“That’s enough, you two.”
Once out of the subway, she decided she would walk down Dovercourt. The dogs kept pace, only stopping here and there to nuzzle the pavement or urinate on spindly trees they passed. At Dewson, she halted and had them sit and stay, then headed in for day one.
The front desk had no knowledge of a new hire. Hilary put more weight on one leg and raised her eyebrows. “I dunno,” she said.
“Today is supposed to be my first day. A guy named Danny hired me last week. To wipe down machines.”
“Oh, yeah. I overheard something, now you mention it. Hi, I’m Judy,” Judy said, extending her hand to shake. Judy pulled her hair back and Hilary saw she had a tattoo behind her ear. It was one of those tats done with white ink so they look like scar tissue build-up.
“Is that a mongoose?”
“No. But that’s funny. I’ve heard it looks like one from a few people.”
“What is it?”
“It’s actually the word “strife” shaped like a fish. Do you like it? It’s my favourite word.”
“Yeah, it’s awesome.”
“Mongeese are cool, too,” Judy said. “I buzzed for Danny. He should be a minute.”
Hilary rolled mongeese around all day after that. The job was a cinch. She only had to wipe down machines with a spray bottle and cloth, recalibrate resistance trainers, replace the weights in the right order and smile at people. Twice that day she cleaned out the ladies’ toilets and checked the shower, steam and whirlpool area, and reported back to the main janitor. Easy minimum wage plus she got a free membership, so after work, she used the facility to clean herself up. She smiled and waved at Judy on the way out the door, 5:30 sharp, and Judy waved back. “Hey,” Judy called, “how’d it go?” Hilary gave her the thumbs up.
The dogs were waiting in different places along the route and had attracted more strays. It was hard to count them as they jockeyed for position, smelling her crotch, jumping on one another. Eventually Hilary gave up. Back to the subway, through to High Park, Hilary detoured to Sunny Cafe for a slice of pizza and another sour key or two. She loved the way the candy chemical gave over to sweet just too late, so that right when her mouth puckered, it began to soften.
Trevor called just as she got inside her apartment. She had a hard time concentrating with the dogs anxious in the small space, vying for her attention. “No,” she said, into the phone, then “Hi, yeah!” then “No, I don’t think so,” and “Well, I’m really sorry.” Snot had her paws on Hilary’s feet and was stretching, bum up, tail wagging wildly. Mangy and Perk were into the garbage already. Hilary needed to get better at sealing that. “OK, but don’t expect conversation,” she was saying. “I’m a working girl now.”
By the time he got there she was asleep; the dogs tumbled in and around her, using her face and neck and legs as pillows. Trevor had a key. Seven dogs came in with him, having scented Hilary out from High Park once dusk reminded their stomachs of her.
She was a curl of pink, a half-moon face partially obstructed by the scruff of a labradoodle. Trevor gasped. He’d never seen anything as breathtakingly beautiful. It reminded him of those baby portraits with the newborn in a flower or a bunny suit, and he wanted to cry or, alternatively, make love.
He got down on all fours and pushed the dogs out of the way until he was snuggled in with her. He tried to wake her with a few loud sighs but she wouldn’t move. “Honey?” he said, right into her ear.
“Honey? Can I?” already he had his hand rotating around her nipple but as he pleaded with her to wake up, he slid his fingers down her tracksuit pants and into that damn portal.
“Let me ravage you in your sleep, baby.”
He took the faint grimace that crept on her face, and the tiniest shift towards him in body language, to mean yes. Snot and Perk looked on while he pulled her pants down, gently turned and mounted her.
“Fuck off,” he muttered guiltily, but the dogs only edged in closer and looked up at him. It turned out OK, though, because Hilary woke up and got into it. He was exonerated! It was the first time they’d done it all the way since this dog manifestation started the week before and Trevor had been increasingly jealous and temperamental about it—not at all philosophical as she’d suggested he be.
Now he was actually enjoying the proximity of the pack, their hot breath around him, the encroachment, the wildness of it. A pugbeagle licked their toes metronomically through the entire lovemaking. Trevor had never been to an orgy and wondered if this counted.
“Hilary?”
“So tired—”
“It’s coming up to the end of the month.”
“Trevor, can this not wait?”
“I’ve been thinking of moving in, actually.”
“What?”
“Yeah, well, I’m pretty much here all the time, anyway.”
Day two went reasonably well. The TTC guy managed to stop most of the dogs from entering the system. But then they refused to leave the main area, and hounded the Sikh who sold chips and newspapers, essentially ruining his morning, until he finally grabbed a Mr. Big, tore the wrapper down, waved it out at the pack and then turned and ran screaming up the escalator, the dogs giving chase.
“Hey, dude,” said the ticket guy when the Sikh returned, and then when he got no response, “Dude! Osama!”
The seller only shook his head in disbelief, or mock disbelief, and went on looking at the floor of his booth, trying to catch breath.
“Dude. Osama! Yo!”
That finally elicited a glare.
“What? Wha’d I do?” The ticket guy looked over to make sure his booth was locked. He’d recently bought a Kevlar vest and was wearing it now. Dude had been freaking him out since he’d won the concession. Dude could be from, like, anywhere. No one could expect to feel safe any more. “Why don’t you never talk? For Christ sakes. Dude never talks to no one.”
“I talk.”
“You never talk.”
“I am talking with you right this second. And why do you call me Osama? My name is Yusef. Call me Yusef.”
“It’s no big deal, dude.”
“Yusef! It’s a deal. No big deal. My name is Yusef.”
“It’s friggin’ slang.” People had become too soft-skinned. “It’s a joke. You don’t have humour where you come from?”
“Yusef!” and here Yusef raised his right arm high above his head and pointed to the roof of his kiosk. He did not know the word slang.
“I come from Brampton.” He added, “We have humour.”
“Yusef,” the ticket guy said. Jesus, with all the conversation and the Kevlar, he had started sweating.
“Exactly.”
“Thanks for getting rid of those dogs.”
“You’re welcome. Now shut up.”
“Hey, pal!” He really wanted to make this good. He unlocked the booth and waddled out to find Yusef’s line of vision. “Yusef,” he said, then smiled. “I am Mike. You can call me Mike.” Yusef nodded and Mike waddled back towards the booth. He didn’t get paid for this, so he muttered, “I don’t get paid for this, Yusef. Maybe you do, but I don’t.” Then he turned back, fumbled in his trouser pocket for change, asked for and received a Coke and a Kit Kat. “Here,” Mike said, “keep the change.” Which he thought was hilarious, since he was actually short a couple of pennies.
There were thirty-five dogs by day’s end and Hilary, exhausted, found them sitting alert in the small park opposite the station at High Park. There was a new cur lounging on the park bench and another huge emaciated dog off behind the main grouping. It was tawny and scraggly and fierce—cold-looking. Wow, she thought, and then: kinda wolfish, though she’d never seen a wolf. But then she brushed the thought out of her mind, since it made no sense. Anyway, the new dog or whatever it was didn’t bother following her home when the rest did.
The next day, after work, Mike called out, “Hey, lady,” as she pushed through the turnstile. “Hey, dog-lady. I see that wolf down here again and
I’m calling the cops.” She didn’t look his way at all, which left him with something to think about, but she had heard, he was pretty sure.
Hilary hadn’t wanted to acknowledge A: herself as dog-lady; B: any problems re wolves or whatever; C: Mike, period.
There were three “big dogs” in the pack when she got out the door.
“Well, holy fuck,” she whispered.
She could hardly hear above their clamour but she was pretty freaked about the pack coming in now there were these creatures amid them, so she bolted them outside the door and called Trevor.
“Probably not wolves, honey.”
“The TTC guy thinks they are.”
“Fat Mike? He grew up in Scarborough. He wouldn’t know a wolf from a— Hey, I bet that’s what you are dealing with.”
“Dealing with?”
“Yeah, Irish wolfhounds or else some mixture.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Totally. Tawny? Wiry hair? Big?”
“Yeah!”
“Totally wolfhounds.”
Hilary unbolted the door and let the dogs stream in. They appreciated this and let her know it by snuffling her and by smiling their lips back, showing their teeth without growling. This always made her laugh and it did now. These wolfhounds were the noblest dogs she had ever seen. They hung back and circled one another, yipped quietly, then sat on their haunches and watched the other dogs hump each other and rise up nipping and ear-chewing in gorgeous faux battles.
Every once in a while, for fairness, Hilary pulled the playing dogs apart and made them sit, and let other small groups of dogs clash together in these strange, seemingly ritualistic fights that she thought she might never tire of watching. Play-fighting dogs were beautiful. Even the wolfhounds seemed to be enjoying the arena.
But then, when she made space for two miniature schnauzers to play, things went awry. She wasn’t aware of the shift but in retrospect she would allow that there had been a stiffening in the posture of some of the dogs on the group periphery. Initially the schnauzers circled and turned, almost dancing, noses to asses, one licking, the other avoiding by curling its butt toward the ground and twirling away. And then, here, what she loved to watch, they rose on their hind legs and batted with front paws and teeth, swiped at one another. Oh, such verve and joy.
“Nice one!” Hilary clapped. “Yes! Clever!”
They looked like puppets of dogs to her, and she laughed at this thought, and while she was laughing, very suddenly, the Irish wolfhounds pounced upon the schnauzers, seizing them and flinging them to and fro, letting them free only to bite through their small backs. She could do nothing.
The schnauzers were shrieking. And then not shrieking.
The energy in the apartment was suddenly so clenched down that there was nothing to hear but the silky manoeuvring of the wolfhounds, and when it was over, such a baying and a yipping, as they hunkered and called out to the other dogs, warning of their territory and their kill, the meal they then set to licking and tearing apart.
Hilary was paralysed with fear.
And the blood, so quiet in its redistribution, splashed out across the kitchen, so that Hilary pressed up against the fridge in the far corner, suddenly shocked back to herself, and screamed.
“Ah, jeez.” it was Trevor, who had come in too late to do anything.
“Coyotes.”
Coyotes had had a presence in High Park for some time. The animal services entry, found through the obvious search engine, though dated, read:
Coyotes are extremely intelligent and they adapt and learn very quickly. Every encounter that isn’t scary may encourage the coyote to get closer next time. Ideally, park users would actively scare a coyote away at every sighting (suggestions on how to do this are attached).
The attached PDF pamphlet gave helpful hints like being mean, large, loud, etc. It also had directions for a coyote shaker, which Hilary promptly made by recycling an aluminum diced-tomatoes can and filling it with coins. The pennies made a loud but not unpleasant susurrus when she shook the shaker. The can didn’t have much of an effect on the coyotes, though. They just looked at her and seemed, in between yips, to snicker.
There were more and more each day. So, she took to dropping meat at the small park so they’d stay behind, which worked, but only sort of; it caused a lot of jealousy and consternation among the main pack of strays, and once they’d done ripping apart the meat and devouring it, the coyotes followed her scent back to the apartment anyway. Every dog in the city seemed to know how to intimidate or charm someone into opening the doors of buildings, and likewise, the coyotes would make their way up and bay and scratch at Hilary’s sixth-floor apartment door. But she wouldn’t let them in the apartment any more.
They’d burned their bridge on that account.
Judy locked eyes with Danny until he finally said, “What?”
“Don’t you think she’s the tiniest bit weird?”
“She’s a hard worker.”
In strained baritone, Judy said, “When asked by the police whether he had ever seen any unusual behaviour from the suspect, her boss, Daniel Grainger, declared, ‘She’s a hard worker.’”
“So what? She is.”
“Have you noticed the fur smell?”
On the morning of day six, there were three mismatched puppies prodding at Snot’s belly when Hilary and Trevor woke up. Trevor gleefully hugged Hilary and they stood there ogling the creatures so long that Hilary had to skip breakfast. While she showered, Trevor packed her a tuna fish wrap and a pickle. It was his favourite lunch.
“Nature is wondrous,” he exclaimed. “Oh my God, look at how cute they are.” Snot looked so loving, and no one would deny the puppies were—well, anyone’s heart would be shattered at the sight.
Hilary made her eyes big and smiled. “Yeah!” Then, “I better get going or I’ll be late.” she had to press herself to the wall and edge through the door to keep the coyotes out. Two of them had managed to get past the building security and there were a few—five, actually—just outside the main door. An elderly woman with a walker was coming up the street scolding them.
“In my day,” she said, “there weren’t all these animals.”
“Shoo,” said Hilary, and scattered them to let the woman by.
“They’re so BOLD!” said the woman.
Hilary thought about the schnauzers and nodded.
Judy was sick with a head cold so Danny spent ten minutes teaching Hilary the front desk and then left her to it. The job involved making people membership cards and taking their money and saying, “Of course,” as politely as a person can that many times a day. As in, “Of course, I’ll call the manager for you.” Or, “Of course, you are right. Let me take your phone number and I’ll have someone get back to you.”
And this wouldn’t have been brain surgery if she hadn’t looked through the front windows mid-afternoon to see the pack pressing up to the glass, licking it, pawing it, jumping upon or curling around one another so that it was difficult for patrons to get their frumpy bodies in on time for yoga chant class.
“There are these dogs trying to get into the foyer.”
One woman shrieked; it turned out she was “pathologically afraid of canines.” Hilary wondered if that pathology was terminal, but did not ask. She was finding herself increasingly anxious with all the dog attention. Why her? It felt metaphoric but she couldn’t fathom of what. At 3:35, Trevor showed up sweaty and half-naked from jogging over, and pranced in showing off his abs. He was wearing suspenders—over nothing.
“Scaramouche!” He struck a Freddie Mercury pose, lunging his hips out exactly right.
“All right, then. Wow.”
“What? You’ve been humming it all week.”
“I have?”
“Oh, Oh, Oh, Oh!” he sang.
“Weird.” She shook her head, in a way Trevor interpreted as you awesome thing, and then she said, “How are the pups?”
“The whole pack is taking care of them
.” Trevor looked back and acknowledged the dogs outside the window and added, “Well, except for those ones. The ones who stayed when I opened the door to leave are really great parents. I mean truly awesome.”
“And these guys?”
When they got back to the apartment, the door was ajar and one of the puppies was—well—no longer whole. Several of the dogs were still whimpering. Trevor let out a shrill “Nooo!” Then, “How the hell did the door get opened, for Christ’s sake?”
“You must have accidentally left it open.”
“No,” Trevor said. “No fucking way was it left open.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m getting a goddamned gun. No one should be coming into the apartment like that.”
“You think someone did this?”
“I mean those animals did this.”
Hilary cleaned the mess up and Trevor couldn’t even help, he was so angry. He just sat up on the kitchen counter and lit a smoke and shook his head, trying with his foot to keep Snot from licking the blood off the rug. “Oh, man! Oh, MAN!” Eventually he got down and went to Hilary’s computer and typed “Guns” and “Toronto” and came up with Al Flaherty’s Outdoor Store, the last remaining gun shop in the city, and said, “Honey, I’m going for a walk.”
“Should I come?”
“Sure you can.”
“Forget it, I’m too tired from all this,” meaning the coyotes, the dead puppy, and all the YMCA front-desk generosity. But mostly it was the wanton cruelty that had made her tired.
While Trevor was gone she wondered whether she could care, really care, for a guy who had a gun, and she decided that any guy who was so infantile as to think that a gun would solve any of the world’s problems was not the kind of guy she would be able to see herself with long-term. But when he arrived some hours later, and woke her up by turning the lights on and standing Rambo-style with the wooden-handled, single-shot BB rifle, she saw him in a new light. He looked like the pissed-off cowboy of her dreams, and where before he had seemed a little effete and fey, now he seemed effete and fey in a sexy way. And Hilary thought, maybe.
They went outside the apartment building and Trevor levelled the gun toward the pack of coyotes circling an abandoned shopping cart and squinted to line up the sites, then pulled the trigger and screamed so loud a few lights went on and they had to make a run for it. His elbow was bleeding and, from the look of it, the BB had ricocheted off the shopping cart right back at him. They turned in time to see the coyotes scatter into the shadows. It was as if they were phantoms, as if they never existed except in the imaginations of Hilary and Trevor. But the elbow wound was real.
Imaginarium: The Best Canadian Speculative Writing Page 23