The Dog That Whispered (2 page)

W
ILSON'S ONLY CLASS
that day was a master's-level graduate class, “Writing the Short Story,” that met on the fourth floor of the Cathedral of Learning, a massive stone tower done in the Late Gothic Revival style, the centerpiece of the University of Pittsburgh's Oakland campus.

Wilson hated the building.

Too overstated. Too big. Too European. It loomed. He didn't like looming. It saw too much. Like that tower with the big eye in
The Lord of the Rings
.

Wilson stepped into the classroom two minutes past the normal start time of 10:30. The phone call from his mother had upset his routine and he had missed his normal bus, the 9:37 61-A that traveled from Wilkinsburg through Squirrel Hill and then to Oakland. His normal bus usually got him to school at 10:07, with more than time enough for him to get a cup of coffee from the snack shop in the basement.

Horrible coffee, but better than anything else they sold.

For the past many months, and actually for his entire decades-long teaching career in the English department, Wilson had always been in class well before the class was to start. Students had grown accustomed to seeing him at the desk in front, his buttery-colored, well-worn leather satchel unsnapped and open in front of him, as if he was using it as a shield, his eyes on some paper or book or manuscript, barely acknowledging them until the exact proper time that the class was scheduled to begin.

It was obvious that Wilson was unaccustomed to being late and, worse, totally inept at giving socially plausible explanations as to why he was late—even though as a senior, fully tenured professor, he did not need to give excuses. In fact, the rule of thumb was that students should give a full professor at least fifteen minutes' grace before they packed up and headed out, glad to have an unexpected but excused release from class.

Two minutes was well within the margin of error, depending on the timepiece used to measure promptness.

“Sorry,” Wilson mumbled as he walked to the desk. “Sorry.”

It was also obvious that he was unaccustomed to apologizing.

“When one lives alone,” he wrote once in an article for the
Blue and Gold
, the campus literary magazine that was briefly and actually published on real paper and not just in the electronic cloud, back in the late 1970s, “there are few things done in private that one needs to explain, let alone apologize for. Solitude does wonders for one suffering from a guilty conscience.”

“It was a personal issue,” he stammered, not really sure of how much to share, what exactly to explain. This was new water for him to be swimming, or floundering, in.

“Not for me. My mother. And a dog.”

Then he looked up at the students. Most of them appeared befuddled and confused, as if none had really expected any sort of explanation.

“It's a long story,” Wilson said, taking a breath, pausing, regrouping, “and this class is the short story.”

A chuckle or two bubbled up, more out of social expectation than actual mirth.

“So if you want the entire tale, you'll have to take my ‘Art of the Novel' class next semester.”

Another weak chuckle followed.

Then Wilson took a deep breath, as if sloughing off whatever travails had caused him to be late that morning.

“We are reading the first draft of our first-person pieces. I have noted my comments on each. But let's see what the class has to say.”

He looked down at the small stack of papers on the desk.

“Ms. Fodor, since yours is on the top of the pile, we will start with your piece.”

As she began to read her two-page piece—the maximum length allowed for the assignment (“It forces a writer to be careful with words”), Wilson put his thoughts on autopilot, as it were. He never liked having students read their work. Most of the writing was not really all that good, especially in a first draft, but year after year the students claimed in their end-of-class evaluation that the comments from their peers in class were the most beneficial part of the course.

As he listened, or half-listened, something in Wilson's thoughts, deep down, deep in the back, buried, or nearly buried, startled to jangle—a shrillness, an alarm of sorts began to erupt.

It always sounded like his mother's voice, off in the distance. Shouting. Pleading. With explosions.

Wilson twisted in his seat as he tried to ignore his internal warning, a warning he had experienced on occasion before this moment, and instead he shifted his thoughts to the crisis at hand—his mother and a dog.

So my mother got a dog
, he mused.
That's really odd. Even for her. I'm just glad that this is her problem and not mine. That is, if she really has a dog and it's not some elaborate hallucination.

And that's when the warning began to sound louder, and louder, until it was the only thing that Wilson could hear, and he involuntarily shuddered.

He suddenly realized that Ms. Fodor was finished.

He took a deep breath, trying to push the warning away.

“So, who wants to give Ms. Fodor some advice, or reaction, to what she read?”

Wilson waited until Ms. Davenport, a mousy, reticent third-year grad student in creative writing, shyly raised her hand and began a long and overly polite gutting of virtually every aspect of the work just read.

Such are the ways of an unexpected ambush
, Wilson thought and resisted the urge to offer a wry, knowing smile.

“Well, Thurman, Wilson will be right here after he teaches his little class at school.”

Thurman growled an acknowledgment.

Gretna smiled and patted him on the head. She wasn't always exactly sure what he was saying, but she knew he was talking to her, or at least trying to talk to her.

“He'll take care of you, Thurman.”

Thurman looked up, a quizzical expression on his face.

“He will, Thurman. If nothing else, Wilson is a man of his word. He'll take care of this.”

She fell heavily into the couch facing the TV. Thurman walked up to her with an expectant look.

“Sure, Thurman, jump up. I've already said it was okay.”

Thurman launched himself up and tumbled into a puddle of legs and paws next to Gretna, eventually maneuvering his head so it fell into her lap.

“Such a nice boy,” she said and stroked his head.

Thurman growled happily, a low throaty growl, as if he was clearing his throat while trying to talk.

Gretna stopped.

“I won't be sad, Thurman, when you leave. Well, maybe a little, but you'll be with Wilson. We can still see each other.”

Thurman growled in response.

“He's nice. You'll see. But he's lonely.”

Thurman growled more, and longer, more nuanced.

“I know. I have told him to get married. He hasn't. He doesn't even date. Hasn't for years. He never listened to me—not about this.”

Thurman growled and rasped and rumbled.

“I know. I always wanted a grandchild. Wilson should have a child. But I don't think that will ever happen. Not now.”

Thurman squirmed about and eventually stood up on the couch, a little wobbly since the couch was very soft and giving. He looked directly at Gretna and rumbled, growled, mumbled.

“Thurman, you shouldn't say things that aren't true.”

Thurman did say that, and growled it again.

“Thurman, are you sure? You're not making it up?”

Thurman did not speak, but nodded his head.

“Really sure?”

Thurman nodded again.

Gretna hesitated, then leaned over and gave the big black dog a very gentle but all-encompassing hug. After a long moment, she whispered into Thurman's ear, “Where did you come from, anyhow?”

And Thurman leaned back, smiled, and growled his answer.

Wilson used his key to enter his mother's apartment, after signing in at the desk in the lobby. He probably did not have to, as he had seen other visitors just waltz in and wave, but the sign said
ALL GUESTS MUST SIGN IN
, and Wilson was a guest and not a resident, so he signed in, like he had done every other time he visited his mother in her second retirement home. Her first attempt at retirement had been in Florida, where after only two years she had declared it “too hot, too many bugs, and way too many old people.”

She had returned to the punitive winters of western Pennsylvania, to a scarcity of old friends still alive, and most important, to her only son.

In the center of the rug in her living room lay a large splooch of a black dog—big paws, big frame, gentle eyes, and a lunatic's sort of grin, most likely carrying a fair amount of Labrador genetic heritage in its blood. The dog maintained his odd smile, then scrambled to his feet, growling, explaining. He took two steps, then sat down, as if to wait for proper introductions.

Gretna shuffled in from the bedroom.

“Hello, Wilson. I see you have met Thurman.”

Wilson shrugged.

“I suppose. At least he didn't lunge at me and try to eat me for lunch.”

Gretna hugged her son.

“Don't be ridiculous, Wilson. Thurman is a gentle soul.”

Wilson slowly shook his head in disdain.

Well, at least the dog was real. That was a relief. Sort of.

“Why Thurman, Mom?”

His mother sniffed at what she must have considered an impertinent question.

“Why Thurman? I don't know. That's what the people at the animal shelter called him. I didn't think it would be right if I tried to change his name. Maybe he likes it. Hard to know with a dog, I guess. He comes when I call him, though, so he must know it by now. He smiles when he hears the name Thurman.”

As if to demonstrate, Thurman looked up and did actually appear to be smiling. His tail activity increased as well.

Wilson stayed where he was. He did not want to come closer. He was not fond of dogs. He never had a dog growing up, not that he'd wanted one, his father being an otolaryngologist, specializing in allergies and sinus issues, who claimed that dogs were a boon to his practice.

“No, Mother, that wasn't quite the question. I meant, why a dog at all? Why now?”

Wilson often found himself pulling his mother back to pay attention to the subject at hand from wherever it was she wandered off to.

“Wilson, honey, there's that ad on TV that shows all those sad dogs who didn't have homes. I couldn't resist. They are all alone. They need a home. All of them have such big eyes. And they are so…sad. Thurman wasn't, though. It was like he knew me from before. I don't know. Maybe. So I took a cab there, to that shelter over by Mellon Park, and I came back with Thurman. He's such a sweetie, isn't he?”

“He looks demented.”

Wilson's mother glared at her son. As did Thurman, in a dog-judgmental way.

“He is not. He's sweet and one of God's creatures. Don't be that way. Like your father. God loves all creatures, great and small, you know. Be a Christian about this.”

This was familiar ground for Wilson and his mother. He decided to remain neutral.

“I didn't know that you could have a dog here, Mother.”

That was when he saw her lips start to tremble and her eyes grow watery.

“I know. I didn't know. The director came up yesterday and told me. No dogs. I can't keep him. He was nice about it—but rules are rules. That's why I called you.”

“Why? Take him back. Tell them you made a mistake.”

Thurman the dog warbled and growled in response, as if he was answering Wilson's remark.

“I can't, Wilson. I just can't. I can't do that. Not to that sweet face.”

Wilson drew in a deep breath.

“You want me to take him back?”

Then his mother did begin to cry.

“No. No. You can't.”

“Then what?”

His mother drew herself up to her full five-foot-three-inch stature, squared her shoulders, dabbed at her eyes with a tissue she always seemed to have in her hand, and shook her head.