Brie didn’t like cats.
She was fine with other dogs for the most part, her crop-tailed barrel body wiggling with glee whenever she would rip the taught and twisted rope from the smaller dogs. The filthy rope frayed but never seemed to break, cemented back together with the dried slobber they left in the wake of each tussle. The 150-pound rottweiler would always win.
We had three dogs and a cat; there was space enough for them out in the countryside. Hell, Mr. Funk had a whole field of dogs 50 strong about 15 minutes down the road, the closest any neighbor was. However, as it happened, there wasn’t a single animal we had that got along. Brie didn’t mind other dogs, but they certainly minded her. Get any of the dogs together and it turned into a growling, yodeling, hollering match that escalated into an endless undulating ocean of rumbles and chomps until we couldn’t take it anymore and yanked ‘em back from each other. We had the fearlessness of children who’d been reared by the unrelenting wilderness surrounding the trailer park or the farmhouse or whatever place we’d been dragged to live out the year until the next. Surviving. Less than pets, coexisting.
Brie didn’t like cats, so Flippy was kept out in the garage. Found in a factory parking lot, we would pet the fluffy thing until it sneezed a big enough glob of snot to render us helpless but to go wash up. Flippy spent most of his time hiding. He didn’t much like dogs, either, especially after the last instance where Brie managed to find him and eat his tail off. I tossed him over the fence out of the reach of Brie's saliva-laden jaws and that cat didn’t come down from the tree out back for three days.
I knew how terrified the poor thing must have been. The trees surrounding us were quiet in an oppressive, unnerving kind of way. In a way where you thought there must be some bird or deer or anything to make noise, but nothing came. At night there was only darkness caging your eyes so tightly you couldn’t see your hands in front of you, silence pushing down on you in a way that made you even more blind. Not to mention, the cat was missing a limb.
I spent my days after school trying to wear the dogs out individually by playing tug of war. It kept them busy and kept them from killing each other. That was the majority of my workout, as we wouldn’t walk them, either. They were too big and ill-trained. Instead, they ran free in the backyard. I would yank and yank with all my strength and would often be bested by dogs that would gloat by whipping their heads back and slapping the rope down on the concrete in front of me, beckoning me to battle again. They bowed and pawed and jumped until I had no strength left. For all my trying, I really only succeeded in wearing myself out most days, covered in scratches and slobber and fur and stench. Every time I played tug of war, I could hear Mr. Funk's dogs yowling and barking from miles away.
Mr. Funk offered to take one of our dogs, Beetlejuice-- named as such for his black and white stripes that had dissolved with age-- so that they wouldn’t cause so much trouble, but he only lasted two days before breaking free and finding his way back home. I always wondered why the only “good” one was the one we sent off. The only one I liked was the one to go. We could hear our lone dog howling at night while the rest of them slept. Instead, we dug a place to put a fence to keep the dogs separated, and they ran moats into it, back and forth, back and forth. It was the worst when it was raining, sliding through mud already overturned into soft earth, chasing one another along the fence. Every day it threatened to dig deep enough for a determined dog to slip underneath, but we’d never seen them attempt it, and let it be. Were it any of the other dogs, I knew they wouldn’t, but Beetlejuice was smart.
I knew it would happen. If he broke free from Mr. Funk’s, he could break free from our sad attempt at a little fence. The rumbling, earth-shaking growls that normally signaled the dogs meeting was just outside of the window. I rushed outside to see them playing tug of war.
You see, Brie didn’t like cats.
Her crop-tailed barrel body wiggled with glee when she would rip the taught and twisted flesh from the smaller dog. The slobber-covered fur was not rope, though it frayed in much the same way, the soft skin giving way and breaking, spilling Flippy all over the concrete. Mr Funk's field of dogs 50 strong yowled and barked.
We never found out how or why Flippy had gotten back there, perhaps hearing the commotion and finding some bravery or perhaps growing so weary from his endless sinus infection that he found a suicide mission. We never found out why Beetlejuice joined Brie except perhaps to pry the cat from her jaw.
Either way, that was the end of Flippy.
Brie is a semi-biographical short story that appears in the micro-anthology Hallowed Roses. Brie did exist, and she's buried in that same backyard. We have long since moved as far away as we possibly could. I've been thinking about expanding upon this piece some. I like writing very short fiction, but I think my micro-anthology is a little too micro.
I also liked the voice of this piece, but I still have this bad habit of very long sentences. Some people like them. Others find them exhausting.
I wanted to post this because I was thinking of it, but also because I'm branching out a lot these days and finding my style. I think whatever I write these days will be reflected upon as an experimental time in my career, and I'm happy with that. The timing is good since it aligns with what I pray will be my last graduation.
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