January 11th 2022

Sit and Speak

This is a piece of short fiction I wrote in 2021 going into 2022.

Caroline was staring more than usual. That was the start of it: staring more and a glint in her coat. He changed her food from dry to wet. The staring continued. She watched Boone eat his eggs in the morning, her eyes never on the eggs, but on him, his eyes. She shot daggers as if he'd wronged her, but he didn't think he'd wronged her. Nights, she watched him from staircases and corners. There she was when he turned on the light in his bathroom. Gawking at him.

“Girl, are you all right?” Boone said. He almost stuttered the last word.

Not a blink, not a flinch. Breathing, staring. Then: a sound, deep and guttural, reaching deeper before collapsing into a wheeze.

“Maybe we'll see what César's doing tomorrow,” he said. “Then we'll go to the dog park.”

The next day, Boone drove Caroline to see his César. Before retirement, César had worked as the premier equine veterinarian in Bakersfield. That was how he and Boone met: Boone was cleaning up after the horses at one of the stables where César made his rounds. They both got along well with animals, and they both swallowed tequila without flinching.

“She's got four legs,” César would say. “I can take care of anyone with four legs.”

As he held his stethoscope to Caroline's chest, he put his finger up to his mouth to quiet the younger man. The tabletop clock next to César's microwave ticked like it was counting Caroline's heartbeats too.

“I didn't say anything,” said Boone.

“You were going to,” said César, smirking.

César held Caroline's face in his hands and gazed into her eyes. She didn't move.

“What kind of noise was it you said she made?” César said, without breaking eye contact with the dog.

“I don't know,” Boone said. “It was like a rumbling or something. In her throat.”

César put his stethoscope on her neck. He patted her back and told her to speak.

“She doesn't know that one,” said Boone.

Not missing a beat, Caroline made a single loud bark.

“Guess she's been doing some independent study,” César said.

Boone said, “She's a very smart dog.”

“Social dogs always are. Let's get you down,” said the veterinarian. He lifted her, all seventy pounds of the German Pointer, looping his forearm around her broad chest, and placed her on the ground, all ginger and gentility.

“What do you think?” Boone asked.

César said, “She sounds fine to me. It's a funny noise, sure. Big for her breed, but that's all right. How old is she now? Going on two years?”

“Yes,” said Boone.

“What are you worried about?” César asked.

“I don't know,” Boone said. “It's just concerning. I'd like it if she'd stop. That would be better.”

César nodded. “Spayed. Got her shots. Coat's as shiny as I've ever seen on a German Pointer. Beautiful color, very healthy. I'm sure it's nothing. Just some late growing pains. She's probably lonely. Take her out to see some other dogs,” he said. “But who knows, right?”

“Very reassuring,” Boone said.

“Now you want reassurance? I thought you came here for veterinary care,” said César. “It will be okay. She's healthy.”

“Then I won't do anything,” said Boone.

César chuckled. “You know what you can do? You can get this dog out of the house more. I bet that's what's going on with her. Too much of you. She wants some time with the one who picked her out. She misses su mamá.”

“You don't think I do?” Boone said.

“No,” said César. “I know that you do. Does she?”

Boone shrugged and said nothing. He and Vera had talked. She said she would stop by to see their dog, his dog, the dog she got for him – sometime soon. Boone would call her on his drive home, and although she wouldn't pick up her phone, she would text him something like “See you two soon!” or “Dinner week after next?” When she had told him she wanted to keep him and the dog in her life, he had replied that wouldn't last. The gaps between visits became bigger, but there were visits still.

Virginia was becoming less important to them both. That was their shared stable: ten years prior, Boone was twenty-eight, Vera twenty-six. She was a week out of her Master's in Social Work when her boyfriend, whose checks were small but crucial those last last four years of school, said to her, “I don't much like Norfolk.” All their parents retired and moved away further south, they went west together.

“How about the job search?” said César.

Again, Boone could say nothing.

César smiled at his drinking buddy, who since losing Vera had become more like a son than ever. “No lover, no job, and no art. All of these problems, my boy, and you manage to invent an extra,” he said. “The dog will live. Don't worry yourself about it anymore.”

II

Later that night, Boone watched TV while Caroline sat in front of it, her back turned to the picture.

“Helen Hunt and Paul Reiser just aren't doing it for you tonight,” Boone said.

The house smelled like cigarettes, a habit he revived once Vera left, and the lemon chicken he cooked for dinner, the one recipe of his she always hated. There was a half-eaten piece of the chicken a plate between Boone's legs. Caroline's eyes never drifted toward it. Every time Boone lit another cigarette, he checked for movement. She was a gargoyle. Her eyes, though stony, were accusing.

As Mad about You ended and Friends began, Boone stood up and took his plate into the kitchen. He rinsed the half-eaten chicken into the garbage disposal and bent over to put the plate into the dishwasher. On his way back up, he heard it again, a noise now familiar, that deep and guttural sound. His back straightened. His shoulders tensed. His eyes widened.

“Caroline?” Boone said.

He rushed over to her and knelt to her height. Like César, he held her face and met her stare. He patted her shoulders and cupped the loose skin on her neck.

“I don't know if César's still up right now,” he said. “I'll try him.”

Boone's phone was in the kitchen. He walked there without ever taking his eyes off the dog, whose eyes were on him. She hiccuped, and he froze. False alarm: the staring and the motionlessness continued. He picked up his phone and dialed his friend César.

“Pick up,” he said.

The clock read eleven. César was asleep. No veterinarian, equine or otherwise, would take a call this late.

“We'll just have to make it through the night,” Boone said. “See him in the morning. Okay, girl?”

That wheeze again, that sound beginning lower than her throat, a rumble, a churning inside her. Boone sighed and sat on the floor. He placed a steady hand on the valley of her spine.

“It'll be okay,” he said.

Broken, atonal, but distinct. She said, “Okay.”

Boone's ears twitched. He shook his head.

“What?” he said to his dog.

That wheeze, that awful wheeze. Then, “Okay.”

“Who's there?” Boone called out.

“Mama,” said Caroline, wheezing. “Mama.”

Boone knelt beside Caroline. He reached out his hand to pet her on the nape of her neck but recoiled before his skin and her fur made contact.

“Mama,” Caroline said.

Boone in his kneel took two steps back and toppled over. He jumped to his feet.

“Was that something else?” Boone said.

The corners of Caroline's lips twitched, like she was loosening gobs of peanut butter, one each for the first and second “ma,” followed by the wheeze. While she said the word, her eyes bulged. Boone shook his head in rhythm with the pulses the whites of her eyes made against their sockets.

“She could be saying ‘damper,’” Boone said. Then thought, Why would she be saying 'damper'?

Boone didn't sleep that night. In the morning, he called César, who after seeing video of Caroline saying “mama,” advised him to get “a new veterinarian or maybe some kind of researcher.” Instead, Boone told no one else about Caroline.

Three days after Caroline said her first two words, she said a third and a fourth: “hungry” and “outside.” Every new word, Boone would send a video of the dog to César. The men would confirm with each other what Caroline said, as they would have confirmed a tremor underfoot.

On the seventh day, Caroline told Boone that she was not only hungry, but hungry for “meat.” She ate her half of a medium-rare tenderloin steak in a dozen or so loud chomps. Then she asked for “water,” which she pronounced like “oughta” with a growl at the front. Boone started toward the faucet before she finished the second syllable.

Near the end of the third week, Caroline's vocabulary encompassed furniture, weather, and time (“day” and “night”), but no colors and no numbers. Boone counted seventy-nine words, including “bread” (her favorite snack), “sunny,” “cold,” “grass,” “tree,” “fence,” and “touch” (her standard request for pats and scratches). Caroline called doors “opens” and asked for “lights” whether she wanted a lamp turned on or a blind pulled up. Boone shuddered no less at the seventy-ninth word than at the fifteenth or the thirtieth.

After the eightieth word, Boone sat down in his kitchen, called César, and admitted that the secret might be too big to keep. César suggested that they contact four people: a biologist, a linguist, a journalist, and an attorney. Boone agreed and said they would start making these calls the next morning.

As Boone said good-bye to César, Caroline left him alone in the kitchen and took her seat in front of the living-room TV. From the kitchen, Boone could hear his dog say “movie.” He took three beef patties and a bag of Ore-Ida fries out of the fridge. Then, he turned on the oven. As the oven's coils' glow washed over Boone, he took out his phone.

“Food first, Caroline,” said Boone.

The patties and the fries in the oven, Boone sat down again and pulled out his phone. He opened the “News” app, and there was a picture of a dog, a German Pointer like Caroline. The headline: “Rover Want a Cracker? Meet the Canine Chatterbox!”

Boone clicked on the picture, and it moved.

“Water,” said the dog, in the same growling accent as Caroline.

Boone's phone rang, but he ignored it. César could wait. Then, it rang again. It was Vera, but she would have to wait too. There would be plenty of time to speak with them both. This story, which Boone noted was the top story, wasn't slipping anyone's mind.

The “talking owners,” as the talking heads dubbed them, became a national obsession over the following days. After Wally, the dog who said “water” on TV, went public, others followed. Five, then ten, then thirty, all verified. They were all German Pointers, from a puppy mill outside Yermo. Some said dozens of words, some only a few. A few could string together short sentences, like “We all eat” and “Car move.” Those ones went on the late-night shows, the others their local network affiliates. They all became celebrities. They all got sponsorships.

Dame, who could repeat most words with English, Spanish, and French phonemes, became a podcast regular. Her endorsements commanded five-figure paychecks: the Häagen-Dazs “Ice Cream to Bark Home about” and Apple Music “Feel Free to Woof Along” campaigns both got thousand-word write-ups in Ad Age. In Japan, the hottest new toy was a foot-tall, walking, talking animatronic modeled after Dame. A baker in Germany designed a sour-cherry sheet cake with her likeness on it and exported slices worldwide. After the song “Oh Dame, Won't You Say My Name” went to number one on the global charts, the five-figure paychecks became six-figure paychecks plus royalties.

I heard you say a hundred names

Oh, oh – oh, oh – oh, oh

Oh Dame, oh Dame

My name, my name, won't you

Say my name, my name, my name?

III

When Boone called Vera back, she didn't answer “Hello” but instead, “You know I got her at that puppy mill in Yermo.”

“I remember,” said Boone.

“So, then yes, she is?” said Vera.

Boone paused only long enough for Vera to finish a single, nervous gulp. He said, “You should come over for a visit.”

Vera took less than ninety minutes to drive the ninety-five miles from her home in Palmdale to Boone's apartment in Bakersfield. She glided along breakdown lanes and slid through questionable yellow lights. Her key still fit in the door. Although Boone heard Vera's footsteps, he was nonetheless later to greet her than Caroline was.

It was the first bark Caroline had let out in days.

“Shh,” Vera said. Then, “Please. Respectfully.”

The barking stopped. “Mama,” the dog said.

Vera's back stiffened. Her eyes flitted from Caroline to Boone.

“What did she say?” Vera asked Boone.

“You didn't hear? Tell her to say it again,” said Boone.

“No, that's all right,” said Vera. “Don't.”

Boone smiled. He said, “We were just about to eat. Would you like to sit with us?”

Vera nodded, and Boone waved for her to follow him into the kitchen. There, he pulled out a seat for Vera, who gasped slightly when Caroline walked into the kitchen after them.

“Chicken,” said Caroline, causing Vera to gasp another time, less slightly than the first.

“Have you heard that song about Dame, the one who can say words in French and Spanish too?” Boone said.

“What?” said Vera.

“You know,” said Boone. Then singing, “Won't you say my name, my name, my name?”

“Oh yes, I did hear that,” Vera said. “Terrible song.”

“They could be writing a song about Caroline,” said Boone.

“Could be dressing her in a funny little suit too, or whatever they do on those shows,” Vera said. “Teaching her to tell jokes and make a fool of herself.”

“So you do have an opinion. I wasn't sure you would,” Boone said.

“Of course. I want what's best,” Vera said. Now her eyes, which in the hallway couldn't look at Caroline, never left her at all.

“We don't have to take it that far. She could just make a couple of appearances,” said Boone.

“She's your dog, but it's not a good idea,” said Vera. “Do you see what's happening with that dog they say sounds like Paul McCartney? Shakespeare. He's over there rehearsing to play Laertes.”

“Hello? Hello?” There was a voice coming from Boone's pocket.

“What is that?” said Vera.

Boone took out his phone. “Pocket dial,” he said, hanging up. “Aunt Christina, from back home.”

Vera laughed. “Better be careful. Don't want to pocket dial the dog catcher and let him know what's going on over here.”

Boone ignored her. “You think an opportunity like this is going to come along again,” he said. “You think we can let this one pass us by? Another talking dog isn't just going to show up.”

“No, I would guess this is the only one you're going to get,” Vera said. “A lot of good it would do any of us, to get involved in this circus. Caroline is a special dog. She doesn't need all of this nonsense. None of us do. And what about the other thing?”

Although they were infrequent, there were rumors that several dogs traced to the Yermo puppy mill were in a Nevada government laboratory. One reputable newspaper published the story of a talking owner whose dog went missing.

“Mia would've never run away from home. She loved her life here,” the talking owner said. “She told me so.”

When the sun went down, Caroline commented on it: “Dark.” Vera and Boone had talked as they had talked on the phone in the days after Vera told Boone she was leaving him, comfortably quick and familiar. Boone smiled, as he had then, to see that he could still make Vera laugh, even though the laughs were more restrained and he could see, also as he had then, they were devastatingly kind.

“How is César?” she asked him.

“He's good. Enjoying retirement,” Boone said. “How are the kids?”

“Oh, you know,” Vera said. Ten years in, and she wouldn't go into private practice. Yes, he knew.

“I changed the sheets so you can have the bed,” Boone said.

“Oh?” said Vera. “You must have taken something I didn't mean from my tone when I called you.”

Boone smirked. He said, “I changed them while you were in the bathroom.”

IV

Vera left for Palmdale before Boone woke up. She left a note: “Fed Caroline.” A smile at the bottom.

A news article said ten of the talking German Pointers' owners signed deals to publish their memoirs. One of those ten announced a memoir and a sequel memoir, out by the next quarter. There were remixes of “Oh Dame, Won't You Say My Name.” Three documentary series and an animated feature all went into fast-track pre-production. Essays, gossip columns, and tweets upon tweets of celebration, praise, fandom, analysis, conspiracy theory. The talking dogs were everywhere.

Boone received a two-word text, from Vera: “Check news!”

“Already did,” he replied.

A second later: “Check again.”

Boone closed his text to open the “News” app. Before he could read anything, the sound of a car engine, then on top of it a knock at the front door, interrupted him. Another car engine, more knocking, and then chatter from the front yard. Boone called out “Hello?” but no one replied.

Caroline barked. The knock at the front door became an awkward, lapping pound. Boone inched toward the door, as if to compensate for all the tip-toeing and whispering no one was doing in the front yard. He sidled up to the peephole, and on the other side of it, there were people with cameras, notebooks, and microphones. Cars filled his driveway and both sides of the street. Through his yard and between the parked cars, in the yard across the street, and pouring in from both direction, there were more people, each with a camera, notebook, or microphone of their own.

Boone's phone rang: Vera. He ignored it and again opened the “News” app. There it was, under “Local”: “Virginia Woman Says Nephew Hiding Talking Pooch in Bakersfield,” the number-one story and only an hour old.

The knocks became pounds, and the pounds multiplied. Some of the pounds were scratches. They were unceasing. Then, the flashes: lighting up the front door and the windows of his first-floor apartment. Caroline's voice became hoarse from the barking.

“Quiet, Caroline,” Boone said. “You're gonna hurt yourself.”

“Stop,” said Caroline.

“Yes,” said Boone. “Stop barking. It's not doing anything.”

“Lights,” she said. “Lights. Noise.”

“I know, girl,” he said. “We'll ignore them. They'll go away.”

An hour later, the pounding had slowed down to a rap but the bursts of light were even more frequent. The crowd continued to grow. Two helicopters, one each for the news and police, joined the mob.

“Just show us the dog!” someone shouted. “Let us see!”

Boone called César.

“You calling me for a drink?” his friend answered the phone.

“No, César,” said Boone.

“I know,” said César. “Only joking. I can see your place here on the internet. It looks like a hostage situation.”

“César, what should I do?” Boone asked.

César said, “I don't know. I take care of animals when they get sick, not when people do.”

“What do they even want?” said Boone.

“They don't even know,” César said. “You think I do?”

Looking at the door, Boone said nothing in response. The knocking had stopped.

“I have to go,” he said.

Two more moments of silence; then, a single loud rap rap rap on the door.

“Boone,” came the voice. “This is your landlord. We can't have this on the property. I'm giving you five minutes to open up and come talk to these people out here. After that, I'm coming in.”

Boone looked at his phone: César was still there.

“Did you hear that?” Boone asked.

César said, “What?”

“I really have to go now,” said Boone.

“Bread,” said Caroline.

“Okay. Okay,” Boone said. “You want a snack. I'm gonna get you some bread. Then, we go out there and you don't say a word. You understand?”

Again: “Bread.”

Boone got two slices of bread from the kitchen. He gave her one, which she ate in three chomps, and then the other, which she savored a few chomps longer.

There was one loud, smashing knock on the door. “You got one minute, Boone.”

“All right,” Boone said. “This is it, Caroline.”

She looked up at him. Then, “Bread.”

Boone exhaled from his chest. “You can't do that right now. Okay? You have to be a good dog. We're going to go say hello to these people – or no, we're not going to say hello. We're going to go out there and say nothing. You're going to say nothing. I'm going to do all the talking.”

“Grass,” Caroline told the flustered man.

“Yes,” said Boone. “Grass. We're going to go walk in that patch of grass on the other side of the building, and you're not going to say say anything to anyone. Good. Let's go.”

Boone picked up Caroline's leash and hooked it onto her collar. Holding it in his right hand, he opened the door with his left. The cameras' flashes were like saltwater in his eyes, and he was a kid swimming in Norfolk again, rolling through the riptide.

The people in the crowd shushed each other. To the silence, Boone said, “Hello, everyone.”

Next to him, Caroline wheezed.

“I know that –” Boone started. His phone, vibrating in his pocket, interrupted. “One second,” he said.

It was Vera – a video call. He accepted it: “Hi, Vera.”

“Hey, I was just watching you,” she said. “On TV.”

“Oh?” said Boone.

“Yes,” said Vera. “I just thought I'd get a closer view.” She pursed her lips.

“Right. Yes,” Boone said. “Here, say hi to dog.” He faced the phone toward Caroline.

“Hi, baby,” Vera said. Then: “Who's a good dog?”

“Say something!” a woman shouted from the crowd.

“You're a good dog,” Vera said to Caroline.

Some else yelled out, “Talk!” That began the chant: “Talk! Talk!”

For ten minutes, the crowd chanted. A few people edged closer to Boone and Caroline, but the rest of the crowd pushed them back. As Caroline sat staring at the phone, Vera kept talking.

She never stopped, and the dog never started.

By sunset the helicopters had flown away. The crowd had gone too, taking their cars and their cameras with them. One police officer warned Boone not to cause a scene like that again.

“She really isn't one of the talking ones?” Boone's landlord asked him a few days later.

“You know,” Boone replied. “I can't say I've ever heard her talk a word in her life.”

Billy Gardner McIntyre