Jennifer Khoury

Carroll Park

Some time ago I dated a girl in a band. She had a cool haircut and always wore a black pea coat, even in the summer. But my thoughts here are not about the girl. They are about the dog that stayed for two or so weeks at the girl’s house. The dog’s name I can’t recall. He was very large and fluffy and should have been of off-white color, but a serious lack of grooming made him more off-off-white, almost gray. I don’t remember what they called him, but it was Mc-Something. Perfect for a big fluffy dog that drooled a lot. He was friendly, and he was gentle. He was also lazy.

All of this is what I remember.

The dog was at the girl’s house due to strange circumstances surrounding the terms of the lease. She and her roommates had a connection to the owner that was less than conventional. Some cool maneuvering through a mutual business acquaintance enabled the roommates to live in the fully-furnished two bedroom, cram in all of their musical instruments, soundproof part of the house, take care of the gardening, clean out the owner’s belongings in the garage, and feed the owner’s cat. There were four roommates. Three held band practice in the newly-soundproofed living space. Perks for the roommates, perks for the owner. The rent was cheap and everyone was happy.

But my thoughts here aren’t about the roommates or the owner of the house. They are about the dog whose name I can’t recall.

The owner had moved to New York City. He left his cat. He took his dog. I never met the owner, but I found this unforgivable.

The cat was never around. No one ever saw the cat. The roommate who played guitar and sang would put cat food and water outside the door. The cat came and went during the night. Any cat seen around the neighborhood could easily have been the owner’s cat for all they knew. They just fed him. Or some other cat that came across the food. I don’t think anyone knew for sure. And I’m not sure they much cared. They just did their duties to feed the owner’s supposed pet whose existence could only be inferred from the two empty bowls each morning.

This went on for months.

On a random day in spring, the girl I once dated called to tell me there was a polar bear in her back yard and asked me to come see it. On my bike, I rode the three-block stretch from my house to hers, passing palm trees and grandly-named apartment buildings, cutting through the alley and into her back yard.

Stretched out on the lawn was the dog. I could see why she called him a polar bear, though he had clearly not been submerged in water for weeks, if not months. I still can’t remember his name, but I believe it was Mc-This or that, a name to suit a loving, if not dopey, oversized and very, very off-white- because-of-dirt dog.

But my thoughts here are not about the state of the dog’s fur. They are about what happened after that first night the dog was there.

The dog was in town because the owner was in town. The owner, staying at a hotel, needed a place to board his dog, and given the non-conventional relationship he had with his non-conventional tenants, the owner left his dog with them. The dog slept outside on the house’s sizeable patio. The big, fluffy dog stayed at the house, was cared for, and slept on the patio for just over two weeks.

On the first night, just after midnight, the girl, whose bedroom was just off the patio, looked outside and noticed something moving on or about the dog. She opened her door and stepped outside. That’s when she saw The Owner’s Abandoned Cat (TOAC).

TOAC had made a bed upon the dog, among the fluff. And TOAC made his/her bed there nightly for the next few weeks, until the dog’s departure back to New York. There the cat cuddled for hours on the dog, comfortable, despite the dog’s desperate need of a bath.

It was a sight to behold.

I never beheld it. But I heard. I was lucky enough to know.

Through the cat’s existence, finally confirmed by its love for the dog, something else was confirmed -- something arguably more sacred, and definitely bigger: some Universal Truth.

And though I think about the dog and the cat and the roommates and the girl a great deal, I can’t say exactly what that Universal Truth is. I can only say that I was moved by the cat’s affection for the dog, and for the dog’s passive yet undeniable bond with the cat.

All of this is what I remember. And of the girl I can only say that I loved her very much.

Jennifer Khoury writes copy for cash and creatively out of both love and habit. She will begin work on her MFA in the fall. She lives in Long Beach, California.