Robert Calder - The Dogs

"We could he in New York before morning."

"Oh wow," Melissa said.

"Do you have the money with you?"

"Sure. But I don't know, Cheryl. I mean, what if we get caught?"

"We won't. But even if we do, things can't get any worse at home, can they?

And we've never been arrested for anything, so a judged just let us go, put us on probation or something."

"But…" Melissa squirmed.

"But nothing. We decided to split, didn't we? So what are we waiting for?

There won't be any better time."

Melissa hugged herself. Then she lunged for the Corvair's door, jerked it open and jumped in. "Come on! Let's move!"

Cheryl ran around to the driver's side. She started the car. "Yoweee!"

She put it in gear.

After fifty miles, Cheryl's eyes were bloodshot and teary, her nose was runny and she was sneezing.

"You look like you're going to die," Melissa worried.

"Jesus, I feel like I am." She sneezed again, adding new pinpoint spatters to the windshield. "It's a dog, the bastard who owns this car's gotta have a dog. I'm allergic. If I even go into someone's house that's got a dog I start puffing up. Jesus, it's kinin' me."

"What are we going to do?"

"Keep goin'," Cheryl said grimly. "It's too late now. We'll stop at a drugstore and get some Allerest. That helps sometimes."

Ten miles later, they were startled by a sleepy half whine half-bark.

Melissa got on her knees and looked down over the back of the seat.

"Cheryl, there's a dog here!"

The pup shook itself, waking, turned its face up to Melissa and made an interrogatory sound. It was hungry.

The car was approaching a gas station, lit up by arc lights. Cheryl braked and edged to the shoulder.

"Get rid of the damn thing," she said.

"It's just a puppy."

"I don't care if it's a stuffed toy. Twenty more minutes like this and I'll need an oxygen tent." She sniffled noisily and rubbed at her wet, puffy eyes.

Melissa lifted the dog and opened her door. "I'm sorry, baby, but you'll find someone to take care of you." She pushed the dog out and closed the door.

Cheryl accelerated with a spray of gravel. The dog looked after the taillights a few moments, then it whined.

Alex Bauer stopped for gasoline that night. He took the pup into his car, and in a week he was calling it Orph.

The New York City Police recovered Toby's Corvair three weeks after it was stolen. The thief was never apprehended. The police could tell Toby nothing of his dog. He looked upon it as the punishment of God.

He was too remorseful and too frightened to make further inquiries. He wondered, sadly, for years afterward what had become of the pup.

Dr. Nathan Mills, President

Behavior Development Incorporated

One Dag Hammarskjold Plaza

New York, New York

Dear Nate:

Thanks for your letter of the 25th. Sorry I omitted the follow-up on the missing pup, but I thought it the kind of administrative detail that would just be a waste of your time. You don't miss a wrinkle, do you? I'm enclosing a Xerox herewith, though I'm afraid it's not worth much. The sign-out sheets in the kennel were incomplete (that's a problem with the dog-trainer types we have to work with, sloppiness), so we interviewed everyone who'd been in the area, but drew a blank. We scoured the grounds twice over and we advertised in the local papers for two weeks (discreetly, of course, there's a lot of horror-story rumor about what we do here). We came up with a big fat zero. I know this kind of irresponsibility is intolerable, but as best we can determine someone failed to close a latch properly and the pup simply wandered ofj. God knows where — we don't. We roasted our people. It won't happen again. All I can say is, tell Accounting to write it off as a loss of materiel. I'd call it about $350.

I'm sorry this wasn't included in the quarterly report, but again, I thought it would just be bothersome stuff.

My best to Joan and the kids.

Yours,

Dr. Chaim Mandelberg, Director

Behavior Development Incorporated

New England Facility

ONCE a month Bauer canceled a class and invited the students to an informal seminar at his home. Attendance was not compulsory, and about half would come. The gatherings were relaxed and usually productive.

There were twelve students this evening. Bauer served beer and wine, cheese and potato chips, coffee. Two kids had come stoned. Bauer had tried grass a couple of times, and it had been fun, he understood its appeal, but he was really too old-a member of the hardcore alcohol generation-and he couldn't comprehend how anyone could try to function intellectually on it.

A reporter had told him that you couldn't write while you were stoned, but you could retain insights that came to you and use them intelligently when you were straight.

Bauer didn't know. At Wintergreen there were students who'd taken their first acid trip at twelve, who couldn't reckon the amount of chemicals they'd dropped, snorted, smoked, popped and shot since then, and whose brains seemed to have been jellied beyond salvage. Others, equal veterans of the drug culture, worked with fine clarity, even if their mental processes were occasionally obtuse to him. Of the two boys stoned tonight, one sat dazed and withdrawn, while the second participated keenly, his cerebrations altered only toward a certain baroque ness which was in itself pleasing. And Bauer could conclude nothing from that, if he'd felt any need to reach a conclusion. He didn't really care much what people did.

They sprawled in chairs around the logs burning in the fireplace, sat on the floor on pillows, and stretched out on their sides supporting their heads on their palms. It was a good session, they went deep into Melville and Bauer even managed to generate some retroactive enthusiasm for Hawthorne.

Earlier, before anyone had arrived, Orph had grown unhappy when Bauer kindled the fire. Orph didn't like fire. He'd withdraw to a far wall and lie down and stare at it warily, and if a charred log collapsed or sparks showered, he'd rumble and come half to his feet with his hackles lifting.

He refused to leave the room when one was burning, as if it were an adversary that would become dangerous free of his watchful eye. Bauer, who liked fires, didn't build as many as he might have.

When the first students rang the bell Orph rushed the door barking.

Later, he growled at a girl who laughed loudly, then at a boy arguing a point.

Bauer thought it prudent to close him into a bedroom.

Orph liked an infrequent person well enough to allow himself to be petted, and on rare occasion he invited such attention, but he wasn't fond of human beings in general, seemed to tolerate them by exercise of will.

Ursula didn't like the dog. She was disdainful, nearly contemptuous of his affection for it, and reluctant to place the children in its presence. She'd asked Bauer to get rid of it. Orph accepted Bauer's sons when they visited, but his spirits always brightened as soon as they left and he had his home, his cave, to himself again.

Bauer had consulted the vet when Orph, seven months old, had first showed his teeth at someone. She said, "Well, he has a home now. It's his territory and he's getting possessive about it. The other thing is his hormones. They begin changing at six months and they don't stabilize until eighteen months, which is when he reaches maturity. In males this means, among other things, increasing aggression. He'll get progressively tougher until his metabolism levels, and then that's where he'll stay. You can control it with training, of course, but you can't diminish it."

Orph was nineteen months now, and Bauer was relieved. He figured he could control the dog at this level.

The seminar ended well. A few students lingered over coffee or wine.