I Know Your Address

(This is something I wrote in the early 1990s, while at the Squaw Valley writer's conference near Lake Tahoe. I planned on revising it but never did.)

I was a dog in my last life. I'm sure of it. These days dogs sense I've known that world of secret smells, spoken their native language, pissed on priceless rugs. I was a big and noisy dog, a wild-haired mongrel. I will never live it down.

One day I am walking home alone. A big-eyed dog, some kind of shepherd-lab youth, comes bounding out of the meadow. Oh no, I think. It's happening again. Dogs catch my scent and want me to join them in some semi-domesticated version of a pack. Of course I pet him. I can't help it. He licks my hand and I resist my canine urge to lick him back. No, sweetheart. I look into his sad face. I'm a woman now, not your mate in heat. He won't listen. Instead, he trots along the busy thoroughfare, revelling in our meeting, forgetting his street smarts, darting onto the road. Damn you, dog! I call to him, Get out of the street! He leaps back to safety, a spasm of brute ecstasy: he has found the key to my attention! Don't get all excited, I snap. Just keep your ass out of traffic. His tongue drips sweat onto my shoes. I resent this responsibility.

Okay, fool, what's your name? I look at the tag on his collar: BUBBA, it says, #96104. Well, Bubba–his ears perk up–you have to go home. I point across the meadow to our original meeting place. Go home. Bubba hangs his head, but doesn't budge. I turn my back on him, continue my walk. Heedless, Bubba follows.

Human suitors might pick flowers. Bubba proudly pees on them, choosing my favorites: tall daisies, asters, forget-me-nots. This is the world we can share together, he says with the tilt of his tail. Then he smells a nearby creek, rushes to dive in. Yo, Bubba, I say. I didn't know you were a water sign. He's happy in the water and I use his intoxication to attempt an escape. If I just run fast enough, I tell myself, Bubba will forget I ever existed. I pound the road's shoulder with my two human feet, raising dust, and when Bubba catches up with me–as of course he would–at even higher levels of dog-gasm he bounces and leaps and shakes the creek sludge onto my skin. But Bubba, I'm tired, I want to take a nap. Bubba just pounces and flaps. Please, Bubba, the mosquitoes are eating me alive …

Eventually I win this argument. Bubba is unable to tempt me back to the meadow and follows me home instead. I feed him half of my beef burrito, then sit out on the porch with him dozing under my feet–such loyalty, trust, and charm. I'm in a mongrel reverie, relishing how late the sun sets during these dog days of August. I feel the slow rhythm of Bubba's breathing, relax into the softness of his fur at my feet …

Suddenly, police car sirens disrupt our canine communion. Bubba's up in a snap, haunches ready for the chase, snout eager for long-toothed retaliation against cop-car interruptions. At last I'm free, I say to myself. Go on, sweetheart, I look into his eyes, you got yourself some cops to chase. But Bubba's last green glance shoots me a warning: You're mine, baby. I know your address.