NON-FICTION

DOG DAY

by
Caucus de Bourbon

I KILLED A PUPPY in front of the kids.

Am driving home from CostCo, doing about 35 up the hill because the road is winding and there's a grade school at the top.

It's a narrow road without curbs, meager single-level homes built in the late-50s strung snug one against the other. No fences. No curbs. The providence of families who won't or can't afford such greatly prized amenities found farther up the hill.

The thump didn't even feel like an impact. More of a sensation, really. In the rearview I saw the dog lying in the street.

The lady in the car behind me braked just before rolling over it. I clutched into reverse, got back fast to the scene, some four or five car lengths behind me, and got out.

The lady in the car behind me stood behind her open driver's side door, hand to mouth, crying. She was blonde. She was horrified. She made eye contact with me only once then started heaving. The drama in front of her car's bumper was still playing out, spasmatic and gruesome and unpleasant to watch, unfolding in colors too vivid to bear.

I fucking love dogs.

Have seen a lot of souls surrender, too. Many because they brought it upon themselves, making it a bit easier to rationalize yourself into a knot of studied, distant, near-clinical observation. Others not. But when a happy little puppy darts out in front of your car at an angle you simply do not see it coming from, and you kill it . . .

You kill a happy, helpless little puppy dog. In front of children.

I looked up to see a young girl stride over and swoop up the convulsing, bleeding wreckage of the puppy and disappear quietly around the corner of the house. It’s pretty much then that I registered the younger brother and sisters idling silently beside the road, impassive. Rather freakishly nonplussed, in fact.

The blonde woman in the car behind me made noises meaning something I couldn’t figure and drove off. The car behind her did a u-turn and rolled away back down the hill.

I didn’t know what to do so I tried to talk to the children, but they didn’t seem to understand English. Of course, I couldn’t remember the crucial words I needed to express to them in Spanish.

So I went around the corner of the house.

There stood the older girl and the boy. The puppy laid in some long grass crawling up against the house. I say the only thing I could muster, “How bad?”

And the teenage girl says, “He’s dying.”

The little boy says nothing. Meanwhile the puppy continues to bleed out all over the place.

“I’m sorry,” I say.

And you know what this teenage girl does? She turns to face me fully, not a shred of judgment or despair on her face, and says, “It’s not your fault. He should not have been in the street.”

Then she and the boy turn their backs and return their full attention to the dying puppy.

Several long, unforgivable beats later, I head home, pour a drink, then get pissed at the unconscionable mentality of people who let their puppies run unleashed.

Not being my fault doesn’t make me feel better.