Dog
J Thomas Murphy​


 


I used to have this cat. Had it for ten years. Damn thing must have already been ten years old when I got it, too. I called him Dog on account of my landlady wouldn't let me keep one. One Saturday I wandered down to the shelter on the corner of my street, just walked in. He was sitting there in one of the first cages. He was a tomcat or something, kind of brown and gray and real skinny. I paid the money and took him home and he lived with me in my little apartment at the top of the hill. We got along pretty good, Dog and me.
 
Back then I had this lady friend that used to come around. She'd come by at night and we'd go down to the other side of the hill where the liquor store was and buy a whole bunch and carry it home and drink it all. Then when it was late we'd call down to the local Chinese place and have them bring us up a lot of food, a hundred dollars’ worth sometimes. Then we'd eat and watch the late-night guys on TV.
 
Anyway, point is she was afraid of Dog. She’d flinch when he got too close. Like he would bite. But Dog never hurt anybody, at least nobody I ever met. We lost touch eventually, me and her. After that it was just me and Dog again.
 
Sometimes I'd come back late from the bar and make too much noise and Dog would hide under the couch. He’d just back way up into the corner where I couldn't get him. If I was too drunk I’d just lay there on the floor and we’d stare at each other. One time I woke up with him standing over me, making a whole lot of noise. I held him and he got quiet, just started opening and closing his eyes real slow, like he was afraid I'd disappear if he did it for too long.
 
I almost got married once – just the once though. Got to talking about it with this woman I was seeing, making lots of promises I knew I couldn't keep. We were going to move in together but she put her foot down about Dog, said he was “mangy” or something.
 
I never really could see what she meant. She had all kinds of other rules I could never understand: no drinking on Sundays, no bars, no red meat. But it was all that praying she got into that eventually drove me off. In all my years she was the closest I ever got. Dog never did seem to mind, so I didn't let it bother me too much either.
 
Well, time came where I noticed something was wrong with Dog. He got, I don't know, sadder almost. I took him back to the shelter. They did all kinds of tests. I stayed out of it. When they finished the doctor told me Dog had maybe two or three good months left in him. I was going to have to hydrate him if I wanted him to live. So that's what I did. At night I'd pull up his scruff and he'd whine and I'd put the little IV in and then we'd sit there together watching TV while I had a beer and he got his fluids.
 
Five months we lived like that. Dog never really got better, but he didn't get worse either. Then one day Dog got too tired to even open his eyes, and I knew. I took him down to the shelter and paid the money. They asked if I wanted to stay with him. I told them I'd be in the waiting room. Instead I went out to the parking lot, then to the street. Before I knew what I was doing, I was going up the road, city behind me and nothing ahead of me. I kept going until I couldn't walk anymore, until the sidewalk ran out and it was just dirt and rocks and broken beer bottles. Cars kept going by me real fast. I stopped there on the side of the road and looked up at the tops of the trees across the way. I tried to remember their names. Nothing came to me. After a while, I knew it was time to head back but I just stood there looking at those trees and thinking about my goddamn cat.
 









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About the Author: 
​J. Thomas Murphy's work has previously appeared in Spry Literary Journal and Harvard Bookstore's Around the World Travel Anthology. Formerly a Boston native, he currently lives with his wife and cat in South Korea, where he teaches English.

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