Let Sleeping Dogs Lie

By Michael Farwig

The grave didn't need to be deep.  It was 3 A.M., and the ground was hard from the frost, and his shovel was cheap and inadequate, and his arms ached from the weight of the night and all the nights that came before.  He just needed to dig out some earth, a small hole, somewhere to lie her down in.  Dolly was only a dog after all.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered to the limp heap of white fur curled at his feet.  She didn’t wag her tail or whine like he wanted her to.  Her vacant eyes lolled upwards toward a cloud-covered, starless night sky.

Cole struck the army-issued entrenching tool into the frozen dirt and shoveled out another small scoop of Tennessee clay.  

He knew none of the other men would ever bother to bury their losers.  When he got to the ring of junk cars earlier that night, he saw the bonfire of burning carcasses, watched the mangled corpse of the dog who lost the bout before Dolly’s get thrown on top of that canine pyre.  A man sprayed lighter fluid, the flames burst high; the smell of singed hair, charred meat, and extinction filled the night.  

Burn pit.  Those bright orange plumes and onyx black whirlwind clouds.  The memory of the other place of animal husks and death rose up, mixed in with the smoke.  It strangled him, choked him, the way memories from over there always would.

He looked down at Dolly again.  The wild Afghan Hound he brought home from his deployment lay still at his feet.

 “It wasn’t supposed to be like that,” he said, looking past her, into a vacant farmer’s cornfield.  “I didn’t think you would lose.  I don’t know why.  I’m a fucking loser.  Why should my dog be any different?”  Gold cornstalks of late Autumn’s harvest swayed in the night air.  Cole shivered.  Dolly’s fur bristled with the wind, then settled back down.

 A fucking loser.  That’s what everybody always called him.  It was one of the last things his ex said as she kicked him out of their apartment after he got back from Afghanistan.  Before that, it was the drill sergeants in Basic Training.  The boys in his high school, a coach on his baseball team, his own father.  Fucking loser.  The word followed him around, echoed through the years, became the inescapable noise of his own inner voice.  Loser.  

He looked at Dolly again, her mutilated body, her torn and bitten face.  Why didn’t he take that word ‘loser’ for what it was?  Not an admonition: a warning.  Those people weren’t being cruel; they were trying to do him a kindness. Make him understand the fundamental facts of his life.  Others might win; he was always meant to lose.  

He shoveled another scoop of dirt. 

It was hard work, and sweat broke out on his forehead even with the icy coolness of the night.  He shivered again, and when he went to wipe the sweat away, the back of his hand brushed against his burn scars. They were still new and foreign to him.   Large braided ridges of white and pink flesh cascaded down his eyebrow to his cheek, where they forked into the many tributaries of his injury.  One gully of raised skin surged down his neck in a jagged, whitewater flow.  Another trickle meandered back to his half-eroded ear.  A few rivulets wrapped around the side of his skull, scouring hair and skin as they went.   

Freak, the boys at the dog pit had called him.  Twisting Loser into a different five letters with the same meaning.

“Look at this fucking freak,” one of the men at the ring yelled as Cole tried to make his way past.

“This ain’t a place for therapy dogs, Two-Face,” another said, laughing at his own joke. 

The men circled him, a Highway One ambush.  Dolly backed up, hackles raised, teeth bared.  She gave a low, throaty growl.  The men just laughed. 

“The bitch has more fight than Lizard Man here.”  

“Looks like Lizard Man already lost his fight with a campfire.”

Potshots.  Snipers. Harsh words and rattling gunfire.  He was always too slow to respond, could never see the attackers before they took their shot.  It was all his fault.  

“Who the fuck are you?” A blast cutting through that machine gun hail.  The circle of men opened, and a gruff, greying man stepped forward.  Cole saw in the dim campfire light the glint of a Second Infantry Division tattoo on his forearm.  The dancing flames twisted Indian Head emblem’s stare into something angry.  Accusatory.  It knew what he had done, what he had failed to do.

“Does that one ear work, Freak?  I said ‘Who the fuck are you?”  

“Ricky’s friend.  He told me I could make some money here.”  The words grated like sand in Cole’s mouth.  He knew Ricky would never have called himself a friend, especially not after what happened.

“Ain’t Ricky dead?  Got himself blowed up in some shithole in Iraq?”

“Afghanistan.  Shot through the neck,”  Cole corrected in a choking whisper.  It didn’t matter.  The man didn’t hear.  “My fault,” he confessed.  The man didn’t hear that either.
“Well, Ricky weren’t wrong.  There’s money to be made here.  But only on your dog.  And only if they win.”  The Bearded Man broke into a wide grin, a gold tooth shining like exposed wire in the firelight.  “And as they say: if this is your first night at Fight Club, you have to fight.”  Everyone roared with laughter.  Cole shivered.  Dolly looked up at Cole, and he led her into the ring.

Ricky had told him about this place.  That much was true.  It was on one of their long drives in the blankness of an Afghan desert road.  ”My Pa used to fight dogs,”  he said.  His words came from far away in the turret of the MAT-V, their Army truck, whipped with the wind, folded in with the static of their intercoms.  They had just passed by another rotting animal corpse, a skeletal donkey split open at its ribs, and it must’ve reminded Ricky of home and his dad and everything he had run away from.  “Out by the Putnam Junkyard.  He used to take some of our mutts out there.  Had a mean ol’ bitch of a Rott that never lost.  He loved that dog.  Probably more than he loved me.”  They all stared into the gaping wound of the donkey, looking for the glint of metal or wires from its entrails as they passed.  

”You’re from Putnam?” Cole ventured after they drove by.  He rarely spoke, in the truck or out of it.  But that small detail had him intrigued.

”Yeah.  Born and raised.”

“I’m from Chattanooga.  Only two counties over.  Small world, right?”  Cole laughed.  Ricky didn’t return it.  

”The world ain’t that small.  Two counties make a helluva a lot of difference.”  Cole opened his mouth to speak, then closed it quick.  He knew there was nothing else he could say.  Loser.

”I loved that dog too,” Ricky said to himself, his whisper amplified by their radio, his naked thoughts laid bare.  Cole was ashamed for him, but neither Ricky or their Sergeant sitting in the commander’s seat seemed embarrassed.

”There’s no love like that between man and canine,” Sarge said.  Just like that, he formed the bond Cole had tried and failed at.

Another scoop of his shovel.  The moon was high now, and the wind picked up, freezing Cole despite the exertion.  Cole was going deeper, the ground more rocky.  The small hole he had planned to bury Dolly in was now past his knees and plenty wide, but he couldn’t seem to stop.  His arms ached, and he was so cold he wondered if hypothermia was setting in, but he continued on, in a trance.  He struck the ground and scooped.  Strike, shovel, repeat.  Strike.  Shovel.  Repeat.  The rhythmic noises made music in the silent night.

Yip, yip.  Howl!  A coyote’s call joined his shovel’s chant.  Another coyote closer answered.  Then another.  

A pack, he thought.  A squad.  A team.  It was what he had been looking for when he joined.  The men at the ring had it.  Ricky and Sarge, the boys from his Varsity ball team.  So easy for everyone else.  So hard for him.  The only pack he ever had looked at him now, her stare piercing.

What had he hoped to gain by bringing Dolly to those fights?  He tried to remember his reasons now, but when he attempted to grab onto one, they slipped through his fingers like water.  Like blood.  The money wasn’t enough to improve his circumstances.  He lived in his car, and that last one hundred dollars he wagered wasn’t going to change anything.  It wouldn’t bring back his girlfriend.  It wouldn’t bring back Ricky.  But still, he had gone.  

I loved that dog.  He could almost hear Ricky in the wind.  He wasn’t sure if it was the thought or cold that made him shiver.  He was racked with the shakes and close to blacking out.  He worried he wouldn’t be able to complete the grave, even though it was already deep enough and done.

”I’m sorry,” he said again, as if that could make up for everything.  As if digging more would somehow absolve him of his guilt.  “I’m sorry,” he whispered, but this time he didn’t look at her.

It had been Ricky who had seen Dolly first.  ”Movement on the perimeter,” he called from a tower on their FOB. “Tower 2, you got eyes on that?”  

Cole, who was in Tower 2, didn’t have eyes on.  Never had eyes on anything.  He had been daydreaming.  Of what, he couldn’t recall.  Not of his girlfriend, who sent fewer and fewer letters, or of his dad at home.  He’d just been lost in the night sky, something infinite and undefinable.  

When he heard his tower number called, he scanned his sector for whatever Ricky had seen.  When he looked out past the fields, there was nothing, but he swung his night vision down,  and there, a white blur in all that murky green.  It was approaching the barbed wire.

“Eyes on,” Cole radioed.  He raised his rifle and pointed it at the white smear.  It could be a Talib, trying to breach their base in the night.  Could be a kid looking through all the pieces of trash and debris they threw into the ditch, their garbage moat where Afghan children sometimes found chocolate bars or half-eaten MREs.  Worthless to the soldiers, gold to the village children.  The white spot moved closer.

”Hey!” Cole shouted.  “Get out of there!  Get out, or I’ll shoot!”  He hadn’t fired his weapon yet on the deployment.  The thought nauseated him.  The thing came closer, and Cole centered his sights on it.  He tensed his arm and tried to imagine the rifle range with the green pop-up plastic targets.  Inhale, exhale, smooth squeeze.  Bang, the target goes down.  Acid burned in his rolling stomach, imagining it.

“Get the fuck out of here!  Get out, or I’ll shoot!”  His yells echoed out and out into the empty night.  Out to where his daydream had been.  The thing didn’t seem to notice him.  It moved closer, got brighter in the night vision’s emerald world.  He couldn’t make out what it was.  He tried imagining the target again as he put the stock of his rifle to his cheek.  Instead, he thought of his Dad.  Loser.  He could almost hear the whisper.  He squeezed his finger gently on the trigger.  

A burst of radio static almost made him fire.  Ricky’s voice ripped through.  “Tower 2, don’t shoot. Jesus, it’s just a fuckin’ dog.”

Cole moved his night vision back up on his helmet and took a breath.  Staring at the spot, he blinked, and blinked again, until his vision returned and the silhouette took the form he now knew to expect.  A dog.  A giant Afghan mutt.  He lowered his rifle, and the dog slipped under the barbed wire, found something left over, and began to eat.

When he came to the front gates, the squad adopted the hound.  Gave him cookies, muffins, and water and set up a place for him to sleep.  The massive beast became their mascot, following them on foot patrols, waiting at the gates for them when they came back from vehicle convoys.  They thought it brought them luck, and they all gave Cole hell for almost killing her.

Ricky was the one who named her.  “Dolly.  Like Dolly Parton.  She’s blonde and beautiful just like her.”  The dog panted in the heat in seeming agreement, and Cole looked on from the outside of the group.

Another shovel and another.  He was digging faster now, hacking through tree roots, clanging against solid rock.  He struck the ground hard, trying to break through, trying to hurt it.  “Fuck you,” he muttered as he scooped out another shovel full.  “Fuck you, Ricky.  Fuck you, Sarge.  Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you.”  

Dolly stared at him, almost at the same level now.  One eye was bloodshot, the other tore open.  Another gust of wind.  Another shiver.  He shook violently all the way through to his bones.  Chill blains burned his hands.  The world was going black, and he was getting tired.  He shoveled on anyway, Dolly’s face staring at him the same way Ricky’s had.

It was a black night, one like this one, or the night Dolly came.  A night patrol in that Wizard of Oz jade world.  And they had been walking down that non-yellow brick sandy road for what felt like a very long time.  Walking forever without getting any closer to an end.  Cole had started to drift into another daydream, somewhere far away.  When the shot rang out, he didn’t even hear it at first.  Soundless, he just watched Ricky fall in front of him.  Fold down, crumple into the earth like one of those targets at the range.

”CONTACT,” Sarge screamed.  It was the first thing Cole heard, and Sarge threw him into the dirt.  Cole didn’t have to swing his rifle to the ditch Sarge pointed at.  It was his sector.  He should’ve already seen him.  My fault.  

He moved with the rest of the squad, advanced when Sarge told him to, followed the react to contact battle drill to the letter.  When he got close enough, he could see the sniper’s position in the ditch.  He raised his rifle and this time didn’t hesitate.  He fired his first shot of the deployment, not thinking of the targets, or his dad, or anything.  Only seeing the man and his eyes.  Even through the night, he thought he could see the Talib’s eyes.  They looked the same as Dolly’s eventually would.  The same as Ricky’s.

”You did good, Private,” Sarge told him later.  “You did good.  You killed the bastard.”  He patted Cole on the back.  When Cole didn’t reply, he pulled his hand away.  “You did everything you could do.”  But they both knew he hadn’t done everything.  Dolly slept by Ricky’s empty bunk for the rest of the deployment.

Sarge died later on, an IED that there was no way to see.   The same IED that gave Cole all of his scars.  It was just him in Fireteam Bravo now.  Him and Dolly, heading home.  Alone, he had thought.  Alone.  Loser.  Freak.  

Everything after was a blur.  Physical therapy, rehab, coming home.  His girlfriend didn’t love him anymore now that he was ugly, hadn’t loved him even when he was whole.  And somehow his dad still wasn’t proud, and nobody cared about the Purple Heart in his drawer or the flag he kept folded under his bed.  All he had was Dolly.  And Dolly was Ricky’s dog. 

Strike.  Shovel.  Repeat.

The memories from the deployment, from his life, ripped through him like .50 cal fire, faster and faster as he shoveled now out of control.  They tangled themselves up with the memories of tonight, concertina wire ripping them open, sticking them together in a jumbled-up mess.  Ricky laughing from the turret, Dolly yelping as the dog bit her.  The gunshot in the still night air, Dolly lying her head against Cole’s leg on the drive to the ring.  The men’s howling laughter.  His dad yelling at him in a drunken rage.  The IED exploding.  Gunfire.  Teeth cracking through ribs.  The whoop of men cheering, laughing.  Screaming.  Yelping.  Dying.  All the dying.  His mother dying.  Ricky dying.  Sarge dying.  Dolly dying.  Loser.  Loser.  Loser. Loser.  Loser.

He struck the shovel again and again, and he didn’t stop until he found he couldn’t lift his arm anymore.  He looked around, exhausted and cold.  Dolly was above him now.  The grave was deep, and it was wide.  It was a good grave.  Cole thought it might have been the only good thing he had ever done.  

He pulled Dolly to the edge and heaved her down.  For a moment, he stood there swaying.  Then he lay down next to her, pulling her close in the night. 

“I’m sorry,” he said for the last time.  His body gave one last shudder, then slowly, it stopped.  

Above them, the night stretched on, empty and black like all the other nights.  

****

Michael Farwig is an Afghanistan war veteran, a retired staff sergeant, and a Purple Heart recipient.  After being wounded in combat, he pursued writing to explore his experiences at war and the long journey home.  He earned his MFA in Creative Writing from Western Michigan University.  His fiction has been published in the Iowa Review, and his non-fiction in Proud To Be: Writing By American Warriors Volume 10.  He is currently querying his debut novel.