a sad tale, part 1

That's Pookie, front and center, adoring her two-legged friend, Nape. Nape (right, you probably know the other two) is a story in herself, a Vietnam vet who was a man (part Lakota, part Jewish) until 40 when, she says, "I decided I wanted to spend the rest of my life as a woman." So she had surgery in Amsterdam, nearly 30 years ago now.
    We met her in Sunshine, La., some years back. A few months ago, she left the Mississippi riverbank for the high desert near Palm Springs. That's when everything began to fall apart—the job, the family the girlfriend, the trailer she lived in and hauled her four-leggeds in: a family of four dogs, four cats, five chickens and four or five horses.
     And then Pookie died. Nape wept for days. "I have to get out of here," she told me after she buried Pookie. But the trailer needed a part machined and there was no gas money. "Would a couple hundred dollars help?" I asked. "Yeah! She said. I might be able to get out of here! If I had known what it would be like here—  Well, I had two balls but they weren't crystal!"