Shiba

It was a great day. I knew that I had to enjoy these days while I could. Jack wasn't the problem. He was only nine and a boy. Lindsey, on the other hand, was going to be thirteen in a few months. I would be the father of a teenage girl. How did I let that happen? She wasn't too bad yet, but I knew my days were numbered. I've seen some of the other fathers out there in restaurants and at the mall. The exhaustion and frustration radiating off them like they just took a vacation inside of a nuclear reactor. You can almost watch their hair turn gray and fall out.

But not me. Not yet. Like I said, today was a great day. Joyce made a big breakfast and packed an even bigger picnic lunch for us to take with us. We listened to Abbey Road on the way to the park and all sang along. Jack does a great job on The End. It'll almost be a shame when his voice changes. And of course that sort of thing will soon be off-limits when Lindsey turns into THE BEAST THAT CONSTANTLY REMINDS YOU HOW UNCOOL YOU ARE.

When we got there we left the truck in the parking lot and took the hiking trail to the lake. You can drive all the way in, but that's no fun. Jack carried the football and fishing poles and I lugged the picnic basket and cooler. We spent the rest of the morning casting at the lake. Jack caught his first "keeper" fish, which he decided to throw back anyway. It was his fish, so I wasn't going to argue. As I unhooked the bass and tossed it back in the water I once again thought of my relationship with my daughter and how I would have to cut her loose soon. At that moment I decided never to become a writer, because my metaphors are god-awful.

After lunch Jack and I tossed the ball around while the girls cleaned up. He had a hell of an arm for nine, threw accurately, and put a beautiful spiral on his passes, but was kind of short for his age. I hoped for a nice growth spurt in the years to come but then Joyce's voice in my head reminded me that he didn't have to play football like his old man. I caught a surprisingly hard pass in my gut when I noticed a small dog walking toward me.

I had never seen a dog quite like this one. It looked kind of like an akita, but smaller, about twenty-five pounds. The fur was black, tan, and white and its tail was curved around to its back. It walked over to me, gave me a sniff, looked up with a goofy smile with its tongue hanging out, and rolled over on its back. Not its, but her, I could see from this new angle. I knelt down and rubbed her belly which sent her right leg into spasms. Joyce and the kids came over to see our visitor and they all seemed instantly smitten with her. Hell, I was a little smitten myself.

"She's so pretty. Where did she come from?" Joyce asked. All I could do was shrug my shoulders. The lake wasn't very crowded that day . There were a couple of dogs, but I would have noticed this one. We'd been there for hours and this was the first I'd seen of her. "Does she have tags?"

"No. Jack, Lindsey, did you guys happen to notice this dog today?" They both shook there heads. "Well, let's figure out where she belongs." I told them as I stood back up. I started walking toward the nearest group of people with my new friend right beside me. I didn't even have to call her. How such a well-trained dog could be running around by herself without a collar was a mystery to me.

More of a mystery was where the hell this dog had come from. It took about forty minutes to get around to everyone in the immediate area and ask about her. No one claimed ownership or had even seen the dog with anyone else. The only information I was able to obtain was from a young woman who told me what a beautiful shiba inu I had.

"Thanks" I said "but she's not mine. I guess she's not yours either."

"Nope, sorry. Did she adopt you?"

"I think she thinks she did. What did you call her again? A sheeva igloo?"

That got a chuckle from the woman but a frown from Joyce. She always hated when I made other woman laugh, but I can't help that I'm so charming. "A shee-ba eenew." She said it real slow and enunciated for me. "It's a Japanese dog. My friend has one that's tan and white. You don't see the tri-colored one's very often."

"Really? You wanna buy her?" Another chuckle and another frown, this one accompanied by the furrowed brow. "Guess I have to go. Thanks."

We hiked back to the parking lot with the dog. No one that we passed seemed to take notice of her. It was as if she had brought herself to the park. Once we made it to the truck I got the question I was dreading. I expected Jack to ask it, but instead it was Lindsey who gave me that "please dad" look and asked "So, are we gonna keep her?"

I sighed. "I don't think that's such a great idea, honey."

"We can't just take her to the pound. They'll kill her." I hadn't heard that voice from her since she was Jack's age. It wasn't just that she wanted something, she was really upset.

"You think she'll do any better at our house?" Well there it was. I said it. We didn't have any pets and didn't talk about the reason why, but we all knew. Bringing an animal into our house was an automatic death sentence for the poor creature. It was like taking an altar boy to a N.A.M.B.L.A. meeting- they didn't stand a chance. There wasn't any explanation. We took care of every hamster, ferret, fish, and iguana that we brought home, but they all died. My wife even got a cat because she figured you just feed them and change the litter box and then they pretty much look after themselves, but not at "The House of a Thousand Animal Corpses". Snowball made it three months (a record for us) before choking to death on a hairball. I would have loved to have this beautiful dog in our home, but the last thing I wanted was to be responsible for its death.

"C'mon Dad, she'll be fine. It's not like we're cursed, right?"

Joyce and I looked at each other. It did seem kind of silly when she said it that way, and I didn't want to put an idea like that in the kids' heads. After a few seconds Joyce gave me a "what the hell" kind of look and shrugged her shoulders.

"I'll tell you what." I said. "If no one claims her..."

"And she doesn't croak." Joyce whispered to me.

I gave Joyce a look. "If no one claims her..." I said a little louder this time "...after a few days we'll take her to the vet. If she checks out okay we'll be the first family on our block with a siba....a saba... a Subaru emu."

"Thanks Dad." Jack and Lindsey said in unison as she hugged me and he did an "I'm a kid and I just got what I wanted" dance.

"And it's a shiba inu." Lindsey added. "God, you can be such a geek."

And so it begins.

I rarely remember my dreams, but that night I had a terrible nightmare. I dreamt that I was a samurai warrior whose thirst for blood was legendary. Eventually, even the battlefield could not satiate my appetite for death. I cut off my wife's legs and listened to her scream while I turned my sword on our children. I left her in our home to bleed to death as I went from house to house and slaughtered everyone in my village. No man could best my skills and the woman and children were as defenseless as flies under the swatter. I became bored by simply killing them and began torturing them or playing games with their minds. I told a woman who I would spare her children if she killed herself. She plunged a dagger into her stomach and was lying on the floor weeping and bleeding as I killed them all anyway. I forced another to choose which child I would kill. I pulled out eyes and cut off ears and noses. Through all of these atrocities I was aware of a presence, something that seemed to guide my hand. It followed me but did not show itself. Finally there was no one left to kill and, despite the tenacity in which I had carried out its orders, it sent waves of pain through my body until I turned the blade on myself. When I awoke, drenched in sweat, I felt nauseous and exhausted.

Over the next few days we hung up some flyers and put a call in to the local pound but didn't get any response. If someone had owned this dog before us they sure weren't looking very hard for her. By that Thursday we were all convinced that we were in fact the first family on our block to have a shiba inu. I had taken to calling her Shiba which wasn't very imaginative but stuck anyway. It seemed feminine and somehow fit her exotic look. I called a local vet that our neighbors recommended and made an appointment for Saturday to get her checked out and properly vaccinated.

In the meantime we all just enjoyed her company. I had never in my life known such an obedient dog. She always came when called, was already house-broken, and never even barked. She did make a kind of growly "woo" sound that a shiba inu website called the shiba chirp. It was actually kind of cool and Jack realized he could get her to do it on command by saying "Shiba says woo" and giving her an entire bag of dog treats.

Saturday morning I woke up from another nightmare. In this one I was a running a Nazi concentration camp and ordering the most heinous brutalities imaginable to be carried out against the prisoners. Crimes that were so vicious that often a soldier would refuse to comply with them, and would pay for the disobedience with his life. I tried to shake it off as I made my way downstairs to get some coffee. Joyce was cooking breakfast and Lindsey and Jack were setting the table. Everyone was too busy to notice the dead bird that Shiba had placed on the floor right in the middle of the kitchen. She sat in front of it with that goofy smile on her face waiting for someone to acknowledge her contribution.

"Um, that's not the main course, is it?" I joked.

Joyce spun around. "What are you...oh my god! Why is that in here?"

The kids finally noticed, too. Lindsey gasped and Jack said "eew gross" as he ran over to examine the corpse.

"Don't touch it Jack" I told him. "It's no big deal. Dogs and cats do that sometimes. To them they're giving you a present. It's actually a sign of affection. I guess she really likes us."

"Great." Lindsey said sarcastically.

I grabbed a paper towel off the roll and used it to pick the bird up and throw it in the trash. "Thanks, I guess" I said to Shiba as I rubbed her head. "You'd think we'd all be used to dead animals around here." The kids laughed at the remark and Joyce snapped my butt with a dish towel.

"Sit down and eat" she ordered. "You have to take our generous benefactor to the vet."

Shiba was in my lap the whole way to the vet. Whenever I stopped petting her she would nudge my hand and give me that dopey look of hers. Thankfully I had an automatic transmission. Otherwise we'd have driven all the way there in first gear. There was only one other patient waiting at Doctor Torres's office, a lady with a doberman pinscher. As soon as we walked in he started lunging and growling at Shiba, who barely noticed. For just a fraction of a second I saw that smile disappear from her face and her lip raise very slightly in a half-hearted snarl and then it was right back to the only expression she'd shown since we'd met. Immediately, the dobie yelped, fell on his back, and peed all over himself, his owner, and the floor. I stood stunned with my mouth open while the woman apologized and explained that "Elvis" had been sick, which was why they were there. I assured her that it was no big deal (Shiba certainly didn't seem bothered by the incident) and told her I hoped that Elvis got better soon.

When I got home I told Joyce that Shiba was tagged, vaccinated, and in great health. Then I told her about the incident with the doberman. She didn't seem too concerned.

"Honey I'm tellin' ya, that dog was five times Shiba's size and was scared to death."

"Don't worry. She's just a very confident dog and that's what other dogs respond to. You have to admit, she does have an air about her."

"Yeah. Yeah she does." I conceded. Shiba did walk around like she was queen of all that she surveys, but the whole incident at the vet's really freaked me out. Joyce wasn't there. She didn't see the way that dog just folded. "It was a sight to see, though. That dog could've ate us both if he wanted to and instead he just wussed out."

"Dogs don't work like that. They react to each other's state of mind. I actually feel good about the whole thing. Most dogs would have reacted a lot worse in that situation. I think it shows how non aggressive she is."

"I guess you're right. The last thing we need is another aggressive female in the house."

Joyce laughed and grabbed my shirt. "You should call the boys in before I show you an aggressive female."

"Boys?" I asked.

"Yeah. Jack and Travis are out back." She told me the way a doctor would tell someone they had a terminal illness.

"Travis. That's great. What else could go wrong today?"

What Jack liked about Travis was beyond us. He was a year younger than Jack but acted like a five-year-old. His manners were atrocious and he barely listened. Of course anyone who ever met his parents was not surprised by his behavior. They were a couple of drunks who seemed to have forgotten that eight years ago they brought a child into the world. We let him play with our son because he definitely needed a positive influence in his life and so far their friendship didn't seem to be having any negative impact on Jack, who was about as great a kid as a parent could ask for. We rarely had to tell Jack anything and when we did he apologized and did it right away. He did very well in school and we got constant compliments on his manners. He really was the perfect son. Except for the short thing, which could change.

When I opened the back door I saw Jack climbing around on the monkey bars. That sort of good old-fashioned play was no fun to Travis, who was using Shiba as his own personal jungle gym. He had her pinned to the ground and seemed to have her in some sort of wrestling move that I think they call a sleeper-hold. (I'm not sure. I never liked that crap)

"Travis!" I yelled. "Get off that poor dog."

"You got it, boss." He said as he let her go.

"You guys c'mon inside."

"Yes sir." Jack replied.

"Sure thing boss." Said the ever respectful Travis. I always felt like Tom Hanks in The Green Mile when he was over. Of course Travis was more Wild Bill Wharton then John Coffey.

As I shut the door I heard Travis scream. I threw the door open and ran over to him. He was doubled over and holding his stomach.

"Travis. Travis look at me. What's wrong?" I was trying to stay calm but I could here the panic in my own voice. "What happened?"

He looked up at me with tears streaming down his face. "I don't feel too good. My belly hurts."

"Well what happened? Are you bleeding?" I thought maybe Shiba had bitten him. It would have been in self-defense, but they never see it that way. I had known that this would end badly and cursed myself for not taking that dog to the pound.

Travis wasn't talking. I lifted his shirt. Nothing. No blood. No marks. Nothing.

I looked at Jack who sat atop the monkey bars looking confused.

"Shiba made a mean face because he pulled her tail and then he yelled." Jack said in that "I'll tell ya what I know but it ain't much" tone of voice that criminals use on Law and Order all the time.

I looked at Shiba. Blank stare. Goofy smile. Tongue. I had a really crazy idea in my head for just a second. I pushed it away the way you push away the remnants of a bad dream when you wake up in the middle and desperately yearn for reality.

"C'mon buddy, I'll take you home."

I'm used to waking up to the smell of Joyce's home fries cooking on Sunday morning. They were the finest I'd ever tasted and waking up to that smell was one of the things that made Sunday my favorite day of the week, even when it wasn't football season. Instead it was the doorbell that roused me. As I made my way down the stairs and tried to accomplish the monumental early Sunday morning task of tying my robe shut, I pondered how I might kill the inevitable Jehovah's Witness or salesman that was depriving me of such a beautiful, simple pleasure. I threw the door open and was shocked into full consciousness when I saw a policeman in my foyer and not some bible thumper or kitchen knife peddler.

Shiba was at my side, as usual. She slept at the foot of our bed since her first night in the house and only once got up with Joyce, preferring to wait the extra half hour or so until I crawled out from under the covers. "Go lay down." I told her, which she of course did. "Good morning, officer. What's...uhm...can I help you?" I don't know why I always have a hard time talking to cops. I've never committed a real crime in my life. (Unless you count the time I brought Joyce season Tiger's tickets for our anniversary. Which I'm sure she would.)

"I'm sorry to bother you, sir, but I'm afraid I have some bad news. Your son's friend Travis died in his sleep last night."

"Oh my god." Joyce said behind me. I hadn't realized that she was there. I turned and put my arm around her.

"Wow." I blurted out. "I don't ... What can we do to help?"

"His parents told us he was here most of the day yesterday. Is there anything that you can think of to help us figure out what happened? Did he fall down or eat anything he shouldn't have?"

I looked at Joyce who shook her head. "I don't think so." She closed her eyes and tried to recall the events of the previous day. "The kids had hot dogs for lunch, but Jack was fine. I don't know. They were outside most of the time."

I looked back at the cop, who was writing on a little notepad. "I'm sorry officer, but I don't think we can help. I'll wake Jack up and speak to him. If he can tell us anything I'll call you."

"Please do." He said as he handed me his card and turned to leave.

"Officer" I said. He turned back to me. "Tell his folks we're so sorry and if there's anything we can do they can call us- anything at all."

"Will do." He told me and left.

I shut the door and looked at Joyce, who was tearing up. I gave her a big hug. "I'm going to go talk to Jack." I told her. I was dreading it, but I knew I had to do it right then or I'd try to put it off forever. I'd rather have THE TALK with Lindsey. I'd rather call my mother. God help me, I'd rather call my mother-in-law.

I looked up to the top of the stairs to see Jack and Lindsey were already awake. They stood there side-by-side looking unsure of what to do next. I was wondering how long they'd been there when Jack finally spoke up.

"Why was a policeman here?" Jack asked. Apparently they weren't there very long.

"Yeah, what's going on?" Lindsey chimed in as she ran down the stairs with her brother a step behind her.

"Sit down guys." I said as I led them toward the living room.

Shiba jumped in my lap and started licking my face as soon as I sat on the couch. She could probably sense how terrible I was feeling. "Good girl." I said as I stroked her back. "It's okay. Lay down."

The kids had a pretty good handle on the concept of life and death since every pet we've ever had died within a few weeks, but this was obviously a very different situation. As I explained what had happened to them I could see the tears welling up in Jack's eyes. "It's all right to cry buddy" I said as I hugged him "I know you're gonna miss your friend, but Travis is in..."

"It wasn't her fault." He interrupted.

"What's that buddy?" I asked him.

"Don't let them take Shiba away." She looked up at the sound of her name in case there was affection or food involved. "All she did was make a mean face. She didn't bite him or nothin'. It wasn't her."

"Is that what you're worried about? Of course no one's taking her away." As I said it I played out the whole scenario in my mind. Shiba thinks I've saved her from Travis' torture, but when I turn and close the door he grabs her tail. She turns and snarls and he immediately screams and grabs his stomach. I guess to a nine-year old with an active imagination anything is plausible. Of course to a man in his thirties that kind of thing is just silly. Isn't it?

"It was just, you know, like a coincidence, okay. Shiba's not going anywhere." I told him. He nodded his head and smiled. At least one of us was convinced.

I thought about locking Shiba out of the bedroom that night, but the idea of her sleeping with the kids bothered me more than the idea of her sleeping with me and Joyce. So we went to bed that night as usual, but I barely slept. I kept telling myself it was because I was upset about Travis, but I knew that was a lie. I wondered if that was how it always started. A weird idea creeps into your head that you can't shake. Before you know it you're wearing a jacket backwards like Cyril St. John and drooling all over yourself. I was wondering if my insurance covered psychotherapy when I finally drifted off, but sleep did not bring me any peace.

There was a woman and three children writhing in pain. Blood was coming out of their mouths, ears, and eyes. I could feel my internal organs being crushed when I was abruptly, and mercifully, woken up by Joyce's scream. I bolted out of bed and was halfway down the stairs and jumping to all sorts of insane conclusions about possessed dogs and early-bird burglars when I heard her yell "will you please stop doing that." which would be a strange thing to say during a home invasion. I imaged some lunatic breaking into the house, tying up Joyce and the kids, and playing the "I'm not touching you" game until Joyce screamed. I was laughing pretty hard by the time I reached the kitchen.

"It's not funny!" She yelled when I got there.

"No it's not that. I just..." I decided it would be best to tell her later. "What's wrong?"

She pointed to the dead bullfrog on the floor. "Make her stop doing that!" She demanded. Shiba smiled.

"I don't think I can, honey."

I went for a paper towel and decided to grab the whole roll. Bullfrogs were messy. It's like they're packed tight and one little puncture sends all kinds of goo oozing out like a Stretch Armstrong action figure. I picked it up with a paper towel, preparing myself for some pre-breakfast grossness and...nothing. No blood, no guts, nothing. "Weird." I said under my breath.

"What's weird?" I forgot that Joyce, like all mothers, had the hearing of a bat.

"No bite marks."

"Hmm" she pondered the statement. "Who cares how she killed it. Maybe she jumped out from behind a tree and it had a heart attack. Just throw it away."

I smiled at Joyce. "Maybe he was asleep in his little frog bed and his wife started screaming and then he had the heart attack."

She smiled back. "Just get rid of it."

After breakfast Joyce drove the kids to school. I put Shiba out back and went upstairs to get my cell phone. As I sat on the bed scrolling through my contacts to find the vet I hoped that it wouldn't seem weird to call and ask about another dog's well-being, or if they could even tell me. (Do veterinarians have doctor-patient confidentiality rules?) Just as I was about to hit send I noticed Shiba in the doorway. Her smile melted and her lip rose for just a second, but that was all it took. The physical pain was excruciating, but the images were worse. She showed me centuries of horror in an instant. People ripped to pieces but somehow still alive to suffer the agony, making indescribable sounds in their anguish. Sailors on a warship throwing themselves into shark infested waters to make the pain stop. A disturbed postal worker's already fragile psyche pushed over the edge by her daily mental intrusions and molded into her killing machine. Young men taking guns to school and killing their classmates and themselves. There were hundreds of images. All of them were vicious. Finally she showed me Joyce driving the kids to school. This image didn't have to end like the others. She was letting me know that it could if I crossed her.

And then it ended as suddenly as it had begun. I took a deep breath and looked down at the phone in my hand. No point in wasting my minutes, I knew Elvis was as dead as his namesake. I turned my gaze to Shiba, who smiled and walked away.

Hearing her paw steps down the stairs, I opened my nightstand draw and picked up the revolver inside. Looking at the gun in my hand I thought of all the "Dog Whisperer" episodes I had seen, and couldn't recall him ever resorting to firearms. An image flashed in my head of him yanking Shiba's leash and making that annoying "schtt" noise and then falling over dead. The laughter I heard then was not mine. It was the laughter of a man who had recently gone insane.

As I crept into the living room my heart was beating faster than I'd have thought possible. Shiba was on the couch, seemingly asleep. I raised the gun and she turned and looked at me. She looked at me with her real face then, the face of the demon that she was. It was what a dog might look like if it was turned inside out. The veins and muscle pulsating. Her eyes were sunken into the sockets and they were as black as crude. She growled as I pulled the trigger. The bullet flew by her head and burrowed into the couch. I thought of what Verbal Kint had said about shooting the devil in the back. Then there was only pain. The pain of seeing Joyce convulse and hearing the kids scream as she drove through a red light into a semi and the pain of my body turning inside out.

Just a few years ago Diane would never have let the boys in the water by themselves. "They're growing up so fast." He thought to himself as he watched his sons from the beach. He looked at his wife who was lying on a blanket, still trying to get a tan after thirty-four pale years. Her eyes were closed, but he thought he could see her ears moving just a little as if she was still listening for the boys, even while dozing off. He smiled just as he felt something cold and wet on his back that made him jump. He spun around to see a very interesting looking dog behind him.

"You're a pretty girl." He told her as he rubbed her head.

Diane popped up at the sound of his voice. "Wow, what a beautiful dog." She said. "Does she have tags?"

Shiba smiled.