Doggy
4:30 am when the sun peeked out earlier, because the dog woke with the light. 5:30 am when winter night luxuriated immovably, begrudgingly ceding the blackness to nothing but slate-gray. Doggy had to piss by then. Crashing up the stairs without a leash, half-basement door left unlocked, broom in hand, fistful of bleach, keys to garbage room, hat over brows, three open to doors to lobbies in the courtyard, three options for start-of-day, three entryways clotted with dirt, leaves, abandoned mail. Envelopes were shoved into crevices between boxes, sat there until a mailman saw fit to bring it back and dispose of it, letters addressed to misplaced tenants mulched and shredded. Mailman needs to bring them back sooner, he thinks. Doggy pisses in a corner, it streams down brick, puddles atop pavement.
Doggy won’t come down to the furnace. But that’s later. Scrubbing pigeon droppings off the doorway marble, muttering, bird shit bird shit, time to get the BB gun out, if they don’t stop shitting in the spot where everyone walks and where everyone can see the shit. So he sometimes takes aim and fires. Pellets in wings and bodies, just to get them flapping away. If they died later, not his concern, unless the body hit the courtyard, and demanded to be swept up quickly. Didn’t want Doggy to notice.
Trudging to the top, Doggy ahead again. Middle door first today, then maybe right, last left. At the top, bleach waterfalls down, tributaries of pure alcohol stink, purging the steps of grainy mud and dirt. Broom brushes bleach, strongly scrubbed steps. Doggy waits on the topmost landing, knowing to wait for the call from the lobby, it’s become a game, knowing to wait for the call from the lobby, against the call and paws will trek through bleach and sting. They’d avoided it perfectly. Except for the very first time.
Doggy!
Second to last floor, a door cracks itself from its frame. Small girl’s eye and a faux-scream when Doggy sniffs at the opening, door slammed and reopened by giggles, before, time to get ready, PLEASE! and the door swings backwards again, now for good.
It repeats itself twice over. Between left and middle, they take the mildewy underpass, the oatmealy ceiling coming closer to scraping his head every time, maybe the whole building’s weight was sagging atop that small, single-use hallway. Couldn’t get from left to the right nor right to the middle underground. Rotting wall detached itself in thick knots and the two passages were boarded up, subjects of a later-day project which had still not been funded by the building owners.
Dishes clattered behind doors, adults, children, teenagers ducked out and gingerly reprised their stair routine when the bleach was not totally dry. Doggy drooled on the doormats of some. Silence pressed itself up against other doors. More time to brush the bleach if so.
Morning’s work almost done. Just the furnace check. Doggy doesn’t come down to the full-basement for that. Pisses in the courtyard a few more times. Affectionately headbutts those leaving for the day. No one minds. Some other dogs come out. A few like him. One grumbles with pointed dislike.
The man on the motorcycle hops the curb at noon. The bike vomits smoke and noise. Spring is still keeping its head down but the man is in his always-shorts. Bare legged, elephantine calves plotted in sandals. He swigs the brownest cough syrup, coughs only afterwards. Back in his sweatshirt it goes. Drooping off the handlebar is the plastic bag for the day. Sandwiches slapped together with fried eggplant and slippery roast peppers burrowing holes in the wax paper.
I said eggplant.
It is eggplant.
Then why’s it so wet? Like roast beef.
Peppers were at the bottom (mouth full) they must’ve absorbed a lot.
They eat, the bike seat a table, the cushion greedily slurping down the dripping oils.
Doggy ate?
He’s good.
The motorcycle man throws him a soggy chunk of bread anyways.
He’ll like that.
Doggy did.
Motorcycle man’s cane, usually balanced between thighs while riding, falls. Doggy rushes, grabs, now it’s tug-of-war. But that’s okay. They do it a lot.
The engine’s revved. Doggy unlatches, jumps back. Lunch is over when he rides away.
Before the beat-up smoke can disperse, a white pick-up pulls into the lingering cloud. Two men, one with a handsaw, the other with the wood. Doggy greets them while his owner tries to figure it out.
Building sent you?
Yea.
For the pipe in the third-floor kitchen?
Yea.
They’ve stopped in the courtyard. The three men rigidly await for this given situation to reveal the next step.
I called yesterday about how it couldn’t happen til tomorrow. Tomorrow afternoon earliest.
Didn’t know that.
Toldem at the office.
Office says the water’s coming down and the guy’s steamin and poundin downstairs.
But they’re not home. That’s why. I toldem at the office.
The two men look blankly ahead. Truck’s here. Tools are here.
You can just let us in?
They didn’t leave permission. They don’t know it’s happening.
The water’s just gonna make it worse if we don’t reset the whole thing. At least we gotta reboard it.
He makes a call.
I did listen yesterday but 2E’s called four times just today he’s talkin thisandthat about money withdrawing deposits and he’s not wrong so just letem in and keep an eye onem cuz it’ll only be fivefuckinminutes you and I ducktaped it best we could but but I guess that’s not enough so just showem the kitchen the sink get it plugged call me when it’s over k?
He leads the way. Speeds ahead to rush the whole thing along, fingering the key that’s about to breach privacy. Doggy lays in front of their own door. He wants to sleep soon.
He lets the men. Door open and he stands and he waits, averting his eyes from the rest of the apartment, respecting those not there. Not letting those two with saws and armfuls of wood go unsupervised. The kitchen’s bare, it’s just the kitchen. Not the bathroom, not the bedroom. No personal effects. Save for a fake hundred dollar bill pinned to a straw doll. It hangs from the wall above the stove. Between his gaze and the noise of repanelling. A prayer, a symbol. A prosperity charm.
With work complete he leaves a note on the counter:
Had to come in because a pipe blew between you and dwnstrs. Sorry if we disturbed anything.
Back in the courtyard, curt goodbyes with hands and chins. Doggy stares ahead and wobbles with sleep.
I’ll let you down now.
Naptime. He hears the nails scatter across the lacquered hardwood towards their bedroom. Door unlocked but still closed.
Options and options. Not trash day. Tree beds? Pipe set us back. Pigeons coo above and remind him of his gun. He knows exactly where it is. Propped up next to the door, the butt cushioned in an old slipper.
One by one he could seem them fall. Or at least fly off. Bird shit bird shit. Tree beds it is.
Hands and knees tilling the dirt. The sun crowns buildings, turning his work orange. The soil squared away, returned home. But the trees unfolding the wings of their branches still need care, even if they’re only scrawny, perhaps one day they’ll rise and resemble the great oaks of the park who are daubed by the sunset, rather than splattered with orange runoff. So he nurses them. Plots left by the building. Ignored also. Maybe if they grew enough. Strange that the building wasn’t alive but was. And the trees were alive, but weren’t. If they grew enough, enough leaves, enough branches, the birds could move from their various perches. They could shit on the sidewalk, not in the entryways. He nursed these gnarled, probably never-tall, never-lush, never-that-green homes.
They’ll eat after they walk. And now Doggy is leashed. The courtyard is his but they obey the sidewalks. They’ll turn around the few blocks in the last of the sun, now seeping into the ground. Marcus is on a stool. On the corner. A bag of ice against his head, then removed when he can handle the cold on and around his head no longer. After five beers last night he directed his head towards his friend’s chest and met with an open-head slap to the side of the face and now the ear was cauliflowering. Marcus scratched Doggy’s behind and they walked along. The shutter still not lifted from the pizza place. Rumor was, is, that he just quit. He pulled out three days ago. His parents died decades ago, he coulda left earlier. Probably got guiltier the longer he waited, yaknow? Diggy sniffed under the steel gate. Now the sun’s gone but the dark’s not out. This is the time the two like together. That’s why they’re eating after. Beatupbrokendown smoke trails around the corner. The elephantine-calved man’s bike putters in their ears. Maria throws a dog cookie from her window, and it breaks in two on the pavement. Thanks! He seems hungry, huh? We’ll eat when we’re back don’t worry. Goodbye then have a good dinnuh Doggy! He hopes that Maria will actually come downstairs soon. Maybe next time. They can always talk from the street to the second-floor window. That little one bares his teeth at Doggy from behind the iron fence. Hello, haha. They don’t care. They turn one more corner and Doggy pulls on the leash more. He feels the weight in his arm. But that’s okay. They’re almost home.