The Dog Log

by Richard Lucas

  January 21, 10:20 AM

  First off, I ended up not hearing anything from the design placement agency. I don’t know what I’m supposed to feel because maybe they will call today, but I doubt it. My positive thinking has run dry. If and when I stop thinking about having hope, the easier it will be to move on to “Why did I even bother?” To move on. Maybe having something else to not think about will push that down the failure-obsession pipeline. Or maybe they will call today. Maybe Roxy will call today. Either of those things could happen. Both of those things could happen. Both of those things could not happen. Maybe someday I’ll get paid for maybes. Maybe.

  January 22, 10:55 AM

  German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche said, “Anything which is a living body . . . will strive to grow, spread, seize, become predominant—not from any morality or immorality—but because it is living and because life simply is will to power.”

  Nelson has spread his dominance over the entire kitchen floor and then some. I must extend my will to power and become dominant in that kitchen. This is our Battle of Kursk. I will throw all my tanks and my best soldiers against his, and may fate bring justice to this land.

  5:30 PM

  I’ve got it. If we’re trying to dissuade Nelson inside, then we need to persuade him outside. I’d already bought a bag of dog treats, potato and duck flavor.

  “The dogs go crazy for them,” I was reassured at Tailwaggers.

  “Potato? When has a dog shown a craving for a potato?”

  “It’s agriculture. I don’t know,” the cashier said. “This is why I’m a checker and not a vet.”

  So, I’ll take a pocketful of treats out with me on the walks. I’m going to institute a strict Treats for Pee program: no treats—any time—except outside, immediately after proper evacuation. Nelson bounces up and down like he’s on a pogo stick when he hears the treat bag rattling. He must love potatoes. Today is the end of the treats inside though. Now he’s got to earn them on the streets. This is a job. They are his paycheck. It’ll feel good, raise his self-esteem, get him off welfare. Through a little discipline, he’ll learn some self-respect. Maybe once he learns to go outside, he’ll start to understand the daily exchanges from other dogs. I’ll use his desire for treats to jump-start his instinctual drives.

  9:30 PM

  Night walk. First trial with Treats for Pee. Lauren got one. Nothing for Nelson. He lined up right next to her when she got her reward. He’s confused, even though I’ve explained everything to him many times. He needs to figure it out.

  January 23, 10:20 PM

  Day number two of Treats for Pee. Three walks. Nothing. Neither of them. Lauren is trying to control me. Do they sense that something’s up?

  January 24, 10:20 PM

  Day number three on Treats for Pee. Nothing.

  Nothing.

  January 25, 4:00 PM

  There’s so much activity on the sidewalks of this neighborhood every day that I never knew about. There’s a man around the corner on Willoughby—we call him the Shadow Boxer. He’s out there in front of his apartment with earbuds on, wearing sweatpants and a sleeveless T-shirt, shadow boxing with slow, purposeful, balanced movements, mixed with quick, repeating jabs, ducks, and undercuts, all with diamond-cutter precision. To the dogs, I say, “There’s Shadow Boxer, you guys, let’s see if we can get him to talk to us today.” But he never does. We walk by silently through his fluttering shadow, like being in a car rolling through a car wash.

  He looks to be in his fifties, fighting against the loosening tautness of that decade. His head is shaved except for a short mohawk going down the back, and from it hangs a decorative four-inch braid that whips around with his movements. His arms and neck are thick with muscle and are more tattoo than flesh. There’s a large one just below his right jaw that says BRIANNA. Someone he loves. We wonder if Brianna has seen it, or even knows about it, if Brianna is any part of his life anymore outside of the backward-reading memory in his mirror every morning, noon, and night. Maybe it’s her memory that he’s fighting off against the slow breeze. I may never get to find out if we don’t talk. When we walk by, we acknowledge one another with a brief nod, and everyone keeps moving through his shadow and pulling along our own.

  6:30 PM

  I can’t do this latex gloves, surgical mask, laying down a spread of newspaper in a single clean patch thing anymore. I either have to clean the entire kitchen floor or give up entirely. I’m afraid of what that apartment is making me vulnerable to: emphysema, asthma, TB, mesothelioma, black lung. I can’t face the idea of how much work it would be to get that kitchen floor clean. Nasty. Fuck.

  January 26, 3:45 PM

  On our afternoon walk today, we discovered someone invaluable—a professional dog walker and trainer named Austen. I struggle like mad with two dogs, but he walked with six, each some different type of breed and size, as if they were one single membrane.

  We ran into him about a half a block south of Waring on Edinburgh. Austen is unshaven and wears blue-tinted spectacles. Glasses that round and small must be called spectacles. I’ve never understood how people can look at the world through a hue. It must make them feel like they can alter reality. I’d like to look at the world through a blindfold.

  Austen is tall and gaunt. Seeing his thinness, I realized that I may have lost a few pounds with these daily walks. He’s just slightly fleshier than an empty coatrack. He has the individualistically unwashed air of one who is self-employed and dimly rebellious.

  His sallow cheeks frame up a warm skeleton smile when he sees us approaching. “You’ve got Irene’s dogs.” He’s quick to settle his leashed clients, who all sit dutifully as they allow my mutts to sniff around and underneath them ungraciously.

  “Everyone knows Irene’s dogs, probably by smell,” I said.

  “It’s the hair.” Everything he says frolics through the air like a toddler in a bouncy hut. “I see it as my job to get to know all of the dogs in the neighborhood, since I have to teach these guys to deal with everybody.”

  He stooped down to give the dum-dums each a treat.

  “Wait!” I stopped him. “They can’t get treats unless they pee first.” Then, calming myself, “We’ve been out here twenty minutes already.”

  “Ooooh, you’re training them? They aren’t house trained?”

  “They’re in-house trained, unfortunately,” I said, and then I explained Irene’s arm, my predicament, and the Sisyphus-like failure of my Treats for Pee program.

  Austen yanked the treats away. The dogs looked as if they’d just watched the ending of Brian’s Song.

  “You’re doing the right thing,” he said, “but they’re stubborn, huh?”

  “They refuse to live in accordance with the laws of nature,” I said, “and they are above temptation.”

  “You need to stick with it. Nothing’s impossible. You can teach any dog at any age to do anything,” he said, now in human-trainer mode. “As long as you keep them thinking about treats all the time but never give them any, unless it’s for the behavior that you’re teaching.”

  I appreciated his encouragement, but I doubted he’d ever come across dogs from a world such as theirs. His clients can afford a dog walker.

  We chatted for several minutes. He told me about each of the breeds in his pack as they lounged in the shade of a tree along with the dum-dums. And then he pulled forward a large black dog.

  “This is Misty. She’s a black Lab, and she’s all mine. She’s eight years old. She was a stray from Hurricane Katrina.” Misty was smiling, and her long tongue hung down like a wet carpet on a clothesline.

  “I struggle with people’s names. Dog breeds will be impossible. I’ve never been a dog person,” I said.

  “You are one now. You just don’t know it yet,” he said. “But Nelson and Lauren know. Look how they look at you.”

  He simply had no notion of that absurdity.

  He then pointed out with deft humor the irony of our discussion about dog treats w
hen he himself was currently managing a bout with bulimia. “I’m going through a breakup. Just dealing with some boyfriend stress and heartache, that’s all.”

  “I get it. I gain weight from the same thing.”

  “Oh, lucky you.”

  He handed me his card and said I should call him if I ever need help or advice. He then recommended a good shampoo, which I presumed he meant for the dogs, and told me they have it at Tailwaggers.

  I feel good about meeting him, Sheriff. Less alone. I taped Austen’s card to the wall above my computer when I got home. His tag line reads: “Dream the Im-paws-ible Dream.” We can do this.

  January 27, 1:00 PM

  I just got a call from someone named Fay. Her voice sounded as old and saggy as the wires between telephone poles. She said she was a friend of Irene’s and had just visited her in the convalescent home.

  Convalescent home?

  Apparently, the doctor at the hospital moved Irene into a home the second day after her fall. She’ll be there until they decide she’s capable of coming back to living on her own. Fay said that there’s an outside chance they may not let her.

  May not let her?

  “Well, how’s she doing?” I asked.

  “She’s not happy being there,” she said.

  I’m not happy being here, I thought.

  “She’s still in a great deal of pain with her arm,” the ancient explained, “so she’s unable to get up or down, in or out of bed. Her balance is suffering as well. But she really wants to come home. She misses her little doggies.”

  Why haven’t you or anyone else come to check on them then? I argued in my head.

  “How are they doing, little Nelson and Lauren?” she asked.

  “Well, I’ve been checking in on them—”

  “Oh, that’s wonderful,” she interrupted. “Irene was hoping that you would because she knew you had a key. Actually,” she chuckled, “at first, the idea horrified her because she thinks that you hate her dogs, but I told her that that just couldn’t be so, and not to worry.”

  It could be so. It could so be so. People have just assumed that I’d suddenly take care of these dogs? I was burning, but I couldn’t argue with an old lady on the phone for another old lady laid up in a convalescent home who is crying about her dogs.

  “I’m really afraid of what too much worrying could do to her now. She doesn’t look well,” Fay said. “And this place is awful. The other woman in her room talks to herself day and night, going off on anti-Semitic rants and yelling that the Nazis are coming.”

  “Does she want the Nazis to come?” I joked.

  “I think she does, but it’s a little hard to tell with the screaming,” she said with a controlled laugh. “It’s terrible. Irene is even having trouble reading because of it. She’s hoping to get moved to another room.”

  She should be pushing to get home, not to another room, I thought. But I swallowed my anger because there was a warm mix of sympathy, gratitude, patience, and time in Fay’s voice that was softening me.

  “Well, tell her not to worry. I’m checking in on them, and keeping them fed and everything,” I said.

  Does Fay know how awful it is in that apartment? I thought. Maybe that’s why she never came by. She’s old. She couldn’t handle these dogs anyhow. I wanted to say, “So if I hadn’t gone to check on the dogs, then the two of them would just be in there dead right now. It’s that simple, right? That’s how much she ‘loves’ the dogs? Total neglect? She wasn’t in a coma over there. It’s just a broken arm. Other than the bunkmate, it’s probably a lot like a vacation for her—lying around all day watching TV, playing bingo, reading books, sipping Cherry 7UP through a bendy straw, and eating egg sandwiches. And no one comes to check in on the precious dogs? You just assumed I’d be doing this?” But I kept it all in.

  Really, Sheriff, what would she have done for me in any kind of reverse situation? She ignored me all this time. And yet she assumes that I would do what I’m doing now?

  “Do you know that the dogs aren’t trained?” I asked in a desperate lunge toward martyrdom or, in the very least, empathy.

  “Oh, I know. I’m sorry,” she said. “I’ve been over there. I know it’s bad.”

  “Well—is she in much pain?” I asked.

  “Yes, unfortunately. The place where her arm broke is very high up near her shoulder, so the cast that they have her in puts her in an awkward position. It’s hurting her neck and hurting her back. They have her on a lot of pain medication, so she’s sleeping a lot and really groggy.”

  Why don’t they sedate the Nazi woman, too? I thought.

  “She’s not very happy,” she explained. “She says the doctor never comes around, and when he does, he doesn’t really say anything.”

  “Does anyone have any idea how long this will be?” I asked.

  “Well, my daughter’s a nurse, and she said that a broken bone is normally about six weeks to heal, but Irene’s a little older, so they can’t tell. Plus, as I said, if she can’t get some strength back enough to be able to move herself around, I just don’t know,” Fay explained. “Maybe if they start giving her some physical therapy when the bone mends, it can help.”

  Her bones must be like eggshells. This could go on forever, I thought. These dogs need to be put in a kennel.

  And with the clairvoyance that comes with age, Fay continued, “Irene doesn’t want to have to put the dogs in a kennel. She’s terrified. They’re so small and dependent. Plus, it would cost something like sixty dollars a day per dog, and she can’t afford that on Social Security. She’d lose them.”

  Attention all passengers: the guilt trip has reached its destination.

  She deserves to lose them, I thought. I couldn’t help myself. I have so much anger about this that I couldn’t express to Fay. And now guilt? Maybe Irene’s in a situation where she can no longer own dogs. That’s life. She couldn’t even take care of them properly before this! And now—why me?

  At this point, what was I supposed to say, Sheriff? What was I supposed to do? Even if I knew friends or a family somewhere that could house two dogs for a while, I couldn’t foist these two—untrained—on anyone. These two that can barely take a normal walk outside.

  I’m totally defeated. I was already done with this whole escapade before this call. Now it could be weeks. Treats for Pee isn’t working. I can’t do it. But those two dum-dums are sitting over there in the kitchen right now, sleeping or just staring off into space.

  “Tell her everything will be fine,” I said. “The dogs are being fed and walked, and they’re fine.”

  “She’ll be so relieved to hear that. I’m sorry I wasn’t able to contact you earlier, Richard, but this was the first chance I had to get over here myself, and it doesn’t seem like Irene has any other visitors.”

  “Well, thanks for the call, Fay,” I said. And that was it. That was it. I’ve really stepped in it, Sheriff—with Ralphs bags over my shoes.

  3:00 PM

  I still haven’t heard anything from Roxy. Man, oh man, would she be a big help in this situation. So caring with animals—very, very loving. I don’t have that in me. I might be OK trying to teach them to go outside with some encouragement or discipline, but I could never be the way she is. She’d make it seem so easy, make it fun. Damn, and what a fantasy challenge Irene’s apartment would be for a cleaner-scrubber girl like her. I think she’d actually be sexually turned on by it. Not kidding. She loves doing laundry and stuff like that. I think it touches a place of maternity inside her. I suppose she’s thinking about kids now. She might be a bit OCD with the way that she liked things so clean, but, even so, I only see that as a plus. Who am I kidding? I see everything as a plus. Now I miss her more. But now I’m cleaning up dog shit every day. Not attractive.

  6:20 PM

  Standing in Irene’s kitchen today, watching the dogs eat (yes, Lauren was actually eating), a theory of quantum physics from high school suddenly hit me like a pop quiz. You know we’re all .
. . well, everything is made up of particles. We as humans, it starts with DNA, then RNA, then cells—all particles. And quantum physics says that the particles themselves are not moving, they’re only reacting to fields around them. I just got back to my place and looked it up. Einstein said, “The field is the sole governing agency of the particle.” What he means is that the particle is affected by its surroundings, its environment, things that have energy that act upon it, not vice versa. Basically, we can physically see a magnet, but we can’t see the magnetic field around it. But when something else is introduced into that magnetic field, that is then what makes the magnets move. I think that’s essentially it.

  I was so excited to remember this. Mr. Kochinski would be amazed that I retained anything from his class.

  There are so many wackos out there, such as Ally, who think that we’re all governed by “the universe.” Some people think there are spirits around us, and that we have a spirit that affects other people or even draws certain people to us—remember the Law of Attraction? It’s our “field.”

  Well, standing in Irene’s kitchen—that universe, that field—I realized that the field has a profound effect on me; that’s for sure. Maybe it has the same effect on Irene, or even on the dogs. How can it not? When you walk into a restaurant, the size of it, the lighting, the aromas of the food, the decor, even the amount of people and types of people who are there all have an immediate effect on your desire to stay, your appetite, and your feeling after you’ve left. This is the same idea. Yes, she, they, created that mess, but maybe it snowballed on itself, tossing over and over to the point where the environment—her field—controls her as a human being. It’s physics. I’m thinking, if we can improve and control the field around the dogs, maybe we can improve their habits. I know they’re dogs and not humans, but they’re made up of particles just the same, and undoubtedly they react differently to various environments they may be in, i.e., a dog in a cage is different from a dog in the front seat of a car.