The Girl
The house we lived in was built in the nineteenth century, and it rested on a hill a block from main street and adjacent to the school. The trees in the yard were the oldest in town, and they completely enveloped the house, giving it protection from the winter winds and making, it cool in the hot summers.
When Mrs. Proctor died in her bed in the spring the house was closed and boarded. Her daughter inherited the house and when she came home from the University, the town banker convinced her to rent the house. An ad was placed and I answered and came and saw the house and rented. A girl would live with me.
May came and we moved in the house and moved the furniture to places that the furniture hadn’t been and we cooked in the kitchen, and the house was filled with the odors of people who were living, and we slept in the bed of the person that died. The grass grew in the yard and we didn’t have a mower, and I would borrow a mower from my mother and put the mower in the back of my van and drive to Lake Park and mow the grass and put the mower back into the back of my van and take the mower back to my mother. My girl would try to cook my food and keep the house clean, and wash the clothes, and follow me to the golf course, and take me to a movie at the drive-in, and make me happy at night. She was happy that I had a good job and made money for her to spend, and that l was out of the house for most of the day, and when I got home at night, she would greet me at the door and lead me to the dinner table and fill me with food that didn’t taste good. She worked in the afternoon on a garden in the backyard and she told me that the seeds might not come up because we planted too late. I didn't remember planting any seeds.
When the summer wore out its welcome, my girl felt that we would be mach happier if we had a dog. We went to Spirit Lake and rescued a mongrel from the vet’s and brought the bitch home, and my girl thought that the animal didn't have the correct manners, and we would have to train the bitch to do as we pleased. The bitch was collared and chained to the clothes line and my girl began to torment the animal by offering bits of food for correct behavior. The bitch never caught the gist of the games, and my girl would persist that bitch must behave if it were to benefit the rewards of my lodging. I would sit on the porch and feel the sweet breeze of autumn rolling over my flesh and watch the bitch being led around the front yard by the girl. The girl would tell me that I wasn’t doing anything to help her in preparing the bitch for her education. I didn't want the bitch to be anything except a dog. I didn't want the girl to be anything except a girl. The girl would say, "Go get your dish, go get your dish" and sometimes in the night, I would wake and look at the girl and I would hear "go get your dish, go get your dish". The bitch never got her dish. When the bitch refused to show any progress, the girl decided that she was of an inferior breed, and the girl didn’t want anything to do with the bitch. The girl wanted me to take the bitch to the vet and have him pump death into its veins. The girl blamed me for the bitch. The bitch was my friend and I patted it on the head and gave it food to eat and let it lay with me on the porch and the girl told me that the bitch was now my dog. The bitch would spend its nights on the porch and late one night, It began to bark and it woke the girl and me from our sleep, and we couldn’t stop the bitch from barking. The girl said that the bitch had rabies and I took the bitch and put her in the basement and locked the door. She went berserk and I went and got a vet. When we entered the basement, we could hear the bitch, but we could not see her.
The vet and I had our boots on and thick gloves to protect us from potent bites. The dusty chamber was filled with relics of the past and grotesque guttural heaves of a lethal bitch, present and unseen. A broom was found and the vet probed the boxes in the corners and the old wicker chairs and the dirty soda cases. The sound of dying was hidden In the basement; we could hear it and feel it, and yet we couldn't see it. The probe went behind the furnace and the bitch was found laying on her back and her muzzle open with dried blood sticking to her throat, and the empty eyes looking at nothing and the pain of breathing. The vet upped the stairs to get a sack, and my bitch died, and I don't think she know that the friend that exiled her to the basement was with her. The girl watched the dying from a distance, and when the vet had bagged the dog and went home, she cried and talked about what a good dog she was and how nice the dog was and how she was learning to get her dish. In the morning, the sheriff stopped his car in front of the house and walked slowly to the porch and told me that my dog had been poisoned, and I said I figured that and the sheriff went away and the girl came to the porch and asked to go to town and get another dog and we did, and it was a boy. I named him Hoppy and let him lay on the porch with me and when night came I let him lay at my feet in the house and the girl said that a dog wasn't meant to be in a house and that Hoppy would have to stay on the porch.
In the weeks that followed, the girl taught the dog its lessons and the dog learned to do every-thing except get its dish. My dog didn't want to get its dish and one afternoon my dog hid under the porch and died from poison. The girl didn’t cry and she said that dogs weren’t good and we couldn't have another. I was happy. I didn't want my dogs to get their dish. My girl became happy and cleaned the house and talked about getting a job and bringing more money into the house so we could go to Florida in the winter, and I liked to hear her talk about getting a job, and when I came home from work late on a Saturday night, my girl was standing at the door with a cat, and she named the cat and made it a bed, and she told me that cats were less trouble than dogs, and she laughed when the cat did its cute little moves. The same moves that every cat has.
My house began to acquire the odors that cats can bring into a house and the old furniture fought desperately to retain its glory under the onslaught of the cat's nails. When I came home my girl informed me that she didn't really like to cook, and since I made a good wage, it would be better for me to grab a bite before I got home and now I didn't have the smell of food in the house, only cat. The cat wasn’t being a kitten anymore and my girl seemed sad at the loss, and she went in the van and came home with a kitten, and she scolded the cat when it felt threatened by the presence of the kitten. The kitten and the girl ruled my house, and I became friends with the cat and we would sit on the chair and stare out the window and I would think about the bitch and Hoppy and the cat, and the kitten, and the girl that ruled my house and drove my car, and refused to cook for me; the girl who promised to get a job and help pay for a trip to Florida, and the girl that once told me she loved me and hadn't repeated it for six months. The girl that was slowly robbing me of everything. Go get your dish!