Back to Issue Fifty-Eight

JULIA AND THE DOG

by IRENE REBELLO

On my way home I passed by the pet shop on L. R. street. It was an old square house, with peeling beige paint and shuttered curtains. The upstairs window was open—inside I could make out a row of cages on the wall, the doors thrown shut. The room was dark and the whole building had a thick, wet smell that rolled outside, onto the street.

The gate was held open by a rock. On the patio there were a few chewed up rubber toys left by the roots of the tree. That tree was well known in the neighborhood—it was sick and rotting. On its branches hung browning, soft fruit. My mother had led the charge to chop it down, she said it was disgusting and that it was a safety hazard, but it was private property and in the end there was nothing anyone could do about it. In the spring the fruit would drop dead on the road and splatter open, its insides creamy and black.

It was a Friday, late afternoon. I was walking back from the subway. An hour before I’d been laying in bed with E. He’d invited me over to discuss our relationship—he wanted to break up with me. He was worried I had become too attached. We had sex and he came fast, on my stomach like he liked to do. I liked his drawling accent and the bits of fat on his back. When he talked he said my name a lot, and patted my shoulder like you would a child you don’t know that well.

Julia, he’d said, I’m just not looking for anything serious right now.

He’d kissed me and transferred me money for the subway fare. On the bank exchange note he’d written: for the good times 😉

On top of the gate of the pet shop there was a big, hand made cardboard banner. It was painted a bright, deep blue and decorated with cut out pictures of dogs. A dalmatian with its tongue hanging out, a golden retriever with white teeth and a pink collar around its neck. Written in black marker it said: ADOPTION HOURS 8 – 18H. MEET YOUR NEW BEST FRIEND NOW! I checked my phone. It was 17:42.

Inside, the shop was cramped and stuffy. On the corner there was a set of green leather armchairs and a couch. Gray stuffing leaked out from cracks on the seat, which looked stiff from misuse. On the other side of the room sat a big glass tank filled with fish. I watched them for a while. Bits of seaweed were glued to the sand bottom, and its tails floated up around the murky water. I followed a fish, a blueish one, with flat fins, as it swam out from behind a rock, up to the edge of the water, and poked its mouth out.

A girl around my age sat at the front desk. She was staring down at her laptop, her chin resting on her hand. Her hair was curly and she had a long, straight nose. I poked at the skin on my wrist, feeling the frail bone sticking up as I moved my thumb.

Hello, I said. She didn’t look up. I said again: hello.

Yeah, she replied, still looking at the screen. She chewed on the inside of her cheek for a minute and then raised her head. Can I help you?

Do you have any dogs up for adoption?

This is a pet shop, she said slowly, as if I was stupid.

I repeated my question.

Yes, she sighed. You can go around the back and look.

I walked behind the desk toward the glass door.

Listen, she called. I turned. They’re all kind of nasty in there. We don’t really have a set cleaner right now and the dogs—they just do a lot of shit they shouldn’t. That’s why it’s kind of disgusting, okay? It’s not our fault, we take care of them. I take them for a walk every now and then. I’m really trying with them, but they’re just unhappy, being locked up in the dark all day. But they’re good dogs.

I believe you, I said. I like dogs, anyway, I don’t care if they’re dirty.

Really? She focused on me then, her gaze went down to my feet and then up to the top of my head. She was pretty in an obvious sort of way, and I felt shy and dislocated under her attention. I hate them. I think they’re loud and smelly, even if you clean them. Which we do, she added after a second.

I thought, if I worked here I would hate dogs, too. I could hear them—the dogs in the kennel—huffing and whining. I pushed open the door and listened. There was only a little noise, a scratching of paws on the floor and a wet, slurping hiss, like someone swallowing a lot of saliva.

I walked in. On the right there was a row of ceiling high cages, bronze with rust. On the left there were posters of dogs glued to the wall. Huge, long haired dogs running in fields with green tennis balls in their mouths. Dogs napping in round, pillowy beds. Dogs with their asses up, their faces buried in a red plastic bowl. They looked nothing like the animals next to me, which stared at my shoes with wide, bloodshot eyes. Their fur was matted and streaked with dirt. All of them were either sitting or lying down, curled almost in a fetal position, in the back of the cages. None of them growled at me, as I had been expecting them to. If I looked at one of them directly, they looked away.

I went all the way to the back of the room and then came back. There was a constant soft, crunchy sound while I walked. I looked down and noticed bits of dry food, and pieces of torn yellow paper on the ground. It smelled horrible, and I worried that that stench was gonna stick to me, to my hair and my skin, and that I wouldn’t be able to wash it out. I’m gonna smell like red meat and dog shit for the rest of my life, I thought.

Hey, the girl from the front desk yelled. Are you done? I have to close soon.

Yeah, just a second, I said, but I didn’t move.

I was staring at a small, brown dog. She was staring back at me—she was sitting up. Her swollen belly curled over her back paws, like she’d swallowed a gibbous moon. She was so tiny and so dark that, when I came in, I’d thought the cage was empty. Now I saw her shiny eyes and her oily black nose. There were pieces of dry shit stuck on her fur.

Hi, I said. The dog answered. She came forward to me, and pushed her face into the bars. She made a low grumbling noise, like she was clearing her throat. I knelt down and touched the tip of her ears.

I heard the girl walking behind me. I have to close, she said.

Right. I want this dog, please.

Which? she asked. She came close to me and sniffled. That one? Are you sure? She’s pregnant, just so you know. Like, she’s gonna give birth soon.

That’s okay, I said. My dog was looking at me with a sweet, earnest expression. She looked like someone who had just been kissed.

If you take her you can’t bring the puppies back here when they’re born. We won’t take them. They’re your responsibility.

That’s fine.

I’m serious.

She made me sign a document that stated that I wouldn’t, under any circumstances, bring my dog’s litter back to the shop after they were born.

I just want you to know, she said, I think this is stupid. But we are really overwhelmed. Like, we’re short on staff and our cleaner just quit. There’s so many dogs here. We had to take the cats over to that shelter on S. Z. street. You know it? We couldn’t take care of them. I was cleaning litter boxes for like, four hours a day. It was insane.

I petted my dog slowly as I signed the documents. I had put her on top of the desk, and she sat obediently as I turned the pages. I rubbed my hand up and down her back, feeling the direction in which her fur grew.

Thanks, I said once I was done with the paperwork. I picked up my dog and put her inside of my tote bag. She nestled against my phone and made that same noise from earlier. I realized it was a noise of satisfaction.

The girl stared at me. Hey, are you looking for a job, by any chance?

 

At twenty four years old, I didn’t think of my reproductive system as much as I thought I should. The idea of my uterus, an organ that could stretch and hold weight, seemed like a foreign concept to me, like something you would see in a bad science fiction movie. I couldn’t visualize it and I had no intention to.

Still I was aware of a vague, dark sense looming over me, an anxiety that often manifested itself as stomach cramps and drawn out crying spells. I was really frightened of it, of my fertility. Sometimes I had dreams where I was a mother, where I had given birth to a baby. I would see myself from above, wearing cut off jeans and a stained t-shirt, trying to feed my child. I would hold the blue plastic spoon in my hand, make chirping sounds, and place the spoon inside of its mouth, when it would start to gargle and choke. The dream always ended the same way: I called the police and I screamed at them over the phone.

I killed my child, I would say, hysterically. But when I looked, the child was fine. It would just be sitting on its high chair, bouncing like a hard rubber ball, and clutching at its own hair.

The mornings after these dreams I would wake up feeling depressed and unwilling to do anything. I spent most of the day in bed, wallowing over this hypothetical child of mine. I found it hard to think of it as coming from me, as it didn’t resemble me at all. The child was always tan and blond, like an Australian surfer, or one of those models you would see in underwear advertisements. It read to me like a bad omen.

My mother had put me on the pill at fourteen. She loved God and she hated Dilma Rousseff, but she worried for me and she was aware, even back then, of my ability to make bad decisions. It was around that time I developed an acne condition and started gaining weight. There were no more bad decisions to be made.

She was sitting at the kitchen table when I got home. There was a cup of warm water in front of her, and a plate with half of a papaya on it. She scooped up a bit of the papaya with a delicate silver spoon and brought it to her mouth. She said: hi honey, where were you?

At E.’s house, I answered.

Oh. And how is he?

He’s fine, I said. Look at what I got.

I put the tote bag on the table and pulled it down. My dog was awake—she pushed her head up and made a long, whining noise. Her ears twitched as my mother started to yell.

Julia, what is that?

It’s my dog, I replied. I got her from the pet shop on L. R. street.

Absolutely not, she shouted. Her face was red. She got up and started to pace around the kitchen. That place is disgusting. You’re taking that thing back immediately. I’m not having a dog in this house. I’m not taking care of it.

You don’t have to, I said. I’ll take care of her. Take her for walks and stuff.

She picked up a dish rag and threw it down on the sink. No, you won’t.

I promise I will. I’ve always wanted a dog.

I know, my mother said. You asked for one every Christmas. You know why I never got you one—they’re messy, Julia, and they take a lot of work.

She sat down again and closed her eyes. She looked young for her age, which I’d always admired. The skin on her neck was tight and clean. I didn’t look like her, which had bothered me as a kid. Now I felt it press down on me, this distance between us. When we ran into someone she knew in the street, they were always surprised when she introduced me as her daughter.

I picked up my dog and held her against my chest. She was warm and heavy, and she wiggled in my arms like a worm that’s trying to go deeper into fresh soil.

Mom, I said. She’s pregnant. If I hadn’t adopted her, they would’ve given her an abortion.

She gasped. She touched her cheek and her head lolled to the side. After a few minutes she said, softly: is that true?

Tell her, I said. Tell her that they were going to give you an abortion.

My dog barked. She had a harsh bark for a bitch, I realized. I squeezed her tighter.

My mother stood up. Gently she reached out and touched my dog’s stomach. Poor baby, she said. Oh, honey, but that’s even more work. Puppies, too? We don’t have room for this many dogs in the house.

We’ll give them away, I said. I rested my chin on the top of my dog’s head. She made that grumbling nose—her body hummed in my hands. My mother stroked the back of her neck, her fingers scraping against the brittle fur.

Baby, poor baby. How could they give her an abortion?

They’re evil, I said, copying her speech and tone of voice. They have no respect for life.

I wanted to save my dog, I told her, from the unsanitary and immoral conditions of the pet shop. I walked into the living room and sat my dog down on the floor. She wobbled uncertainly around the room before flopping down by the air conditioner. She had her belly up in the air. She looked like a seal—she was out of breath and her nipples were swollen and red. I petted her gently on the head and kissed her. She smelled like urine and flakey fish food.

My mother knelt down beside her, her feet tucked against her knees. She wiped her hands on her skirt and sighed.

Okay, she said. We’ll take care of your babies. Okay, we can take care of them.

 

The next day I took my dog to the vet. We sat in plastic chairs, waiting. Other animals—fat dogs tied with short leashes, and cats, laying with their front paws sticking out of their carriers, watched us, as their owners looked down on their phones. I was afraid of that bright, sterile environment and how she would react to it. I held her in my lap, whispering in her ear, and she hummed in response.

The doctor who saw her was old, with gray hair and a long, thick mustache. I was skeptical of his ability to diagnose my dog—when he spoke his voice was scruffy, and he coughed into his arm before reaching for his notepad. He dug his hands into her belly, moving his fingers like he was playing a flute, and looked inside of her ear with a small, skinny instrument. He told me she was about two months pregnant.

Ready to pop, he said, and looked at me expectantly. When I didn’t say anything he turned his back to me, and asked: was the pregnancy planned?

I don’t know, I said. I adopted her yesterday.

He coughed again, and stood up to take her blood. I watched as the needle pumped into the vial, filling it, and I leaned my torso over my dog so that she wouldn’t be scared.

He gave her a few shots and filled out a prescription of medicine I needed to give her. In addition to the pills I bought a fluffy pink bed, some throw toys, a water filter and a few bags of vegan treats.

Only the best for my dog, I said to the cashier, who smiled sadly at me.

 

At night I laid in bed next to my dog. She rested, propped up against a pile of throw pillows, like a small queen. Every once in a while she would throw her belly to the side, push her face into my hip, and pant.

I scrolled on my phone, watching Youtube videos of dogs giving birth. One video, entitled INCREDIBLE DOG BIRTH HEROIC, showed a large bitch giving birth on the side of a road. The woman filming it moved the camera around, showing different angles of this abandoned, probably rabid dog, as she pushed her litter out.

Oh my god, she kept saying. Oh my god, good job, mama. Good job.

The dog was clearly sick. It had its eyes closed, and its teeth were black. She howled and kicked her front paws out against the concrete. I looked back at my dog, who was staring up at me with an expression I couldn’t make out. I thought it must’ve been disturbing for her to watch videos like these, and to hear the sounds that she would soon be mimicking.

I exited the app and opened Google. Into the search bar I typed: dog anatomy. I zoomed in on colorful diagrams, looking for specific organs, like the uterus and the bladder, until my head started to hurt. It was a warm night—it was nearly midnight but I felt everything around me vividly, the itchy crochet blanket at my feet, the fan whirring as it moved from side to side. I was distinctly aware of the inside of my body, where my cells were moving and reproducing. I thought of my bladder, felt its weight and fullness. I put my hand above my pelvis and pressed down until it hurt. I found it hard to imagine that inside of my dog there were tiny, fragile little organs, and that they looked just like mine did. I rested my head against her belly and listened to the gurgling and spitting of her intestine.

I heard a faint sound of a notification going off. I picked up my phone and the screen lit up with two new messages.

hey

wyd

I opened Whatsapp. I wrote: nothing, wbu. After that I attached a picture of my dog, one I’d taken earlier when we were at the vet. He replied immediately.

what the fuck is that

I typed: my dog

i adopted her this week

A few minutes went by. I held the screen close to my face and watched as a text bubble appeared, then disappeared. He finally responded: lol

do u wanna come over rn

 

While I was having sex with E. I thought of my dog. I thought about the process of conception. I could see her in my mind, with her tongue hanging out of her mouth while she let another bigger, smellier dog fuck her from behind. I imagined the other dog’s ejaculation, quick and scuffy, inside of my dog.

E. had his face buried in my shoulder. He was moving fast and making a lot of noise. He grabbed at my hair and pulled my leg up around his hip. It hurt, and I wanted to tell him that, but I couldn’t say the words.

I kept my eyes shut and against my eyelids I saw a flock of sperm, dog sperm, traveling upwards in a river. I saw my dog’s egg, a small, crisp ball, which was penetrated by the sperm. Her uterus was hairy and elastic, it stretched as tiny little freckles grew and took shape: small dogs, which looked just like my dog, with short, coarse fur and a pinched up snout. They were beautiful, they yapped and moved their paws as if they were running.

When he was done, E. put an arm around me.

You’re a cool girl, Julia, he said.

His sheets were thin and scratchy. My hair was wet, it was sticking to the back of my neck. I ran my fingers over my forehead, untangling the knots, and let a few strands fall from my hand to the floor.

I’ll call you an Uber.

 

My mother called me while I was in the car.

She’s gone into labour, she said. The dog. Where are you? I didn’t know what to do so I put her in the shower. She’s breathing so heavily, look—

I couldn’t hear anything over the phone. I tapped my knee, and pulled at the skin in my wrist until it turned almost translucent. The driver was going fast. There was only little color around, a red dot of a closed traffic light, a white church gleaming across the street. A garbage truck drove by, the loud, grave sound of the engine filling the road. I’m a bad mother, I thought. No sperm is ever going to want to penetrate my egg.

Where were you? my mother asked when I got home.

I didn’t answer her. I have a new serious responsibility, I thought, to my dog and her litter. I was grateful to her for giving me an opportunity to be useful, to contribute to this small society she was creating.

Over the next hour my dog gave birth to three puppies. I rubbed her neck as her stomach contracted. She bled some, and soaked the floor with a clear, sticky discharge, which made my mother panic. She grabbed buckets of hot water and towels, which I used to help clean the puppies when they came out. They were all brown, like her, and they fit in the palm of my hand. Their mouths opened and closed like a fish looking for oxygen.

When she was done I held her head on my knee.

Good job, mama, I said. Good job.

Some time later I fell asleep, my back against the tile. When I woke up the sky was pink and purple. I watched as neon signs started flashing, dental offices and chain restaurants opening for service.

I heard a wet, mulching sound, and the crackling of thin bones. I looked down. My dog was laying half on my lap, half on the ground, with her head on the floor. Her throat squeezed and released as she swallowed. Bits of sticky fur hung on her chin and on the inside of her mouth, on her teeth, as she hummed.

 

Irene Rebello is a writer and graphic designer from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

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