Hitler

Meet Hitler, Uncle Badong’s black dog.

Was he a cousin? brother? son-in-law? Of Gandhi.

I am not sure now. [What I am just sure of is that my uncles in the libod have been an educated lot when it comes to the affairs of the world that they named the best friends of their households after the icons of their lives.]

Hitler seemed notorious to anyone who would have to go to Uncle Badong’s house for any instance—her daughter Donna’s birthday bash, Sandra’s first communion, or Zaldo’s baptism. While relishing an exceptional maja blanca prepared by Auntie Dothy, any visitor would be gripped by this subconscious fear that he might be bitten by an otherwise indifferent and apathetic Hitler, that would from time to time be leashed and unleashed by his masters because of the dog’s unpredictable fierceness. Or maybe it was just the fierceness perceived because of his name but which has not at all been proven.

Hitler’s blackness was one of elegance. His hair shimmered in the dark, much like the dog in Madonna’s Frozen video. But his notoriety is forgivable. He was the buddy of the maternal Gandhi, and among us cousins it was knowledge that some of the later offspring came from this couple. While Gandhi was famed as one that would sneak in Auntie Dotie’s toilet to eat the fragrant Safeguard soap, Hitler was the one that roamed baybay [shoreline] by himself. I think he must have fathered some generations of dogs in that other sitio along the San Miguel Bay.

But the dog proved to be kinder than his German namesake. Maybe it was all his master’s rage that he named him after the German madman.

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