I’ll just say it: Sheila wasn’t much to look at, and neither was her goddamn dog.
I never knew anybody other than Sheila to name a dog after themselves. “Well, I ain’t got no kids, do I?” is how she explained it.
Sheila was always going on about how that dog was purebred—how a person doesn’t land with a dog like that for nothing. But she got little Sheila through the program up at Seventh Day like all the other proud frigging pet owners around camp. It’s supposed to be good for addicts like us—having something to take care of—so they give out dogs the pound can’t get rid of to folks whose counselor says it’s okay. Sure, some of those dogs look like they might be something fancy, but they’re not. Shitzies, I call them. Not that Sheila’s dog wasn’t a sweet little thing. She had to have the patience of a saint to put up with Sheila.
I don’t take issue with a person that loves a dog. But Sheila took it too far, fussing over that creature twenty-four-seven like it was a newborn baby. It came between us, that’s a fact, Sheila’s planning her whole day around that dog. It was always, “Sheila’s getting tired, Sheila doesn’t like the music, this cup’s too small for Sheila to drink from.” Every time it seemed like we might really get comfortable and set awhile together. Every time I asked Sheila how she was getting on.
It wasn’t that Shelia didn’t care about me. I know she did. We had a kind of connection, Sheila and me. We were people that knew how to appreciate the little things. Take video games, for instance. I know it sounds like nothing, playing stupid games on your phone with a person. But it was important to us. Seventh Day will loan you a smart phone for getting online so long as you’re in good standing with the program, and a lot of folks around here zone out on their phones all day. But not a lot of people have as much fun doing it as me and Sheila did.
Sheila was blood thirsty. She loved any game that gave her a chance at beating somebody down. When we raced each other in Death Rally, she’d get this beady-eyed look on her face, and she’d suck her lips in all the way over her gums. That’s when I knew I was done for. The truth is that there are lots of times in that game that it’s smartest not to mess around with shooting at anybody—just to keep to yourself and drive hard for the finish line. But Sheila never played like that. She’d go out of her way to take me out, even if it meant losing, and she’d laugh like hell when she did it, too.
That’s until little Sheila so much as twitched. Then Sheila would drop her phone like nothing. Could be the dog was just scratching an itch or shifting her legs around to get comfortable. But it didn’t matter. Sheila’d be all over her. “Whatsy matter, She-she-boo?” she’d say, shoving her face right down into the dog’s fur while it just lay there on the bench beside her, blinking like it was blind. And even if the dog settled right back down, Sheila’d get all jumpy. Start talking about how she’d kept little Sheila out too long. How they both needed to get home.
Sheila had the bus schedule on a little card she carried around, and she’d get to studying it real hard like she was piecing out a complicated route across town. I don’t know who she was trying to fool, playing like I didn’t know where she lived. Sheila was out behind the Italian place with the other ladies, and I was out back of the boxing club with the men. That was the rules when I first came out here, and that’s the rules now. What couples there are sneak and meet up somewhere in the middle, though couples don’t usually last too long around here.
It’s a good spot. The woods are deep and it’s on the edge of town. The folks at Seventh Day made some kind of a deal with the city, so as long as we’re in the program, the cops leave us alone. Plus, it’s just down the road from Suzy’s, where they keep the big old sun porch out back of the fry house heated all winter and all-day drip coffee’s just a dollar.
It’s something special, sitting back there breathing in the warm smell of haddock frying and watching the snow fall through the bubbly glass on the old windows. Sheila and me could have stayed there all day, every day, drinking coffee and playing games, I know it.
If it weren’t for her hang up on that goddamn dog.
Some of the guys made fun of me for how things were with us. “Sheila doesn’t need that frigging dog,” they’d say, “she’s got Derrick.” And it’s true, with the way she acted, you might have thought Sheila didn’t think of me any different than anyone else hanging around at Suzy’s, except I happened to be sitting at her favorite table.
But we were getting closer, in our way. For one thing, Shelia started letting me hold the dog. At first, it was just while she went to the bathroom, and you could tell she went as quick as she could. But eventually she started to take it easy. She’d stay in there a bit—come out with her face fresh-washed and the thin hair at the top of her forehead combed over to the side. Then, when Suzy opened up dollar showers, it got longer. You had to sign up for a spot, and Sheila would always check with me before she wrote her name down to make sure I could watch the dog while she was in there.
A lot of people around here like to make like they’re busy. They’ll spend the first half of the day talking about how they’ve got to get on to some big thing they have to do, and the other half talking about how they might not have time anymore for whatever it was, so they’ll have to make sure and do it tomorrow. Usually it’s something small, like putting something in the mail or running up to Seventh Day for new socks. But they make out like it’s a meeting with the goddamn President.
Not me. I’ve got fuckall to do and I don’t care who knows it. If Sheila had asked me to come out the ladies’ side of the woods to set with that dog at two in the morning, I sure as hell would have been there. And I know it meant a lot to her, having me around when she needed me. She didn’t always say so, but I could tell. It was how she looked when she came out of those showers and found little Sheila happy as a clam on my lap. She’d be all pink and shiny from the steam, sighing like she just got back from a day spa. Then she’d try to get me to sign up. “Might help with your back,” she’d say. “All that steam.”
Now, I’m not a person that likes to get wet if I can help it. But having Sheila thinking about what might be good for my back—that was something else altogether.
It was Sheila that gave me the only present I ever got in my adult life. Gave it to me on my actual birthday and everything. I’ve got no idea how she found out when it was, but she showed up at Suzy’s on the very day with Sheila at her feet and something all wound up in a camping blanket in her arms.
She had an abrupt way, that woman. Practically threw the present in my lap. “Now you can’t say I never got you nothing,” she said, looking pleased with herself. And I didn’t know what to do until she tugged at the edge of the blanket. “Well, go ahead and open it,” she said, “so you can give me back the blanket. The blanket’s not part of the present.”
So, I did, and inside there was this weird kind of pillow, heavy as anything. Filled with some gel that’s supposed to be good for your neck. Most of us around here give up on pillows. They start to smell like rot in no time. But that’s the thing that really got me—Sheila’s pillow was all zipped up in this plastic pouch to keep it dry. “You should sleep on a pillow,” Sheila said, “on account of your back.” It was true. Sleeping without one, I’d wake up with a crick in my neck that went all the way down my spine and troubled my sciatica.
Some of the guys said that pillow wasn’t new—that they’d seem pillows like that up at Seventh Day. But they were just jealous. You don’t get a pillow like that as a handout, and sure as hell none of them have one. I carry it with me, so no one makes off with it when I’m away from camp. I strap it on to the bottom of my backpack with an old belt. It’s heavy as hell, which I guess takes a toll my back in its own way, but it’s worth it to wake up every day with my head on that cool, squishy gel, all clean under the plastic.
Even now, with Sheila gone, it makes a big difference.
I guess the thing that snuck up on me is how, despite how annoyed I’d get at how she got in the way of Sheila and me having a good time, I got pretty attached to that stupid dog myself. Maybe a person’s bound to get fond of just about anything if they spend enough time with it. But there was something kind of special about little Sheila, too. Different from other dogs, I mean. For one thing, I never knew a dog so quiet. She was probably just too dumb to do anything but stay put wherever you set her down, but a person could look into her eyes and get the feeling there were secrets swimming around inside them. Or maybe she just had me tricked because she was such a cute little thing—all flat faced and shaggy like the one of the Ewoks I remember were on my lunch box when I was a kid.
Either way, I admit I looked forward to holding her. To feeling her furry little gut blow up inside my arms when she’d breathe in. Or to watching her sneeze. She’d sniff and suck wind like it was going to be a big one, then somehow, she’d wrinkle up that wet little nose of hers so that what came out was barely a sneeze at all. Like somebody had taught her it was rude to let it out. And the way she was with Sheila, sometimes it seemed like she had honest to God manners—human kind of manners—like knowing when to let somebody talk on and on about a thing, pretending they didn’t already tell you all about it the day before.
Probably it shouldn’t have mattered, but it started to eat at me—not knowing if that little dog was a kitchen mop with a face, or some kind of angel in a dog’s body. So, I’d watch her for signs of life. Like when Sheila was in the shower, I’d take little Sheila outside and let her off the leash. Just to see what she’d do. Sometimes, she’d walk a couple slow circles, then do a little curtsey and pee in the grass. But mostly she’d just stand beside me, looking out at whatever happened to be in front of us.
Eventually, it started to piss me off, little Sheila’s not caring what happened to her. I wanted to shake some life into her. I could get a little rise out of her by feeding her scraps—she’d twitch her tail and sniff at the air between her face and my hand when I held something out for her. But if I walked across the room and threw that food in the trash instead of letting her have it, she’d just sit and watch. Settle her little face back down on her paws like nothing had happened.
Sheila said she had an old soul. “She-she-boo’s been on this old earth more than once, hasn’t she?” she’d sing, fussing with the dog’s grimy collar. “Yes, oh yes, she has!”
But it wasn’t natural—a creature going around never wanting anything for itself. Which I guess that’s what made me do what I did.
Everyone around here’s been real nice about what happened. Going on about how it wasn’t my fault. “That crazy bitch was ready to snap long before you come along,” they say. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t set with anybody calling either of my Sheilas a bitch, but I know they’re just trying to make me feel better. They’re folks that have spent most of their lives in some kind of trouble, so naturally that’s what they think of—who catches the blame.
But blame’s not what I’m stuck on.
It’s Sheila’s face, still as anything, her eyes wide open as that bus rolled right over the top of her.
I never thought for a second anything would come of that bit of craziness with Caleb’s dog. They don’t sign dogs over to bums without running them through the cleaners, so to speak. God knows what happened with little Sheila.
Still, I did make a decision.
The first time Caleb brought that new mutt of his into Suzy’s, little Sheila perked right up. It was really something to see, how her tail went to twitching and her eyes got all bright. Now there was a creature that never wanted anything in her whole goddamn life, but she sure as hell wanted to get to know that little dog rooting around the floor like a pig in a field.
Of course, Sheila didn’t like little Sheila mixing with other dogs, on account of who knows what they’d been into. But by then Sheila and me had gotten close enough so she’d leave the dog with me for stretches when she had to go see her counselor or whatnot. When she was gone, I did mostly abide by her rules—out of respect. But when I felt that little critter go all wiry with excitement in my lap, I thought, dammit, what’s the harm?
A little hello is what I thought would happen. You know, I sniff your parts, you sniff mine, and so forth. But that little bastard didn’t waste any time. He was on Sheila in a snap. Not that she seemed to mind. Held right still for him. And even though I guess I did feel a little guilty on account of Sheila, it was hard not to get a kick out of it. All of us that was at Suzy’s that day did. We got to hooting and hollering, watching Caleb’s mangy animal go to town while little Sheila stood there quivering with her eyes set to pop out of her head.
And you know, even though most of the folks around here will tell you their whole goddamn life story if you so much as look in their direction, they know how to keep a secret, too. We didn’t have to talk about it. When those dogs finished their business, I set little Sheila right back up on my lap and Caleb moved on with his dog. So, when Sheila came back, there was nothing out of order—nothing to see but a room full of addicts, drinking coffee and sucking on their cheeks, and her dishrag of a dog, sleeping like the dead on my lap.
Until a couple months later, when, according to Faye and Anne that had their tents next to Sheila’s, little Sheila refused to tuck up inside Sheila’s sleeping bag like usual. Apparently, the dog had been acting a little funny all day, or at least Sheila thought she was—she kept asking folks if the dog looked sick. Then, after the girls turned in, they could hear Sheila pestering the poor creature to come to bed, coaxing her one minute and scolding her the next.
“You know Sheila,” Faye said, “it doesn’t take much to turn her. Got to hissing at that dog to set the fuck still where she put it, until what could it do but snap at her, what with the work it had out in front of it?”
Now, I can’t imagine that little dog biting Sheila any more than I can imagine me doing it. But I guess nature does what it does. Because what I do know is that some while later that night, little Sheila dropped a whole litter of mongrel puppies in the corner of that tent. And that when she did, Sheila set to screaming like a wild animal having its insides opened up in the night.
It was to me everyone looked to explain what happened. I guess to some people me and Sheila seemed like a real couple—like two people that understood each other. But at the end of the day, I didn’t know a goddamn thing about that woman. Except that she loved that dog like a mother loves a child, and that there must have been something in her that can’t handle that kind of love.
The girls say she tore the camp apart that night, screaming at little Sheila with her pitiful pile of pups suckling away at her teats. Called her all sorts of foul names, Faye said. Nobody could talk to her. And then, before dawn, Sheila packed up what was left of her stuff—what she hadn’t trashed in all her carrying on—and dragged little Sheila out the mess of her puppies and straight away from camp.
When I finally came to and found out about what was going on, I wanted to go over to Sheila’s side of the woods—maybe as much for the sake of the dog as for Sheila, losing her shit over those puppies for God knows what awful reason. But that’s just not how things were between Sheila and me. She wouldn’t have wanted me there. Hell, I wasn’t even supposed to know she lived at the camp in the first place. So, I set up out back of Suzy’s in the dark to keep watch instead. I figured I’d wait and talk to Sheila when she came out of the woods—help her sort things out somehow then.
But when dawn started to break and I finally saw Sheila crossing the field between the woods and the highway, something about the shape of her made me set right still. She had little Sheila tucked up against the front of her, like a part of her body, and she was walking real slow, like a hard wind was blowing against her every step she took.
I watched her. God help me, that’s all I did. I watched her cross the field, picking her way around the boggy patches out back of the auto shop beside Suzy’s and then all the way out to the road, where the bus shelter stood as empty as my stomach in the gray morning light.
So, she’s going, is what I thought. And she’s taking little Sheila with her.
It made all the sense in the world: Sheila was her dog, but by rights those puppies were mine to deal with.
Sheila walked right over the curb and out into the middle of the road, hugging little Sheila up against her chest while she stood peering off at the horizon like as if didn’t have that goddamn card in her pocket telling her exactly when the bus would pull up. And the instant the five am bus did come into view, Sheila dropped that dog right down in the middle of the road and started waving her arms like crazy—like the driver might speed right on past her if she didn’t flag him down.
When the bus got close enough that you could hear its guts growling, Sheila stumbled out of the road and into the bus shelter with the strangest look on her face, like she was in the middle of a dream, leaving little Sheila behind like she’d never owned a dog in all her life.
I swear to God, Sheila never would have left that dog there on purpose. But she was out of her head.
As soon as I realized what was happening, I started running as fast as I could for the road. But my back trouble makes me slow as hell, and I didn’t stand a chance at saving little Sheila. All I could do was get near enough to the road before the bus got there to learn two things.
The first is that Sheila was standing all the way back in the corner of the shelter by the time the bus pulled up, so there’s a good chance her view of the road was blocked when little Sheila got run over. I count that as a blessing.
The second is that little Sheila had plenty of time to get out of the way of that bus, what with the driver pulling in all slow like he was he was looking for an excuse to drive on by. But that little dog didn’t budge, and the driver was too busy giving Sheila the eye to notice what looked like somebody’s dirty towel dropped in the middle of the road. He drove that bus right over the top of little Sheila like that’s exactly what she was—a dirty towel with two eyes as deep as swimming holes buried in the folds. I don’t think he noticed a goddamn thing, because he barely stopped the bus to open the doors, and he snapped them shut and pulled away before Sheila had even made it all the way up the steps to sit down.
In the end, I suppose it’s a mercy little Sheila was lined up exactly like she was, because the weight of the bus would have crushed her skull before anything else. Still, you’d think there would have been a moment just before the bus flattened her when plain old instinct would have kicked in—would have sent her scrambling out of the way.
I guess that’s the thing I can’t let go of: the question of whether Sheila was right, and little Sheila held still for that bus because she understood something about this world that most of us don’t, or whether that dog was just dumb as a goddamn post.