Good Dog

by Dan Gemeinhart

  The woman laughed and slapped him on the shoulder.

  “Of course! My goodness, are you the laziest man alive?”

  “All right, all right!” the man laughed, jumping to his feet. “Didn’t seem like an emergency, but if the lady insists …”

  Yes! Brodie thought. It is an emergency! Look! Look!

  The man stooped to pick up the curtain, then stood with it in his hands.

  Brodie watched his every move, wired tight with anticipation.

  Outside! Look outside!

  As the man’s hands worked on sliding the curtain back onto the metal rod, his eyes strayed carelessly out the window.

  He looked up the street, away from the monster.

  He looked up at the sky.

  “Looks like more snow,” he said. “Probably have to shovel again in the morning.”

  Then. Then his eyes wandered the other way, down the street.

  Brodie saw them squint. Focus. Sharpen.

  He saw the small smile slip from the man’s mouth.

  “Honey?” he said. “They said Aiden’s dad was tall, right? Big guy with a beard?”

  “Yeah. Why?”

  The man didn’t answer. His eyes darted across the street, to the car parked in the shadows.

  “What kind of car did they say he drove?”

  “An old silver station wagon, I think. Missing a window?” Her voice was getting serious. She started to get up from the couch.

  The man dropped the curtain to the floor.

  “Call the police,” he said, his voice tight.

  “What? Is he … ?”

  “Yes.” The man strode out to the entryway. There was the click of the door being locked. The woman had already grabbed her phone from the couch and was tapping urgently on the screen.

  Brodie had seen enough. They would do what they could do. Now he had to do what he could do.

  The police would be on their way. But the monster was already here.

  Brodie had to stop him.

  The sidewalk had just a dusting of fresh snow on it. If Brodie’d had paws that were real, the snow wouldn’t have come over their tops.

  The clouds had cleared, and the brightness of the snow was almost blinding in the light from the moon.

  The world was all black shadows and white moonlight. There was no color. Only darkness and light. And a monster walked through it.

  His steps were slow. Careful. Patient.

  Brodie stood at the end of the house’s little walkway. The one that led up to the locked door that stood between the monster and the boy. He let the monster come toward him. He had only two soul lights left, and after the pulling of the curtain he knew he was already very close to losing one of them. He had very little left, and he had to spend it well.

  When the monster was only a couple car lengths away, Brodie barked.

  He knew it would do no good. He knew the monster wouldn’t hear it.

  But he barked. Because barking is what good dogs do when bad things threaten the ones they love.

  So Brodie barked. And the monster kept coming.

  Brodie stepped from paw to paw. He looked up and down the street and listened, hoping to hear a siren, hoping to see the approaching glow of headlights.

  But there was silence. And darkness. And the monster came two steps closer.

  Then he paused. He stood in the cold night air, looking up at the house.

  Brodie, for one hopeful moment, thought that it might not happen. That the monster had changed his mind. That he would drive away and stay away forever and his boy would never cower in fear again.

  But then he saw the look in the monster’s eye. A look that Brodie knew too well. Ugly, cold, angry, determined. It was the look he had before he slammed a door. Or spat out an insult. Or slapped a boy.

  It was the same look Darkly had in his eye just before he lunged for your throat.

  The monster clenched his jaw and rubbed at his nose with a knuckle.

  Then he reached behind himself with one hand. He pulled something out that had been tucked in his waistband. He held it at his side, loose and lethal.

  The moonlight glinted off black metal.

  Brodie didn’t know exactly what it was. But he knew exactly what it could do. He’d seen the monster shoot it before. He’d gone with him and Aiden and watched the monster shoot cans and bottles off a fence. Its terrible thunder had made him shake.

  Gun. The word rose into his mind like a black weed, full of thorns and poison.

  From Brodie’s heart, from his soul, from his belly, and from his throat rose a growl. It grew and rumbled and shook and snarled.

  No, he thought, glaring the word into the monster’s unseeing eyes, into his furrowed brow. No. Not my boy.

  The monster couldn’t hear the growl, of course.

  He couldn’t hear Brodie’s anger. Couldn’t hear his power. His determination.

  And Brodie? He couldn’t abide that. Could not allow the monster to not know that he had come back. That he, Brodie, the dog with the hero’s heart, was still by his boy’s side.

  Away. And Back.

  So as the monster began to walk forward, Brodie focused what was left of his soul. He focused it on his throat. He made his throat real.

  He made it real, then he made it growl.

  The sound rang out in the moonlight.

  It shattered the stillness.

  The fierce growl of a dog who loved his boy.

  The monster’s eyes widened. He looked around. He blinked. His walking stopped.

  He blinked again and turned his head from side to side. Not believing.

  But his ears told him the truth.

  The growl didn’t come from the shadows. It came from the empty, silver, snow-dusted sidewalk in front of him.

  And he knew that growl. It was a growl he remembered.

  He shook his head.

  Brodie growled louder.

  Away! he shouted in his silent spirit voice, and he didn’t care that the monster couldn’t hear it because he wasn’t shouting it just for the monster but for the whole world and for anything that would ever try to hurt Aiden. Away! He’s mine and he’s good and you’ll never, ever hurt him.

  Brodie forgot his shine. He forgot about saving his lights. He forgot about saving his soul.

  He growled with his real throat. And then he barked with his real throat. A bark that echoed out through the night, ringing down the street and through the darkness and the light and into the monster’s ears and even into the monster’s own broken soul.

  The monster took a step back, then another. His eyes were wild. He raised the gun, pointed at the empty air in front of him, the empty air that growled and barked with the voice of a dog that he knew was dead.

  Brodie barked again and growled louder and he stepped forward, pressing forward as the monster retreated.

  And as Brodie stepped forward he kept his throat real, kept his growl solid and loud, but at the same time he split his soul and doubled his determination and he made his paws real. He made them real living paws with real living weight and real living claws so that as Brodie stepped forward toward the monster, a perfect trail of paw prints appeared on the sidewalk. Paw prints that moved forward as the monster stumbled back, paw prints that showed up clear and sharp in the moonlight, paw prints that stood with the furious growling between the monster and the boy.

  My boy! You cannot touch him! He is the best thing in any world and I love him! Me! Him! Together! Always!

  Brodie barked one last bark, one last loud and undaunted bark. It rang like courage. It rang like goodness. It rang like love. If you heard that bark, you understood it. Believe me.

  The monster? The monster dropped his gun. Right there in the snow.

  And the monster ran away. Across the street. Into his car. The engine was started and he was roaring away before he even had the door closed. And as he turned the corner at the end of the street, he pulled in front of the flashing lights of two police cruisers. They�
�d been called to the neighborhood, looking for an old silver station wagon. One of the police cruisers turned down the street, driving toward the white house with the Christmas lights that had placed the call.

  But the other? It didn’t turn. It followed the monster.

  Brodie stood in the snow, in the night, in the world.

  He had barked and growled like good dogs do to evil things. He had barked and growled and he had driven the monster away. Away from his boy. Away. And never Back.

  He had done it.

  He saved Aiden. He saved his boy.

  He looked at his shine.

  One light.

  Fading. Already, it seemed, drifting away. Barely held to him at all.

  Brodie’s soul was spent.

  But his boy was safe.

  And he had just enough soul to see him. One last time.

  Brodie walked through that locked front door. No door could hold him from his boy. Not now.

  He walked up the stairs. He left no paw prints on the carpet.

  He walked down the hallway. He walked past the woman, who stood outside the closed door, her cell phone in one hand, her eyes focused down the stairs on the locked front door. She looked scared. But she looked ready. Brodie liked that she was standing there. He liked that she stood outside his boy’s door, waiting for the monster. But the monster wouldn’t be coming. Brodie walked past her, and through the door, and into the room with his boy.

  Aiden, that beautiful boy with the long dark eyelashes, was still asleep. He’d slept through the curtains falling, through the phone call, through the barking, through the silver station wagon racing away. The monster had not disturbed his dreaming.

  Brodie walked over to the side of the bed where his boy was sleeping.

  Brodie. Oh, Brodie.

  His one soul light flickered and fluttered.

  Brodie stood there in the dark room and he looked at his boy’s sleeping face, his gentle breathing. Brodie stood there and he thought … oh, he thought so many things. And he felt so many things. And he remembered so many things. More than he could ever say, no matter the words that he got. More than anyone could ever say. Believe me.

  And those thoughts? And those feelings? And that remembering? Those are just for Brodie. They are just for him.

  There was a moment, or a million moments, or a forever, or no time at all. It isn’t always easy to tell. Believe me.

  But some time passed, or no time passed, or all time passed. And then it was time. Time for the angel who wasn’t really an angel to come. Time for him to come to Brodie’s side.

  So I did.

  I wasn’t there, and then I was.

  Right by Brodie’s side.

  He felt me come. He looked up at me. His eyes, if he’d had any, would have been wet. So would’ve mine.

  “He’s perfect,” Brodie said.

  “Yeah,” I answered. “I know.”

  “I didn’t call you.”

  “I thought I heard you,” I lied. “Outside. I thought I heard you howl.”

  “No. I barked. I barked. I didn’t howl.”

  In the bed, Aiden sighed. A sleep sigh. Peaceful.

  “It’s time for you to go, Brodie.”

  “I don’t want to.”

  “I know. But you don’t have any time left.”

  “Can I stay a little longer?”

  “No.”

  “Can I wake him up? Can I let him see me?”

  “No. It doesn’t work that way.”

  “Can’t he just pet me? Can’t he just see me and hug me and pet me one more time? Please? Please?”

  Brodie looked up at me. His eyes held everything ever in them. Standing there in the silence, we weren’t a dog and an angel who wasn’t an angel. We were just two souls. Lost in a dark world.

  “No. I can’t do that, Brodie. I can’t. But … look.” I pointed. To the last lingering little glow that circled that dog. “You’ve got one light left, Brodie. You’ve got one left.”

  Brodie looked at me, questioning. And then Brodie understood.

  His tail? It wagged. A slow wag. A small wag. A sad wag, maybe. But still a wag.

  And Brodie, with his last soul light ready to blink out at any moment, crawled into bed with his boy.

  And me? I put a hand on Brodie. Just a hand, soft so he wouldn’t feel it. But still a touch. Just enough to hold him.

  Brodie, that hero-hearted dog, crawled up into his boy’s arms. He nuzzled his nose into the boy’s neck.

  Aiden shifted in his sleep. He sniffed. He turned, and his other hand slipped out from beneath the blanket. It held a tennis ball. Yellow and faded. With the cloth tearing off at one corner. Aiden held that ball in his sleep.

  Away. And Back.

  Brodie saw the ball.

  “Oh, Aiden,” he said, and he wormed in closer, tighter to his boy. And he whispered four words into that sleeping boy’s ears. “You. Me. Together. Always.”

  And then Brodie focused what little soul he had left. He focused it on his tongue, and he licked softly, just one time, his boy’s sleeping face.

  Aiden sighed again. And he raised his arm. And Brodie focused his last drop of soul on his neck. And Aiden’s arm wrapped around it. And squeezed. And held. Warm. And strong. The boy’s arm around the dog’s neck, cuddled close in a bed. The boy. And the dog. Together.

  The boy? That sleeping boy said in his sleeping voice one word:

  “Brodie?”

  And Brodie’s tail thumped against the blankets.

  And the sleeping boy smiled.

  But the sleeping boy didn’t wake. He sighed. And he kept his sleeping arm around his best friend.

  There was a Forever moment. A moment that would make anyone’s heart bigger. Even an angel’s.

  Then Brodie spoke, and his voice was as quiet and soft and happy and sad as a voice could be. I knew that he was talking not to Aiden, but to me.

  “Do you know what my favorite thing in the whole world is?”

  “What?” I asked.

  “This,” he answered. “This right here.”

  And then, with his boy’s arm warm around him, Brodie’s last bit of shine flicked out. And his soul went dark.

  There was an immediate feeling of such cold emptiness, such deep loss, that if Brodie’d had lungs, it would have taken his breath away. His whole self, down to his deepest innermost parts, was nothing but dark and hollow. Brodie understood then the hunger in Darkly’s eyes. He understood, and forgave, Patsy’s betrayal.

  Because losing your soul? There is no loneliness and emptiness like that. None.

  But, for at least right then, Brodie was not completely empty. For at least a moment, he was filled with the feel of his boy’s arms, and the sound of his breath, and the taste of his tears, and the total fierceness of his love. He was not empty.

  Brodie? He was not empty.

  “I’m gone,” he said.

  “No,” I said. “You’re here.”

  “But … my shine. It’s gone.”

  “Yes. But I’ve got you.” I pressed harder with the hand that I’d held on him. “I held you before you left. But it’s time to go now. To Forever.”

  “But I can’t. I lost my soul.”

  “No, Brodie. That’s not how it works. You gave your life for your boy. And then you gave your soul. And a soul given is not a soul lost.” I leaned in closer, my mouth close to his ear. “Let me tell you a secret. You can’t lose your soul. You can’t. You only lose your soul one time, and you lose it the moment you’re born. Then you spend the rest of your life finding it and getting it back. You didn’t lose your soul here with your boy, Brodie. You found it. And those little lights, they’re not your whole soul. They’re just the part you can sometimes see. But you gave some of your soul to your boy, just now. It’s not gone. He’s got it. And you gave Patsy a piece. And you gave Tuck a piece, when you promised you’d see him again. Our souls don’t just stay with us, Brodie. They live in the ones we love, too. And they live in the o
nes who love us.”

  Brodie’s eyes were still closed. He was still living in that moment when his boy had hugged him and said his name. But he’d listened to every word I’d said.

  “Is it true?” he asked. “Is it true what Patsy said?”

  “About what?” I asked, even though I knew what he meant.

  “That you’re not an angel. That you’re just a person, another lost soul, trying to find your way to Forever.”

  I looked away, for just a moment, but I kept my hand on him, I rubbed it up his back, I scratched with my fingers into his fur.

  “Yeah,” I answered. “It’s true. I’m no angel, Brodie. I was a boy, once. A boy with a dog.”

  “What was your name?”

  I waited before I answered. Waited because it had been so long since I’d said my name. Since I’d even thought of it. But then I said it.

  “Mark,” I said. “My name was Mark.”

  “Oh.” Then Brodie opened his eyes. He looked up at me.

  “Did this help?” he asked. “Helping me, I mean? Did it help you at all, help you find your own peace?”

  I smiled down at the dog lying with his boy.

  Here’s what I don’t get: how the world can be so dark when there are hearts as heroic and souls as bright as Brodie’s in it.

  But that’s okay. Because, yeah, the world can be dark. But in the end, at the end of it all, we always win. Believe me.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I think it did help, Brodie. A lot.” And I meant it. I mean it. That’s the truth.

  “So you’re gonna go on to Forever yourself, then?”

  I looked away. Far away. In every sense.

  “Soon,” I answered. “I’m ready now, thanks to you. But there’s still a dog I have to wait for. So we can go together.”

  We sat for a moment, Brodie and me, quiet. A boy thinking of his dog and a dog thinking of his boy. Then my thoughts, my heart, my eyes came back to that moonlit room.

  I kept my hand on Brodie, but I stood up.

  “Time to go, Brodie.”

  “But … what about Aiden? Will he be okay?”

  “I don’t know, Brodie. I can’t make those kinds of promises. But I can tell you that there will always be a part of him that’s okay. The part of him that remembers you.”

  “But … his dad. The monster.”