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            I wanted to tell you that you were beautiful.  Right then and there, as you were telling that creature she was perfect.  Because I knew that all her defects were what made you strong. 

 

            THE DAY the dog showed up at my house, I knew I should have taken it straight to the pound.  Better yet, ignore it completely.  But there it was, ambling jauntily up the street.  Then it spotted me (a young man halfway bent to pick up the morning paper from my driveway, supported by a cane) and trotted toward me.  It was an uncommonly dignified gait for a dog of its appearance.  The dog sported a drab, grayish coat speckled with smears of ragged brown, and as it came closer, our eyes met.  One giant, red, watery eyeball bulged up at me, but an empty socket remained where the other should have been. In short, it was the ugliest dog I had ever seen.  

            The dog stopped just short of me and we took each other in.  Its jowls lifted momentarily, but quickly sank back down in a perpetual, lopsided scowl—a sad attempt at a smile.  Despite myself, I put out my hand.  Palm down, fingers relaxed in a loose curl, just like a paw.  The dog took a step closer. 

            “Hi buddy.”  I kept my voice low and soft.  The dog’s ragged ears pricked forward and a small, throaty cough came out of its mouth.  I stretched my hand further.  Its ears flattened and it backed away. 

            Slowly, I sat down on the driveway, setting my cane beside me.  The paper crackled in my hand as I pulled off the rubber band.  I ignored the giant black and white photographs of breaking news and flipped to the crossword puzzle, rubbing at the dull, protesting ache in my knee.  Maybe this week I’d have better luck.  Colorful saltwater fish.  Six letters.  How many colorful, six-lettered, saltwater fish were there out there?  CH3COOH.  Chemistry was Jill’s best subject, and my worst.  Extinct tiger.  I wasn’t aware that there were multiple types of tigers.  Rhipsalis baccifera.  I tossed the paper aside with a sigh and looked up.  The dog was sitting politely to my right, about two arm lengths away.  It stared straight ahead, as if it were waiting for something in the distance.

            “Me too, buddy, me too.”

 

            The slap of shoes on asphalt soon heralded the dog’s pursuer.  She was a short, compact girl with a squat, muscular torso and solid thighs that rippled with every impact.

            “That’s my dog!” she gasped, pointing in my general direction.  “She’s been missing for hours!”

The dog’s tail wagged once, then lay still.  I folded my newspaper into a neat square, hitched up my cane and stood. 

            “Thank goodness.  I was beginning to worry that someone might have taken her to the pound.”

She was a sight indeed, splattered with dark freckles from the tip of her upturned nose to her ankles that were swallowed by her shoes.  Her shirt was too tight, flattening her breasts into thick, unflattering pancakes. 

            “I wouldn’t blame anyone if they did,” I replied. 

            The girl ignored my remark, and knelt down beside her dog.  “Hello, Dog,” she whispered, nuzzling it lovingly.  Then she turned and looked straight at me.  “Where did you find her?“

            “I didn’t.  She just came walking down the street about half an hour ago and sat herself down right here.”  Her eyes were the color of burnt chocolate.  “What’s her name?”

            “Dog.”

            “Just ‘Dog’?”

            “Yes.”

             I couldn’t stop staring at the peach fuzz on her face. 

            “What’s your name?” she asked, staring right back. 

            “Ivan,” I answered simply. 

            She waited for me to ask her for hers, but when I didn’t, she gave it to me anyway.

            “I’m Annette.”  What a strangely feminine name for someone of her appearance.  “I actually just moved to this neighborhood.  I live just a couple blocks away.”

             I nodded.  “There’s a park just down the street,” I said, pointing.  “It’s quiet, lots of trees and open space.  It’d be a good place to take your… to take Dog.”

            Annette’s eyes widened eagerly.  “Really?  Will you show me?”

            I shrugged.  “Not that difficult to find, even for someone who’s never been.”

            “Come on, take a leisurely stroll with us.  Dog likes you.  And besides, it doesn’t look like you’re doing anything right now.”

            Somehow, I couldn’t tell her that knee surgery outpatients simply did not go for leisurely strolls, let alone with complete strangers.  Then she noticed my cane, seemingly for the first time.

            “You’re a cripple.”

            “No I'm not.”

            “Why does a young guy like you need a cane then?”

            “I injured my knee.”

            “How?”

            “Working.”

            “So you had surgery?  Walking’s especially important, then, if you want to get it back to normal.  Unless you want to stay crippled.”

            I kept my mouth shut and followed her up the street.  My knee creaked in protest.

            “How long have you had Dog?” I asked, more out of politeness than anything.

            “For about two years.  I got her at the pound.”

            “There must not have been a very attractive selection.”

            “Oh, there were,” Annette replied, laughing. 

            “So let me guess—you chose this one because she was so ugly that you knew no one would want her.”

            “That’s exactly why I took her!”

            Dog trotted ahead of us, disfigured head held high.

           

            Annette walked by my house every morning after that for a week.  She would wave to me as I sat by the window, drinking my daily mug of coffee.  Dog was always with her, hideous as ever.  On Thursday morning, when I was out getting the paper, she bounded up to me and planted her paws on my chest.  Luckily, I had prepared myself for this, cane wedged firmly in a crack on the driveway.  I waited for gravity to pull Dog back down to her four feet.  She wiggled and danced around me, rubbing against my legs.  Her bristly hair pierced through the fabric of my robe and stabbed into my skin.

            “Ivan!”  Annette waved at me.  I nodded back at her.  “We’re headed to the park.  Come with us?”

            I left the oven on.  I have to run some errands.  Jill might call.  None of these excuses sounded remotely believable, because I never baked, couldn’t even walk without my cane, and I knew Jill would never call me again.  I checked my watch.  I’d still have plenty of time to do nothing afterward, so I followed the two of them.

 

            Before I knew it, she was telling me about how she first got Dog. 

            “I was at the pound, and I was looking for a very specific one, you know.  Do you know why I picked Dog?”

            I shrugged, even though she had already told me.  Or so I thought. 

            “She may be ugly in every way, but there’s one thing about her that is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen in my entire life.”  Annette took a step closer to me.  “Do you know what that is?”

            I stared at Dog.  “No.  There is nothing beautiful about this dog, except maybe that she has a sweet personality.”

            Annette pushed me behind Dog.  “Look at her from this side.  Can you see it?”  She looked into my eyes, eagerly. 

            I pretended to look again.  “I don’t know.”

            “Let me tell you then.”  She paused, giggling.  “It was her butthole.”

            “I’m sorry, what?”

            “Her butthole.  I have never seen such a charming, beautiful orifice in my entire life.  Just look at it!”

            I couldn’t help but look.  It looked like a perfectly normal butthole to me.  But somehow, this pink, puckered center was, to her, the most charming, most beautiful thing she had ever seen.  “You must not have seen very many beautiful things in your lifetime.”

            “Oh, I’ve seen plenty of things.  But this one takes the cake.  No matter what she eats, it’s always the same.  Bright and pink and clean.  So clean that you can forget what comes out of it.”  Annette peered over at me.  “Life’s like that too.  But sometimes it’s difficult to remember that it’s more than just a shithole.”

            Sometimes it’s difficult to remember that that’s all it is, I thought, but I said nothing.

            “I thought I could pretty the rest of her up,” Annette continued.  “Smooth down her prickles, get her a glass eye.”  She waited for me to look at her, then winked at me.  Pennies lay scattered across the pavement in front of us.  She reached out to touch them.

            “Don’t do that, they’re dirty!” I cautioned her, disgusted. 

            She ignored me.  As she bent, her bushy hair fell to one side, revealing a small scar—pink and puckered—at the base of her neck.  I watched as she turned the pennies over so that the heads faced upwards. 

            “Maybe somebody will get lucky today."

 

            I watched as Annette and Dog walked away.  For some reason, they seemed to suit each other.

 

            I began to accompany the duo on their walks.  Annette was right about the exercise; my knee began to loosen up.  Slowly, our conversations grew longer, and Dog’s tail began to wag harder than ever. 

            “As soon as I pet her fur and felt how prickly she was, I knew she was the dog for me,” Annette said one day. 

            “I thought you liked her butthole.” 

            “I liked that too, but I liked her fur even more.”

            I didn’t bother asking, because I knew she’d explain.  But she didn’t.  We sat at the bench in the park, listening to the lengthening silence and watching Dog gambol about, tongue lolling as she chased after pigeons with glee.  Once, while we sat there, our fingers brushed.  Annette jerked her hand away, cupping it around her neck.

            “Sorry,” she muttered.

             Dog paused to cough, a hacking, heaving cough that produced thick ropes of white slime.  Then she continued running about, as if it had never happened.

           “Why does she cough?” I asked.

           Annette gave a long, dramatic sigh.  “She has an incurable illness.”

           “What illness does she have?”

           “The doctors don’t know.  All they can say is that treatment is too expensive and it wouldn’t be worth wasting on a dog like her.”

           I glanced sideways at her.  Was she being serious?  Or was this just another one of her silly stories?  So I picked my words carefully.  “That’s sad.”

           “I thought so too, at first.”  She looked straight at me.  “But it’s made me appreciate every moment we have together.  Knowing that she won’t be with me forever gives me the chance to say I love her every day, so she’ll know that there’s at least one person in the world who thinks she’s perfect just the way she is.”

           We continued to watch Dog, who had given up the chase.  Her chest heaved and her pink tongue waggled with each pant.  She kept her eye trained on the pigeons, which had fluttered back down on the sidewalk a hundred yards away.  After a few minutes, Annette spoke again.

            “My mom used to call me ‘Cactus Girl.’”  But again, she didn’t explain.

 

            A month and two Saturdays later she had another story for me.  I didn’t need a cane anymore then, though I still had the limp that had made Jill cringe.  Apparently when Annette was at the shelter, the workers there had discouraged her from adopting Dog.  They told her that she had lost her eye from a dogfight during her adolescence, and though she had a good temperament, she might not be safe to have as a pet. 

            “I knew that Dog would never bite me, though.  Here’s what really happened,” Annette explained as we walked towards the park.  “Before she got picked up by the dog catchers, Dog was a stray, and part of a gang of ragtag dogs.  One day she got mixed up with a pit bull.  The pit was friendly at first, and soon they became good friends—scrounging for food together and having a great time.  But one day, for no reason, the pit attacked her.  He locked his jaws down on her face and refused to let go.  Dog cried and cried for help, but none came.  Finally, she sat down and patiently waited for the pit to let up.  But he didn’t let go until his teeth popped her eye, like a grape, and he tasted the tangy blood.  Then he left her, with just one eye.  Just like that, all alone, blood oozing from her empty socket, with no one wanting her and no one to take care of her.  But then we found each other.  Didn’t we, Dog?”

            Dog looked up at her in adoration, flashing her lopsided smile.  Annette turned from me and quickly knelt to kiss where her eye had once been.  But she wasn’t quick enough, because I had seen the tear that glistened in her own eye.

 

            Since my knee had fully healed, I was able to work again.  I saw less and less of Annette, and soon she and Dog disappeared from my street altogether.  Almost. 

            One night, I awoke to someone pounding on my door.  

           “I can’t find Dog!”  She was frantic.  “I’ve looked everywhere.”

           Without a word, I grabbed my coat and hobbled after her.  

 

           We found her lying in a puddle by the side of a road.  I thought she was dead because she was so still.  But she wagged her tail once as we approached, and that familiar throaty cough emanated from her, though it was so quiet that I’m not sure I really heard it. Annette let out a wounded cry and ran to her.  

           “Dog, Dog!”  

           Her spotted coat had been smeared and caked with mud—big thick chunks of it were drying on her matted fur, strangely enough, smoothing down some of the prickles.  Then I saw that her leg was bent in an odd angle.  Broken.  My knee twinged. 

           “You’re perfect.  You’re perfect.  I love you, Dog.  Do you hear me?  I love you.”  She held Dog close, ignoring the mud that got all over her hair and clothes.  

           I called a taxi.  The driver charged us twice the fare, not fancying the mud-encrusted, one-eyed, half-dead animal that we carried into the car with us.  “Vet’s will be closed.  They’ll charge you extra, too.”  Annette ignored him, ignored me, ignored everything.  She sat there with Dog’s head in her lap, stroking her fur and whispering to her words of love that no one else could hear.  

           They wheeled Dog away on a padded cart, and Annette turned to me with her eyes lowered.  “Thanks for helping me find her.”  She turned to follow the cart and I caught her by the wrist.

           “Don’t touch me!”

           “I’m not going to hurt you.”

           Pause.  “I know.”  She looked at me then—eyes full of something familiar that I couldn’t quite place.  Suspicion?  No, that wasn’t it.  Regret?  Not that either.  It was memory—a shadow of something precious that had been lost.  I’d seen that look before.  I’d seen it in my own mirror, staring back at me the day that Jill had told me she couldn’t stay, that she didn’t want to be with me anymore.  Abandonment.  

            One morning, a cactus appeared on my porch.  Threaded through a string entwined among the thistles was a note.  I heard Annette’s voice as I read:

            “Dog went to heaven.  I saved her because I knew that someday she’d save me right back.”

And she did. 

 

            I wanted to tell you that you were beautiful.  Right then and there, as you were telling that creature she was perfect.  Because I knew that all her defects were what made you strong.