I Still Have It. . . I Just Can't Remember Where I Put It (19 page)

It saddens me to think of how many real friends my father could have remembered fondly if he had only trusted a tiny bit more.

I don’t plan to grow old gracefully. I plan to have face-lifts until my ears meet.

My Dog Bonkers

I
’M A DOG PERSON.
T
HERE IS SOMETHING ABOUT
their hopeful faces and trusting eyes that I find totally irresistible. Often in a dog person’s life there is one dog you connect with more than any other. I’ve had other dogs in my life. I raised them from puppyhood. When I was a child, I had a ridiculously loyal German shepherd that I named Tiny and when I was a teenager I had a cute but not too bright Afghan-poodle mix that I named Agatha. I loved them both dearly, but Bonkers, who came to me already named and whom I didn’t meet until he was around two, was the dog that will always be with me.

There is really no way to tell what breed of dog he was. He looked like a cross between a bath mat and Kenny Rogers. I guess it was his good looks that got him noticed and plucked from a pound when he was a puppy to take part in a show called
Superdogs
at the Excalibur Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. This was an afternoon show where dogs from various shelters were loosely trained to run back and forth and jump over sticks.

We attended an afternoon performance of
Superdogs,
and that is where we first saw Bonkers jump through the hoop. He was magnificent. It was as if his back legs were springs. Bonkers was also the high jumper in the show. The final trick consisted of the emcee calling his name, and Bonkers running from behind the curtains and propelling himself over an impossibly high stick.

“That dog looks a little like my old dog Agatha,” I whispered to Martin during the show.

“I’ve always wanted a dog,” my husband replied. “My mother would never let me have one.”

I filed Martin’s request in an overstuffed back cubbyhole in my mind. Maybe one day we would get a dog. One day, but not now.

We enjoyed the show so much we attended it again the next week only to find that Bonkers was no longer a part of it.

“Maybe it’s his day off,” I reasoned. “Maybe he has friends coming into town and he needs to take them around sightseeing. After all, this is Vegas.”

“Go backstage and ask what’s happened to Bonkers,” my husband commanded.

I located Ben, Bonkers’s owner and the emcee of the show, and demanded to know what had happened to the shaggy star. The news was not good. Bonkers had been hit by a car and his back left leg had been shattered. He was being operated on at the moment and there was a chance he would not be able to walk again.

“We’ll take him,” my husband and I both said in unison.

“Wait until we see how he comes out of the operation,” Ben suggested.

I phoned Ben once a week to check up on Bonkers’s recuperation, and in eight weeks he was ready for us to pick him up and take him home.

Martin and I drove to Vegas to meet up with Ben. It was a little like a drug deal. Ben had told us to look for a white Honda Escort on the north side of the Excalibur parking lot, and he would be wearing a blue cap. We spotted the car and out popped Ben and a very skinny Bonkers. He had been shaved and a large scar now decorated his left back leg.

“He has a plate in his hip and a few teeth got knocked out in the accident, but I think he’s going to be fine,” Ben announced.

Bonkers was one lucky Vegas dog. He’d gone from a pound to being the star of a show to the brink of death to about to be sleeping on a pillow-topped mattress in Beverly Hills.

In no time at all, the bouncy dog we had seen in the show began to reemerge. Vestiges of his former show business life surfaced when we least expected it. Bonkers could be summoned into a room not by calling his name but by applause. Because “Happy Birthday” had been sung to kids in the audience he recognized the tune and would sing along. When friends came over we would occasionally bring out the hoop and Bonkers would instantly sail through it. He was an official member of the family and appeared on our Christmas card in various festive poses every year.

When I was once again booked to appear in Vegas we put Bonkers in the car and headed back to his homeland. Upon arriving at the hotel, we were told that no dogs were allowed on the premises and he would have to stay in a kennel. I was booked for two weeks, and that was quite simply unacceptable.

“Bonkers is in Rita’s show,” my husband, ever the problem-solving producer, lied.

“Oh, he’s in the show. Then I guess we could make an exception,” the entertainment president replied. “But he’s going to have to behave. Liza Minnelli snuck her Yorkie into the suite last week, and I don’t want to go into detail, but we’ve had to order a new sofa. By the way, what exactly does Bonkers do?”

“You’ll see,” I replied mysteriously.

Bonkers was back in show business. I just had to figure out his talent. He was on that night, so I didn’t have time to train him. I hadn’t traveled with his hoop and I really didn’t want to make him jump for a living. It was so undignified.

That evening I walked through the casino with a sixty-pound hairy hound and even the sober people were questioning what they saw. I deposited Bonkers in my dressing room, supplied him with a bowl of water and his favorite duckie toy, and told him to have a good show. I asked the stage manager to get Bonkers from my dressing room seventy minutes into my act and wait for me to call for him. I didn’t know what he would do, but I did know that the entertainment president would be in the audience waiting for Bonkers to appear.

At the end of my act I announced to the audience, “I have a special treat for you tonight. Would you like to meet my dog, Bonkers?”

“Yes!” was the resounding reply.

Phil, the stage manager, unleashed Bonkers, and he came bounding onto the stage.

“Sit,” I commanded. Bonkers ignored me. “OK, don’t sit,” I ordered. He continued not sitting.

“See, ladies and gentlemen, he didn’t sit.” I had stumbled upon our act.

“Don’t lie down,” I told him. Again, success.

The audience applauded. Bonkers ran to the edge of the stage, his tail wagging wildly. I had another idea.

“Let’s do some impressions. Bonkers, windshield wiper, windshield wiper,” I commanded. His tail flailed back and forth wildly. “Helicopter, helicopter,” I directed as I noticed his tail beginning to fly in circles. “Bark at the lady in the yellow dress in the front row,” I said as he began to bark anyway.

I remembered the certain spot on Bonkers’s back that made his back leg rotate. I scratched it.

“Start the motorcycle,” I said as his back leg moved around in a circle. The audience was in hysterics, and I sensed it was time for the big finale.

“Be as tall as Mickey Rooney,” I instructed as I patted my legs. Bonkers jumped up on my dress and I led him offstage to thunderous applause. Our act was born. Bonkers proceeded to perform in my show whenever I played Vegas for the next twelve years. He played seven different hotels and stayed in all the best suites, and they never once had to replace a sofa.

Aside from being a Vegas draw, Bonkers appeared on billboards advertising animal shelters and posters auctioning a motorcycle for charity. He was also polite. I taught him to say thank you when he was given his dinner, and he always tapped me on the leg lightly whenever he needed to go outside.

We were living in Las Vegas and Bonkers and I were performing at New York New York when it happened. My ever-hungry dog was carefully watching me eat spaghetti when he barked a bark I’d never heard before.

“What was that?” I asked my husband.

“I don’t know,” he replied worriedly.

Bonkers sat down and appeared dizzy. I said, “Bonkers, say thank you,” a certain attention getter. He just stared.

I offered him some spaghetti and he turned it down. That had never happened before. We had just enough time to take him to the vet before I went to work that night.

The vet looked at his gums. They were pale. “This is serious. I’m going to have to keep him here,” he warned.

“How could this happen? He was fine and then with one bark he’s not fine. What’s going on?”

“I’ll run some tests and take some X-rays. Call me in a few hours.”

My husband called the animal hospital later that night. The vet had stayed overtime trying to decipher what had gone wrong with our doggie. Martin listened on the phone quietly and shook his head, indicating things were not going well. He hung up the receiver.

“Dr. Wesley says he’s got a tumor in his chest and his lungs were filled with water and we should call in the morning, but he thinks we might have to put him to sleep.”

I had always thought that I would have time to prepare for this horrible moment, but life doesn’t really care what you think. Out of the blue, my dog, my friend, and my costar were all about to leave me. Martin called the animal hospital the next morning. Dr. Wesley had slept in the office that night to keep an eye on Bonkers. He was no better, but no worse. Martin couldn’t tolerate me crying all the way to the animal hospital, so he decided to drive down and look at Bonkers himself before making the final decision. I waited by the phone.

“I’m bringing him home,” my husband said. “He wagged his tail when he saw me, and I just have to bring him home…even if it’s only for a few days.”

Amazingly, Bonkers lived for two more years after that episode. He never performed again, but he did accompany me to the theater at least twice a week to visit his friends backstage. It wasn’t an easy two years. I had a shelf in the kitchen I called “Bonkers’s pharmacy,” and his pill schedule was rigorous. Among various medications, he was on a high dose of diuretics, which meant he had to be walked every two hours. We live in a high-rise, so that was a challenge, but the upside was I didn’t have to go to the gym. I just walked my dog twelve times a day. I don’t know if we did the right thing in not putting him down when the vet advised it, but I do know I had my dog with me for two extra years, and although he was never young Bonkers again, he seemed happy.

My husband and I made a vow that if we ever felt he was suffering, we would have to be brave. One day I came into the bathroom, where Bonkers had been sleeping on his favorite rug, to take him for his walk, and he was having some sort of seizure. I called Martin and we knelt beside him and tried to calm him down. When Bonkers came to, he was panting heavily and appeared dizzy.

I showed him his leash and he looked away. He refused to move out of the bathroom. It was as if he was telling us he’d had enough.

We called our vet and he came to the house and gave our beloved dog a shot of morphine. The wild panting began to subside and Bonkers began to snore. It was a really great, deep snore, the kind of snore you snore when every bit of you is relaxed and you haven’t a worry in the world. It was a truly wonderful noise. We wrapped Bonkers in one of my daughter’s blankets and took him to the animal hospital to be put to sleep.

This is the first year in thirteen years that Bonkers will not be on our Christmas card. All of our friends know he’s gone, but I know they’ll be upset all the same. Some people would think that Bonkers got lucky when we saw him in the show and took him in after his car accident, but I think we were the ones who were really lucky, because he was our dog.

Endgame

O
NCE YOU’VE FINISHED A BOOK, YOU THEN HAVE
to name it. This takes just as long as it did to write the book. The following are some of the titles that were under consideration. If there’s one that you particularly prefer, please feel free to alter the front of this book accordingly. (Only do this if you have purchased the book. I would feel terrible if I was responsible for your arrest in a bookshop.)

Help! My Birthday Cake’s on Fire

Aged to Imperfection

I’m Still Hot (It Just Comes in Flashes)

If Fifty Is the New Thirty, I’m Thirty-Three

I Won’t Blog, Don’t Ask Me

Artificially Hip

That Botox Has Sailed

I Remember James Taylor When He Had Hair

Half a Century Is Better than None

Ritalosophy

I’m Not Over the Hill—I Just Can’t Climb It

350 in Dog Years

Suddenly Fifty

Older than Springtime, Younger than Angela Lansbury

I Remember What’s-His-Name

Acknowledgments

I’D LIKE TO THANK
my publisher, Shaye Areheart, for commissioning this book; my agent, Alan Nevins, for reminding Shaye that she’d commissioned this book, and my husband, Martin Bergman, for reminding me to write this book.

About the Author

R
ITA
R
UDNER
is a celebrated and award-winning comedian, actress, screenwriter, presenter, and author. Past books include the bestselling
Naked Beneath My Clothes
and the novels
Tickled Pink
and
Turning the Tables
.