Hush Puppies

Or, how one man stilled the sound and the furry

Paul was always in a fog immediately after awakening, so it took him a few minutes to realize something was amiss. He noticed first that it wasn't morning--there was no sunlight streaming in between the Hefty Steel-Sacks that lined the windows of his new tract house. Paul had come to like having gray trash bags on the windows. He had put them there himself as a stopgap bid for privacy and darkness until the new Levolors arrived. His wife, Sandy, did not like them. "It looks like Karen Silkwood did our interior design," she sniffed and promptly called the store to get yet another promise, undoubtedly fictional, on when the blinds would be delivered.

Sandy was not beside him in the king-size bed, he realized next. Nor, when he raised himself up on one elbow and looked, was she in the bathroom, the other logical place to find an extremely pregnant woman at three A.M. Paul listened for some sign of her wandering the house--with her added weight, the seismic tremors made her easy to keep track of--but all he could hear was the ceaseless barking of the neighborhood dogs. "The attack of the killer dogs continues," he said to himself and got out of bed.

(continued on page 146)Hush Puppies(continued from page 110)

The dogs had been a problem since the first night. There were three of them, and he'd spent at least part of every night listening to Sandy complain, often working herself into a state of near vapors. When they started dating, Paul had thought it odd that someone in the Eighties, particularly an attractive, extremely bright 24-year-old, would get the vapors. But Sandy did--not often but often enough. Once, he caught her using an old-fashioned folding fan, just like Scarlett O'Hara. Later, he got used to her spells and, in time, like so many other of her idiosyncrasies, they began to seem normal.

He went downstairs and found Sandy in the kitchen, obviously upset. "I couldn't sleep," she said. "It's the dogs."

"They are loud," Paul agreed. "There must be some acoustical weirdness to living in a cul-de-sac." He put his arm around her and watched her drill four tiny holes in a lamb chop with the vegetable peeler. It wasn't a new chop but one left over from dinner and retrieved from one of the few Hefty bags not on a window. Paul knew it was not normal to drill holes in lamb chops at three A.M., but he also knew when to keep his mouth shut.

Sandy opened a bottle of Valium.

"Those are my Valiums," Paul pointed out, watching closely.

"I know."

"You're putting them in a lamb chop," he said.

"I know," she answered.

"I'm sure there's a good reason for this, but I'm afraid to ask what it is," he said, taking a few steps back and sitting on the step stool. "There is a reason, isn't there?"

"Of course," she said matter-of-factly. "I haven't slept since we moved here, so I'm going to drug the dog next door so it will stop barking." She paused for effect. "I'm pregnant," she reminded him. "I need my sleep."

Paul pondered taking a Valium himself. He would have, too, but he was due at work in not too many hours. He briefly considered giving a Valium--or maybe four or five--to Sandy, except that she was pregnant and it would make him feel like Claus von Bülow.

"Isn't that a little extreme?" he countered. "I mean, you can't go around drugging the neighborhood dogs every night. What if you get caught? What if the dog dies?"

Paul knew that these were stupid questions. In Sandy's neurotic universe, sleep was high enough on the list of priorities to outrank Paul himself. And now, of course, she was sleeping for two. Certainly, a dog that died so that Sandy and the baby-to-be could sleep would not have died in vain. Over the three years of their marriage, Paul had not only been charmed by such logic, he had come to accept it as having a certain, albeit twisted, legitimacy. After all, a happy Sandy was a joy to live with. An unhappy one was not.

"It won't die," she said exasperatedly. "I'm giving it only twenty milligrams. It's a big dog, it's right next door and it's loud." She picked up the chop, looked at it admiringly and started for the door.

"I really don't think you should do it," he said. "We barely know our neighbors. They might not take kindly to someone's drugging their dog."

It was then that Sandy gave him the look. It was a look of sadness and vulnerability that had once caused him to shoplift a tin of Almond Roca from a department store that wouldn't take any of their credit cards. Another time, she had given him the look at a Bruce Springsteen concert, and he had promptly told three burly Mexicans in the next row to sit down and stop dancing so that his wife could see the show. It was a look that said, "If you don't take care of me, I'll never be happy again."

Paul took the chop and reluctantly went outside. He fed it through the green chain link to the golden retriever next door and waited. Twenty minutes later, the dog stopped barking, rolled over on its back and began snoring peacefully.

When Paul returned to bed, Sandy was still awake. "Well?" she asked.

"He likes lamb," Paul snapped. "Right now, he's snoring away, exposing his genitalia for passing aircraft."

"Good," said Sandy. "I'll sleep better."

"No, not good," he said. "It's stupid. I don't know why I did it."

"You did it for me, silly," she said, adjusting her uncomfortable frame in the bed. "I wish we could do something about the other dogs." The two remaining dogs continued their chorus as Sandy finally drifted off to sleep.

•

The next night was not a good one, nor were the two after that. The dogs were making Sandy miserable. Her eyes were surrounded by sad, dark circles, and one day, she even called in sick to her job at the bank. Before, when she talked of their child, whom they had temporarily named Zarco, she had brimmed with joy and anticipation. Now it was as if little Zarco would be better off in Beirut than here in a quiet suburban cul-de-sac, surrounded by picturesque woods, near convenient shopping and, of course, fine schools. They had searched for six months, throughout almost every neighborhood in the city, looking at dozens of houses, before they found this one. They had thought of it as a dream house. But now, Sandy's only dream was of moving.

Paul tried the Valium trick once more, this time using bread instead of meat--it was all he could find--but it only seemed to make the retriever slur its barks.

"You didn't give it enough Valium," complained Sandy, as she was trying to arrange pillows to support her stomach in bed that night. "A golden retriever is a big dog. You should give it an adult dose."

"Those are my Valiums," he reminded her in a less-than-friendly tone. "I have to call the doctor every time I'm out, and he makes me feel like I'm two steps away from the Betty Ford clinic. I'm not going to waste my Valium on a dog when you're giving me a nervous breakdown as it is."

"I'm pregnant," she replied sharply, counting off her problems on her swollen fingers. "I have trash bags on my windows and we're having a housewarming party in four days. I've complained to the neighbors about the dogs and they do nothing. I have hemorrhoids, I look like shit, the house is a disaster and I can't sleep." She turned away from Paul. "I hope this isn't affecting the baby," she said softly, placing her hand on her stomach. "I worry about that. I really do."

Paul stared at the Steel-Sacks as he searched his mind for a neutral topic. "Any chance the Levolors will be here in time for the party?" he asked.

"That's the least of our problems, isn't it?" she answered. Paul said nothing. He counted dog barks to himself. It occurred to him that the dogs were barking at one another, one bark sparking the next, in some sort of vicious cycle. A big, heaving bark on the right, followed by a high-pitched, piercing yap from the little dog in the back yard on the left, which seemed to trigger a bark from the old German shepherd in the yard next to the small dog. Back and forth, back and forth--the repetitiveness of it was almost as unbearable as the sound itself. Paul kept counting, or at least he thought he was counting, well into the triple digits, until he awoke and noticed that Sandy was no longer in the bed.

Downstairs in the kitchen, he found her staring blankly at an array of kitchen supplies she had lined up on the counter. Comet. Clorox. An economy-sized bottle of Drano. Some silver polish. A large mound of ground chuck.

"I read this in a mystery novel once," she said. "I think some combination of these is poisonous."

Paul began to feel sick to his stomach. The idea that he was married to a woman who would actually kill a dog did not make him happy. It made him feel that something was terribly wrong.

"Please," he said. "Don't make me think that you're crazy."

She walked to him very slowly and put her head on his shoulder. "I'm not crazy," she said. "I'm just desperate."

He kissed her lightly on the forehead. "Go upstairs," he said. "I'll put everything away."

Sandy had obviously been crying when he returned to bed. Paul pretended not to notice. "Are you talking to the caterer today?" he asked.

She nodded.

"Do you think he knows how to make Dranoburgers? I'm sure our guests will love them."

Sandy laughed, and as they held hands under the covers, Paul could feel her tense up with each bark. He watched her moist brown eyes but never saw them close. When he awoke in the morning, he doubted that she had even blinked.

•

Early the next morning, Paul took a quick stroll around the cul-de-sac. The dogs were still barking--apparently, like Sandy, they never slept--and he found it impossible to believe that his neighbors could sleep through the constant noise.

The big, mangy German shepherd at the last house had a raspy, old bark. The owner had bragged that Shep, the dog's woefully unoriginal name, was 14 years old. "That's ninety-eight in human years," the woman had added by rote. Paul had taken heart in that number.

Soon, he told Sandy, Shep would be dead. "There will still be two others," she answered.

Shep did not take kindly to Paul's presence. He hurled his aging body against the chain link gate by the driveway in protest. Maybe if I stand here long enough, the dog will knock itself unconscious, thought Paul. The more the dog bounced against the fence, the more Paul hated it. It was a mean, ugly, noisy dog, and it was making his wife--his pregnant wife--very unhappy. Paul used to like dogs. Now he wanted all three dogs to die. Especially this one.

He walked back to his house and got into his Saab, an act that seemed to further infuriate Shep. With one more push, the dog knocked open the gate and ran to Paul's car, circling and snapping as dawn edged into day. Paul started the engine and slowly backed out of his driveway, allowing the dog plenty of time to get out of the way. He might hate Shep, but even he couldn't knowingly run over an animal in the very shadow of its owner's house. He swung the car around and headed down to the corner, with the aged dog in pursuit. Even within the safety of the Saab, there was something creepy about an angry German shepherd, something that made Paul feel threatened. It made him want to speed up, to watch the dog disappear in his rearview mirror. Instead, he inched along, giving it plenty of time to keep up.

He turned the corner and traveled for two more blocks, stopping an extra few seconds at stop signs, keeping a watchful eye on the mirror. Shep had determination. He was still there.

Finally, Paul stopped and the dog, tired and panting, gamely stood up and looked in the passenger window. Paul rolled down the window a touch to see how angry Shep was. Shep responded by attempting to give his hand a slobbery kiss through the crack. He opened the door and the dog jumped in.

"I wish Sandy were here," Paul told the dog. "She reads mystery novels. She'd know what to do with you." He put his head on the steering wheel to think, and Shep sat--quietly, for the first time in their brief acquaintanceship--in the passenger's seat and wheezed.

"I could let you go in the woods here," Paul continued. "We could see how well you fared with the coyotes. I could sell you to someone very, very stupid. Or maybe the Mafia has junior-grade hit men who will handle dogs...." His voice trailed off as he pondered his options.

He felt like a primitive computer, testing possible solutions in his head as Shep sat peacefully by, unaware that his fate was being decided. One idea kept popping up, and no matter how many ways he looked at it, he saw few flaws and the best possible outcome. It seemed stupid, since the dog was right there in the car and no one knew they were together, not to give it a try.

Paul drove to a veterinarian's office in the shopping center he passed every morning on his way to work.

"This is my dog," he told the woman in the white uniform. "He's very old, and I'm moving into a small condo at the end of the month. I've tried to find another home for him, but...."

The woman listened sympathetically. "He is old," she said. "And he's much too large to live in a condominium."

Paul nodded. "This isn't easy for me. I've had him since I was a teenager."

"I understand," said the woman. "You're only being fair to the dog."

"I don't have to stay, do I?" Paul asked.

"No," said the woman, handing the bewildered dog to a young male assistant. "Will this be MasterCard or VISA?"

Paul envisioned his monthly statement: One Murder--$150. Thank God for credit cards, he thought as he drove to the car wash, where the Saab was scrubbed inside and out. He felt jumpy and nervous, not at all sure that his crime was as perfect as it seemed. It might be best to tell no one, he decided, not even Sandy.

•

"Your car looks nice," Sandy said as the valet pulled the shiny Saab up in front of the restaurant. "I didn't even notice it earlier. Did you get it washed?"

"Yes," Paul answered, wanting very much to change the subject. "How are things going with the caterer?"

"We talked about decorations today. We're having red, yellow and green helium balloons all over the back yard--don't ask me why; he just sort of talked me into it--and he'll be stringing hanging lights from the deck to the big oak tree in back."

"Sounds OK," Paul answered absently. He still felt vaguely unsettled. He'd never been involved in a hit on a dog before. For that matter, he'd never even heard of one.

"You know," said Sandy, "when we're away from that house, I feel very happy. I almost forget how miserable I am there." They'd been spending less and less time at home lately, eating out virtually every night and visiting people they didn't even like on weekends.

"It's not the house, it's the dogs," he said. "Without them, you'd be happy."

She nodded and reached out to squeeze his hand. "I know I've been hard to live with," she said. "It's just that I'm so tired and so concerned about the baby. You know that I love you."

It was Paul's turn to nod as they pulled into the driveway, past the fliers reading Lost Dog that were taped to every lamppost. Sandy didn't notice, but she did hear the two remaining dogs barking. She was still complaining when they turned out the light to go to sleep.

"It seems a little quieter to me," said Paul.

"I still can't sleep," said Sandy.

Paul got up, went to the bathroom and got the Valium. He went downstairs and searched through the refrigerator for some appropriate cut of meat. He found one old steak in the freezer, frozen as hard as Formica. Maybe I'll just beat the dog to death, he thought, and then eat the weapon. He tapped the counter a few times with the steak to get the feel of it. He imagined headlines in the local newspapers: "Steak Slayer Stalks Suburbs"; "Cops Baffled by Grisly T-Bone Murders"; "Beef Council Denies Red Meat-Violence Link."

He put the steak in the microwave and hit the Defrost button. Then he counted out 12 Valiums. "An adult-sized dose for an adult-sized bark," he said, looking out the window into the moonlit night.

•

The caterer was mincing about wildly when Paul came home the next evening. "This is a disaster," he moaned, looking at Paul. "Are you Mr. Balloonman?"

"No," said Paul. "I'm Mr. Host."

"Sorry," he said crisply. "Everything is late, and I so want your party to be perfect."

"I'll settle for B plus," said Paul. "Where's my wife?"

"Upstairs, getting dressed," answered the caterer. "If you hear gunshots, it's just me killing myself. There are no balloons, and we're missing two cases of white wine."

"I'm sure you'll think of something," Paul said and headed for the bedroom.

"Your friend downstairs seems to be in a bit of a tizzy," he told Sandy as she put on her make-up in the bathroom.

"I know. The balloons are late, but they're supposed to be here by seven, and the liquor store shorted us on a couple of cases of white wine and one case of beer. They're bringing it by later."

"If it's left over, can we return it? I have a feeling people are going to leave early, if they show up at all."

"You always say that," Sandy said, making a wide blue arc around her eye. "Besides, I invited the neighbors."

"That's a staggering bit of news," Paul said, genuinely stunned. "I thought you hated them and their dogs."

"I do," she replied logically, "but I knew they'd hear the party and it seemed impolite not to. Anyway, if we make a good impression, maybe they'll put their dogs to sleep."

Paul winced and turned away. He heard the doorbell ring. "Who is it?" yelled the caterer.

"Liquor Locker," came the reply.

"Thank God," said the caterer as Paul went downstairs to get a drink.

The guest list was unusually large by their standards, mixing several groups of peopel. His co-workers from the ad agency, hers from the bank. His parents, her parents. A few old friends from college. Some neighbors from the old apartment and, apparently, some neighbors from the new house.

A few guests had already arrived when Mr. Balloonman and his hyperactive helium team showed up. Paul greeded the guests and watched with amazement the number of balloons that were festooning his back yard. Either helium balloons are very cheap, he thought, or I'm spending an enormous amount of money.

His back stiffened when the couple from next door appeared. There's nothing like drugging your neighbors' golden retriever to make you feel ill at case, he thought.

"I'm glad you could come," said Paul. "How are you?"

"Actually, we're a little sad," answered the wife. "Our dog died today."

"I'm very sorry," said Paul, who was already lightheaded from the wine. "What happened?"

"He must have had a virus," said the husband. "He'd been moping around for the past few days, not being himself at all. We just didn't think he was that sick."

"This morning, he never woke up," continued the woman. "He had been vomiting, but we didn't know it. I feel so guilty for not paying attention."

"You shouldn't blame yourself," said Paul in his most consoling voice. "I heard him barking last night, and he sounded fine to me."

"It's a very sad day for Mrs. Carson, too," the woman said, pointing in the direction of the last house in the cul-de-sac. "Her dog got out the other day and never returned. She's going crazy looking for him."

"I'm sure he'll turn up," said Paul.

"He's a very old dog," offered the man. "You just never know what will happen next. Like they say, bad news comes in threes."

Paul excused himself and quickly scanned the crowd for Sandy. He dragged her aside and--without mentioning his own complicity in either case--told her that one dog was dead and another missing. "There is a God," she answered and urged him not to drink too much, a warning that had come too late and would be ignored, anyway. Then she bounced happily back into the fray, smiling brightly, as if she had just received wonderful news.

•

"Did I have a good time?" Paul asked woozily.

"Too good, I'd say," replied Sandy as she got into bed. "I hope you enjoyed it, because when the baby comes, you're not going to have very many evenings like that. You'll be totally useless tomorrow."

"Did you have a good time?" he asked, sitting on the edge of the bed.

"Yes, I did. I think everyone did."

"Everyone human," added Paul. "Two down, one to go." He put his finger to his lips. "Shhhhhh."

In the background was the squeaky little bark of the small dog to their left.

"Almost perfect?" he asked.

"Almost," she smiled. "Certainly livable."

"Were the owners of the little dog at the party? I don't recall seeing them."

"They're away for the weekend," she answered. "And you were too drunk to see or remember anything."

"At least you'll sleep tonight," Paul said.

"I will if you either get in bed or leave," she said.

"I'm going downstairs to survey the damage, then I'll be up."

It was nearly two A.M., and the caterer was long gone, taking with him the lights that had hung over the yard. There were two bottles of white wine in ice behind the bar and, of course, two unopened cases on the floor. Paul grabbed a bottle and went out to sit on the redwood deck, choosing the chair with the best view of the electronic bug zapper. He sat and watched as the occasional mosquito and gnat headed straight for the ultraviolet light, only to be fried with a loud buzz on the electrified grid that surrounded the long, glowing blue tube. Sometimes, Paul noticed, a hearty moth would be drawn to the zapper, tricked onto the grid and jolted senseless but not killed. The moth would try again for the light, get stunned once more and fall, only to try again and again until one last shock sent it falling into the tray with all the other dead bugs.

Besides the buzz of doomed insects, Paul listened to the barking of the last dog. The bark had a lonely quality, as if the dog were wondering what had happened to the voices that used to answer back. Paul had drunk half a bottle of wine when he decided to approach the dog.

He wasn't sure what type of dog it was. The small breeds always confused him. It was sort of fluffy and, as he discovered when he reached over the white-picket fence, unusually light. "I could mail you to Jersey for twenty-two cents," he told the dog. The dog snapped at Paul, almost nipping him in the face. "Don't ever do that to my wife or child," he said, and he dropped it the full three feet into its own back yard.

Paul lay down on the grass, looking at the moon, watching the dozens of balloons--their colors changed by the ultraviolet glow of the bug zapper--sway in the breeze. He drank a little more wine while the dog barked at him incessantly through the fence.

He thought about the dogs that had died and about Sandy and embryonic little Zarco, but he was much too drunk to come to any conclusions. Besides, who could think with that nonstop yapping?

Suddenly and unexpectedly, Paul had an idea, and without giving it more than a second's consideration, he sprang into action. Within minutes, he had collected all the balloons and tied them together. He carefully grabbed the fluffy little dog next door and tied the balloons to its harness. Then, by the eerie light of the bug zapper, he let go.

The dog rose slowly at first, as if it were being pulled straight up by a string. Then the balloons caught the breeze and the dog, yipping frantically, was carried out over the house, over the streetlights and toward, it seemed, the moon itself.

"Sorry, dog," Paul said. "Bad news comes in threes."

In his drunkenness, Paul thought that the sight of a small, furry dog held aloft by dozens of brightly colored balloons silhouetted against the full white moon was the prettiest thing he'd ever seen. He wanted to wake Sandy to show her, but that, of course, would defeat his purpose. He watched until the dog disappeared over the woods nearby. Even after the balloons had dropped from sight, Paul thought he heard barking. Then it was quiet.

He went upstairs and undressed. Sandy was sleeping soundly and barely stirred when he slipped beneath the covers. The room was spinning, and Paul felt strange.

His wife reached out to touch him. "It's so nice and quiet now," she said groggily. "I feel like everything's going to be OK."

Paul immediately felt better and promptly joined his wife in the deepest sleep he'd had in weeks.

"He considered giving a Valium to Sandy, but it would make him feel like Claus von Bülow."