Dog Dad
At this point in the story, Dog Dad is living in a one-bedroom apartment with fifteen dogs. It has been four months since his release from prison and he is struggling to find even a part time job that grants him the flexibility to work around the mandatory care that is required to keep the dogs healthy.
As for the dogs themselves, they too have struggled to find work and sometimes when they are asleep, Dog Dad sifts through the bills and wonders if perhaps the warden had been letting him on when he mentioned that in the time that had passed during Dog Dad’s incarceration, dogs as a species had achieved momentous gains in intelligence.
Furthermore, it isn’t lost on Dog Dad that it’s possible he maybe misheard the warden entirely, and then, through time, allowed the interaction to become grossly exaggerated. Maybe the warden had not said “momentous gains in intelligence” at all. Maybe just something about how dogs only seemed smarter, which even then, would be one guy’s opinion versus verifiable truth.
“I’ll call the warden,” Dog Dad decides.
Thankfully, the warden answers on the first ring and Dog Dad expresses his concern.
“Yeah, look,” says the warden, “I’m glad you called because as soon as I said all that stuff about dogs, I immediately regretted it.”
“Huh,” Dog Dad frowns. “Because you know I did end up becoming a legal guardian to a ton of dogs in exchange for discounted rent.”
“Ah well, shit,” says the warden. “Shit. Shit. Shit. I feel like I always do this. I want to make people happy, you know? I want to be the one to share good news and so I guess I just embellish certain details here and there and oh, well, goddamn it. I’m really sorry.”
“So just confirming: dogs aren’t smarter then?”
“As a species? No, probably not. Although what the hell do I know? Just last night there was a dog on TV that was pushing a stroller.”
“Like a real stroller? With a baby inside? Like the dog was babysitting?”
Silence for a moment, then the warden speaks again. “When you put it that way, it was probably just an empty novelty stroller. God damn I am sorry.”
Just then, Dog Dad is interrupted by a flash of movement out of the corner of his eye, but it’s only one of the dogs.
“Oh, it’s just you, Mr. Slick,” says Dog Dad. “You scared me. What are you doing up so late?”
But Mr. Slick ignores Dog Dad and begins licking at a section of wood paneling where Dog Dad used to stick banana stickers.
Dog Dad hangs up the phone and goes into the room where the dogs are sleeping. Ever so gently, he spreads a blanket out over the dogs. Some of them are okay with it, but others wake up and try to bite at the corners and edges of the blanket.
“I guess they are pretty smart,” thinks Dog Dad. “Maybe that old warden was right after all.”