Snuffer

Larry brought his dog to the coffee shop again. I didn’t want to raise a fuss. But then again, what if I’d brought Tippy? Tippy doesn’t like other dogs. Bares her little teeth and lunges at them. We could have gotten us all thrown out of there. 

Larry’s dog, Effie, sat right on the table next to his coffee cup, and ate right off his pastry plate. I couldn’t look. Instead, I looked toward the manager, a young fella addicted to his phone. Never even glanced our way; meanwhile, Effie is filling up on bread and custard and god knows what else. 

No one in our little group but me seemed to even care. At one point Charlie asked me, “What’s up with you, Corrigan? Cat got your tongue?”

Cat. More like dog. Little yappy little mutt. 

“No,” I said. “Just worried about the Dow numbers.” They had taken a little dip in the past week. I had hoped to steer the conversation that way, and maybe then towards the upcoming election, but Effie filled that cavern in my brain with fur and bad manners. Such a small animal taking up big space.

When I finally was able to dismiss myself and amble back to my car, I found Tippy in the driver’s seat, pretending to be the operator of the vehicle! So fucking cute. She moved aside and let me sit, then hopped onto my lap for the quarter-mile drive back to the house. 

Once there, I set her on the couch and together we watched the news. She seemed to understand the gravity. 

When that commercial for Kutester Kibble came on, she really perked up and began barking. I knew what that meant: Get Tippy a treat, and quick. I came back with a knock-off brand resembling Kutester Kibble, but half the price, a sort of cigar-shaped beef jerky thing, and Tippy gobbled it up alarmingly fast. Such a good girl.

At some point I must have fallen asleep, because I awoke half-lying on the couch, Tippy positioned under my chin like a furry ascot. I carried her out to the mailbox. Nothing but junk mail. Damn this administration. When we returned to the front door, I found it locked, because I had locked it because you can never be too sure. I set Tippy down to search my pockets for the key, and she really let me have it. I mean, she went ballistic. After getting the door unlocked, I scooped her up and set her back on the couch. Another Kutester Kibble knock-off treat later, all was forgiven. 

I thought more about Larry and his stupid yappy dog and really began to stew. If no one set any limits, where would this lead? Everyone bringing their dogs to coffee and society completely breaking down? Not really an exaggeration if you ask me!

I mean, he’s got a living wife! Yes, Tanka is just as obnoxious and yappy as that stupid mutt, but at least she’s a warm body next to him in bed at night, which turns my stomach, but still. He shouldn’t get to just take his dog anywhere. That’s what Tanka is for. Yes, I’d rather he leave her at home because she looks at me as if I’m a bad odor, and always interrupts everyone. Yappy as hell.

I’d rather Charlie bring Shirley, because not only is she stacked, but she’ll at least let people talk, and ask a question now and then. Charlie is one lucky man. I was lucky too, once. Gabby was a talker, yes, but she said smart things and was really my better half for half a century. One day I’m going to get someone to paint a picture of her to hang over my bed, where currently hangs a too-small portrait of a horse. And to make matters worse, the horse resembles Tanka! Both are certainly nay-sayers!

The news channel was re-running an interview with the former whatever guy, an expert on polling or something, so I turned off the TV. I heard the refrigerator humming, a reminder of Gabby’s absence. Gabsence, I had come to call it. Outside, an annoying bird chirped. Tippy had crawled once again onto my chest, assuming her ascot position. Apparently dreaming, she began to twitch, her front paw repeatedly scoring my neck. Not wanting to wake her, I let it go on until she had drawn blood. Finally, I gave her a little nudge, and she growled low and mean. I held her paw and whispered, “It’s all right, little darlin’.” She stopped growling.

I must have nodded off, because it was almost 4:30 when I came to. In Tippy’s place on my chest was a wet spot. I smelled it, and it wasn’t good. I made a kind of Tanka face and looked around for my doggie. “Sweetheart?” I called. Nothing. 

I looked all the usual places — under the coffee table, in the linen closet, behind the curtains in the breakfast nook. Nothing. Finally I heard a whimper, and there she was, matted and panting under a chair in the den. She looked wanly at me with glazed eyes. In the past I would have rushed her to the vet, but I’d had a disagreement with Tippy’s doctor a few months ago and owed her money. She didn’t know shit, anyway. 

Speaking of that substance, there was a pile of it next to Tippy. I lifted her and set her on the seat of the chair. I talked to her a while, and noticed there were tears streaming down my cheek. I took a photo of her to post later on Facebook. People with departed pets get the most attention these days, it seems. 

I couldn’t stand it, her suffering. I spied a throw pillow on the couch across the room, grabbed it with both hands, and walked to my sweet Tippy. “Sorry, sweetie,” I said. “I love you.” I pressed the pillow down on Tippy’s sweet snout, added some pressure and tried to ignore her desperate wriggling and her back paw scratching my forearm. Soon the squirming stopped, and I had a departed doggie.

At coffee the next morning, I didn’t mention what had happened. Larry had brought Effie again, big surprise, and she scratched her diseased skin into my coffee cup, and nobody fucking cared. “I’m gonna miss you tomorrow,” Larry said, and announced he was going to a political rally. “Who’s gonna watch my sweet baby?” he cooed to his monstrous dog. 

“I’ll do it,” I said, before I knew what I was saying. 

Larry dropped Effie off at 9:30. The yapping and growling began at 9:35 and didn’t stop until I gave her a big bowl of the knock-off brand of Kutester Kibble. By lunchtime she was panting like she’d just run a marathon. I nearly felt sorry for the little horror. Maybe it hadn’t been all her fault, her miserable disposition. But it was too late for sympathy now.

The decision to reach for the throw pillow was an easy one. I’d be doing her, and everyone else, a favor, after all. Not nearly as strong a beast as Tippy, the squirming was feeble and over within a minute. I found an empty box of bullets and put her in it.

I already knew what I’d have to call my next dog. Snuffer. What I’d done to the dogs, and my dearly departed wife, would be our little secret. She’d better not go yapping it to others.