Canine Christmas (9 page)

Remotes for the visually impaired worked better. We went through several before we found one they were comfortable with. I started checking on their viewing habits after that. Animal Planet was a big hit. The Discovery Channel. Commercials were tolerated, or ignored while one or both went out to the kitchen for a drink. I considered teaching them to use a snack dispenser that would fill a bowl with potato chips, but I figured that might be extreme. I was the proud parent of two canine couch potatoes.

We went for walks, played in a nearby park, dined on medium rare New York Strips, green beans, and twicebaked potatoes for dinner. They ate whatever I ate, a mostly balanced diet. Hobbes hit eighty-nine pounds of solid muscle, standing about thirty inches at the shoulder. Nietzsche weighed four pounds less and was two inches shorter, but his chest was broader. Both were healthy, despite the vet's protest over their diet and my misgivings about their television addiction. Eventually the need for television abated but the desire for it remained strong. I could turn it off and no one complained, but an hour later the two of them would have on some program about wildlife in Madagascar.

Eleven months after my house was taken over by the two precocious curs, Christmastime was fast approaching. It was impossible to spend time at any of the local parks: Hobbes and Nietzsche had a personal comfort thermometer that ranged from sixty-eight to seventy-six degrees Fahrenheit. Thirty degrees and wet didn't cut it. Which meant I was inside with them more frequently when I wasn't working. We had a problem.

Television does not relax me. It irritates me. Too many commercials, too much drivel, hyperkinetic editing: I'd rather read. If there was something on I wanted to watch, Hobbes would change the channel. If I moved the remote, Nietzsche would distract me, pressing his head against my leg, staring into my eyes mournfully, while Hobbes found the remote and moved it. We watched a lot of nature shows. Finally, I explained who was master: I gave them the remote and told them I would be in my study, reading. Occasionally, during commercials I assume, one of them would check up on me.

We made it to two weeks before Christmas with short walks, more television (including one viewing of the Grinch while the remote stayed under my cushion), and a little grumbling. I was caught up on my work and shopping, so I tried to spend more quality time with the boys, wrestling, reading, even watching television. Mostly I watched them watching television. Hobbes was a channel surfer. Nietzsche was more laid-back, watching whatever Hobbes picked, growling occasionally when the channels changed too frequently.

Since television and dogs were both new to me, an epiphany of sorts hit me on the way from my study to the bathroom: Petsmart is perfect. Maybe not their prices, I almost never buy anything there, but the store is a huge heated warehouse where you can walk your dogs for an hour. What could be better, from a dog's point of view, than a car trip, a long walk in a heated environment surrounded by wonderful smells, another car trip, and possibly a snack of some sort? The boys loved it, and we tried it a couple times a week when it was cold outside. Other dogs seemed to be steady customers also, and I recognized several faces, almost as well as my dogs recognized the scents of newly discovered friends. It was the kind of place that set tails wagging, butts wiggling, and nostrils flaring.

December fifteenth, someone stole all of the toys donated to Toys for Tots, a local charity that provided needy kids with a visit from Santa. Hobbes had put on
When Animals Attack or some such Roman entertainment, and the local Fox affiliate ran the story of the toy thief every one of the two hundred commercial breaks. Same story every time, same bad sketch, same pompous tones and practiced look of concern by the anchor. I was more worried about the possibility of media violence influencing animals than I was about the stolen toys, but I considered whether there might be a story possibility in the exploits of a real-life Grinch. If caught, maybe he could use the “heart three sizes too small” defense. The story eventually was replaced by bigger and better things, though it ran at least once an evening over the next couple of days.

Three times the week before Christmas, Hobbes and Nietzsche seemed ill at ease while at their favorite store. They growled. Hair raised from neck to tail, ears up, scare-the-piss-out-of-mail-carriers angry growls. Same dog each time. Same guy each time: black shoulder length hair, sort of thin, five o'clock shadow looking dark against pale skin, maybe six feet tall, gray sweatshirt. He was owned by a little brown haired German shepherd mix who hid behind worn blue jeans, peering out between his owner's calves. I made them sit, the first two times. The third time, I made them sit and asked them what exactly was wrong. The man never noticed.

Hobbes immediately stood and pulled me over to the row with Frisbees and balls and squeaky plastic hedgehogs. I was just dense, I guess. I asked him, “The dog took something?” Nietzsche cocked his head and Hobbes's head butted me in the groin.

“Damn. Sorry. Sit. Now something about the ball?”

The dogs were now giving me looks reserved for advertisements for Buddy's Carpet, the kind I reserve for people I interview over the phone who speak English as an alien language even though they seem to use the same words an English speaker might use. Hobbes and Nietzsche began nudging all of the items up and down the row.

“You want a toy?”

The bark as I said that word was one loud, piercing comment on my inability to understand effective communication.

“Toy?”

Hobbes barked.

The wheels began turning slowly. “That man has something to do with toys?”

Nietzsche ran over and licked my hand.

“Are the two of you trying to tell me that”—I lowered my voice—“that man is the toy thief?”

Both barked once, quietly, as we shared our group secret.

“I do not believe this.” We made a final lap around the store, and I watched for the accused. They led me right to him, but I kept walking out the doors and toward our car. I was sure that 911 does not like anonymous tips from people who say “my dogs told me…,” so we waited inside my Toyota Tacoma extended cab, watching for the Grinch.

Ten minutes passed, ten hot, smelly minutes with panting dogs steaming up the windows and passing gas in their excitement. I wondered vaguely how 911 would respond to an emergency call with a man passed out in his car due to canine flatulence. My head cleared a little when the dogs pushed their heads against the passenger windows and I eased mine down a crack; then Hobbes turned and grabbed my arm. I backed the truck out and drove behind the baby-poop-brown primered Camaro the suspect climbed into. Pulling up to the curb fifty feet past him, I jotted down his license number.

I'd like to relate the heroic story of following him home, catching him with the goods, and overpowering him with the help of my fearless canine companions. That didn't happen. We did follow him home. Upon driving past his Camaro and seeing hordes of Beanie Babies and Tickle Me Elmos tucked in the backseat, I figured the police were better equipped than we to handle the arrest.

The police caught him, from my tip, and his house had a smattering of the stolen toys, along with enough electronics to stock a Best Buy. So he went to jail, I wrote an article, and Hobbes and Nietzsche were awarded honorary badges, detective grade. I don't fuss at them as much anymore for watching television, and they occasionally let me pick the program. I'm thinking of teaching them music appreciation.

The Fencing Crib

Mark Graham

MARK GRAHAM was born in Philadelphia in 1970 and has spent most of his life in the Lehigh Valley of Pennsylvania. He is the great-great-great-grandson of a Philadelphia policeman, and he briefly served as constable in Lehigh County. Moreover, he is a medieval and religious studies scholar. His novels (featuring Philadelphia police detective Wilton McCleary) include The Killing Breed and The Resurrectionist.

Christmas was not a good time for a policeman. The holiday season of 1870 was no exception. The festive mood manifested itself less in a spirit of giving than in a spirit of drinking. Philadelphia was perhaps less rowdy than some other cities, but there were always gangs of mangy-looking belznickels and mummers, invariably intoxicated, who roamed the streets at night. They did little but drink and beg, but they were a nuisance. I'd already had to walk one back to the station house that night.

I was glad for the respite. The streets were slick with ice, and the mercury was low enough to numb my limbs.

It was only three days before Christmas Eve. I would spend that night, like this one, on the beat.

It could have been worse. There weren't many folks out on the streets in this weather. The citizens weren't particularly rowdy either. These folks didn't have much to celebrate. It was five years after the war and they still weren't able to vote in a city election. Or hold a job other than the most menial sort.

This was the Seventh Ward, the colored section of the city. And the most dangerous beat any copper could have. I'd gotten my assignment courtesy of Sergeant Walter Duffy. It was my punishment for refusing to collect the usual bribes for him from the bawdy houses and blind pigs on my previous beat.

But tonight I didn't mind the Seventh Ward. It was mighty quiet. Even the black and tan bawdy houses had their red lights doused.

The only thing in the street with me was a stray dog. The two of us were fairly well acquainted. The dog and I saw each other practically every night, usually just before dawn. Perhaps he had his own regular beat, just like I did. Now he was poking his dirty nose in an even dirtier pile of rotten meat.

I looked up and down the street. The brick row houses were like giant pickets of a fence that stretched from one river to the other. I felt like the dog and I were in the same pen, just rooting for different garbage.

He was a vicious-looking cur—a gnarled, filthy mutt. His hide was covered with scars from numerous scraps. He seemed as old as the street itself, his viciousness honed through years of hunger and deprivation. Not too unlike the two-legged creatures occupying the same street.

As soon as he saw me, he shambled across the cobbles and headed toward me.

I had a piece of mutton ready for him, just in case. The dog was friendly enough for a stray. Over the past few weeks he'd gotten used to me. But he never took any food I gave him, even if I threw it in his direction.

The stray began to follow me, like he usually did. There was an air of perpetual hunger around him. I wasn't sure if he fancied the mutton in my hand or the hand itself.

Tossing the mutton in the gutter, I turned around to see if he took the bait.

He didn't. Like all the other nights, he ignored the morsel I offered. Instead he followed me. As I proceeded I could hear his claws scrape against the icy pavement.

Frustrated, I said over my shoulder, “Get lost, you.” I was almost ready to club the thing. If it was too stupid to take my handouts, the hell with it.

Then I heard a sound coming from a half square away. It was a human sound. I could hear crinoline swishing even at that distance. That told me it was a woman.

She had a bundle slung over her shoulder and was walking hurriedly. I had the feeling something was a little queer about it. Our handbook's fifty-first rule said:
Question anyone carrying bundles at night.
Especially when they're white women wandering through the lowest negro district in town.

Ladies didn't go out for a stroll at that dead hour. Not any I'd ever met. But some other kinds of women did.

I didn't figure her for a sneak thief. Not in this neighborhood. The people didn't have much worth stealing. But I was bored and I hadn't made a good pinch in a few days. I followed her.

Whenever she came to an alley or a cul-de-sac she stopped for a moment and peered into the shadows there, like she was looking for a certain spot. Once she halted like that and stood very still. Quickly, I ducked behind a broken dray that rested against the curb. My unfriendly companion was still wandering around the street, sniffing the gutter beside me. I wondered why he stuck with me. After a pause, the woman began walking again.

A few squares away from the colored cemetery, just at the limits of my beat, I saw her dart between two ramshackle wooden hovels. The buildings were like the ancient trees you see in bone orchards—hoary and bloated from feeding on the dead.

I stayed where I was, trying to decide what to do next. I looked east, toward the Delaware, and saw the first intimations of dawn peer through the sky like those purple blossoms you see hiding in the grass. It was a pretty scene. I got so caught up in it that I forgot for just a moment where I was. Then I pictured that bundle and my curiosity got the better of me.

Taking care to mind the ice, I made my way over to the alley, the cur in tow.

At the mouth of the alley, I could see the woman placing her bundle on the frost-covered earth.

Then she saw me.

In that moment I got a good look at her face, as well as the rest of her. Her eyes widened at the sight of me, like I was as ugly as the cur standing behind me. Or maybe it was my harness—the blue coat and the star— that was ugly to her.

Then she pulled something from out of her coat. We were close enough to each other that I could tell it was a single-shot derringer.

It was aimed at my head.

Before I could open my mouth, several things happened in quick succession.

The stray inexplicably began to snarl at the woman. Then, to my astonishment, he darted between my legs to attack her. Surprised, I took a step back, a little too quickly, and slid on the ice.

That was when the derringer went off. I heard a loud noise, but I wasn't sure if it was the shot or my head cracking against the pavement.

It seemed to me like I was stunned for just a few seconds. But it could've been minutes. When I got to my feet the woman was gone. The sound of the shot must've scared the dog off. He was nowhere to be seen.