Not Necessarily Man's Best Friend
By Don Bagley


Lisa jogged alongside the cracked and weathered curb, her hybrid sneakers tramping at the yellow birch leaves that clattered across the street. The same evening wind that swept at the leaves swirled around her inner thighs. She ran past a series of the white trunks of trees that had been planted to beautify downtown Stockton. Stripped of their foliage by late autumn, the naked trunks fell away like fence pickets in her peripheral view.

The sun had set, and the air was cooling. She was beginning to feel uncomfortable in her running shorts. It was getting late with the last rays of sunlight going horizontal and orange. She didn’t like running at this hour, but she’d been held up at work. Now her bare legs were starting to feel the chill.

The streets gradually fell into an encroaching dark, accompanied by the mist of an early tule fog. Street lights were sparse here, as the city budget was running a deficit. People had told Lisa, you should have a dog to run with. But whenever she even thought about dogs, she imagined all sorts of problems. A dog biting a neighbor’s kid, tearing up the lawn, vomiting on the carpet. To her it was as if the very thought of a dog was an act of conjuring bad luck somehow.

When she stopped at the corner of Fourteenth and Howe, she jogged in place for a moment, while the light flashed don’t walk. She heard a low throaty growl about half a block down Fourteenth Street to her right. Looking down the dark street, she saw the unmistakable silhouette of a rottweiler, backlit for a moment by headlights passing beyond.

“Stupid, stupid,” she said to herself, as if her thinking about dogs had caused one to materialize.

When she started through the intersection, she saw the dog loping along at an angle that would intercept her by the next corner. She picked up her pace, taking long strides as she sprinted ahead. The frequency of the dog’s toenails clicking on the pavement sped up behind her.

She knew she couldn’t outrun a healthy rottweiler, and her only chance was to duck into a building, and quickly. Just as the animal was about to overtake her, she pushed through the lobby door of a low rent hotel called “The Barkhurst,” and slammed the glass door behind her.

The dog stood up against the glass, scratching and whining.

Inside, Lisa looked round for a telephone. She didn’t carry her cell in her running shorts; the tiny pocket was just big enough for her house key. The lobby was dimly lit and had the odor of an alley way trash hopper. There were three filthy old couches, each with an end table with an overfilled ashtray. None of the old sofas were occupied.

A double thumping that sounded like a clumsy step startled her.

There was a movement in the shadows to her left, and she turned to see a wizened man approaching. He was wearing what looked like a soiled bathrobe, and his face was mottled with open sores. His eyes were shaded in the half-light.

“Looking for something?” he asked.

“A phone,” said Lisa, and the dog yelped outside.

“Sure,” he said. “Come here.”

He gestured toward the unlit rear corner, and Lisa cautiously followed him. When she got within arm’s reach, he grabbed her with a quick, fluid motion of which she wouldn’t have thought him capable. She screamed, and the dog whined hysterically out front.

“Give me what I want,” he said as she struggled to free herself. “And you’ll get what you want.”

She stamped on his slippered foot, and the pain buckled him. Once free, she fled to the door, jerking it open without a thought of the consequences.

The rottweiler forced its way in, seeming to pour like liquid fur through the door’s narrow opening. It flew straight to the man, and its growls were swallowed up in his screams.

Lisa pushed outside and ran hard for a block before it occurred to her. Then she stopped to catch her breath and walk deliberately back to The Barkhurst. It wouldn’t do to have animal control get there first.


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