A Fine Companion

By Jim Kokoris

Category: Humor

             He crossed the street in the middle of the block, then doubled back south in the direction he had just come. He next jumped on the 7:30 campus bus, making sure to grab a window seat so he could keep watch. Nothing. A clear coast. When the bus came to a stop he got off and took the 7:45 campus bus, this one taking him downtown. He got off and, after surveying the area and deeming it safe, waited for yet another bus, which dropped him off close to home.

             His key was in the lock of his front door, his hope rising when he heard something, then saw him.  Wally, walking quickly down the street, striding purposefully. He must have been waiting, or, amazingly, followed him on all those buses!

             “Damnit!” he said pushing the door open. But before he stepped inside, he whirled around and pointed a finger at the approaching figure.  “Stop it! Stop following me! I’m quite serious!” he yelled, then stepped inside and slammed the door shut.  He suspected that he might be overreacting, but he could not help himself. This was strange and getting stranger and he had no idea what would happen next or what he would do when the thing that was to happen next actually happened.

                                                                                     ***

Looking back on things, he shouldn’t have given him anything to eat that day in the park, but at the time he thought it harmless. A shared roast beef sandwich on a sunny day. David had been sitting on the bench, eating his lunch, when Wally walked over, and made eye contact. Without a word, David offered him half of his sandwich which Wally ate in three gulps.  David then tentatively extended his hand and said, “sit, you look as tired as me,” and watched as Wally silently sat, his mouth open, his eyes on the movements of the park. When a poodle walked by, he barked, but just once. 

                                                                       ***

             David repeated this generosity the next day at the park and the following day as well. He was happy to share what he had and the dog certainly appreciated it. It was on the fourth or fifth day that David thought to check his brass collar. “Wally” it simply read.  When David said his name out loud, Wally looked at him with such gratitude that David briefly felt emotional. That day was the first day Wally followed David home.

                                                                                     ***

             The following week, David sat on the other side of the wide park, by the swing sets and slides. From there he could see the Ripon college campus where he taught linguistics. He enjoyed his job though he was getting a little tired of it. As chair of the department, there were pressures and challenges and he worried if he was still up for the job.

 He was also getting a little worried about this dog. Wally had been following him home and lying on his front porch all night, then following David to the bus stop the next morning. Before getting on the 7:30 bus, David would scratch him under on the chin, an endearing gesture he later regretted.

One morning on the bus, an older woman sitting next to him commented on Wally.

“I have a retriever too,” she said.

“Is that what it is?” David asked. He knew absolutely nothing about dogs.

The woman gave him a confused look, before saying. “Well, he’s certainly devoted.”

             “Thank you but he’s not mine.”

             Another confused look. “Does he know that?” she said.

                                                                       ***

             The next day was Saturday and that was the day David went to the supermarket to shop. He was on a strict budget hoping to save enough money to move out of his tiny house on Elm Street and into a larger one in the neighborhood so he went to a store that offered discounted prices on Saturday mornings. The store was across town and he had to take the 8:30 bus to get there. His list was long and specific; he had decided to go gluten-free, and he spent time reading labels and checking the gluten-free app on his phone. He was in the produce section when he spied Kelly Armstrong, the new professor of English. His heart did a quick somersault. She had just started at the college and David had to admit she was very attractive. She was older, like he, and carried herself with confidence and ease. He had met her briefly at a welcome reception during late summer, but he was sure she would not remember him. He glanced her way several times, and then discreetly followed her around the store, observing her purchases. Once, when they almost made eye contact, David quickly picked up a cereal box he did not want and put it in his cart. Count Chocula.  

After watching Kelly Armstrong leave the store, he paid for his groceries, and walked out into the parking lot and ordered an Uber for the ride home. He had several bags and had no intention of carting them home on a bus. The cost of the Uber was factored into his monthly budget.

             When Ted, the five star Uber driver, pulled up a few minutes later, David loaded his bags into the trunk and slammed it shut. That’s when he saw Wally bounding across the parking lot toward him. How could this be? They were miles from home! Miles! But it was clearly him!   David quickly jumped into the car and smacked his open hand on the back seat head rest. “Step on it!” he said.

                                                                         ***

             He spent the rest of the day searching the local news web site to see if anyone had reported a missing dog. Later he researched canine mental illnesses, specifically “dogs who become obsessed with their owners.” On a Reddit board he asked if anyone had ever been stalked by a dog. He got just one reply. “Yeah, if you count my ex-wife.” He asked the question in another way. “Seriously, has a dog ever become obsessed with you?”

             He waited for another sarcastic reply since most people on Reddit, David believed, were lonely and lost people like himself, but none came. Finally, someone did post. “Yeah, I remember some dog followed me around for a few weeks. Was really weird.”

             David resisted asking the poster if the dog’s name was Wally. Instead, he asked what he had done to stop the stalking.

             He did not receive an immediate reply and was about to log off when the poster, HappyGilmore, wrote. “I had to kill it. Poisoned it. I’m not proud of what I did but I’d do it again. He was deranged.”

             After reading this, David moved quietly to a front window and carefully pulled the curtain aside. As soon as he did, he saw Wally’s face inches from the window, staring back at him, tongue hanging out.

             His eyes, David thought, looked deranged.

                                                                       ***

             “So officer, you’re telling me there’s nothing you can do?”

             “We don’t arrest dogs.”

             “But this one has been following me for close to two weeks.”

             “Has he bit you? Or attacked you?”

             “No.”

             “Has he destroyed any property?”

             “No.”

             “Have you been leading it on in any way?”

             David paused. “In what way do you mean exactly?”

“Did you feed it anything?”

              “Well, yes. Early in the relationship.” He immediately regretted saying the word relationship.  He feared it implied mutual consent.

             “So you encouraged this relationship,” the officer said.

             He had seized on that word! David’s heart sank. “I just gave him food. Some old roast beef. And some steak.”

             “Steak? You gave a dog a steak?”

             David paused again.  “Just a small one.”

             “Someone gives me steak, I’m following too.”

             David thought he heard muffled laughter in the background.

             “Hello?” David asked.

             “I said maybe you might want to call animal services.”

             “What do they do?”

             “They provide services for animals. Feed them steak.”

             More muffled laughter.

             “I’m glad you find this all so amusing,” David said before putting the phone down.

                                                                       ***

             A week or so later, after the Great Bus Caper, when David took three buses in a vain attempt to avoid Wally, he decided to simply ignore him. He took this approach for a few days to no avail. Wally slept on his porch at night and followed him to the bus stop in the morning. Soon, he was appearing on campus. One afternoon, during a lecture, he barked incessantly outside his classroom window. When David asked a student to close the window, Wally started to make a strange heartbreaking, whimpering sound. He then started to howl.

             “That’s one crazy dog,” David heard a student say.

                                                                       ***

             “Why don’t you adopt it, him?” his therapist Mary Lou said.

             David was sitting in the overstuffed chair by the window. The large fern that he had given her at Christmas was nowhere to be found, he noticed. This finally confirmed that she had never really liked it.

“Because I don’t like animals,” he said, adjusting his glasses.

             “Maybe you should reconsider. You’ve said how lonely you are.”

             “I’m lonely for human companionship. Female companionship to be specific. It’s been ten years since my wife left me.”

             “So you were abandoned and this dog was abandoned. How does that make you feel?”

             “I would appreciate not being compared to a dog.” David was miffed about the fern. It had cost thirty dollars.

             “How are you doing with that woman Kelly? The writing teacher who just moved in.”

             David felt his face flush. You tell a therapist something and they remember it forever.

             “Any progress?”

He sighed. He had spent close to an hour researching Kelly online and had even found a picture of her in a short skirt which excited him. He didn’t tell Mary Lou any of this. “She’d have nothing to do with someone like me. I know my limits.”

             “Older women like interesting men. And you’re certainly interesting.”

              “I can’t imagine having anything in common with her,” David said.

                                                                                    ***

             A few days later, Wally began dragging home dead squirrels, rabbits and gophers and eating them on David’s front porch. The first time David realized what Wally had in his mouth, he retched so loudly that he strained his throat and had to cancel class. Soon, the porch was a sacrificial altar, overflowing with small, half-eaten animals. While repulsed, David recognized his chance and steeled himself to take some photos of the carnage which he sent simultaneously to the police department and animal services, neither of which responded.

             Next, he took a photo of Wally and began posting pictures of him on trees, street light poles and community bulletin boards around town.  “ARE YOU MISSING THIS DOG? I HAVE HIM!” He included his phone number. Later that night, he woke with a start, fearing the leaflets might be viewed as ransom notes. The next morning he took them all down, Wally at his side.

                                                                       ***

             One night, while he was taking out the garbage, he almost had a change of heart. Wally was in his customary position, lying by the front door. It was the first warm evening in spring and David was barefooted. He had also had two glasses of wine. Seeing Wally there alone saddened him. It was the tenth anniversary of his divorce and David felt lonely as well. He was actually considering letting Wally inside his house when he stepped in something warm. Something squeezing through his toes. Dog shit! A mountain of it! David gagged.

             “Damn you! Damn you! Leave me be dog!” He yelled, throwing the garbage every which way before escaping into the house. The next morning, he peered out over the broken battlefield that had once been his tidy lawn; saw garbage strewn about, smelled dog excrement, saw Wally tearing apart the empty box of Count Chocula.

                                                                                     ***

             It took some time, but he tracked down HappyGilmore on Redditt and asked to communicate with him privately. When Happy agreed, David got right to it. “What kind of poison did you use to eliminate that dog?” he asked.

             “Who wants to know?” Happy answered.

             David paused then closed his laptop. As bad as it was, he could not do this. That.

             That night, he saw Wally having sex with another smaller, dog in his backyard. He was on his hind legs, humping deliriously away. Apparently he wasn’t as lonely as David anymore. He watched for a moment, hoped the sex was consensual, then began yelling for him to stop.  Wally, however, just turned his head away and humped harder, his tongue wagging like crazy.

             The next morning, David reached out to HappyGilmore again, but did not receive a reply.

                                                                       ***

             So he came upon a new plan. A simple and obvious one. He would lure Wally into a car and take him to the nearest humane society in Oshkosh, three towns over and leave him. Once there he would explain the situation, “this dog is obsessed with me,” then wish Wally the best.  He was embarrassed he had not thought of this before. The only complication was a car. He hoped Uber allowed for deranged dogs. And it was a long drive.

                                                                                     ***

             He cancelled his office hours on Friday and headed out to campus in search of the dog. It usually took just minutes for him to locate Wally. Once they were together, David would call the Uber and off they would go, David plying him with treats.  He was strolling the Quad waiting for Wally to appear when he saw Kelly Armstrong walking just ahead of him. She had headphones on and was smiling. Without thinking he began to follow her from a safe distance. She was wearing the short jean skirt he had admired on Facebook and looked wonderful with her hair up in a high bun. From the internet he had learned that she had graduated from Penn and had worked for a while in publishing before embarking on her teaching career. He estimated her to be about 50 years old.

             He watched her in the soft spring light. It was May and flowers were coming to life, the air sweetly scented.  He put his face up to the sun, closed his eyes and took a deep breath. His birthday was next week. He would be 55 years old. They were of the same generation, probably enjoyed the same music and books.

             When he opened his eyes, he jumped. Kelly Armstrong was bearing down on him, just a few feet away. How could this be?  She had been walking the other way!

             She smiled at him and then she did something astonishing. She took her earphones out and extended her hand. “I think we’ve met,” she said.

             David stared at her hand before offering his own. “Yes, at that little gathering, this summer.”

             “I’m Kelly.”

             “Well, I am David.”

             “Linguistics?”

             “Right, yes, very good, yes. Contemporary Literature?”

             “Very good,” she said, smiling.  This was going well. 

             It was then that he saw Wally bounding toward him. His heart sank, but at least his mouth was empty of dead animals. He ran right up to them.

             “Is this your dog?”

             Before David could explain, she stooped down and began rubbing his head. “And what’s your name buddy?”

             David wet his lips. “Wally,” he said softly. “Do you have a dog?”

             “I had one just like Wally, but he died last year.  I wanted to get another but my condo association won’t allow that. I probably should have checked before I moved in.”

             David looked down at Wally, the dog he had recently considered poisoning. “Dogs are… very fine companions.” Then, “He’s my best friend.”

             She stood.  “You’ll just have to let me come over and walk him.”  

David beamed. “That would be wonderful.”

             “How long have you had him?”

             “Since he was an, an, well, infant.”

             “They are so cute as puppies.”

             “Puppies, cute they are!” Good God! He was starting to sound like that Yoda creature. He needed to regroup.

             “Is he a rescue?”

             David had no idea what this meant so he thought to say,  “He’s safe now.”

             “Don’t you just love retrievers?”

             “Yes, this one in particular. We are inseparable.” Wally for Kelly he thought. Wally for Kelly. More than a fair trade.

             They were smiling at each other when he heard a voice. Someone was yelling.  “Wally! Wally!”

             He turned and saw a younger woman, with two small girls in tow, running toward them, arms outstretched. Upon seeing them, Wally took off barking hysterically. They met in the middle of the Quad, the children crying with joy, Wally yelping. Soon they were a pile of arms and legs and a tail.

             “Where have you been? Where have you been?” the woman kept asking. “We looked everywhere for you! Everywhere!” She glanced over at David and Kelly. “We were here visiting from out of town last month and he ran away. We thought we lost him but we came back one more time to look because someone called and said they saw a dog like him at the college.” The woman pressed her face into Wally’s while the two girls hugged him from behind.

             “I thought that was your dog,” he heard Kelly Armstrong say, her voice already a memory.

             David could not bring himself to look at her. He knew that her expression would haunt him for the rest of his life. Instead, he tried to think of a plausible explanation, but he knew he could stand there for years, and none would come. So he cleared his throat, said, “well then,” and walked quickly away, Wally’s barks chasing him in the warm spring air. If he hurried he could make the 1:15 campus bus. Where that would take him, he did not know.