Three Shorts
Photo by Jarden Bellamkonda via Unsplash. Edited.
Dog Bites Man
Bill grew up around dogs, loving dogs, but then he moved to the city and was too poor and selfish to own one because vet bills were exorbitant and sometimes you had to set aside your own needs to let the puppy outside or watch so it didn’t chew through some wiring and electrocute itself.
But Bill and his wife, Marcia, eventually had a couple kids, and he learned that kids are a lot like dogs in that their expenses are also significant, and their needs supplant your own. If they’re crying, you must figure out if they’re hungry or hot or tired or their diapers are full. You learn a language of subtle cues. You also must keep them from chewing through wires and electrocuting themselves.
Bill taught himself to be less selfish. Then the kids grew up and started spending a lot of time outside the home, with boyfriends or girlfriends or playing sports or working part time jobs. He was fine with this. In fact, Bill had looked forward to the time when he could resume being selfish, spending his paycheck on himself; but Marcia seemed sad and untethered. She never said as much, but she moped around the house and often shamed him for his selfishness.
So Bill let her get a dog, then another, then another. She never had dogs, she didn’t know them the way he did, but they were a nice child surrogate, so Bill and Marcia became dog people. He showed photos to his coworkers of the dogs far more than he ever showed them pictures of his kids. Bill stopped swapping out his children’s school photos at work, so they smiled out at him from dusty frames with their static junior high smiles, shiny with orthodonture, even as they grew older in real life. Of course, Bill also kept framed photos of his dogs on his work desk and swapped out those pictures regularly.
Bill loved the dogs dearly, how they were so happy to greet him each evening when he came through the door. His children never did that. He spent a lot of time jogging in his neighborhood, and he always stopped and asked people if he could pet their dogs, and people always said yes because people inevitably thought their dog was the best and deserved everyone else’s attention.
One day, Bill was jogging along the sidewalk, snow banked on either side, when he saw a man approaching with a dog on a leash. Bill’s own dogs never wanted to go jogging with him, especially on cold days like this. As usual, he asked if he could pet the dog, which seemed very friendly and well-trained, sitting when commanded, wagging its tail. Then it bit him hard on the arm, really clamping down.
“Ralphie!” the owner said, scolding the dog.
Bill was so surprised he merely turned and ran off, arm throbbing. When he got home, he carefully removed his jacket and shirt and showed his wife.
“Jesus,” Marcia said. “What happened?”
“A dog bit me. I’ve never been bitten in my life!” Bill felt strangely elated. Nothing new ever happened to him. But now there were fang marks on his forearm and blood running down his wrist. In the bathroom, Bill poured peroxide on the wound until it bubbled and hissed. He wiped away the blood and bandaged his arm. His coworkers weren’t going to believe this!
True enough. Around the coffee station, people asked each other if anything exciting happened over the weekend, fully expecting the same drudgery, but Bill rolled up his sleeve and showed them the bandage. “Dog bite,” he announced proudly. “Can you believe it?” Then he launched into the story of how it happened.
After a few days, Bill took off the bandage, but the bite remained clearly visible. It started to itch. “Did you get the name of the owner?” everyone asked. What was the point? People wanted him to report the owner to the authorities, but that would only lead to the dog being put down. Bill didn’t want the guilt of causing someone to lose his family pet, the dog being euthanized just for being its truest self. Bill had clearly posed some kind of threat, though he wasn’t sure what. He must’ve provoked the bite. It was all Bill’s fault.
Bill developed a headache and fever. “I don’t think I can go to work today,” he told Marcia, who felt his forehead. He lay around watching TV, cuddling his own dogs, who lay beside him in bed.
“How are you feeling?” Marcia asked the next morning.
Bill meant to say he was feeling better, but the words didn’t come out right.
“You’re foaming at the mouth,” Marcia said. “I think you might have rabies.”
Up to this point, neither of them associated his illness with the dog bite. There were so many other pathogens floating around. But rabies! This was going to be quite a story around the office! Bill didn’t know anyone who’d contracted rabies. He went to start the shower but couldn’t bring himself to do it.
He was afraid of water! Hydrophobia! Just like in the movies. He staggered back to bed and climbed in.
From what felt like a great distance, Bill heard his wife say, “I’m calling the paramedics.”
An ambulance ride! The ER! His kids wouldn’t believe it. The people at work wouldn’t believe it. It was beyond belief. If it were a fictional story, it would be implausible, but it was true, all true, it really happened. He had the bite mark to prove it.
____
Essential Services
It’s a small town, sure, but nonetheless he’s proud of his status. He is the fire department. Meaning: there’s a firehouse with a truck, hoses, ladders, helmets, coats, axes, even a dalmatian, but there has only ever been one fireman. Paul. Instead of a row of bunks on the top floor of the firehouse, there’s only one bed, where Paul often sleeps alone while his family sleeps in their Seventies ranch-style house a few blocks away.
Sometimes he’s lonely, sure, but there’s only enough money in the budget for one fireman, and it has always been Paul, since he has the training and experience. He is also the fire marshal and the arson investigator. And being alone has its perks. He can turn the stereo in the firehouse as loud as he wants. No one else is there to grouse over his choice of music. If he wants to play Foghat and Golden Earring all night long, which he sometimes does, then he can. The budget for food is his alone. There are no arguments in the kitchen. Tacos again? Spaghetti? Didn’t we just have that? No complaints.
Instead of pitch or Texas Hold’em, Paul plays solitaire. But there’s still a bell that rings when a fire has been reported. Paul slides down the pole, dons his helmet and flame-retardant coat, slips into his boots, and climbs into the driver’s seat of the truck, starting up the sirens.
Tonight, dispatch leads him to the scene of the fire––actually two fires, two houses aflame on opposite sides of the street. This is unusual. A crowd of onlookers has already gathered. Uh oh. A situation like this would ordinarily take an entire team of firefighters. Two teams. The call goes out to neighboring towns, but it will be too late. Paul starts uncoiling a hose, connecting it to the nearest hydrant, starting up the stream, aiming at one of the houses, it doesn’t matter which. Both are unsalvageable at this point.
Though his efforts are futile, he wants to make a good show for the onlookers––among them the mayor, the police chief, and the editor of the town paper. The town is so small and so remote that people still get their news by dropping a couple quarters into the slot and withdrawing a paper from the boxes outside the grocery store and post office. Kids on bikes still toss rolled papers onto the doorsteps of houses. These twin conflagrations will undoubtedly make the front page. Paul hopes there’s no one inside either house. He can’t exactly hold the hose and direct the spray while simultaneously rushing in to hunt for victims. It would probably be a suicide mission for him anyway. Nevertheless, he doesn’t want to be depicted in the newspaper as being a coward.
The house on the north side of the street is collapsing in on itself, groaning and heaving, burning embers floating into the clear sky, so Paul turns his attention to the house on the south. One by one, the onlookers wander off when they see it’s a lost cause, until only Paul is left, spraying neighboring houses so they don’t catch fire. The house on the north was occupied by the Brooks family, while the house on the south belonged to Merle and Beverly Stark. Paul isn’t sure Merle and Beverly have any relatives in the area, and he wonders what they will do.
Eventually he rolls up his hose, the wreckage still smoldering though the fires are diminished by lack of fuel, and he climbs back into his truck and returns to the station. The dalmatian, named Sam, is waiting for him, tail wagging fiercely. Paul likes to wash the truck after he returns from a call, so he does this now. He has really worked up an appetite. He’s fixating on the flank steaks he set out for dinner. He puts on some Led Zeppelin while waiting for the skillet to heat.
Houses and businesses are going up in flames all over town, more and more regularly. Though Paul keeps investigating, he can’t determine a cause. Maybe shoddy wiring. Maybe excessive climatic heat and dryness. Local insurers, facing an influx of claims, drop their customers and make plans to relocate out of state. Victims, lacking the funds to rebuild, cram into cheap, hastily-built apartments or, more often, move away. The townspeople know that Paul alone can’t stop the fires. He can’t adequately investigate them for signs of arson in their aftermath. But tax revenues fall, hard choices must be made, fiscal responsibility, etc., and soon Paul is let go.
He would continue fighting fires––it’s all he’s ever known––but he can’t exactly afford to do it for free, out of the goodness of his heart, not with a family to feed. Whoever heard of volunteer firemen, anyhow?
____
First Pilgrims
Bob and Charles kept an eye on their targets, the Fergusons. They trailed Mr. and Mrs. Ferguson to the grocery store and watched as they checked off items on their list. It was crowded in the store this time of year, hence easy to remain unobserved.
Some relatives showed up at the Fergusons’ on Thanksgiving Day. Bob and Charles parked in a van down the street and waited for their chance, which would come after the consumption of all that turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy poured over everything. The pilgrims never ate so well!
“Steve, another piece of pie?”
“Oh, I shouldn’t, but okay. You twisted my arm, haha.”
Bob and Charles were lean and hungry, skipping their own family gatherings for this. It was cold in the van. They couldn’t run the heat for hours on end, so they started up the van and rubbed their hands over the vents only when the cold grew oppressive.
“We should’ve brought some blankets,” Charles said. “And something to eat.”
“Don’t worry. There’ll be plenty of leftovers. By the way, what are you thankful for this year?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” Charles said. “I value your friendship. What are you thankful for?”
“I’m thankful that Sophie kicked her meth habit and now chooses to be with me instead of just using me for drug money. Plus, likewise, I value your friendship, pal.”
Finally, about mid-afternoon, they backed into the Fergusons’ driveway. Luckily, everyone else at the celebration parked on the street, trying to be courteous, leaving Bob and Charles the ideal spot.
They entered the unlocked house and poked around. The turkey carcass still rested in its pan on the stovetop, bones like the frame of a tiny burnt-out cathedral. On every surface were serving trays bearing the remnants of Thanksgiving lunch, along with stacks of dirty plates, half-empty beer cans, glasses with the wine dregs still in them.
The Fergusons also looked like they’d been discarded half-finished, sprawled as they were on sofas and recliners, mostly asleep, a football game playing softly on the big TV. A card game had been abandoned, playing cards scattered over the floor. A dog had its paws on the dining room table and was eating some chocolates, still in their wrapping, that had been left within reach.
“Don’t do that,” Charles said, ski mask pulled low over his face, scratching the dog behind the ears. “Chocolate is poison for your kind.”
“Hey,” someone managed to say, opening one eye. “Who are you?”
Bob and Charles, in a warm house, masks pulled low, perspired now. The windows were steamed over. A log burned in the fireplace.
Bob pulled his ski mask up to his nose so he could speak clearly. “We’re the guys who’re going to rob the shit out of you.”
“On Thanksgiving?” somebody else murmured. Then everyone closed their eyes and started dozing again, the question perhaps rhetorical. The warmth of the fire and all those heavy carbs were overwhelming. Bob and Charles opened the garage door and began hauling out valuables and furniture to their van. They would stop every so often for a bite of potatoes or a turkey leg.
“Think the potatoes are a little lumpy?” Bob asked.
“No, I think they’re fine,” Charles replied. “Put some gravy on them. Then microwave for about twenty seconds. Bon appetit!”
The game on TV was a close one. The team forever known to some fans as The Redskins, despite the cultural insensitivity of the word, were playing. Bob and Charles stopped for a second to watch. A receiver took a crushing hit and had to be carted from the field. The burglars both winced under their masks before unplugging the television and carrying it out to the last remaining space in their van.
“Personally, I’m glad they changed the name to the Commanders,” Bob said.
“Yeah,” Charles said, panting under the weight of the TV. “We’ve never really discussed it before, but I am too. I knew some Native Americans in the joint, and to a one they were insulted that their customs had been appropriated and that they were all made to seem like savages and heathens.”
“Agreed. Most natives were actually highly spiritual people. All you need is to step in a sweat lodge to figure that out.”
Once the TV was gone, a couple houseguests stirred. “Hey, what happened to the game?” someone murmured, eyes still closed. “Did the Cowboys end up winning?”
“Yep, they won,” Charles said.
“Oh.”
The Cowboys. America’s team. Grown-ups were still playing cowboys and Indians, even after the kids had moved on to other pastimes.
“More pie?” Theresa Ferguson asked. She’d fallen asleep still in her apron.
Neither Bob nor Charles had the heart to admit they’d loaded the last of the pie into their van for later, so Bob simply said, “No, I think we’re good for now,” and Theresa turned on her side and began snoring. The dog was in a corner, quietly retching from all the chocolate it had eaten.
One or two neighbors saw what was happening and thought it strange that the Fergusons chose this holiday for a big move. They hadn’t mentioned anything about moving. And it was odd they were wearing ski masks. But the neighbors were sleepy, and the game on TV was a close one, and it was cold out, which might explain the masks. The neighbors tried valiantly to get drunk, but their stomachs were so full that they went straight past drunkenness to hangover, and the only cure for hangover was to lay around and do absolutely nothing.
Dan Pinkerton's stories and poems have appeared in Boulevard, Chicago Quarterly, Cimarron Review, Crazyhorse, New Orleans Review, North American Review, Pleiades, and Subtropics, as well as the 2008 edition of Best New American Voices, guest edited by Richard Bausch. His first book of poetry is Democracy of Noise. He can be found at www.dan-pinkerton.com.