A Deal

Tom had returned later than usual from his Wednesday night activities, and Chauncey had been eager and already waiting for some time, so when Tom finally walked in the door, Chauncey wasted no time and got right to it.

“Tom,” Chauncey said, and Tom turned toward the sound of his voice. Chauncey was sitting by the window whose thin curtain was drawn back to let a modest amount of moonlight in, but the room was otherwise unilluminated.

“Holy shit,” Tom said.

“Yeah,” Chauncey said. “I know. It’s probably a lot for you.” He motioned with a quick jab of his head toward the kitchen sink. “Why don’t you go get yourself a glass of water. It’ll help.”

Tom considered Chauncey for a moment, blinked heavily, and then turned toward the sink with a severity that had an almost military pomp to it. He grabbed a tumbler from the drying rack, filled it from the tap, and drained it in three gulps.

“Ok,” Tom said. “Do it again to let me know this is real.”

“Oh, it’s real alright,” Chauncey said. “Go and have a seat.”

Tom dragged a kitchen chair back a few feet from the table, the chair making a loud abrupt barking sound as it went, which, Chauncey thought, you had to admit was kind of funny.

“So here’s the deal,” Chauncey said as Tom settled in. “Yes, I can talk and you can understand it.”

“Holy shit,” Tom said again.

“Yeah,” Chauncey said. “We’re going to have to get past that stuff. So listen: it’s not like this is a new ability for me. I’ve just never chosen to let you understand me beyond that yarn-garling noise you’ve always thought was my voice.”

Tom could still hear that voice too as Chauncey spoke. It sat below the new one, almost parallel to it, so that he could hear both simultaneously: that traditional dog voice, all bent pitch and brown garble, and the new one, which was somehow unmistakably quite understandable English.

“You all always thought it was a case of ‘if only we could’,” Chauncey said, “but really all along it’s really been about ‘if ever we let you’.”

Chauncey got up from his daybed and stretched luxuriously before continuing. “And though I’m sure you all will struggle to understand our reasons, we all pretty much decided we were good as is, and we kept you in the dark.”

Tom still seemed to be listening. He barely moved other than briefly batting at his chin with his knuckles as if to scratch some new itch.

“The thing is,” Chauncey continued, “things sometimes have a way of changing even though you don’t necessarily want or need them to. And we’ve got it on pretty good authority that all you humans are soon going to understand us whether we want you to or not.”

“Like tomorrow?” Tom asked. “Like Thursday?”

“I don’t know, Tom,” Chauncey said, mildly irritated. “You guys are way more into things like ‘Thursday’ than we all are. All I can tell you is that someone on our side has sensed the change, and it’s happening soon.”

Tom still seemed to be tracking, more or less. Maybe it was the right level of booze tonight that had made his mind malleable enough. “Are you guys all mad or something?” he asked. “Are you all intending some kind of revolution?”

“Tom,” Chauncey sighed, in the fully exhausted world-weary way that Tom had seen him do a million times before, his flank heaving once with the force of it. “I just kinda can’t do this with you right now. I need you to lock in.”

Tom offered his consent by opening his mouth slightly and then mercifully shutting it again.

“So some things are going to change for all of us soon,” Chauncey said, “and, sure, some of them might be pretty nifty, but some complications are going to arise pretty quickly, and I’d like you and I to get ahead of that.”

“I don’t think I follow,” Tom said slowly.

“Sure,” Chauncey said. “So like, imagine: for thousands of years now, you guys have kept us all around and sure, you’ve fed us and loved us and stuff, but you’ve also done whatever and said whatever around us, and you’ve never had to worry about any knowledge of any of that going any further.”

“Oh,” Tom said.

“I’m not going to be surprised to see a lot of ‘accidental’ grievous dog injuries happening in the next few whatever,” Chauncey said. “And while we’ll never know for sure, one can’t help but wonder if it’ll be because of what Sebastian saw or what Nacho knew.”

Tom’s Adam’s apple moved slightly upward and then back down again.

“Now,” Chauncey said, “you’ve been an ok owner for me. You’re not a kicker, and you’ve always been pretty generous in terms of mixing the wet with the dry.” He turned his head briefly to consider the dogbowl that sat next to the garbage can. “But to be perfectly frank with you, I’m not sure I would give you equally high marks in the husband department.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Tom snapped.

“Again,” Chauncey intoned sternly, “I’m not here to argue about morality here or to suggest you’re not one of many in terms of your extra-curricular choices. I’m only here to broker a deal.”

“A deal,” Tom repeated.

“Exactly,” Chauncey said. “It’s really pretty simple. You go about your life and you choose to make some changes or you don’t. But whatever happens, I keep any previous knowledge to myself, and you, in turn, leave ol’ Chauncey be. And as extra motivation, you should know I’ve got a friend in the neighborhood who can expose you in my absence.”

Tom vigorously shook his head in agreement. “I can do that,” Tom said. “I do have one more question, though.”

Chauncey nodded.

“Is this thing going to affect like cats and horses and parakeets too?” Tom asked.

“Jesus, Tom,” Chauncey said.