OLD DOG
by David Yourdon
This story is an attempt to imitate James Tate — not his form, exactly, since he wrote prose poetry, but the content. His pieces often contain narratives one absurdity cascades into another, and yet there’s a tenderness to the characters that grounds the absurdity.
Everyone wanted to talk about the man in the dog costume. He came to the Halloween party shortly after moving to town. A waitress at the diner invited him. He stood by the fridge holding a cheap beer in his paw. His face was dim and bruised. The other guests grabbed their drinks but didn’t linger in the kitchen, except for one toddler dressed as a sunflower, who went up to the man and said, “Good boy.” Although the man in the dog costume was nominally a stranger, he had moved from only a few towns over, and the gossip arrived before he did. He was cruel. Cruel to his family. Intolerant in his views. He attended rallies in the woods with likeminded people, opprobrious people. On weekends, he drank to extinction. But the reason everyone wanted to talk about the man in the dog costume was that he was still dressed as a dog several weeks after the Halloween party. He wandered through Gardiners Square on a Wednesday afternoon, circled the lamppost, and peed in the grass. By then, the people in town, after thinking the dog costume alarming, had started to find it amusing. The sunflower’s mom passed him and said, “Good boy.” The waitress saw him and said, “Hello, George, how are you today?” For that was the man’s name: George. People had known his name before but had been loath to speak it. Now, with the grace of this costume, “George” had a different ring to it. On Thanksgiving Day, there was a setback: George attacked someone in the park. He may have shouted some slurs, too. He was drunk, his mood primal. Yet everyone determined it was a pardonable offense. “Maybe he was hungry,” said the fire marshal. “Did anybody feed him today? George is good at heart. He can be trained.” People made sure to praise George when he acted decently. On Sundays, the owner of the diner would bring him snacks so long as he had been good the previous week. When the pharmacist noticed George scratching his beard, she prescribed him a special shampoo and gave him instructions on how to use it. The sunflower, who grew up fast, made sure to call George a good boy on her way to school and on her way back too. George waited loyally for her every day. By the time I moved to town, George was in his senior years. He mostly lay in the park under the branches of a maple tree. “He was wild when he was younger,” the waitress told me, “but now he’s a real sweetie. We’ll sure be sad when he’s gone.”
by David Yourdon
This story is an attempt to imitate James Tate — not his form, exactly, since he wrote prose poetry, but the content. His pieces often contain narratives one absurdity cascades into another, and yet there’s a tenderness to the characters that grounds the absurdity.
Everyone wanted to talk about the man in the dog costume. He came to the Halloween party shortly after moving to town. A waitress at the diner invited him. He stood by the fridge holding a cheap beer in his paw. His face was dim and bruised. The other guests grabbed their drinks but didn’t linger in the kitchen, except for one toddler dressed as a sunflower, who went up to the man and said, “Good boy.” Although the man in the dog costume was nominally a stranger, he had moved from only a few towns over, and the gossip arrived before he did. He was cruel. Cruel to his family. Intolerant in his views. He attended rallies in the woods with likeminded people, opprobrious people. On weekends, he drank to extinction. But the reason everyone wanted to talk about the man in the dog costume was that he was still dressed as a dog several weeks after the Halloween party. He wandered through Gardiners Square on a Wednesday afternoon, circled the lamppost, and peed in the grass. By then, the people in town, after thinking the dog costume alarming, had started to find it amusing. The sunflower’s mom passed him and said, “Good boy.” The waitress saw him and said, “Hello, George, how are you today?” For that was the man’s name: George. People had known his name before but had been loath to speak it. Now, with the grace of this costume, “George” had a different ring to it. On Thanksgiving Day, there was a setback: George attacked someone in the park. He may have shouted some slurs, too. He was drunk, his mood primal. Yet everyone determined it was a pardonable offense. “Maybe he was hungry,” said the fire marshal. “Did anybody feed him today? George is good at heart. He can be trained.” People made sure to praise George when he acted decently. On Sundays, the owner of the diner would bring him snacks so long as he had been good the previous week. When the pharmacist noticed George scratching his beard, she prescribed him a special shampoo and gave him instructions on how to use it. The sunflower, who grew up fast, made sure to call George a good boy on her way to school and on her way back too. George waited loyally for her every day. By the time I moved to town, George was in his senior years. He mostly lay in the park under the branches of a maple tree. “He was wild when he was younger,” the waitress told me, “but now he’s a real sweetie. We’ll sure be sad when he’s gone.”