I bought Coco, a Shih Tzu, thirteen years ago from a kid on a ten speed. She was slung over his handlebars in a Wegmans tote bag. She had no papers, no vaccination records, no city license. My family and I suspected she might be stolen. We bought her anyway. The kid insisted on cash. I was forty-eight years old. Coco was my first pet, not counting the school of guppies and mollies my sister and I flushed while growing up. Shih Tzus were bred as lap dogs for Chinese emperors. Since that first day when she was unslung from those handlebars, Coco has lounged around as if my house is her own personal empire.
One thing you should know about Coco is that she only has one eye. She was born with two but lost her left one in a cat fight. It wasn’t much of a fight. A single swipe had her yelping No mas and heading to her corner. I tell people she’s training for a re-match. But, as Apollo Creed told (and lied to) Rocky Balboa at the end of the original movie, there ain’t going be no re-match. Shih Tzus aren’t fighters. They’re much better at napping and rolling over for tummy rubs.
Coco’s full name was Coco Chanel Rodriguez, the last name of the kid on the ten speed. Supposedly. I was never convinced he gave us his real name. My daughter, twelve at the time, didn’t care for that long, multi-ethnic name. It was a mouthful. She spent an entire weekend trying to rename Coco. Replacement names that were discussed and discarded included Mafia, Meatball, and Ouzo. In the end, she changed her name to Coco Chanel Rodriguez Eoannou. Only ‘Coco’ fits on her collar tag. As far as we know, she’s the only Chinese-French-Puerto Rican-Greek Shih Tzu in the neighborhood. I can’t confirm that, however.
Coco has held many jobs since she rolled into our lives dangling from that Schwinn. Besides Empress, Chief Beggar, and Snoozer Extraordinaire, you can also add Editor, First Listener, and now Muse to the list. I write in bed at 5 a.m. with Coco stretched out, usually on her back, somewhere near my feet. I read completed sentences (“Nicholas Bishop named the one-eyed dog Jake even though she was female.”) and critique myself (“Oh, that’s a terrible paragraph, Steve. You should’ve been a plumber.”) aloud. I assume her yawns and snores indicate boring, lifeless prose and tail wags and yips as indicators of better writing. The same holds true when I edit in my office. She has a bed (one of three in this house, not counting couches, human beds, and the various cushioned chairs and rugs she’s claimed as her own) in my office near the space heater. At first, I thought her repeated barking was an expression of approval for a certain plot twist or introduction of a new, nuanced character until I realized she just wanted me to turn on the damn heat.
When I started writing After Pearl, the first in the Nicholas Bishop Mystery Series, Coco added the job title ‘Muse’ to her resume. That novel opens with my alcoholic detective waking on the floor after a five-day bender to find a one-eyed dog staring at him (“Jake seemed like a good name for a pup missing an eye”.) She is present throughout After Pearl. In the novel, Bishop drunkenly names her Jake only to realize later she’s female. He keeps the name anyway. In real life there was never a question about Coco’s gender, only that continuing question of her legal ownership.
Coco will turn fourteen in January. She’s still in relatively good health. She’s recently developed a heart murmur and a three-pack-a-day morning cough. She’s on meds for both. I’ve noticed she’s become a bit more demanding, a tad more stubborn in her old age but, quite honestly, so have I. She likes to go to bed earlier now, and I don’t fight her on that. 5 a.m. comes awfully early and these books about an alcoholic detective and his one-eyed female dog name Jake won’t write themselves.
Stephen G. Eoannou is the author of the award-winning short story collection Muscle Cars and the novels After Pearl, Yesteryear, and Rook. He holds an MFA from Queens University of Charlotte and an MA from Miami University. He has been awarded an Honor Certificate from The Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators and the Best Short Screenplay Award at the 36th Denver Film Festival. His novel, Yesteryear, was awarded the 2021 International Eyelands Award for Best Historical Novel, The Firebird Book Award for Biographical Fiction, and Shelf Unbound’s Notable Indy Books of 2023. He lives and writes in his hometown of Buffalo, New York, the setting and inspiration for much of his work.
