I gave her the shirt off my back: “Hey, I’m no Hemingway.” (photo courtesy of Chris Erskine)

I am talking to my dog White Fang the way old lovers do, with total honestly, as if God is listening in to these matters of the heart, which is where our brutal truths spend the afternoon.

“Why are you always trying to kill stuff?” I ask her. “Other dogs, possums, muskrats, squirrels, coyotes, apparitions, fresh ideas, my attempts to break through your stoic nature.”

As with lovers, White Fang half listens. Yet she listens.

Fang and I have been through some stuff lately. She blew out a back wheel just as I was struggling with some male plumbing issues.

Favorite moment: I’m pulling myself together after a rough post-surgical night, and I hear her tussling outside with a coyote, using the woof-woof-woof that has become our all-hands code.

Now, if I lose this dog, I lose everything. She is my connection to my late son, she is my sidekick, my snooze muse. When I nap, she naps.

So I grab my special coyote bat, the old Easton Z-Core at the front door, and limp into the yard to save her – and the coyote – from any possible harm.

I twirl the bat over my head like a drum major, chasing the confused coyote down the street in the half light of dawn.

Did I mention I am in my underwear?

Stuart Little slipping between the sheets. (photo by Chris Erskine)

If you outsiders have ever wondered what life is really like in Los Angeles, I’ve just given you a solid snapshot. We have bears, lions, bobcats and about 100 kinds of rodents. Each day is a standoff between nature and crazed drum majors like me.

And in the evenings, I stand out in the back yard, a tiara of olive trees circling the house, to prevent hawks from swooping in and snatching tiny Stuart Little.

Have you met Stuart Little?  He is the third leg of the love triangle I’m currently in with this Suzanne. She and Stuart were already engaged when we met, and now I’m finding this micro-dog under my covers.

FYI, I don’t let my own dog in bed. Yet, Stuart seems to have VIP privileges, based solely on his insistence that he found Suzanne first.

It’s not the worst thing. The worst thing, of course, is cancer. The second worst thing is unbridled nuclear war. Stuart Little is, at the most, the third worst thing that could ever happen to a person, yet there I stand in the backyard, in my bare feet and my Clark Griswold pajamas, protecting him from hungry red-tailed hawks.

Some boyfriends would hold Stuart Little over their heads, just to make it convenient for the hawks. Not me, for I’ve grown to actually love Stuart Little. No explanation for this exists. It would be like falling in love with colonoscopies.

Suze is appreciative of this, though she doesn’t quite understand it either.  But who understands love? We rarely see it coming. Then we can’t let it go. True love is like the extra five pounds you put on while watching a Chris Farley movie.

As you may know, I have a small and tired heart, misshapen from years of rooting for the wrong teams and voting for the wrong causes.

I believe in happy outcomes, which is also hard on the human heart.

I also believe in all the variants of modern love. I believe the guy should get the girl, the girl should get the girl, the guy should get the guy.

Who’s to say why we care, or whom we should care for?

To dictate human love might be the worst tyranny of all.

White Fang, my sidekick, my coyote connection. (photo by Chris Erskine)

Just be glad the human heart endures. It’s the last hope for a struggling culture. Sometimes it feels like the last remnant of God.

I mean, who saw this lacy Suzanne coming along, with a smile like polished pewter? Witty, warm, smart. A phenom. Romantic royalty. A keeper.

The other day, after grabbing coffee, she complained about being chilly, so I pulled my shirt off and gave it to her.

This created quite a stir in the little neighborhood, the shirtless man carrying a strawberry smoothie. As I warned Suze when we started dating: “Look at me, I’m no Hemingway.”

The best part was the passer-by who spotted me literally giving Suze the shirt off my back. He got the biggest laugh out of it, then gladly snapped a keepsake photo for us when we asked.

I think he was relieved to see that love and chivalry aren’t dead. In fact, they’re thriving.

Well, for now anyway.