic guitar and several bottles of something in old wine bottles standing in a bucket of ice. I walked up while Tom stayed back and watched. I introduced myself as a newbie to this part of East Beach. They were quickly invited me to join their little party. Their names were Mark and Steve. Tom walked over, we sat on the sand and introduced ourselves all around the fire. They passed their bottle, we all took a swig. The first thing I admitted was that Tom and I were a couple attending TAMUG and never knew this area of East Beach existed. It's such a large area it's impossible to see all of it on the ground.

I asked the dumb question but I needed to know, was this the segregated `gay' area of the beach party? They said nobody was bothering anyone about anything even the cops were staying away, there was no gay area. They self-enforced the trash and fighting rule and kept things reasonably quiet. There was some nudity, (lots of nudity actually) and lots of pot being burnt but otherwise it was a well behaved crowd, which he said is normal for East Beach in April. They said most of the nudity was actually in the water and often after sunset. Mark said, "Believe me, it ain't worth going to see."

Mark said this was their second Spring Break at East Beach, they were at UT Houston, he was a psych major and Steve was a social work major. They've been together for four years now, met in high school in their senior year. We had a great time talking with these guys, asked lots of questions and learned lots of stuff we may have figured out ourselves eventually. Tom went to our car and got the cold six-pack out of the trunk and we shared them with our hosts.

Around 1am the party had really died down and our hosts were struggling to stay awake so we joined the traffic jam and drove home.

While we were walking across the apartment complex parking lot I saw something like a big black trash bag at our front door, it was too dark to see for sure. When we got close at the same time we both shouted, "Daniel!" He was curled-up in a ball outside our door trying to stay warm and not be seen. He was all smiles as he tried to wake up and knock the dead leaves and sand from his hair.

By our front door sat two backpacks, a cardboard box, and his computer and monitor. The cable for his mouse hung out his back pocket.

We welcomed him inside and told him what we saw on the beach, he seemed distracted and distant. Tom went to bed while we walked Crow (now almost six years old and showing his years on his face). The first thing Dan said was his face was really getting gray and he looked stiff in the hips as he walked. I told him his first gray hairs appeared when he was three, so it started very early for a dog. I told him his black fur makes the gray hairs much more visible.

We stood against the fence talking. He told me about the big fights he had with his parents, the money he saved, the cost to drive and the cost of the car and what he decided he wanted to do in college. He had a lot on his mind. Dan was motivated to become a teacher of sign language since he did both spoken and sign very well. Since he brought up the subject I asked about his settlement with the school and he said it was close to being over, according to the lawyer.

I reminded him of our terms, no drugs, parties, or unapproved friends over, employment, school, and that we'd take care of him as best we could. He leaned over and pressed his head into my shoulder like a hug and spoke that he loved me, I was the older brother he never had. I told him for now we would not report him to the apartment complex as a resident but treat it as an extended visit.

We stood there in the dark watching Crow wander around the dog run sniffing turds. Dan turned to face me and slid his hand under my shirt and rubbed my back and used his fingernails to scratch it too, which felt nice. But the part I really liked was the physical connection with him, flesh touching flesh. We've been like that since we were little boys and I was glad to see there was never a touch barrier between us (yet).

Dan took the leash and called Crow while I picked up his byproduct. You gotta remember his speech is lousy but surprisingly when he says `Crow' it usually comes out clear enough for the dog to understand.

Dan went right to the sofa to crash and I grabbed two pillows and a thin blanket from our closet and dropped them on top of him but I think Dan was already asleep. I got down on my knees beside the sofa and gently lifted his head and slid a pillow under it, then opened the blanket and covered him. Dan wiggled his head with a smile but never opened his eyes or even took off his stinky clothes.

I went to bed with Tom knowing tomorrow would be another busy day.

After a few minutes in bed I got back up and went to the living room and took the blanket off Dan and un-buttoned and un-zipped his jeans and pulled them off. Then I slid his shirt off so he was in his underwear only. I slid my hand across his entire upper body for a bit and ran my finger tips across his little titties which were easy to feel in the dark. I reached down his briefs and grabbed his dick and straightened it out and rubbed it gently but he never responded to anything I did, I think he was super exhausted and deeply asleep. I covered him properly after getting his head fully on the pillow.

The next morning we made breakfast and after eating I handed him the cash stash to help him get settled, it had grown to $1400. I advised him to use it wisely to find a job and get into school. He nodded understanding. Tom never voiced an opinion but he was very aware I was saving up for Daniel to help him move and settle.

Dan started to (awkwardly) cry when he opened the envelope and started counting money. Tom told him to go to the community college and enroll in one class starting in June, but make sure it would transfer to the university.

I asked if the dog barked at him when he arrived. Dan said yes, but he tapped on our bedroom window and they spoke through the glass, Crow recognized him and stopped barking, then he curled up on the sidewalk to stay warm while he waited for us to get home. It occurred to me I probably should have mailed him a door key.

By late May 1996 Dan built himself a tiny bedroom in a corner of the living room, he had a twin mattress on the floor and his laptop computer on the table with ours, and he had a radio and an alarm clock. We assigned him some chores to do at home, like being the laundry slave.

Daniel set up a stack of three cardboard file storage boxes to serve as a dresser and I hung two bed sheets from thumb tacks into the ceiling to give him partial walls for some privacy. I learned Daniel was a rather quiet person once you lived with him, he was gone from the apartment most of the day. We made a key copy for him and I filled his gas tank twice to help him make his money last. I learned he only arrived with $850 so he was kind of desperate to be successful starting on day #2.

Daniel got a job as a translator (for deaf people) at a hospital in Galveston on night shift. His pay was decent but he was on call. He used their education benefits to get enrolled into one class at GCC to get his schooling started in June (Summer-1). He got the list of required courses for his degree and took two easy classes to get him started: Psych Intro, and Algebra Intro. Plus the cost per credit hour was cheaper at GCC than at the university. GCC charged $68 per credit hour this year, and TAMUG was $155 per credit hour. For his degree there were about five different classes he could take at the community college. The university had to allow it because of the number of students experiencing delays because classes were full.

Dan promised me the era of 89% success was over, his goal was a 3.9GPA or higher. But because of his 89.00000% GPA at AHS he had to take algebra for dummies at GCC, which was funny because he was able to do most of it in his head in an instant, he was even faster than the professor! He said his prof was some Russian dude with a doctorate in math. Dan said, "Can you imagine getting a PhD in math and then teaching lazy fat Americans basic high school algebra for a living!"

I reminded him `...it's all about the paycheck...'

Our school year ended (May 1996) with us enrolled in one summer semester, taking the rest of it off. We both got all A's and I got a bonus check for $8000, I gave half to Tom as a birthday gift. He bought a new laptop computer (IBM ThinkPad 365, 120mhz Pentium with VGA graphics, 3.5" floppy drive, 1Meg RAM, and a 56k modem) and saved the rest. I stashed mine for a rainy day, we had plenty of those down here. Daniel's computer was an old desktop so I gave him my Samsung laptop with an amber VGA screen and bought myself a new one. Daniel removed his hard drive and threw away the big box, and the CRT monitor. He still needs a printer and a parallel printer cable.

Early during his first semester at GCC Dan met another gay deaf student named Jacob Rosen. Jake was almost five years older than Daniel and was 98% deaf. He was about the same petite size as Dan, about 5'6" and maybe 100lbs. Jake was skinny as a board, pale white like Dan, very long brown hair and brown eyes. I wondered what he had under his clothes but never asked Dan. I got the impression Jake was hairy under his clothes, he even had black curly chest hair. It appeared Daniel fell deeply in love with the boy the first time they made eye contact.

Jake was living alone in a subsidized apartment complex for disabled people. His family was from Austin but he was taking full advantage of all the benefits for deaf people, like free education and housing. I think Dan said he had a history of seizures so Jacob couldn't drive but he got low cost rides from some kind of state program.

It wasn't too long after they met that Dan told me he was in love with Jacob, and he was invited to move-in with him, so I helped him pack and he drove over one day and after then we didn't see much of Dan anymore.

I had images of Daniel being the perpetual bottom and getting fucked face-down every night in bed. I just wanted him to be happy.

September 1996. Our third year in college.

For most of the summer we only saw Dan once a month, he came over on Saturday evenings just to touch base about his life and school. He moved-in with Jacob after only five weeks of dating and doing homework together. I never considered Dan in love before but it made sense that he should fall in love with someone who also spoke fluent ASL. Jacob had no choice because about the only thing he might hear would be if he stood along the runway when a jet was taking off. Dan told me Jake was born deaf, he had no inner ear bones and might someday get a cochlear implant inside his skull, but they are still not covered by Medicaid. Dan is quick to remind us that Jake is totally deaf, he hears mostly nothing.

(Note from the author: to see what a group of deaf teenage students living in a state residential school (in the former Soviet Union) for the deaf looks like see the award winning 2014 Ukrainian film titled The Tribe. Also note there are several movies and TV series with the same name. This gives you an idea what it looked like when Dan and Jacob casually talked at home.)

Dan was doing well, he and Jacob were very much in love, Dan was teaching him to dance, Jacob was teaching him to make wine at home. Daniel looked very happy, smiled a lot and wasn't pale anymore and he looked like he might have put on a few more pounds. His face had a smile most of the time, which was a huge change for Dan.

While he was over Tom left with the folding cart to start our laundry.

When Dan got up to leave I walked him to the door. He stopped with one hand on the door knob, smiling he looked into my eyes, he rose up on his toes and kissed me on the lips, which I returned. Then he leaned in and did it again this time a little longer. Then he reached down and felt my pants and gave me a friendly squeeze and held on about ten seconds not saying anything.

Finally he let go of the door knob, put his hands on my hips then slid them under my shirt up to my chest to rub his thumbs over my tits very slowly and gently. Then he leaned in again and lip locked with me so I put my arms around his upper body pulled him into me. We stood there for a minute or two with his thumbs on my nipples and my arms around him and our mouths meshed together tongues touching for a few minutes.

He pulled off, dropped his hands and signed that he loved me, I did the same back. He left. I watched from the window by the sofa as he got in his beater Korean subcompact car and drove off.

I know it's hard to explain in a way that makes sense but I think most of the reason why Dan and I touch each other that way is to show each other we still have no barriers. If we were space ships we'd say out shields are down when we're together which is closer than most people get these days. It's intimate and trusting but not really sexual, even though it looks sexual.

About an hour later Tom came home with our laundry. I was half asleep on the sofa with the TV off. I told him Dan left and how good I felt about his progress. Tom seemed pleased that we sort of raised Daniel from teens into adulthood, our second kid really.

He sat next to me on the sofa. One thing lead to another and we ended up blowing each other on the sofa. Tom seemed eager to come in my mouth. Sometimes he sits there and does nothing so I can do my magic stuff on his swollen dick.

After he came we traded spots and he slowly wanked mine and told me about two guys he met in the Laundry who were students at TAMUG working toward becoming naval officers. He said after dark is when you see guys strip down to their boxers with all the rest of their clothes in the washer! One guy said he checked and standing in the laundry room in your underwear is not outlawed by the apartment complex or city ordinance.

January, 1997, Our third year of college.

Tom was still working at a locally owned Mexican restaurant near Seawall Boulevard and Broadway Avenue. He's the kitchen manager, re-designed their lunch-dinner menu and bar drink menu. Within two months the place was making more money, his boss the owner of the place treated him like a son. Tom knew that job was only a stepping stone towards his real goal, a restaurant of his own.

A bad flu season made them very short staffed over the holidays, so angrily Tom had to work both Christmas and New Years Eve. He was briefly furious but did it like a good soldier. He's not `out' at work, the cultural thing might be harsh on him at that place.

We celebrated Christmas and the New Year on our nights off instead. We had our holidays on 12/23 and 12/30. We also went to my parent's the week before Christmas for dinner. Tom went to his cousin's place for Christmas on the 26th too. He told me one of his cousins whispered to him they all know he's gay but can't condone his lifestyle, so they all stopped asking about his private life.

Welcome to 1997.

Gram asked us to not bring Crow for dinner because the cleaning lady just did the floors in the entire house and the dog always brings in sand and dirt. But she made him a plastic tub full of leftovers, the main dish was ham. She gave Crow the ends which were diced and mixed in with mashed potatoes and gravy. She also gave him a slice of pumpkin pie with cool whip which was also cut into smaller bits.

Crow seems to be his same old self but he looked stiff in the hips. He's grayer in the face. And he was slower to stand up from the floor. He mostly lounged around and watched TV when nobody's home. We left the TV on all day for him at a low volume, also helped reduce his barking at sounds outside, like the garbage truck.

As a joke one day I investigated on Yahoo.com about hair dye for a dog's face but found nothing. I even looked into something as simple as using a black marker on his facial hair but decided if I asked Crow he'd want to be left alone, let nature take its course. If he was a dog actor in a TV series they'd paint his face but Crow is just a regular old dog, not an actor or model.

Daniel emailed to tell me he was taking three classes next semester at the university and things were well with him and Jake. Dan also said Jacob asked him to get married but they're waiting for it to become legal somewhere in the USA, they think it might be some place like Massachusetts that legalizes gay marriage first.

We finished our third year at the university and were pumped and ready to begin our fourth year in September.

June, 1997

Another school year was over, we're both only taking one class this summer to lessen our class load next semester. Tom was looking for a different restaurant to manage. I put my bonus cash into the envelope under the mattress with all the rest of it. I had no idea how much was down there anymore, but I could guess it was tens of thousands of dollars in 100 dollar bills. The truth is my trust fund really covers most of my daily expenses and all my bills, except small stuff like gasoline and video rentals.

Let me comment briefly on Tom's education so far. He worked for a long time at Denny's which was a franchise business. That means he couldn't invent new dishes, new specials, or offer short-term discounts. The restaurant was locally owned but essentially controlled by the franchise office. So he didn't get much experience with `steering the ship' but he was allowed to write on the nautical charts and work the compass and sextant. Lots of his experience came from him and the manager discussing staffing, building maintenance, and suppliers.

Most of the big franchise QSRs had their own supply and distribution networks. The idea is to control costs, quality, uniformity, and reputation. It's done so (for example) a Whopper and fries in Pasadena tastes the same in Pittsburgh, Paris, and Prague.

Then working at the Tex-Mex restaurant was better but had some similar restrictions because the place already had a theme `Tex-Mex Steakhouse' so he couldn't invent new seafood dishes or specials. Their ship was sailing south and Tom was welcome to do what he wanted as long as the ship remained southbound. So when he owns his own business some of the stuff he wanted to try will be new to him. He said that as far as the paperwork of managing a restaurant goes, Denny's and Pizza Hut were very similar businesses. Both of them used simple pre-printed paper forms to show ins and outs, monitor man-hours versus customer flow. And in both of those places efficiency was critical to maintain profit so he carried a clipboard and a stopwatch.

Tom often described his job as `uniformity coach' making sure all the worker bees put the cheese on the crust with the same technique so all the pizzas came out the same over time. He said that kind of value system was hard to communicate to a 16 year old girl on her first job.

How long did they spend putting toppings on the crust, how long was the pizza actually in the oven, what was the actual oven temperature versus set temperature. In both restaurant chains there was one supplier for nearly everything in the building, so only one daily delivery truck clogged the parking area. They got trucks for repair stuff, like if the oven died or the air conditioning crapped out... but with franchise restaurants the main office controls suppliers and they are locked into buying supplies from the main office only, or they come over and remove the signs, and take you to court!

When we start our own business it's going to take both of us to manage it until he gets the ball rolling.

Dan came over about once every eight weeks for a quick visit, he looked great. Last time he brought Jacob along. I did what little sign language I knew. Jake seemed like a decent guy. Since he cannot talk and only lip reads, he was tough to get to know. He seemed intimidated by the aging Great Dane. Jacob relied a lot of having Dan translate what we said. Tom put Crow in the bedroom after he was allowed to meet Jake, nose to nose. I could tell Jake was scared because of how he sunk his fingertips into the arm rest on his chair! Dan promised him Crow was way too lazy to kill anyone (except that one dude) but it's still intimidating letting a stranger Great Dane get literally nose to nose with your face.

Just for fun I wanted to ask Jake if he was circumcised but I anticipated Dan would simply ignore what I asked.

Daniel told me he finally received the payment from Amarillo Public Schools to settle his lawsuit. After the lawyer took his part he received a cashier's check for $3,950,850.00. He said it went in the bank, but he was going to continue going to college. He also handed me two thousand dollars to re-pay what I gave him to help him get established in Galveston. I told him it was a gift because I loved him, but he said so was his two grand.

With the two thousand I bought Tom a used surfboard for his 21st birthday. He can carry the board in my car by folding down the passenger seat and the back seat, and sliding it in through the trunk, when it touches the dashboard he can gently shut the trunk. I don't really care but now there is a white colored dent in the glove box door! Tom said on our next car we have to get a surf board rack on the roof.

The surf usually wasn't big in Galveston, maybe one or two feet, more in storms of course. But it's still fun to play. I borrowed a long lens from work and took some amazing shots of him on the board wearing only his Speedo and got it published on page two of the newspaper when we did a story about erosion of the beaches and efforts to minimize the loss. The color newspaper photo made him look really tan and skinny.

The camera I used for that shot had a motor-winder so I was able to take five shots in rapid succession because ride-able waves only come along maybe once every fifteen minutes in Galveston on a sunny windless day.

Just to celebrate we bought a pint of whisky on my birthday but later gave it to some homeless dude because neither of us wanted to get `whiskey flu.'

June, 1997. Summer before our final year of college.

I turned 22 two weeks ago, Tom turns 22 next month. I only see him five days a week now but we always kiss when the other one crawls in bed. Our work and school hours left little time for us to be together. The stone on the TV proclaiming date night got turned around last year but still sat there unenforced. I maintained a 3.9 GPA, Tom was about 3.5. We're both enrolled in classes this fall again like last year.

We rarely see each other because Tom often works evenings to closing and makes the nightly bank deposit.

My grandfather died in February, 1998. He had a stroke and lingered in the hospital for four days then had another worse one and died soon after with Gram and me at his side. We had him cremated per his wishes and his ashes were buried next to my mom's grave in Amarillo. Gram said she wanted the same treatment when it's her time.

Tom, Daniel, and Jacob attended the funeral here in town. It was well attended by lots of people from the University. They named the new campus classroom building as The Davis Center for Health Studies in his honor. Gram was devastated. She sold their golf course bunker and moved into assisted living on the mainland on the south side of Houston in League City, Texas. I think her memory was failing too. She kept calling me by the wrong name and didn't recognize Tom at all.

For Crow's 6th birthday we took him in the car to get a Burger King Whopper and two slices of pizza from Pizza Hut, all from the drive-thru windows. I think he thought he died and went to heaven. There was very little black fur on his face now, he looked like an elder Dane. He was getting stiffer in back but still walked okay and didn't seem to be in much pain.

I told him today was his birthday, so he could have anything he wanted, of course he cannot talk so I had to ask what he wanted and I got the biggest response when I said dog burger at Burger King' and dog pizza at Pizza Hut.' The dog prefix meant they contained none of the stuff he always spit out. At the drive up window Tom said it was a birthday gift for a dog so it had to have special toppings. At BK we got him a whopper with catsup, mustard, and mayo but nothing else. And at Pizza Hut it was two slices of pizza with pepperoni and cheese, but nothing else.

He's been to Burger King before but this time Tom drove and I rode in back with the dog. Crow sat on the other back seat all bubbly, hardly able to control his excitement. After ordering and paying Tom moved the car forward so the back door was at the window. I brought along a large bath towel to cover the seat because these trips always invoke a massive flow of saliva.

I got the bag and Tom slowly drove us across their parking lot. I looked inside bun to make sure it only had: mayo, ketchup, and mustard. Then I carefully ripped it onto chunks and quickly fed it to Crow, he was verbally screaming beside me with excitement as I quickly ripped it into five pieces. Then we were on Broadway and stopped in Pizza Hut and ordered two slices. At both places they said it was fairly common for families to bring the dog over as a birthday present.

So I pulled those into pieces too and hand fed them to his mouth but he didn't seem as excited as he was at BK. We sung the birthday song but I don't think he understands the concept of one year. The important part was everyone had a great time and it was a nice family activity.

On the way home we stopped at a gas station and I got him a pack of Twinkies to be his cake. All he understood was he got several treats and it was a fantastic day. The Twinkies disappeared very fast.

Tom joked that he seemed to inhale some of that food with such energy he wondered if the National Weather Service suddenly saw an instantaneous dip in the barometric pressure! Then it turned into jokes about one of us getting a nose bleed, or if he might trigger a thunderstorm to form over the coast.

At home we'd usually encourage him to calm down and eat slowly but in this case he was free to be himself and eat his gifts anyway he wanted.

September, 1998 Our last year of college.

We're both enrolled in our senior years, almost a full load, but this was the final push the last school year before graduation only ten months from now. Tom said it went much faster than he believed it would. He also said my grandparents were totally right, it is just a series of small steps, just keep moving forward.

School has always been rough on our relationship. We had two heated arguments that summer. I never saw him so mad that his neck veins bulged before. It was kind of scary. I shut up and went outside with Crow while he got in my car and drove off somewhere. I think he drove to the long beach on Apffel Park Road to watch the ocean waves when he got too angry to talk to anyone.

That night we were still not overly friendly but were speaking and looking at each other, we decided to go see a movie. We went to see Jurassic Park, Lost World at a mall in Texas City. We got there early and sat in the car for a while. He reached over and rested his arm on my shoulder while I stared at my knees.

Next thing I heard surprised me, Tom actually started to cry. I hit the lever to make his seat lean all the way back, and then did the same to mine. I reached over and released his seatbelt and mine too. Then I scooted over and rested the side of my head over his arm pit until he calmed down. Tom had his hands over his face and I reached down and I slid one hand under his shirt and strummed his belly button. It was a gentle caring moment, like we hadn't had in months really.

We stayed like that for probably twenty minutes. Slowly, we started to talk a little and I wiggled over on top of him and we French kissed for about ten minutes non-stop. It seems like Tom was turned on, I moved over a little and ran my hand down his body and it landed on his zipper and I felt he was totally hard so I unbuttoned his shirt and opened his pants. I sucked on one of his marshmallow nipples and wanked him by hand in a way to tease his dick head to an extreme. He warned me he wouldn't last much longer so I sort of wiggled further off him while maintaining suction on his big tit and I continued to work his dick with my thumb and first finger. He started to moan, which was my warning that the pumps had started so I let go of his nipple and looked down and saw one spurt of semen land on his tummy, but the next one shot out and hit the ceiling above him. Then two more shot out, one spurt across his chest and hit me on the face too, the last spurt crossed his stomach and chest and splashed down across his other tit. Tom sort of sighed deeply and tried to relax, I think it was the most semen I ever saw shoot out of his dick before. With semen on my face I whispered "You okay?" Tom smiled with tears still on his face and laughed and said he really needed that. I asked how long it was since his last orgasm and he said over a week, he's been under a lot of stress lately at work.

Slowly, I used some napkins we got from Burger King to clean the semen off the ceiling and his stomach. The come he laid across his chest I cleaned up with my tongue then wiped dry with napkins. He closed his jeans while I buttoned his shirt.

Back at home we slow danced in the shower then he got on his knees and blew me while he worked my bunghole with two fingers.

A few months ago I pulled off a nearly impossible scheme. I planned and organized a party for the five of us at East Beach. No special reason really, except my secret motive was to see Jake in a bathing suit. Unfortunately he wore trunks and not a Speedo or something else tight and revealing. But Tom and I used our best gay scanning x-ray to see what he was packing. Luckily Dan figured out what I was up to and when they decided to get in the water at first Jake tried to go with his shirt on but Dan took off his shirt before they left our picnic blanket.

After about half an hour of Jake and Daniel in the water wrestling they stopped and decided to take a water break. They walked back to our campfire still dripping wet. They both had semi hard-ons. I could clearly see that Jake looked to be packing about seven inches of cut meat. Those tiny skinny boys were often packing large snakes was the popular true-ism I heard. His body was actually very similar to Daniel. I got a few photos of him that they probably don't know I took.

Jacob's legs were very hairy, but it looked like Daniel trimmed the important parts.

January, 1999

Crow was healthy, stiff and slow and spoiled. He didn't seem to be in any pain mechanically. I think his hearing was fading or he's practicing selective hearing now.

Tom and I had the holidays off. He's been the assistant manager of a Pizza Hut for two months now, which took a lot of his time and didn't pay very well. We started the final semester of our senior years next week, we're stoked. We're also getting along well. The rock on the TV was back around facing the room and the date night rule was back in force, even if it started at 1am it still happened.

I think Tom finally figured out that to please me all he had to do was raise his shirt and offer me his tit to lick for a minute or two and I was satisfied. So even if he was busy working on school stuff it only took one minute to take care of his lover, he could read while I nursed on his big puffy tit, a real Two-For-One!

I've been telling Tom he was born with huge nipples, there was no sense in keeping them hidden his entire life, as he got older they'll probably shrink and flatten out so enjoy they now while you got `em. Tom says for years now if he walks around shirtless in public all his tits accomplish in public is get him the very attention he doesn't want. I disagreed and said he should show them off as much as possible.

I asked if he ever got raped or molested in life and he said no, but his tits got pinched a lot always by other guys.

My nest egg had grown from one envelope to three large folders under the mattress. Tom had student loans and grants to pay his tuition. I still didn't know how much I had saved, I was sure Tom forgot about my secret savings. A couple times we drove to the local bank about his student loans and I made payments for him, but I kept the receipts so he really has no idea how much he owes and how much I've paid so far.

Gram was doing well in the assisted living place in League City. We visited about every 60 days. Tom asked to go along. It's about a 70 minute drive from home. Her memory was getting worse but she seemed happy and well cared for. On our last two visits it took Gram about ten minutes until she said she remembered my name and my mother's name, or maybe one of the staff whispered it to her. She stopped recognizing Tom last year. Nursing home staff said she was going to be transferred to the memory care wing of that facility next week because she couldn't be left alone any more.

Since the end of college was within sight we started looking for a restaurant to buy after graduation. Tom had his eye on one restaurant building (1955) that's been closed for 10 months but had all the equipment and two apartments upstairs and a patio on the roof, all empty. The owner was bankrupt due to a drug conviction for cocaine smuggling. We had an appointment to tour the restaurant and the apartments upstairs next weekend.

June, 1999. Crow is now 7 years old.

The University graduation ceremony was today. I was going to have Gram brought down to see it too, but she didn't recognize me at all so I cancelled her transport. I got my grades bonus and a graduation bonus I had no idea was pre-planned by my mother from my trust. I got a check for $58,000 which I cashed but didn't tell Tom but like all the others I stuffed the cash into another folder under the mattress. It was an impressive stack of 100-dollar bills.

Tom got his bachelor's in Restaurant Management and Nutrition and I got mine in Journalism with a minor in Photo (and) Graphic Arts. I heard Daniel just finished his third year of undergraduate towards his teaching certificate. While I was a student the university was already in the process of switching over from darkroom skills to using image manipulating software, like Photoshop. Tom thinks I should have been an artist instead of a photographer.

For our graduation the ceremony was on campus, in the gymnasium and they had an orchestra play the Blue Danube Waltz as all 265 seniors walked across the stage to accept their rolled-up blank sheet of paper while someone called out their names. We shook the hand of the Dean and walked downstairs to photographers and rows of empty seats. After the last person crossed the stage all the caps went flying and cheers went up and the entire gym was on their feet applauding. I wasn't near Tom because his last name starts with R and mine starts with D and everyone crossed the stage on alphabetical order!

After the ceremony we went home and threw out as much school stuff as possible and dismantled our computer stations and moved onto the next big project: starting our own restaurant. That evening Tom thanked me for believing in him and pressuring him to go to college.

We hired a food service inspector to survey the restaurant in town we were talking about buying at the corner of Avenue Q at 25th Street, just two blocks from the beach and the Pleasure Pier. His report said the place needed exterior work and insect treatment but all in all was in good shape. The roof didn't leak, the water pipes were fine, the sewer piping was replaced two years ago and the appliances were in working order, just waiting to be turned on. The dining area needed work, new tables, lighting, seating, and flooring but the place could be divided in half and opened with much less work and be up to code with lots of elbow grease and a minimal investment. It already had sprinklers across the entire building, both floors.

The seats were all cracked and the tables wobbled, the inspector said it was from the place sitting un-used for over a year, it was very dusty inside and needed a floor to ceiling scrubbing.

The neighborhood around the property was mostly residential so foot traffic could be heavy and there were a lot of retired folks in the area too. The neighborhood was an older section of town but there were still several empty lots from previous hurricane damaged homes. Many of the homes here looked like ones from older sections of New Orleans or Buffalo.

Tom used his schooling to write a business plan and present it to a few banks, we got into our suits and drove to the banks to meet their business banking reps, two of them said possibly yes but we needed a large down payment. The third was a no-go since Tom really didn't have established credit. We went home to brainstorm.

We discussed his plan, suppliers, rehab of the building, actual costs with employees, taxes and utilities. We discussed renting the other apartment over the un-used portion of the building and had another independent building inspection done. Tom said the lowest amount the bank would need was $55k down to finance the building re-hab and first few months of operation. He looked depressed and almost sad enough to cry as we pondered where the money would come from. He never considered me as a source because he didn't know. We both estimated that to re-hab the building and all the kitchen equipment, and buying the first month worth of kitchen supplies it was going to cost about $170k, so we'd put $55k down and borrow the rest and present a working business plan.

We slept on it that night and had tomorrow off. We pestered the realtor again and got him to drive to the place to look at it ourselves again and take photos and detailed measurements of everything. We sat on the empty patio on the roof talking in the hot sun after the realtor guy left and locked-up. He decided on a name: Tom's Diner.

We drove back home, he talked the whole way about all the problems he learned about working at different restaurants and at three places as manager, kept books, hired staff, dealt with health inspectors and service providers. He double checked his numbers and tossed his pen to the coffee table, crossed his legs and arms as if he was getting upset.

Feeling his anguish I did something I really never did before. I stood up, dropped the front of my shorts aimed it at him on the sofa and told him to suck me off. He looked at me with a grin then leaned forward and took me in his mouth and started to work the tip of my boner.

After about two minutes I pulled back leaving him with a look of puzzlement. I leaned over and pulled his shirt off over his head tossing it at Crow on the floor. Then I sat on his lap and stroked myself and came on his wonderful chest and stomach. Then I cleaned up with paper towels. After he was clean I went down on him but finished him off by hand. We kissed for about twenty seconds when I got up and left the room. After about two minutes I came back from our bedroom with a large inner office folder.

He had a look on his face of bewilderment.

I had little marks on the outside of this one. I tossed it on his lap and said, "Fifty five thousand. There's your down payment."

He sat staring at me, then opened the envelope and dumped it on the coffee table and started counting hundred dollar bills, he had never seen that much cash before and had no idea I had it. Tom had to stop repeatedly and wipe tears from his eyes.

"I've been saving up for this for the past four years."

"You asshole where did all this money come from?"

"Mostly from my trust fund for good grades then graduating college."

"So I never asked or I forgot, like how much is your trust fund for?"

"Sure you really want to know?"

"Yep, lay it on me bro." he said encouraging me to admit it to him.

"You gotta remember it comes with lots of rules, I have no direct access to it, only comes by a strict set of rules by the IRS and my mother's will, which I cannot change. Okay?"

"Okay, got it. It's not money you can access any old time, there are rules, lots of them."

"Good. Okay, it's a bit over nineteen and a half million dollars."

"You're fucking kidding, right?" He said with his eyes and mouth wide open. A tear dropped from one eye to his bare chest.

"I don't know the exact amount but that's about the total as of January this year."

"Well dip me in shit! I had no idea I was living with a millionaire."

"Technically, you aren't. I get an allowance, that's it."

"Wow. Oh shit! We gotta get to the bank, they close in twenty minutes." He said jumping up off the sofa.

We got dressed and ran to the car, drove downtown to the Coastal Business Bank, filled out the deposit ticket, handed over the money then drove back home. We ran across the parking lot for our car, laughing as we sped off for home, radio cranked. Tom looked so happy I thought his skull might crack open with joy any minute!

At home Tom ripped off my clothes just inside the front door, then his, and pulled me into the bedroom, lubed himself up and proclaimed, `DO ME!' It's not that often when I get to ride on top. Tom is more of a top.

We spent the rest of that day either in bed or in the bathroom. We fucked two more times that day. The boys from Amarillo were both extremely happy.

Three weeks later his business loan was approved, and so was our business permit from the city. We got our employer number and tax number and scheduled a professional restoration company to come in and scrub the entire first floor, kitchen and dining area. While that was going on downstairs we scrubbed one of the apartments upstairs, it was smaller than our apartment near the college, and was full of furniture and smelled very musty inside. Tom said it smelled like an antique store.

Three weeks after that we closed on the purchase of the entire building. One week after closing we started to move from our apartment by the campus to our own place above the restaurant. I agreed to rent one of the apartments upstairs which was paid to our business. It seemed odd but the lawyer said it was perfectly legal, that way the rent and utilities was covered by my trust fund, so we had some money coming into the business before we sold our first meals.

I took us two days to move all our stuff to the new apartment. Crow didn't like the new stairs he had to climb to get to his home. There was nothing we could do to help him other than give him time to do it at his own pace. Sometimes when he seemed to be in pain I kneeled behind him and massaged his hips but I had no idea if it actually helped his pain.

Just before we opened the doors Tom was interviewed for Coastal Entrepreneur Magazine, he was on the cover and they had a four page article about his life and plans. He was the youngest business owner in Galveston and was invited to join the Chamber of Commerce and the Rotary Club.

Four weeks later we opened for business. We turned a profit during week three without spending any money on advertising. We met a lot of local business service companies. Someone tried to convince us to advertise on the back of grocery store receipts but we told her the idea was ridiculous. We expected eventually to buy ad space in the local newspaper, and run 30 second ads on two local FM radio stations.

Our menu was a mix of American comfort foods, Mexican traditional, and a few extras he learned along the way. Our pizza and fajita platters became famous. Pizza was our specialty. Tom paid an artist to make us a big sign for the front window showing a deep dish pizza. But we also made our own corn and flour tortillas and fried tortilla chips and salsa.

Every Friday night we had a fajita special with endless salsa and chips, but a reservation was required. We tried to hire a mariachi band but there were none in the city so we used recorded music instead.

That fall we had to go before the planning commission for a permit to enlarge the parking area. On the day we opened about 1/3 of the property was just bare rocks and weeds but that was quickly paved and marked off for parking. We also installed a bike rack outside in case that might lessen the traffic in the lot, but I argued nobody could ride a bike over and get a carry-out pizza. He said he was thinking more about dine-in customers on bikes.

April, 2000

Crow is about to turn eight years old and he looks old.

The Diner was super busy during spring break, word had got out on the campuses. We sold more pizzas that week than any other three months combined. Even the manager of Pizza Hut came by and wished Tom luck but slammed the door shut hard on the way out. He was the same guy who hired Tom when he was a student.

We had to double our daily purchase of AP flour for making pizza crusts to keep up with demand. He also started increasing the order for pizza toppings, but much of what we used was handmade to maintain quality. My favorite appliance in the kitchen was the big Hobart commercial slicer. I saw Tom use it for things I never thought you could do on a slicer, like cutting lettuce heads, cheese blocks, and we purchased an electric machine for making our own shredded cheese for pizzas.

Tom is trying to import a huge supply of mozzarella cheese blocks from Chihuahua Mexico, made by actual German dairy farmers living in Mexico. He said he almost has to use the power of our congressman's office to get it imported without paying a special import tax. He said there is a pizza place in Corpus Christi that has one of those special deals worked out and they swear by that cheese. It comes in huge cases on a refrigerated semi truck all the way from Chihuahua Mexico, which is south of Juarez.

Tom says it has a lower melt point, higher fat, higher protein, and tastes wonderful on a pizza. He said if you keep it at 39 degrees it shreds nicely and melts and flows farther than American Moz cheese, plus the Mexican cows are not injected with anything since the farmers are basically like Amish people from Germany.

"Amish people in Mexico? Really?" I asked.

"Yep they're Amish and Mennonite from Europe, somehow they settled down in Mexico instead of Pennsylvania or Ohio." I never heard of that before. Tom also said that few Americans realize that there is a huge farming and cowboy culture in Mexico.

August, 2000

Gram died in her sleep at the nursing home. She was cremated and buried in Amarillo beside Gramps and Mom. There were two more spots un-used that Mom bought many years ago. Since she slipped into obscurity there was no funeral service there or in Amarillo. I also think that most of the local school administration folks from back when we lived there were all gone too, so our last name was unknown now. All her old text books were gone too. But the newest classroom building on the TAMUG campus still has their name and is supposed to stay that way forever.

So there are always students on campus saying something like: "I got algebra 201 in Davis #35 in ten minutes," but nobody knows what Davis means. Yes, my grandparent's entire estate went to the university where they plan to use some of it to enlarge the stadium and add more parking.

January, 2001.

Crow was getting wobbly on his feet sometimes which was bad because we lived in a 2nd story apartment over the restaurant, he'll turn nine years old this June. I tried to make a giant litter box for him in the empty apartment but he refused to use it. We sometimes carried him up and down the stairs. He was so stubborn he did not want our help, but we also couldn't spend 30 minutes while he took one step at a time up the outside steps behind the diner building. We had to make a sling to carry him. The sling had two side cloth straps that picked him up under his belly and under his chest with a long wood rod above him with two handles. We set the board on his back and ran the straps under him and grabbed the ends of the rod and gently picked him off the floor and carried him down the stairs and took it off so he could find a spot of weeds around our parking area to pee on something green.

By January 10th I was down to working part-time at the diner and Tom was of course full time. He did the morning breakfast rush like he was starting to do at the diner in Amarillo. We were making decent money in tips and we had four kitchen employees and four waitresses.

This diner had a counter, sort of like at Star's in Amarillo, but only half as long, with six stools instead of 26. And this place had more tables and looked kind of checkerboard-retro inside.

The wall we built across the middle looked cheap so we had to hire someone to come in and paint it so it didn't look temporary but people still asked about the other half of the building. We told some people it was our apartment.

When we opened with half the dining area closed off the space we used for dining room was roughly 30x60 feet. And the kitchen area along with the space behind the counter was 50x60. We started using the small counter area for breakfast only but that was a hassle trying to keep people from sitting at the counter during lunch and dinner.

We made pizzas in the back kitchen and most of our main menu items came from a steam table in the back, so sitting at the bar was like eating with a view of a wall. We also had to change part of the wall between the kitchen and the dining room so people could watch us make their pizza order.

The new kitchen was two kitchens. We had a back kitchen where we made food for the front kitchen. Up front they made pizzas and most of the main restaurant meals. There was an old retro diner kitchen out by the counter which was mostly a large griddle and a deep fryer, but it was so small it couldn't handle the entire dining area for breakfast so we had to limit the number of customers we served at breakfast. We never advertised breakfast but it was Tom's favorite time to do what he spent his life learning. And he does a good job of performing at the griddle with his big butt cheeks on display. He also wears shirts that make his puffy nip shadows visible to diners. He wears a snug stretchy shirt that conforms to his chest and a white apron with straps which is how he shows off his tits without looking like he's showing off. Sometimes his apron straps get hung up on one side of his nips and makes them super obvious to anyone who cares. I'm sure there are more than a few people who come to admire his butt and chest lumps.

Start playing the song on youtube now: Rachmaninoff: Piano Concerto No. 1 in F-Sharp Minor, Op. 1 - II. Andante

This is just the 2nd of three tracks, about 7 minutes long. Play it one time.

On Groundhogs Day 2001 Tom got up at 5am to fire-up the kitchen for breakfast, our most profitable meal of the day. Crow and I were in bed sleeping because I only worked four days a week. Tom gets right out of bed and takes a quick shower and uses a special brush to make sure his hands are super clean. Then he goes downstairs and turns on all the cooking gear and starts the first pot of coffee and makes himself one fried egg and toast with one strip of bacon and some hash browns. He's always ready to unlock the door at 5:59am.

I woke up around 7am but Crow was still asleep in our bed while I used the bathroom and started a pot of coffee. Our bedroom briefly smelled like a Great Dane fart.

"Holy crap dog!" I cried and walked to the kitchen to get the coffee started. Bending down I took his bowls from the stand, washed both of `em, put the water bowl back full of cold tap water. It surprised me he didn't come check out what I was doing, so I walked back to my room. That's when I noticed something looked wrong.

I remembered he slept between us last night, with his head toward the pillows, which he hadn't done for months. He must have moved over when Tom got up to start the kitchen down in the diner because he was in Tom's spot with his nose at the edge of the mattress. I noticed his mouth was slightly open and he never ignores me like this. Since he was a baby unless he was sound asleep he always turned to look when he heard someone walk in the room.

Right then I knew what happened. My eyes flooded with tears as I lowered to my knees on the floor, his chin was at the edge of the mattress on Tom's side.

Barely able to see, I slowly slid my hand across his gray old face which felt very cool. I burst out crying and lowered my face against his, with my arms across his shoulders I quietly wept and once again felt an enormous emptiness in my chest and suddenly felt far from home and now totally alone. Crow was essentially my last living relative.

I put my ear to his nose to listen but he wasn't breathing at all and watching his chest his entire body was still. I felt his tummy it was cool to the touch too where it should have been soft and warm. He's been gone for a couple hours. He must have died right after he moved over.

Gently, I planted kisses on his forehead between his eyes. His face always felt very soft. His eyes gently closed, he looked totally at peace. I felt the need to pray for his soul.

`Dear God, I don't know if you take dogs into Heaven but please take this boy. He dedicated his life to protecting our family and saved several people from death. He's a hero and a very good boy, never killed any cats, never pee'd in the house. He has a good and pure heart God, please take Crow to into Heaven to be with my family. God bless this dog please Sir, he deserves Heaven more than me. Mom'll take care of him until I get there. Thank you Lord.'

With tears flooding my eyes I gave Crow one last kiss and pat on the forehead. I stood up and walked to the kitchen to turn on my cell phone and call the vet. Back in the bedroom I carefully lifted him setting his body on his own mattress in our room by the window. Then I made our bed.

He died in his sleep on our bed. I'm sure if he had his wish he would have chosen to die between us where he felt loved and safe. No matter if he died today or next month his end was near due to his severe mobility problems.

I thought back on his life from his moment of surgical birth in the vet office operating room, to bottle feeding, to his hero moments and dedication to our family, and his totally sophisticated transition to elder dog. I thought about taking photos of him looking asleep but really wanted to remember younger Crow more than anything, like his first trip to Galveston for Thanksgiving. He was such a good person; we were truly blessed by his presence. He touched and improved countless lives. He saved at least three people and risked his life in the process, without any hesitation.

I didn't run down to tell Tom because when he's at work, he's in the zone... I didn't want to ruin it for him and the vet wasn't due to come get the body for about an hour or so anyway.

Around 11am the breakfast crowd was pretty much gone and the diner was being changed over to the lunch menu. I went downstairs to see Tom, he was using the computer to enter payroll hours. I wiggled my finger at him to get him to follow me outside. The vet van just arrived and was parked in the alley behind the diner. As we walked up the stairs he noticed the van, stopped and asked "Why're they..." but he never finished his question. I stopped on the steps, turned around and slowly nodded `yes' (with fresh tears in my eyes) then we slowly went inside the apartment and into the bedroom. I gestured to the guy in the van to follow us, he was standing behind the van with the doors open getting out a body bag and removing the outer wrapper.

Tom walked to our bed and dropped to his knees. I stood behind him when he bent down and kissed Crow between the eyes then turned to look at me with tears on his cheeks. I motioned for the vet guy to come in. We spread open the body bag, packed him safely and the three of us carried him to the van and gently closed its back doors. We stood in the alley holding each other for a few minutes sniffling and talking briefly, but I knew he needed to go back to work. I told Tom I was unable to work today knowing I wouldn't be able to concentrate on anything. Ever since Mom died bad news really upsets me.

Moments later the van slowly drove away with our dog in the back when he should have been in the kitchen eating his breakfast.

We had Crow cremated. I kept some of his ashes in a small sealed glass blood vial for us to keep at home, the rest will eventually be buried in an unmarked grave in the spot beside Gram where I'll be some day.

I'll never forget Crow. Tom and I were in bed that night talking about his life and all the goofy things he did to make us laugh.

We even talked about some day buying a motorcycle and riding together up to Amarillo with a shovel and digging a hole near the Davis headstone and burying him with the family. But we might have to do that at night!

It took me about two weeks until I could smile again and not be thinking about Crow all day. It was nearly impossible for me to concentrate on anything, so Tom told me to take off work until I recovered. He was much more stoic and focused at work. We already had a framed photo of him running on the beach mounted on the wall in our diner.

I took me two weeks until I could get rid of his iron bowl stand or his mattress. It seemed like I could feel his presence in the room and sometimes I swear I felt him bump my back with his nose, like he frequently did to get my attention. Then finally one day about two weeks later it all stopped and I knew he was gone.

Tom tried hard to cheer me up but finally just let me express my sadness. He said he knew it broke my heart, maybe even more than my grandparents passing.

After it felt like Crow was gone from our home I told Tom it was over and I was going to come back to him soon. He kissed me and expressed his sorrow and said how much he missed Crow too. I asked him how much he missed Crow and he held out his arms all the way out left and right and said in a kid's voice, "This much!" That made me smile and laugh, the first time since Crow left us. I could finally laugh again.

I started back to work the next day. At 11am we switched menus over to lunch, which is code for pizza and burgers. I turned on the pizza oven and filled all the toppings bins and made sure the serving counter under the trays was loaded with ice. Then we turned on the small griddle in the back kitchen which doubles as our stove top and got ready for the lunch crowd.

Tom was mixing dough and portioning it out in forms for an hour rise time for crusts, while I shaved cheese blocks and sliced tomatoes. We had a local radio station on in the kitchen. Our waitress walked in the back door and was ready to go. She set up the dining room and turned on the lights and made sure the dining room was clean and ready, all the drink stations were full, and by 10:49am we were ready for lunch.

The breakfast kitchen was already cooled off and the bus boy had the dishes done. In the time before orders started to arrive Tom also started working on making specials for the dinner menu. I ran the pizza kitchen for a few hours then two local kids arrived and took over, along with the one delivery guy. Our pizza delivery business was actually not us, it was an independent guy we sold to at a discount but he charged full price and a delivery fee too. But adding delivery got us probably 13 to 20 more orders per day.

With tips and our discount the delivery guy made something like $150 a day, which is pretty good money for a high school dropout. And he never gets out of his car. He drives to your address and honks the horn and you pay at the car.

Around the holidays we get these huge delivery orders for family parties, orders like six large pizzas with a total bill with delivery around $170.

We sell burgers, fries, hoagies, chili, tacos, fajita platters, pizza, beer, wine, pop, ice cream, hot dogs, steaks, and eggs (any way) all day.

I asked Tom once why we're two blocks from the ocean why don't we sell fish? He said every restaurant in Galveston sells fish, blah, blah, blah. A local fried fish food chain (Cap'n Dan's) even went out of business last year. No, we don't sell fish, everyone else does. We sell the best pizza on the island, with a high quality crust, not something made in a factory in Iowa. Our pizza dough is from wheat grown in Texas, pigs and beef grazed in Texas, not some CFO in Omaha!

There is a small rush between 3pm-4pm when the schools let out and some local factories close, then another rush around 6-8pm but we close at 9pm.

Tom tries to keep it fun to work there, he tries to keep the excitement up since most of the employees are young. If a customer gets all angry and yelling about something that really wasn't wrong he escorts them out the door but tries to make them think he's on their side.

Tom re-started his sermon about flour again and said the biggest and best growers of wheat for pasta are not in Italy, they're in the Dakotas. Italy is one of the biggest importers of American grown semolina wheat. If you go to the store and pay extra for pasta made in Italy it's possible the only part of it that is actually Italian is the box!

June, 2001

Tropical Storm Allison did some damage to our place. We lost one plate glass window, had water damage in our apartment and some flooding but nothing major. We had good insurance so we were able to re-open nine days later. It took three days until we had electricity restored but until then we were able to clean up sand and tree debris from the property. All around Galveston the number one sound every one heard was chain saws and heavy equipment. There was a wood products company from the mainland who would take away any tree debris for free but it took them time to get around. They said to drag the limbs by the street and they'll take them for free ASAP.

Daniel graduated with his master's in education that month. I attended, Tom had to work. We had four kitchen employees but he still babied the restaurant like it was his own child or something. He also designed all our daily specials.

After Dan's graduation ceremony we had a party for him at Tom's Diner. Dan's parents showed-up to eat their words (and some pizza) for all the doom and gloom they predicted would come of his move alone with two backpacks to Galveston. Turned out they were very wrong about his chances, his brains, his friends, and his lifestyle. We lavished attention and food on his folks just to rub it in. The place was done up in rainbow everything, some of it remained and became part of our daily decor. We kept our gayness low key normally. I doubt too many of our patrons knew it was a gay friendly establishment.

I still think his parents were somewhat worried that he still might sue them for neglect, but so far he never mentioned it as a plan to me, but we have discussed it in the past. I am sure he discussed it with the lawyer. I think Dan just wants to move on with his life and forget about them.

Late in 2002 we finished the slow remodel of the other half of the dining area doubling our seating capacity and hired another employee.

One mistake we made was when we replaced the existing tables with new ones they were discontinued and we were unable to get matching tables and chairs for the rest of the dining room! That was when one of our staff suggested using tablecloths.

In 2004 we celebrated our 10th anniversary together with another party in Tom's Diner. I had no family to invite and no dog to spoil with leftovers. Tom invited his family and they all showed up, even his Mom from Amarillo attended. There was no hint of homophobia. We played loud music and served free food to everyone. Dan and Jake attended too.

In 2008 Hurricane Ike nearly destroyed our restaurant, only two blocks from the ocean. We had great insurance, the place was re-built, so was most of Galveston but the population was now about 15% smaller as so many people decided never to return. There were bare concrete slabs all over the city where houses and businesses once stood and were now bare reminders of September 13, 2008 with 110 mph winds and a fifteen foot storm surge, which put the ocean about three inches inside our building. We evacuated for the mainland after boarding-up. We lost half the roof, half of one wall on the ocean side, the inside was destroyed, and our rainbow wind sock on the sign was reduced to a plastic loop on a string tied to an empty sign frame. We found a three foot barracuda on the kitchen floor when we first returned.

We hired the same company who designed and built my grandparents home by the golf course to build us a new diner. And just for the record, I drove out to see the bunker on stilts, it lost the first floor walls (by design) and some of the roof but the house and main structure survived Hurricane Ike without damage. The houses near theirs were mostly gone. The current owner closed the shutters and left for Houston.

By December the diner was re-built with (preformed) reinforced concrete walls and smaller windows, plus we raised the floor about two feet and added pedestrian ramps too. The entire upstairs was re-done making it a larger 2nd story garden and a single apartment with steel storm shutters on the entire building. We opened on January 2nd, 2009 to a line of people anxious for the return of every restaurant in town. The line was about fifty feet long when we un-locked the doors. Some people waited thirty minutes outside for a seat inside.

So our business now had that same hurricane-proof look as lots of the rest of Galveston had that kind of East German 1960s Soviet appearance. The architect who designed it said he feels sorry if 100 years from now someone decides to tear it down because they're going to need an explosives demolition company because nothing else will blow this place over, except maybe an atomic explosion or runaway freight train.

We saved that first windsock frame as a reminder.

I had to invest in the diner to make it work like we wanted, and since it was technically Tom's business I had to take a huge tax penalty to help pay for the new diner, which was going to be a concrete bunker with a better floor plan. So I kicked-in $754,000.00 which cost me $1.508 million dollars but we ended up with all new kitchen gear and tables and chairs. Plus all the diner kitchen gear was also new and we enlarged the counter to make it more like the one at Star's in Amarillo. My trust fund covered the cost to re-furnish the upstairs apartment but not the business downstairs.

Four weeks after the hurricane we stood across the street as a backhoe demolished the standing portion of the diner and removed the foundation and dug up all the utilities. The new building would have all new everything. We stayed at a hotel on the island while it was being re-built. They tore down the remaining building until all that was left was a six foot hole in the ground.

They used a company in Houston where they made pre-formed, pre-stressed concrete slabs to order, about 6 feet wide and 18 feet tall. After pouring a new foundation a flatbed semi truck started delivering them while a crane set them in place and it took them two days and suddenly our two-story concrete building was standing there. Part of the outside wall was shorter because we wanted the roof patio too. And this new building would have a basement for storage and a small elevator shaft for like a dumbwaiter lift thing.

The architect showed us that if we got a big storm surge it would flood the basement and ruin anything in that space, the same way the house on stilts would lose the ground floor, it was designed to be destroyed, but the rest of the time it was useable low-cost space. When the basement floods you pump it out, trash everything inside and clean up and start over, just like the disposable ground floors of homes on stilts. But all that water can stabilize and strengthen the above ground parts of the structure making it even stronger. He said we might get a hurricane or we might not, only time will tell. He said they'll make it as water tight as possible but it comes with no guarantees. He said it will probably flood when water gets inside the ground floor, which will be two feet higher than the old building.

The dumbwaiter will go from the basement to the third floor so it could be used to get downstairs quickly, even though it is not man-rated. It will be 3'x3'x5ft tall inside and all stainless steel, built in Chicago, and the lift motor will be at the top, not at the bottom.

All the concrete panels were bolted together and glued to the foundation, and then a new floor was poured once the plumbing was installed for sewer, water, electricity, and natural gas and telephone.

The next step was to install the concrete floor for the 2nd story, then the concrete roof for the upstairs apartment. It took them about three weeks to get the entire concrete shell structurally finished. The builder promised the only thing that would take down this diner would be a demolition team and a jack hammer. It would easily survive any Cat-5 hurricane or tornado or flood. The new building has four concrete floors because one of them is actually the roof.

Another crew arrived and started working on the inside to build interior walls, a new walk-in cooler was installed in the basement and the electrical service. The same crew roughed-in all the walls upstairs and built us a new longer/wider set of stairs for the apartment. The dumbwaiter had a simple wood door that swings open like any regular door but it has a small round glass window to see if the car is on your floor or not. And when the car is on one floor the other doors are locked.

We were there every day helping out a little, doing easy stuff like painting and unpacking restaurant gear and furniture.

On New Year's Day we moved back into our apartment upstairs while they put the finishing touches on the downstairs dining area.

We got a new smaller pizza oven that looks more like the ovens in Quiznos. Smaller oven gives us more work space and a large list of toppings. Plus the newer ovens are programmable with two zones and reduce cooking time meaning more pizzas per day. The newer pizza requires a special electrical service so we had to pay for 480v service instead of 220v. We saved money by getting a 90 gallon 480v water heater, a 480v dish washer and hot water booster, a bigger water softener, bigger AC units, and better lighting throughout. 480V appliances also mean lower electric bills and more reliable service.

With the new building we made the entire building with fire sprinklers (lowered our insurance bills) and put floor drains in every room so the entire place can be cleaned with a steam hose now in much less time.

In May of 2009 we flew to Boston and got married, just papers at the courthouse, blue jeans and t-shirts. We flew back home the next day but only told Daniel and Jacob.

Speaking of them, we verbally gave them free access to Tom's Diner just to entice them to come over and be seen more often. They ate for free every time they stopped by, which averaged about six times a year.

Daniel was teaching elementary school sign language and also for hire as a private tutor. He was still on call with the hospital but technology may end up replacing him with someone who was actually in India earning only a few cents per hour.

About eight years after Crow died he came to me again in my sleep as the elderly Indian spiritual leader Soaring Crow. In that dream it was late in the day and I was alone walking along a wide river on a worn footpath through the trees. From behind me rode Soaring Crow on his black horse, when I heard the horse I turned around and saw him so I (smiled and) stopped and stepped off the trail. But he stopped and dismounted when he recognized me. He had a slight smile on his wrinkled dark brown face with long gray and black hair. We walked with his horse in silence for a short time, and then we stopped. He said thanks for taking care of him during his dog life, he held out his hand to shake mine but when I reached for it, his hand became like a dog's paw, he pulled back as if embarrassed but we continued to talk for a few moments. Soon our conversation ended because he was always a man of few words. He turned toward his horse, grabbed the reins and placed one foot in the stirrup. Then he mounted his horse and spoke as he rode away down the trail, "Your Mother asked me to tell you she said hello and be patient, someday we'll all be together again!"

I watched him ride away and vanish into the woods. Then my dream ended. It was the last visitation-dream like that I ever had.

This summer Tom and I turned 33 years old! I can't imagine living with anyone else. We still had our moments but we're still very much in love. We still miss Crow. We had two of the large photos I took of him on our first trip to Galveston running on the beach, happy and free. We had one blown up into two large (2x3ft) posters and framed. One is on our living room wall, the other is on the wall in the diner.

Someday we'll all be together again.

The End.

Write the author: borischen