Black Cloche Hat

My dog is not a chihuahua or a pomeranian or any other normally petite breed, but he's the smallest dog you've ever seen. And when I say 'seen,' I mean in real life. We've all seen videos of artificially bred goblin pups with eyes the size of their brains and lifespans shorter than their compression snouts, but I mean the dogs you see at the park or a pet shop or, in our case, the train. I take my dog on the train every day.

He's a shiba inu and you might immediately think that yeah, shiba inus can be pretty small, and I'd say you're right, they certainly can be, but you've never seen my dog. He's small in a way you've never seen a dog be small. He isn't proportioned like an underdeveloped puppy or with stubby legs or anything, he's just small. Like if a regular, fully grown shiba inu was scaled down to a fraction of its size. He looks like a realistic toy model when sitting still and like good CGI when filmed.

I got him at a breeder and took him to the vet without any trouble. It wasn't until he began to grow that I noticed the peculiarities. His feet didn't get bigger, but shrunk. His legs stayed approximately the same length but slimmed, and his round head triangulated but never expanded. On his second visit, the veterinary assistant called him an 'inverted Clifford' and the doctor called him 'one hell of a runt.' They ran a couple tests on him and wanted to call in a few peers but I had them administer the shots and just took him home. He's been healthy ever since and has grown no bigger— seven inches tall to the tip of his ear.

I said I take him on the train every day but I didn't say where we go. I didn't mention it because we don't go anywhere. I live across from the iHop on 31st in Astoria so we get on the N at Ditmars and I ride it all the way to Coney Island at which point I cross the platform and ride straight back to Queens. I never get off otherwise and it takes a total four hours every day, with no delays.

My dog doesn't like it because I make him stand the whole time. I don't want his feet that have touched New York City streets and subway floor on my lap and I don't want him getting his fur dirty either so he cannot sit or lay. The main reason I make him stand though, is because it's the best way to display his stature.

You see, people adore him. They're shocked by him and sometimes even frightened of him. Some ask to pet him and some ask to hold him and some ask if he's sick and some ask if he's a mutt and a hundred other reactions. People of every sex, color, and creed fawn over my little freak of a dog and so enamored are they by his minute frame that none ever ask his name. I've not been asked his name in so long that I've forgotten it myself, though I'm sure he'd know it if he heard it.

But I don't do this for no reason. I did initially, or I had some old reason I've forgotten along with my dog's name, but I definitely have a reason now. There is a woman who always wears a black cloche hat that gets on at the 18th street station in Brooklyn and gets off at the 20th street station immediately after. Regardless of the time my dog and I ride— we do not go at the same time every day because my job doesn't allow it— or which car we're in, she gets on at 18th every single day, without fail, and gets off one stop later. The stops are only two blocks apart and she never stays on further than 20th.

I'd call it a coincidence but it's been over a year. She's been on the exact same train and car as us for the exact same short but inconsistently timed ride for more than a year. It cannot be by mistake but how could she know? What gives us away? Nothing short of a convoluted multi-person messaging system running up through Manhattan and Queens could explain it, or something else.

She's never looked toward us. People glance at my dog, they scowl, they laugh, they question, they react. She doesn't turn her head.

She's beautiful too. Beautiful in a sexual way, not in a 'beautiful' way. Not so much a woman to paint as one to photograph. She had a great body from what I could tell through her clothes, which were always different and modern, but she always wore that same black hat. I grew to detest the unstylish thing after a few weeks but I eventually necessitated it. I could no longer achieve self-pleasure without the image of a cloche hat before me. If I were to get her alone, I'd strip her of all but the hat. I wondered sometimes if I would desire her without it. I then wondered if I could ever be in a position to find out.

I spoke to her once. There was a blizzard and my dog and I were the only people onboard for the majority of the ride. Only three other people came on: a homeless man near the beginning who slept through most of Queens and all of Manhattan until exiting at the first stop in Brooklyn, an elderly hispanic woman wearing several coats but also sandals, and the woman in the black hat. The homeless man and elderly hispanic were not on board when she was so it was only my dog, the woman, and I. I called over to her.

"How about this blizzard?"

"I'm allergic to dogs."

She didn't look our way. I'd taken too long to think up my line about the blizzard and her response came just as the train was slowing into 20th. She got off before I could think of anything more to say. Nobody got on for either the remainder of the ride to Coney Island or back to 31st and Ditmars.

That was two months ago.

My dog died today. He chewed through a wire beneath my desk and electrocuted himself. I woke up to the light of a fire across the room and a a terrible scent. His fur had ignited and spread a bit to my bed. The smoke alarm in my room had dead since long before I'd moved in so nobody else was bothered and I managed to quench the flames before they got out of hand, though much of my room is ruined.

I got on the train anyway. Several frequent riders asked where my dog was and, for the first time, a number of them asked his name. I told every one of them something different— Rudy, Buzz, Muffin Top, Aquaman, Cinnamon— and said that he died. They said they were sorry, I said I'll get a new one, they had different reactions to that, and they all eventually got off.

Rolling away from New Utrecht, I watched the doors.

18th street. She walked on. I went to her.

Looking directly into my eyes, she beat me to speaking.

"Your dog's name was Dumpling. You named him that because he was an asian breed and you thought of dumplings as being small."

She stared into my pupils so deeply I felt tears well up in my ducts. I almost spoke but I coughed instead— open mouthed, like a toddler— straight into her face and she did not flinch.

20th street.

"I'm sorry," I said.

She looked fiercer into my eyes.

"I'm sorry," I repeated.

She threw her hat at me.

It hit my chest like a cannonball and I fell backward out of the opening doors. I scrambled back, her gaze tickling me sickly, until I fell off of the ledge, onto the opposite tracks. No train came but I flopped around in fright nonetheless, hurriedly orienting myself, and clawed at forearms as people helped me back onto the platform.

My train left just as I regained my footing. A few voices and hands tried comforting and helping and questioning me, but I noticed movement on the floor.

Her cloche hat, near the center of the platform now, tousled about, sliding small amounts and jumping, until one of the movements flicked a curled, orange tail around the brim.

I sobbed all the way to Queens, on foot.