Roy's Dogs

It's funny how people need a license to drive a car but not to raise children.

Roy's Dogs

  Summer can be humid and sticky, especially on a morning after another night of drinking and smoking. The morning sun baked the road six miles from the sea in front of the shabby white house with the faded, wooden sign near the driveway. Dark plastic had been applied to the front window against the elements with duck tape, like some ghetto flop house.  As morning passed, the Florida heat rose from the black asphalt in vertical waves, warping the leaves of the palm bushes that lined the two-lane highway. There were two old cars in the front yard, the lawn had very little grass. Both had ‘For Sale’ written in white on their windshields, the old cars absorbed the heat even more than the road with the hot air rising in a shifting haze above them. The driveway had six or seven more haphazardly parked autos, and to the passerby it wasn’t apparent as to whether they were also for sale, not that many people on their way to the beach would be interested in a fifteen year old sedan, laden with rust and missing one or more tires.

In the master bedroom of the house it was the putrid smell of dogshit that filched Roy from his morning snooze; Trudy had already gotten up.  He rolled onto his side to open his eyes to the light of day, just in time to see Dottie finish depositing a pile of steaming feces onto the rug next to the bed. As his eyes came to focus, the dog stood and trotted out of the room.

Dottie was a good dog, a lab and shepherd mix, and she had spots on each of her paws that coincided with her toes. She'd been affectionate as a puppy, but became temperamental with age. She insisted on pooping in Roy and Trudy’s bedroom because now that she was grown, she wasn't allowed to sleep there anymore.

Roy was able to purchase the house with money he collected after his dad passed away. The walls of the forty-year-old house were plaster, slowly crumbling in tiny piles of white in almost every corner. The kitchen cabinets were paneled from local pine, spruce that became scarce in the area after the house was built. With six children, nine dogs, and only one woman to supervise cleaning, the putrid smell of pooch attacked one’s senses upon entering the house. The whole family had long become accustomed to the raw odor that hung in the air like an uncovered light bulb in a dark, dank basement. The entire residence seemed caked in fecal brown and that the dogs had taken dominion inside the deteriorating walls.

The thunder of his hangover exploded in Roy's skull as readily as the added stench of Dottie's gift to the bedroom rug assaulted his nostrils. He made an attempt to sit up, but the tequila he'd consumed the night before pushed his head back down to the pillow. It was a night of beer, lots of pot, billiards downtown, and a couple of arguments with the kids; a typical Friday night.

The sound of dogs barking came from the front of the house, along with Dottie's growls, as the doorbell rang. The smelly mess on the rug less offensive, Roy held his breath, cleared his throat, and forced himself to sit up despite the pain in his head. The doorbell rang again, and the dogs made a syncopated response to the intruder outside. As Roy sat there, rubbing his eyes with his fists, the sound of impassioned gasps could be heard through the vent in the ceiling; Roy’s nephew Travis was screwing his daughter Amber on the other side of the house again. Trudy finally opened the front door, alleviating the dogs' barking. Amber had the sense to stop moaning while Trudy answered the door; it could be anybody, the cops, social services, or even one of the probation officers for four of the six children. It turned out to be Doug, the guy from across the street.

Trudy was an exceptional liar with her soft tone of voice and steady nerve. The dude from across the street was sent on his way with a tale of woe, that Roy was in jail or over in Tampa, some ruse that would compel him to return later in the day. Trudy walked into the bedroom a few minutes later as Roy was sitting up with his feet over the side of the bed, fumbling for his underwear.

"Numbnuts wants a quarter." she said, handing Roy two twenty dollar bills. The reference to a quarter merely meant that Doug wanted twenty-five dollars worth, a quarter of a “C” note. "I wish that son of a b***h would keep his eyes to himself."

Trudy was a large chested woman with soft blue eyes and a pleasant face. She was a gal who would take just about anybody into her arms, f**k the hell out of them too. Roy didn't mind, as he was getting up there in years and was not the man he once was. He and Trudy had an arrangement; he paid the bills for his five kids and her one, and she took care of them. She and he could do about anything or anyone they liked, including each other on occasion. But that Douglas guy had what really miffed Roy and most of his family: a sense of morality.

"A whole quarter this time, eh?" Roy replied. "Mister US Air Force is going all out once again." Roy grunted as he pulled his shorts on.

Forty bucks for twenty five worth of weed, about an eighth of an ounce as the going rate for an ounce of domestic pot was $200. Roy'd either have to make change or toss in a couple extra buds to make a profit, taking advantage of Doug's good nature. Of course the latter is how Roy would handle the eccentric veteran that lived across the busy boulevard, with his good job as a truck driver and his sweet military pension.

Doug stood six feet tall, had a muscular build, blue eyes and straight teeth, and no kids. His wife, Yvonne, was straight laced and demure. She was shorter than Doug, about five foot two, voluptuous, and she was often seen smiling as she trimmed the bushes and raked leaves, beautifying the house across the highway that led to a resort hotel by the beach, about ten miles away. Yvonne and Doug stood for everything that Roy and Trudy were not, or ever could be - morally stable - so they were despised. Roy and Trudy gave the couple a chance to swing along with them once. Doug and Yvonne blew it by not leading the card game into the bedroom, completely insulting Trudy’s sense of eroticism. Now it was too late.

The main factor that brought Doug across the street every three weeks or so was his affinity for the marijuana that Roy sold to make extra cash. Doug had a lot of pain in his back, and pot was a crutch that he could lean on now that he was a civilian. What brought the peculiar man to Roy's door in the first place was one of the used cars that Roy had for sale in his front yard. Roy sold the old Jeep to Yvonne, and it was that night when Roy and Doug had their first beer and first joint together. That was when Doug said the most ignorant thing that Roy ever heard a man say.

"Don't tell me how it works, just tell me what it does."

It was one thing to be a fellow who'd spent twenty-four years in the Air Force and who did not care how things worked, but what they did tactically. It was another to be a man who'd spent almost eight years in prison and finally made his way back into society by doing the only thing he'd ever succeeded at; auto mechanics. Other than cars and their perfunctory process, Roy had no interest in movies or the news or books, or in any parochial endeavors at all; well, there was always major league baseball.

As Roy stood up to put his pants on, his bare foot found the spot where Dottie had left her natural gift. As dogshit squished between his toes, the smell reformulated in his nose, and his temper exploded while his hangover imploded into his head.

"God damn it, Trudy!! Your f*****g dog s**t on the rug again!" Roy yelled as he slipped and fell on the floor, narrowly missing sitting on the doggie do-do. "I told you to keep that damn dog out of the bedroom!" There was no response except the sound of canines running toward the back door in fear and the return of Amber's impassioned groans coming through the ceiling vent.

Roy stood up and hopped one-legged over to the laundry basket on the dresser, and was rummaging through it, looking for a rag to wipe the excrement from his toes. When Trudy came in with a paper towel in her hand, she started to laugh once she saw the brown goo all over Roy's foot. She sat on the bed with her hand over her mouth and laughed. Roy took the paper towel and sat next to her, his head pounding with the smell of Dottie's poop. He winced as he wiped the dogshit from his toes.

Roy was sixty-one years old with a full beard and mustache. There were two inches of black and grey hair that kept him from being completely bald; what he had left circled his head behind his ears and was tied in a ponytail in back of his neck.  His brown eyes sat beneath graying eyebrows, and his scar-pocked nose was bulbous and leaned slightly to the side from being broken again and again while in stir.  He only had seven teeth left, three on the upper left side of his mouth, three on his lower left, and one on the upper right; unlike Trudy he had no false teeth to fill the gaps with. His body had over a dozen tattoos that he kept hidden the best that he could.

Trudy watched him scoop the poop from his toes and told him that she'd be right back with more paper towels.

"Whatever ya' do, don't use those two twenties, honey." Trudy said as she burst out in laughter on her way back to the kitchen.

Roy was renowned for his abundance of dirty jokes, but his sense of humor did not coincide with Trudy, not this time. After she returned with more paper towels, he was able to completely clean his toes and get dressed. Stuffing the forty dollars into his pocket, he walked to the kitchen to get some coffee.

Eleven-year-old Sadie was sitting on the couch playing a video game with thirteen year old Gary, who sat on the floor next to her. Sadie had Roy's brown eyes and stub nose, and she had the look of youth and unworldliness in her face until she glanced up, revealing premature lines of carnal experience behind her long brown hair. Lizzie was fifteen and Julie was thirteen; older versions of Sadie with womanly features residing in their supposed innocence, both sitting at the dining room table, sharing a cigarette. Seventeen-year-old Amber and her first cousin Travis weren’t finished in the back bedroom just yet.

"Daddy, can we go to 'Biggan's' today? " Julie asked. Briggan's was a video arcade downtown, ten minutes from their house. "Please? We saved up some money."

"We'll see, sugar." Roy replied. "Where's Warren?" Warren was Trudy's nine-year-old son who was grounded after being caught stealing some money out of Trudy's purse.

"He went fishin' with Arlie." Sadie answered from the living room. "I told him not to, but he's just a dumbass snot, daddy."

"Oh he did, did he? Well we'll just see if he gets any weed or cigarettes today."

Roy was starting to loose patience with Warren. He knew that Warren was going to try to get away with as much as he could, as much as he was allowed to just like any other kid, or any canine for that matter. The boy was going to get a spanking nonetheless, but Roy had to be careful. Trudy was protective of her son.  Gary, Roy's stepson from his second marriage, had been a discipline problem at nine as well. Unfortunately for Gary, Roy was in jail at the time, and the man that Gary's mom, Nicole, had been seeing beat the kid up pretty bad, breaking his collarbone. Roy didn’t have much experience as a father, even though he came from a family of twelve and had a lot of brothers and sisters. Amber, Lizzie, and Julie were all little when he was busted for grand theft auto, so he really didn't get to do a lot for them when they were young; little Sadie was born while he was in jail. The girls’ real mom - Bess - died of cancer shortly after Roy was paroled.

"That's what you said last time, daddy. " Julie was rummaging in the ashtray on the table, looking for a butt to smoke. "Warren'll just wait til’ you get sleepy and sneak some weed or smoke some resin."

"Shhh." Lizzie put her forefinger over her mouth. Nobody wanted Roy to hide his stash or, more important, his pipe. All six kids smoked weed and cigarettes, and after Roy crashed it would be available; the idea was to not take too much.

Roy smiled and shook his head. He knew that his kids ripped him off for weed and money. But he loved them very much and it wasn't a big deal until things got out of hand. He had a lock box in the garage that nobody could get into but him. He poured himself a cup of coffee and sat down at the table, waiting for his breakfast. Trudy was still chuckling about Roy's poopy toes when she brought his plate of ham and eggs. As he was finishing his breakfast Amber slowly walked out of her bedroom, dressed in only a robe.

She had a hollow expression in her face; her hair was lanky and thin. She slouched as she moved, sitting in the chair next to Roy's. Placing her hand on his shoulder, she gazed up at him with what little was left in her dilated eyes. Roy looked at her, knowing her drug of choice was 'ecstasy,' which Amber would do anything for anyone to get, and that the night before she certainly had.

All the virulent arguments were in the past. There seemed to be little that Roy or Trudy could do or say to keep Amber from smoking cigarettes any more than giving herself to people like her cousin for drugs or money. Amber had already spent considerable time in Juvenile Hall, and she was going to turn eighteen years old next month. Once that happened, there would be nothing Roy could do to stop her from packing up and going to Miami, where the pimps would pounce on her like a flock of seagulls on a discarded hot dog. So Roy had to be careful what he said to her; it was vital to keep his family together, and that meant whatever it took to keep Amber in his home. She was that special person whom was once his beloved baby girl before his life became a nightmare in prison. Amber was more important to Roy than the very air he breathed. Still she was an adult now, a fact that he’d grown accustomed to as readily as he came to grips with how prison had taken so much more from him than the sum of his teeth.

He sighed and reached up to the pocket of his tee shirt. Pulling out a pack of Marlboro-Lights, Roy withdrew a cigarette for her. Amber took the smoke, and standing up, she lethargically slinked to the hallway where she leaned against the wall as she returned to her bedroom - and to Travis. Roy pulled two more cigarettes out, handing one to Lizzie and one to Julie as they stood up from the table, one at a time, and both girls left the room. Sadie put the video game on pause and stood up to get her’s; she would share with Gary.

Gary was the exception. Although Roy was pretty much the only father he’d ever known, when Gary’s mom’s boyfriend beat the hell out of Gary years ago when Roy was in jail, he didn’t even remember the b*****d’s name, just that his black fists sent blinding flashes sparking into Gary’s head. Gary got stuck in a cast around his narrow chest with his arm sticking out haphazardly. Afterward he stayed as far away from partying and smoking pot as he could, finding refuge in books, comics, and magazines. Adjusting his glasses up onto his nose, he accepted Sadie’s cigarette and took a big drag off of it. He was only human, and it was impossible to not enjoy some of the parties that erupted in his stepfather’s garage every Friday and Saturday night. But Gary had seen the results of drugs and alcohol on Robbie, one of his best friends who ended up a ward of the state because of truancy, theft, and assault. Even though he loved his stepsisters, especially Lizzie with her sweet face and buxom figure, Gary wasn’t going to end up in another cast or in the same condition of the a*****e that put him in one by wasting all his time doping up his mind. Doing well in school and reading comic books were ways to escape from the same path of his pal Robbie. It was comfortable for Gary to remain behind the scenes where he could watch and wait, especially when the partying began. For Roy and Trudy, Gary was the one individual whom could always be depended on when things got out of hand.

There was an understanding between Roy and his children. They did their chores and went to school, and he provided for them. The cigarettes started out as a tool to motivate them in addition to money. In time they required pot too. Now cigarettes and reefer were like that unremembered pink elephant that was mentioned at an AA meeting Roy once attended; copious and covered with purple polka dots, squishing from room to room and squeaking from child to child to be fed and provided for, just like the dogs and the rusted gas guzzling van that Trudy drove around to do her errands.

Roy drank the last of his coffee and lit himself a cigarette. He pecked Trudy on the mouth as he headed to the garage to get started on a pickup he was doing a brake job on. The unpaved driveway led past the side door of the house to the garage. There was a small drainage ditch about six inches wide in front of the big garage door that was always flowing with water. It was covered by a series of boards in front of the concrete floor inside the garage itself so that vehicles could be driven inside. He pulled the key to the side door out of his pocket and opened the lock as four dogs encircled him. Not only did he lock up his tools, his money, and his dope in the garage, he also stored the dog food there.

Not allowing any dogs into the garage, he found four bowls that they ate from. As he filled them he could hear the rest of his canines assembling outside, barking in anticipation. They acted like his children sometimes did, full of apathy and senseless desire for sustenance.

Each one of the dogs had their own personality, a name, and a history and lineage that could be traced, just like his kids each had their own history. But his four girls and two boys were a lot more complicated than the nine dogs. A dog s***s on the floor and you slap her on the butt, push her nose into the poop, and tie her to a tree for the afternoon; that usually does the trick to teach the dog where not to poop. On the other hand a child whom ditches school, beats up weaker children, and steals from his mother's purse cannot be trained by sticking his face in the mess and tying him to a tree, no matter how similar to a dog the boy acts. As Roy stacked the four bowls with dog food, the nine canines outside the door began to bark almost in unison, putting a smile on Roy's face as he stepped outside. He loved his dogs too.

“Okay, boys and girls.” Roy replied to the demanding pooches surrounding him. “Party time!”

He placed the bowls in the back yard grass one at a time. It was fun to have all of his beloved dogs surrounding him, crowding him, and feeding all at once. Roy stepped over and leaned onto the garage, watching them. The nine Labradors were like a circling tribe of savages, dancing and worshipping the god of doggie-chow in the morning sunshine. Roy had the spectacle his precious canines made pretty much to himself; his back yard was fairly screened by palm bushes and Cyprus trees. He'd raised all of them from the time they were born and they were as much his family as his children.

But these canine children were devoted, loving, and though stupid and sometimes a real nuisance, they were always grateful. When the dogs were hungry they would eat pizzas thoughtlessly left out. When it was nighttime they would dutifully guard Roy's property against any and all strangers. And when his dogs were well fed they would lay down with cats and other dogs. But his dogs would never tell his teacher that Roy had beat him with a monkey wrench to get back after Roy spanked Warren with a belt. His black Labs would never intentionally pour sugar down the gas tank of one of Roy's customers and not even tell Roy about it. His dogs would always respect him and be appreciative for all that Roy had done for them.

Lizzie, Julie, and Sadie would be along soon, wanting to go to 'Briggan's' and indulge in digital entertainment. They were typical girls who reveled in flashy images and the defeat of animated enemies. When Lizzie or Julie would win, their smiles melted Roy's heart. And then it would be “What’s next, I'm hungry, what can I get for myself from here?" After the two hours or so at 'Briggan's,' it would become time for weed, for expert instruction of how to intoxicate one’s brain, and the time for Roy to be surrounded by his children just like he'd been by his dogs. The difference would be pot and cigarettes instead of dog food. And if Roy wouldn't deliver there would be potential for more sugar down one of his customer's gas tanks in passive-aggressive retribution. It was going to be as much of a nuisance to deal with Warren and barring him from his share of weed as it would if Dottie strayed from the property and got picked up by the dogcatcher.

Oh well. Roy'd learned patience in prison. He pulled the F150 pickup into the garage and jacked it up to change out the brake shoes. Loosening the lug nuts from the front tires, the auto shop of Florida State Prison came to Roy’s mind, and the many brake jobs, tune-ups, and oil changes he happily completed there " for free.

He made a whole lot of repairs in that place; cars that belonged to guards, diesel trucks of delivery companies, even utility works for water and sewer companies in cities nearby, so many jobs for absolutely nothing. He did them for the mere price of not having to go back to his cell. There was solitude and boredom in that damn cell during the day, but at night there were numerous beatings where it took much too long to wash the degrading taste from his mouth, from his body. Eventually he recognized there were more than just mechanical repair jobs that could be done, aiding him in doing his time. He was finally paroled in fairly good physical condition, swearing he’d never return. Aside from his home and his family, mechanics became his life. Roy’s tools ratcheted the difficult memories from his mind, assisted by the more pleasant taste of marijuana.

Later that afternoon the brake job was finished and Roy was replacing the alternator on Travis's car. Doug had walked across the road after standing for what seemed like fifteen minutes as the traffic passed, going to and from the beach. He was carrying a large mirror. As he made his way to the garage, he accidentally stepped in some dogshit, and Doug cursed as he wiped his shoe against a tree, which brought another smile to Roy’s face.

Roy had a nice bag of weed for the guy; not forty bucks worth, actually about thirty. But Doug was a sap, an idiot that would let anybody with half of a brain cheat him every time. As Roy finished tightening one of the bolts to the alternator, he thought about how far he would have gotten if he’d joined the Air Force out of high school instead of going on the road in an eighteen wheeler with his uncle. Roy figured that after twenty years he’d be an officer at the very least. The bolt cinched up to its end and Roy’s mind filled with despair as so many awful memories of being raped in prison swarmed his thoughts. His hatred for Doug reached a new plateau while his face remained calm, cool, and guarded. Doug leaned the mirror against the open garage door and he watched until Roy put the wrench down to shake Doug's hand.

"My buddy Dan was going to toss this mirror and I asked him if I could have it." Doug said, lighting himself one of those lung-buster Marlboro-100s he always smoked. "I figured maybe the girls would like it."

"They just might, Doug." Roy replied, wiping his hands with a rag and splashing his mind with a phony smile. "Thanks, bro." Doug had also given Roy a desktop computer and monitor that were about to be thrown away six weeks before, which he was able to sell for sixty dollars.

Roy reached into his pocket and handed Doug the skinny plastic bag containing the significant herb. Doug opened and smelled it, and he smiled.

"Thanks man." Doug rolled a short, skinny joint and handed it to Roy. "I'd smoke this with you, but you know what a blithering a*****e I become when I get stoned.” When Doug got high it was more than he could handle, and he got paranoid, goofy, just plain weird.

“Lemme' buy you a beer sometime, okay?"

"Sure man." Roy answered, placing the joint in his cigarette pack as Doug walked away. "I'll give you a call."

"Okay!" Doug replied with a smile. He walked toward the busy boulevard to cross over to his house, so he wouldn't have to cross after he got stoned and harebrained.

Watching that a*****e stand next to the road, waiting for the traffic to pass so that he could cross, Roy was hoping that one of the cars would swerve and hit the son of a b***h. But then again Doug’s money was as good as any other ignoramus that didn’t know how to work on cars. Still it wouldn’t be long before the tall veteran would traverse the busy boulevard, bringing Roy more of his money or another mirror. The extra cash that Doug paid for pot helped, but Roy still hated the eccentric man over on the other side of the highway. After all, he’d never even been in jail, let alone done any real “hard” time. It didn’t matter to the self employed mechanic and ex-convict that Doug was trying to help him financially.

Warren finally showed up to the garage a while afterwards, meekly looking down at his feet, obviously hoping to get a cigarette and maybe a small measure of pot. But as Roy smoked the tiny joint Doug rolled for him, he’d been considering how he was going to discipline young Warren, and he came to the conclusion that a mere spanking with a belt hadn’t worked before, probably wouldn’t work now. Perhaps it was time to go one step further to convince Warren that it wasn’t a good idea to defy Roy anymore. The boy was no longer just a puppy dog that needed housetraining with his nose pushed into dogshit and tied to a tree. The time had come for Warren to get a taste of prison justice.

The spanking began with a slap to the face, sending Warren sprawling onto the concrete floor of the garage. Roy was careful to leave no visible marks, and he did not go as far as he could have. Nevertheless Warren became aware of what could happen in the future, of what should never have happened to Roy in the past.

Warren got no weed that day, and he walked away fairly unscathed in tears, smoking the cigarette he’d gone to the garage for in the first place. To Roy, being a dad could be infuriating, but it was a hell of a lot better than being in prison.

 

SR Urie

Reviews

[Samuel Dickens]

I see that we know/have known some of the same people. The first thing I noticed about this was your header and how I have made that same statement many times myself. Parenting probably is the most important job in the world, but they let absolutely anybody do it. Being the product of two bad parents, I have some insight into this particular situation. It spreads, too. Bad parents have children that grow up to be bad parents, and as I've witnessed in my own family, it goes on and on. It has taken me most of a lifetime to repair myself, and the job is not complete, I'm sure.
Stepping in dog poop with your bare feet---boy, I know that feeling.

[Marie Harrison]

Loved your story. i'm a big animal lover. Loved the dogs. Very interesting story. Almost like you could expand on this story. You are a master storyteller.

[Jenny Nelson]

Good fences make good neighbors.

Excellent, honest and real write. Again, very well done. Have you ever thought of extending any of your stories out into a novel? You do have a real talent for writing stories.