The Dog That Talked to God

by Jim Kraus

  “I guess. He seems like a nice dog. He is very calm. But he is fat.”

  “That’s fat? Really? Gus is fat?”

  “He is, Rufus. Maybe twenty pounds more than he should be.”

  We trotted along. Our chatting felt so right, so calming, the cold disappeared.

  “Where is Orlando? What is that?”

  “It’s a city, Rufus. We live in a small city. Wheaton. A city is a group of people living in the same place. Orlando is bigger than here. And it is a lot warmer. They don’t really have winter there. It never gets really cold. Never gets this cold, that’s for sure.”

  Though I could not see his face, I was sure Rufus tried to digest this information. We do watch television together. Maybe he gets some of what he knows from TV shows and news programs and The History Channel and whatever else it is that I watch when I zone out some evenings. It would be a sporadic source of information, for sure, and incomprehensible at times. I mean, how would a stranger, a dog, interpret Days of Our Lives—not that I’ve ever watched it . . . that often. Recently.

  “Gus would like the warmth. He says his back legs hurt all the time.”

  I almost asked Rufus how he would know that. But like taking a watch apart to see how it works would surely render the watch useless, I simply took Rufus at his word, that Gus had arthritis in his legs or hips and yearned to be in a warmer climate. It made sense to me.

  Instead of asking him how he and Gus communicate, I decided instead to confront Rufus on his apparent shift in allegiance the other afternoon.

  “When I asked you if you thought I should start dating—you said I should . . . right away. Why?”

  Rufus did not hesitate. “Because you are ready. To date. I think. If date means to be with a man. Then you are ready.”

  “And you know that how?”

  “I can smell it. You are lonely. You need to be with someone. People should be in pairs—like swans. That is the way God has it planned, isn’t it? I know it’s different with animals, sometimes, but people, well—doesn’t God want them to be in pairs?”

  I tried to figure out how to respond when Rufus posed another question. “Swans . . . those are those big white things that float, right? The ones we saw at that big water? The ones that wanted to chase us, right?”

  We had gone to Herrick Lake in the spring, a bigger lake, and had watched two swans, a husband and wife, I guess, swim closer and closer to us as we walked along the shore.

  “They didn’t chase us.”

  “I said ‘ wanted to.’ I could hear them. Another step closer and they would have charged. They scare me. Like that big other bird on the smaller water.”

  The egret from last summer that had swooped by us, so close I could make out the colors of the underside of its wings.

  “So God told you that?” I asked.

  “Sort of. Not really. I mean . . . I sort of know what he has said. Instinct, I guess. And you know what he has written—that men marry women, right? Mostly. Not always. But it’s better if they were. You are not a pair. And now that I know what dating is, you should try it. You would be a pair, then, right?”

  “I guess so.”

  We walked in silence.

  “So God wants me to date?” I asked.

  “I guess. That’s what’s in the Bible. Isn’t it? I can’t read, but that feels true.”

  We turned onto our street. “How often do you talk with God?” I continued. For me, well—I prayed, sometimes. Less now. I used to pray a lot. I sort of . . . gave it up for all the good it did me and all the answers that never came. I wanted to know how this dog came to have a direct line to the Almighty.

  “Once a week. Like all the animals.”

  “Only once a week?”

  “It’s enough for a dog.”

  Ava’s insistence wore me down. I guess I had been ready to be worn down. Her doctor friend—“He’s a podiatrist, not a doctor”—had a friend, a few years older than me, divorced, and ready to “get back on the market.”

  His words, according to Ava.

  I was already wary. Like I’m some vegetable on display in the produce aisle? I am pretty sure Ava liked to torment me some, in a good way, in a way that would keep me a bit off balance and unable to retreat into my safe, Christian isolation again.

  “So what does he do for a living?”

  She shrugged. We were ensconced in two, large, people-enveloping leather chairs at Starbucks. I wondered about bedbugs, since recent infestations were a staple of the twenty-four-hour news shows these past few months. Maybe bedbugs don’t like leather. I had no idea if it was true or not, but I felt better for thinking it.

  “I’m not sure exactly. Something in sales. Maybe.”

  “But he does have a job, right?” I said, not fully leaning back into the plush leather.

  “Oh, sure. I’m sure that he does.”

  We both sipped away.

  “So what do I do now? Pass him a note in study hall?”

  This made Ava laugh so hard that she nearly spilled her triple-named coffee concoction—I only get lattes—and she pushed her napkin at her nose. Once recomposed, she glared at me.

  “Stop being funny. I could have choked to death.”

  “Sorry,” I said, not feeling sorry at all. I liked it when I made others laugh. It had not happened all that frequently over the past few years.

  “No notes. I’ll call the podiatrist and he’ll call his friend and he’ll call you. Very neat and tidy.”

  I sat back, the import of what I had just agreed to negating all my bedbug fears.

  “So what do we do? Dinner? Dancing? Movies?”

  Ava smoothed the folds in her skirt. It was much shorter than the type I would wear. I wore sensible jeans. “It won’t be dancing. I’ve seen you dance before. Better coordination I have seen in marionette shows. So that’s out.”

  I scowled in displeasure. My dancing skills were . . . good . . . adequate. Uninhibited would be a better word. Untrained and uninhibited.

  Better than a marionette, for sure.

  “And a movie is no good either,” Ava continued. “Too much time not talking. And if you do eat afterward, it will be late, and you’ll be sleepy and yawny.”

  “I will not,” I countered, then remembered almost falling asleep at Denny’s, the only restaurant we could find open after a late showing of the what seemed like a five-hour-long movie, Titanic. Ava had to nudge me awake after she surreptitiously chowed down half of my Grand Slam breakfast.

  “So it’s just dinner?”

  Ava wiped at her mouth with the back of her hand.

  “Yes. But you have to pick the place. Don’t depend on the man to do it. If he picks, it will probably be at some stupid and loud sports bar that sells ‘dynamite wings.’ I learned my lesson with the podiatrist. All he eats is fried-somethings. And the fry-ier the better. Sports bars are his default choice. Disgusting venues, and unashamed purveyors of bad American food.”

  My head started to hurt with the plethora of new—and not welcome—choices this “dating thing” had brought into my life.

  “What sort of restaurant, then?”

  “How about that Greek place across the road. Carols?”

  “I guess that’s okay. But the sign out front needs an apostrophe. C-A-R-O-L-S. No apostrophe. I’ve told the owner and he just smiles at me.”

  “He’s Greek,” Ava said. “Maybe he has three sisters, all named Carol. Or, more likely, he probably doesn’t speak English.”

  “He does too.”

  “Like a dog understands English, Mary. He knows restaurant English.”

  “Restaurant English?”

  “You know. He understands what a hamburger is and what ‘chef’s salad’ means—and that’s it.”

  “You are so jingoistic,” I replied. I didn’t think she knew the word and I liked using such words when I could—my only edge in our relationship. She had me beat in every other category—looks, skinniness, vivaciousness, and the ability to make me l
augh. But I was smarter.

  Book smarter, anyhow.

  She did not rise to the bait.

  “Listen, I know you’re not going to do Starbucks. You’ve already told me the story of when you and Jacob first went out—like a hundred times—to a Starbucks. So that whole chain is out. Caribou is also out, probably, because it sells coffee. As for restaurants, you go upscale and then it feels like you owe him something afterward—and I know you won’t be going there.”

  “Ever.”

  “We’ll see,” she said, almost as if she could determine my frustrations on the intimacy front from looking at my face. She couldn’t, let me assure you of that. “The flesh can be weak, you know. So Carols is good. The place is nice and safe and well lit. There can’t be any unexpected expectations from that sort of meal. And it would be best if the date is just for coffee and dessert, rather than dinner,” Ava said, swallowed some coffee, took a deep breath, and continued. “I’m not real fond of the podiatrist’s eating habits. How a man can get through elementary medical school eating like an eight-year-old is beyond me. So dessert and coffee is safer. No twenty-five-minute waits for the Greek-style pork chops. No need to chatter away if he turns out to be . . . taciturn.”

  She used that word in triumph. I had used it on her a few weeks ago and she must have looked it up afterward.

  “Or phlegmatic,” she added.

  I waited a moment, then replied. “That has more to do with attitude, not wordiness.”

  And for that, Ava punched me in the arm—hard enough to hurt—and maybe to bruise my most sensitive flesh as well.

  We had agreed to meet at Carol’s . . . or rather, Carols. This saved us both any uncomfortable car rides home in case we thought the other one was a complete jerk, or a stalker, or a terminally mousy woman with no sex appeal.

  I waited in the small front lobby. The owners had recycled a few booth seats that they turned into a waiting area. In this restaurant, it was totally unnecessary. A waiting crowd never formed. Not because it was a bad restaurant, but because they turned tables over quickly. I think. Well, to be honest, no one would call it a gourmet place, but it was okay. Dependable. Always edible.

  A man came in to the small vestibule. His eyes darted around, so I imagined he was my potential date. Or, now, I guess, my actual date.

  “Mary?” he asked.

  He sounded nice, his voice a little deeper than on the phone. If Rufus asked me to describe him later, the first word that came to my mind was average. And not in the bad sense of the word—I don’t mean that I wouldn’t call him good or bad, just average. He stood a little taller than me. I found that out when we couldn’t decide to shake hands in greeting or exchange an air hug. That’s like an air kiss. A hug without really touching. I had my hand extended; he was expecting a hug. We met in the middle of both.

  “Brian?”

  His grin at the sound of his name grew wider than it should have been—by my standards. But he didn’t do it in a Labrador sort of ear-to-ear grin.

  “That’s me. You ready?” he asked and turned to the Greek owner who obviously understood it when Brian held two fingers in the air, indicating the size of our party. I thought our numbers were pretty obvious without the hand gesture, but that was just me.

  I might have guessed that Brian was a few years older than me. I’m a terrible judge of ages. Ava said he was older by a bit. His face looked older than mine, I think, with a few more wrinkles around his eyes. Maybe he had had too much sun. He looked like a golfer.

  (I don’t like golf much, either. Jacob golfed sporadically. He would watch hours of the game on Sunday afternoon when the Bears weren’t playing. Watching golf on TV was akin to watching curling on TV. Why do it? Then he would yell at the screen, for both good and bad shots.) Anyway, Brian looked like a golfer. He wore a golf shirt—though that didn’t mean anything, I guess, but it did have a little shark on the sleeve. I imagined only dedicated golfers would spend extra money to get sharks on their sleeves. His hair had thinned, was blondish, and, while he didn’t do a complete comb-over, it wasn’t cut short to expose the thinning, either. He had nice eyes, sort of brown. He was a few pounds heavier than he should be—but who wasn’t at our ages? He wore khakis and sneakers.

  He waited until I slid into the booth. For a moment, I thought he might slide in next to me. Actually, I think he would have if I had made room, but instead I parked myself in the exact middle and did not move. He waited half a beat, then took the other side.

  He smiled. That was a good sign.

  “You’re not like I pictured you,” he said. I thought I heard a hint of relief. “I mean, when I got word that I might be meeting, like, a famous author, I went right to my Apple computer (yes, he said “Apple computer”) and looked your books up on the Internet. And they had your picture on the back. At least on Amazon, they did.”

  I also had a website. It wasn’t all that fancy. My publisher made me do it. And there were a number of photos of me there. I guess his web search couldn’t find my name listed. Or perhaps he stopped after the first hit.

  “So how do I look different?”

  “I dunno. You’re taller than I thought.”

  The photo on the books was a profile, head-and-shoulders shot, making it hard to tell height.

  I am being horrible here. . . . I could only describe him as a nice man. He may have been just as nervous as I was.

  “And your hair is different. It’s shorter now, right?”

  He scored points for being observant. I had it cut into what my stylist called “a cute little bob,” which I hated and could not wait until it grew out.

  The waitress sidled over.

  “Ladies first,” Brian said.

  After hearing my pie and coffee order, he followed suit. I had hoped the instructions about “not dinner” had been passed along. I immediately became worried about it and asked.

  “You did know that . . . well, this was just going to be a dessert-and-coffee affair tonight, right?”

  I watched his eyes. I think he might have been formulating some sort of feigned surprise, then saw me watch him, and decided against it. Perhaps he was more perceptive than I gave him credit for.

  “Sure. I got the word. I mean, that’s a good thing,” he said. “I bet we’re both a little nervous and all. An entire meal is a long time if things aren’t clicking.”

  He was perceptive. And good-natured too.

  Maybe I would warm up to him.

  Fifty minutes went by quickly. In that time I learned that Brian had been indeed divorced (“We’re not friends exactly. We both made mistakes—so I don’t spend time saying bad things about her. It’s bad for karma. And no kids, which is good, I guess.”); had a job selling some sort of medical stent (not the latest technology, but “the cheapest—so a lot of doctors go that route. If you ever have open-heart surgery, let me know and I can get you a deal on medical devices.”); that he sold his house after the divorce to handle all his legal bills and divorce settlement, and now lives in the basement of his mother’s house—only temporarily (“until I find a good investment-grade real estate place—like a house or something”); and that he has been friends with Dr. Tom for “a gazillion years.”

  It wasn’t horrible.

  There were no emotional sparks, not that I expected any, to be sure. There were no sudden flashes of growing old with this man, like there had been with Jacob. I had disabused myself of thinking that this experience would match—or even come remotely close to—the day I met my late husband.

  I did feel as if I had been cheating on Jacob and tried my best to smile and push that thought away. Not an easy task—and I was not actually all that successful. I figured, however, that time would make the process less strange and easier to bear.

  I ate my cherry pie—with ice cream, the pie not warmed—with coffee, four smallish cups start to finish. He ordered toast. And tea. Only two cups of tea. I didn’t understand the toast part of the order, but I desperately wanted to avoid bei
ng too critical this evening, or reading too much into insignificant matters.

  Brian picked up the check, without hesitation, and put down two dollars as a tip on a ten-dollar tab. He was generous with the waitress. That’s a very good sign.

  He escorted me to my car. We both said we had a nice time—a pleasant conversation.

  He would have kissed me good-bye if I had leaned into him. But neither of us expected that to occur, so neither of us was disappointed. We did the same handshake-air hug like when we met. Maybe that would become our private joke.

  I didn’t think so—but it could happen.

  He told me he would call.

  I told him that would be nice.

  Perhaps we were both lying. Perhaps we were both telling the truth.

  I had no idea of who had done what, or why.

  Dating.

  Go figure.

  That night, Rufus seemed eager to talk. We had barely gotten to the sidewalk outside my house before he started peppering me with questions.

  “Did you date well?” he asked.

  I had decided that I would not spend a lot of time correcting his syntax. If I could understand him, that would be sufficient.

  “The date went well, I guess. He seems to be a nice man. We talked. It was pleasant.”

  He did not ask me all that many questions—Brian, not Rufus—as if he had learned enough about me from the two paragraphs on Amazon.com to satisfy all his curiosity. Jacob had been eager to learn every detail about my life and my past and what I thought about the debate between cell phones and smart phones.

  But . . . Brian was nice, and he was a man, and it was so comforting to speak to a person with a deeper voice than mine.

  “Will you mate with him now?”

  “Rufus!” I snapped back, in my best shocked schoolteacher voice. “That’s rude.”

  “Rude?” he replied, the hurt in his voice obvious and palpable. “But . . . how long does it take people to mate? I know dogs don’t wait very long. Or so I’m told.”

  I wondered if Rufus knew what I had done to him as a puppy, to remove all those sexual complications from his life. I didn’t need one more thing to feel guilty about. But . . . maybe he lacked the awareness to know what “intimacies” he no longer could enjoy.