One Good Dog (19 page)

Adam presses the end button hard enough to shut the phone off completely. Gently he puts it on the counter, pours another finger of scotch into his almost full jelly glass, and goes into the living room.

The truth is, if things had remained the same, if he hadn’t scuttled his own life with the auger of fear and temper, he would have loved shopping for a car for Ariel. He would have relished the delight on her face at the sight of a brand-new Volvo or Miata, or whatever was the coolest ride these days, in the driveway with a big bow on it. He wouldn’t have deprived Ariel for all the world.

A bubble of anxiety juxtaposes itself against the lead weight of despair; he’s not free of Fort Street. How is he ever going to
get beyond this descent into poverty? Not since he was an undergraduate driving buses far into the night in order to pay for his education has Adam debated the cost of national brand cornflakes against the store brand. Not since he was in his first year of graduate school has Adam let a bill sit unopened, or paid the minimum due.

The table, under which the dog has ducked, only the tip of his tail exposed, is covered with unopened bills, along with a laptop he is too tired to open, too tired to use to troll the online job searches. Too tired to think.

Adam sips his jelly glass of scotch. The burn diminishes with each swallow.

It was a little awkward to witness, his whimpering like that. Then the full-blown crying. I’d never witnessed something like that in a human. Plenty of my own kind howl, but this was painful to hear. He’d stopped playing with his toy, after which he began shouting so that I hid myself beneath the table. If he started making sounds like that, I wasn’t going to hang around. I knew what an angry human could do. I wasn’t committed to being here. First chance, I was going to book it. Frankly, I had no idea why I was here in the first place. We weren’t training. He wasn’t putting me into the pit. He barely acknowledged my presence. I kept to my side of the room; he kept to his. There was none of that pair-bond stuff going on like I’d seen with my mentor and his man, or the guy and the little bitch that helped me get free of that pole, or even the Labrador and his person.

He got quiet. Very quiet. He sat on the futon with his drink in his hand and stared out at the empty room until I put myself into his view just to give him something to look at. Long
tears ran from his open eyes to the edges of his face. He sipped and wept. Sipped and wept. I lay on the rug but kept my eyes on him.

When his glass was empty, he lay down, but the sounds didn’t cease. Finally I got up, stretched east and west, shook myself, and then sat. If he’d stopped making the sounds, I might have just wandered off. But the sounds went on, a primal sound of despair, of great anguish. Not like a rabbit in a cat’s jaws, or even like the losers in the pit. This was more like the howls of those who ended up in the shelter with me, the ones who were lost, separated from their humans, unable to fend for themselves. The sound of abandonment. Not unlike the sad moan of my mentor when he realized he wasn’t going to be reunited with his man. Or even a little like the sound I made myself when he was taken beyond the door at the end of the hall.

What else could I have done? I’m only canine, I had to help. I pushed myself up beside him, nosing his hand until it reached for my ears, until I felt his fingers slide along the edges of my good ear, and then I did it. I nuzzled him. I stuck the tip of my nose against his cheek and touched his face with my tongue. He tasted salty. Not a bad flavor. He didn’t push me away, so I pressed myself closer, edging against him until we shared the futon. He draped an arm over my back and pressed his face against mine. And then we slept.

Adam dreams that he is walking through a busy hallway. There is something he has to do, but he can’t remember what it is. His arms are heavy with the weight of something he cannot see. He is bumped right and left by the crowd of people walking in the opposite direction. He wakes with a start.

The dog has managed to press him against the back of the futon, his whole body stretched out alongside Adam’s, his boxy muzzle tucked into Adam’s neck, the moist dog breath tickling him. Adam struggles against the weight of the dog to sit up. Abruptly, the dog dismounts from the futon, stretches, and yawns. “At least one of us has had a decent sleep.” The dog, clearly pleased at his piracy, shakes vigorously and sits in front of Adam.

Adam strokes the dog’s head, noticing just how soft it is. The bone of his skull is rock-hard beneath his hand, but his short brindled coat is as soft and smooth as silk. Adam does it again. The dog opens his mouth and grins, makes a little chuffing noise; his tail ticks back and forth on the floor. “You
are one ugly dog.” Adam’s tone soothes the dog into raptures. “I should call you Uggie, boy.” The dog stands up, whipping his tail in excitement at Adam’s compliments.

“The shelter is open again, you know? Dr. Gil left me a message.”

The dog begins to dance on his forefeet. Excited at this unusual conversation.

“You ready to go back?”

Hunnha hunnha.

“Maybe tomorrow.”

Adam gets to his feet. The sky beyond his window is dark, and Adam is uncertain of the time. It could be evening or the dark of predawn. He feels as if he’s been run over. The jelly glass is upended beside the futon. Adam checks the microwave clock. Three in the morning. He hasn’t let the dog out. He hasn’t fed him.

The last of the February nights is cold, clear, and astoundingly silent. Adam takes the dog for a complete walk around the block, letting the piercingly cold air clear out his own lungs and fuzzy brain. It is so quiet, so still, Adam lets the dog off the leash to sniff around an empty lot. The only traffic is a slow police car; the only other soul, the lone cop. He looks directly at Adam, rolls down the window, appearing almost glad of an interruption in his rounds.

“Just walking the dog.” Adam holds up the leash.

“Leash laws here.”

“I know. Thought I’d flaunt them a little.”

The cop smiles and drives off.

The dog is gone a long time, and suddenly Adam wonders if he’ll come back. What if he bolts? What if, having been a street dog, he thinks Adam has just set him free? Adam has never let
him off the leash before, and he has no way of knowing if the animal will come even if he calls. Adam strains to listen, to see if he can pinpoint where the dog is in the half-acre empty lot. He’s disappeared. Run off. Adam pictures the empty bowls on his kitchen floor.

Adam gathers the leash into a coil. He can’t even call the dog; he’s nameless. He’s had the animal for almost three weeks and has refused to call him anything but “boy” or “buddy” or “you.” Refused to consider him anything more than an annoying houseguest. “Come, boy. Here, buddy.”

The feel of his soft coat was like satin beneath Adam’s fingers. The softest thing he’s touched since Ariel’s baby skin.

In the distance, the sound of snuffling.

“Hey, boy!”

From out of the darkness comes the dog, tail wagging.

A unaccountable sense of relief flows through Adam, and his hand is shaking a little as he clips the leash to the collar. “Good boy.” He pats the dog on the head.

Adam goes into the bathroom and pees, brushes his teeth quickly, and pulls off his sweatshirt and jeans, which he drops into a basket he’s stuck in the bathroom for dirty laundry. He climbs into his unmade bed. He lies still, then calls the dog. “You coming?”

His last thought before falling into a deep sleep is that he can’t imagine what Gina will say if he tells her he’s keeping the dog. The dog that is snoring at the foot of his bed. But, somehow, it comforts him to think that she might approve.

I almost didn’t come to his call. I was loose for the first time in a long time and I honestly thought that’s what he intended when he took off the leash. We’d communicated, him through touching me with his hands, me with touching him with my nose. A piece of the barrier that we both respected lowered a little bit. Like unrelated puppies, we slumbered on, tangled up, one with the other. So when he let me go, I thought that was his way of acknowledging that I should strike out on my own once again. Our time together—for what purpose, I still didn’t get—was done.

We went outside in the night, the neighborhood around us quiet as only city neighborhoods can be when the people are inside and the cars are furtive. The night animals, the mouse and rat, the city raccoon and skunk, lurked around every corner, but I ignored them, attached as I was on the end of the leash. Not much point in it.

There were no other dogs around; no scent more recent than that afternoon collided with my searching nose. I marked
fresh territory. When we got to the empty place and the man unsnapped the leash, I took it that he was releasing me. Well and good, I thought. Fair enough. He’s served me fairly well, and I’ve behaved myself. Now is the time to scoot. Go find that warm shelter beneath a bush, tuck my nose under my tail, and let go of this soft life of bed and kibble. We’re done. Shake hands all around and cheerio.

I headed out into the dark, quartering the empty place, checking for the signs of other dogs, the warm smell of vole, of future meals. I became intoxicated with the odors of free creatures. Feces told me of scavengers and gourmets, of those who fed themselves, and those who enjoyed the servitude of humans, the easy dependability of scheduled meals.

Like I’d been enjoying for this little while. I knew that unlikely show of submission on his part wasn’t to be mistaken for subservience. I wasn’t going to fall for a pathetic belly-up as total submission. No sirree. We’d kept it simple: He fed me; I was pleasant enough. I didn’t owe him anything. Conversely, he didn’t owe me anything, either. I felt sorry for him in that moment, that’s all. He was grieving, and I offered a momentary solace. That didn’t mean we were ever going to be partners.

I heard his voice, understood the meaning, if not the words. A pat on the leg, a low whistle. I continued quartering, but I was torn between freedom and a warm place to sleep. Images of old pals and trash cans insinuated themselves into my thoughts as I found traces of both beneath the hard-packed snow.

He called again, a little louder, a little more concerned. Had I misunderstood? Had he been only allowing me a little privacy, a little decision-making latitude? I raised my head, stood
as still as a pointer on mark. A sharpish breeze caught at the scraps of paper nestled among the ragged hills of iced-over snow, lifting them into eddies. I shivered. I really didn’t have to sleep rough tonight. I could just go with him. Take the leash.

Come, boy. Here, buddy.

There was nothing in my experience that led me to believe that human beings were ever trustworthy. When I lived in the cellar, the boys who handled us could be pleasant enough, especially when I was winning. Or, with no warning, they could also kick us across the room. Why should I deem a comfortable moment between us a harbinger of a better life and not some anomaly? What did he mean by letting me go and then making those petulant noises? An assertion of pack leadership? No, I’d keep myself to myself. Pick the pack I wanted to belong to.

It was when he went quiet that I heard what he meant. In the absolute stillness of the winter night, I heard him sigh, a sound of capitulation, of disappointment.

I went back to him. Greeted him in the spirit of compromise. Attach your leash to my collar for now. I’ll wait till spring to book it.

Good boy.

Adam feels a surge of jitters as he snaps the leash to the dog’s collar. The hand-painted parrot is turned over to the
WELCOME
side and the lights are on in Gina’s store. It feels as though those little fish that swim across the rainbow of her storefront are in his belly. He’s only recently gotten it: the A to Z tropical fish on her window are angelfish and zebra fish. He’s tried not to stand in his own window as much, still smarting from Gina’s remark about his life. Well, he’s about to show her that he can make changes if he wants. He’s talked to Stein about this, about this irrational need to explain himself to a woman he has no relationship with, or, worse, who is an antagonistic acquaintance. Stein wants him to examine his motivations.

Gina didn’t talk him into keeping the dog. It was his decision, and one he’s going to have to live with, or live to regret, for a long time. He wants to make it clear to Gina that while he is committed to keeping the dog, she hasn’t shamed him into it; and to get some advice on training. This business of
lurching at every passing dog on the street has got to stop. Maybe she can recommend another book.

“Come on.” He still hasn’t named the animal. Each time a name comes to him, he auditions it to see if the dog will respond. At this point, Boy is the most likely one. The dog neither comes to nor obeys any softly spoken word. Adam has gone through the little book on pit bulls, but it hasn’t provided much guidance. So, for now, it’s all intuitive. When he picks up the empty bowl, the dog comes. When he rattles the leash, the dog goes to the door. Any sudden movement, like when he cracked his shin on the coffee table and let out a yelp, startles the dog back into his hiding place beneath the table. This is not Rin Tin Tin. This is not Lassie. This isn’t even Marmaduke.

“Let’s go see Gina.”

The year has tripped over into March, but the air is still pure winter. It is just the time of year when warmer weather is impossible to imagine. The men at the Fort Street Center are hardened by this weather, cheeks and lips chapped and noses blue-veined and reddened along the edges. They take the plastic trays hot from the Hobart out of the rack and hold them close. They wear layers of clothing, castoffs donated to the Salvation Army or directly to the center. A big cardboard box sits in the foyer, where donors can drop off unwanted clothing. These days, it’s pretty much empty; anything wearable is on someone’s body.