Ruff Love
Ruff Love
Last night I dreamt of Lila. No, she wasn’t the one that got away, or whatever. Well maybe once. Lila was my lovely dog. To me she was more special than your average house pet. See, Lila and I were attached at the hip at first sight. And I thank her for our time together during the silent moments in every day.
Before Lila was around, it was just me and my Dad. It had always been us since my Ma passed away during my birth. That was years ago. Dad always told me it was god’s plan and that it made us even stronger. He said my mother was survived by my presence and that I had the same grey eyes and sense of humor as her. I had a picture of her that I looked at every night before falling asleep. I wondered what she was like and if she would be proud of me if she was with us.
That picture was enough for me for a long time. That is, until my dad picked up a job that required him to leave town every so often. So, I would stay with my grandma from time to time. It was fine. I would hear stories of my mom as a child and how we were both alike in many ways. I loved my grandmother, but needless to say, I got bored. I could only entertain myself so much.
One day, somewhere in between cranking the knobs on her vintage television set and rummaging through a stale smelling closet containing a misleading things, like the notorious tin cookie container with sewing equipment inside, I heard my dad’s voice. It must have been a short trip I thought.
I remember dad coming back ravenous for grandmas cooking. He ate recklessly and did one of those mop jobs with bread like my uncle on thanksgiving. All the while, he entertained my thirst for interaction as he sprinkled in a little adult conversation across the table to my grandma. My dad was a hard worker and did everything to try to bring me up right. He had a lot against him as a single parent and I never resented the absence.
After dinner, my dad looked at me with a wide grin hidden in overgrown stubble. “I got you something Champ”. Dad passed me his car keys and motioned his motel mattress hair toward the front yard.
I always loved this part of dads return. He always brought me a surprise from wherever he was working. Once it was colorful rocks from Colorado, another time it was a signature copy of our favorite Alien movie from L.A. Dad knew I loved the sequel ten times more but insisted that the originals are always better. But this time, his knowing grin said it was something really special. I rushed off so quickly the screen door hadn’t shut by the time I was at dad’s work truck.
I stood at a complete halt. Two beautiful deep brown eyes stared back at me through a mosaic of wet nose marks on the window.
I heard Dad and Grandma speak softly off the patio from afar. They kept their voices low as they stared in my direction. They were taking it in. It was their precious moment to keep. The moment a kid gets their first dog.
I finally noticed this silence in the air and broke my gaze, quickly unlocking the car door. A black and brown tangle of limbs hopped out and jumped at me. If I hadn’t been so excited, I would have noticed that when the ol’ girl tackled me to the ground, I scraped my knee a little.
I was the happiest boy in the world... Grandma’s flowers in the front yard smelled sweeter than they ever did. The setting sun gave off golden light making my life vibrant in every way possible. At that moment, I could only feel my laughter in my chest and hear the endless barks for what seemed like half a lifetime. This was our moment.
I looked down at a purple collar and silver tag on the pup and read one word, “Lila”.
…
During some parts in my life, you could say Lila was my only friend. See, I wasn’t very popular in school. And living in a small town didn’t help either. It goes without saying, in a small town, if you didn’t have any friends in school, you probably didn’t have any outside of it. My father never knew about my unpopularity though. Or at least I thought he didn’t. If he had spent more time at home, I believe that he might have asked at one point or another, but this wasn’t the case. So, I led him on. In the back of my mind, I knew he would love me even if I had been brought home by the police some day or become a drug addict or something. It was unconditional love.
But I needed him to know that I had been picked first at kickball at least once in my life. Of course my grandmother knew about my lack of friends. She knew everything. She could read me like a book. Once when I was little, she told me that she had eyes in the back of her head, and to watch out. Later on that night I was combing through her hair with a small keychain flashlight in a pajama onesie… Scared her half to death.
Summer didn’t last too long that year. I spent some time on the road with Dad and Lila in the back seat of the car. We jammed tunes, saw the sights and ate a million continental breakfasts at a million hotels. They all tasted the same after a while but Lila never seemed to complain about the waffles I would sneak under the table.
Dad bought me some expensive back to school gear at some clothing outlet off the highway. and then we headed back home. Looking back at it, that whole trip might have held some of the happiest and carefree moments of my life. I wasn’t thinking about the future or the past. It was all in the moment and I felt fulfilled in life. I thought to myself. Maybe this is what it feels like to have a complete family.
…
I remember it was barely the first month of High school when I got off the school bus to see my grandmother and Lila in the front, waiting for me. It was unusual to say the least. Lila typically waited at the sidewalk for me on her own behalf, meanwhile I would usually find grandma cleaning something that didn’t need cleaning in the kitchen.
Lila and Gran both wore grim expressions. I spoke up and Gran started to sob uncontrollably. It was in the next hours that I learned about my father perishing at the hands of some two-bit criminal who was never found. HERE IN TOWN! Right smack-dab in the center of Briar Glen. A nowhere place in a nowhere state.
My Gran looked down at me in a state of shaking and crying. I was tragedy incarnate. I remember after seeing me like that for a minute, she composed herself and took on an earnest tone. Gran walked me in and sat me at the table, Lila next to me wearing a concern on her face. I rolled her ear into a taco as I was brought a warm cup of coffee in the China that was only ever used on special occasions.
…
I sat there and took it all in. My father came into town on a surprise visit. He stopped by to see what was needed for a special dinner that night. Apparently, he had gotten promoted and was waiting for the right moment to lay the news on us. And, being the father that he was, he told her to keep his little work detour a secret until he came back.
On the way out of the General store, my father had been held up by some asshole with a gun. Coming from the owner of the store, the suspect was in a plain field of view of the store camera, which of course caught the entire interaction unfold.
The suspect had been waiting in a corner in front of the store. His play was to wait for a victim to stroll within ear shot of him so that a threat can be made. He would flash his weapon and then lead said victim to an ATM placed in an even darker corner of the building. I would later find out that this was a very common practice for a seasoned criminal. Instead of this happening, the suspect motioned toward my father, then toward the ATM with a shiny object in his hand. It’s difficult to say what happened next.
Now, my father wasn’t a frightful guy. In this sense he was nothing like me. According to the video, my father, a reasonable man, said something that couldn’t be picked up on the video monitor. Presumably a compromise, as his next move was to show open hands, slowly bring out his wallet and hand it to the thief. Apparently it hadn’t been enough for this man.
No, he followed my father to his car where there was a struggle for this man’s gun. The screen flashes three times and by the third on-screen flash, there is only one person left in the camera frame. My father had been shot once in the shoulder, presumably during the struggle, and then two more consecutive times.
I reasoned with myself on this, even though I knew it didn’t even matter at this point. The shoulder wound was something that could have been superficial. It missed a major artery and wasn’t anywhere near any vital organs. Instead of fleeing after the initial shot with over two hundred in my father’s wallet. This man felt the need to let off two more sloppy rounds. Once on the hairline of my dad’s forehead and the other grazing the left side of his throat. To think that my father died at the hands of a selfish sicko like this, well, it made me furious and embered into a full blown aura of radiating hate. The hate resonated for very long time. I made attempts to embrace it. At times, I felt like people around me could feel it without even looking in my direction. I emanated it. My gal knew. She could feel it. But, really, she had been the only thing keeping me from falling into pieces.
The house had been a different kind of quiet that evening. The kind of quiet that cuts through things no matter what. It seeped into the walls and bled through the cracks in the floorboards. It was almost deafening.
As I lay there at night, Lila asked me questions with her eyes. “Why are you crying? Where is dad? Grandma seems different.”
She stared into me in the dark and I began speaking to her, not as a kid and a dog, but as my best friend. “Girl, Grandma says everyone has their course, we run it not knowing where it ends. I don’t know if dad ran his all the way though. It’s just us now. We gotta take care of each other.” I gave her a hug.
Maybe it was a way of coping… Me working things out. Call it what you will. I spoke and she listened, staring into my vulnerable broken words until I slowly drifted off into a soft dream.
The next week was a blur accompanied by that same quiet. Except it wasn’t only in the house. It followed me to the funeral home, to my father’s service, to the cubicle of my father’s insurance agent who told us everything would be fine from now on, and even on walks with Lila.
It’s difficult to describe but, it was as if there was a background music in my life that had been playing, then suddenly, it stopped. It was like this for nearly a month until I got some semblance of relief. Although at the time, I hadn’t a clue.
One afternoon, Gran and Lila snagged me up from school while I was riding out a particularly and even more so quiet day. Lila immediately hopped up from the back seat and got in my face. I naturally shot her my cemented dark look and then she licked my eyelid. That helped.
Gran hadn’t said a word during almost the entire ride, until we took an unusual turn toward our town’s main street. I frowned as we passed the General Store.
Gran said that my father’s belongings and items of evidence were now released and that we needed to claim them or risk them being tossed.
I still said nothing.
We waited at a front desk for several minutes talking to the clerk. An officer opened a door and waved us through the hall that he was standing in. The evidence room had one of those desks that are behind an opening in the wall. Sort of like the type of thing you might see at a doctor’s office, only the little window was a lot thicker than your average.
My grandmother filled out the according papers and handed the clipboard back through the metal slot in the window. The lady behind the glass gave a tight smile and whisked it up with long manicured nails. She turned and came back with several marked bags. “Evidence.”
The ride home was even quieter than before. Even Lila picked up on it. Where she had been sitting in front, now lay my father’s last possessions. It was as if she knew what was occurring and had enough sense not to jump up and ride shotgun with me. I often look back at this moment and wonder how smart that old girl really was.
…
When we got home Gran told me that we would go through the stuff together after dinner. I made myself useful and helped her with as much as I could. Gran showed her age that day as I really looked at her and the way she managed keeping herself together in front of me.
We coupled the food with her signature bunt cake that she always prepped just in case a guest knocked on the door on a rainy day. I suppose she did this to ease any tension or pain that we were carrying between the two of us. We were having an intimate moment and, well, I get the precautions she was taking.
The first three bags held common items. Receipts, work phone, a small utility knife that my father always had on him. I assumed that some of his other belongings would be released to us when we actually received his car. Whenever that was. It had probably been considered as evidence.
My grandmother handed me the last bag. I ripped the perforated plastic that made a quick zip sound as I pulled. Out poured a well wrinkled brown bag with the name Forever Friends scrawled in a goofy fun font. I found the opening of the bag and pulled out two things. One was a paper that read;
“Hey boy-o, Lila’s collar was lookin a little tight’n-tattered. She’s growing up real quick, just like you. Now I know I usually bring you a little something- something from wherever I travel. And that’s not the case this time. This one is actually for both of you.
I came by this great shop sometime last week. It was owned by some family from Nepal. You know, those Sherpa guys that we saw on that Mt. Everest TV show. I was recommended to it by some colleague. It was sort of a deli type of thing with a bodega attached. Gotta love New York. Anyway, when I went to pay for my grub in the adjoining room, I saw that there was an isle with some knickknacks. I automatically knew It would be the place to shop for you. But when I came across a stand with all this neat dog stuff, sorry pal, what can I say. I had to score something for the girl.
These Nepali’s! They take their dogs seriously. Or I guess, as much as you can take a dog seriously. They celebrate a Day of the Dogs in Nepal. Kukur Tihar, I think I spelled that right. The clerk said that dogs are holy beings and said to accompany gods, most commonly depicted as the messengers of the “God of Death”. Strange to a westerner, but beautiful in its own way, don'tcha think?
Point being, Lila is a beautiful dog and, I know you regard her as something more than what most regard her to be, which is just an ordinary dog. And, I see it. She really is special son. And she does a great job at loving you and watching over you when I’m not around. For that, this is somewhat of a thanks from me to her.
And, I don’t think you need to hear this, but you need to take care of her as much as she takes care of you. It’s only fair, isn’t it? Heck, I don’t need to tell you that, do I? You two are tighter than bedrocks.”
I pulled out a cured leather collar that had a beautiful gold plate engraving, “Lila”, Written in cursive.
I looked up in tears, not surprised to see Lila beside me looking as heartbroken as a dog could look. I slipped the collar over her head. Perfect fit. She seemed proud in that moment.
…
The school year was crap. I was the kid who had a dead dad and lived with his grandmother. People whispered and I sort of got used to it. But, I always came back to my girl after school every day. We had our own damned life. Things were the way they were and I eventually met peace with the help of my pal.
One day we headed out to a fishing hole after I finished up with homework. Dad taught me to fish but probably would have never thought it would be as habit forming as I found it to be. Fishing kinda became our thing for a little while there. I would do my job at casting, and the ol’ girl would do her job of scaring the hell out of the fish. Eventually she would get bored and wander off to dig a hole or do whatever a dog does.
This particular time, things were no more usual than they ever were. No fish, a wet dog and the smell of fireweed flower. Dusk had long set in at this point and the fish were just about done with my cheap bait. When we decided on calling it a day, I lured in my hook and bob and set it in a safe position on my pole. I looked around for the girl but the only thing I was able to find was Jerry Thorpe walking through brush toward me.
Now, Jerry was the asshole at school. Every school had one, and it just so happens that Jerry was just as notoriously a piece of shit as his brother Antonio, who was rumored to have spent time in juvie for drugs and some other petty crimes a few years back. I never met him, but I definitely knew about him. He is the reason why our school started a hall monitor program. Real bad dude…
Jerry was no doubt a chip off the shit block that is his family, and most likely about to start teasing me about my pussy father or throw some vulgar insult about some sexual deviance involving my grandmother and his large penis. I heard it all a million times already.
And, just like that, Jerry did exactly that, except this time he had two of his pals with him. They egged him on and started jeering at my expense. Jerry cackled through his yellow teeth and leaned on a walking stick he acquired sometime during his loitering. “…Pussy father.”
Something inside of me had snapped right then. That fire of hate inside of me came back to life and manifested into a balled up fist that began flying at one of the other kids that had made the remark. Not a fraction of a second later, that stick that jerry had, came right up and gave me the most vicious black eye I ever had up until this day.
I couldn’t do much on the ground blinded. But, by the time I looked back at Jerry and his goons, they had gone silent. It was eerie. I didn’t quite understand it at first until Lila stepped over my body, covering me with as much of hers as she was able to. Lila frothed at the mouth. I had never even heard so much as a growl out of her when we were playing. Now this!
I was stunned. But Jerry… Jerry was petrified. Lila had a look in her eye that I didn’t know she had the ability to ever make. It wasn’t the bloodshot veins in the white of her eye, it was the intention within her eyes.
I could feel Lila’s loud growl in the air. My chest rumbled slightly as I very slowly reached out to grab ahold of her collar. But I had been too slow, there was no way that I had ever caught her in a chase, and there was no way she would let me touch her now. Before I could do anything at all, she had bitten the closest kid in the belly area, zoomed between his legs, and tackled Jerry who in very quick succession had a torn yellow shirt matted in red coming from his left shoulder and chest area. Within seconds, it seemed that he had given up on any sort of resistance. He was just letting the attack happen to him as he cried out loud. When I saw Lila set her teeth in his shoulder once more, but just a little higher, I knew right then… She was working her way up to his throat…
I sprinted while cupping my eye toward the general direction of screaming. In the action of pulling Lila away, she caught the very last bit of Jerry that she could muster. His hand was caught in her spikey vise for a very long second before she let up. We swiftly walked backward into the third kid who was ready to strike me in the head with a large rock he was holding above his head. Lila didn’t let that happen. She pulled with an unstoppable strength toward the threat and brought down a flash of hell on the last guy who got the least of her rage.
I have no idea how she was aware of any of their placement in her berserk state. But it happened. Lila saved me from a severe beating that day. Probably even something more serious if that rock had been placed correctly. She was my guardian angel.
The crew left screaming and looking down at their mangled leader that had gotten the worst of it. I heard obscenities, not necessarily directed towards me as I sit with Lila half submerged in water.
It took about two minutes to process what had just happened. We both walked out of the water and sat in the sliver of light that the trees provided us. Lila was dripping pinkish water from her mouth and giving me that same proud and knowing gaze that she had given me that one night I first slipped it over her head. Twilight shimmered off of the gold plate of her collar as she shook off the rest of the water. Then she looked at me, waiting for me to take the lead up the hill and back toward home.
I didn’t scold her that evening. Although I did feel that Lila royally did a number on those assholes, she did it in her love for me. It was probably the most violent thing I had ever seen outside of television, so I was genuinely surprised that in the coming week we never got a call from some hospital, police officer or even a lawyer.
It’s odd, I thought there would be some sort of repercussions for the things that unfolded that day. That just wasn’t the case either. What ended up happening in the following week, is that Jerry didn’t meet my eyes at school or even come close to a general 20ft radius of me. He had all sorts of bandages and even a sling. I heard some kids talk about how Jerry boasted about some sort of fight or some other outlandish garbage lie. I knew the truth though. Jerry was scared.. He was afraid that Lila would take care of him if he lay one finger on me. It was moments like this that made me feel like I had never actually been a lonely person in the first place. I had the best friend in the whole world.
…
Time sort of just, went on after that. I completed my freshman year of High School in the library during lunch period and took the gal fishing when I was able. Gran got a bit older and so did I. She had quit making her way around town as much now that she knew she had me at my disposal. Whenever she needed something from town, you guessed it, Lila and I were called in for duty. This particular time it was a trip to Pete’s General Store. It wasn’t all the time when we took trips there. Especially when we avoided the place the following months after my father’s death. But there were only so many places to shop from if you grew up here. We couldn’t just avoid it forever. So, I tried not to think about it while trudging through the aisles. The staff was always overly friendly because they had known about what had happened. Which, to be quite honest, did not help at all. Being reminded with the subtle messages just reminded me of the horror.
I moved the heaviest bags into my dominant arm and used my back to push against the front glass door while giving a fake tight smile at the staff who was no doubt, about to talk about me as soon as the door shut. Then I looked down at the place that my father had once stood while he was being confronted by a gunman. I shook off the urge to look back and walked toward the bike rack that I tied Lila to. She was gone.
“What the hell.” You know that awful moment that you undergo when you feel an empty space in your back pocket where your wallet belongs? Or the feeling that maybe you lost some loose cash in your pocket while picking another object out of your jeans? This was worse. My friend, my protector, my other half. She was gone.
I dropped all the bags that I was carrying and ran to the corner of the store and looked down 3rd avenue. Nothing. “LILA. LILA, WHERE ARE YOU GIRL!”
By now, the staff had started toward the front door. I didn’t care.
I took one deep breath and began a slow and intentional walk toward the other side of the building. The place that I feared I would never have to go. The place my father took his last breath.
Was there laughing? In the peak of my emotions, somewhere between confusion and that same wide eyed look that Jerry wore under Lila’s teeth, I saw her for the first time. She was kneeling in the exact parking spot where it happened… Petting Lila.
She introduced herself as Alicia. She had one of those natural bright smiles that showed me that she probably smiled through more than half of the day. You know the type.
Now to be honest, I had heard of Alicia, she was the cousin of this kid named Daniel. The only way I knew about this was because I had heard Daniel say that his family was coming into town. You tend to get great eavesdropping ears when you spend lots of time not saying a word.
I responded into her kind eyes after too long of a moment. I only took heed of this when she herself began to look up at me in confusion. Not knowing whether to cry or laugh in relief. I simply said something stupid and obvious. “That’s my dog. Oh god”.
To my surprise, she didn’t dwell on the awkwardness at all. She just continued to pet Lila over the head between her ears. Lila panted and closed her eyes. Little shit was acting like I wasn’t going to scold her later. And I didn’t.
Alicia explained that Lila just started following her. She didn’t actually notice until she let out a single bark, and then just sat down right there in the parking lot.
Now, I like to say that Alicia found an interest in me because she clearly knew nothing about my history in Briar Glen. And that may have just been the case. But one thing I know for sure. Those first moments, she stayed because of Lila. I don’t know how to explain it, but it’s something I could feel in the air. There was just a magnetism between them that night. And, me, of course, if that’s what you call stuttering and walking around with an unhinged jaw.
Alicia told me that she picked up a job at her uncle’s tire shop in town, answering the phones and organizing beyond the (and I quote), “capability of any male in her family”. I laughed and walked with her as we spoke about some of the gems in town that I considered worth visiting while she was in town. Instead of breaking ways at the town square roundabout. She decided against it when Lila began barking at some small critter that zoomed under the park gazebo (yeah we have one of those. Like I said, small town).
Trying to hold back on the annoying-irritated voice I occasionally gave her, Alicia whistled her back into her new route up the steps of the gazebo. I.. was a little bit petrified. I hadn’t spoken this much for more than a year and a beautiful girl that I had only known for 20 minutes wanted spend time with me under dim lights in town square. I was certain I had seen this in more than 30 movies, but when Lila followed suit by sprinting up the steps, I didn’t really have a choice but to keep my hands from getting clammy and making my words form some sort of general sense in conversation. Damned dog…
I loved Lila, but needless to say, I wasn’t in the best of moods with her at the moment. The irritation that I was trying to mask with a fake smile wore off a little when I became lost in conversation. Oddly enough, I don’t think much talking would have been done if Lila hadn’t hopped up on the bench next to me. It was only after she moved closer to Alicia and I wasn’t able to put my hand on her that I realized this. It’s embarrassing to admit to this, but I was not only out of my shell with people in general, but I found it difficult to be anything without my gal right now. I didn’t have much family, and apart from my grandma who took on the lead of a mother and father, Lila was my only friend too.
When I realized a heavy lull set in over our back and forth talking, I made a decision to move within arm’s reach of Lila, scratching her nose where the wet part ended and soft fur began. She always like a good nose scratch, but for some reason, she kept nudging towards Alicia. I would have been a little jealous, but I didn’t really have the option to convey that emotion at a time like that.
Lila kept nudging away from me and more toward Alicia through our entire conversation. By the time we parted ways, I had been mere inches away from Alicia.
As we said bye, Alicia showed us that bright smile again and made me promise to show her more of the area the following weekend. I smiled back and withdrew into utter anxiety at what had just happened. I bombarded myself with what-if’s on the way home and leered at the back of Lila’s head when I considered the mess she had gotten me well into. “Damned dog.”
One thing was for certain. I had been thinking plenty about Alicia’s Smile. And those beautiful eyes… And, how she liked me. And… how I might be confusing her friendliness for something else.
When Saturday had come around, I had rolled the thought of meeting up with Alicia around and decided against it. What can I say? I was afraid of rejection. Besides, what would it matter if she did like me? The chance was slim and she was just up here for the summer.
Instead of sulking in my cowardice that day, I had the pleasant surprise of coming outside to find a dogless yard. Apparently, Gram let Lila out for a pee and, poof, just like that she had taken off. It was the first time she had done this and I was less than thrilled about it.
I yelled for about an hour around the neighborhood looking like a lunatic until I found her in front of, the worst place imaginable. You guessed it, Daniels house.
She was just sitting in the middle of the yard facing toward the street. Like, she was waiting for me. The fucking nerve. I knew she had heard me calling her! But, nope. I at least expected to see a guilty face at the sight of me, but she just sat there catching sun rays as if she was expecting me to pet her or forget about the worry she had just put me through. Now, this was very unlike her. She had always been well behaved and more than receptive to my communication. It was unlike her to be disobedient. Ever.
I scathingly whispered a curse and reached for Lila’s collar expecting her to run away. She eyed me with the confidence of a bratty child as I gripped her collar tightly. I loosened up when I realized that this was the gift dad gave right before leaving us.
I looked around before trying to sleuth out of the scene. I walked more than two feet before the front door blew open. Alicia stepped off the porch with a skip and said “perfect timing”. For a brief minute I was in raw confusion. Wait, had she not seen Lila outside? Based on the greeting that she gave us, I’d wager not.
At this point I considered that there might have been a small person inside of my dog controlling her with some joysticks. What sort of game was this dog playing? I basically walked into a trap. Set up by my dog. I reasoned with myself later that day about how maybe she smelled Alicia’s scent on her little escapade around the neighborhood.
Lila gave me one of those panting smiles that dogs do. Her eyes closed as she looked toward me and partially into the sun. Pure hypnosis. I laughed at the balls of this dog.
…
The three of us finished the walk that Lila started on her own. Her walk turned into a small uphill hike. We went to an overlook area that I had only ever taken Lila to on special occasions. I hadn’t been up here since dad was with us, but I tried not to think about that. You could see the entire town from that spot.
And that’s where Alicia let me know that she liked me. She reached out to hold my hand under one of the larger trees that you could find in Briar. It was rather droopy and provided total shade on that sunny day. We walked in an unmistakable awkwardness until we emerged into the shine of the sun again. That’s where Lila sat sniffing at a grassy patch near a big rock. We decided to sit until daylight dwindled and shined off of that collar dad bought her almost a year ago today. I had been more confident in my steps with Alicia that day for some reason. Perhaps I had been coming more out of my shell. Either way, I wouldn’t have been able to do this without the help of my disobedient gal.
Alicia and I grew to become really fond of each other that summer. So much so that our relationship blossomed into a romantic one. Yeah, me. A girlfriend.
Alicia often came over to eat with gram and I. And of course Lila, who routinely and discreetly received scraps under the table. Some time had gone on and I was thrilled to hear that Alicia’s parents had agreed to let her stay in Briar Glen for the remainder of school. I didn’t ask any questions.
My life had been for lack of better words, good. The girls helped me heal as much as they could from the death of my father and Gram rigidly played the part of a strong backbone in my life. Together, Alicia and I had graduated high school with high placement awards and enrolled for several out of state colleges together. Lila meanwhile hadn’t aged a bit. It seemed odd, but not something I was ever going to sweat.
One night after Alicia finished a shift at her Uncles shop, Lila and I surprised her in Dads old car that I had secretly been learning to drive. She was all smiles as usual. The high pitched hello to my passenger turned a tail into a tornado in the back seat. Alicia hopped in and gave us both kisses. I surprised her with a drive in movie that evening. I was so proud of myself in this moment. Life had seemed so, great. We had the whole world ahead of us.
Halfway through the movie, I reached into the back seat with a handful of popcorn and expected a few licks or some amorphous form of warm fur. If you have a dog as spoiled as mine, you know the difficulties at hand.
I peered into the back seat making sure not to disturb Alicia’s resting head on my shoulder too much.
I almost dropped the whole damn bucket of popcorn. Gone! Up to this day I cannot figure out exactly how Lila made her escape. The back windows had been rolled up the entire time. If she were to somehow leap out of our front windows, we definitely would have seen her. Hell, she probably would have made quite a mess of things just trying to get through. It seemed, for a lack of better words, impossible.
We went about searching for her in the lot. I grew frantic toward combing through a third time and started yelling her name. Some viewers got a little mad, but I couldn’t have cared less if I tried. It wasn’t until Alicia spoke some sense into me that we decided to try looking outside of the property.
We walked a block outward of the theatre and got nothing. When that failed we jumped right back into the car and strolled down a few nearby residential streets. Then, one of the local parks, then Main Street.
The movie had probably been over for about 3 or four hours by my guess. It was well into the AM and Alicia was beginning to doze off next to me. She loved the ol’ gal, but I get it, she was my dog. I considered dropping her off at home and then continuing my search into the morning where I would be able to see a little better. There was no way I would be able to sleep tonight anyway. I took a U-turn and looped around to check Main Street one more time, hoping to see Lila going about her business just sniffing a garbage can or chasing a cat or whatever. Sure enough, there she was standing right in the middle of the parking lot at Pete’s General. The exact parking space where my old man once stood, fighting for his life.
I was far away, but I knew it was her. I could spot her from 100 miles away, let alone 1. It was her collar that caught my eye this time though. It was suddenly sunrise, and light had reached its way through the mountains and hit the gold on her collar.
In an instant, a beat up red truck ripped through an adjacent alley and cut us off.
Alicia Stirred awake at the sound of it. “Idiot. He has gotta be drunk or something.”.
It headed right down Main in the same direction that we were going. Just way faster. For a second I thought it might have been one of those moments that every young driver has, where they think there is nobody driving around at the moment and just let loose on their ride. I’ve been guilty of it, just to see how fast I could get my car up to, but this was different. There was no apologetic- slow-down. No wave through the back of the window as if to say “I’m sorry”. The guy sped up as if to use the straightaway as his own personal drag strip.
And then it happened. Lila, got up from where she was sitting, crossed over several parking spaces onto the sidewalk and then into the black asphalt of the street. The driver didn’t slow. She locked onto the headlights and sat down.
I couldn’t believe my own eyes. I would have vomited if it had not been for Lila waiting to see us one last time before passing. I cradled her head and ran my hand down her paws in the lightest manner as she cried and stared into me just like the same night I had lost my father. As if to say, “Everything is going to be alright. I love you.” The light inside of her dwindled as the sun came to a more complete rise over Briar.
Wouldn’t you know, that same deputy that I met years back was the one to get the call. He walked cautiously and gave me a somber look knowing exactly where we were standing. He was overly empathetic for a cop, but there was nothing he said that that day that could have made me feel okay in that moment. It didn’t matter how many sorry’s he threw in my direction. I was inconsolable. The worst part of it, was that he was unable to do anything about the situation. He said that a dead dog was no reason to open up an investigation, especially since we didn’t get a plate number or even see the driver’s face for that matter.
Apparently, under the best case possible, the driver would get a ticket and a few points docked from his license. I plead that the driver seemed drunk when he cut us off, but the uniform gave me another open palmed gesture. Said that there had to be a crime being committed in the moment otherwise it was just a he-said-she-said. He finished with the fact that he had never even seen the vehicle in town, but stopped there when he saw the tears begin to well up in my eyes again.
…
I lost part of myself right there in front of that store. Alicia knew this. I think she worried that if I lost anything else in my life to that degree, there would be nothing left that she could recognize. Lila was the last thing my father gave me. Any resonance of dad was gone now. All that had been left was the bloodied collar that hadn’t even really been mine in the first place. I cleaned the blood from it some days later but never got it to shine the way it did when Lila was wearing it.
Life was bland and faceless for a very long time after that. I don’t think that I ever recovered from that day in some way or another. Just like with dad, the pain never went away, but I did learn to live with it. Alicia was there for that one. She had loved Lila too, just not as much as I did. She knew this and was always making an attempt to make me feel more at ease with the loss.
Call me crazy, I think that because of this, Alicia decided to major in veterinary sciences at the university we both ended up attending. Some part of her, wanted to lessen the pain of others. Whether it be by helping the animal or the person suffering who had a buddy just like mine. Powerful, don’t you think?
It was quite admirable. I saw Alicia in a new light when she told me this. It was a love that I though never existed. It was something Lila had never been able to show me, but definitely wouldn’t have been in existence if it weren’t for her being alive. It’s crazy to think about, but I needed to recognize it. My father was survived by Lila and I. And Alicia was in a sense survived by Lila. I understood it, and honored it as best as I was able to.
After our graduation ceremony, I got down on one knee and proposed to that girl. I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her. We decided that staying out of Briar was for the best. For years it seemed like my life was a rollercoaster. There were ups and downs. It had seemed like more down than anything else. But now, we were ready to take the world head on once again.
I scheduled a flight back home to nab the rest of my stuff and check in on Gran. I also brought a gift for her. I learned that ol’ trick from the best. It was a cellphone (laugh). I was hell bent on making sure that she kept in contact with me if I could help it. I would listen to her ramble as long as I could if it meant she was happy. She was my only family aside from Alicia, after all.
We landed, rented a car and drove through town towards Gran’s. I made an effort to not look at Pete’s store. Alicia knew me too well. She made an effort to keep my mind and eyes off of it by talking aimlessly about whether her uncle and Daniel might have been working in the shop that day.
Gran heard the car pull up and made her way over to us with her arms out. She broke out the good China plates like always, holding some sort of cake she made in preparation for us. Gran listened intently as Alicia glamorously told the proposal story that she was getting quite good at. She even decided to skip the part where I thought I lost the ring. It ended up being in my jacket resting on the back of a chair. Hilarious…
…
The next morning, we began packing. I sifted through some stuff that my dad left behind. Things that I could have taken but didn’t. Things that reminded me of him, but were just unnecessary to have around. An old binder I once used for school that he had used for work, his cologne, some of those prayer cards that Gran probably gave him.
I decided that these were just things that had maybe had some sort of symbolism behind them in relation to my father. But they weren’t really linked to my father. They were just things. I carried my father and all of his shared knowledge inside myself. That was the only important thing that I really needed to have. And nobody could take it from me. It had taken me years to figure that one out.
When I came to my old room, there was one thing that I however was not ready to leave behind. I found Lila’s collar under my bed, just where I had left it. Something seemed different about it. It had luster to it. It’s difficult to describe, but it didn’t seem so tarnished as it had been the night Lila was taken from me. It seemed new, as if my father had bought it that day. Its gold glimmered in my hand for a second before Alicia popped in the room asking if I knew where the boxing tape had gotten to. I shoved Lila’s collar in my hoodie pocket before Alicia caught onto what I was looking down at with such intensity. “I think there is a new one in the car somewhere.”
I still felt very much in pain when it came to Lila. My father was a person. A being who left me with words of wisdom. Someone who understood more about death. Lila didn’t have words, she helped me grow as a person in silent support. It was just different altogether really. She had been a piece of me that made me whole.
I decided to step outside and go for a walk around the neighborhood one last time. I wanted to hit the route that the girl and I used to take every day. I told Alicia and Gran that I wasn’t feeling good and that I needed some air without sharing too much information. They didn’t ask questions.
By the time I turned the street corner, I really wasn’t feeling too good about things. I felt around the collar in my pocket and tried to make an understanding with myself that Lila was in fact gone. It was a difficult one to make sense of, but I had come to terms the fact that I might never ever get over her. Coming here had only reinforced the idea that something had still been majorly wrong with her death. Why did she walk into the street like that? One thing I always go back to is what Gran said about Dad so many years ago “everyone has their course, we run it not knowing where it ends.”
I felt the outline of her engraved name in the gold plate. I almost denied her death in that moment, like it had never happened. As if she would be sleeping at the foot of my bed tonight or waiting under that oak that Alicia and I had our first date.
I stuck my chin up before I got too caught up in my thoughts. It was just then that I caught a glimmer of a dog peeking out of some bushes right at me just up ahead. If that wasn’t weird enough, it looked like… it was Lila.
No, it wasn’t possible. It was some sort of manifestation brought on by coming back home. This is a result of my severe negative emotion that has been building up in me. I.. was losing it. This just didn’t feel real. I looked around trying to ground myself in the surroundings.
There was no wind. It was quiet.. I was either dreaming or I had lost it completely. I waved my hand in front of my face feeling an unnatural thickness to the air.
The thing that looked like Lila was still staring at me in the bush… If I wasn’t crazy or asleep, it surely was her.
Just as I finished that thought, this spotted-hallucination-of-a-dog turned tail up into the air and leaped into the bush. It had almost been in slow motion. She had jumped through with the ease of any animal you might see in the wild. Not like an ordinary house dog. It did this in complete silence while holding a gaze with me. Something in those eyes. I was fixed in them and there was no turning back. I recognized them. I caught that distinctive glimmer of her collar in the dull and dreamy twilight rays of the sun. I reached into my pocket and felt nothing. Her collar was gone.
It was Lila! It had to be. I yelled in desperation all the while trying to maintain the sounds of the earnestness you would use on an unruly dog. I yelled “wait”, with the voice that I felt might put her in her place. It felt familiar but so different than I remembered it being. I hadn’t heard that voice in years.
I internally nodded to myself and had to see where this rabbit hole ended. I needed this! I sprinted right after her at full speed and hit the brush with less grace than I thought I would. Twigs scratched at my knees deep enough to probably leave me tattered in red marks for a week. I didn’t care. Because I was losing sight of her.
Every time I caught glimpse of her she was all eyes and tail rounding corners and diving behind trees. And, through it all, I didn’t hear her one bit. No panting. I didn’t even hear her moving through the thicket. All the sound was coming from me. She poured no effort into it, still seeming to move in a passive and delayed manner, her leaps were effortless, light and deliberate. Maybe I was dreaming. It seemed like one.
“wait girl. Hol’on. AYEE! HERE, NOW!”. She didn’t stop. She just kept her gaze. Staring into me.
I saw another glimmer past a grouping of willow trees in the far distance. She had been moving faster than lightening! I started running out of breath by the time I caught up to the tree line. I fell down to my knees in sheer defeat. There was the collar. No Lila.
The wind began to stir once more. That heavy feel to it had disappeared. Birds chirped again and the trees went back to their normal rustling.
I wasn’t dreaming. This was real. It was all real. And, I needed my head checked. The sooner Alicia and I hit the road, the better. I wasn’t even sure if I wanted to tell her just yet. It was too early in our marriage to start acting like a lunatic. I was definitely under some severe stress. Maybe I was just working it all out of my system.. I had read of psychosis in a psychology class once before. 3/100 people undergo psychosis in their life. Most of the time, it goes unnoticed. And, factors did include stress and anxiety as subsequent symptoms to the disassociation. What had me most concerned was the duration of this episode. Whatever just happened to me, I'm ok now… I think.
I found a deer trail and followed it toward the road.
I picked up my ol’ gals collar and dusted it off. I felt it around in my hand once more. This was real. It belonged to a dog I once had. She is gone now. And, I have a fiancé waiting for my lunacy back home.
I looked at my knees. That was real too. I would be healing from these scratches for a while. I would probably have to come up with an explanation soon. I was approaching the road at more cautious angles this time. I was also looking for any paw prints. Anything. I found none. Hell, I would even take animal tracks if it would help me convince myself that it was just some sort of mishap. But I knew better. Lila’s eyes… They stared right into me. I was certain it was her. It had to be.
I received two messages on my phone from Alicia, “Where are you? “Where did you go?” I looked at the time. I had been gone hours. It didn’t seem like It but the sky confirmed it. It was getting dark.
I heard a siren in the distance and began to think the worst… It headed toward Grams, but that’s not where it stopped.
I exited the brush some distance away from where I had first given chase. I caught red and blue lights in my eyes down coming from down the road from right about where I entered. Walking closer, I made out police two units and an ambulance.
I was just as curious as a guy under my circumstances would be. I had been tracing up tire skid marks for well over 17 feet before I realized it. A gurney with a sheet pulled over it shoved me out of the daze that I was in. Two paramedics eyed me gravely and I made an effort not to look at the dead body being wheeled mere feet in front of me. But, I had just been walking here. Even weirder, I heard nothing. No crash, no tire screech. Nothing. I heard nothing. No crash whatsoever. And by the looks of it, this had happened not long ago, but definitely long enough to have been when I first stepped into the woods. I briefly remembered the loss of time I had just experienced.
I rounded the ambulance, and to my surprise saw the red pickup truck. The same beater that took my Lila. I was now coming to a slow realization of what had just happened. Sheriff Johns approached me while still wearing pure shock on my face.
His face wore something else. It was apologetic. He held his hat at his chest and spoke softly. “Son, take a knee.” I hid my scratches consciously.
I did.
“This is the truck that hit your dog?” The question curled slowly into a frown.
I nodded with a hand already over my mouth.
“The owner of the truck is one of the Thorpe boys. I think. It was quite a crash really. The eldest of the bunch I believe. Antonio. I think you may know his little brother Jerry. If this is the brother I think it is, he has been in and out of prison several times. I've known him since he was just a lad. He has been in and out most of his life. I, along with the deputy believe that intermittent crimes committed in Briar are linked to his specific periods between his jail sentences. It all adds up. Of course, this is something we are assuming based off of his record that was just communicated to us over the radio. Why am I telling you this? Well, it’s because we found some of your father’s wallet contents in the glove compartment..”
I uttered a dull weeping sound.
Johns shot up one of his bushy brows. “You don’t by chance know anything about his death do you?”
I wiped my tears, the question pulling me out of despair and into somewhere between curiosity and confusion. “I had just been walking right past here, when I saw... I thought I saw a shortcut home.” I said too much just then. I was a horrible liar.
“You were just here? And you heard and saw nothing?” He was a worse interrogator. “Boy, someone is looking out for you, I tell ya. I was hoping you could be a witness. Nobody seems to be out on the road right now. You are the only person we have seen for miles from the crime scene. And you just popped out of the woods, how about that? See, we don’t quite know what exactly happened just yet.”
More confusion. I looked past a parked cruiser to a leaning power line. The front of the truck had been caved in at least five feet.
Johns let out a sigh “We don’t think he was drunk and we don’t think blunt force trauma was his demise. From what we could gather at the moment, he crashed because he had been fighting something or someone inside the car. When we found him, we initially thought he had been sipping back on grandpa’s old cough medicine just like the rest of them Thorpe boys. That’s, until we saw streams of blood seeping out of the door. It looks like an animal got into his car and got the best of him as the doors were locked from the inside. Maybe he left a window open overnight and didn’t notice the thing stirring around until he was miles down the road. Hard to believe, since the size of this thing would probably be a little hard to miss. It must have been a pretty big critter or one fierce at that. See, when we found him, his throat had been ripped out, his face mauled clean off.”
“Look, I'm sorry about what you have been through. That doesn’t even begin to touch it I’m sure. We caught a bad one today.” He gestured over to the wreck. “It also seems that there are a few other interesting items that we found in the car that we need to look into. For starters, the gun that went off in the cabin might be related to more cases than just your daddies. .45acp rounds were recovered. It’s likely that this was the weapon…
I wept openly
I believe that they may also point to a rash of crime one town over. I’ll be in touch with your grandmother Elizabeth this week with more information.”
My phone rang. It was Alicia. I stood up gingerly, rubbing my eyes.
“Oh, and here.” he tossed me something. “Not sure how he ended up with it, but I think this is your dog’s collar.”
Written and edited by H.K. Harville
