The Dog Must Die

THE DOG MUST DIE. The words were written in bold capital letters on the first page of his notebook, a to-do list with special emphasis. He studied the words with precarious indifference. Separately they meant nothing. The. Dog. Must. Die. Together they meant the salvation of his world. Rob sat at the kitchen table, a steaming mug of fresh-brewed Kona coffee at his elbow. The sun that spilled through the window warmed his face, but not his heart. As he sat reflecting on the general benefits of a dog-free life, his wife sat on the floor with the dog. Nonsense words spilled from her lips with the ease of long use. "Oh my pretty, my precious pretty. Give Mommy kissies, Mommy loves you soooo much." Loud kissing noises accompanied her monologue. He visualized the scene transpiring behind his slouched back; she sat in the center of the hand-pulled rug they had bought at the art fair last summer, dressed in one of her impeccable business suits, the small red dog squatting territorially in her lap, his mouth open and lapping at the perfect curve of her chin. Rob's hand tightened around the pencil and the speared fist he held before his face somehow relieved the agony in his stomach. "Aren't you going to be late for work?" The words he forced from between his clenched teeth. He took a sip of hot coffee to loosen the spasm in his jaw. "Oh jeez, you're right. Almost 8 o'clock already." She jumped to her feet and headed to the bedroom to retrieve her work pumps. He counted to ten and then peered over his shoulder at his nemesis. The dog had found his house slipper, the one that had mysteriously disappeared last week, and was chewing it with vigor. Their adversarial eyes met over the soggy lambskin mukluk. "Today," he snarled. The word held much fury. The dog laid down his ears and barked sideways at him, a canine come-on. Delores clip-clopped into the kitchen in her gray suede pumps, immediately noticing the dog's bounty. "Teddy! You found Daddy's slipper, good boy." She pulled the slipper from the dog's protesting jaws. "Look, Rob. Teddy found your slipper." She shook a blob of saliva off of it as she walked across the kitchen and set it on the table next to his notebook. He looked at the slipper, he looked at the open notebook. He reached out and hastily flipped the notebook cover closed, the damning words burning in his mind's eye. Good God, had she seen? How stupid stupid stupid. He slowly raised his eyes to her face, fearing what he might see reflected in her gray eyes. Her golden smile filled the morning kitchen with light and ignorance. The breath he had unconsciously held came out a sigh. Oh, how he loved this woman. His wife. "Are you going to do some writing today, sweetheart" It had been weeks since he had written anything salvageable, even his journal lacked anything more than mere facts of his existence. Mon. Walked Teddy through the park, saw Baxter talking to that damned golden retriever of his. Had sushi for dinner, felt sick. Tues. Had lunch with Mark, he wants to see that new band Shut Your Pie Hole at the Blind Pig. I told him I had to clean the gutters. Thurs. Forgot Delores' parent's anniversary. She was mad. Went to dinner in a pair of wrinkled Dockers that her mother called artsy. Fell asleep on the couch. "Yeah. I'll get five today. I'm like clockwork, five pages a day." He turned his stubbled cheek to receive her kiss. Her shoulder length blonde hair tickled his nose when she leaned over him. "Don't forget to walk Teddy by 11:30, you know how anxious he gets if he doesn't pee before noon." She had already turned away to scoop the dog up in her arms, all twenty-five hairy pounds of him. "Be good for Daddy, my sweetums. I'll be home later and we'll go to the park and throw your ball." She gave Teddy one last kiss on the snout, placed him gently on the floor by the door, picked up her briefcase and was gone. They were in the kitchen. Alone. He, and the dog. He looked at the large wooden block that held an amazing array of ginsu knives and began planning his day.   The park was empty except for them and a few angry squirrels whose pre-winter industry they had interrupted; their hastily abandoned nuts littered the ground. Teddy pulled impatiently at his leash, trying to drag Rob through their regular afternoon circuit of Allmendinger Park. First east on Pauline past the locked bathrooms and equipment shed, south on Edgewood, west on Potter next to the towering lilacs filled with drowsy hornets, north on Hutchins and back to Pauline. They lived a block over and up from the park, on a pleasant street called Sunnyside. When they were househunting several years earlier Delores proclaimed she liked the name of the street almost as much as the small bungulow they eventually purchased. He loved this part of the city--the people who sat on their porches in the evening and invited neighbors to join them; the big old trees that were, at this moment, shedding all their leaves, filling the streets and yards with color and fragrant potpourri; the modest but immaculately kept homes of university faculty and other professionals. Today Rob didn't feel like walking the same circuit. He stood and looked in all directions, his fingers drumming a staccato rhythm against his pant leg. Which way should he go? This wasn't how he planned his life to be. Yes, the loving wife he had hoped for. The modest house on a quiet street, yes maybe. Once he hoped to live in New York City, but that was long ago when his dreams of being an artiste distingue were fresh and unsullied by reality. He had not planned on the dog. Teddy looked at him with suspicious eyes and pulled harder at the leash. "Hold on you goddamned dog, hold on just a minute. I need to think." He tied the end of the leash to the bleachers next to the ball field and sat down to consider his predicament. He had bought the dog for Delores last Christmas, a gift to take her mind off of the whole business of trying to conceive a child. Replace the need for a child with a little dog. It seemed like a good idea at the time. Now she lavished all her attention on the dog, from the time she got up in the morning to the moment they settled themselves in bed for the night. The dog was always there. When he and Delores made love the dog sat on the bed and watched. It slept in the space between their two bodies, its wiry fur covered the comforter and the smell of its doggy feet pervaded the pillows. Pictures of the dog littered the house--the hallway wall was a shrine to Teddy, the shelves, the end tables, every where Rob looked, there the shining eyes of her beloved pet looked back at him. Even though she doted on the dog like it was a child, still Delores insisted on following her ovulation schedule, for three days a month they made love like rabbits. All to no avail. She purchased a gross of those easy pregnancy test sticks, the kind you pee on and wait for the plus or minus sign to signal either the beginning of a new life or another dashed hope. There would be no child, of this Rob was sure. A voice whispered in his head, She'd never have married you if she knew.

The mid-afternoon traffic on Pauline rumbled behind him, folks were rushing back to work after their garden salads from Cottage Inn or their cocktails at the Watercress. The noise grated on his already frayed nerves and to top it off the dog began barking at a long row of cars waiting for a Volvo to turn left onto 5th. In the blue Volvo was a large black lab, its dumb face wedged through the half open window, barking for all he was worth at a calico cat who strode scornfully down the empty sidewalk in front of the park, ignoring the commotion with feline indifference. Rob watched the arrogance of the cat with admiration. Here was bravery. He reached down and swatted Teddy on the head to quiet him. Just then Teddy also noticed the cat, and his tirade became frenetic. Teddy hated cats. Teddy hated cats and here was one walking too near the edge of a busy road. Teddy hated cats, the road was packed with rushing commuters, and it would be so easy to loosen the leash and let him run. Rob's hand tentatively reached for the knot in the leash, his mind asking, Can I do this? Can I really do this? but before his fingers had touched the leather knot it unraveled on its own. Teddy dashed through the park toward the cat, his hustle throwing up colorful leaves behind him. The cat, still flicking a tail at the black lab, didn't notice Teddy's approach until he was nearly on her. Then she had nowhere to run but into the busy street, the dog hot on her heels. Tires squealed and then Rob heard a dull thump. He closed his eyes and prayed. For what, he was not sure. The sound of a man swearing broke the absolute quiet that had settled around Rob. He took a deep breath and jumped from his seat, running full speed toward the road and the carnage he had wrought. As the man stepped from his giant SUV the sounds of Aerosmith on his car radio spilled out after him into the street. His tie was loosened and his suit jacket hung on the back of the driver's seat but he did not look at all relaxed. "Fuckin goddammit. Shit." "Jeez, did you see a dog?" Rob stepped from between two cars that had stopped to inspect the accident. His heart thumped painfully in his chest, he was unsure if it was the exertion of running from the park or if he actually felt something at the thought of little Teddy dead. But there on the bone white pavement laid the cat, blood soaking out of its party-colored fur, its mouth open in a final yowl of fury. Teddy sat on the opposite side of the street, docile and panting, waiting for Rob to collect him. "People oughta lock up their goddamned pets, look at all that blood on my rim." The SUV driver inspected the splatters of blood on the otherwise shiny wheel as the cat twitched a final time and died. Rob grabbed the dog's leash and hurried down the street. Teddy looked up at him with reproachful eyes, his tongue hanging out the side of his grinning mouth. The voice was back. You selfish bastard. You can't share the universe with a little dog. It's not the dog's fault you're a liar. It was too late for regrets, far too late. They walked home quickly, but instead of letting the dog in the house, Rob locked Teddy in the closed garage. He needed to think.   He gazed out the den window, the blank monitor of his computer mocking him. He pulled a wrinkled sheet of paper out of the secret drawer in his desk and looked at it. This is the summation of my life. Empty, lifeless, without hope for the future. He flattened it against the smooth desktop before folding it carefully and placing it back in the drawer. Outside his window he could see the lady next door puttering in her garden, her colossal straw hat hiding her wrinkled face from the damaging rays of the sun. Too late for that, thought Rob unkindly. Off in the distance he saw the outline of a dog, orange and shaggy, sniffing at the telephone pole two houses away. It was that Chow. That mean Chow. The Chow that had chewed up numerous newspaper boys and countless neighborhood pets. Rob had an idea.   Teddy stood on the driveway and stared at him. "Over there, dumb ass. Another dog. Go check that out, smell some butt or whatever you do." He pointed in the direction of the Chow, now wandering in the garden of the straw-hat lady who was nowhere to be seen but likely on the phone with animal control--she had no patience for strays. Suddenly Teddy saw the dog and the dog saw Teddy. They trotted towards each other with tails raised and hair bristling on their backs. Rob ran to the front door and stepped inside, afraid he'd attract the attention of the killer Chow. Just then the phone rang, but he hesitated. He wanted to see what would happen. The phone rang angrily behind him as he watched the two dogs circle each other, Teddy being nearly the same height as the Chow but definitely the loser in total weight and width. It wouldn't be a fair fight. The phone kept ringing. "Fuck!" shouted Rob, turning and rushing for the phone in the kitchen. It was a woman telemarketer selling aluminum siding. He hung up before she could finish her spiel and rushed back to the window. There they were, Teddy and the Chow. But they weren't fighting. Teddy humped the Chow contentedly, his eyes glazed with pleasure.   The dented brown Celica coughed and sputtered down the deserted back road south of town. The area was being cleared for a new commercial development and abandoned heavy equipment dotted the distant landscape like forgotten Tonka toys in a child's sandbox. Thankfully the workers were still at lunch, or already finished for the day, and the area was quiet. Teddy sat in the backseat; his wet nose making doggie paintings on the rear window, oblivious to the fact he was looking at his new home. Rob pulled the car to the side of the road and killed the engine. Grabbing Teddy's leash, he jumped over the ditch and headed for a small strand of trees in the distance. The ground beneath the trees was covered with several season's worth of fallen leaves and the underbrush rustled with its hidden occupants. Teddy's head swung left and right, taking in the sights and sounds of an area rife with things to chase, things a dog's blood understands as prey. Rob bent and pulled the ID tags from the collar, then unhooked the leash. Teddy darted after a particularly bold squirrel that stood just ten yards away, its bushy tail flicking its displeasure at the two interlopers. Rob stood and threw the tags far into the underbrush and without looking back walked to his car and started the engine. From this distance he couldn't even see a speck of Teddy's red fur against the browns and grays of the woods. He drove home with music blaring from his stereo. Still, the voice in his head was earsplitting. You cowardly bastard! it shrieked.   "What do you mean he ran away?!" Delores' hysterical face greeted him as he slithered up the sidewalk to the house. Her face was swollen from crying, her mascara made spider trails down her cheeks and pooled in the corner of her mouth. He had left a message on her voice mail at work, he didn't want to break the news to her personally and felt it would give her some time to prepare for Teddy's departure from their lives. He hadn't expected her to rush home. "We were at the park and he slipped the leash. I don't know how." The evidence dangled from his outstretched hand, an offering. "Wasn't it clipped properly? I mean, jeez, it's not broken. How could..." The words trailed off, her eyes losing their focus. "I've been driving around town looking for him. For an hour. It's like he disappeared off the face of the earth." Running his hand through his unwashed hair, Rob felt the first pangs of guilt settle firmly in his gut. She was very upset. He wondered what he had done.

Delores printed flyers and posted them around the neighborhood. She would stop and talk to everyone they met, begging them to be on the lookout for a little lost dog. She drove the streets every evening after dinner, hoping to spot the dog wandering. She never invited Rob to come along and sometimes wouldn't get home until ten or eleven at night, and when she finally climbed into bed she'd give Rob a polite kiss and turn her face to the wall. Late at night if they heard a dog barking in the distance, Delores would leap out of bed and stand on the porch in her pajamas, calling softly into the night, "Teddy? Teddy is that you?" On those nights Rob would remain sleepless long after Delores returned to bed. She never said it, but Rob was sure she blamed him for losing Teddy. Her eyes spoke what her mouth did not. He was guilty.   "Want to catch a new band at the Blind Pig tonight?" Rob offered a small handbill to her as she sat in the corner of the couch and let it drop onto her lap when she made no move to reach for it. "Mark says they're great." She brushed the paper from her lap and looked at him with disinterested eyes. "No, I think I'll stay home tonight. You go. I'm tired." He saw that she held an old blanket of Teddy's in her lap, and as he turned away he felt his heart wedge tightly in his throat. You deserve to choke on your secrets, the voice said. He agreed.   A week later Rob got a call from Delores' office. "What do you mean she never showed up? She left at 8:30." He looked at the watch on his wrist, 11:25. The co-worker told him how Delores had been coming to work only to leave a few hours later, often several times a week. She was worried about Delores she said, and thought she should check with Rob to see if he knew where she might be. Rob called her beeper and left the code 411, where are you? message. An hour later she showed up, hair disheveled and flustered. "Where have you been?" Rob's voice quivered with equal measures of concern and anger. "Looking for Teddy," was all she said before she pushed past him and shut herself in the bathroom for an hour. Later they ate lunch in silence, neither daring to speak. Around 7 that evening she put on her coat and walked out the door without explanation. Rob stood at the window and watched her drive slowly down the street. It had been 3 months since Teddy "disappeared." Rob wondered if his life with Delores was over. He wondered if she cursed him as she drove through the darkened streets every night, looking for Teddy.   Delores slept peacefully beside him. He looked at the clock on his bedside table, 5:42 a.m. There would be no sleep for him tonight. Rob slid from beneath the covers and dressed quietly in the living room. He left a note on the kitchen table telling her he went walking and let himself out into the stillness of the pre-dawn morning. It was still dark but the horizon was bruised with the first hint of day approaching. "Fresh air. That's what I need. Clear the head." The fog of his breath moved like a watery halo around his head as he walked. He pulled the collar of his jacket up around his ears and stuffed his hands deeply into his pockets. He walked down 7th to Davis, wondering about the few houses that had with lights on within--were these people insomniacs? Early risers? The troubled struggling with problems as he was? He thought how Delores had come to be like one of those shadows moving through a still house; clearly visible, but the reason behind the movements was beyond his ken. He knew her outline but did not know what was within. His own selfishness had caused this great screen of indifference to fall between them and yet he did not know how he could possibly tear it down. By thinking only of himself he had lost the only thing that had meaning in his life. He put himself first, always first, and convinced himself that his creativity demanded this selfish nature. Off beneath a deep stand of trees behind a particularly run-down house he thought he heard a rustle. He stopped and peered into the muddy darkness. Did he hear a whine? "Hello?" he said, a bit loudly for the dead quiet of the early morning. Nothing. He continued to walk. He reached Main Street and turned south, the road less deserted but still relatively quiet. He thought he heard the clicking of dog toenails on the pavement behind him. He whipped around but saw nothing behind him. He kept walking. He turned onto Pauline and was walking past Allmendinger Park when he noticed the shadow of a man and a dog sitting on the bench near the play structure.  "Hey, Baxter. Is that you?" "Yeah, who's that?" Baxter, who was also a writer, lived nearby. They had been in the same writing group for a short time while each of them worked on their respective books. Baxter's got published. Rob's did not. "It's me. Rob. What are you doing out here this late at night? Or should I say this early in the morning?" Rob walked over and sat on the bench next to Baxter. He patted Baxter's dog, Tasha, on the head. "I was about to ask you the same thing, but it's obvious. Insomnia is a writer's curse I think." Baxter looked around, then asked, "Where's the dog?" "Dog gone," said Rob with a humorless chuckle. They sat in silence for a moment, listening to the hush of a sleeping city, wrapped in their own thoughts. It was a quiet camaraderie. "Rob? You ever wake up and forget who you are?" Baxter's words settled delicately at their feet. "No," said Rob, "I'm always quite aware of who I am." He rubbed a hand over his eyes and continued, "Sometimes I wish I could forget." "Forgetting, I have no problem with," Baxter said. "It's figuring out what's real and what's just in my head, that's the problem." Baxter pulled absentmindedly at Tasha's ears, his face that of a refugee lost in a foreign land. "Baxter? You feeling okay?" Rob leaned forward and looked at the shadow of Baxter's face. "I mean, should I call someone?" "No. No. For now I am sure that I am Baxter and this is Tasha and the damp on my clothes is from sitting here for the past three hours as the dew fell around me. But I'll tell you, there are times when I feel like I'm just a character in someone else's book. Nothing before, nothing after, only this moment. That ever happen to you?" He scuffed his foot into the dirt, making little mudpies of the dew that had settled on top of his shoes. His hands twisted the soft ends of his dog's ears like a man trying to squeeze water from an old washrag. "I think it's that creative thing we're supposed to be so good at," Rob said. "We know how to ape reality in a pleasing way, but most of the time our true reality is just fucked up. We have trouble relating to people or dealing with situations we cannot rewrite to our own satisfaction." Baxter let go of Tasha's ears and clasped his hands together, like a man preparing to pray. "Is there something you'd like to rewrite about your life? We all have regrets, you know." Rob filled his lungs and let the air squeeze past his front teeth on the way out. Rewrite. Yes, how he'd love to rewrite some things. "Baxter, I want to tell you a story." Baxter reached over and tapped Rob's knee with his hand, "Spill. I'm not expecting to get any sleep tonight, so you might as well share." They both leaned back against the cool wood of the bench and watched a sleepy squirrel emerge from its leaf nest above their heads. "Baxter? You ever make a choice you think is the right one, only to realize later how selfish that choice was?" "Sure. We all do. Hindsight is 20/20. A terrible cliché, that, but true nonetheless." Baxter pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and offered one to Rob, who declined. "I did a terrible thing, Baxter. Shit, worse than terrible." He pulled his hand through the tangled mass of his hair and over the stubble on his jaw. "Go on," Baxter said, lighting his cigarette in the blaze of a Zippo. "Okay. It starts like this. When I was 28 years old I had a vasectomy. It was a dumb thing to do, but at the time I couldn't imagine ever wanting a kid. Never. But then I met Delores..." The story spilled from him like pus from an infected wound. His vasectomy, misleading Delores, getting the dog, leaving the dog--all of it. After he was done Baxter whistled through his teeth. "You are one sick bastard. I mean about the dog, not the vasectomy. You need to tell her--not about the dog, she'd never understand that, but the vasectomy. Shit. Tell her now so you can start repairing your marriage, start getting a hold on your life." He leapt to his feet and Tasha gave a worried whine over her master's agitation. "You love her, she loves you. You can work it out. What the hell are you doing wandering around a park at this time of night, ah, morning? Get the hell outta here, find your wife and start cleaning up the mess you made of your life." "You're right. Shit. Why didn't I think of it? The truth. The truth can set me free." He grimaced as the cliché poured from his mouth, he sounded like a person recently converted to a new religion but that is exactly how he felt. Rob got to his feet and started walking, fresh resolve to straighten out his life burning hotly in his chest. "Thanks, Baxter," he called over his shoulder, but Baxter didn't hear him. He was talking to Tasha again, something about feasts and love. He looked at the watch on his wrist. 7:45. Delores would be getting ready to leave for work soon; he had no time to lose. He thought of the piece of paper hidden in his desk, the one that said Vasectomy successful. Sperm count .000, and for the first time he could visualize handing the paper to Delores and telling her it meant nothing--he would consider anything, adoption, sperm donation, anything to make it right between them again. He practiced the words he would use to explain the untruths he had told. He spoke the words adoption and fresh start into the suddenly bright morning, as well as new puppy and forgiveness. He would know what to say when he saw her; when he saw the face of the woman he loved more than anything in the world. The voice shouted, Fix your life, do it now! He had just stepped through the door, words trembling on his lips, when Delores burst into the foyer. "Rob! Ohmygod. You're home. I have news!" Her voice, tremulous, reached deep into his heart. She held a small plastic stick before his eyes as tears ran down her cheeks. He'd seen these sticks, discarded in the bathroom garbage, at least once a month for the past two years. "This is it, Rob, we're having a baby." The last thing he saw before he fainted was a picture hanging on the foyer wall. It was of Delores and Teddy at the park. Delores cradled Teddy in her lap, and Teddy held a chewed Frisbee in his mouth. The dog's eyes were mockingly clear.