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S P O T

John Hill

    Robert threw another log on the fire. He felt rugged, as if he had felled the tree himself. He went back to writing. Spot looked at him with disappointment. He was his sister’s yellow more-or-less Lab. His name was ironic, in the way a black cat might be called Snowball or a fat man Tiny, because Spot was a uniform color, and, in fact, was free of spots. She’d had him for a year. Amanda had said that when Spot turned six months old he became judgmental.
    He also got more reclusive, if that’s a word that can be applied to a dog. He made none of the common canine displays of affection: kissing, tail wagging on arrival, none of it.
    Amanda and her husband wanted to see Montauk out of season. It was easy to get a room in one of the B-and-Bs—the ones that were open—even on the weekend. So Amanda asked Robert to look after Spot. No problem, he had said. But, the truth is, even taking Spot for a walk was a trial. The dog acted as if you were intruding on his privacy if you happened to glance over when he was doing his business. Robert learned to look away.
    Reading his work aloud was the easiest way to find mistakes. He read some snappy dialogue, followed by a fairly long aside in which Robert summarized what was going on. He decided that his story was a little hard to follow, and required some explanation.
    Spot gave the appearance of following every word. His head was half-cocked. When Robert began his explanation, he happened to look over at Spot, who was now shaking his head from side to side.
    When Robert finished, Spot howled, a normal sound coming from a Bassett, but unusual from a Lab. Robert saw Spot draw a breath, and then with what appeared to be great difficulty, say, “Show, don’t tell.”
    OK, that was probably like a memory of a long-ago workshop, manifesting in a unusual way, sort of like when one had the illusion of a sudden drop when falling asleep.
    Or maybe it was a sound from outside—a tree scraping the roof, something caused by the wind.
    Or maybe he had just gone a little—or a lot—mad. It’s been known to happen.
    Spot looked at him like he was waiting for an answer, or at least an acknowledgement. Robert decided to go with it. “What did you say, Spot?”
    “Show, don’t tell. You heard me. It’s not so easy making words come out of a dog’s throat, so don’t make me say things twice.”
    Robert considered this. It was harder to imagine that this was a tree scraping the roof.
    Spot howled again, a far away mournful sound. Then he said, quite plainly this time, “Who’s pitching in the All-Star game?”
    Robert decided to humor Spot, or his own illusion, whichever it was. He opened Google and typed “pitcher all star game.”
    Spot took another deep breath. It sounded like a sigh. “What are you doing?”
    “I’m looking it up on Google. It says that the winning pitcher was Masahiro Tanaka. He played for the Yankees.”
    “A lot’s changed since 2003,” Spot said with difficulty. He paused, obviously in pain. “Read me the rest of what you’re writing.” The “r” sound seemed especially difficult for Spot, and this sentence had three of them.
    Even if what Robert was hearing was his own unconscious, there was still something to learn.
    He began at the beginning. Twenty minutes later, he was done, although the section that Spot had objected to now seemed worse than he had imagined.
    Robert looked at the dog, waiting for a reaction.
    “You realize, I hope, that your main character, that woman, is completely unlikable. And she’s not an anti-hero (or should I say, anti-heroine). If she were, it would excuse anything. As it is, she’s just an unpleasant person—not someone I want to read about.”
    Robert decided to fully embrace the illusion. “Can you read?”
    “Of course,” Spot said, “but I can’t hold a book with my paws. If you put one on the floor I’d have no problem.”
    “Why should I listen to your criticisms anyway?” Robert said, thinking he had scored a point with his question.
    “I was an important literary figure. I’ve peed on better work than yours when I was being housebroken.”
    “I know a little something about literature and I don’t remember any dogs being important. Or even included.”
    “You‘ve heard of George Plimpton?” Spot said in a dog’s version of a patrician accent. Funny that Robert never noticed it before. “Well, that was me. I mean, that is me. It depends on how you look at it. I don’t think it’s supposed to be like this, that I remember my life as a human. But accidents happen.” He barked again. “Up until the time I was six months old, I was purely a dog. The funny thing is, the memory of that time is crystal clear. Then, as suddenly as throwing a light switch, my life as George Plimpton—who I was, who I am—came back to me.”
    “I’m supposed to believe that?”
    “I don’t care what you believe,” Spot said.
    Robert realized that he was now paying attention to the content of Spot’s words, and not thinking about something more important—why was a dog talking?
    “OK—a few questions. 1: So how come you’re here? And 2: Why are you talking?”
    Spot said, “The answer is I don’t know. Like I said, I don’t think it was intended to be this way. But I have learned this in the last hour: you shouldn’t plan on a career as a writer. There are a lot of better things you could be doing. Dentistry comes to mind.”
    Then he growled, and licked himself in a way no human could.

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