So there were posters up all over town- a picture of a little Yorkshire terrier looking mournfully up at the camera- with a hefty reward of 800 euros for the creature’s immediate and safe return. Eight hundred! For a dog! Now having never owned a dog- perhaps I’m missing the point, but that’s a holiday to the Dominican Republic, a Mulberry handbag, a second hand car- a whole lot of things more than a yapping ball of fluff.
The missing pet in question belonged to the family that ran one of the restaurants in this little town; their windows were plastered with more of these posters than anywhere else, the family serving tables with broken hearts, nodding sorrowfully at customers when they asked about the posters that were blocking any light or view at their tables. Lilo the dog was missing. And everybody knew.
Now I was working in the same beach bar I am now- but perhaps was slightly more liberal with my alcohol intake on shift that summer. Me and my fellow bartender Vincente had a whale of a time coming up with theme nights from ‘Hawaiian night’ to ‘Melon night’ to ‘White night’ (a slight disaster when I told my friends the wrong date for that one and they arrived at the bar head to toe in white clothes only to find they were merely a strange group of people that looked like they belonged to some religious cult.) Vincente was a also a student making money in the summer and worked very hard, but on quite nights we would sometimes end up drinking more than the customers. (Free of charge, of course.) I assure you this is just the way we do things out here but have to admit this probably was a pivotal factor in this unfolding story.
I was walking up from the beach bar after work towards my apartment one Thursday about 4am- it had been a good shift- me and Vincente had pretty much perfected our signature Mojito cocktail; we’d brought in mint plants that we were growing out the back, (along with something else he was growing out the back which had nothing to do with me) brown sugar, fresh lemon and rum. The only problem was that we’d had to try a few before we’d got the measurements just right. So in al honesty it was perhaps more of a stumble up to my apartment rather than a walk.
I saw a little creature scavenging a chicken bone out from the bins, a little pink hair tie on the top of its head and thought the animal looked strangely familiar. The poster came to mind, as did the price tag attached to it and I lunged towards the dog, trying to catch the little bugger as it attempted to scarper, catching its leg while it yapped at me. After I slight struggle, I was triumphant and held on tightly to the little meal ticket until I could work out what to do next.
Now of course I was excited about reuniting a distraught family with its lost pet, but to be honest, I worked part-time at a beach bar and spent the entirety of my wage every week on partying in between to the point I realistically had no money for an air-fare home. I had planned to beach bum around until the student loans company put money in my account to I could physically afford to go back to university and be a civilized human being again. That 800 euros, looked extremely appealing…
I found one of the posters and held the little dog up to it; low and behold, it was a perfect match. I rang the number given and woke a sleeping Spanish lady to tell her the wonderful news. She told me to wait outside their restaurant as they lived nearby and I sat on the porch, a shopping list forming in my mind with the change from my air-ticket..
‘LILOOOO’ I heard, and a large Spanish lady in her dressing gown ran towards me, arms flailing (not holding onto the dressing gown tight enough.) She screamed and cried and was in hysterics to the point the dog began to desperately struggle in my arms attempting to run in the opposite direction. I made sure she had a good grip on the wriggling ball of fur before I felt confident letting go and in between sobs she hugged me ever so tightly (I was praying that the god-damn dog wouldn’t suffocate between us in this emotional embrace)
‘Gracias gracias; por Dios, gracious,’ she wailed. I may have even had a lump in my throat too- I would be revered by the family, they’d wave and smile gratefully every time I’d walk past, (perhaps even clap) free paella and pizza whenever I wanted;
‘Ah this chica doesn’t pay,’ they’d say to passers by, ‘ she saved our little Lilo, she eats free for life!’
The daughter by this point had joined in this little 4am parade and they led me by the hand towards their house behind the restaurant, towards my 800 euro, a way home and eternal glory when the daughter stopped.
‘Lilo?’
Perhaps the dog had been missing for so long it forgot its name; perhaps it was a particularly dense animal- I don’t know how dogs work. But the daughter held the animal up in the street light and said ‘Lilo? Lilo?’
The dog yapped and wriggled desperately and flatly refused to acknowledge the call. She put the dog on the floor and attempted to call it to her but the plan backfired as the dog vanished into the distance. We spent the next 20 minutes running around like crazy people behind all the restaurants screaming ‘LILOOOOO’ (I was just calling it, definitely not screaming) until I managed to spot it at the door or the restaurant at the top of the strip. The daughter beat me to it and sat on the steps with the dog who up here, ceased to struggle. She shook her head;
‘This is Lilo’s daughter.’ She said.
WTF huh?
This town is too small, even the bloody dogs are related to each other. At this point a disgruntled figure appeared at the window above us- the owner of the little bugger that ruined my night. This Spanish lady was convinced I was trying to sell her dog for a profit (only half true- its wasn’t done intentionally) and I spend an embarrassing 15 minutes apologising left right and center, sobering up quickly and leaving a dry minty taste in my mouth from all the mojitos and mortification. Lilo’s daughter (Nena) was taken to bed after her night of adventure, the owner seemingly unfazed by the fact that her dog had escaped and was wandering around the town in the middle of the night in the first place.
I now felt terrible. In more ways than one. The mother and daughter expanded on their tale of woe- the dog had been missing for 4months, and they’d had repeated prank calls from people ringing up with false information, kids and teenagers ringing saying that they’ve killed to dog and gross stuff like that. It was now nearing 5am, and this family had to run a restaurant all day and I squirmed on the steps, patting the two crying women on the backs desperate to run in the opposite direction and hide under my bed. They kept telling me ‘no pasa nanda’- don’t worry, that I thought I had genuinely found their beloved pet.
I didn’t have the heart to tell them, that after 4months, little Lilo was probably not coming home- 800 Euros or not.
Suffice to say, there has been no free paella, or pizza, or clapping at all…
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