“What do you mean I can’t see him again!?” Martha yelled in sheer confusion. She rarely spoke to Helen’s parents in such a tone, especially in front of Helen herself. The young girl looked concerned.
“Martha, this is more serious than what you think. We can’t allow such a thing to happen” Mariella didn’t seem to be angry, yet her face expressed total seriousness. “A dog and a human just can’t be in love with each other. Not in the way you are at least,” she said as she was putting away her flower arranging tools. She wasn’t in the mood to work properly anymore.
“B-but you said that- “
“I know what I said.” Mariella’s tone went down a bit, noticing how Martha’s voice was cracking. “You have to understand that we are doing this for your own wellbeing.” Mariella crouched down and gently held Martha’s face. “We don’t even know what that guy thinks about all this. We don’t even know him to begin with.” Her sweet yet still concerned expression along with her soft hold around Martha’s face helped the latter calm down a bit, being able to get a better hold of her thoughts.
“I-...” After being in silence for a fair amount of time, Helen decided that it was about time for her to have a word or two in the matter “I think I met him about yesterday...”
Mariella let go of Martha, paying all her attention to her daughter. Martha did the same.
“Was he that guy that we met at the park? The one that looked a bit...unkept?” Helen asked Martha, picking her words carefully.
“Yes, that was him” Martha confirmed with a neutral tone. She was unsure about how to feel about Helen mentioning him.
“So, you have met him. What was he like?” Mariella insisted.
Helen, being a sharp-minded girl, back then noticed Martha’s over-friendly behavior towards that man, how she tried to stay as close as possible to him the entire time, jumping on him the very moment she noticed he was around and how she insisted to him to stay with them. At the time she brushed it off as Martha being grateful for his exceptionally kind behavior towards her, allowing a dog he didn’t know to eat at his home and sleep on his bed, Martha mentioned such to her; little did she know about Martha’s true feelings. And now with such context she couldn’t help but feel uneasy about the whole interaction.
“Well, he was, a bit awkward,” Helen was trying her hardest to not sound rude. “He was a bit shy, and when I offered to pay for that whole chicken Martha ate, he insisted on not taking compensation for it. He also took off as soon as he could so I really can’t say much about him.” She tried to concentrate on her mom’s gaze, pretending not to notice Martha gazing at her directly in the eye.
“See? He isn’t a bad guy. He mentioned something about not being a people's person. But that’s all” Martha insisted.
“That’s not the matter, Martha, we don’t know how he might react to, well, your feelings towards him.” The night couldn’t get more confusing for Mariella, first she had to have a serious girls talk with her dog, and now she had to convince her not to fall in love with a human. “He could have a totally different reaction to what you are expecting. He could...I don’t even know what he could do....” Mariela closed her eyes and rubbed the sides of her head, all that trouble brough up out of nowhere had given her a headache. “What was his name again, Helen?” she said still with her eyes closed.
“I don’t know. I don’t think he mentioned it.” Helen was puzzled by the fact that she didn’t notice such detail until that point.
“Martha?” Mariella redirected her question after a small silence.
Martha stood still for a bit, trying to avoid eye contact as much as possible. She couldn’t hide such a scandalous detail for long.
“I... don’t know too...”
The three remained in silence, both Mariella and Helen looking at Martha, completely bewildered.
“You...don’t know...” Finally reaffirmed Helen.
“This far only he has called me by my name and, I guess I also forget to ask until now.”
The silence took over again. Mariella left without saying a word, she was already too overwhelmed thinking about how long this would take to explain to her husband.
Today was a busy day at the meat shop. Restock was always like this, or at least that’s what Karl said. He used to always do it alone with his distributor, but since he accepted me around now it was my problem too, or better said I was a problem too. I never stopped to think about how heavy a cow’s ribcage could be.
Karl and his distributor, Geoff, whom I kept calling Jeff until he clarified his true name, carried everything with such ease that the true weight of the meat caught me off guard. I was halfway through my third trip to the freezers when I started to lose balance and almost fell under the weight of a pig carcass, if it weren’t for Geoff who gave me a hand.
“Already losing your breath Anon? You being a desk jockey really shows kiddo” Without saying much he took the carcass from me, swinging it over his back with such ease that it gave my barely existing self-esteem a critical punch. “Anon” he repeated to himself, “that’s such a weird name.”
“Right?” Karl intervened, cleaning some blood off his fingers with that old rag of his. “I thought he was joking at first, until he showed me his ID”
“Is it short for ‘Anonymous’ by any chance?” Said Geoff, both men laughed, probably well used to each other’s jokes. I couldn’t laugh along with them sadly, I had heard that one a little too many times, since kindergarten.
“It isn’t, Geoff.” Still recovering my breath, I leaned on some nearby machine, it looked like a bone cutter. “It’s Thai actually. My parents said that they didn’t want me to have a common name, I think they overdid it if you ask me.”
“Look at it from the bright side bud, you won’t need to overdo it when trying to go incognito” Geoff rested his corpulent body on a feeble looking stool with total confidence, just as he lit a cigarette with the kind of dexterity that screamed over 10 years of a pack a day.
“Not with this stench, everyone would smell me coming from half a mile away” Being covered in both sweat and blood was surely an experience I wasn’t eager to repeat anytime soon. I felt as if I could wring a bucket of that vile juice out of my clothes, I made a really dumb decision dressing in one of my good shirts that day. “Not to sound desperate, but has your friend said anything about that tech shop?” Karl looked at me with a smirk on his face, probably out of pity.
“Your timing is as impeccable as always pal. Just this Tuesday he told me that he was short on manpower for the remodeling, he would pay you pretty much the same as I do if you can give him a hand, also you can give him a good face to secure your spot in the shop” Karl said while smacking Geoff’s cigarette off his hand straight to the alley. “And I don’t know how many times I need to tell you to smoke outside” Geoff was left with a childish pout all over his face, clearly this wasn’t the first time this has happened.
If my memory doesn’t fail me, today would mark a month since I moved to this small town, and gladly, my coworker didn’t lie about how welcoming the people here are. Things were going relatively well, of course, not everything could always be perfect, but it is way better to feel miserable one day a week than all the time. Regardless, there was one thing that wouldn’t leave the back of my head, or better said it was a someone, certain chubby golden chattery twinkie whom I hadn’t seen in a long while. Every day, whenever I walked back home after work, she would be in my mind, I hoped to cross paths with her someday but this far it hasn’t been the case. I know as a matter of fact that my chances of seeing her at the park at this time of the day are the highest, but ever since I had that uncomfortable conversation with Helen and that blonde boy, I would rather not take the risk of that happening again.
Today the way home seemed longer than usual, maybe the feeling of being soaked in meat juices wasn’t of great help at making it feel any shorter. On the bright side, the thought of taking a long shower was helping me to take Martha off my mind, or at least making it so she didn’t take over the entirety of my thoughts.
After having this much time to give it a good thought, had I really fallen in love with her? Sure, she lives in my head rent free, but she is a talking dog, that would happen to anyone who sees her for the first time. Not to mention how she is way nicer than a ton of people I have met, or better said most of them. Who knows at this point, maybe it’s all just my socially starved mind playing with me.
“I’m telling you it should be near somewhere! It smells like someone dropped an entire ribs cage”
Speaking of my mind playing with me, that voice was awfully familiar, almost like...
“I can feel it, it’s exactly around here” Martha darted right around the corner, almost crashing onto me, as if it weren’t for her quick reaction. “Yipe! Phew, that was a close one. Sorry si-…" She tripped on her words right when she saw my face.
“H-hi.” I said in the most stupid voice a grown adult could make. It took me a second to notice that this time she wasn’t jumping all over me like she used to, she just stood there in shock. “Is, uh, something the matter?”
Martha backed out a bit, seeing her like this made me feel like there was a hole in my stomach, as if I had done something horrible without my knowledge
“Hi” She uttered in a nervous voice. At that very instant Skits appeared from behind her, barking. Contrary to Martha, he didn’t hesitate to get all over me, licking and pulling on my clothes, putting the final nail in the coffin for my poor fancy shirt.
“Wait you two!” Helen finally caught up to her dogs, “It’s always like this with you two gees.” She looked like she was about to take her time scolding them, but as soon as she saw me all trace of annoyance left her face, now almost completely sharing Martha’s shocked expression. “Oh, uh, hi Mr...?”
“Anon, just call me Anon. No need for mister.” Just by looking at her I could tell she was quite bewildered by my answer “I-I know it’s a weird name, it’s Thai actually, I can show you my ID if you-…" I was nervously reaching for my wallet when she interrupted.
“No, it’s okay Mr- I mean, Anon.” Helen stopped on her words, sniffing around. “Ugh, what’s that smell?” She said covering her nose.
“Sorry, I’m just coming out of work, from the butchery, as you might notice” Skits was pulling on my shirt as if it were a rag. Helen rushed to grab him, noticeably ashamed.
“Excuse him, sorry about that”, she said as she silently instructed him to stay still next to her.
By then I had already given up on tit, it would very likely end up as a new bathmat, I was more worried about Martha, through the entire conversation she remained silent and tried to avoid eye contact. That wasn’t like the chatterbox I met not so long ago at all.
“Uhm, sorry to meddle, but is Martha okay?” Her ears perked up as soon as I mentioned her name, I could tell she was looking at me from the side of her eye. Helen looked at her discreetly.
“Oh! Don’t worry, she is just, uh...tired from running all day, she must be really sleepy, right Martha?”
Martha nodded, still trying not to look me in the eye, her lips pursed.
“So, I guess we better head home soon, it’s getting late, goodbye Mist-uh, Anon! Sorry about your shirt!” Helen lightly pushed both dogs with a noticeably fake smile on her face and started to walk away swiftly.
“Oh, sure, bye! Don't...worry about it.” By the time I was done talking they were already too far away to listen to me. Such an interaction ended up not being as uncomfortable as I expected, for better or for worse.
I wanted to see Martha for the longest time, but now that it finally happened, I am far from relieved. As if the way home didn’t feel long enough, now it felt eternal.
From there on to the doorframe my head was full of questions: What could I have done wrong? Was it something I said last time? Did she realize how I felt about her? Everything was so confusing. Absentmindedly I tried to open the door with all the keys before getting the right one, despite being bathed on those vile meat juices I really didn’t feel like taking a shower, all I wanted was to drop on my bed and shove my face between the pillows, and so I did for the rest of the night until I fell asleep.
The next morning I didn’t feel like getting out of bed, or even moving at all, I just wanted to lay down and wait until St.Peter decided to claim my soul. Sadly, a man must eat, and I had to scrub the smell of rotten meat off myself and take my sheets to the laundry, such if I want to make a good impression on my first day at the tech shop. It felt as if I had to use all my willpower just to take a single step, I managed to get to Ramon’s vinyl shop regardless. Knowing this is the same spot where I met Martha really delivered a chaotic mess of feelings in my gut, ‘working here is really going to turn me into a mess in the long run’ I said to myself. Regardless of how early it was, there were already a couple of workers doing their thing inside: Two of them installing the hardwood floor and one other drilling holes in the walls for the shelves. I assumed the bald middle-aged guy with the Hulk Hogan looking moustache was Karl’s friend, curious how all his friends seem to be bald as well.
“Good morning. I’m Anon, nice to meet you” I said while offering my hand, instead of giving me the good old handshake he gave me a friendly slap and started a series of almost acrobatic maneuvers with his fingers and mine, which if it weren’t for the situation I would think he was trying to apply a curse on me. After what seemed to be the longest handshake I have, unwillingly, participated in, he put his left hand on my shoulder and looked me in the eye.
“So you are that youngster Karl talked about. The name’s Troy Fields, you can just call me Troy. No offense buddy, but I could smell it was you the second you passed that door.” He said as he shook his hand in front of his face. I guess my time working at the butchery made me a bit too tolerant of the smell of old blood.
“Sorry, I guess I should have used bleach instead of soap” I took a deep whiff on my clothes, confirming that I indeed still had that stench on me. Mr. Troy chuckled under his breath.
“Well, at least Karl wasn’t lying when he said you can be fun from time to time. But as of right now I would rather check if it’s true that you can handle yourself well with handiwork” Before I could give him a proper answer, he gave me a rather heavy tools belt, it had his name embroidered on the back so I could assume it was his. “First, I want to see how well you do at mounting those shelves, Frank over there already went through the trouble of drilling the wall so it shouldn't be much of a trouble for a desk jockey like you.”
His voice sounded friendly, but I felt as if there was some sort of predacious aura behind it. I knew this would be my time to make a good impression and secure myself a spot here, but little did I know I would have to go through a test for it.
I stopped feeling my fingers after a couple of hours, and I had the sensation that if I wasn’t careful enough my wrist would unscrew off my hand. On the bright side, if I wore this utility belt often, I bet I could get a second job as a legs model.
“Well, let’s leave it here for today kiddo.” Said Mr. Troy sitting on top of one of the shelves he made me put up, it was his way of testing their sturdiness. “For a single guy, and your frame, you actually went and did the work of three men. I’m genuinely impressed.” He jumped off the top as if he were still in his 20’s, earlier he kept going on and on about the importance of doing exercise before getting too old, and today he showed me enough evidence to take his word for granted.
It was only 1pm but I planned on going to sleep as soon as I got home for today. Mr. Troy was truly the kind of boss that appreciates hard work, and today he really made it crystal clear to me. I lost count of all the things he had me do, at some point I even turned off my brain and kept working like an automaton. I think he even had to manually make me sit down to take lunch, something he looked really pleased about.
“So, Anon, what do you say if we go take some beers while we talk about your contract?” Mr. Troy said while firmly grabbing my shoulder.
“Sorry I don’t drink, I’m rehabilitated...” I was so tired from all that work that the answer simply slipped out of my mouth, Mr. Troy’s smile disappeared from his face for a second, he looked pensive. I thought I had fucked up for good.
“Well then, only good ol’ orange juice for you. Let’s go sonny”
Taking advantage of my fatigued state he effortlessly pushed me all the way through the passenger door of his car. It seems that my day wouldn’t be over in a while.
Thinking positively, Mr. Troy seems to have taken a liking on me, $30/hr was way better than I was expecting for a job like this, and I was happy he didn’t take the chance to propose a lower-than-average salary considering I was pretty much answering all of his questions absentmindedly.
Today ended up being nice, Wagstaff is nice after all, way better than the city. And I discovered that if I was busy or tired enough, my mind would have little to no time to overthink about a certain dog whose name I don’t want to mention right now, as I know that if I do, I won't see the end of it. Considering my biggest worry was to take a quick shower and sleep for one thousand years, I felt that thinking about that would spoil the relatively good day I was having today. In fact, even looking back on it is making me imagine things, like a gentle scratching sound on the door. Before my mind had time to further play tricks on me, I threw away my shoes and shirt, and I just noticed I forgot to return Mr. Troy’s belt, which explains why walking felt a lot harder than usual. The scratching sound is getting louder, and louder. I let the belt fall on the floor, the scratching sound was a little too clear, and now a bit too loud, and kind of desperate.
I tried to open the door slowly, but a yellow lightning bolt hit me right on my chest, I was so tired from today that I fell flat on the floor. My vision and hearing were a bit fuzzy, but eventually I could realize what the talking dog gibbering right in front of my face was saying.
“-so so so sorry for avoiding you! Mariela said it would be best if we never saw each other again but I just couldn’t stop thinking about meeting again, I even walked to your home many times without noticing but you are never here which might very likely be my fault since I got you that job at Karl’s place, but when I passed by today he said you were at your new job and I was afraid of asking were that was as he could tell Helen and she would tell her mom and and-and-and...”
Before she started hyperventilating, I placed my hand on top of her head, it worked wonders as she stopped talking almost immediately. She looked at me with those big teary golden-brown eyes. I acted on impulse and surrounded her with my arms without breaking eye contact.
“I missed you too.” I said to her sincerely. The smile she gave me back, and the way her tail wagged when she heard that made all kind of weariness leave my body instantly.
