So long, Gabo, old pal by Pete Hamill, New York Daily News 8-12-2002 I don't want to write about Iraq today, or the prohibition of smoking in saloons. I can't think about the sleazebags of mass economic destruction. Give me a pass on the Mets. A noble creature named Gabo is dead. He came among us on my wife's birthday 14 years ago: a Labrador retriever, blacker than a summer night in the country, and so small that he could fit under the cross-rungs of a chair. He whimpered nervously in the strange new house up in Wallkill in Ulster County, searching for his mother and the swarm of his brothers. My wife, Fukiko, calmed him, stroking his fine black hair. Within a week, he was part of us. We named him Gabo in an act of homage to the great Colombian novelist Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and the name was a perfect fit. He was so gentle a creature as a puppy that he did not bark for three weeks after his arrival, and when he did, he looked startled, as if the sound had been made by someone else. He was, like most writers, an intense observer.
		When he looked at the world, he obviously thought about what he was seeing. He loved watching the magical process of cooking, as Fukiko diced vegetables, or peeled shrimp, and through the use of water and heat, turned them into something new, filling the kitchen with delicious aromas. He preferred apples, carrots and bagels. But cooking was a kind of religious ritual to which he came as supplicant. Every kitchen, for Gabo, was a chapel. From the beginning, we were aware of the dangers of anthropomorphizing this splendid animal, finding in him human traits that he did not actually possess. I came to think that the world would be a far better place if more humans resembled him: brave, gentle, modest, surging with affection. He could not speak, of course, but he did communicate, and made intelligent choices. He knew the difference between a FedEx delivery and a strange car, for example, and was silent about the first, and reserved his deepest baritone bark for the second. He also loved the world. Sometimes we'd see him alone outside, sitting very still on winter snow, watching the movement of birds. His head lifted as they rose into the sky. It turned when they landed on the limbs of trees. He never moved on them in deadly pursuit. He just watched them, as if marveling at their abilities in the air, and accepted them as part of the landscape. To be sure, Gabo was not free of basic instincts. He chased deer. He barked at geese who used our grass for their own basic instincts. He whipped snakes in the air and killed them. Three times he broke the shells of snapping turtles in his powerful jaws. He had no affection for cats. Those instincts were encoded in his DNA. But he was not ruled by what he inherited. He loved children. He seduced our friends. He made us laugh. That first year, he seemed to grow an inch a day, at one point growing so fast (the vet told us) that his legs and joints were hurting. He finished at an inch too tall for competition with other Labs, according to the standards of the American Kennel Club, but at 120 muscular pounds, he became a superb athlete. There was a pond on our property, one large watery acre, and each day in good weather I would bat a softball deep into the pond, and Gabo would crash through the marshy edges and swim for the ball. He'd clamp his great jaws on the ball, turn and swim for shore, drop the ball before me, shake off water, and stand poised for another plunge. On some days, I'd hit 150 balls into the pond. He brought every one of them back. We played ball for years, in many places. At home, the bat and ball were placed out of his reach on the top of the refrigerator, but he'd stand and gesture with his paws, plead with his eyes, pant a little theatrically, until bat and ball came down. Eventually, he played outfield in the surf of East Hampton and Longboat Key. He roamed the outfield grass with Mike Lupica in Jupiter, Fla. He stayed a few days with Carl Hiaasen in his house in Islamorada, Fla., and Carl ended up using him as a model for a central character in his novel "Sick Puppy." Gabo even played ball in the city, shagging flies in Prospect Park, and in a playground reserved for dogs on Warren St. He loved the city for its endless variety of aromas, its strange characters, and for the many women who rubbed his chin and noble head and lustrous coat and told him he was beautiful. Still, he had no vanity. Once, when we were living at the Chelsea Hotel, he saw a three-legged dog who was being walked on 23rd St., and watched him fade into the crowd at Eighth Ave. The look on his face was a mixture of curiosity and pity. Sound of writing For 14 years, Gabo and I were in each other's company. He liked to lie beside me or my wife while we worked at our lonesome trade. He liked the sound of fingers tapping keys. He liked certain music. Miles Davis. Charlie Parker with strings. He would lie with chin on paws, grooving with the masters, making certain that we were never alone. When we took a house in Mexico some years ago, he came with us, and loved listening to Luis Miguel on an album called "Romance." Gabo was, of course, a romantic. He believed in the fresh possibilities of every day of his life. Now, for the first time in 14 years, he's not in this world, and he's gone from our lives. As with some aged humans, the athlete's body finally broke down: heart, lungs, kidneys betrayed him. We'll spread some of his ashes in his old pond, on White St. and Warren St. and 23rd St., on the ballfields of Florida, and in the earth of Mexico. Oh, Gabo, our noble creature: We will miss you all our days.