The Christmas Dog (2 page)

As Betty sat there, unwilling to get out and see what the scrape on her car looked like, she replayed the man’s list of faults. And they were many. Right from the start, he’d stepped on people’s toes. With absolutely no consideration for his neighbors’ ears or sleeping habits, he had used his noisy power tools in the middle of the night and played his music loudly during the day. Of course, these habits weren’t quite so obnoxious when winter came and everyone kept their windows shut. But how many times had Betty gotten up for her late-night glass of milk only to observe strange lights and flashes going on behind Jack’s closed blinds? Sometimes she worried that Jack’s house was about to go up in flames, and perhaps the whole neighborhood along with it. She would ponder over what that madman could possibly be doing. And why did he need to do it at night? What if it was something immoral or illegal? For all she knew, Jack Jones could be a wanted felon who was creating bombs to blow up things like the county courthouse or even the grade school.

Betty removed her keys from the ignition and reached for her purse and Bible. She slowly got out of the car, and out of habit ever since that notorious Jack Jones had moved into the neighborhood, she securely locked her car’s doors. Then she sat her purse and Bible on the hood of the car and peeked around the right side to see the front fender. The horizontal gash was about a foot long with a hook on one end, causing it, strangely enough, to resemble the letter J. Betty just shook her head. It figured . . .
J
for Jack.

So she continued to obsess over him—and over today’s sermon and her futile prayer. How
was
it possible to love someone so completely disagreeable and inconsiderate and downright evil? She grunted as she struggled to lower the garage door.
Really
, she thought as she stood up straight,
even Pastor Gordon would be singing a different tune if he
was forced to live next to Jack Jones.

Betty let herself into the house, turning the deadbolt behind her—another habit she had never felt the need to do before Jack Jones had entered the picture. She set her purse and Bible on the kitchen table, then went to the sink and just stood there. She gazed blankly out the window. It was a bleak time of year with bare trees, browning grass, dead leaves—all in sepia tones. A nice coat of snow would make it look much prettier.

But she wasn’t looking at her own yard. Her eyes were fixed on her neighbor’s backyard. As usual, it looked more like a dump site than a delightful place where flowers once flourished and children once played. The dilapidated deck was heaped with black plastic trash bags filled with only God knew what. And as if that were not bad enough, there were pieces of rubbish and rubble strewn about. But the item that caught Betty’s eye today, the thing that made her blink, was the pink toilet!

Betty recognized this toilet as the one that had once graced Gladys Spencer’s prized guest bathroom. It had been a small, tidy bathroom with pink and black tiles, a pink sink, and a matching toilet. Betty had used it many a time when she’d joined Gladys and their friends for bridge club or baby showers or just a neighborly cup of coffee. Gladys had always taken great pride in her dainty pink guest soaps and her pink fingertip towels with a monogrammed
S
in silver metallic thread.

As Betty stared at that toilet, so forlorn and out of place in the scruffy backyard, she realized that time had definitely moved on. Betty could relate to that toilet on many levels. She too was old and outdated. She too felt unnecessary . . . and perhaps even unwanted.

Betty shook her head in an attempt to get rid of those negative thoughts. Then she frowned to see that last night’s high winds must’ve pushed the deteriorating fence even further over into what once had been the Spencers’ yard. Jack Jones would not be the least bit pleased about that. Not that she cared particularly.

Betty had long since decided that the fence, whether it was her responsibility or his, could wait until next summer to resolve. But if she could have her way, she would erect a tall, impenetrable stone wall between the two properties.

She filled her old stainless teakettle and tried to remember happier days—a time when she’d been happy to live in her house. She thought back to when Chuck was still alive and when they’d just moved into their new house in Gary Meadows. It had seemed like a dream come true. Finally, after renting and saving for eight years, they were able to afford a home of their own. And it was brand-new!

Al and Gladys Spencer had immediately befriended Chuck and Betty as well as their two small children with a dinner of burgers and baked beans. And that’s when the two men began making plans to build a fence. “Good fences make good neighbors,” Al said. Since Chuck and Betty’s children were still young, whereas Al and Gladys had only one child still at home who was about to graduate, it was decided that they’d put the fence directly on the Spencers’ property line, allowing the Kowalskis the slightly larger yard. “And less mowing for me,” Al joked. And since the city had no plans to use the public access strip, and there was no alley, it had all been settled quite simply and congenially. That is, until Jack Jones moved in.

Not for the first time, Betty thought she should consider selling her house. Depressed market or not, she didn’t need this much space. Besides that, the neighborhood seemed to be spiraling downward steadily. Perhaps this was related to tenants like Jack Jones, or simply the fact that people were stretched too thin these days, and as a result, home maintenance chores got neglected. Whatever the case, there seemed to be a noticeable decline in neighborhood morale and general friendliness.

It didn’t help matters that both her middle-aged children, Susan and Gary, lived hundreds of miles away. They were busy with their own lives, careers, and families and consequently rarely visited anymore. These days they preferred to send her airline tickets to come and spend time with them. But every time she went away, she felt a bit more concerned about leaving her home unattended—and with Jack Jones on the other side of the fence, she would worry even more now. Perhaps she should cancel her visit to Susan’s next month. She usually spent most of January down there in the warm Florida sun, but who knew what kind of stunts that crazy neighbor might pull in her absence? And who would call her to let her know if anything was amiss? There could be a fire or a burglary or vandalism, and she probably wouldn’t hear about it until she returned. A sad state of affairs indeed.

The shrill sound of the teakettle’s whistle made her jump, and she knocked her favorite porcelain tea mug off the counter, where it promptly shattered into pieces on the faded yellow linoleum floor. “Oh, bother!” She turned off the stove, then went to fetch the broom and dustpan and clean up her mess. She had never been this edgy before—at least not before Jack Jones had moved into the neighborhood. And she was supposed to love her neighbor?

2

Betty opened an Earl Grey teabag and dropped it in a porcelain mug that was still in one piece. As she poured the steaming water over it, she just shook her head. “Love your neighbor, bah humbug,” she muttered as she went to the dining room. This was the spot where she normally enjoyed her afternoon cup of tea and looked out into her yard as the afternoon light came through the branches of the old maple tree. But she had barely sat down by the sliding glass door when she glimpsed a streak of blackish fur darting across her backyard like a hairy little demon. She blinked, then stood to peer out the window. “What in tarnation?”

There, hoisting his leg next to her beloved dogwood tree, a tree she’d nurtured and babied for years in a shady corner of her yard, was a scruffy-looking blackish-brown dog. At least she thought it was a dog. But it was a very ugly dog and not one she’d seen in the neighborhood before, although she couldn’t be certain that it was a stray. With each passing year, it became harder and harder to keep track of people and pets.

She opened the sliding door and stepped out. “Shoo, shoo!” she called out. The dog looked at her with startled eyes as he lowered his leg, but he didn’t run. “Go away,” she yelled, waving her arms to scare him out of her yard. “Go home, you bad dog!” She clapped her hands and stomped her feet, and she was just about to either give up or throw something (perhaps the stupid dog was deaf and
very
dumb) when he took off running. He made a beeline straight for the fallen-down fence, neatly squeezing beneath the gap where fence boards had broken off, and escaped into Jack Jones’s yard—just like he lived there!

“Well, of course,” she said as she shut the door, locked it, and pulled her drapes closed. She picked up her teacup and went into the living room. “A mongrel dog for a mongrel man. Why should that surprise me in the least?”

She sat down in her favorite rocker-recliner and pondered her situation. What could possibly be done? How could she manage to survive not merely her loutish neighbor but his nasty little dog as well? It almost seemed as if Jack had sent the dog her way just to torture her some more. If a person couldn’t feel comfortable and at home in their own house, what was the point of staying? What was keeping her here?

It was as if the writing were on the wall—a day of reckoning. Betty knew what she would do. She would sell her house and move away. That was the only way out of this dilemma. She wondered why she hadn’t considered this solution last summer, back when Jack had first taken occupancy in the Spencer home. Didn’t houses sell better in the warmer months? But perhaps it didn’t matter. Still, she wasn’t sure it made much sense to put up a For Sale sign during the holidays. Who would be out house shopping with less than two weeks before Christmas?

“Christmas . . .” She sighed, then sipped her lukewarm tea. How could it possibly be that time of year again? And what did she need to do in preparation for it? Or perhaps she didn’t need to do anything. Who would really care if she baked cookies or not? Who would even notice if she didn’t get out her old decorations? Christmas seemed like much ado about nothing. Oh, she didn’t think the birth of Christ was nothing. But all the hullabaloo and overspending and commercialism that seemed to come with the holiday these days . . . When had it gone from being a wholesome family celebration to a stressful, jam-packed holiday that left everyone totally exhausted and up to their eyeballs in debt when it was over and done?

Betty used to love Christmastime. She would begin planning for it long in advance. Even the year that Chuck had died suddenly and unexpectedly just two days after Thanksgiving, Betty had somehow mustered the strength to give her children a fairly merry Christmas. They’d been grade schoolers at the time and felt just as confused and bereaved as she had. Still, she had known it was up to her to put forth her best effort. And so, shortly after the funeral, Betty had worn a brave smile and climbed up the rickety ladder to hang colorful strings of Christmas lights on the eaves of the house, “just like Daddy used to do.” And then she got and decorated a six-foot fir tree, baked some cookies, wrapped a few gifts . . . all for the sake of her children. Somehow they made it through Christmas that year. And the Christmases thereafter.

When her son Gary was old enough (and taller than Betty), he eagerly took over the task of hanging lights on the house. And Susan happily took over the trimming of the tree. Each year the three of them would gather in the kitchen to bake all sorts of goodies, and then they would deliver festive cookie platters to everyone in the neighborhood. It became an expected tradition. And always their threesome family was lovingly welcomed into neighbors’ homes, often with hot cocoa and glad tidings.

But times had changed since then. Betty had taken cookie platters to only a couple of neighbors last year. And perhaps this year she would take none. What difference would it make?

Betty set her empty tea mug aside and leaned back in her recliner. She reached down to pull out the footrest and soon felt herself drifting to sleep. She wished that she, like Rip Van Winkle, could simply close her eyes and sleep, sleep, sleep. She’d be perfectly happy if she were able to sleep right through Christmas. And then January would come, and she would figure out a way to sell this house and get out of this neighborhood. She would escape that horrid Jack Jones as well as the ugly mutt that most likely intended to turn her backyard into a doggy dump site.

3

A little before seven on Monday morning, Betty woke to the sound of someone trying to break into her house. At least that was what it sounded like to her. She got out of bed and pulled on her old chenille robe, then reached for the cordless phone as she shoved her feet into her slippers. Some people, like her friend Marsha, would’ve been scared to death by something like this, but Betty had lived alone for so many years that she’d long since given up panic attacks. Besides, they weren’t good for one’s blood pressure.

But the screen door banged again, and she knew that someone was definitely on her porch. And so she shuffled out of her bedroom and peered through the peephole on the front door. But try as she might, she saw no one. Then she heard a whimpering sound and knew that it was an animal. Perhaps a raccoon or a possum, which often wandered into the neighborhood. She knew it could be dangerous, so she cautiously opened the front door. She quickly reached out to hook the screen door firmly before she looked down to see that it wasn’t a raccoon or possum. It was that scruffy dog again. Jack Jones’s mongrel. The dog crouched down, whimpering, and despite Betty’s bitter feelings toward her neighbor, she felt a tinge of pity for the poor, dirty animal. And Betty didn’t even like dogs.

“Go home, you foolish thing,” she said. “Go bother your owner.”

The dog just whined.

Betty knelt down with the screen still between her and the dog. “Go home,” she said again. “Shoo!”

But the dog didn’t budge. And now Betty didn’t know what to do. So she closed the door and just stood there. If she knew Jack’s phone number, she would call him and complain. But she didn’t. She suspected the dog was hungry and cold, but she had no intention of letting the mongrel into her house. He looked as if he’d been rolling in the mud, and she’d just cleaned her floors on Saturday. But perhaps it wouldn’t hurt to feed him a bit. Who knew when Jack had last given him a meal?