Goddamn Dog

As Tim Coleman laid half asleep in bed on a rainy afternoon, he kept wondering why his girlfriend Jade Quinn had “One More Light” by Linkin Park playing on repeat before she left for work in the morning. She wasn’t her usual peppy self. No smiles. No kisses. Not even a hug. Just cold, empty eyes as she left Tim in charge of dogsitting duty. The pouring rain coupled with the dour mood made him curl up against his pillow even more. A pillow was no substitute for Jade, however. He would have settled for Millie crawling up under the blankets. But then…

Something assaulted Tim’s nose like a wrecking ball to the face and had just about as much knockout power. He pulled his nostrils under the blanket, but he could still smell that rancid, god-awful odor coming from the living room. “Oh no…no, no, no…please tell me she didn’t do it…no…no…NO!”

He threw the blankets off of him and stomped out to the living room wearing just his athletic shorts. The harder he stomped, the more rage pumped through his ogre-like body. The odor set his nostrils nearly ablaze as he tried to suppress the urge to vomit. And then he made it to the living room and saw that Jade’s hardwood floors had become a battlefield of landmines. Gigantic, steaming brown landmines with the general herself laying on the ground in guilt. Millie the salt n’ pepper colored Labrador mooed like a cow before unleashing a cloud of toxic gas from her already putrid bunghole.

“Goddamn it, Millie! You stupid fucking goddamn dog!” shouted Tim from the top of his lungs. “I am so sick and tired of cleaning up your fucking messes! You goddamn dog!” Fury and venom poured from the fat man’s lips with every swearing scream. “I’m going to fucking kill you, you stupid dog!” Though he would never go through on such a threat, Millie wouldn’t have known as she guiltily tucked her head.

Tim stomped to the bathroom and fetched the necessary cleaning supplies for a job this disgusting: paper towels, a mop, and a bucket he filled with soapy water. In between retrieving these necessary items, he kept on roaring like the pissed off lion he was. “You goddamn dog! Quit shitting all over the fucking floor, asshole!”

His first course of action was to scoop up all of the dog turds with god knows how many paper towels before flushing them down the toilet separately. Every time he bent over, the odor triggered his gag reflex to where he wanted to vomit himself inside out. While that would be an instant relief to his aching and tired body, it would also mean more messes to clean up. “Goddamn stupid ass fucking dog!” he screamed.

After flushing the turds down the drain, he sat on the toilet seat for a while and wiped the sweat from his body, which poured like the rainy weather outside. Tim took several deep breaths not only to recover his lost energy, but also in a vain attempt to calm himself down. “Stupid dog…stupid goddamn dog!” he screamed, completely destroying his ambitions of nirvana.

Step two of this ultimate cleaning job was to mop the floors as vigorously as he could. A few strokes in and he was already sucking wind. Wind, by the way, that was broken by a sixteen-year-old dog huddling in the corner. “Stupid dog!” Tim screamed again as he scrubbed the wooden floor. No matter how hard he mopped, the air thickened like he was in a burning building. At this point he was genuinely surprised the smoke alarm didn’t go off during this job. “You stupid motherfucking dog! Quit making me clean up after you, you little shithead!”

Once he was certain the shit was completely cleaned up off the floor, he death-marched to the bathroom to flush the mop water down the toilet. His head ached worse than if he had been beaten with hammers. His heart pounded as if a Mortal Kombat character was trying to rip it out. His lower back flared with pain like he had taken a body slam over a pile of razorblades. Tim sat on the toilet and sucked some more wind, confident that his job was finally over.

He had recovered a modicum of his energy before he put the cleaning supplies back in the bathroom closet. Slowly and languidly, he waddled out to the living room and took care not to slip on the wet surface. The only wet surface he had to deal with it that moment was the one on Jade Quinn’s horrified face, an intensification of what she felt when she left for work this morning.

There she was in her business skirt, high heels, and wrinkled dress shirt. She dropped her purse by her feet and stared down Tim’s guilty soul with wetness in her eyes. Her lips quivered as she tried to form a sentence. “T…Tim…did I just…hear you…yelling at Millie?” No response, only a saggy frown to match his guilt. “Answer me!” she cried.

Tim’s own face quivered as he too tried to muster up the words he needed. “Jade, I’m sorry. She…she shit all over the floor and…I panicked…I would never do anything to hurt Millie, you know that, right?”

Pointing her manicured finger at Tim, Jade fought back the rest of her tears in vain as she mumbled, “You…would never…hurt Millie?” Silence hung between the two lovers like a yawning, fiery chasm. “You just did, you insensitive asshole!” Jade dropped to her knees and held her long blond hair in her hands, emptying her eyes of emotional fluids. Millie slowly edged towards her and got a scratch behind the ears from her one true master.

Tim gingerly approached his girlfriend and knelt down to put his massive hand on her shoulder. Jade swatted him away instantly. “Don’t touch me!” she sobbed. “You’ve done enough damage today!” She hugged Millie around her neck and cried into her salt and pepper fur. “I’m sorry, baby girl. I’m sorry he yelled at you like that.”

Tim stood back up not knowing what else to say. Apologizing didn’t work. Explaining his actions didn’t work. Not even a gentle touch of the shoulder could bring his girlfriend out of her sorrowful abyss. He knew he fucked up badly and could do nothing but sit on the leather couch with his pudgy face in his hands.

“You can’t sit there anymore, Tim,” blubbered Jade. “Not after what you did. This was supposed to be Millie’s special day. I was going to take her to the park and get her ice cream after I got off work. And now…all she’s going to remember is you yelling at her…How could you, Tim?”

“Wha…What do you mean all she’s going to remember? Is that why you played that Linkin Park song this morning? Jade, you can tell me what’s going on.”

Wiping away tears even though they wouldn’t stop coming, Jade lifted her face from her hug with the dog and said, “Millie has stomach cancer. That’s why she’s been going to the bathroom on the floor a lot. And you react to this mild inconvenience by yelling those awful things at her?!”

Tim didn’t notice it when he was cleaning, but now that he thought about it, there were small traces of red in Millie’s stool. The guilt choked him up like a noose around the neck. His eyes grew sore, but he did a better job of hiding his sadness than his girlfriend. Even during this dark time he was too proud to fall apart in front of her. But he couldn’t help it. One tear rolled down his cheek while many more cascaded from Jade’s eyes.

“You know, Jade…there’s no reason…why we can’t still get Millie ice cream.” His voice trembled as he etched out those words.

“Yes, there is!” shouted Jade as she stood back up. “She’ll just shit all over the floor and you’ll scream like a little child again as you clean it up! The only reason why you’re sorry is because you got caught! You don’t care about my dog! You don’t care about my emotions! In fact, get your fat ass off my couch and get dressed! I don’t want you here anymore!”

Tim didn’t get up. He sat there and let another tear roll down his cheek. “I’m sorry, Jade.”

“No, you’re not!” cried Jade as she grabbed Tim’s arm and tried in vain to jerk him to a standing position. When he wouldn’t budge, she just crumpled to a pile on the floor and cried some more, prompting Millie to lick her face dry.

“Jade…if you give me the keys to your car…I will go to the supermarket and buy vanilla ice cream for Millie. She loves vanilla, right?”

“Go to hell, Tim!”

“Listen to me!” urged Tim as he cupped Jade’s shoulders in his hands. “If you still want me gone from here, I’ll go. But please let me get the ice cream for Millie. She deserves that much. Right, old lady?” Tim petted Millie’s head and talked cutely to her about what a good dog she was, even planting a kiss on her wet nose. Millie returned a puppy kiss for his efforts.

Tim then held Jade’s hand in his own and begged, “Please…let me get the ice cream. You can even come with me if you want and we’ll listen to One More Light for as long as you want. I love that song too. And Millie can come ride with us. She can stick her head out the window and…”

“Tim, enough,” said Jade while a holding a hand in front of her boyfriend. She wiped away a tear and sniffed snot up her nose. “I know what you’re trying to do and it won’t work. She’s just going to shit in the car again and you’ll go on another yelling spree. If anybody’s going to get the ice cream, it’s me.”

With that said, Jade and Millie walked out of the house together for a ride in the car while Tim sat on the couch in his shorts sulking it up. A few tears escaped his eyes and he didn’t bother to wipe them away. It was over. It was all over. Not just for him, but for Millie as well. The puppy kiss didn’t even feel like true forgiveness. Knowing his hands were unclean (in more ways than one), Tim Coleman pulled himself off the couch and trudged back to the bedroom, presumably to get his things and go.

And then…he walked past the kitchen and saw something magnetized to the refrigerator door. He pulled down a familiar sheet of glossy paper and studied it for a while before making his final attempt at goodwill towards Jade and Millie. Wasting no more time, he picked up the phone and dialed a number on the sheet of paper. A few rings later, he was patched in.

“Thank you for choosing Pizza Hut. How can I help you tonight?”

“Yes, I’d like an extra large meat lover’s pizza with stuffed crust.” Tim couldn’t contain his sorrow over the phone and it was noticeable.

“Are you okay, sir?”

“Not really. But I’m sure my dog will be happy to see you once you get here with that pizza.”