I don’t like dogs. I don’t care what you’re gonna say, I just don’t like them. I haven’t killed any or drowned any puppies in a river. I’m not a psychopath or a freak. I just don’t like dogs. It’s not a crime.

          I’m only saying this because I don’t want you to get any stupid ideas about me being a nice person or a dog-loving, friendly kinda guy. Don’t get any stupid ideas in your head. I’m not a great, loving person who everyone smiles at, and when people see me (which is rare) they don’t poke their friend in the chest and say in a dumb voice, “Gee, see him, see that kid, he’s a good guy!”

          I’m not a friendly sort of person who helps people out. It’s not a crime. I’m only saying all this because I don’t want you to get weird ideas about why I agreed to watch my brother’s dog. He was flying to Polynesia to shoot some documentary about fish dying from chemicals. I thought it was pretty laughable. Fish die all the time, why sweat it? I bet there’s people dying in all sorts of crap countries from painful diseases that no one cares about. But he didn’t ask me for my opinion so I didn’t tell him anything.

          I’m not quiet but people don’t ask me things so I don’t usually say anything to anyone. I’m not saying this to get a bucketload of sympathy, I just don’t want you to get any wrong ideas about anything. I don’t talk much. It’s not a crime or at least it shouldn’t be. Not talking usually doesn’t do any harm but talking does—most of the time anyway.

          This is going nowhere so I might as well get to the point. I had to watch my brother’s dog for a couple of weeks, I dunno why I said yes. He called me up and talked pretty fast and loud:

          “Hey broooo, wanna watch Mika for a teensy two weeks?”

          The Skyhawks baseball game was on the radio so I wanted to get off the phone quick. “OK,” I said. “OK.”

          “Greaaat. I’m jetting off tomorrow. I’ll send pictures. Ohh hooo, I can’t wait to fuck someone there . . . Uhhh, fooky, don’t forget to feed her and walky walk, yeah? Perfecto! . . . Love ya, bye.”

          The Skyhawks lost pretty bad that night. But they always do. There’s nothing special about that. I didn’t need to write it down. I would cross this out if I had the patience. The score was laughably lopsided and Blonovin made a whole bunch of errors but that’s nothing special. A ball went over his head in center and the bases emptied. None of these things are special but they made the room grayer than usual. I stayed up later than usual also and didn’t move from my uncomfortable sideways position with the radio pressing against my arm broadcasting noise from St. Louis.

          Mika was a big white dog. I didn’t like her. I wasn’t filled with rage at her and I didn’t sit up at night frothing at the mouth with hatred but I didn’t like her. She was a dog and I have no love for them. She didn’t care. She never said anything or barked or jumped up and down or did anything in the slightest. She only stared out the window like me and looked down at the cars going by and into the gray stupidity of the city. Sometimes she turned her head at me and stared at me in a bored, lazy gaze. Sometimes I put my face pretty close to hers and screamed “Fuck!” for the hell of it. She didn’t react and only blinked or smiled, that was it. Other times I made nutty faces at her and screamed bizarre and crazy noises and she only blinked at me with her clear, misty eyes. She wasn’t annoying or a jerk in any way. I can’t take that away from her. Most people don’t shut up and they preach all sorts of boring crap but she never talked once.

          She was bored out of her mind like me. I don’t blame her. My brother’s apartment was way high up next to all the other buildings of the city and there was nothing to do. Anyone I knew from school had gone to camp or was doing happy things with their family. And even if they hadn’t I probably wouldn’t want to see them. To pass the time I got a whole stack of newspapers every morning, threw out the boring stuff about bombs and stocks, and read the comics and the baseball section. Mika started to sit next to me and poke her white head over my shoulder while I read on the floor by the big windows. Dogs can’t read but I figured she was in desperate straits. And I guess she understood the pictures. They were pretty cool. There were some good war comics running that summer and I bought the next issues every day.

          There was a holiday one day and no papers came out. I came up in the elevator empty-handed and Mika was depressed. She didn’t sit with me by the windows and when I screamed “Fuck!” or made silly faces she didn’t lift her head at all. Sure, it’s not a crime to be depressed as far as I know but it’s contagious as hell so I took her out into the brown and gray city and tried to escape the glumness. It was everywhere, the glumness and depression, on the streets, in the subway, and on everyone’s faces. Everyone caught it from each other and ran back and forth on the brown and gray streets with their suits and hats. I don’t understand, people shouldn’t be allowed to go out like this, it just spreads like hell. People stay home for chickenpox and colds and those aren’t close to as contagious as glumness and depression. It didn’t make much sense to me.

          There was a big bookstore near a park that we wandered into. The woman behind the desk had pointy glasses and glared at us threateningly like we’d come in with lit fuses ready to blow the whole place to pieces. It was a big bookstore but I found the baseball novels and baseball fact books and bought a whole stack of them. Mika brightened up and even smiled at the lady behind the counter who kept on glaring and wincing as she put all the books in a big black bag. Glaring and wincing at people isn’t a crime but it doesn’t make much sense to me. It’s preachy and annoying and it’s contagious like everything else. People catch it and they don’t know they have it until it’s too late.

          Mika sat next to me by the big windows and poked her white face over my shoulder and I read aloud all the books we’d bought. They were pretty solid books, for random ones anyway, and I read them all through. When I lay down flat and read on my back, Mika curled behind me and kept on looking along with her misty eyes. When I spread out flat on my stomach and flipped the pictures of ball players sliding and diving and swinging baseball bats, she spread out beside me and kept on looking along with the same expression. She wasn’t glum anymore and I guess I wasn’t either. Glumness is contagious as hell but not-glumness is pretty catchy too. I even made some silly faces and rolled over a few times like a nut and she smiled. She wasn’t a jerk but I said that already and if I had any patience I would cross it out.

          We were going up in the elevator one day and two girls came in a few floors below mine. They must’ve been at the pool because they were sopping wet and had towels over their shoulders. I don’t go crazy for girls like everyone else. I’m not shy or scared but everyone seems to go crazy over them and then they spend hours complaining and complaining about the whole mess. It’s pretty boring and I never take part in any of it. It’s not a crime and I don’t seem to be missing out on much anyway.

          “You going up?” one of them asked. She had a whole bunch of freckles on her nose and I couldn’t seem to move my eyes from them or to move my mouth at all.

          The other tossed her wet hair and looked at Mika. “Is that your dog?”

          I already said before that I’m not quiet or shy. Only it’s that people usually don’t talk to me much. Now two people were asking me things and I wasn’t answering at all. Maybe I had just gotten used to not talking or maybe it was her freckles. I don’t know if there was something special or not about them but I couldn’t stop looking at the stupid dots. Please don’t be a jerk and get the wrong idea and start blabbing about me being lovestruck. I didn’t know these people at all and even if I did like them in that way I figured there was no point. I’m not ugly or deformed but I’m not the kind of person who when girls see they elbow their friend and say, “Gee, see him, see that guy, he’s pretty cute!”

          The two girls must’ve been looking at me but I couldn’t tell because I was staring at the floor. I was imagining them laughing at my jokes and inviting me to join them later on some fun stuff they were doing and then the whole rest of the summer came alive in my mind with me and the girls running about the city, swimming, and laughing and racing up and down the halls of the building. Then I was kissing the girl with freckles and hugging her and I kissed her freckles and the summer was so colorful and bright.

          Then I was in the elevator with a weird smile and the two girls were talking to each other. I smiled weirdly and they laughed with one another.

          “No! Freddy wouldn’t dare!”

          “Do you really think we should?”

          “Let’s give her a call one of these days.”

          Then the elevator door opened and their wet sandals slapped away on the floor. Before the girl with freckles disappeared into the hall, she turned and smiled and said to me, “Have a good day.” I didn’t say anything back. Mika was looking up at me with her misty eyes. And she was quiet too. But that wasn’t her fault.

          The hallway was dull and silent and all the doors were closed. My whole summer was gray and deadbeat. It wasn’t just me, everyone down below in their cars and buses was deadbeat and glum to the hilt. Only those two girls seemed like they’d gotten it all figured out. Like they knew something that no one else did. I should’ve asked them what it was but I couldn’t spit out a word. I’m not used to talking, especially to girls, and I probably never will get used to it. No one has ever been locked up for that as far as I know. It’s not illegal anywhere. But it felt like it should have been. It felt like I should’ve been locked up and kept away from society, at least for a very long time.

          “Go away!” I barked at Mika. I had no patience for anyone. All my books were tossed across the room and I lay on the bed staring at the wall. Every day in the future just looked like the next. Gray and glum with nothing to them.

          Mika’s white nose poked through my door, her eyes staring at me. I turned back to the wall. “I want to be on my own, I wanna be by myself . . .”

          She didn’t move. I yelled at her again but she was a dog so there was a good chance she couldn’t understand me. She curled up next to my bed and sat there looking pretty bored. I don’t love dogs but at least she wasn’t being preachy or asking me questions about how I felt. She only sat there, folded up, with her tail around her legs, looking sleepy.

          “I’m not reading any dumb books now . . . Get out of here . . .” I dunno why I sounded so angry. Maybe I was pissed at the glum future, at the whole summer, or maybe I was fed up with everything the world had to offer. I started getting pretty crazy and throwing books and newspapers around and banging on the walls and I was ready to destroy everything but my heart wasn’t in it. I was too deadbeat and dull. That’s the way life goes. You get too deadbeat to even be angry.

          I curled up next to her on the floor and didn’t move for a while. She lifted her head and—please don’t get any stupid ideas—I buried my head in her fur. Don’t get ideas about anything. That’s what I can’t stand about people. They get ideas about everything. Things just happen and there’s usually no ideas hiding behind them.

          I buried my face in her fur and I hugged her. Her misty eyes looked lazily at me and her tongue licked my nose. She was calm and she wasn’t angry at me. I’m not a great person so I didn’t apologize or say anything nice but I got one of the baseball books with really big and glossy pictures and flipped through the pages with her white smiling snout hanging over my shoulder. There was one black-and-white picture of Blonovin when he was young and still good and he was diving headfirst for a ball under the lights. I stared at it with her for a while. We both liked it.

          The day my brother came back was pretty cloudy and you couldn’t see much from the windows. When I got the morning paper the air was a little chilly and some leaves were lying dead on the ground.

          “Heyy, Mika!” His tanned hands ran through her hair but it was in the wrong spot, it wasn’t where she liked it. And when he patted her side it was too harsh and he didn’t know how to keep her from squirming away.

          “Broooo, the girls there are something else . . . They’re really off the wall, hahahahaha . . .”

          I gathered all my stuff and she followed me around, her tongue sticking out and her eyes wider than usual. She probably didn’t know that I was leaving for good but she followed me everywhere and her tongue dangled like it got stuck in a net.

          I took one last look out of the windows. The clouds covered everything and even the water was cloudy and gray. Leaving a place after being there for a long time always takes something away from me. Whether I’ll ever get it back I have no idea. I don’t even know what’s missing but something is.

          If I had any patience I would cross out this whole waste of time and throw all these papers in the trash. But I don’t have any patience so I guess I have to tell you that I stood in the doorway with my bags with the big white dog staring into me. And I guess I should tell you that her tongue had disappeared and her eyes were glum. I already said that I don’t like dogs so I won’t repeat myself. I’ve said a whole lot of crap in my life but I feel like I should remind you of that. I don’t want you to poke someone and whisper: “Gee! See that guy. He’s a stand-up guy! He loves dogs!”

          I should tell you that I told her: “I’ll visit you, for heaven’s sake . . . Don’t look so deadbeat and lonesome.” She still wasn’t smiling and her tongue was still in her mouth. “Hell, cheer up . . . I’ll come by once a week, alright?”

          She was sad and I’m obligated to report that I couldn’t run off, I was stuck in the doorway and you should note that even though I said, “I’ll get loads and loads of books. I’ll bring ’em when I visit . . . Don’t look so down in the dumps . . .” she was still sad and just plain depressed. I thought about those fish who were dying of chemicals in Polynesia and I wished that they’d stayed dying forever and that my brother had never come home. I wished that I’d figured more things out about life and the world and that I’d been able to talk to more people. But wishes give you nothing.

          I made one of my silly faces at Mika but my heart wasn’t in it. That’s the way life goes. You get too deadbeat to even be silly. She opened her mouth and I said very quietly, “I’ll take you to a game, how about that? We’ll go to the stadium and it’ll be pretty nuts. There’ll be thousands of people and everyone’s gonna be shouting like hell. You’ll really like it. We can sit together and watch it all. How about that?”

          She only blinked and stuck out her tongue but the mist in her eyes swirled around and around. I left in a hurry but it was too late. When I reached the elevator my eyes were wet.

          That’s why I hate tears, they’re contagious as hell. They should be a crime and no one should be allowed out with them. It’s too risky, before you know it everyone would be glum and teary-eyed. Even the sky caught it and it started to pour. It’s that contagious. I didn’t run and I walked down the street in the rain, there were puddles popping up everywhere and everyone else was scurrying like mad, people were closing their awnings and racing to put their chairs and tables inside, I kept on walking slowly in the downpour, I didn’t stop, and by the time I got to the subway station, I was soaked all the way through.