» Fiction

Dog, After Storm

Garrett Ashley

I don’t know a thing about taking care of a dog. But where else is the dog supposed to go? Somebody tied him to a fence. He’s standing there in the water in the ditch. Water comes all the way up to his nose, which is pointed toward the sky. I thought he was a duck at first, he looked so weird standing there in the water. 

I lift the dog out of the ditch and untie him. He doesn’t growl at me. He goes limp in my arms. 

I put him on the floorboard of the passenger side of the car. God knows how long he’d been standing there in the water in the ditch struggling for air. God knows why someone would tie a dog up like that before a storm. 

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The dog needs a name, but I’m convinced he’s not going to make it, so I don’t bother giving him a name. I stay away from him. I leave him alone in the laundry room through most of the night because he’s always panting, slapping his tail.  

There’s no name on the collar. This is understandable—the kind of person who would tie a dog to a fence on the side of the road during a storm wouldn’t be the kind of person to get their dog a tag.  

When I go into the laundry room to get some pants, the dog gets up. I watch him in my underwear. He limps to the other side of the laundry room, tail between his legs, and throws himself down on the cold tiles again. 

◊

My apartment has suffered minimal damage. But the apartment people called ahead of time to let me know they’ll be making the rounds, doing hurricane inspections.  

That means the dog will be discovered here, and he’ll be taken away. This is another reason I can’t name the dog—I don’t want to lose him as soon as I’ve got him. 

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I call the apartment people back and tell the woman on the phone that there’s nothing wrong with the apartment. 

“We have to check anyway. It’s part of the process.” 

“You’ve never been interested before,” I say. “You know when I told you the neighbors downstairs must have had a house fire because I could smell smoke in my bedroom, but you didn’t even come to check it then? You remember the mold?” 

“We’re required by law to come and check,” she says, somewhat unkindly.  

◊

But I’m tired of them bullshitting me. Sometimes I go into the laundry room and look at the dog. He’s lying there with a blanket over him, and I can see the blanket moving up and down with every breath.  

This morning, he drank a little water, but he’s not eating. I always heard that a lack of appetite is the worst sign in an animal. 

I make an appointment with the vet, but they are closed due to damages from the storm. I look around for another vet, and a lot of them have a monthlong waiting list. There’s no way I can afford an emergency visit. 

◊

I put some leftovers on the floor in front of him; some cornbread, a slice of ham that’s maybe slightly bad. 

“If you eat, I’ll give you a name,” I say. 

He whacks his tail on the floor, doesn’t lift his head. 

“If you don’t eat, I don’t know what I can do for you,” I say. 

◊

The apartment guy comes. He has red hair and a nervous look on his face. He must see a lot of people who want to kill him.

Today is no different.  

As he’s going through the apartment, he shines a flashlight at the ceiling.  

“This mold?” 

“Excuse me?” 

“Was this here before the storm?” 

“I reported it six months ago,” I say. 

He clears his throat and moves quickly down the hallway. 

He goes into the bedroom. Looks at my things. Maybe he’ll understand what I’ve been through in my life. Always the smell of salt in the air. It’s like nothing will ever be the same again. It’s the smell of a wind that will never leave the trees. 

◊

He goes into the laundry room, sees the dog, turns the flashlight off. The dog’s chest beats like a chicken’s heart. I saw a chicken’s heart beating when I was a kid; it had been removed suddenly and kept beating on a chopping block. 

“I found this dog in the ditch. He was tied to a fence. He barely had his nose above water. I think he’s dying,” I say. 

We look at the dog a little longer. It’s as if the inspector isn’t even in the room. Then he clears his throat. I clear my throat. He crosses his arms and shakes his head, lets out a small grunt, some poor sound we make about death. I stick my hands in my pockets, and suddenly there is a musty smell in the room, the smell of the ocean, a breeze from far away.