25 minute read
Zen Dog
N.M. Leigh
Buddy was my wife’s dog, at first anyhow. She adopted him as a pup from the Asher County dog pound over my objections. I had argued for a purebred so we would have some idea of what we were getting. They’re all cute as puppies.
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But Patty had insisted on a mongrel. That’s the word I used. She said you weren’t supposed to call them that. It’s mixed breed, she told me with that air of superiority people assume when they talk about rescuing dogs, or how, really, the dog rescued them, a sentiment expressed on a bumper sticker I’ve seen.
Despite my reservations about Buddy, in time he won me over. He was part golden retriever and part lab, though he more closely resembled a golden, with his shaggy coat and slight build. As with most retrievers he was gentletempered and craved attention. He always had to have something in his mouth, so Patty bought him stuffed toys. He’d carry them around and slobber on them until they stank so bad you could smell them from across the room, and I’d throw them out. She’d buy him new ones and wrap them up as presents for him to tear open.
Buddy was smart, as are a lot of dogs. What set him apart, though, and made him unlike any dog I’ve ever known, was that he possessed a remarkable calmness, a sage-like balance that emanated from him in waves. I called him Zen-dog and kiddingly theorized that in some previous life, he had been a Buddhist master. All you had to do was hang around him for a while and you’d start feeling more at ease and able to glimpse the Big Picture. I’d talk to him, and he’d stare intently at me as if he understood every word. In some ways it was more helpful talking to Buddy than Patty because he never interrupted or looked bored or made me feel stupid or petty or mean. He didn’t judge. He’d just let me go on until I’d vented whatever was bothering me, and I would be left feeling unburdened, or at least more equitable for a time.
Sadly, Buddy’s wise manner was unable to smooth over everything. This became apparent when Patty and I started having marital trouble. Small arguments began to erupt between us like brush fires and frequently metastasized into rancorous disagreements. Hostile silences lasted hours and then days as our relationship unraveled over a period of months to the point where we lived together though apart in the same house. This discord troubled poor Buddy to no end. Whenever we argued, he’d get upset, whining and panting, or snatching up one of his toys and trying desperately to present it to one or the other of us, as if to distract us from our bickering. Sometimes he’d insert his body between ours like a boxing referee attempting to separate clenched fighters. His efforts failed. Patty and I would go on quarreling, barely noticing him because we were so consumed with ourselves. We’d give him a vacant pat and nudge him away, or even scold him for interfering. When she and I began sleeping in different rooms, he would pace all night, going first from her bed and then to where I slept on the couch. Even in the half-light of the darkened room I could see him staring plaintively at me as I lay there, as though he were trying to will some sense into me. He got very little rest and, in time, slacked off on his eating and stopped playing altogether. His coat lost its shine. You could tell he was depressed.
Then one day Buddy went missing. It was late in the afternoon on a Saturday in August. I was in the garage, drinking beer and digging caked grass off the underside of the mower with a putty knife when Patty came in, distressed. She said she couldn’t find Buddy. She’d let him out to do his business and when she checked on
him a few minutes later, he was gone. He’d never run off before, although he would have had plenty of opportunity. We lived in the country, without a fenced yard, and surrounded by woods and fields. Patty suggested that we each get into our vehicles and drive around and look for him. We’d either see him or he’d see us and come running. She would go south toward town. I was to drive north in my pickup. Before leaving, I went into the house and grabbed a couple of beers from the fridge. This earned me a cold stare from Patty, who was backing out of the drive when I came out with the beers. I didn’t care. I’d been drinking a lot more lately; usually, as I sat on the back porch with Buddy who didn’t seem to object. It was a bright day and there was some time left before it would start to get dark. A short distance from where we lived was a narrow two-lane called Bears Den Road. I turned onto it and poked along at about ten miles an hour, drinking the first of the beers and swiveling my head back and forth to see if I could locate Buddy. When I was growing up, this area had been dotted with picturesque family farms. But most of them had been vacated since then. There also were abandoned strip mines marked by vast sections of broken terrain covered with coarse grasses and scraggly trees interspersed with pockets of tangled woods. Here and there, deserted shacks and the rusting hulks of mining machinery stood along rutted drives that intersected the public road. Tires, discarded mattresses, beer bottles and cans littered the deep ditches. Locals liked to motor through here, drinking and blasting about anything with shotguns. This worried me, Buddy wandering around with such hooligans about. I thought about coyotes too. They were plentiful, and not only in the countryside but in town as well. There’d been a story in the newspaper about a woman who had let her poodle out in the back yard. A coyote leaped over the picket fence and carried it off. It seemed that wildlife was everywhere. Deer. Fox. Raccoons. The year before, a black bear had been sighted in town several times. It was as if they wanted their land back.
About a mile up the road was a house trailer with four clapped-out cars and a pickup parked in front of it. Some kids were frolicking in a plastic swimming pool. They had splashed water onto the dirt and transformed it into mud. One of the children, wearing a diaper, sat playing in it. A woman in her twenties was slouched on a sofa on the porch. She was staring at her phone and hardly paying any attention to the kids. When I passed she looked up. I waved but she didn’t return it.
Patty called and said she’d seen no sign of Buddy. She’d even flagged down some passing motorists to inquire if they’d seen him and they hadn’t. She wanted to know if I’d had any luck and broke into sobbing when I told her no. She fretted about it getting dark soon. If we didn’t find him tonight, she said, we’d make posters and put them up tomorrow.
You see those posters all the time, stapled onto a utility pole or tacked onto the bulletin board at the diner or in the hardware. Lost dog. Lost cat. I saw one once for a box turtle. Usually there’s a photograph of the missing pet and a description along with a number to call or an email address. Sometimes a reward is offered. There’s a plaintive quality to the notices, and I’ve often wondered how successful they are. I didn’t relish the idea of seeing Buddy’s likeness on one.
Beyond the trailer with the kids playing was the slaughterhouse. Though it had been shuttered long ago, I remembered if from when I was a boy and it was still operational. What stuck in my memory was the odor you detected whenever you went by, a combination of dung and something vaguely metallic. In the yard adjacent to the rambling building were pens that once held lowing cattle and grunting pigs awaiting their turn on the killing floor. There seemed to be a panicked tone to the sound the penned livestock made. One time I asked my father about it as we drove past, and he said the animals made that noise because they knew what was coming.
Sometimes you’d go by and see the workers outside in their long leather aprons, taking a smoke break and not looking at one another.
I turned into the lot. The building was a two- and threestory affair with corrugated metal siding in some places and block construction in others. It had been painted white once, but now the paint was flaked and was missing in large uneven patches. There were massive sliding doors and rows of windows, many with broken panes. Thistles, coneflowers and Queen Anne’s lace poked through the concrete slabs adjoining the foundation and from the cinder parking lot itself. Everywhere were rusty pipes and conduit and portions of chain-link fence. Graffiti had been scrawled in places, very few words, mostly shapes and patterns, as if whoever put it there had abandoned language and, instead, communicated in primitive symbols.
Entering through a partially open man-door, I walked up a short flight of concrete steps leading to the main floor. Light filtered in from the windows above and pushed back the shadows. I tried to detect the metallic smell I remembered, though all I could sense now was a dry, earthy odor suggestive of a barnyard.
It was a large space. A network of concrete half-walls formed chutes to guide the doomed beasts. Gutters for blood and piss were etched into the floor. Overhead, sprawled girders and chain hoists and U-channel tracks fitted with roller carriages equipped with hooks and gambrels. There were numerous vats and tanks. Along one wall was a rack from which dangled the heavy aprons I recalled seeing the workers on break wearing. Three large hoppers positioned side by side were filled with bones. It struck me how organized it was and how, in all the countless times I’d eaten meat, I’d never given any thought to what went into making it, the death and cruelty of converting living creatures into food, glue, hides, cosmetics and other products. Animals give us more than we know.
I continued my exploring and at one point was startled by a sudden banging, as though a metal door had been slammed shut somewhere deep within the building. I halted for a couple of minutes, listening and deliberating whether coming in here was a good idea. I called Buddy’s name. Doing so seemed to disturb the eerie quietude the way tossing a stone into a still pool unsettles its surface. I experienced an unnerving sensation of something hearing my voice that I would prefer not to hear it. I didn’t call out again.
Emerging from a short passageway, I entered a chamber with a high ceiling. There was a horned owl perched in the rafters. Seeing it made the hair prick up on the back of my neck. A horned owl is a huge bird to see so close and so suddenly. It swiveled its head and regarded me indifferently with its large amber eyes.
I wasn’t the first trespasser here. There were the remains of a small fire, as well as beer and liquor bottles, wadded panties, a pair of torn jeans, a solitary sandal, crusty condoms and other such trash. In the room housing the plant’s boiler, I came upon an open pit about ten feet deep. At the bottom of it lay the dried up carcass of a deer. It must have somehow fallen in. Gloomy as it was, it would be easy enough to do if you weren’t watching. It occurred to me to use the flashlight on my phone, then I realized I’d left it in the truck.
Eventually I reached the main office. There were about half a dozen oak desks covered in dust and what looked to be raccoon scat. Nearby lay toppled filing cabinets with papers and folders spilling out of them, as though the people who’d worked there had hurriedly evacuated. Behind a door in a small adjoining office, was a large framed photograph that was so peculiar I could only stare. It featured a naked young woman with a plain quality to her face and features that was alluring. Something in its overall composition hinted at unfulfilled desire. Had she worked here? She was standing amid hanging portions of freshly slaughtered meat. Two bloody slabs directly behind her appeared to be emerging from her back like angel wings.
By the time I exited the building, evening was coming on. The slaughterhouse cast a long shadow on the parking lot, and the slanting sunlight imparted an orange cast to the trees in the distant woods. I was about to climb into my pickup when I noticed a dog standing on the far edge of the lot near the tall grass covering former strip mine acreage. It wasn’t Buddy. This was a huge gray beast that looked to be part mastiff. In the next moment, I saw another dog near that one. Peering even more closely, I picked out two more lying nearby. Then I counted six additional ones, the last being Buddy himself. He was standing among the others, although, given the golden color of his coat, he was difficult to see in the waning light.
The dogs were staring coolly at me, as if they’d been waiting. A couple of them glanced repeatedly toward the big gray, which I intuited was the leader. In the newspaper lately had been articles about a pack comprising strays, runaways and abandoned pets that roamed the hills and woods north of town. It had been making a nuisance of itself, raiding trash cans and killing deer and livestock. People had complained to the county commissioners and the dog warden about it. Several letters to the editor had appeared, expressing concern that it could pose a risk to people.
Moving around the truck, I took a few steps toward the dogs. “Come on, Bud!” I shouted in a friendly voice. I didn’t want to alarm him or the other dogs. He lifted his muzzle and canted his head. Certainly, he knew it was me. But that was his only response, which was odd because he typically came whenever I called. I tried again, this time slapping my hands enthusiastically against my thighs as an added inducement. He took a few steps toward me, then halted, as if he was responding out of habit, only to reconsider.
My calling for Buddy seemed to agitate the others. A few of them began edging toward me in a predatory manner. Two dogs shifted outward in what appeared to be a flanking maneuver. The gray stayed anchored, regarding me
calculatingly with its ears pricked. A watery apprehension welled in me and I tried to quell it. Dogs can smell fear. I put two fingers in my mouth and whistled the same as I always did when Buddy and I went to the dog park and I wanted him to come, but my mouth was dry and all I managed was a muffled screech.
The gray took a few deliberate steps forward, shrinking the distance between us, and the two dogs that had posted themselves away from the others, the flankers, shifted again. One of them, a brindled boxer, seemed to be positioning itself so it could cut me off. The pickup was only six feet behind me and the closest dogs were sixty feet away. If I were to dash for it, the math was in my favor. Then it occurred to me that I might have locked the door. I thought I’d left it open. Usually I do. Only maybe this time I hadn’t. Doubt wedged uncomfortably into my brain. I took some cautious steps back, trying to inject an air of calm into my posture.
The pack reacted nearly as one to my slow retreat. It members crept toward me. Only Buddy hung back. Having grown up in a rural area and having wandered country roads since I was a boy, I’d faced down a number of menacing dogs over the years and had never been bitten. With an individual dog, if you stand up to it, it will normally back off. I’d never confronted a pack, though. The energy it projected seemed purposeful and unbound. Dangerous.
I inched backward until I reached the truck, then I edged along the grill and front bumper until at last the pickup was between me and the dogs. They hadn’t rushed me, as I’d feared they would, although they had continued to advance. Fortunately the driver’s door was unlocked and I clambered inside. Finally safe, I let out a long, juddering breath. My hands were shaking. Several of the dogs were now milling around the truck, nosing the air, eyeing me sideways. In the side-view mirror, I saw a beagle hike its leg and piss on my back tire. The gray stood about ten feet away with its yellow eyes pinned on mine. I tried to read its mood. Smug? It was as though they’d exercised their dominance and were satisfied. Suddenly I felt a little foolish for having been alarmed.
I lowered the passenger window about six inches so I could call for Buddy. If he came, I would swing open the door and let him in, as we’d done any of number of times. Buddy loved riding in the truck. He’d sit there like a person as we rode along. Sometimes he’d poke his head out the window the way you see dogs do all of the time.
I shouted for him and, once again, he advanced a few steps before checking himself. The gray looked back at him and then at me with its lower jaw hanging down and its tongue lolling. I didn’t get the idea that the gray or any of the other dogs would have prevented Buddy from coming to me. He wasn’t their prisoner. He was there voluntarily, which was a galling realization.
The gray turned and began trotting in the opposite direction toward the field and the woods beyond. The other dogs fanned out behind it in a loose formation. Buddy lingered and gazed in my direction for a moment before following the rest of them. I watched until I couldn’t see him anymore. Then I sat there a while and drank the second beer I’d brought with me and thought things over. Buddy had left us, Patty and I. His canine intuition had told him we weren’t going to make it, and as it turned out, he was right. He knew it before we did. He could foretell the impending collapse of our marriage with that uncanny prescience most dogs possess, and, in Buddy’s case, was especially fine-tuned. He didn’t want to choose between us, so he took up with his own kind, and I couldn’t fault him. Living as a semi-wild dog would be difficult, I reasoned, but at least his life in the pack would provide something he could rely upon, unlike us.
When I finished the beer, I fired up the truck and slowly swung it around to leave. As I did my headlights swept the slaughterhouse. Maybe the dogs sensed what had once occurred inside. Perhaps that was what brought them here.
I got back on the road and drove by the trailer where the kids had been playing. The evening star was out and so were the fireflies. There was just enough light by which to make out the overgrown fields and the dark outline of the woods beyond. I was halfway home when my phone rang.
N.M. Leigh is a former print journalist, writing teacher, and advertising writer from the Midwest. His stories typically deal with characters who are attempting to deal with loss and estrangement. Nature typically features dominantly in his work.
- Jaina Cipriano
Fiction when my partner and when my partner and i moved into this i moved into this house last year, a house last year, a large portion of the large portion of the backyard was taken backyard was taken up by a makeshift up by a makeshift motorcycle shed, motorcycle shed, which we ignored which we ignored for three seasons, for three seasons, too tired and too tired and too busy and too busy and not sufficiently not sufficiently motivated to motivated to remove it. then remove it. then the pandemic the pandemic came jangling in, came jangling in, bringing long, bringing long, lonely stretches of lonely stretches of time and anxieties time and anxieties about food security. about food security. we tore down the we tore down the shed, excavated shed, excavated plastic shreds and plastic shreds and broken wood from broken wood from the earth, and put the earth, and put in two garden beds. in two garden beds. we did not know we did not know whether either whether either we or the soil we or the soil were capable of were capable of growing anything. growing anything. we tried anyways. we tried anyways. my partner, who is my partner, who is an artist, put up an artist, put up some waterjet cut some waterjet cut steel, the remnants steel, the remnants of a gallery piece, of a gallery piece, next to the garden next to the garden for adornment. for adornment. the purple pole the purple pole beans grew to it beans grew to it immediately. even immediately. even now, mid-autumn, we now, mid-autumn, we harvest new beans harvest new beans from the artwork. from the artwork.
Greg Aldana Merry Chrstmas, Have A Great New Year!
Dr. Jan Cooper
Dave Barrett Cheers!!!
I published my 12th book in 2020 and appeared on the Blood Time podcast with Pete Cimironi to talk about it. Note the masks around our necks.
Looking forward… (Our daughter Robin cycling on The Bog of Allen here in Kildare, Ireland. It was taken during the summer when we were all in lockdown. Our house backs onto the bog so we spent a lot of days just cycling about on it and had it pretty much all to ourselves. It was an amazing thing during a weird time.)
I just want to escape. I’m also immensely frustrated by all the new rules and restrictions. I’m an Aquarius and can’t stand being told what to do Mick Leigh's view
Tara Cronin
mugabi byenkya
a rose in autumn springing from the fertile earth blooms amidst the weeds
Keith HUMAN
finding peace on obscure music
Having fun with Christopher Soltis!!!
New Cover!
CONQUEROR
Greetings~
And thanks for the invite! This year has definitely been full of challenges - I’m sure for everyone, especially with all that is going on in the world during such turbulent times. I know I have certainly had my share of them and have had to really rise to the occasion and overcome quite a bit of adversity in order to achieve some of my biggest goals.
Through it all though, one of the words that comes to mind when I sum up my 2020 is CONQUEROR. And what it takes to be one. Especially when you run into so many obstacles that often prevent people from accomplishing their dreams and how we so often have to fight so hard in order to protect them. It’s definitely not for the faint of heart and where we often experience the most growth in our lives. Learning to overcome our challenges is a key component to building and developing character and integrity.
So, I thought of one of my favorite pieces in my art collection as a comparison to what 2020 has been like for me as a declaration of the strength it has taken for me to overcome some of the struggles I have faced this year..And Conquered. Albeit one Hard Earned Victory, to say the least. So the title or message for my selection in the above attachment is one simple word to sum up my 2020... CONQUEROR
Rita~
study one from self explosion series by Ira Meier Glen Holland
Soldier on by Bob Kinerk
NRM News Feed
Bruce Anderson
Just Now
Welcoming in the New Year 2020 with my wife at a symphony concert and dance on stage immediately following. Tragedy upon tragedy has followed, but our interest and focus on the well being of others has expanded in unplanned, but creative ways. Small acts of kindness and personal touches have replaced the big celebrations.
Who would have guessed then how distant this now seems and yet how hopeful we can be if we take the steps now, every day for our personal and community health.
Jo Epley
Just Now
I haven’t done much in 2020. Its a bummer year. Covid 19 keeps me close to home. I can’t attend the funerals of fallen friends. And watching the news raises my blood pressure. The only bright spot is Biden is leading in the polls.
Matias Travieso-Diaz
Just Now
I was born in Cuba and migrated to the United States as a young man, escaping political persecution by the Castro regime. I became an engineer and lawyer and practiced for nearly fifty years. I retired, turned my attention to creative writing, and authored many short stories of various genres. As 2020 draws to a close, my stories have been published or accepted for publication in over thirty paying short story anthologies, magazines and podcasts, including NRM. A collection of some of my stories has also been accepted for publication under the title Times and Places.
Lazar Trubman
Just Now
2020, well, most of it, had been tough for everyone, and, yes, writing was one of the few ways to survive the lockdowns, separations, losses (see photo), etc. I might consider myself lucky: still looking out the window, and 23 publications decided to have my modest pieces between their covers.
Literary Work
This is me now, A mushroom. Stuck in my room in dim lighting in a cold moist atmosphere. What is the outside? Also meet my plant roger. I talk to him but I’m sure I’m not going crazy because he doesn’t talk back -Jodie Ferrer
To-Read-List
New Reader Media, a creative marketing firm working in partnership with New Reader Magazine, takes on the challenge of bookmarking emerging voices in the indie publishing world. Presented in no particular order, here’s New Reader Media’s reading list for this quarter of 2020!
Gone Viking / new cover
BILL ARNOTT
From a bestselling author, poet, and musician comes a literary treat set to take its readers on a journey right on their reading chairs. Filled with adventure, history, and unforced hilarity, this book is highly recommended for anyone craving for a good time.
By a Lake Near a Moon: Fishing with the Chinese Masters
DEWITT CLINTON
DeWitt Clinton blesses sentimental literary buffs with this compilation of original calming poems inspired by classic Chinese literature, retold from the viewpoint of a modern-day American poet and re-set in today’s Midwestern countryside. It is wistful, nostalgic, and warm, filling readers with a longing that can only be quelled by reading DeWitt’s dreamy poetry from start to end, and even then might make them crave for more.
