Dogfight

by Michael Knight

  “That dog was messed up,” Sissy says. “It’s a good thing you were home and not out painting the town like you usually are.”

  “Hoot with the owls at midnight, and you can’t fly with the eagles at dawn,” I say. I smile at her.

  “C’mon, Dr. Shaw,” she says, rolling her eyes in the direction of the waiting room.

  X and Grace are talking when I go back into the other room. They don’t hear me come in. X is smiling, but differently from the mall, nervous and grateful for her attention. He is tapping his feet, wringing his hands. Grace seems relaxed, settled some. It hasn’t occurred to me until now to wonder how old she is. Maybe twenty-eight, twenty-nine, not too young. Somewhere between X and me but closer to me. There are a lot of things I hadn’t thought to wonder about her.

  “Candle is going to be good as new,” I say.

  They look up at me, lips parted slightly, surprised to find me there.

  “That’s great,” X says. His enthusiasm is genuine.

  “Thank you so much, Dr. Shaw,” she says, standing, taking a few steps in my direction. “Sorry I got so emotional there. That isn’t like me. It’s Candle. Do you have pets?”

  “I have X,” I say. “He’s sort of like a pet.”

  She smiles and looks back at my son, who, to my surprise, is also smiling. X is watching me, not angry, but definitely watching, waiting to see what I will do.

  “A very cute and charming pet he is,” she says. “Does he do any tricks? Sit, X. Roll over, boy.”

  “Grace is in the mail order business, Dad,” he says, too eagerly. “She does clothes for this Venezuelan company. Environmentally correct sweaters and stuff.”

  X and Grace. They are on a first-name basis. She waves his comment away and says, “I just got the job. They’re a penny-ante operation. Won’t even give me a computer or an office phone. I have to do everything by hand.”

  “Really?” I say.

  My heart starts kicking, my tongue goes gummy in my mouth. At least that explains the phones. Now, I know something else about her. What I don’t know is what to talk to her about. I can’t very well talk about the fact that I’ve been spying on her. I can’t tell her that I see her in my sleep. I launch headlong into my spiel about Lyme disease—It’s an inflammatory disease, I say, caused by tick-borne spirochete. The symptoms include joint pains, fatigue, and sometimes neurological disturbances. I hear my voice, droning on like a nightmare biology teacher, but I can’t shut up. Did you know that this disease was named for Lyme, Connecticut, where a particularly deadly outbreak was studied? She nods along with my words, trying to seem interested. I force myself to stop talking. I remember X and how at ease he was with those girls at the mall. I run my fingers through my hair, smile the smile, and cock my hip like some kid. It doesn’t feel right, feels foolish. The proper words for this moment—Grace in the washed-out light from the fluorescent bulbs, X with his hands in his pockets, his eyes full of sympathy—do not exist. I am aware that nothing can happen between us, not after what X and I have been doing the last few days, but I don’t want it to be over just yet. Any moment now, I think, and she will disappear.

  Dogfight

  Hi John sent both Bill Hoffman and his Great Dane to the hospital. Being an Irish setter, Hi John was generally a gentle dog and got along fine with the other neighborhood pets and, Reed knew, even once had a romantic thing going with Mrs. Bishop’s springer spaniel across the street. Reed and Hi John were jogging at night, and the sky was full of distracting white stars, and maybe that’s why Reed didn’t see the Great Dane from two houses down, the Hoffmans’ house, come tearing into the street, toenails clicking on the pavement. Hi John’s first instinct was to run for home, to go in the opposite direction of the oncoming Dane, but Reed wasn’t quick enough. His own first instinct was to go completely still and hope that the danger passed. He didn’t think of running, though he was only maybe thirty yards from his front door, until he felt Hi John tugging the leash in terror. And that was far too late.

  The Great Dane, huge and white with a black head, was on Hi John, clamping down on his neck, his lips pulled back in an angry rictus. The darkness made things more frightening. Everything slow and jerky like watching an old silent movie, each frame distinguishable. He saw glimpses—bared teeth, fur damp with what might have been blood, maybe just saliva, twists of angry motion—all underscored with growls and whines of pain. Bill Hoffman and his wife, April, didn’t come out of their yard, just stayed on the damp grass, calling their dog.

  Reed had been told never to interfere in a dogfight, but he couldn’t bring himself to let go of the leash. He felt that if he let go, Hi John would be killed. He began beating the Dane with his fists and whipping it with the end of the leash. Reed was afraid to tears for Hi John. At that moment, he believed that he could not go on living if anything happened to his dog.

  “Goddamnit,” he shouted to Hoffman, “get out here and grab your fucking dog. Right now.”

  Bill Hoffman edged nervously into the street, circling the fight, his wife pushing him forward, Reed being pulled around helplessly, still shouting at Hoffman, cursing at him. He threatened to burn their house down while Hoffman and his wife slept, if anything happened to Hi John. Hoffman got behind his dog and grabbed him, one hand on his collar, one around his throat, and the dogs for a brief instant came apart. What surprised Reed most was that Hi John didn’t take the opportunity to retreat. Instead, he lunged for the Dane’s neck, so suddenly that Reed couldn’t stop him, and bit Hoffman’s hand by mistake. Reed could hear the bone coming apart. Hoffman pulled his injured hand away, his whole body recoiling, and at the same time, he lifted the Dane by the collar with the other hand, forepaws off the ground, belly exposed. Hi John, that quick, bit the other dog on the balls and the Dane made a sound of true pain, a howl like nothing Reed had ever heard.

  Hi John kept them moving back toward their yard with a volley of barks and growls, and strained at the leash to get back into the fight. April Hoffman walked down the street to them. She was wearing a knee-length blue nightgown, made sheer and lovely by the glow of the street lamps, and her hair was down and her legs were nice. Reed was feeling strong and dizzy with adrenaline. She knelt by Hi John, who was himself again, pushing against her legs, letting her stroke his back. Her husband was screaming that they had to go to the hospital and Reed wasn’t sure if he meant for himself or for his dog.

  “You’re a brave dog,” she said to Hi John. “You wouldn’t start a fight, would you? It’s just that awful dog of Bill’s.”

  She looked up at Reed. He was panting and could not stop himself from smiling. He saw everything, the moon, the pale sheen of night clouds, branches silhouetted against light from windows. This woman with a smooth face and slight widow’s peak. Her husband was still calling her, getting angry, crying now. She stood slowly and looked once more at Reed before walking home.

  His ex-wife, Maggie, was in his living room when he came in. She lived in the house directly behind his, separated from him only by a fence, and still had her key. In this neighborhood, though, Reed rarely locked his doors. They had been divorced for just over a year. Maggie was short and thin and it had been said by their friends that Reed and Maggie looked startlingly alike. Both blue-eyed, with the same wiry brown hair, both with identically sharp features, both small. They had more than once, in the four years they were married, been mistaken for brother and sister. The fact of their resemblance came to bother Reed after a while. He believed it to be unusual and quite possibly unhealthy and once, coming face to face with her in a dark hallway, still drowsy from sleeping, he had thought he was seeing himself, having some sort of out-of-body experience. Reed was so shaken up that he slept on the couch for two nights and never explained to Maggie.

  “I heard all the commotion,” Maggie said. “Is Hi John okay?”

  They sat on the floor, one on either side of Hi John, and searched for wounds. A few scratches, one cut behind his ear that was particularly nasty, that Re
ed promised he would have looked at on the way to work in the morning. Hi John beat the floor with his tail and tried to roll over so they could scratch his stomach.

  “You should have seen him,” Reed said. “We kicked ass, didn’t we, boy?”

  “Don’t make him think that fighting is good,” Maggie said, irritated. “He could have been hurt.”

  “Maggie’s right, Hi John. Don’t fight. But if you have to fight, show no mercy. Go for the balls. Maximum violence with all available speed.” He patted Hi John’s stomach and scratched him until his leg began working the air.

  Reed told Maggie about the fight, in detail, about beating the other dog with his fists and about thinking that Hi John was going to be killed. He paced the rug. When he got to the part about Hi John biting Bill Hoffman and then the Dane’s testicles, imitating the sound the Dane made and doing a souped-up parody of Hoffman crying for his wife like a little boy, Maggie started laughing. She rocked back on the floor, hair spreading out beneath her and stomped her feet. He was excited from the telling and threw himself down next to her and tried to kiss her. She pushed him away, still laughing, and said, “Serves the bastard right.” There had been, shortly after the divorce and Maggie’s move around the corner, a questionable omission from the guest list of a neighborhood party.

  They watched television until the blue lights of a police siren splashed against the window. Maggie had fallen asleep with her head in his lap. They walked out together and stood embarrassed while the other neighbors came out onto their lawns to see the commotion, to see who had brought the police, lights flashing threats, into this part of town. Joan Bishop lived directly across the street and was standing alone on her porch, haloed by the light coming from the open door behind her. She was an older woman, white-haired, long-ago widowed. When Reed waved, she stepped back into the house, quickly, and shut the door. He could see a curtain ease back, the shape of her face at the window.

  The policewoman, who was thick and black and quite possibly the largest woman Reed had ever seen, explained that this was only routine, that any time someone came into the emergency room with a dog bite, it had to be looked into.

  “Are they pressing charges?” Maggie asked. “What sort of charges do you press in a case like this? Their dog started the fight.”

  The policewoman became confused when Maggie explained that, yes, she was one of the dog’s owners, along with Reed, but that, no, she didn’t actually see the fight or even actually live with Reed anymore but that, yes, she lived in the house directly behind his and, yes, she had said they were divorced. She told too much. She said that they were no longer married but that they still cared for one another and that neither of them wanted to part with the dog. There were irreconcilable differences that they could not live with married but that they could accept divorced, as neighbors. Reed watched and listened, quietly, thankful that she didn’t go into the differences. He was thinking that sometimes Maggie could be quite pretty and that this was one of those times. He liked the way her hands moved when she spoke.

  “The law is that your dog has to be quarantined ten days for rabies observation,” the officer said when Maggie finished. “Could I see the animal?”

  Reed went inside and brought Hi John out on his leash. When Hi John saw this woman and the colored lights and all the neighbors watching, he tensed and began barking savagely. Reed tried to settle him down, tried to get ahold of his collar to show his tags and that he was up to date on his shots but Hi John wouldn’t be still.

  “No matter,” the woman said. “Shots or no shots the dog has to be quarantined. Someone will be by in the morning to get him.”

  They watched her drive off, Hi John barking until the car was out of sight and the neighbors had gone back inside. Reed noticed that the Hoffmans’ car was still not in the driveway. Hi John settled down and everything got real quiet.

  “Nice timing,” Maggie said to the dog.

  Reed woke bleary-eyed and confused, to a knock at the door. It was two men from the city come to take Hi John to quarantine. Reed met them at the porch in his bathrobe and offered them coffee, still too close to sleep to understand that this was the enemy. The men, deadly serious about their errand, refused. Reed went inside to collect the dog and found his solidarity there, as well. Back on the porch, Reed said, “This is a travesty. If anything, you should be locking up the Hoffmans’ dog.”

  Hi John slapped their legs with his tail, happily.

  One of the men looped a wire, attached to a long pole, around Hi John’s neck and began to lead him to the van. They kept their distance, skirting Hi John carefully, like bullfighters. Reed ran out into the yard. The grass was damp and newly cut and stuck to his feet. He knelt beside Hi John and hugged his neck.

  “Do your time like a man, Hi John,” he said. “Don’t take any shit off anybody. I’ll be by to visit this afternoon.”

  April Hoffman came by as Reed was knotting his tie for work. She looked tired and worried and was holding a plastic baggie full of bones. The house had seemed to Reed, before her appearance, terribly quiet without Hi John, though he couldn’t recall specific sounds that Hi John made when he was there. Just that energy, the electric presence of another life. She sat on the couch and Reed brought her a cup of coffee. Through the windows behind her he could see Maggie’s backyard. It had begun to rain, lightly, and Maggie’s careful rows of vegetables, purple eggplant, red and green peppers, fragile tomatoes, looked wilted and burdened in the drizzle.

  “This is the kind of rain you hear called beautiful,” she said.

  “Is it?” Reed said. He wasn’t at all certain how he should treat her. He didn’t know whether to be angry or apologetic.

  “I brought these for Hi John.” She shook the bag, smiling. “Bill saves the T-bones. He would kill me if he knew I was here. I feel awful about last night. Joan Bishop told me that the police came for Hi John.”

  Joan Bishop had once complained that Hi John was making overtures toward her springer spaniel and that while he was making overtures—those were her exact words—he was lifting his leg on her rosebushes. Maggie wanted to know what was wrong with Hi John, why he wasn’t good enough for Mrs. Bishop’s dog. She said the peeing was just a manifestation of canine courtship, though Reed wasn’t sure about that. Maggie called Mrs. Bishop’s dog a whore. She made a case for free will. She said, just because you don’t approve of our living arrangement doesn’t mean you have to take it out on our dog. Reed had watched the two women arguing in the street, heard the unnatural anger rising in their voices, and he couldn’t help feeling sad for Hi John. That moment was probably the end of his romance and he would never understand why. Reed knew about endings and the loss of love. Joan Bishop had avoided them since.

  “He’ll be incarcerated for ten days,” Reed said. “How is Bill? His hand okay?”

  “His hand is disgusting,” April said. “He had to get a cast and his fingers are all swollen like sausages.”

  Reed was thinking that in all the time they had lived near the Hoffmans, maybe two years, he had never been alone with this woman. He couldn’t recall ever actually speaking to her but he was sure that he must have, being neighbors. And here she was now on his couch, in a white blouse open at the neck and skirt dotted with sailboats, and sandals with straps, thin as paper, speaking as if they had known each other all their lives. He was strangely excited by her presence. He sat on the couch next to her and she crossed her legs so that her foot was just touching his shin. She looked at him over the rim of her cup.

  “I’m really sorry about all this,” he said. “It isn’t your fault, really.”

  “If not for you,” April said, “everything could have been a lot worse. Bill’s hand will get better. Hi John could have been killed.”

  “I don’t know,” Reed said. “He was holding his own.”

  The phone rang and Reed walked into the kitchen to answer it. It was Maggie. Reed was nervous and excited both. He felt like he was up to something and it felt good.
He pressed his fingers against the windowpane, which was cool and clammy.

  “Have they come for Hi John yet?” she said.

  “This morning,” he said. “I can’t talk right now. April Hoffman is here apologizing. She brought some bones for Hi John.”

  “Make sure she doesn’t sue,” Maggie said, before hanging up.

  April was looking out the window, past beads of rainwater, toward the backyard and Maggie’s house. Reed wondered if she knew what she was looking at. Her hair was swept back into a chignon and she had pulled her knees up beneath her, covering her legs with her skirt, which was cotton and loose. Her toes were peeking out from beneath it, her toenails painted creamy red. He thought he had once heard Maggie call that color coral. He wanted to ask about her marriage but thought that was a bad idea, since it would possibly raise questions about his own marriage or lack thereof and that was not something he felt comfortable talking about.

  Instead he said, “This was very nice of you to come by. We don’t really know each other very well, do we? That’s too bad. Since we’re neighbors and all.”

  She smiled and narrowed her eyes at him and picked up her coffee cup with both hands. She wasn’t exactly what he thought of as beautiful, her face a bit too long, her eyes set too far apart, but he found himself terribly excited by her. He couldn’t stop picturing bedroom scenes with her. The two of them winding together, the covers knotted at the foot of the bed. April Hoffman on her back with his fingers in her mouth. He remembered, suddenly, the commandment about coveting thy neighbor’s wife. He almost laughed and knew that his smile must have been crazy and obvious. The Bible didn’t acknowledge that wives could also covet. In real life, he thought, women do all the seducing. They know what they want and no amount of drinks bought or lies told can change that fact. The best you can wish for is to be the person that they want you to be in that first hopeful moment.