Dog problems

The downstairs neighbors at our apartment complex have dog problems. I am starting to worry. When they first moved in, they had a dog named Thomas. He was small, brown, and kind of unnoticeable. I tend to notice big, enthusiastic dogs that run up to sniff you and want a belly-rub, and then at other times (especially while biking to and from work) I regretfully notice the petite, haywire dogs that go bezerk barking at me as if their houses were nice enough to protect, and is as if they, in their football-sized bodies, could do anything to protect them from me. Thomas was neither of these kinds of dogs. Nevertheless, his owners were always apologizing for him, from the day they moved in.

"We really, really hope Thomas isn't keeping you up with all his barking," they said when I first met them. They are sisters, from Pennsylvania, one of them a grad student in social work and the other a Spanish major at the local Catholic college. They are very polite, and I get the impression that they pray. I sometimes see the older one jogging when I'm on my bike. Her hair is always tied back in a brown ponytail; she even jogs politely. "We hope Thomas isn't keeping you up." Until the first time they said it I hadn't noticed yet that they owned a dog.

The other funny thing about all this was that my roommate is named Thomas. As the morning ritual of Thomas (the dog) barking and them yelling at him began, I initially got confused, as if my roommate had gone down below and begun to chew their chair legs and pee on their potted plants.

Every morning I would hear it, about a half hour before I needed to be up for work. Thomas would bark, extremely softly, almost half-heartedly. Next would come the piercing cry of one of the normally soft-spoken sisters: "THOMAS! THOMAS, NO!" Silence for a moment, and then the bark again: a bark that, left alone, would blend into all the normal morning sounds that do not wake me up, like the sound of one hand clapping. What woke me up, every morning, were Thomas' draconian mistresses, saying "no no no" like the buzzing of an alarm.

We assured them, every time we spoke, that Thomas was not causing us any problems. Around this time, I should add, the sisters won the Forest Creek Village apartment complex "Porch of the Month" award, a prize that my roommate and I had coveted for some time. Sure, when they moved in they had cleaned out the overgrown weeds that the former residents had left, spread wood chips, planted bushes, and set out lawn chairs. But my roommate Thomas and I had succeeded in keeping our ivy plant alive even as our other four plants died of neglect, had installed a stolen parking sign (it read: "Weekend Rate, $5") on the balcony until we were told it was "trash" and "in violation of our lease," and even let our peace-loving sentiments be known to users of the parking lot by nailing a "Texans United Against War" sign, formerly stapled to a stick of wood for a protest, to our outside wall. Walking past the little "Porch of the Month" placard below us every morning was like a slap in the face. Worse still was when I saw, early in the morning, the apartment manager come out to their apartment to make sure the placard was still straight and securely fastened.

One day last week I came home to find a puppy, beautiful with black fur and white on her beard and belly, hopping around their yard. One of the sisters, the blonde, younger one who studies Spanish, was outside watching the pup. I said hello and asked if it was their puppy. "Yes," she said, "We just got her. Unfortunately, we had to put Thomas to sleep. He was very aggressive." The unnoticeable Thomas the dog suddenly came to life in my mind's eye. He stood below me, alert, ears pricked, bored by his small confines, considering a bark, perhaps thinking better of it. Unless Thomas suffered a split-personality disorder, he was not an aggressive dog.

The sister told me that the new dog was named Gracie, that they had got her at the pound. "She cries a lot when we're not here," she said, "I hope it doesn't bother you."

I wake up these mornings to a familiar but altered sound. Gracie, locked in the same immaculate Porch of the Month that Thomas once called home, tries out a few new puppy voices. She wines a bit, lets it turn into almost a howl, and then gives a short bark, which comes out feeble from her developing vocal chords and tends to crack at the end. Not the kind of sound that would keep me awake. Instead, it is the cry that follows, "GRACIE! GRACIE NO!" that sends me reaching to turn off the alarm, pee, and climb into the shower.

The other day when I arrived home from work Gracie was in her porch trying out more puppy barks. From inside the apartment came the blonde sister, and she leaned down over Gracie, held her head, and whispered down into her ear, "No, Gracie, no. No, no, no." It was then that I realized that the sisters don't know how to say no to a dog. They don't say "no" in the firm, authoritative voice with which most dog-owners remind their pets who exactly is the leader of the pack. Rather, they sound like they are pleading, like they are being held at gunpoint and asked to fork over their schoolbooks. I think this confuses the dogs. The words say "no," but the tone says, "Please consider the possibility of not barking." Thomas and Gracie, shocked by the insecure sound in the voices of the large humans they had taken for the alphas of their pack, must have wondered, "Who will protect me now?" So they barked, half-heartedly, hoping someone would take this burden of barking away from them. I hope that Thomas, in Doggie Heaven, has found his burden lifted.

I now, along with Thomas my roommate (and perhaps--who knows?--the ghost of the other Thomas) am paying close attention to Gracie. These dog problems must not result in any more death. At the first sign of trouble--a cry from Gracie, a pleading look up at us as we finish eating breakfast on our balcony--we will launch over the railing and down into the Porch of the Month. We will swing from the vines of our reasonably healthy ivy and cushion our fall with the wooden parking sign. We will grab Gracie and run out from Forest Creek Village in search of freedom. After all, isn't Gracie like all of us? She came into the world after atrocity had already been committed and lives with its legacy hanging over her. She is taught that courtesy means silence, that the difficult and shaky sounds of growing up are offensive to those around her. Finally, she has learned quickly that the most fearsome authority is that which bends over you, grabs you softly around the ears, and whispers quietly to you, "No no no..."

The sisters downstairs can win their Porch of the Month awards and apologize profusely and water all their perfect plants. In the meantime, Thomas and Gracie and I are letting the ivy grow wild and the Texans United Against War sign be lifted by the breeze and carried to a stranger's house like a message dropped from the mouth of a dove passing overhead. We're on the road, on our way to somewhere new. I'm working on my bark. It keeps cracking at the end, but I'm sure eventually I'll be able to make it long, proud, and smooth, like the road we're on right now.
posted by Adam at 12:12 AM [edit]

Say nothing if it's first

The prince traded his property rights for a miracle
hidden inside a kaleidoscope. He looked and saw a family
dinner, his mother rising up from the table, the end of speaking.
The quietest paths a family walks down together. The shiny chrome
that lines the handle to the oven door. When you shake a little
you lose that image. When you sit down and stop shaking
you lose even a little bit more. Let the dogs out, show them a good time,
it's alright not to cry. The prince is recreating New England autumn
from all the rotting pencils and smashed moths he can find. He lights them
on fire, watches October burn its way into the New Hampshire mountains.
Where do you go after the end of speaking? How much trash can be traded
for a kaleidoscope? At the end of the driveway is a little pothole where our
family dinners reappear weeks later, emptied of speech, full of the motions
that make him my father, you my sister, and me into any other boy. We go
to cinema school to learn how to replay these things, how to edit the motion
of your hands laying a plate before me into the long slow sweep of an entire
life. We go to school in the mornings, pinched at the corner of the eyes,
nose falling into the hot mug at breakfast. We wake up and we go,
and on the way we pass the prince, still shaking the kaleidoscope,
looking for the crystal balls inside. His jacket's too small and his nose is running.
He's the ruler of everything. Find him somewhere deep inside, dissuade him
from his woeful trade, tell him what the kaleidoscope's really worth: a penny
caught between the seams. He'll be wiser for the wisdom, though still penniless,
and the streets he walks to go home will sag under the weight of silent families.

posted by Adam at 9:22 PM [edit]

I call you every Saturday night to tell you that I still.
The strong are fascinated by the word "brittle," so perfect
for describing a concept they don't understand, so onomatopoetic,
so riddled with tiny cracks on the point of breaking.

In Gloucester, in the summer, there are days that must end
in fish and chips. They require beer, too, even if it's bitter,
even if it tastes vaguely like sucking on a rag. This is summer:
sometimes you just do what is required of you.

I've seen them modelling your future in the store windows.
The colors are pleasing but the plastic curves leave something
to be desired. Intensely. In the crooks and the nooks where you
sat with your book your fashion was always more brittle.
posted by Adam at 2:26 AM [edit]