Chapter Text
I hadn’t been at the slammer very long when she first came to see me. She was tall, slender, and had long hair that almost came down to her waist. She wore it in a ponytail and it swished from side to side when she walked.
I just sat there and stared at her. I wasn’t sure yet if I could trust her. When I sniffed the air I could smell flowers. She looked at me, like most people who came to see me did, her eyes running all over my body. Like I’m some kind of piece of meat, you know? Then she nodded and picked up a placard that was hanging next to my cell.
“Frank?” She said, looking over at me again.
I cocked my head to the side. I’d heard that name before. It’s what the humans here who fed me and walked me called me.
“Purebred pit bull… hmm at the shelter? That’s weird,” she said. She seemed to be talking to herself but it was loud enough for me to hear which I found interesting. Not a whole lot of humans talked to me, even the few nice ones.
“Two years old, forty-five pounds… Frank is a black pit bull with a white diamond shaped spot on his chest. He is an energetic dog who needs a lot of exercise. He also needs someone who is willing to continue training him. He is remarkably easy to train and seems to naturally understand commands. Little is known about his life before the shelter. He was found walking along a highway…”
I yawned. This was a routine scenario. Every day dozens of people came to stand and stare at me. They read the same placard, they’d point at the white marking on my chest and marvel at its shape, and then they’d ask the friendly human named Ben if they could take me to the play yard. He’d always do it. And every time the humans would decide they didn’t want me after all. I didn’t care. I didn’t care about much in those days.
Some of the humans who changed their minds said I seemed depressed.
“He doesn’t want to play,” one burly man had said.
Ben would merely shrug. He’d explain the shelter environment could be stressful for some dogs.
The shelter. That’s what the humans called it. Us dogs? We called it jail. Prison. The slammer.
As soon as I had arrived all the other dogs had gone crazy, barking and growling at me as I was led by their cells on the way to my own.
“Fresh meat!”
“Yo! Welcome to prison!”
“RUN BOY! RUN! GET OUTTA HERE!”
“Welcome to the first day of the rest of your life,” one tiny chihuahua had growled.
I gotta hand it to Ben. He seemed to get it. Seemed to understand us somehow despite being a different species. Most of the dogs really were stressed and hated the slammer but for me, hell, it was a step up from where I had been before.
“Frank, my name is Karen,” the woman said looking at me again.
I had almost forgotten she was still there.
She was smiling. “I’m looking for a dog to keep me company,” she said.
I lay down and placed my head on my paws. So what else was new, lady?
As predicted, she flagged Ben down and asked him if we could all go to the play yard so that she could interact with me.
Ben came over, all smiles as usual, and entered my cell. He attached a leash to my collar and I reluctantly followed him to the play yard. This Karen lady walked alongside me.
At the play yard I was let off the leash. Even in my misery, I knew it was rare to be outside of my cell. So I took the opportunity to take in all the smells and walk around the yard. Karen and Ben sat on a bench and watched me, talking amongst themselves.
I was sniffing at a patch of grass when I noticed a shadow appear next to me. I turned around to see Karen standing behind me.
“Hello, Frank,” she said.
She crouched down and began to pet me along my neck. It was nice but I was still wary.
You see, I had come to understand that humans were fickle. One second they were nice and sneaking bacon to you from the dining table, the next they were hitting you with a broom and locking you up outside. I had no idea what type Karen was but something inside me was telling me she was one of the good ones.
In any case, I sat down and let her pet me. I sometimes saw it as my biggest flaw. Being pet. I fucking loved that shit.
After a while she reached into her pocket and took out a treat. I gobbled it up immediately. That was one of the nice things about having people come and see you. A lot of them would have treats.
“He’s been pretty mellow since he arrived,” Ben said from the bench.
“How long has he been here?”
“Six months.”
Had it really been that long?
Karen stood up and rejoined Ben on the bench. They exchanged a few words and then Ben came over and attached the leash again.
I figured Karen wouldn’t want me.
Which was too bad because she seemed like a nice lady. A few of the others who had come and seen me had seemed nice too. A family with two small kids had come the week before. That was one of the few times that I had actually played. But as they were walking me back to my cell I heard the words “He’s too mean looking. Let’s look for a smaller dog,” and I knew I wouldn’t be seeing them ever again.
I never got my hopes up so it was a surprise when Karen returned the next day. Karen, Ben, and I went to the play yard again. This time I spent a little more time getting to know her. I sniffed her shoes and nudged her hand so that she would pet me. She also gave me more treats which I gobbled up dutifully.
She and Ben talked about me as I sat next to her. Her hand idly gliding over my back. I let myself relax for once as I listened to the drone of their voices.
After an hour she was gone again and I was put back in my lonely cell. For the first time since I had arrived there I wanted one of the humans to take me with them. More specifically, I wanted Karen to take me with her.
It wasn’t until a few days later that she returned. I was so excited. It was like I was possessed. My tail wagged so hard I thought it would fall off. It didn’t, obviously.
I licked at the gaps in the chain link cell door.
“Excited to see me?” She said.
“Yes ma’am!” I barked.
She laughed and it was like the clouds in the sky had parted and the sun shone just for me.
We went out to the play yard and she tossed a tennis ball. I chased it and returned it to her. She seemed to really like that.
She came to visit me three more times.
I grew to like her in our short time together. She had a soothing voice and was gentle with her touch. She always came alone and I had wondered if she had any family of her own. She was tall and seemed strong and yet I instinctively wanted to protect her. And I would miss her like crazy when she’d leave.
After four days of visiting me she finally took me home.
I didn’t know where we were going at first. Ben handed her the leash and we walked out of the shelter to a car that smelled like her. And just like that my cell days were behind me.
It was the happiest I had been in a long time.
We made one stop along the way. It was a large building with bags of dog food, plastic toys, and plush beds. I trailed behind her as she selected objects and placed them in a large cart that she pushed in front of her.
After that she took me to her home.
I looked out the window as we drove along. The scenery changed from rows of houses, to a bridge spanning a body of water, to rows of the tallest buildings I had ever seen in my life. There were so many humans everywhere. I had never seen so many humans before.
We stopped in front of a shorter gray building with a black front door. A man was standing outside of it fiddling with something in his hand.
“Foggy!” Karen called out to the man.
The man looked up and smiled, “Hey Karen! You got the dog?” He asked walking over to the car. I was still sitting in the back seat. The man spotted me and waved. He was a little taller and wider than Karen. His hair came down to his shoulders and was slicked back.
“Yup! Thanks for meeting me. I’m going to need help carrying everything upstairs,” Karen said.
She opened the side door of the car and I leaped out. I headed straight for this Foggy character. I needed to know if he was trustworthy. I sniffed at his shoes. He smelled of food. I didn’t recognize what kind of food it was but it smelled damn good.
The man crouched and held his hand out to me and I sniffed it. His hands also smelled of food.
“Hey there Frank,” the man said softly.
I nudged his hand and the man pet me. He seemed alright. He was good in my book for now. Sometimes you can just tell, you know?
“He’s a nice dog,” Foggy said.
“Yeah. He seems to be alright with people,” Karen said. She was attempting to lift a large bag of dog food from her trunk.
“Here, I’ll get that,” Foggy said.
We went inside of the gray building and climbed up the steps. I was so excited I ran up the steps but I waited for Karen at each landing. She was a little slower than I was.
“Alright, here we are, Frankie boy,” she said when we stopped on the third floor.
She took out a set of keys and unlocked a door.
“Welcome home.”
She unclipped the leash from my collar and I hopped in a circle. Karen and Foggy stood in the doorway and chuckled. I felt like a puppy again.
This place. This place was my new home.
It was the nicest place I had ever seen. There was a large brown saggy couch, just the kind you could really sink into. A small table and dozens and dozens of books on a shelf. There was a small kitchen but it smelled amazing. A door led into a bedroom with the biggest bed I had ever seen. It was covered by a blue quilt.
I sniffed all around the place while Karen directed Foggy where to set her things.
“The dog bed can go in the bedroom and you can place the dog food on the kitchen counter.”
Foggy did as Karen asked while Karen busied herself taking things out of a large plastic bag she was holding.
“Hey Frank, do you want a toy?”
She was holding something fuzzy in her hand. It looked delicious. I sat down with rapt attention. You bet your ass I wanted whatever that thing was she was holding.
She laughed and threw it over my head and I chased it. The thing looked like an animal but kind of tasted like plastic and made a squeaking sound when I bit down on it.
“That’s a loud toy,” Foggy said covering his ears.
The high pitched squeaks coming from the toy drowned out Karen’s laughter. Finally, Karen took the toy from me and placed it on a high shelf. I don’t know why. I sat in front of the shelf waiting but they both ignored me so I went back to sniffing around the place. Maybe she had some food laying around somewhere.
“That white spot on his chest kinda looks like a skull,” Foggy said as he studied me.
Karen turned and examined me, “No, it’s a diamond,” she insisted.
Foggy shrugged, “Looks like a skull to me, huh Frank?”
I wagged my tail at him.
“We should walk him,” Foggy said. I walked up to him, nudging his hand with my snout.
“Yeah! We can show him a little bit of the neighborhood,” Karen said.
She grabbed the leash off a hook by the door and I ran over to her. She clipped it on my collar and we were off again. We walked down stairs and back out the front door.
“Welcome to the neighborhood,” Foggy said, “You’re a lucky dog!”
Lucky. I was better than lucky.
The neighborhood was pretty clean. There were metal garbage cans in front of every building and the smells were intriguing. There were a few trees along the sidewalk but not as many as I had seen growing up. Karen seemed to know everyone and we stopped to talk to humans of all shapes and sizes.
At some point, some young human dressed in dirty jeans and a red sweater blocked our path.
“Would you guys like to donate to the Save the Penguins cause? Did you know that global warming…”
He spoke loudly and as he was speaking he was attempting to shove some paper into Karen’s hands. I didn’t know what the fuck a penguin was, but this guy was being aggressive with my girl.
I bared my teeth and growled at him, “You better back up, buddy.”
“Whoa!” The kid said, stepping back.
That’s fucking right, I thought.
“Frank!” Karen said. She sounded horrified. I looked at her. She was looking at me with a disapproving look on her face.
“Heel,” she said.
I knew what that meant and went and stood next to her.
“I’m so sorry,” she said to the kid but the kid didn’t look reassured.
“Yeah,” he said and walked off without saying anything else.
“Damn,” Foggy said shaking his head at me. For some reason their reaction made me feel ashamed.
At the end of the block Karen tied me to a bicycle rack and she and Foggy went inside of a store.
“I’ll be right back,” she said.
I waited patiently. A few people who walked by patted me on the head but I didn’t turn away from the door in case I missed seeing Karen and Foggy come out.
When they appeared I stood up and wagged my tail. What must have been just a few minutes for them had felt like hours to me.
After the walk we went home and Foggy left. Karen fed me a bowl of dog food. It tasted like chicken, as most things do.
In the evening I lay down on the bed she had bought for me. I don’t know what it was made of but it was the most comfortable surface I had ever slept on. I felt like I was sleeping on an actual cloud.
She climbed into her own bed and read out loud for a bit. Her voice lulled me into a deep sleep and I was dreaming by the time she turned out the light.
“Goodnight Frank,” she said.
I woke up and raised my head.
“I’m very happy you’re here.”
Me too, Karen, I thought. Me too.