by Susie Bright
Sure, I can play loud music, and I do. Sonny Rollins. Dexter Gordon. Whatever. I use white-noise apps. I got them all. But the dog outlasts everything.
* * *
It’s a Thursday morning. Foggy. I’m stuck. Can’t find the flow. The barking swarms my ears.
Peering into my binoculars at the neighbors’ backyard across the canyon, I see the dog. Short legs, brown, medium-sized. I don’t know what kind of dog it is. I don’t know dogs.
I put on my sneakers and ball cap and step down into the canyon toward the dog. It’s all my land. I’m on three acres. Eucalyptus, poison oak, a creek bed that hasn’t been wet for ten years. I almost never come down here—only in the fall to clear out stuff—and not since Amy left.
I move my way back up the other side and reach the chain-link fence that separates my property from the other guy’s. The dog is inside a second fenced-in enclosure. It sees me now. The barking reaches fever pitch. Like my pulse. I look for some sign that someone is home. Nothing.
“A watchdog is only effective when it doesn’t bark all the goddamn time, you little bastard.” I’m talking to the stupid dog now.
I climb back up along the property line until I get to the road. I walk to the front of the house, rehearsing my appeal. Keep your cool. Try to be friendly. Don’t demand anything. Tell them you don’t expect the dog to be quiet all the time. But don’t be a pussy. Put it on them to take action. Remember that you hate these people for being oblivious. Make sure they don’t forget this encounter.
I stride to the door with certainty, in case someone is watching from the window. I ring the bell. Again. One more time. No answer.
When I was a kid—eleven, twelve, something like that—I went on a spree of breaking and entering. Actually, not breaking. There was always something open or unlocked back then. I would sneak into people’s houses just to sit in their chairs, poke around their kitchens. I never stole anything. Didn’t feel the need. But now I’m a fifty-two-year-old man.
I slide around the far side of the house and end up behind the garage, the dog barking the whole time. No security system. No cameras. You can see the road but no other houses in my line of sight. The back door of the garage is unlocked and so is the door to the kitchen inside the garage. How can this be so fucking easy?
Nice house. New living room furniture. No IKEA shit here. Pictures of grandkids (and someone’s new Harley) on the refrigerator. Dave and Marilyn Kittle. Funny name, sounds like cat food. They pay a lot more to PG&E than I do. They still have a landline. Marilyn’s going to the dentist next Friday. Someone named Sandra was supposed to arrive on the twenty-third, but it’s scratched out.
I open the fridge—sparkling water, hummus, a sealed package of organic chicken breasts, a wedge of that expensive cheese they sell at Deluxe Market. I dig out a couple of grapes and pop them in my mouth. Take the cheese out of its wrapping. Rub my fingers across it. Did I touch poison oak down in the canyon? Maybe. Hard to say.
I copy down the Kittles’ phone number (could come in handy). Explore the junk drawer. I resist the temptation to scribble Quiet your dog! on the empty space on the calendar beside Sandra’s cancelled visit. I take down a steak knife from a magnetic strip near the fridge and run my tongue up and down it. Juvenile, yes. The last time I did this, I was a juvenile. Maybe I’ll come back tomorrow. Bring a few props this time. Hide a ripe banana in the linen closet. Slide a disgusting photo into a coat pocket. Drop a dead fly into their chardonnay.
I go upstairs and enjoy perspectives of my own house that I’ve never seen before. Peer into the first bedroom—a guest room? A child’s bedroom? Is this where Sandra spent her childhood? Nice master bath. Might be your best selling point, if and when you decide to sell.
I take a pee surrounded by gleaming mirrors. It’s a well-earned pee, a post-coffee pee. I reach to flush, then stop myself. No flush. Why not sow a tiny seedling of discord between Dave and Marilyn? She’ll blame him for being a pig. He’ll have no clue why she’s in a rotten mood.
From my wallet, I dig out the neon business card of a divorce lawyer that I picked up after Amy left. What kind of crass business ploy is that anyway? He wasn’t worth a red nickel. I leave it facedown on the carpet just beside the small waste basket in the bedroom. Why not have a little fun with Mr. and Mrs. Wonderful?
I’m not sure if the dog still knows there’s someone in the house. Its barking has returned to its normal rhythms, though it sounds different not echoing around the canyon. Up close, the cheese-grater effect on my nerves is intensified. I feel the cortisol flowing in my blood. I feel like I could pick up this refrigerator.
How can you live with this, Dave and Marilyn? How can you be so deaf? It’s possible you could both be deaf, but that shelf of CDs—the Three Tenors, The Brandenburg Concerto—says otherwise.
I’ve been putting up with this for months—fuck that, years. And I’ve never once—not once, not early in the morning, not late at night—heard either of you scream for the dog to shut up. That would be something in your favor. But I don’t even get that. From certain angles—say, from my house to yours—indifference and hostility look pretty much identical.
So, what am I to conclude here? You must know the damn dog is destroying the peace and quiet of the neighborhood, but it means nothing to you. It never once occurred to you that someone in the house across the way might be bothered, might feel violated, trapped, might come to see that his own house is no escape from the rudeness and ignorance of other people.
And here, of all places. In the golden Soquel Hills, every home a seven-figure valuation. You and I, we’re not uneducated burger-flippers living in some shitty apartment complex. I’d expect noise pollution at a place like that. We should know better.
I could’ve retaliated. I could’ve dragged out some speakers as big as your sofa and aimed them at your house, blasted out Whitesnake and Zappa every time your dog got out of control. I’d kind of enjoy that.
But even after years of your assaults, I’ve never succumbed to tit-for-tat, because that’s not who we are. At least, that’s not who I am.
I don’t expect you to look over at my house and worry about me, send over bran muffins and a cheese plate. I don’t want your friendship. I don’t want to be invited to barbecues. I just want the slightest sliver of humanity, that impulse to think about what your beloved little monster might be doing to your neighbors’ peace of mind, the sense to know that someone close to you is suffering even if you’re not. This house tells me that you’re capable of that.
Now, I just want it to stop. For good. It’s gone too far.
I slip out the kitchen door into the garage, and then out the back door of the garage, just as I came in.
When I get home, I take a long shower, do a load of wash, and make it to Zelda’s at the beach just in time for happy hour. For about an hour, I’m happy too.
* * *
Friday morning is clear and sunny. I feel inspired, determined to make some progress on my work. The coffee has a brightness to it. It tastes alive, a tad fruity. I’m twenty minutes into writing code before I notice it. No barking.
Through the binoculars, I see no sign of the dog. Did they get rid of it? Did they somehow come to their senses and flash on how rude they were being to the neighbors by keeping that poor thing locked up all day?
The back door to the house is open. A figure in yellow plastic coveralls appears at the door, holding a garbage bag. Man, I can’t be this lucky. They probably just took the dog for a walk while the house cleaners were working.
Might as well enjoy the quiet while it lasts. I turn back to my work. I find myself in the zone much quicker than usual. See, it makes a difference, the quiet. A man needs quiet.
And yet, another interruption. This time, the doorbell. I glance out my second-floor window to see a car in the driveway.
Santa Cruz County Sheriff. What the fuck is this? Nobody saw me go into the Kittles’ house, or leave it. I’m sure of it. This must be about somethin
g else.
It’s a man and a woman. Both in uniform. I smile, invite them inside. They decline. So I go outside, and stand in my front yard with the two deputies.
They’re not unpleasant—very cordial, in fact. They tell me they’re investigating a break-in in the neighborhood. They ask my name, who else lives in the house, how long I’ve lived here. I cooperate.
“Do you the know the Kittles, sir?” says the woman deputy.
“No, I . . .”
“They’re your neighbors just across the way in the back over on Bobcat Lane.”
“Oh, yes. Were they burgled?”
“Not really.” The woman looks warily to the male deputy. “Were you at home yesterday, sir?”
“In the morning. Spent the afternoon at Zelda’s in Capitola. Much of the evening too, actually.”
“Did you see or hear anything unusual?”
“Unusual, how do you mean?”
The female deputy purses her lips. The man sighs. He looks very young, like a high school kid almost. I can see his jaw clenching. He speaks for the first time: “Look, there was a pretty serious crime committed over there. You might want to consider—”
“Did you see anything unusual?” she repeats, interrupting.
“No, nothing. Don’t I have a right to know what’s happened here?”
“The Kittles’ dog was butchered sometime yesterday,” says the boy deputy.
“Butchered? What do you mean ‘butchered’?”
The female deputy shakes her head and gives him a look. Not a happy one. “Wyatt,” she says. “Don’t—”
“Killed with a steak knife,” says the male deputy, ignoring his partner. “Its blood and entrails spread all over the interior of the house, the walls, upstairs and downstairs. Things drawn on mirrors and surfaces in blood. Food thrown all over the place, broken glass, dishes. Whoever it was must have been over there for a long time, working up a pretty good rage.”
“Deputy, that’s enough,” says the woman. She approaches me with a business card in her hand. “Sir, if you see or hear anything out of the ordinary, anything at all, please call us. This is my personal cell phone number. We’ll be patrolling the neighborhood for a while.”
“Yes, of course, I will.” My mouth is so dry I can barely get out the words.
“You have a good day, sir.” The deputies walk back to their car. I need some water and I need to sit down. I step back into the house, pour a glass of water, and gulp it down. I sit at the kitchen table for I don’t know how long, listening back in my head to what the deputy said. Things drawn on mirrors? What the fuck was he talking about? I need to get out of here. Take a run. Maybe along the beach at New Brighton. Maybe take the bike to Nisene Marks. Burn off this anxiety.
As I move to go down to the garage, I pass by the window. To my shock, the sheriff’s car is still there. The two deputies talking to each other. Suddenly, another car appears. Another sheriff’s car. It parks right behind the first one.
The original officers get out of their car again. The two new boys flank out to opposite sides of my house. One reaches over to put his hand on his gun, like you and I would pat down our pocket to make sure we had our phone. The other one is carrying something bright yellow, like a Post-it note, in a plastic bag.
The doorbell chimes again. I can’t believe it. Somewhere deep in the canyon to the east, I swear I can hear another dog barking.
THE BIG CREEP
by Elizabeth McKenzie
The Circles
I met Ronald Hill at the frozen yogurt place on Mission Street. It was a late afternoon in January, raining, near dark, the road clogged with pissed-off commuters, but he made it on time.
I took off my yellow anorak as soon as I came inside. My hair was frizzy and pulled to the side with a clip and I looked about as respectable as possible for meeting a new client in that weather. He wanted the corner, as far from the college girl at the counter as we could get. We could only find a table that hadn’t been bussed. I wiped off some pink sprinkles with the back of my hand while he got rid of somebody’s mug smudged with coffee all around the lip, like they’d been sucking on it.
He told me his name. Ronald was probably in his forties, overdressed for Santa Cruz, in a gray sharkskin suit. He had a thin neck rattling around in his shirt collar, reddish-brown hair shaved close on the sides, a tight, square jaw, and small blue eyes with thin eyebrows that made it easy to picture him as a needy baby.
“Can I get you anything?” he asked, before taking a seat.
To be honest, I always choose the frozen yogurt place with the hope the client will get me something. I agreed to a large vanilla, with cookie dough and fresh strawberries. I calculated how much money I’d just saved me and my dad in calories.
“So, it sounds like you know Teddy?” he asked.
“We’re in a class together, that’s all.”
“I hope it’s not necessary to say that everything I’m about to tell you is confidential?”
“Yep, it’s not necessary.”
“I wasn’t too thrilled about hiring a fifteen-year-old girl as my PI, but Joe Fernandez told me a few of your success stories and says I can trust you.” He challenged me with his childish blue eyes.
I shrugged. “I don’t care if you trust me or not. I have enough stuff to do.”
“Don’t take it the wrong way.” He sighed and leaned in closer to the table. “Teddy’s mother and I divorced a little over a year ago. I live about a mile away now and I try to see Teddy as much as I can. It’s been working out okay, but about five months ago, she started seeing a guy named Kyle Wilkins.”
His fingernails were manicured, I noticed, and he was noticing too. He was staring at his own fingernails, which looked as if they had a coat of polish.
“And?”
“So it looks like Kyle is making it his life’s mission to be Teddy’s best friend. Believe me, I wouldn’t want Teddy to have to be around someone who’s indifferent to him or treated him badly. But it’s getting to the point that Teddy would rather hang around with him all the time—even when it’s my weekend. And Kyle’s doing things with him that I don’t approve of. He has a pilot’s license and he’ll just take Teddy out of school, go to Tahoe with him for the day. I mean, geez, I can’t compete with that.”
“What makes you think it’s a competition?”
“In case you don’t know, it’s very easy for divorced fathers to get sidelined.”
“Have you talked to your ex-wife about stuff like the trips to Tahoe?”
“Yes. She thinks I’m jealous, that I’m not thinking of Teddy.”
Ronald Hill looked at his perfect fingernails again. They must have made him feel important. Even though I have to work around it all the time, I have problems with well-dressed people in fancy jobs who are ostentatiously concerned about their children. He was probably the kind of jerk who, when Teddy was born, had a Baby on Board sign in the window of whatever air-bagged, super-safe SUV they’d picked up to tote their spawn.
“So what do you want exactly?”
“I guess I’m afraid he’s using Teddy to get to Ariel, and who knows how long that’s going to last. Teddy’s going to get hurt if they break up. Anyway, I feel like there’s something not right about him.”
“Why?”
“That’s why I came to you.” He looked like he was holding back, trying to decide what else to tell me. “Ariel is from a wealthy family. She has a lot of money and she’s going to inherit a lot more. Who knows who Kyle Wilkins is! Google him, you’ll see. There’s nothing. He’s a nobody!”
This put me firmly on the side of Kyle Wilkins. Nobodies were somebodies in my world. Every time I saw someone treating my dad like a nobody, I understood the origins of violence. “So let’s say I get something on Kyle Wilkins. How are you going to use it?”
“I’m going to make sure Ariel knows, without involving my son. She’s very protective of what’s hers. If the guy’s trying to enrich himself at her expense, she
’ll pull away.”
“Like she did with you?” I blurted out. I don’t know where that came from. I’d read too many detective stories not to suspect the client of having some personal agenda. And some guy who wanted to discredit his ex-wife’s new boyfriend automatically looked bad.
He pushed away from the table. “We had differences about raising Teddy, is what it comes down to. If we’d never had a child, who knows, we’d probably still be married. But Teddy’s all that matters now.”
What a big creep. If they’d never had Teddy, he and his wife would still be married? Like he’d spent time imagining his life without his kid? I’d like to hope most parents are too superstitious to do that.
He forked over a clean fifty-dollar bill to start me off, and we stepped outside. It had gotten dark and traffic had loosened up, but the rain was still coming down, and passing cars were sending explosions of grimy water into the air when they hit the rushing gutters. I said I’d start looking into it, and be in touch in a few days. He walked away and started to sprint across Van Ness to his car as if getting wet would kill him. A white van coming north on Mission took the corner, brakes screeching, fishtailing—I’d end up describing it way too many times. I saw the whole thing. I saw the van smash into Ronald Hill and go right over him.
There was this eerie quiet for a second. The van stopped, while the traffic kept passing on Mission. I should have known no one survives an impact like that, but I ran to Hill, his body lying in a pool of blood mixed with the rain. I kneeled to lift his head, to look into his little blue eyes—nobody’d say he looked like a baby now. All this hot liquid was running out the back of his head.
In no time, three cop cars showed up, and I could hear the ambulance and fire truck on the way. I saw an older guy with a white beard in a blue denim work shirt getting out of the van and talking to a cop, gesturing wildly. I crouched in front of the yogurt shop to wipe my hands in the wet grass. Then I was standing in the rain shaking. One of the uniforms peeled away from the scene and came my way. It was Joe.
“Into the car,” he said. “Come on.” He wrapped his jacket around me. “What the hell happened?”