The Dog That Talked to God

by Jim Kraus

  He knew God because God knows him.

  Or maybe I’m just a bit loony these days.

  Both could be true just as easily as not.

  9

  Three weeks before Christmas, Ava and the podiatrist, and Brian and me. How weird is that? A double date.

  Well, we did it. Dinner at one of the nicer restaurants in town—a faux French place. Actually, if I’m being uncritical, and I should be, it wasn’t faux at all. I think one of the chefs had actually come from France. That’s enough to lend an aura of European sophistication to a restaurant in a strip mall. And there’s the rub.

  The food was superb. The ambiance—well, they tried. My opinion that if you try to re-create some other locale, like a French bistro in DuPage County, then you will succeed in fooling no one at all. People will know that you bought the big French posters and other decorative pieces at Pier One down on Butterfield Road. It’s the pretending I can’t embrace. Jacob and I went to Epcot in Florida the year before John was born. At the end of the grand loop through a lot of “countries,” I came away oddly dispirited. We weren’t in Italy or France, or even Canada—we were sweating through an abnormally hot August in Orlando. And while the pasta tasted good at the Italian restaurant in Italy-land, and the waiters (at least ours) actually came from Italy, I still wasn’t in Italy—where I wanted to be. “Don’t fake it,” I said at the time, “just be Disneyworld and try not to put a disguise on it.”

  I should not depart from my story for these tirades. I am sure you’re much more interested in my evening with Dr. Tom et al. than you are of my anti-faux rants.

  We had a nice time. The food, as I mentioned, was great. Anything loaded with butter and wine has to be good. And Dr. Tom, whom I had met a few times before, was charming and self-deprecating. I don’t think he considered himself a real doctor either.

  “But somebody has to do it,” he said, “and it pays a lot better than selling shoes.”

  Brian acted kind and considerate that evening as well, as he had been on our previous few dates.

  I should mention that Rufus had gotten to meet him. On our second real date, Brian stopped at the house to pick me up and I asked him to come in while I got my coat from upstairs. Rufus had gone ballistic again at the doorbell. He had calmed down when I greeted Brian with an air hug and had stepped back a few paces to stare at this welcomed stranger.

  “I’ll be right down,” I said as I hurried up the stairs. “Rufus, no more barking. Brian is a friend, okay?”

  Rufus turned to look at me, as if to say that I should not be leaving him with a complete stranger like this. Who knows what the man might try to do to a defenseless little schnauzer?

  If Brian was put off by a standoffish dog with an attitude, he did not show it. He knelt down and extended his hand, palm open, to the dog. Rufus, in turn, waited a long moment (I could see this from the darkened upstairs landing) then took a very tentative step forward and sniffed Brian’s open hand. Brian did not move quickly, and spoke to Rufus in a low, calm voice, and brought up his hand to the top of Rufus’s head, gently petting his head. The dog warmed a degree and took another step closer, sniffing and staring intently.

  By then, I had my coat and came down the stairs.

  “My, don’t you look nice tonight,” Brian said. He turned to face Rufus. “Doesn’t she look nice tonight? I bet if you could talk you would say just that, right?”

  For a moment, I grew terrified that Rufus might do exactly that: start to talk. He did not—and obeyed his speech-is-for-outside-only rule.

  Later that night, after Brian had brought me home and left, following an air hug at the door, I changed into warmer clothes and Rufus and I went for our walk.

  “Did you like him?” I asked.

  “Who?” Rufus replied.

  I could have easily gotten semi-infuriated at his passive-aggressiveness, but realized that Rufus may indeed not have known whom I referred to.

  “Brian. The man who came over earlier. You sniffed him.”

  “Oh. Him. He seemed nice.”

  That’s it? He seemed nice? That’s all the divinely inspired discernment I am going to get?

  I waited a half a block until I had to ask a follow-up question.

  “But did you like him? Do you think he was a nice man? I mean, do you approve and all that?”

  Rufus snorked a couple of times, I guess in an attempt to clear his snout.

  “I don’t know. He seemed nice. He had a nice voice. Do all men’s voices sound that low?”

  “Most, I guess. Men’s voices are deeper, lower than women. It’s the way we’re made. Like the big black dog next door. He has a lower bark than you.”

  “He does? I thought my bark was . . . deep too.”

  Maybe dogs are like people as well—where our own voices sound so much different in a recording than they do in our own heads.

  “It’s deep. Maybe he’s just louder,” I replied, thinking that Rufus might be sensitive to my unintended slight.

  “Well, that man seems fine.”

  “So he’s not God’s choice for me?”

  “I don’t know. If you like him . . . but to be honest, I don’t think God plans it so there is only one person that a human has to find in order to be happy.”

  “Really? I don’t have to find the only person alive who might be my soul mate?”

  Rufus stopped, chewed on his front paw for a moment, then continued.

  “I don’t know what ‘soul mate’ is, but I think there is more than one person for every person. I’m pretty sure, anyhow.”

  I kept quiet for the rest of the walk, trying to digest his take on dating predestination.

  At the end of our date, at the end of the meal, thanks were issued all around, and Brian ran off to get his car.

  Ava grabbed my arm and whispered into my ear, “Be careful, Mary,” she said. I stepped back, trying to look peeved or shocked, or amused, or something. Something worthy of a strait-laced aunt whose purity and moral integrity had just been maligned in a backhanded way.

  I waved off her comment.

  “I’m fine.”

  Brian hurried around the car and opened the door for me. There was more waving and thank-yous in the cold night air.

  Brian drove carefully. He walked me to my door. Before I could say anything, he volunteered, “I can’t come in tonight, Mary. I have a super-early stent surgery tomorrow that I have to attend.”

  “That’s okay,” I said. “I’ll give you a rain check.”

  That’s when he took me in his arms and held me close, and I felt his face coming close to mine, and I tilted my head just so, like I had done a million times with Jacob (why did his name come up just now?). Brian tilted his head and then I felt his lips on mine and it wasn’t unpleasant at all. Quite the opposite. it felt very nice, and I sensed that small electrical rush from the first touch. I found myself feeling the texture of his lips and the pressure—not pushy, but not fish-lipped either—and then I felt myself yielding my body into his, leaning toward him, him leaning into me, our winter coats muffling what might have been a more sensuous engagement, his arms and hands moving up my back and mine pulling him closer.

  He was the one who backed away first.

  It must have been the wine.

  “Thank you for a really lovely evening,” he whispered to me, his lips still only inches away from mine.

  “No,” I replied, “thank you.”

  And then he kissed me again—or did I kiss him?—quicker, a short press of lip to lip, and another one right afterward, like we had been kissing each other for years.

  It felt really, really good.

  “Unlock your door,” he said softly. “I can’t leave until you’re inside.”

  He was quite the gentleman.

  I did as he requested, all the while Rufus scrabbled at the other side of the door, hearing us on the front step, not barking, since he heard my voice.

  I stepped inside. Brian bowed, not stupidly nor theatrically,
but a short little quarter bow, as if he was placing a coda on this first evening between the two of us. The first real shared intimacy. I watched him as he got into his car, backed out of the driveway, and flashed his headlights as a second farewell. It was nice of him to consider the neighbors that way.

  I watched him drive off. Rufus waited for me as I turned. I know the dog needed to go out—but did he have to stare at me that way?

  I didn’t talk to Rufus anymore about Brian during our walk—and beyond. I anticipated what he would say in that regard—that if Brian made me happy, it was okay. Neither did Rufus ask if Brian . . . believed—in God and all that. In Rufus’s world, everyone believed. I think they did anyhow. I never really asked him if all dogs believe. Maybe there are good dogs and bad dogs. Good dogs believe. Bad dogs don’t believe. I should ask him about that. With good dogs, wouldn’t they have to recognize their creation—and by default, their creator? People, well, they are a different breed. When things are communicated in shorthand, the possibility of miscommunication is probable and high. I mean . . . I believe, I guess. Yes, there is a God, a divine God who has put the universe in action, and who keeps it there. But he also can be a cruel God—take a look at my life if you want further proof. So I believe, in God, in a manner of speaking, but perhaps I am not what others might call a true believer. At least not now. Maybe I had been before, but not now. I couldn’t say what might happen in the future. I mean, who knows what tomorrow will bring—in terms of people or opportunities or woe. Right now God and I are not speaking. Sometimes those “I’m not talking to you because I’m mad” estrangements become permanent. I couldn’t speak for God, but that’s how I felt.

  And Brian might believe. He might be a believer—just like Jacob had been a believer. I don’t know. We had not spoken about spiritual matters at all (although he had said something about “karma” during our first meeting). He was a kind man, and a gentleman, and despite his wearing sneakers too often, I found myself beginning to care for him.

  Was God in this situation, in this unfolding, as it were? Rufus said he couldn’t be sure. He once said he can’t speak for God—but he was probably interested in what happened in our lives. He had said that there is more than one person out there who we can connect with on that deeper, more intimate level. So, if God didn’t pull the strings, then he allowed me to muddle my own way through my own life. I think I already knew that.

  And I had muddled onto Brian and, to be honest, it began to feel normal and good.

  Instead of all that personal and intimate stuff, Rufus and I talked instead about vacations.

  I had not been on vacation since . . . since the accident.

  I have to stop that—tying every event backward to the date and time of the accident. It made me sad, reminded me of my loss, and did not allow me to move forward, to get on with my life. It was like an anchor, bearing both the good and bad aspects of being anchored—tied firmly to one place, and being held down and back from any forward movement.

  But I hadn’t been anywhere fun since that horrible day—not that I felt like going anywhere fun by myself. I had continued to make visits to my mother, twice a year, but those could not be remotely considered vacations. I drove from Chicago to western Pennsylvania, spent a night or two at the Wingate Hotel in Latrobe, visited my mother twice a day when I was there, then drove back, in a sour, picklish mood, eight hours alone in my car, filled with the echoes of recriminations and guilt.

  A vacation? Please.

  I had mentioned to Rufus some weeks earlier that Jacob had always promised me we would live on the ocean at some point during our life together. He never said when—just that we would. He loved the ocean, despite the fact that he spent very little time at the ocean. But those few times, he decided that he had been meant to walk in the salt air every day, with the roll and roil of the waves always a sound in his ears.

  We had vacationed one week on Nantucket Island, with most of our time spent on the bay side of the island, yet it was enough to leave him permanently intoxicated by the proximity to saltwater. We had spent a week in Florida, on the water, near Vero Beach. Jacob would have chosen to spend every vacation on the coast.

  I had mentioned once to Rufus when we walked past the pond that the ocean was so much bigger than the pond that you couldn’t see to the end of it. I said that Jacob loved to walk in the sand at dusk, hearing the wind among the dune grass, and the salt spray stirring into the evening breeze. Rufus took that all in—but I could not be sure if the poetry of the words escaped him, or if their true meanings were not fully recognized by his canine abilities of interpretation.

  I did mention to Rufus that night that I had been thinking of going to the beach this spring or summer.

  Rufus thought it was a good idea.

  Then I told him that I would either have to leave him at a kennel, or take him with me in the car for two days’ worth of driving.

  He had remained silent for the rest of that evening’s walk. He did not like riding in the car, unlike most every other dog in the universe, and after I told him what a kennel experience was, he seemed to furrow his dog brow, as if deep in thought.

  And tonight he asked about my plans for this spring.

  “If I go to a kennel,” he asked, “do I get to pick the dog I stay next to?”

  “I don’t think so. I think the kennel people put you where they want to.”

  He remained silent for a long time.

  “I don’t think I would like that,” he finally replied. “What happens if that big, knuckleheaded black dog that lives in the house next to us winds up in the crate right beside me?”

  I have to stop speaking ill of the big, stupid dog next door. Rufus is starting to be influenced by my poor evaluation of the beast, and I shouldn’t force such bad attitudes on my innocent dog.

  “How long do I have to stay in the car if I go with you?”

  “It would take us two days. Each day, eight hours in the car.”

  We walked nearly a block.

  “Could we fly there? I see those short stories on the television that say that it is very simple to fly on planes. And fast too. They feed you on airplanes, don’t they?”

  I did not want to get into a detailed denouncement of the current state of American air travel.

  “They do, but, Rufus, if we fly, you’ll have to stay in a cage, and be in the cargo hold of the plane—underneath the passengers, in the dark and cold. It is very noisy there.”

  That was even worse than being in a car.

  “Oh.”

  We were in the driveway.

  “I’ll have to think about this some more,” he said. “I may not like the ocean, after all.”

  Rufus knew a lot about a lot of things. From the barest sniff he could determine if the scent came from a mouse or a squirrel or a raccoon or a chipmunk, or another dog. And he was really good at the dog scent thing. He didn’t know the names of all the breeds, but could describe them well enough for me to guess. And this all from a sniff. He wasn’t as good with birds, but knew the difference between a big bird, like a crow, and a sparrow.

  Other topics—well, he was not so smart. Things that he had not experienced—like the ocean—he didn’t fully comprehend. He saw them on TV, but that’s not reality to either him or me.

  He claimed to know about God. But he had no direct, two-way conduit to God. He said he talked to God—he prayed. I believed that. But he did not ever speak for God. He knew enough to know that would be entirely presumptuous of him. He knew as much about God as I did. He knew there was a mystery there—as did I. He knew the basics of God and his character—as did I. He talked to God. I did not.

  Rufus did not ever claim to be God’s spokesman. He did claim to be a dog of God, like some people claim to be a child of God.

  So I looked to him for advice. Rufus—not God.

  And really now, how pathetic and, well, crazy is that? To trust a savant, a dog savant, with my life.

  Pretty crazy if you must
know.

  But it also felt right.

  I met Beth and Ava at the Good Apple Restaurant. I didn’t particularly like the place, although they offered a prodigious amount of food for a very reasonable price. Each plate, heaping with eggs or fries, or whatever, besides offering too many calories, presented a dilemma: having too much food to eat at one sitting, meant taking the food home that would wind up in my food purgatory (remember?), or splitting an entrée with a friend, which smacked of weirdness. A husband or a parent could split a meal, perhaps, but not a friend.

  So what do you do?

  Beth loved the place; Ava was ambivalent.

  We sat in a booth by the window and watched the large snowflakes swirl down. It was not yet frigid, just cold, and the snow fell in a most pleasant way, not serious; there would be no noticeable accumulation to worry nervous drivers—like me. That is what the weatherman said this morning.

  Both Beth and Ava knew each other because of me—they had been introduced years ago. Beth, I am sure, saw Ava as an evangelistic and/or mission project—that if she could come up with just the right words or situation, Ava would repent and turn back to God.

  I don’t think Ava was ever “with” God, so walking away from him, or back toward him did not seem part of the equation. Beth always brought her Bible when we had lunch together, the three of us, just in case.

  Ava liked to shock Beth.

  Talking about sex became her de facto method of shocking Beth, and the best way to fluster her and make her blush. Just the mention of sex outside marriage was enough, which Ava could do because of her “relations” with Dr. Tom. But what moved sex beyond the pale, to Beth, I am sure, was that Ava told tales in greater detail than required, and with a greater emphasis on her satisfaction. Beth would blush bright red at some of Ava’s escapades. Well, to be honest, so would I, but I suspect that I felt a little more inured from shock than Beth, a little less capable of being embarrassed by anything my worldly friend wound up doing with her podiatrist. She lived her own life, after all, and my morality did not have to be her morality for us to be friends.