A Stray

Dylan always found her stride after the first turn of the Greenlake Park trail. The trees were dense enough around that part of the lake that even in the wintertime there was a feeling of opening up into the straightaway. Suddenly there was air to breathe. The distant horizon and the sun stretching across the water made her feel small and light, like she was floating along on the breeze.

Once she hit that flow, her mind would wander. This house belonged to a local TV news anchor, that one to an old woman who was always sweeping the driveway. Stray cats gathered on this street because the house on the corner left out food for them. Years ago a swan had nested beneath the willow up there and spent the summer chasing people into the street. You could still kind of see the path that had formed in the grass.

Sooner or later the flow always broke though. She’d remember how hard the ground was against her feet, or she’d catch a man’s eyes and her attention would follow them unwillingly back to herself. Or, as was happening just now, a street dog would abandon its namesake and take off after her.

You’re supposed to stop if a dog is chasing you. Especially when it’s big as hell and closing the distance at a casual trot. But most of the dogs in this neighborhood were more or less loose. Even though only a few had collars, usually with no tags or address, they all had places they slept and people who called them names they’d answer to. More than one name as often as not. So Dylan kept running and managed a panted “there’s a good boy,” as the beast settled into step beside her.

In no time they were back in the flow, two wild eyed creatures moving through a world that happily made space for them. It was impressive that something with such tight skin could move so freely. She watched its ribs ripple like waves on the lake under a furless patch that might’ve been mange or a scar. Maybe it wasn’t as underfed as it looked to keep pace with her so easily. Maybe she was just slow.

Normally she ran by herself, but she passed more people than passed her. Really it’d only been that one 5k with Javi and Eli, which barely counted. After 30 seconds of sprinting to keep up with Eli, she’d waited for Javi and happily talked the next three miles away. Running wasn’t a competition for her. It was barely exercise. Mostly it was a way to feel less stressed out, which is why she’d stopped for a while when she and Javi were first dating. Different ways of meeting the same need.

Eli had been the opposite. Long ago, after Eli had destroyed a folding chair in his rush to win a gender themed baby shower game, she’d asked Javi how they were even friends. “I honestly don’t remember,” he’d said “he was a friend of a friend who moved away or something. And now he hangs out with us.” At that same baby shower she’d found herself standing by Eli during a trivia game at which Javi excelled. He’d leaned in twice and back out, glancing between her and the game before mumbling “He’s really good.”

“Yeah, he always knows about weird stuff like this.”

“Mm. I should be better about that. Like, study or something.”

She’d laughed. “For baby shower trivia?”

“It’s working for him.”

“HEY!”

Dylan jumped as a skinny old man stomped into her path.

“You need to keep your dog on a leash!”

“Wha–”

“You might think you have him trained, but the rest of us don’t know that!”

The dog came prancing back from up ahead and leapt up at Dylan playfully.

“This is a public park. There are children here, and seniors. People who can’t use the park if they don’t feel safe.”

“This isn’t my dog.” The dog leapt up at her again, almost pushing her over.

The old man glared at her “I don’t care whose dog it is. Put it on a leash if you’re gonna run with it.” He stomped off.

“It’s nobody’s dog,” she yelled after him. “You don’t even have a collar, do ya boy?”

The dog turned back to her from sniffing after the man and woofed as she lunged forward at it and then restarted her jog. As it passed her, it jumped again, causing her to stumble. This time it ran ahead, and she quickly found herself struggling to keep up. And she started to notice the parents pulling their kids off the side of the path up ahead. She wasn’t the only one the dog would leap at either, it even snapped at someone’s little pomeranian.

“Come on boy,” she called and split off the path towards the street. He followed, and soon they were away from the people, alone with the quiet rhythm of their feet.

The last time she’d seen Eli was on a random Thursday. She and Javi met up with him and some other friends at a bar. It had come out of nowhere. This guy bumped into Eli, and Eli shoved him. The guy threw a punch and then they were wrestling on the ground. It’d taken three people to pull the guy off of him, but the manager agreed not to call the cops if they all left. Eli had started it but also came out worse. The other guy ran his hands through his hair a couple times and went straight back to normal.

Afterwards, she and Javi drove Eli home, the neck of his bloodstained shirt stretched halfway down his chest. He didn’t say a word the entire time, not even goodbye. He just slid out of the back seat when they finally stopped at his apartment and then stomped up the concrete stairway, three floors side to side without ever looking back. Then he’d stopped responding to texts, refusing to acknowledge invites and pretending not to be home the one time they’d gone. Social media made it seem like he enlisted in the army or something–his private account fronted by a picture of him, head shaved, biting a pair of dog tags on a thin chain.

Dylan’s heart dropped as the dog tore off down a side street. “Wait, stop!” She sprinted after him. He was playing with something, a stuffed animal? A real one. A cat. Roadkill. “Oh. No! Stop!” She had no idea what to do. He shook the corpse back and forth, slinging blood across the street. “Drop it!” He hopped at her and darted back, daring her to take it. “No! Drop it!” He tossed it and then pounced down with both paws, like her dog did with its squeaky toys.

When the organs burst from the cat’s stomach, she turned and ran–back to the park, back to the trail. She imagined the dog behind her running, mouth dripping gore, about to jump again. All of the neighborhood dogs were barking, were slipping their fences and chasing her. Their mass of frenzied eyes and lolling tongues combined to form a cloud that slipped through the bare branches snapping against her legs and face. She felt teeth clamping down around her ankles. Her heart was beating out of time, one lung inhaling while the other breathed out.

And then she burst out into the straightaway, not floating along but accelerating. There were no dogs behind her, just that grouchy old man. She was faster than leering, faster than busybodies, faster than radio hits of the early 2000s playing from somebody’s phone. She was behind the wheel, seat belt buckled, driving home, where there were no dogs she was afraid of.