Alpha Dog

by Jennifer Ziegler

  “Beats me,” Robot said.

  Lyle and Kinky just shrugged.

  A tinkling noise emanated from the kitchen nook. I raced around the bar and skidded to a stop. The tall yellow plastic trash can had been knocked forward, its lid halfway open, disgorging coffee grounds, used tissues, and ketchup-frosted wrappings all over the kitchen floor. In the middle of the mess stood Seamus, his wet fur grainy with Folgers and other unidentifiable fragments. He was chewing on something brown and drippy.

  The guys ran up behind me.

  “Eew! What’s that?” Lyle asked.

  “It’s my burrito from last night,” Robot replied.

  “Eew!”

  “Drop it, Seamus!” I lunged for him, but he quickly cut sideways. His eyes drooped guiltily and his tail curved between his hind legs, but I could tell he had no intention of letting go his loot. “Please, Seamus! Put it down!” I stepped over the upturned can and made another grab for him. Seamus jogged in place for a split second, his paws slipping on the gooey debris, then finally got up enough traction to race from the room. “No! Stop!”

  But there was nothing I could do. Seamus was tearing around the living room, leaving behind a mucky path and the fragrance of wet, slimy dog.

  It took me over half an hour to clean the kitchen and vacuum up the trail of coffee grounds. The others sat on the couch eating Pop-Tarts and watching TV. Every now and then Lyle would flash me a look of pity, and Kinky even offered to help, but I refused. As it was, tears of frustration were already collecting in my eyes, and their sympathy only made me feel more pathetic. When I finally did spring a leak and start crying, I didn’t want it to be in front of them.

  Meanwhile Seamus sat whining on the patio, watching me through the cracks in the blinds. Pity and anger took turns squeezing my heart. As embarrassed and aggravated as I was, I also knew he didn’t really know what he was doing. He was just being a dog: a sloppy, curious, clueless dog.

  Finally Christine emerged from the steamy bathroom and I was able to get Seamus cleaned up—his second bath in as many days.

  Just as I was heading into the hallway with Seamus bundled in a towel, Christine came out of her room. She was wearing a black minidress, ripped tights and clunky black leather shoes. Her hair had been scrunched into thick dreds, and her eyes were outlined in dark, Cleopatra-like streaks.

  “You ready to go to orientation?” she asked me, her brows furrowed as she took in my sloppy outfit and droopy ponytail.

  “Is it that late already?” I asked. I leaned sideways to check the clock above the oven. Sure enough, it was almost noon.

  The university was officially kicking off its Core Curriculum Program with a big mandatory assembly. I had sort of been looking forward to meeting some other students and hanging out with Christine minus Robot. Only the day’s crises had disrupted my schedule and I was caught completely off guard.

  “You better get a move on,” Christine said.

  “Yeah. Um . . . right.” I was walking around in a circle, trying to think everything through. “I guess I don’t have time to shower or change. I should probably bring a pen. Oh, no! What about Seamus?”

  She frowned at me. “What about him?”

  “He’s sort of had a bad day,” I explained, staring down at him. His brown eyes nervously darted back and forth. “I’m not sure if I should leave him.”

  “But you have to. This thing is required.” She walked into the living room and faced the guys. “You all will watch Katie’s dog while we’re at this orientation, right?”

  “Right.” “Sure.” “No prob.” They answered without taking their eyes off the NASCAR race on TV.

  “There,” she said, turning back to me. “See? It’s all taken care of. Your precious dog is going to be fine.”

  The orientation lasted longer than I’d expected. Christine and I had piled into a giant lecture hall along with a couple hundred other students and listened to speech after speech. One officially welcomed us. One gave a shortened history of the university and its summer program. And one reminded us of campus rules.

  I started to take notes and caught Christine giving me a look. The rest of the time I doodled on my notebook page while she slouched way down in the seat and shut her eyes.

  “God, I hope college isn’t like that all the time.” She was still complaining as we walked through the door of the condo.

  “About bloody time!” Robot said, sitting up on the couch.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Christine asked. “Where are the other guys?”

  “They went off to find food,” he explained. “That daft dog went postal after you left.”

  “What happened?” I asked, setting down my book bag.

  “Beats the hell out of me. We were just hanging around, programming tracks on Lyle’s drum machine, when he started charging around, barking like a lunatic.”

  “Did you guys hurt him? I mean . . . accidentally?”

  “No one laid a bloody finger on him.” He stretched out along the couch and folded his arms across his chest. “Dog’s just a freaking mental case, that’s all.”

  “No, he’s not,” I said, feeling really defensive. “He’s just . . . just . . .” immensely constipated, I finished silently. Poor thing was probably in pain. “Where is he?” I asked, grabbing his leash.

  “On the balcony. Took us forever to catch the nutter.”

  I rushed to the patio door. “He’s not out there.”

  “Yes, he is.”

  I opened the door and glanced around the balcony. “No, he isn’t!”

  Robot’s scowl disappeared. “What do you mean? That’s where we put him. I swear!”

  “Well, it’s not like he could fly away. . . . Oh God!” Cold tingles were spreading down my scalp and over my body. “You don’t think . . . ?”

  I bolted back onto the patio and raced over to the railing. Bracing myself for the worst, I stared down over the side to the ground below.

  But there was no crumpled little doggie. No blood-stains or tufts of fur or four-legged chalk outline. All I could see was grass.

  Christine and Robot ran up beside me. “Thank God,” Christine said as she looked over the railing. “But then . . . where is he?”

  “Seamus!” I called out.

  Chiiinnng! A clanging noise sounded nearby.

  “Seamus?”

  Chiiinng! Chiiinng!

  The noise was coming from my right. Turning around, I spotted Seamus on Mrs. Krantz’s side of the balcony. He was standing against the iron rail that divided the concrete ledge, his tail wagging happily.

  “Seamus!” I cried in relief.

  He bounced around in an excited circle and threw himself against the railing again, causing his tags to bang against the bars. Chiinnng!

  “What the hell?” Robot scratched his left sideburn. “We didn’t put him over there. I swear!”

  Right as he said that, Seamus flopped onto his side and wriggled his head through the space beneath the railing. The rest of his body followed.

  “Hey, you! What were you doing over there?” I exclaimed as he ran up to me. He stopped at my feet, wagging his tail and staring up at me with his pink tongue halfway out of his mouth, looking very proud of himself. I bent over and started fluffing his fur. After that brief scare, I was really glad to see him.

  “I can’t believe the little bloke fit through that space,” Robot said, shaking his head in astonishment.

  “And he was so fast,” Christine added. “Like he’d been doing it forever.”

  My hand froze in midpet as I thought about what Christine said. It did seem like Seamus had done that before. Maybe several times. I straightened up and walked over to the railing, scanning Mrs. Krantz’s side of the balcony.

  “Oh, no! Crap, no!” I exclaimed.

  Crap yes. Lots of it. Some fresh, and some a day or two old. All neatly scattered about the patio along with Mrs. Krantz’s potted plants.

  “Gross!” Christine said, plugging her nose.
<
br />   Robot burst out laughing.

  “You little doofus!” I shouted, rounding on Seamus. He skipped about on his feet and looked even more pleased. Judging by the mess, he should have felt light on his feet.

  So the mystery was solved. The good news was my dog wasn’t going to burst open from retaining too much poo. The bad news was I just might get evicted—after living there only a couple of days.

  For the next forty-five minutes, I cleaned my dog’s manure off Mrs. Krantz’s ledge. It was by far the most disgusting thing I’d ever done in my life. But it also gave me real practice at scooping, something I’d been spared since adopting Seamus. For example, I learned quite a bit about consistency, how sometimes the droppings would come right up, and sometimes they . . . uh . . . didn’t.

  Seamus watched the entire time from our side of the balcony. Thankfully, he couldn’t join me, because I’d blocked the opening beneath the rail with rocks “borrowed” from the landscaping around the building.

  “Why do you do this?” I whined as I scraped and cleaned. “Why can’t you just calm down already? If you don’t stop this stuff, they’re going to kick us both out!”

  Seamus just looked back at me with his big expressive eyes, giving an occasional whimper.

  At last I’d bagged up the entire mess and scrubbed away any telltale stains, including a particularly horrible one on one of her ceramic kittens. Judging by the smell, I was pretty sure Seamus had also watered a few of her plants, but I wasn’t sure what I could do about that.

  I heaved myself back over the railing, holding the bag of droppings and soiled cleaning rags. As soon as I entered the condo, Robot and Christine scrunched up their faces.

  “Ugh! You’re not bringing that in here, are you?” Christine said, waving her arms and shrinking into the couch cushions as if I were planning to toss the stuff at her.

  “Of course not,” I replied. “I’m just cutting through on the way to the Dumpster.”

  A sizzling sensation crept over my neck and cheeks as I stepped out onto the landing. I was really tired of dealing with one humiliation after another. Wasn’t my move to Austin supposed to be about reinventing myself? If I’d wanted to live with constant embarrassment, I could have stayed home and faced the fallout from my breakup.

  I was just about to head down the steps when I got a bright idea. Why not take the service elevator instead, to avoid as many people as possible?

  See? You can do this, I thought as I pushed the elevator button. You can think ahead and avoid these little disasters. From now on I would keep everything under control. No more surprises. No more shame.

  Just then the elevator dinged. I stepped forward, holding the bag out in front of me to distance myself from the smell. Slowly the doors slid open, and there stood that same guy from before, the cute one from unit 303, this time surrounded by several large paper grocery sacks.

  “Uh . . . hi,” I said lamely.

  “Hi.” He looked from me to the bag dangling at the end of my arm, his features creased in confusion.

  I couldn’t imagine how I must have looked, looming in front of him with a sack of poop. I watched his nose wriggle slightly as he caught his first whiff.

  “Nevermind,” I said quickly. “I’ll take the stairs.” I spun around on my heels and charged down the steps, refusing to look back at the elevator guy.

  Okay, new strategy. Maybe I could embarrass myself so thoroughly in Austin that I actually ended up looking forward to returning to San Marcos and the mangled remains of my reputation there.

  That evening when the guys went out to get us pizza, I tried to teach Seamus to sit—much to Christine’s amusement.

  “Sit,” I would say, slapping my hand against the carpet. Only Seamus just kept watching my hand and sniffing the floor, positive I had some sort of treat for him. When he couldn’t find anything, he’d leap on me as if trying to frisk me for it.

  “Give it up already. He’s too stupid for tricks,” Christine said the fifth time Seamus jumped on me. She laughed as I stumbled and fell forward, doubling over Seamus like a human overpass.

  “No, he’s not,” I said, pushing myself upright. “He’s smart.”

  “Yeah, sure,” she said, snorting.

  Right then the phone started ringing. I didn’t want to answer it. I could almost tell who it was by the ring—shrill and persistent. Seamus started barking and I quickly set him on the patio, grabbing the receiver right before the answering machine came on.

  “Hello?”

  “Katie? It’s Mom.” Of course. “Honey, I just heard on the local news that crime rates are going up in Austin. You girls are keeping the doors locked, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Windows too?”

  I frowned. “Uh . . . but we’re on the third floor. How could someone break in through our windows?”

  “Are you saying criminals have no idea how to use ladders?” she asked, her voice rising slightly.

  “No, but—”

  “Well, there you go. Promise me you’ll keep your windows locked from now on.”

  “Fine,” I said wearily. “Maybe Mrs. Krantz can put bars on them.”

  “Oh, no! Not them. You could be trapped during a fire. Which reminds me . . . Do you girls have a working fire extinguisher?”

  I slapped my forehead and concentrated on my breathing while Mom prattled on about escape routes and smoke detectors and the importance of naturalfiber clothing. Soon after, Christine took the phone and assured her that yes, I was eating whole grain foods. No, I wasn’t leaving towels all over the place, and yes, we were remembering to turn off the coffeepot before leaving the condo.

  By the time we hung up, I was feeble and dizzy from all my pent-up frustration.

  “Man, when is she going to get a life and let you live yours?” Christine muttered, flopping back onto the couch.

  “I don’t know,” I grumbled. “I guess when she thinks I can actually handle it.” It was so aggravating. I still couldn’t get a break from Mom—even when I lived thirty miles away.

  The worst part was, I was beginning to think she was right to worry so much. Maybe I really couldn’t handle stuff on my own. I was certainly making a mess of things so far. I hadn’t made any friends except Christine (and I wasn’t even sure she counted). I had already spent a good third of my savings. And my new dog was systematically destroying all my belongings, scratching up my limbs, and basically doing everything he wasn’t supposed to—and I couldn’t stop him.

  I glanced toward the patio door, where Seamus was on his back legs, barking and trying to dig through the glass. “Okay, okay. I’m coming,” I said, grabbing up the leash.

  I couldn’t help loving the guy. I just wished it were easier.

  6

  The next morning I woke to find Lyle and Kinky sitting on the couch watching Sesame Street. By now I’d given up on ever having an empty living room, so I automatically threw on a pair of cropped jeans and a white tank before leaving my room.

  I stumbled toward the patio door and let Seamus out.

  “Morning,” Kinky said.

  “Hey, Katie,” said Lyle.

  “Mornin’, love,” Robot greeted.

  I tried to say “morning” back to them, but it came out sounding more like a moo than an actual word. I fumbled for the knob through the blinds, pushed open the door and set Seamus on the patio. Immediately he began running laps, his tongue hanging out, ears flapping in the breeze. It was so unfair. How could he keep me up all night and then have this much energy in the morning?

  I staggered over to the yellow armchair, pushed aside a couple of stuffed wiener dogs, and collapsed into it, sinking down as far as the cushions would allow. Not only were my limbs stiff and heavy from lack of sleep, but it was difficult to follow a coherent train of thought. My brain felt cloudy and murky, with occasional lightning bolts of lucid thought, like “need coffee” and “must walk Seamus soon.”

  “Where’s Christine?” I croaked, glancing around
the room.

  “Sleeping late,” Robot replied.

  Glad someone can, I thought glumly. “So . . . you guys crashed here again?” I asked rather stupidly.

  “Yeah. Had a gig at Area 54 last night. Freaking brilliant!” Robot said proudly, his smile extending into his sideburns.

  “That’s great,” I mumbled, getting a twisty feeling in my gut. That made three nights in a row that Christine had gone out and had fun. Without me.

  “Hey, you want some breakfast?” Lyle asked, lifting a piece of bread and spraying on a layer of Cheez Whiz.

  “No thanks,” I replied, my throat closing up in defense. I turned away and tried to focus on the TV, where Elmo was having an earnest conversation with . . . something. It looked like a shoe with Ping-Pong-ball eyes.

  “What the hell is that thing?” Robot asked, gesturing toward the TV set with his orange-slathered bread slice.

  Lyle frowned at the screen. “It’s a loafer.”

  “How come he’s talking to a shoe?” Kinky asked with his mouth full.

  “Ah, you know.” Lyle shrugged. “It’s educational.”

  Robot shook his head. “Looks bloody freaky to me.”

  Kinky nodded briskly, his hair bouncing a half second behind his head. “Yeah, that’s the thing about Sesame Street. Everything can talk. Shoes. Chairs. Broccoli. But I think you’re right, dude. If there was such a place, I’d be way too spooked to live there.”

  “Aw, man, I know,” Lyle agreed. “The Muppets used to really mess with me. I mean, how come Miss Piggy wants Kermit? Could they actually mate? It used to keep me up at night wondering what their offspring would look like. Piglets with flippers? Tadpoles with big snouts and curly tails?” He closed his eyes and shuddered.

  I let out a moan and massaged my aching temples. I really needed caffeine to handle this conversation.

  “I don’t think so,” Kinky said, rubbing his stubbly chin as he pondered the ceiling. “I think it would be more like in Lady and the Tramp where Lady has, like, three puppies that look like her and one that looks like Tramp. So Miss Piggy would probably have a couple of frogs mixed in with her litter of piglets.”