I tried to kill a dog not once but many times however in the
end it wasn’t a bad dog after all. Bear’s
owner was mean spirited, kept the large dog on a very short leash and he, the
dog, howled in spasmodic and uninterrupted yelps that went on for hours and
hours every time the Illinois central came a clacking through, its whistle
heard for miles away. It bothered me,
the treatment of the dog, that is. Fed
only human table scraps, never able to run, the owner cared less for the dog
than a man would for someone who stole his blue-eyed girl. No, I didn’t want to
kill the dog. The woman I married wanted
me to kill the dog. I heard the dog at
night only after she woke me up to hear its cries. Being compliant I opened the window and
sticking my head out the window yelped and Bear quieted, albeit until I was
back in bed. After deliberations with
the police, the owners, the Jackson County humane shelter, and all who would
listen to no avail left the woman I married to believe the animal was possessed
and had to be taken care of somehow because as I heard it, the yapping from
inside became louder than the yapping from outside and my job was to agree.
Lean, ground beef meatballs mixed with drano, pepper and
salt. The German shepherd ate them up
greedily. For days I watched and nothing. Absolutely nothing. He’d shake his tail so hard his rear flung
back and forth when he saw me. A Mormon
colleague suggested soaking sponges in blood and then tying them up tight so when
the strings finally break but that sounded messy…Bear took an entire bottle of
sleeping pills mixed in a can of dog food and I watched for a few days and
nothing. Some Quaker friends offered us
a pistol but we were law abiding citizens walking the path to God.
I let Bear off his leash and we went for runs and was that
dog happy and I hoped he’d keep going. In
darkness he flew through the forest and around houses and I was running two to
three miles and he always found his way back to the mean home that fed
him. Then Bear’s owner attached a new
and stronger leash though it wasn’t human proof so he was loosed again and he ran
and ran at three in the morning and I don’t know why I thought anything would
be different. He kept coming home.
It was decided the only way to get rid of the dog was
transport it at least 25 miles away across the Ohio, into Kentucky, because
demons don’t cross rivers. I dressed in
black, had a few steaks, a flash light,
rope, gloves, and the 94 Mercury Villager, seat down, paper lined, ready
to transport the dog. At 2:30 in the
morning I backed the vehicle next to the fence that separated the mean spirited
people from the ‘we’re gonna get rid of your dog people’ and lo and behold Walt
had welded the chained collar right into the dog’s neck, holy shit. Using the car lights I tried wrestling the
chain loose but I needed clippers. I
knocked on our bedroom window and woke up a furious woman, everyone can hear you, you’re blowing it you stupid @#$%. I
wrestled with the kindly beast, covered in mud, grass, and hair and tried
unsuccessfully to release it without clippers. Exhausted, I sat in the mud
while Bear licked my ear. This is stupid.
I came into the house and there was our last
moment of horror; the next day she left.
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