dog days

Not long after I moved into the rooming house there was a problem with the hotwater service. Out of their rooms they came: The Swine, Vladimir the Caretaker, and Bruce.

While the other tenants postulated, Bruce proposed a flashlight.

“A flashlight..?” The Swine said.

“What are we gunna do with a flashlight ?”

“Well...” Bruce said.

“We can get down on our hands and knees and see what’s going wrong in there”.

The Swine snatched the flashlight out of Bruce’s hand and threw it across the yard.

“Now, get back into your hole and don’t come out until I say so”.

His six foot four inch frame hunched over, Bruce did as he was told.

It seemed reasonable enough. Something was wrong with the hotwater service. Perhaps the pilot light was out. So get a flashlight and have a look. Try and solve the problem. The Swine was out of order, throwing Bruce's flashlight across the yard like that... If he ever did anything like that with my property, well... But The Swine hadn’t done it to me, he’d done it to Bruce. It was Bruce’s problem, not mine.

That same afternoon, I was hanging socks on the clothesline when I came across Bruce rummaging in the long grass.

“I saw what happened...” I said.

“A nasty thing to do with someone else’s property”.

Bruce did not respond.

“Yes. A real nasty thing to do..."

"If he had have thrown my flashlight across the yard like that...”

I plucked a pair of wet socks from the clothes basket.

“Can you hear me ?” I said.

“Do you want some help looking for your flashlight ?”

“No”. Bruce barked.

And that was that.

It’s always the same. Offer to help someone less fortunate than yourself and it’s never appreciated. But a person has to show some empathy. Without the power of empathy human beings would be animals. Scratching out a meagre existence the way a dog scratches for a bone. But human beings aren’t animals, we’re human beings... So I gave Bruce the benefit of the doubt and when next I saw The Swine on the doorstep studying a formguide, I challenged him over his treatment of Bruce.

“A bit rough that...” I said.

And made my way to the letterbox.

“A bit rough what..?” The Swine said.

I removed a wad of junkmail protruding from the letterbox.

“You wouldn’t treat a dog like that...”

“Dog..? ” The Swine said.

“This is a rooming house. No pets allowed. Except for that animal who lives out the front... Mongrel ought to be put down”.

(Bruce lived in a box tacked onto the veranda).

“The man’s not a bloody Golden Retriever”.

The Swine looked up from his formguide.

“Be careful sonny". He said.

“I’d stay right out of it if I were you”.

The Swine then buried his nose in his formguide and without saying another word unleashed from his throat a low pitched trembling growl.

‘Sonny’ ? Who did The Swine think he was calling ‘Sonny’ ? I was about to give The Swine a piece of my mind, a real dressing down. Instead, I went back to my room. If you lie down with dogs you get up with fleas. I was above petty minded incidents such as that.

I secured the wad of junkmail under one arm and unlocked the door to my room. I threw the junkmail on the coffee table but it slid across the brown veneer surface onto the floor. I picked it up and was about to throw it in the bin when in among the material advertising cut price sausages, home gardening and other paraphernalia I caught sight of a picture of a small dog. I can’t remember what they’re called; they’re fluffy and white, but they don’t bite. All they do is yap. Yap. Yap. Yap. It was a rough photocopy on cheap paper. There were prices, special offers and free quotes. Right at the bottom was the catchphrase:

We Will Treat Your Dog Like A Human Being

Now a dog might be Man’s Best Friend, but treating a dog like a human being was cruel to animals. I thought about calling the Animal Protection Society and making a complaint. And I would have, except I didn’t have a phone. (Who can afford to pay the bill when you’re on disability pension and haven’t worked for years ? Forced to live in a rooming house with a person like The Swine. A man who believed it was his right to treat less fortunate human beings with contempt and call them ‘Sonny’). I would have called the Animal Protection Society, but I didn’t. Instead, I threw the junkmail into a rubbish bin; except for the flyer advertising the dog grooming business. I pinned this up on a wall of my room in case I changed my mind and made a complaint. Then I lay down on my mattress, curled up and went to sleep.

A week or so went by and I made an effort to stay away from The Swine. I didn’t speak to Bruce either. The best thing for a poor boy like me to do was mind his own business. If I played my cards right and stayed out of trouble I could live a nice and easy life in the rooming house.

But the hotwater service failed once again. This time, The Swine went off his tree. He ran around the yard squealing that potatoes would sprout from his ears, that the dirt under his fingernails would be there forever and he would never be able to get them clean. Eventually, Vladimir the Caretaker came downstairs and gave The Swine a few reassuring pats on the head. But The Swine refused to listen and continued to froth at the mouth, so Vladimir threatened to evict him. On the spot. The Swine quickly settled down and Vladimir got out his spanners and screwdrivers and began trying to fix the hotwater service.

Vladimir tapped away at the pilot light mechanism with the tip of his screwdriver. Then, against the best advice of The Swine, he dismantled the pilot light. It lay sprawled on the garden path: springs and knobs, buttons and washers, copper pipe and metal housing. None of it in any particular order. Everyone had a theory as to what might have been wrong with the hotwater service. But nobody, not The Swine, not myself or Vladimir, knew how to put the pilotlight mechanism back together again. Then around one corner of the rooming house came Bruce. In his right hand he carried the same flashlight The Swine had snatched from him a week earlier and thrown into the grass.

Everyone saw Bruce coming, except The Swine.

Vladimir quickly gathered up his tools, did a complete about face, and pretended he was fertilising his chilli plants.

“Where’ya goin” ? The Swine said.

“Someone’ll have to fix the hotwater service”.

Bruce lumbered to a stop and clicked his flashlight into the ON position.

“Let’s get down and have a good look at it”.

“You...” The Swine said, as if about to blow his top.

“Moron. Idiot. Fool. You wanna get down and have a look at it, then do it”.

“Do what” ? Bruce said.

“Do it... IT...”

“It..? What do you mean, it” ?

In all the rooming houses I had lived in I had never seen another human being behave in the same way The Swine then behaved toward Bruce.

He grabbed hold of Bruce’s neck and tried to force him onto his knees. Being a huge man, Bruce just stood there; and for a while, it looked like The Swine would never shift him. Bruce did not fight back, for he didn’t have any fight in him. He just remained there, like a tree.

“Get down”. Screamed The Swine.

“Get down on your knees”.

Bruce just clicked his flashlight into the OFF position.

“What’s the matter with you” ? He enquired of The Swine.

With his face swollen like a bloodplum, The Swine began unbuckling his belt. It snapped out of his trousers and leaped into the air above his head.

“What’s the matter with me” ? The Swine half asked himself.

Bruce saw the snapping buckle and turned his back.

“It’s what’s the matter with you that’s what’s the matter with me." The Swine said. “That’s what’s the matter...”

And down came the venomous buckle across Bruce’s back.

“Get down.... Get down on your knees...”. Yelled The Swine.

The sharp buckle split the fabric of Bruce’s pink cotton shirt. He fell to the ground; partly because of the blows from the belt buckle, but also, as if he were eager to appease The Swine’s rabid commands. He pleaded and screamed, but The Swine just lashed him harder. Bruce cried and whimpered, then the poor man wet himself. But the sight and smell of urine only spurned The Swine onto greater heights.

“Cry like a dog you swine...”. He said.

I did not believe what I saw next. In the face of lashings of leather and steel and instead of protecting himself, Bruce rolled onto his back. He then stuck his hands and feet into the air, and began to yap. Bruce was a human being on his back going:

“Yap. Yap. Yap”.

And The Swine just lashed out harder with the belt buckle. This time, ripping into Bruce’s underbelly.

I still don’t understand why, but I tackled The Swine. Made a running jump and brought him to the ground. Grappled with him, tore the belt out of his hand, stood up, and was about to administer the same punishment he had unleashed upon Bruce - an almighty whipping - when a twisted cackle exploded in my throat. I whipped the belt buckle into the air and watched as The Swine rolled into a protective ball. Then, after a brief pause, released the belt from my hand and let it fall to the ground. The Swine saw his chance, jumped up and disappeared. Bruce, still with hands and feet in the air, continued to cry and whimper.

I’d spent a lot of time in rooming houses, but I’d never seen a human being act like an animal. I’d seen people who lived like animals. An elderly woman, mentally ill, who refused to wash her clothes until her skirt was so caked in dirt it became stiff around her thighs. But Bruce lying on his back in the grass, hands and feet in the air... Well, what was a person supposed to make of that ? I imagined that sometime in his past, Bruce had adopted the persona of a puppy, one that couldn’t fight back. As the years had passed and Bruce had become a man, he’d also become a dog. A big lumbering dog capable of nothing less than loving its owner to death.

And as I thought about Bruce lying on his back going:

“Yap. Yap. Yap”.

I began feeling like a dog; one with an innate pleasant personality that had tried hard to remain loyal to its master and show the world it really was a trustworthy animal. An intelligent dog capable of a career and a family. A spotted dog that one day might become a fine civic leader; its gallant chest swelling as it signed away on new housing for the homeless, or a new facility for the mentally ill. A Dalmatian, one able to ensure the general public that the trains would run on time... But in spite of all these canine aspirations my Dalmatian had somehow acquired sad eyes. Glassy brown orbs staring out the window of its room as it watched the world pass by while German Shepherds, Rottwheilers, Dobermans and even Pit Bull Terriers were idolised. Unable, then unwilling to participate, because there was no longer any room in the world for a dog staring out a window with sad brown eyes.

As the end of winter turned to early spring a plumber arrived and refitted all the knobs and screws, the washers and metal housing to the hotwater service. He then fired up the pilot light. And it seemed to me that once the residents of the rooming house could wash and keep themselves clean, our spirits picked up. I even said hello to The Swine and he grunted in return. A begrudging grunt, but a grunt all the same. The only person that hadn’t surfaced was Bruce. Nobody had seen him. Until early one morning, about 2.30 am, I was woken by the sound of snapping undergrowth in the yard. When I looked out my upstairs window I saw a flashlight wavering in the darkness.

It was some time before my eyes adjusted, but once they did I saw that the figure holding the flashlight was Bruce; naked, except for a towel wrapped around his waist. I watched through my window as he wandered around the yard, spraying his flashlight into bushes: stopping for a moment at one location, then moving on to another as if forever unsatisfied. I pulled on my jeans and boots and made my way downstairs. When I asked Bruce if everything was alright he jumped into the air.

“Can’t find it...” Bruce said.

“Find what...” ?

Bruce crashed through the shrubs and long grass

“It”. Bruce said .

“It..? What do you mean it ?”

The towel fell from his waist. There were black welts on his thighs and backside.

“The Lost Dogs Home. Can't find it..."

I was about to take Bruce’s arm and lead him back to his box on the veranda, when somewhere in the early morning night a cat unleashed a wail that sounded like the cry of a lost child.

Then Vladimir the Caretaker sparked up in the darkness.

“3.00 am in morning... What going on here” ?

“Don’t worry”. I said.

“But man is naked”.

“Don’t worry”. I repeated. “Go back to bed”.

There is something about the title of Caretaker, that when given to a human being turns a good man into an animal. Vladimir was no exception. He was also a regular attendant each Sunday at the local Russian Orthodox Church.

“But man is naked...”. Vladimir said again. “Like ape...”

Pretty soon, The Swine arrived.

He sniggered, while Vladimir tried to cover Bruce with the towel. But Bruce kept pining for the Lost Dogs Home and spraying his flashlight into the air. The dog next door began to bark. Lights came on in windows in apartments overlooking the yard, and a couple wearing red and blue silk robes emerged upon the balcony of their unit. I don’t know why, but the growl and bark of the dog next door, the way I imagined its drooling jaw snapping shut upon a hand, I don’t know why but that dog’s presence invaded my mind. The sad Dalmatian I had previously felt like became a domestic dog gone wild in the mountains on a moonlit night.

“Get inside” I shouted at the couple on the balcony.

“Both of you. Get inside now”.

Vladimir stared at me.

“Me caretaker here. Not you, me. Understand” ?

I understood alright. And as I could see so clearly, I decided the others, especially Vladimir and The Swine, also needed to acquire some understanding. So I threatened to rip Vladimir’s throat out if he continued to harangue me.

“No worry. I fix you”. Said Vladimir.

Still sniggering, The Swine began removing his belt from his trousers. But before he could raise it into the air I clipped him on the chin and he went down like a sack of potatoes.

Next morning, there was an official notice under my door explaining that I’d been evicted.

I pinned the eviction notice onto the wall of my room alongside the flyer advertising the dog grooming business. It seemed to me there were more similarities between animals and human beings than I had previously understood. A domestic animal will not attack an injured person and devour that person’s flesh. A domestic dog will slobber and lick and love a person to death. But look into the sad brown eyes of a Dalmatian and there always remains in those eyes a faint trace of the wilderness. And a person imagines they can hear a wild dog howling at the moon on a starless night as it prepares to travel thirty miles down a mountain path, enter farmland, and rip a lamb to bits for no other reason other than it likes the smell of blood. But perhaps the death of one lamb is the life of another and this is what human beings mean when we use the word ‘Survival’.

I was given a week to vacate the premises. But as I had little in the way of belongings, a suitcase, some personal bits and pieces, I left on the day the eviction notice was issued. I suspect Bruce still lives in his little box on the veranda. And I suspect The Swine continues to standover Bruce. While Vladimir the Caretaker probably attends the Russian Orthodox Church every Sunday, cleansing his stained soul after watching Bruce stumble naked around the yard while searching for The Lost Dogs Home. Yes, I suspect not a lot will have changed in that rooming house. In much the same way as not a lot has changed in the rooming house I live in now. A single room, four walls, one window, a mattress on the floor, and never any visitors. But just the other day a young man moved into the room next to mine. A young man who reminded me of myself when I'd first moved in seven years earlier. Not really a man, just a kid. All quiet, scared and watchful with sad brown eyes when I saw him staring out his window while contemplating the wilderness within - like a dog.