Black Dog

This is an example of the type of stories I am looking for in Blood & Over-ripe Tomatoes

Black Dog
J. Swaney

This story was originally written in El-Reno Federal Correctional Facility in November 2004

        The birds twittered and tweeted. The lilacs were in full bloom and the air smelled of spring. The roosters chased the hens and the hens fled, but only out of coyness and modesty. The hens had seen spring before and knew their jobs well. The rooster danced this dance yearly and he too knew all of the steps. There would be baby chicks peeping soon.
        In the green pasture the cattle were restless. The steers acted hostile and possessive, as if their bodies were somehow un-aware of the missing equipment The cows, steers, and calves, fled, chased, and bantered, although they all knew that all new calves on this farm came from a trailer.
        The man sat on the porch which had become his custom and waited for the trucks, trailers, and neighbors to arrive and gather up all of the stock.
        By the time that the sun, and dust had settled, the only remaining creatures on the farm were the man and the black dog.
        The man sat and rocked listlessly on the porch swing and the dog sat at his feet and waited.
        Waiting was what the dog did more than anything and he was willing to wait as long as it took. In the very core of his brain he knew that he and his ancestors had been waiting on, and for man, since they had shared caves, and he wouldn’t have changed it for anything.
        “When the frost comes again and the leaves turn to gold and red perhaps I will have learned to breath again without wanting to cry.” The old man mumbled as he absently scratched the head of the black lab and retreated into the house.
        The dog lay down again to wait, occasionally his waiting would be interrupted by the need to drink, or eat, or go to the yard to do his business, but for the most part he waited, and as he waited he thought in the abstract way that dogs do.
        His human was called different names by different people but to the black dog he was simply ‘man’.
        The dog was black in color and his name was a simple one. He was called ’dog’ or ’black dog’, when a longer name was required.
        The man and dog had both been smirked at when his name was called, especially if they were in town. Both of them knew it and neither of them really cared. The man didn’t care much for town, or town people, so the dog didn’t either.
        The dog and the man had been together forever as far as the dog measured time, and their lives had been filled with work and companionship. These are really the only things required for a man or dog to be happy as far as the dog was concerned, and as far as he could see they always had been.
Then things had changed.
        The change had happened when the woman was taken away in the white van with all of the lights. The lights had been flashing red and blue into the night, and the van made the most awful noise. The dog had tried to protect his home from the lights and wailing, he had been prepared to bite the men in the funny clothes and would have if the man had not shouted at him. The man had glared at him and yelled “dog no !!” So the dog had sit still and only growled as the men carried the woman off. The dog was pleased to see the van leave, and very sad when the man had left to and he had been told to “stay”. The next day the man had returned, without the woman or the van.
        The dog and the woman had never been particularly close. The dog did not like, or dislike her, anymore than he liked or disliked any other creature that he shared the farm with. His loyalty however, lay with the man because that was who he belonged to.
        The dog was familiar with the woman because she would sometimes refill his water dish, or if it were very very cold, or rainy, she would sometimes call him into the mud-porch and allow him to sleep there on an old pair of the mans cover-alls, until the next morning when he and the man would go off to work.
        When the man would come they would finally get to do the things the dog had been waiting for all along. They would gather eggs, they would feed the cattle, sometimes they would go to the fields and the man would plow, while the dog lay on the floor-board of the tractor. The best times were when they would go somewhere. The back of the truck was a paradise for the dog. He would stand in the center of the flat bed truck with his nose held high, smells coming faster than he would ever have imagined, eyes watering as the wind and grit blew into them but oblivious to anything other than his nose. Just to think of it even now caused the dog to twitch in his sleep.
        Sometimes they had moved cattle from place to place and the dog had helped the man by keeping them all together without causing them to become frightened and panicked. The dog could smell the fear on them and always kept them moving without scaring them too bad. The dog had learned that he could only chase the cattle when the man said, although when he had been a pup he had sometimes chased them just for fun.
        But now things were different.
        All of the animals were gone. A stranger plowed the fields. The gate had been left open in the fields. The grass grew tall and unkempt, and the paint that has always been shiny and new was now beginning to crack and peel.
        The dog had no understanding of what had happened to bring on all of the changes. For many passings of the sun after the van and the woman had left the farm had been visited by many friends and neighbors. Black dog felt like he had done a good job dealing with the people. He had not bitten any of them, and had only growled at some of them. He was a smart dog, he could tell that the man didn’t want them there but the man had let him know with a look that he wouldn’t be allowed to chase any of them off. Late at night after all of the people had gone home the man had told him that it would only be a matter of time until they stopped coming. The man had been right because the moon had changed and changed again and no one had come.
        The dog and the man didn’t go anywhere any more. The truck now sit at a crazy angle because one of it’s tires was flat. The man didn’t care so neither did the dog. Together, the man and the dog sat on the porch and waited. The man waited for the pain to stop and the dog waited for the man.
        Every day the man would feed him, and fill his water dish, and then he would sit on the porch and swing back and forth. Often the man would drink something that smelled like rotten grapes. The dog wrinkled his nose at the smell and waited.
        Time passed as it always did and it was measured as only a dog can measure it. The shadows raced along the ground and morning would turn to noon, noon would march into afternoon, and then surrender to evening. Night would hold court and then be chased away by morning again.
        The dog waited for the man to heal from whatever had wounded him. He could not imagine what it might be as the man didn’t limp or smell like fever or infection. A dog can tell a lot about his person when they lick them. When black dog licked his human he smelt a little soap, some hamburger helper and a sadness. He could also smell something else. The something was like desperation but worse, as if he were stuck in a trap and couldn’t get out. Black dog could not place it. He couldn’t understand it. But he didn’t like it. He didn’t like it at all.
        Black dog knew about being wounded, and he knew that somehow his man had been.
        Once when he was a puppy he had been hit by a car. He had hurt all over. He had drug himself under the porch and that is where he had stayed. After about three days hunger had driven him out and he had begun to hurt a little less. As time passed the pain had become less and less. Eventually the pain had faded, but the memory never did.
        “I’ll tell you this black dog, I don’t see how I can go on without her.” the man said one day to the dog at his feet.
        The dog stood and licked his hand. The taste was really bad and the dog studied his master for a moment. The mans hair was standing up in places on his head that it never had before, and it seemed the master had grown a decent coat of fur on his jaws and face. But even by the standards of a dog the fur was matted and filthy. The lick had been shocking. The man smelled more like an animal than black dog ever had. There was no taste of soap or cologne. The smell of desperation had begun to fade, and the other one without a name was much stronger. The dog didn’t care for any of these developments at all but he stood and wagged his tail in appreciation of this small bit of affection. The man again ignored his dog and went back to rocking and drinking from his cup of rotten grapes. The dog again settled down to wait. He waited and waited..
        The shadows passed and sometimes the man would fall asleep on his swing, he would snooze the entire night away. Once in awhile the dog would wake up to find his master humming a song and peeing over the porch rail into the weed filled flower bed. He seemed to notice the dog less and less and the dog would have to lean heavily against the mans leg and even whine to remind him that he needed some food and water.
        As the weather heated up the man became thinner and thinner. Black dog wondered if he might have a worm.
        One day the man carried something new to the porch with him. In one hand he carried the bottle of rotten grapes and in the other was what the dog could only think of as the ‘black thing’.
        The dog didn’t know for sure what the ‘black thing ‘ was but he knew he didn’t like it. It was cold and hard, it reeked of smoke and made a very loud noise as the man pointed it at the empty bottles in the front yard.
        Now every day the man would come to the porch with his bottle of rotten grapes and the black thing. He would rock and hum and drink from his bottle. His eyes leaked all the time and black dog began to wonder if the man had forgotten him completely. Black dog waited..
        One night the dog on the porch did not sleep. The man was walking around his den and doing something. A good dog won’t sleep while his master is awake so the dog prowled back and forth outside while the man prowled back and forth inside.
        As the dog watched the sun break into another dawn he realized that summer had passed. The leaves in the early morning light had begun to turn red and gold and the frost looked a little like smoke as the sun burned it off of the grass.
        After awhile the man came out of the house and the dog was so thrilled and surprised that he wagged his tail so hard that the whole back end of him waved from side to side.
        The fur had been scratched off of the mans cheeks. His clothes were clean, his hair was neat and combed. In his hand he held a heaping bowl of scrambled eggs, black dog couldn’t help it. He began to drool. The man held a hot cup of coffee in his other hand.
        With joy in his voice he said “Hey Boy !” and the dog rushed over to lick his hand.
        Black dog jerked his head back as if he had been slapped. He snorted several times to clear out his sinuses and even then wrinkled his nose so much that his teeth showed. The taste was cologne and soap but it barely covered the other smell, the black smell, the smell like ashes and rot.
        The dog was confused and worried, but that did not effect his appetite. He ate the eggs and licked the bowl clean. While he ate the man stroked his fur, and scratched his head. The dog could tell things were getting ready to change again. He held his nose high as if smelling the first cold front of the new season.
        Some time passed and the man went back into his den, he carried the bowl with him. Black dog took some comfort from the clinking that came from the kitchen. That was a sound he hadn’t heard for a long , long time.
        Some more time passed and the man again came to the porch. The man had the ‘black thing’ in his hand.
        This morning it looked more blue than black and smelled much less like smoke and more like oil. It was still bad but not as bad as it had been.
        “She’s calling me boy.. She’s been calling me.. And today I’ve got to go..”
        “But I’m gonna do you right.. I’m not gonna leave you.. “
        “I’m taking you with me.. We’re going home..”
        “Come here boy.. Come here..”
        With a look of love and adoration black dog went to his master. His tail was wagging and he never even heard the shot.
        He didn’t hear the second shot either.


        “Why would the crazy old b*****d shoot his own dog ?” Asked a neighbor of the Sheriffs deputy two days later as the van again left the farm. This time there was no lights and wailing siren.


J. Swaney

Author's Note

I need all the help I can get. Please be as critical as you want to my hide is tuff.. :)

Reviews

[Dustin Chang]

Powerful and tragic. "When black dog licked his human he smelt a little soap, some hamburger helper and a sadness." is my favorite line from this piece. Loved it.