The Dog Log

by Richard Lucas

  Truly, the only acceptable outcome of this war is a Carthaginian peace—total subjugation as the Romans did to Carthage. I may only have a couple more weeks to get Nelson in order. I have to convince him that the crate is his home, and that it’s OK. The new deal that I struck with myself is that I’d check in over there every couple hours, come hell or high water, and get him out for a walk and maybe some playtime. If he can earn a constant stream of treats outside, then it may mollify the institutional horrors of life behind bars. I guess you guys call that “rec time.”

  I coaxed Nelson into his crate, and when I closed its door, Lauren went to it and pressed her face against its window. Then she and Nelson touched noses, as if she were a sad wife, and she plopped herself back onto her mourning pillow. Lauren’s got real intelligence, and it’s causing her pain. When I see her devotion, I wonder if Roxy misses me, if she ever lies curled up on her bed and thinks about us and what we had. I don’t even know if she’s in her bed alone anymore. That knifes me. So much I don’t know and can’t control.

  But I can control what’s happening here. I’ll go back in a couple hours and get the dogs outside again. I have deep faith in this combination of Treats for Pee and the Carthaginian Crating.

  I believe in you, Nelson. I do, my boy, I do.

  11:50 AM

  Fay is coming by today to pick up the dogs and take them to visit Irene. I hid the crate. I don’t think Fay would understand because . . . who am I to be crating someone else’s dog? I’m positive she’d tell Irene. Then Irene’d get so angry she’d go blind in her other eye. Glad I thought of that. Fay can see the newspapers. Well, she’ll see the cleaner apartment for the first time, too. Those home improvements earn me the right to crate Nelson. Not sure she’d see it that way though. She’s old. She might not think I have any rights.

  2:40 PM

  Fay just stopped by to pick up the dogs. She’s very old, but upright, wearing ambitious running shoes and a tracksuit. Her hair is dyed GMO-apple red and permed in tight curls to camouflage areas of thinness that shine through like white stucco under ivy. From behind her still-dark transition lenses, she couldn’t believe how good the dogs looked, “All clean and soft and with their hair cut so nicely. I’m just thrilled for them.” She cradled Lauren in her arms. “Honestly,” she said, “driving over here, I was worried about even having to touch the dogs. Now I can’t keep my hands off of them.”

  When she saw the sparkling kitchen, you’d have thought she’d won the Publishers Clearing House. By now I’d cleaned the counters, the shelves, it was all done.

  “The floor is white!” she said, with the same exuberance I imagine she’d had when she heard that Lee had surrendered to Grant.

  Indeed it is, even whiter than your dentures, I kept myself from saying.

  “This is just incredible.” Then she stopped herself, her wrinkles dropped toward concern, and the corners of her mouth hit the ground. “I wonder how Irene is going to take this.”

  “Well, she’s going to have to take it,” I said. “I cleaned it because I have to be in here every day, and I couldn’t take it as it was.”

  “Irene seems to feel comfortable with her place a mess,” she said. “It’s a safety net, and if things are changed, she might not react positively.”

  “Do you want me to make it filthy again for her before she gets back?”

  She laughed. “No, and it would take years. I don’t know how you did this!”

  Her acknowledgment felt good. Only she and Roxy—and you and, I guess, Casino and Austen know I’m doing this. I didn’t even know I was “doing this.”

  “The next step is the dogs,” I announced. “I want them to learn to stop going inside so the floors and the air can stay this way.”

  “Are you Houdini?” Fay joked with her most recent cultural reference.

  I thought of the crate. “No, but I do have a few tricks up my sleeve.”

  She complimented me again on what I had done, and then she left, an eighty-eight-year-old on her way to visit the convalescent home, dogs in tow. I’ve been lacking compliments lately, Sheriff. I’ve hardly left the house. Fay is getting around more than I am. The things she said, the astonishment on her old face, were rewarding. I know Roxy thinks it’s nice that I’m doing this. She did that day. I never would have done anything like this before, Sheriff. Doesn’t that mean something to a woman?

  6:30 PM

  Fay just returned with the dogs. She was gone for three hours. I was dying to know when Irene would be coming back. Is she seeing the doctor? How did the Nazi feel about dogs? Does she hate them the way I used to?

  Fay parked in the driveway, and before I carried the dogs into the house, I suggested that it’d be nice if we walked them together, but she felt too tired. Her shoulders had dropped beyond her osteoporosis. She has bad news, I thought. At this, I was split with conflict. All I’d wanted for the last two months was for Irene to come home, but now I’m in the middle of a job that’s not finished. Nelson isn’t even close to being trained, and Lauren isn’t fully dependable either. The front room and the bedroom are still a mess, so if Irene comes home early, then all of my effort will have gone for nothing, and these poor dogs will go back to their midcentury-slovenly lifestyle. I need more time. I need at least two more weeks. So, I wanted Irene’s doctors to keep her in that home.

  I looked down at Nelson who was sitting on his hind legs looking up at me. It feels like he’s my dog. I know he’s not, but I don’t want to give him away. We’ve been through too much together, and he’s happier now.

  “Have the dogs said anything?” I asked.

  “The dogs?”

  “Oh, no—the doctors.” Wow. “I meant to say the doctors. Have they said anything?”

  “Oh, it’s still the same routine. They stop in once a week and tell her she’s doing fine but that it’ll take some time and to just be patient,” she said. “Irene is very anxious. She’s still not sleeping. Her roommate is awful, and the mattress alarm keeps going off in the middle of the night.”

  None of us involved in this are sleeping, I thought.

  Fay’s wrinkle lines were now fully collapsed. There was still something that she had to tell me.

  “She must have been elated to see the dogs,” I said, trying to lighten her mood, and mine—as some positive words might be nice right now.

  “Well, it made her very happy,” she said. “Poor Nelson peed right on her bed as soon as I set him down. I felt so awful about that. Irene was thrilled to have them with her though, just so tickled. It was good to see her smiling. They cuddled right up to her. They all miss each other.”

  “Excellent,” I said. Gross, I thought.

  “But,” she continued, “when she got the dogs close, and she noticed their hair had been cut down, she got really upset.”

  “Upset? Upset about what?”

  “She prides herself on the dogs’ long hair,” she said. “They were both meant to be show dogs, and Yorkshire terrier show dogs always have the long hair. In fact, when Nelson was young, he won several prizes. It wasn’t until his hair turned this blondish color that he was excluded from the circuit.”

  It wasn’t because he’d peed all over the arena floor? I fought back in my head.

  “You mean to tell me, Fay, that, with this apartment being the mess that it was, and the dogs as matted, smelly, and dirty as they were, when Irene was walking them up and down Hayworth Avenue, she thought she was parading them like show dogs?”

  “Pretty much, I suppose, yes,” she said in her quiet, humble tone. I sensed sympathy from behind her shaded trifocals, because she knew that this was nuts. “Irene is a very depressed person. She has very little to go on, so if her imagination gives her comfort, I don’t want that taken away. She’d even started crying about their hair.”

  Wait ’til Roxy hears this, I thought. If we ever talk again—or we could talk tomorrow. I don’t know.

  “But it’s only trimmed away from their eyes and mouths so tha
t they can see and eat without choking. That hair that sits in their mouths gets so foul.”

  “I know,” she said. “But there’s quite a bit taken off their bodies, too. I tried to explain to her that maybe that’s what you were trying to do, but she was pretty livid. She’s under a lot of stress. She asked me to tell you, or ask you, to please not touch their hair anymore.”

  When I first got in here, I wouldn’t touch them at all, I thought.

  “I’m under a lot of stress too, Fay. Does anyone think I’m thrilled to be doing this? Their hair’ll grow back.”

  “She said it’ll take four years.”

  “Good—that’ll give her something to live for,” I said before I calculated that Fay herself likely has one claw in the crypt, and four years is no laughing matter. But I was angry. I was overreacting to Irene’s overreaction. And I’m supposed to be the sane one in this asylum.

  But why does everyone just let Irene be crazy? I thought. If she’s so depressed, why let her do all these depressing things?

  Fay sighed and apologized about the upset, which had nothing to do with her, told me that Irene might be out in two weeks if the bone is healing properly, and then she and her jogging shoes shuffled out to her car and were gone.

  Both dogs were at my feet, waiting for treats. “You guys are causing me more stress and frustration than anyone I’ve ever met.”

  I walked them. The sun was warm. Lauren earned a treat. Nelson didn’t. It’s tough to give a treat to one dog and not the other. The look of sad confusion that Nelson gives me erodes my resolve like waves over a sandcastle, but I have to stick with the plan. He has to want the potato and duck badly enough to change.

  When we got back, I put Nelson in the crate. It took a lot of convincing after such a social afternoon. It’s a ritual now that Lauren goes to the door and touches noses with him. I have to stick to my guns.

  10:00 PM

  It was Valentine’s Day today. I hope you and your lovely had a nice date or something together. Should I text Roxy? Roxy. It burns in my belly like a gunshot wound day and night. When I drink, I feel lifted from this earth. Soft, fluid endorphins kick in, and I float with the warm adrenaline and her beautiful sister, dopamine. What do I want to be true? What do I know to be true? What is Roxy thinking? Doing?

  I don’t know anything, but the negative thoughts are more convincing than anything else. They battle—loss and hope. When I drink, the straitjacket falls loose. I feel like I could be wanted, that I could be attractive. I’m losing weight. My knee is feeling better. I have some work trickling in. I have the goals with the dogs. I hope when Irene comes home the clean place will electroshock her into a more positive approach to living. I’m spending so much time thinking about what these two women might be thinking and how they might behave or react to things that I’ve framed up a whole architecture of dilemmas for my head.

  What am I doing to myself? Why can’t I let things go? I care about Roxy, and I care about these dogs now. Hearing Irene’s story, I care about her, too. I didn’t know how much I cared about Roxy until she was gone, and now I want to be with her for the rest of my life. I didn’t care at all about Irene before she broke her arm, and now I want her to have a better life. I hated the dogs, and now I have visions of them staying clean. Nuts.

  I’m going to be terribly disappointed if it’s a crash trifecta. What then—when I have to go back to my own life in more isolation than I had before? More time in my own head arguing and criticizing. A bottle of red wine will ambush that. I just have to try to keep that spirit alive when the dopamine valves close. Roxy was a supply—laughter, beauty, touch, surprise, joy, intellectual ecstasy. I’ve crashed. The only laughter I get now is from Nelson with those big eyes and the way that crazy tongue sticks out. He has no idea how dumb he looks. I want to feel the way those dogs feel when they get their treats. I want to wag my tail. I’ve got myself so closed up and held down waiting for Roxy to come back, to change her mind, that I can’t be happy about anything.

  February 15, 7:45 AM

  I just went back over there, let Nelson out, and took them for a walk. The crate worked again. They both got treats. It’s killing me having him in that crate. Just killing me. He can’t bark, and I picture him sitting in there trying to, doing that empty chomp with that little snort that comes out his nose. He’s probably so unhappy in there. I can’t take it.

  2:30 PM

  I got a text from Roxy just now. Only two words: “Bags! Bags!” It’s another one of our little expressions we used to say all the time. Actually, it came from my father. He did all the grocery shopping. He would hit the four local grocery stores on Saturdays hunting down the lowest prices item by item. He had five mouths to feed plus Mom, so it was always a giant trip. Whenever he got home, he’d yell, “Bags! Bags!” in his gruff, gravelly voice to get us off our asses and help grab the rest of the groceries out of the station wagon. So, whenever Roxy or I got home from shopping, we’d text “Bags! Bags!” from the car. It always made us laugh.

  She texted me that today. At first I thought it meant she’d just parked right outside of my apartment, actually with bags like some sort of surprise, but I looked and she wasn’t there, and there’s the awful memory of the Breakup Bags, which I’m sure she wasn’t registering.

  Was she just carrying grocery bags somewhere and thought of that? Aren’t these things off limits once it’s over, Sheriff ?

  I don’t know what to think or how to react to it this time. The phone is such an intimate tool—these texts can shoot right into your heart. I guess there’s nothing negative about it, but if she’s “dating,” then isn’t texting me out of bounds? Could she possibly be so coldhearted, all of a sudden, that she could text me for a quick laugh, and that’s it? That isn’t the Roxy that I know. After everything I’ve said to her about my feelings and our future? I don’t know if I should respond.

  4:00 PM

  OK, I took an hour and thought about it. I texted her back, “Bags! Bags!” just like I did with “Ubiquitous Zigzags.” She did end up coming to my place shortly after that one. We’re still connected. I’d tried to separate, but now we’re back in digital touch, for the moment, at least. I could hear back from her right away or I could never hear from her again. No idea. This combustion could fuel me or kill me. As hard as I’ve worked to put love behind me, it’s right under the dirt ready to bloom.

  If she wants to get together, I’ll get dressed up and we’ll fuck like it’s senior prom. Maybe I should have texted back, “Engagement ring! Engagement ring!” Or maybe I shouldn’t have texted back at all. Was I weak or strong, Sheriff ?

  I wish Stasya were here.

  7:00 PM

  I went over there to let Nelson out of the crate and walk them. Even though it seems to be working, I can’t take having Nelson in there during the day. So when we got back, I let him stay out of it. I left the crate door open, though, to see if he’d maybe hang out in there on his own. I don’t know how I’d find that out though. If he holds it until the next walk, then we’re really getting somewhere.

  Nothing from Roxy.

  February 16, 7:30 AM

  Bad scene this morning. I’m hungover. Nelson was flipping out. His fur was clumpy and damp. He hadn’t made it through the night. He was trapped in there in the damned crate with his own feces and urine.

  You’ve probably seen this same picture. I know from my visitations with Father Will that prisoners fling feces and urine at the guards. Sometimes they accumulate it for several days to make it especially vile. I hope to God that nothing like that ever happened to you. I know it’s disgusting to talk about, but it’s a fact of life for you and so, by extension, for our whole society.

  I’m amazed at what you do. You know what I faced in that crate. I grabbed a set of gloves, then pulled Nelson out of there. I had to walk them quickly before I could bathe him, so we hustled out and took care of business. Lauren wanted to touch noses and bump up against him, but I wouldn’t let her. I used to g
et so angry at Nelson, but I can’t anymore. He’s seven or eight years old—maybe nine or ten? There’s just no way I can teach him how to function differently at this point. He loves the treats like hot dogs, but he won’t give up his other habits. He wants it all.

  Irene would kill me if she knew what was going on. And it’s just another failure anyhow.

  I apologized to Nelson all the way through his bath and blow-dry. I couldn’t put him back in the crate, so we’re on newspapers and the useless Organic Marvel of Lies spray again. Don’t know what to do next. I tried to redo the braids, but they were ragged and loose and looked sad.

  5:00 PM

  I ended up spending the whole afternoon at Irene’s with the dogs and my laptop. I had all of the windows open. It was only sixty-two out; we were freezing. I looked at her bedroom. The hardwood floors are as bad as the kitchen was, except it’s only the path around the bed. She has a great big old brass bed frame and a very deep mattress and box spring, so the top of it is about four feet in the air. Totally ridiculous.

  I wonder if anyone’d ever slept on that bed with her in years gone by. There’s a stepladder next to it that she must use to climb up there. How is she going to manage this when she gets back? There are four pillows and the bedspread, all of which are stained and revolting. I’m sure the dogs sleep on there with her. There’s one of those half-chairback things with the arms. It looks like it went through a flood.