https://www.angelfire.com/art2/dream/index.html
writegirl2000@hotmail.com
“Well…hello!” the girl said as she swung open the back door. “How nice to have a visitor this early in the morning.”
She sat down on the concrete stoop and snuggled the sunset-patterned sarong around her legs to keep away the morning chill. Summer was quickly fading into autumn and she was still alone.
“Where did you come from?” The girl looked around her backyard surveying the six-foot-wooden fence. “You come in on a spaceship, or something?”
The dog raised his head and looked at the girl. His white fluffy hair glowed in the fragile morning light.
“Come here boy.” She held out her hand. “I hope you aren’t a biting dog.”
He inched toward her. She took her hand and brushed the hair back from his eyes. He looked middle aged and a little weary. “Oh you sweet dog. I better let you out so you can go home.” She walked to the gate and opened it. He wouldn’t come to her. So she got on the outside of the gate, holding it open and called again. Slowly he walked to her. “Bye cute dog.” she said while closing the big gate.
The girl went back inside, put water on for tea, and got dressed in shorts, sandals, and a “Recovering The Satellites” T-shirt she bought the day before at the Salvation Army store. No sense rushing into winter clothes just yet.
While she was sketching out 3 new loss-of-freedom paintings she heard the familiar rumble of the mailguy van. She grabbed a sweatshirt, just in case the sun hadn’t warmed the air yet. She was hoping the anti-terrorism ring she had ordered from a clubgirl in Texas would arrive.
“White dog! How did you get in here again?” There he was curled up on the lawn by the sidewalk. He glanced up at her, rose, and walked out to the mailbox right beside her. “Okay let me get you some water.” she said as she placed the mail on the kitchen counter, no ring yet. “And what would I have for dog food? How about scrambled eggs and an English muffin? Then you must go home. Okay?”
White dog just looked up at her, which she mistook for a “yes.” The dog ate the food and drank some water.
She took him outside and walked the perimeter of the fence. “How did you get in here White dog?” Then she noticed a streak of dark red dried blood on his left side. She also spied a hank of white fur stuck to the bottom of the fence on the north side of the house. The space beneath the fence was hardly big enough for a little Pekinese let alone a midsized dog like this one. He had scarred himself to get in…twice. “Oh, White dog.” she said and she gave him a big hug. “Don’t do this you need to go home now.” She glanced at his tag. He belonged to someone named. J. Pettigrew. Inside she went and dialed the digits.
A distinctly Yuppie woman wearing a sprightly coif stepped out of a gray minivan. She was dressed up-to-her-elbows-in-debt middleclass with every designer label showing. Her expression was grim. “Get in the van!” she pointed and White dog looked at me, then bit by bit walked away. The woman put on a fake smile and said, “ Dogs. He is too much work. He runs away all of the time and I am tired of chasing him. My husband bought that dog for me last year. We had decided on an older dog so he would be trained. I didn’t want THAT mess too. If he bothers you again just point him toward Foxmoor, that’s where we live. At least for another month. We are considering a condo in Bridgeport, a house is too much yard work, too much everything.” The woman finally took a breath. “Thank you for calling.”
Zip. White dog was gone.
The wind howled and rain pelted the girl’s house that night. The next morning she looked out the windows through the red geraniums in the flowerbox. Puddles everywhere, a branch from the maple tree had snapped off, and there was White dog. He looked nude. His white fur was soaking wet revealing his dogskin. The girl grabbed a big beach towel and rubbed him dry. When she pressed a little too deeply on one of his scars he winced then licked her hand again and again. Her stomach fell backwards. “Oh, White dog I am so sorry.” she said to him. She sat cross-legged on the carpet in front of the fireplace and dabbed cortisone healing cream on his cuts.
“You can’t stay with me White dog. It won’t work. Your white hair…you would walk by a wet painting and have art transferred right onto your fur, and I might not comb your beautiful hair everyday, sometimes I don’t even do mine, and some days I forget to eat until it is late at night, and I travel a lot, you would have to go with me, no kennels, and I still have sadness in my heart for another dog, a black one. Although I do think you would look as good in a beret as he did.” She held his long white snout gently in her hand looking straight into his clear brown eyes.” Okay, I am kidding about the beret. I only mean that figuratively. But seriously, I am not your best bet. White dog, please find someone else. Please stop cutting yourself to get in here. I am going to seal that opening off today. You cannot come over here anymore.”
Three more back-and-forths with White dog breaking through the flimsily-nailed-on barriers the girl put up. There he would be, waiting right outside her back door. Another call…
This time the girl reached the husband, John Pettigrew. “My wife isn’t here right now and I am due to a closing on the condo we are buying. Could you keep him overnight?”
"Yes, he’s welcome here.”
"Really?" the man paused. "I picked him up from a shelter. He belonged to a couple that moved out of the country. He has papers. And my wife…well, my wife never really bonded to him. She thought she wanted him. The first few months went fine, then I believe the novelty wore off, plus she took on a new volunteer position. And as for me, I’m not really home often enough to take care of him. He seems to like you. He goes directly to your house. By any chance would you be interested in taking him?”
White dog and me…the girl's brain flooded with a million reasons why this shouldn’t happen…her failings, not his. "I can’t do this. I can’t do this." she said to herself.
“The condo is pet free and…”
The girl broke in. “Yes! Of course I’ll take him. I don't need the papers."
"Well he's a purebred English..."
"I don't need to know his breed. I just like him. This will be his last home.”
She looked down at the ball of white fur wrapped around her feet, “Well, White dog. It’s you and me. We can do this."
The girl bent down to hug her new dog. "Here's the first secret." she said as she pushed up the sleeves of her green FTW sweatshirt. "I cut myself too."
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