Dog Barking

excerpt from Collected Stories

by Martin Green

Harry Wilson was awakened from his dream by the sound of a dog barking. In the dream, he was in the company cafeteria, trying to find his wallet to pay for his meal, getting angrier and angrier. The people in the line behind him had started to yell and push, the cashier had called over a uniformed guard, and then his boss had appeared and asked what the trouble was. In his frustration, he threw his tray at his boss and — but that was all he could remember.

He opened his eyes and saw by the glowing clock dial that it was 3 AM. His wife must have sensed that he was awake. She turned over and asked, “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing, just a dog barking. It sounds as if it’s right under the window.”

It must be the new neighbors’ dog. They’d moved in a couple of weeks ago. He’d heard that the husband was a lawyer and the wife was a real estate agent. She zipped in and out of their court at all hours in her bright red sports car.

The dog kept on barking. Could there be a prowler outside? A couple of houses in the neighborhood had been broken into in the last month. Everyone knew the sheriff took hours to respond to a call and then they filled out a report and did nothing about it. That’s why he’d gotten out his old service revolver. Nowadays you couldn’t count on anything else.

Wilson got up, took his revolver out of the bedside table and looked out the window but saw nothing, just dark houses and black trees. The court was completely still.

When he got back into bed he closed his eyes but couldn’t get back to sleep. He’d been having a hard time sleeping lately. Maybe he’d reached the age when you didn’t need that much sleep. He was fifty-two.

He was fifty-two and he’d gone as far as he was going to go. Remembering his dream, he’d really like to throw a tray or something at his boss. The promotion he’d been counting on had been given to someone else, a woman about ten years younger than him. It was part of the company’s affirmative action program. Why wasn’t there any affirmative action for him?

If he’d followed his first impulse, he would have quit. But at his age where would he go? He couldn’t retire until he was 60. The only thing left for him was to try to hang on.

He looked over at his wife. She’d been a pretty girl when he married her, but even then she’d been frail. In the last ten years, she’d been in poor health, and this had meant hospital and doctor bills. The so-called poor of course got all of their medical care for free, but not people like him. He might not be able to retire even when he was sixty.

As if keeping time to a metronome, the dog kept on barking, steadily and regularly, giving no sign that it would ever stop. He remembered their old dog, Willie, and the times he and his younger brother Sam played with him.

Sam had been the bad kid, the one who always got into trouble. He’d dropped out of school and had somehow gotten into the used car business. Wilson remembered bitterly that Sam had wanted them to go into business together, but he’d been foolish enough to turn his younger brother down. Now Sam was the brother that had made good. And look where I am, Wilson thought.

That damned dog, would it ever stop? He’d never get back to sleep and he’d be totally useless at the office. Not that it would matter to anybody. Did anything matter? He’d been working in the same place for twenty-five years and he could barely stay even. The house needed a new roof, the car needed new tires, the chairs had to be redone, and God knew what else.

On top of everything, he paid taxes for everyone else. He paid for the lousy schools, the women who wanted abortions, the homeless who were too lazy to find a job. Maybe he should go on welfare. He might as well.

The dog’s barking seemed to have gotten even louder. Where were they, the hotshot lawyer and his real estate agent wife? Wilson got out of bed again. He went to the closet and got out a raincoat, then picked up his revolver. His wife sat up in bed. “What are you doing?” she asked.

“I’m going to see about that damned dog.”

“Why are you taking your gun?”

“It’s a revolver. I’m taking it because you never know what crazies might be out there.”

He put the raincoat on over his pajamas and went out of the house. The court his house was on was quiet except for the dog barking. The night was cold; overhead, the sky was full of black clouds. He went to the house next door. The gate to the backyard was open and he went in.

The dog was by the fence. When it saw him, it stopped barking. It was a small dog to have been making such a loud noise. Wilson looked around. There was no food and no water. The dog whimpered and shivered. “No wonder you were barking,” said Wilson.

He looked up at the sky. The black clouds moved and the moon and a few stars shone through. An immense sadness, like a big wave, swept over him. He felt that he understood, for that moment, all the unhappiness in the world, all the disappointment and injustice.

A few minutes later, the silence of the court was shattered by four shots.

His wife was still sitting up in bed, looking frightened, when Wilson returned. “Good Lord, what happened?” she asked him. “What were those shots?”

“Nothing. It’s okay.”

“But the shots I heard—”

“The dog didn’t have any food or water. I looked in the garage to see if there was any dog food around. The lawyer’s car, the blue station wagon, was gone. Only the red sports car was there. They’d taken off somewhere and left him with nothing. Can you imagine?”

“But the shots — did you kill him?”

“Of course not! I found a bag of dog food in the garage and gave him some water from the hose.”

“Then why did fire your gun?”

“Revolver. I shot out the tires on the sports car. They deserved it.”

Wilson got back into bed, falling into a deep sleep almost at once and this time it was dreamless.