A Dog Like Daisy

by Kristin O'Donnell Tubb

  When we reach the end of the aisle, Colonel Victor shouts, “Check, Miss Daisy!” I follow the command like a driven spike: I trot out in front and check around the corner. A woman is there, staring at a tiny electric blue screen in her hand. I acknowledge her presence with a tail wag. I hear Colonel Victor suck in an uncertain breath before twisting around the corner.

  Micah places potato chips, ground beef, and—OH, GLORY!—bacon in our cart.

  “Watch, Miss Daisy!” the Colonel orders. He’s comfortable giving orders, so even though he’s clenched tight like a fist, I can tell he feels strong. He’s still scanning the store, though. I follow his command: I cross to the Colonel’s right side to see if anyone is behind us. The aisle is empty.

  We proceed through the store like this: “Check!” “Watch!” “Block!” I am a ninja. I know ninjas because the Colonel and I go with Micah to a class called tae kwon do. It’s where the birthday party was, and we go there lots of times while Micah trains. Just like me in my training. Micah is important in that class, so he wears a uniform and a red belt. He calls himself a ninja when he ties it on. At the class, the alpha dog there said, “Tae kwon do is for defense, not for picking a fight. If you can guard against attacks, it’s all you need.” That instructor smells smart. Fighting is awful: sharp teeth and too much blood. The ninjas in the class block kicks and punches and jabs. They defend themselves. And that’s exactly what I’m doing now, for the Colonel. I am a ninja, like Micah.

  “Great job, guys,” Alex says. I can tell that compliment is split in half for two of us. “Let’s go check out.”

  We push our bacon cart to the front. “Block, Miss Daisy,” Colonel Victor says when we stop. I plant myself behind him in line.

  The woman whose face is colored electric blue by her tiny screen approaches. She never removes her eyes from her screen. Her cart screams toward me like a dive-bombing mosquito. I brace myself for the blow in three, two, one . . .

  Yipe!

  The metal jolt hurts much more than I expected. A flash of a pile of puppies getting dumped into the back of a metal truck comes to mind, but I shake it off.

  “Hey!” the Colonel shouts. His face smears purple. “Watch where you’re going, lady.”

  She looks up, dumb as a squirrel. “Oh. I didn’t see your pet there.”

  Micah’s teeth grit. He is bracing himself. I know about bracing yourself. The Colonel works his jaw. “She’s a service dog,” Colonel Victor growls. “Not a pet.”

  Not a pet.

  “Why are you getting so upset?” squirrel lady asks. Even her tiny pointy teeth remind me of a tree rodent. “You need to chill out about your dog.”

  “She is a tool, not a dog,” the Colonel says. This statement: it’s a good thing that stings a little, like too much sun. A tool is practical, handy, useful—all good things. But a tool is also metallic, flat. Unalive.

  The Colonel continues: “And trust me, lady, you don’t want to see me upset.” His words are written on spittle flying through the air. I nudge him to try to calm his jackhammering heart. He digs in his pocket, slams some green slips of paper on the counter.

  “Pay, Micah,” he orders his son. Micah isn’t a tool. He scowls at receiving a command like this. “I need to wait outside,” the Colonel says.

  The Colonel limps away, tugging me behind him. He leans more on his walking stick when he’s angry like this. The magic doors slide, and we leave the mystical smells behind us. Outside smells blissful, sure, but it’s no bacon.

  “Victor, remember: pet Daisy,” Alex suggests. He has followed us. He always follows us. The Colonel nods, pets me too gruffly. He bends over, hands on knees, and sucks in air. I lean against him. Slowly, slowly, the shadows on his face melt and a little sunshine replaces them.

  Micah comes out, bag in hand. His ear muzzles are back on.

  “You get everything?” the Colonel asks, taking the heavy bag from him.

  Micah shakes his head and shouts (I guess because of the horrid ear covers), “No. You didn’t give me enough money. No bacon.”

  No bacon. My tail droops. But then, what else should a tool expect?

  11

  THE TASTE OF DANGER

  My sleep is filled with nightmares, of ripped flesh and monstrous trashy trucks with metal jaws and teeth on their hindquarters. I know my flanks are twitching, and I whine, but I can’t shake out of this dream.

  “GET DOWN, BUCK!”

  The Colonel’s fire truck shouting snaps me awake. I leap off my pillow, prick my ears and nostrils to find him.

  The closet.

  Colonel Victor crouches like a tiger in the corner, hanging clothes camouflaging him. He clutches a huge, curved, red-alarm knife. His heart hammers and his eyes are wide and white. His face curls with the colors of deep wounds.

  Anna stands in the doorway in a thin, worn nightgown, a ghost.

  “Victor, honey,” she whispers, voice trembling, disappearing. “Wake up. Come back to bed.”

  “DON’T BE STUPID, BUCK!” he yells daggers at her. “THE INSURGENTS ARE HERE! THEY’VE FOUND US!”

  I sense Micah now, creeping in the darkness of the Colonel’s bedroom. I curse Smaug for not doing a good job of keeping Micah safe in his room. Useless lizard.

  A cold rumbling starts in my belly. This is very, very wrong.

  The Colonel’s eyes narrow tight like a strangle on his wife. He’s dripping sweat. “Get. Down.” His voice is barbed wire.

  I push around Anna and ram my skull, thud, against Colonel Victor’s arm, trying to bring him back to us. He shoves me aside. My hip slams purple bruises against the wall. I whine.

  Anna sobs. Micah sobs, too. Somewhere deep in the house the baby screams, toenails scratching across metal.

  The Colonel spins the flashing knife in his sweaty hands. He crouches. He shifts his weight, preparing himself to tackle Anna, who he thinks is someone named Buck.

  The taste of danger is thick on my tongue: meat with maggots.

  The growling in my belly grows louder. I lick and nudge and push against him, but it’s not working. If his face was filled with the colors of wounds before, it’s now filled with darkest night. Holes. Demons.

  How can I get him back?

  “BUCK!” The Colonel leaps at his wife, knife flashing.

  I dive between them. The Colonel wrestles with me. The knife slices the pad on my back left paw, a crackle of white lightning pain. I squeal.

  That does it.

  My teeth sink into Victor’s hand. I don’t put the full force of my jaws behind the bite; if I did that, I’d destroy his hand. I know how powerful my anger can be. No, I only clamp down enough to break the skin. His blood tastes like oily rain water, like puddles with rainbows of gasoline floating on top.

  The Colonel’s scream flares red, then simmers down to a boiling orange. He stops punching me and pulling my fur. His eyes focus on the beads of blood on his hand.

  His breathing slows, his pupils get smaller. His heart drums a little slower.

  “Miss Daisy?” he whispers hoarsely.

  I sit between him and Anna.

  I growl.

  The Colonel moans, then heaves, like he’s going to throw up. His stomach lurches three or four times. He slings his arms around my neck. He wails like howling wind into my muzzle.

  Anna turns and drifts away, tears streaking rivers on her cheeks. She grabs her pillow and a blanket and floats from the bedroom. She’s sleeping somewhere else tonight.

  I hear Micah creep closer. He peeks around the corner into the closet. He didn’t see any of this, and blue confusion colors his face. His confusion shifts into black anger, however, when he sees the bloody bite marks on his dad’s hand. I growl, warning him not to get any closer. Based on how his shades flare red, this angers him further, but I don’t care. Distance is safety. I’m up close. Micah shouldn’t be. (Stupid Smaug!)

  My sliced paw soaks blood into the carpet. The red stain grows bigger, darker, like afternoon grows into night. My
heart beats in the throb of the cut.

  “Miss Daisy,” the Colonel whispers. His mouth is full of foamy saliva, his fur is a mess, and he’s still dripping sweat. “You understand, don’t you? The military—it’s a pack. You protect your pack, always. You understand that, don’t you? No one else does but you.”

  Micah lets out a small sob at that.

  The Colonel snuffles and drools, a bulldog. “Thank you, Daisy. You’re my pack.”

  I clench my jaw.

  Micah clenches his jaw, too. He is a shard of ice.

  It’s odd. No one asked me if I wanted this job. No one asked me to be a part of this pack.

  They never asked if I want to stay. They order me to stay: Stay, Daisy! But ask if I’d like to stay? No.

  With my first human pack, my job was to fight. They said so, and they’d put me in a ring with other growling, starving dogs. But I couldn’t do it. I hated fighting. So they called me useless and left me to have my pups in a Dumpster. I couldn’t do that job. Maybe I can’t do this job, either.

  This pack, the Abeyta family? They don’t have a fence.

  Next time I go “do my business,” I could just run away.

  12

  HURT IS CONTAGIOUS

  Two sunrises later, the Colonel still hasn’t moved from his bed. Which means no one has touched me or let me out to do my business. I’m lonely and full and my pack seems to have forgotten I exist. Loneliness tastes like water from the cold toilet bowl, which is exactly where I’ve been drinking.

  And I’m scared I’ll forget my commands. We haven’t practiced with Alex in many days. I worry that Alex is out there squawking words like time and test and fail. I’ve dragged my leash around the house, quizzing myself on what I’ve learned: Block! To move between the Colonel and the stranger. Eyes! To look into the Colonel’s eyes. Stay!

  Do I want to stay?

  And I’m confused. A pack is supposed to protect each other, not hurt each other. I’m part of this pack, aren’t I?

  This pack is as unpredictable as an ocean wave. Unpredictable pulls you in too far, until you choke and gag.

  Let the Colonel sleep.

  But that means I’ve been sneaking behind the couch to go. The couch is thick and curvy and covered in fake flowers and next to an always-open window. If I squeeze I can fit between it and the wall. The Abeyta family hasn’t found my hidden bathroom yet. Which is surprising. Anna is very clean—she follows me around with a scary tall mop sometimes—so I worry about what she might do when she finds my restroom.

  The whole bathroom thing is cocked-head confusing to me. The baby—Analise—they let crawl around with dung in her pants all the time. It’s quite disgusting, actually. Especially considering how tidy Anna is in every other way. Tidiness is sky-blue respectable. Toting your dung along with you in plastic pants is certainly not.

  I limp out from behind the couch. My paw pad feels better, but it’s not been easy to keep it clean. I don’t know why Anna and Micah didn’t fix this cut. They’re not supposed to touch me, of course, and they don’t. I don’t even think they noticed it that night. And after that night, they’ve been talking and moving pillow soft. They seem to have forgotten the night happened at all. How do humans do that? Forget so much so fast?

  I’ve been licking my cut constantly. The skin is runny-egg raw and oozing. I hope I don’t get a bothersome infection. I hope I don’t get caught sneaking out from behind this couch. I hope I don’t get replaced with a different dog.

  I hope I do.

  Anna is feeding Analise in a rocking chair near the kitchen. She’s singing. Her voice sounds high and soft and warm, like mother’s milk. It reminds me of my three pups, and the warmth and joy of feeding them. I shake my head to clear the memory.

  Micah dribbles his basketball into the room—punch, punch, punch. He stops when he hears Anna’s song. His face curves upward. He sings along with her:

  Duérmete mi niña, duérmete mi amor

  duérmete pedazo de mi corazón.

  Esta niña linda que nació de noche

  quiere que la lleven a pasear en coche.

  Esta niña linda que nació de día

  quiere que la lleven a la dulcería.

  Duérmete mi niña, duérmete mi amor

  duérmete pedazo de mi corazón.

  I once saw this person who drew on the sidewalk with chalk. He’d take his thumb and smear the colors together, creating a new, smoother, deeper color. Anna and Micah singing together sound like that—soft, airy, fresh, light.

  Anna finishes feeding the baby and adjusts her clothes. “Impromptu dance party!” she shouts. She flicks a button on a nearby radio and music blasts out like a car horn. Anna holds Analise, and those two plus Micah leap around and chirrup like a silly herd of grasshoppers. They bounce and smile and hiccup giggles. Their faces twinkle like stars. I can’t help but smile and wag my tail, watching them. They have decided pillow time has passed.

  Then I hear it: tick-tick-tick-SWISH. And smell it: fish scales.

  Smaug, I call out before he rounds the corner.

  It is I, he replies. He is careful to stay just out of Anna’s sight, the sneak. Sneakiness tastes like hot dogs stolen off a cart.

  I squat, lowering myself to look directly into his creepy rolly eyes. Where were you the other night when Micah needed you?

  The lizard’s tail scratches across the floor—crack! The tip doesn’t even look like it was injured, it just looks shorter. I did not sense the need, he says.

  Seriously? I shake my head, then my whole body, because heavens, this lizard gets under my skin. Like a bloodthirsty tick. The night of the screaming? The yelling? The crying? The blood? My paw pinches at that last part. How could you not sense that? Aren’t you Micah’s protector?

  The lizard twitches, licks his eyeball, peeks around the corner at Micah. Canine, he says. Your gifts are not my gifts. Earlier I told you: I am a healer, not a protector. I can fix damage. But a healer is not needed if there is no damage to begin with. THAT part is your job.

  I feel like he’s trying to trick me, like he’s pretended to throw a stick when it’s actually tucked behind his back. You want me to do your job for you? Lazy lizard.

  Smaug smiles, showcasing black bug bits stuck in his yellow teeth. Ah, but it is what every true healer wants: to have no purpose at all.

  Thick boots pound down the hall, like fists on wood. Smaug sneaks around the corner, back into Micah’s room.

  Colonel Victor appears. His face shadows tell a lie. They tell the story of someone who hasn’t slept in days, even though I know he’s been in bed for many hours. I’m confused by him.

  So are Anna and Micah. Their music stops like squeaking brakes on a car. The silence that follows is fog thick.

  The Colonel grabs his pills, swallows a few. He sighs leaves on trees. He ruffles the fur on Micah’s head, winks at Anna and the baby, and pounds back into his room.

  Anna and Micah hug, and I can feel their yellow warmth from here. I understand something now. With Anna and Micah, being around Colonel Victor is like walking across a sewer grate: a cold metal balancing act. One wrong step and your paw slips and you get trapped. So you must walk carefully.

  Micah opens the back door and leaves it standing wide. His eyes flick at me quick as cold rain. I can’t tell if he’s inviting me to use the bathroom outside, or if he’s inviting me to run away. So I don’t move. Micah lifts one shoulder, lets it fall. He pounds his basketball outside and is gone.

  Anna picks up a rag and scrubs at a nonexistent spot on the wall. Analise toddles toward me. I brace myself for the fur pulling that will follow, but it’s better than toilet-drinking loneliness.

  Hurt is a funny thing in a pack. It’s contagious, like a runny-egg infection. One person hurts, and the whole pack carries the burden.

  13

  A TOO-TIGHT PLACE FOR THE SOUL

  Several sunrises later, I’m lounging in a yellow daisy spot on the floor next to Colonel Victor’s reclining
chair. His face is falsely colored again with rainbow pills. He’s watching loud and shiny traffic jam television. I alert him with whines and growling whenever dangerous animals show on the screen, because those animals need to understand that this is the Abeyta den, and they are not allowed. The Colonel chuckles at that, tiny tired huffs like sprays of smoke. He pats my head. Says, “Thank you, Miss Daisy. What a good girl.”

  My paw has healed. We’ve started training again. I’m a useful tool. I am a good girl with one good ear.

  Micah pops around the corner. “Look, Dad!” He thrusts his arm toward the Colonel. I stand, alert. The Colonel does not like surprises like thrusting things.

  “I drew on a tattoo, Dad, like yours!” Micah twists his arm. There are bright, magical colors there. If you care enough about something to wear a picture of it on your skin, it must be a large part of your soul. Micah’s soul swirl looks like the basketball he dribbles, with a net and a number, and a red tae kwon do belt knotted around it.

  The Colonel’s turtle eye blinks. His heartbeat kicks up a notch. I inch closer. Micah slides his gaze toward me, a snake slicing through water.

  “Is that . . . Sharpie?” the Colonel says, voice sand dry.

  Micah shows his teeth. It’s happy human stuff, not dangerous. “Yeah. Tattoos are supposed to be permanent, right?”

  “Tattoos are supposed to be painful,” the Colonel says. His voice echoes; it’s coming from a hollow place. He chuckles like rocks crunching under tires. “Don’t let your mother see that.”

  Micah shows more teeth. “You like it?”

  The Colonel clears his throat. Shifts in his chair. His face pulls down. But he makes his voice the color of lemon-yellow pie: “Yeah,” he says. “Looks good, son.”

  He’s lying. Lies are when your shadows and your heartbeat don’t match the shade of your words. Humans do this all the time. It’s so confusing. Why lie? Isn’t the truth always best? Isn’t the truth the most heroic? The most useful?