Short Leash

Front matter

60726

Y

Press) 2073) https://doi ing and Deliverance:

Chapter 1 October 200i1

THE ENGINE IS OFF. THE SEATBELT UNBUCKLED. THE WINDOWS ALL rolled up. There’s nothing left to do except get out of the car. But I dont. Instead, I sit there, staring out the windshield at the woods beyond the parking lot, my right hand squeezed into a fist around fourteen keys, a string of beads spelling “s.o.B.,” a solid brass circle, and a Big Boy juggling a hamburger in his chubby plastic hand.

Most of these keys are so old I can hardly remember what they unlock—an office at a job I no longer have, a house in a city I don't live in anymore. It doesn’t matter. What matters is the weight, the heft of the brass and steel, the fact that this key ring once was taken from my hands in the basement of a church by a self-defense instructor and held up for all the women in the room to see. “Take a look,” she said. “Now sis is an example of an excellent weapon.”

It’s also a liability. My purse is ungodly heavy. Most of my coat pockets have holes in them. The ignition tumbler on my car has had to be replaced. Twice. “You need to lighten this thing up,” the mechanic told me.

Not gonna happen.

s and Deliverance.

Gary, Janice. Short Leash: A Memoir of Dog Wi - a Press, 2013, https://doi.org/10. B1321/9781 611860726.

E-book, East Lansing, MI: Michigan State Univers Downloaded on behalf of Unknown Institution

Outside, leaves tumble across a browning meadow. Trees bow and bend in the breeze. In the backseat, a ninety-five pound dog paces back and forth, his tail thumping against the cloth seatbacks in a kind of canine Morse code: Wow! Oh wow! The park! I can't believe were here.

I can't believe it either. ’'ve been avoiding the place for years.

Walking a dog in a park should be simple. But for me and Barney, there’s nothing simple about it. We're handicapped, the two of us, in ways that are invisible. To see us walking down the road, you would never guess that the smiling black Lab at the end of the leash is a fur-covered time bomb or that the athletic-looking woman behind him is incapable of walking without a four-legged crutch. There would be no way of knowing that if a dog comes too close to Barney, he turns into a killing machine. Or that if I find myself in an isolated area or an empty street late at night, my mind enters a war zone where the enemies are everywhere and nowhere.

Barney sticks his head between the bucket seats and gently nudges my shoulder. “Alright alright,” I say. “I get the message.”

He’s the reason I’m here, after all.

I stash the keys and a canister of Mace in my pocket and reach back to hook the leash onto Barney’s collar. As soon as the door opens, he leaps onto the tarmac, pulling the retractable cord out to its full length so he can anoint a small bush at the edge of the lot. We set off in the direction of the picnic tables, following the tree line abutting the meadow. While he runs as far as the leash will let him, I move slowly, straining to catch any sound that will indicate the presence of a person or a dog. Birdcalls float through the air. Leaves scuttle across the ground. We're alone. At least I think so. No one else around except for me and my dog-shaped shadow.

With Barney leading the way, we walk a few yards and then a few yards more, and before I know it were almost to the picnic area. My steps are lighter, my breathing easier, when, suddenly, I hear the sound of shuffling leaves coming from the direction of the woods. Panic shoots through every nerve ending. I reach for the Mace in my coat pocket. As my fingers wrap around the canister, a squirrel darts out of the woods.

For a moment, all I can do is stand there, shock mixing with disbelief.

Jesus, Pm thinking. Spooked by a squirrel. The animal stops several yards s and Deliverance.

Gary, Janice. Short Leash: A Memoir of Dog Wi Press, 2013, https://doi.org/ 10.44321/9781611860726.

E-book, East Lansing, MI: Michigan Sta sity Downloaded on behalf of Unknown Institution away and watches Barney and me as he nervously gnaws on an acorn. His eyes keep flitting back and forth, and it’s obvious what’s on his mind: Am I safe? Should I stay? Or should I run? I study his face, noting the flat eyes set wide apart so he can watch for predators on either side.

“No need to worry,” I say to him. His eyes dart to the left. To the right. He’s not buying it. And I don’t blame him.

We turn toward the meadow, leaving the squirrel to his foraging. While Barney stops to sniff the leaves of a small holly, I take a deep breath and look around, amazed at how beautiful this place is, even on a gray day. My heart is still beating from the squirrel panic, but I hear the breeze moving through the treetops, shoosh, shoosh, like a mother calming a baby. My breathing slows down. I slow down.

A few minutes later, I’m about to pull the keys out of my pocket to head back to the car when I’m stopped by the slow-motion dance of a leaf in the wind. Even though the sky is cloudy, even though the leaves are yellowed and dull and beginning to curl at the edges, there is a profound beauty to this place. As I stand there, I hear branches dropping, squirrels running. And something else, something I haven't heard for a long time: the sound of silence in my head.

For a moment, I drink in the quiet like water, like a woman who has been thirsty for ages. The wind washes over the leaves—a great wave signaling something coming. Not a bad thing. Not a good thing. Just change.

I usually don’t welcome fall in Maryland. In fact, I dread it. As the light wanes, the dark begins pressing in against me. Sometimes it takes over.

This time though, it’s different. The leaves aren’t falling, they’re twirling and gliding, diving off branches like acrobats without a net. The sky is cloudy but alive, filled with birds moving in practiced groups among the treetops. Squirrels chide each other to get moving. The park is readying itself for a season of quiet. It feels like Pm being readied, too, though for what I’m not sure.

As we make our way toward the parking lot, Barney pulls ahead (an alpha habit I have tolerated, even encouraged, over the years), steering us back to the edge of the woods. When we approach the tree line, I pull him back. He looks at the woods, then at me, his eyes pleading, telegraphing the

Gary, Janice. Short Leash: A Memoir of Dog Walking and Deliverance.

m

-book, East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press, 2013, https://doi.org/10. 14321/9781611860726.

words he cannot say: Theres important information here; we must go on. He's trying so hard to be understood that I can’t refuse him. Despite my doubts about moving away from the meadow, I let his leash out and follow along. While he stops and sniffs a fringe of sticker bushes, my eyes wander into the woods. The wine-like scent of fermenting leaves and earth overwhelms my senses, and before I know it, I’m reeling like a drunken sailor on the decks to another time, another forest, and the roads and towns beyond it where there were no leashes, no collars, and no limits to where I would go.

When I was a girl, I dreamed away whole afternoons in the woods, setting up household in trees, listening to the symphonies of streams, making pretend castles out of termite-infested stumps. I looked into the soft brown eyes of deer before they ran, saw fox slink into bushes, watched snakes slither across sun-warmed rocks. When the sound of guns popped in the distance, I was scared only for the deer, never for myself. Nearby, acres of apple and pear orchards bloomed in the spring, and when fall came I picked as much as I could eat, stepping around the bees that swarmed in great numbers over rotted fruit on the ground. Later, I climbed out of bedroom windows to walk under the stars, rode around town in hippie vans, traveled out west with two pairs of jeans and $70.00 in my pocket. I camped under velvet skies in the desert, crashed in seedy apartments in strange cities, bummed cigarettes, bummed money, bummed rides with questionable men, and rode off with only the clothes on my back and some weed in my pocket. I was wildly, willingly, stupidly free.

And now, look at me. Afraid to walk in a park with my dog.

Pm a woman on a very short leash.

g and Deliverance.

Gary, Janice. Short Leash: A Memoir of Dog Wi Press, 2013, https://doi.org/10. 6321/9781 611860726.

E-book, East Lansing, MI: Michigan State sity Downloaded on behalf of Unknown Institution

Chapter 2 Fall 2001

BARNEY AND I RETURN TO THE PARK THE NEXT DAY AND THE DAY after that. And we keep coming back until three weeks of walks have piled up behind us. One morning, as we drive into the park, I see a new banner on the entrance gazebo announcing the upcoming Halloween Barkin’ Bash. It’s a dog party, complete with costume contests, prize giveaways, and free treats, but it’s a party we can’t attend. I make a mental note to stay far away from the park next Saturday.

When we get out of the car, the air smells of apples and earth. As usual, I head toward the picnic area, but Barney reels his leash out in the opposite direction, hot on the trail of a good, fresh scent. Since there’s no one else around, I figure what the heck—why not let him go where he wants? Nose to the ground, he sniffs his way across the field to a concrete drainage ditch at the side of the road, no doubt tracking some critter who has made his home in the pipe. While Barney sticks his head in the culvert, my eyes wander to the forest across the road where the trees sway back and forth in unison like a line of dancers.

Several minutes go by as Barney investigates the sewer pipe. The movement of the trees is hypnotic; it’s as if theyre beckoning to me with their

Gary, Janice. Short Leash: A Memoir of Dog Walking and Deliverance. E-book, East Lansing, Michigan State University Press, 2013, https://doi.org/10. 7321/9781 611860726. Downloaded on behalf of Unknown Institution twiggy fingers. I step into the road toward the woods. Then I take a few more steps. Barney, done with his inspection, walks right past me, his leash unspooling enough for him to cross over to the other side. Without even thinking about it, I follow. And just like that, our walking grounds have expanded.

Standing on the grassy strip between the road and the forest, I’m rather stunned at what has just happened. Before now, I’ve been careful not to venture beyond the small patch of meadow just beyond the park entrance. Day after day, it’s been the same routine: pulling into the same parking lot, parking in the same parking space, walking in the same picnic area. Now that I’m across the street, I see things I’ve never seen before: a long slope of woods, the outline of a picnic pavilion in the distance, mountain laurels sparkling in the sun.

The road is six feet wide at best, but for the past three weeks it might as well have been the Grand Canyon. It’s startling to realize how boxed in I’ve become, relying—insisting, actually—on the worn patterns of my habits to move me through the days. There’s nothing wrong with indulging in the same routines every day: drinking your favorite tea at the same time or having the same breakfast every morning. But I’m well aware that some of my routines go beyond preference or habit, often entering another realm altogether, like when I have to fold my clothes just so or else; or when I can’t go back inside my house once the door is locked or else. If I don't obey these ridiculous commands, something bad will happen. Or something good wont.

There is a desperate, obsessive quality to these thoughts. I know it, but that doesn’t mean I can let them go. Sometimes, I’m held captive by my own thoughts for days, weeks, until I fight back and refuse to obey the whispering warnings in my head. Coming to the park for the first time was one of those acts of defiance. And coming back the next day was another.

Barney stops to examine a pine branch while the woods unspool before me. As I stare into space, my mind wanders back to when I thought nothing of leaping across continents, much less a road—any road, anywhere. I was a girl running as far as possible from her past. A girl who believed that such a thing was even possible.

s and Deliverance.

Gary, Janice. Short Leash: A Memoir of Dog Wi a Press, 2013, https://doi.org/10. 8:321/9781 611860726.

E-book, East Lansing, MI: Michigan State Univers Downloaded on behalf of Unknown Institution

In the spring of 1972, my freshman year at Ohio University had just ended. Out of forty-five credits taken that year, thirty had a grade of “PR,” which meant pending requirements, which meant I spent more time smoking pot, writing songs, and hanging out in the southern Ohio countryside than in class. Not that I cared. I wanted to be a musician—a singer, a rock star. It seems foolish now—not exactly the best career move for a young woman—but then it felt like the right thing to do, the first step of a trajectory I had been planning my whole life. I moved back home for the summer and tried to keep up my hippie lifestyle, smoking pot in the bathroom with the fan on and listening to Procol Harum and Rolling Stones records for hours on end. At night, after my mother had passed out on the downstairs couch and my sister and brother were asleep, I’d slip out the window of my second floor bedroom and hitch rides into town. When a friend invited me to join her on a short trip out west to California, I joined her, bringing only the money in my pocket and the clothes on my back. When I got back, I returned to Athens and Ohio University, but only to live with friends and to make up a year’s worth of incompletes.

The following summer, I found myself living at home again. My mother bought me an old Ford Galaxie, which I drove back and forth from the Cincinnati suburbs to Clifton, home of the University of Cincinnati and the town’s resident hippie population. I spent long, lazy afternoons there, hanging out with musicians and periodically crashing in their roach-infested apartments. I briefly considered returning to Athens. Then, I came up with a better plan. I would move to California, find a band, and climb my way to the stars. All I needed was a little start-up cash.

When September came around, instead of registering for classes, I took a job waitressing at a Perkins Pancake House off I-71 outside Cincinnati. For five long months, from midnight until 6 a.m., I served platters of eggs and waffles to truckers, drunks, and insomniacs until enough money was saved to put the plan in motion. By February, I was ready. There was only one thing left to do.

Locking my bedroom door from the prying eyes of my mother and younger siblings, I cleared off the top of the nightstand next to my canopy bed and placed a candle, three brass coins, and the J Ching/Book of Changes

Gary, Janice. Short Leash: A Memoir of Dog Walking and Deliverance.

m

-book, East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press, 2013, https://doi.org/10. 9321/9781 611860726.

on it. Rubbing the coins between my palms, I silently repeated a single question before flinging the brass disks onto the table where they skittered across the painted surface before settling to rest, two face-side up and one blank-side up: young yang.

I had discovered the coins in a small shop in San Francisco’s Chinatown the summer before. According to the sages, the responses from the Book of Changes were of such import that they could save one from a lifetime of folly. I wanted to believe that was true, but consulting the pages of the 7 Ching was more an act of willfulness than of faith—a desperate attempt to influence forces beyond my control, the same forces that had already buffeted me around like a kite in a March sky.

Four years earlier, my father had died. His death was a sudden and shocking event that set in motion a series of events that I could never have predicted. We moved from New Jersey to Ohio to be near my aunt. My mother, who had never handled the family finances, was suddenly flush with cash from my father’s life insurance. She bought a new house, a new car, a new everything. Loosened from my father’s tight grip and supported by my mother’s loose purse, I set out to make a new life of my own. Out went the Villager clothes and polite good girl manners. In came the ripped jeans, ironed hair, and hippie lifestyle. It was as if all the fences had been taken down around me and I was a wild horse, not concerned or even cognizant of the dangers of running off into the world unbridled. But as much as I tried to divert myself from the truth, it was there, lying just beneath the surface of my fuck-you persona: I was flying blind. And I knew it.

I threw the coins five more times, marking a solid line for yang and an open line for yin in my journal, until there were six lines stacked up over one another, representing one of the 64 hexagrams of the J Ching. The question I asked was this: Should I move to California? The answer was Hexagram 36: Ming I/Darkening of the Light. Injury.

Not exactly what I was hoping for.

The image aligned with Hexagram 36 was that of the sun sinking below the earth. The sequence read: Expansion will certainly encounter resistance and injury. Hence there follows the hexagram of Darkening of the Light. Darkening means damage, injury.

Gary, Janice. Short Leash: A Memoir of Dog Walking and Deliverance.

m

-book, East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press, 2013, https://doi org/10h&b2179781 611860726.

I could feel my heart sinking like the sun in the hexagram. It didn’t sound like a good omen. But maybe I hadn* read it right. Like most 7 Ching revelations, the pithy commentary in the hexagram contradicted itself with each line, foretelling of disaster in one but perseverance in the next. I combed the lines—one representing King Wen, another Prince Chi, all battling for control and confusing the hell out of me. No matter how I interpreted it, though, most of the lines foretold of disaster. It was a mistake. It had to be. The truth was, I had already made my decision. All I wanted was for the 7 Ching to back me up.

I repeated the question and threw the coins again. This time, I got Hexagram Number 4: Meng/Youthful Folly.

The young fool seeks me.

At the first oracle I inform him.

If he asks two or three times, it is importunity. If he importunes, I give him no information.

Perseverance follows.

For a moment I sat there stunned, as if someone had just slapped me across the face. How could a stupid book and stupid fake ching coins know that this was my second try? I looked around the room half expecting to see someone floating in the air above me. I read on. The first line spoke of humiliation, as did another one four lines down. But the fifth line said childlike folly brings good fortune. And the second line stated to know how to take women brings good fortune. I didn’t know about the taking women part, but the line mentioned fortune, so it couldn't be all bad.

Perseverance followed. Three days after the J Ching reading, I stashed some clothes, a bag of pot, and $240 saved from waitressing into my bag and headed out to California. The fact that I had nowhere to stay or any kind of job prospect didn’t faze me in the least. I had the names of friends of friends and that was good enough. At sunrise, I met my ride near the university and jumped into a rundown van filled with long-haired guys I barely knew. In Louisville, the van merged onto I-64 and headed west. For the next two thousand miles, I followed the sun to where it sank into the earth. Three months later, I returned, a different girl altogether.

Gary, Janice. Short Leash: A Memoir of Dog Walking and Deliverance.

m

-book, East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press, 2013, https://doi org/10h 4321/9781 611860726.

Gary, Janice. Short Leash: A Memoir of Dog Walking and Deliverance. E-book, East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press, 2013, https://doi.org/10.14321/978161 1860726. Downloaded on behalf of Unknown Institution

Chapter 3 November 2001

AS WE WALK DOWN THE PARK ROAD, I SEARCH THE SKY TO GET MY bearings. On my boat, there’s always a compass and GPS to guide me. But here, there’s only the sun and my approximation of where the water is—the water being the Chesapeake Bay, which always tells me where I am.

The road ends at the South River, so I figure we must be heading north. Or is it east? I mentally map the contours of the park, searching for the river to determine exactly where we are. I’m becoming more and more absorbed in this little exercise when—at precisely the point where the shoulder between us and the road is at its slimmest—a silver sedan appears around the bend with a dog head protruding out of the back window.

It’s hard to tell from this distance, but from the looks of the pointy ears and sleek head, the dog appears to be a Doberman. The car comes closer. It is a Doberman. As soon as the dog catches sight of Barney, he starts barking like a lunatic. Adrenalin pumps through my body. Within seconds, I’m in full panic mode. The car is a few yards away now, gaining on us fast.

Desperate, I pull Barney toward the trees, looking for an opening, but the thicket and bramble bushes are too dense; there’s no way to make it g and Deliverance.

Gary, Janice. Short Leash: A Memoir of Dog Wi - 2 Press, 2013, https://doi.org/10h @821/9781611860726.

E-book, East Lansing, MI: Michigan State Univers Downloaded on behalf of Unknown Institution through. By now, the dog in the car has squeezed himself as far as he can go through the window opening, all head and neck, a barking machine directing his fury at Barney, who looks in the direction of the car with mild interest. The driver of the car seems oblivious, which only increases my anxiety. What if the dog escapes, slips through the window opening? Leaps into our path? I can just see it: the blur of fur and teeth, two uncontrollable animals going after one another.

As the car moves past us, the dog stops barking and cranes his head backward to look at us. Barney begins investigating a low-hanging pine tree branch. I’m shaking. We’ve made it, but the encounter has me so rattled that I wonder if it’s a good idea to keep going. Not many cars drive into the park during the middle of the week, but the ones that do usually contain canine passengers on their way to the dog park—often more than one. Some are well behaved, some are howlers, and some are absolute head cases like that Doberman. I am afraid of them all, afraid their owners will pull into the parking lot where my car is, walk where we walk, or let their dogs run loose even though there are signs all over the park stating: Pets must be on leash.

For the past few weeks, each time a car has appeared, I’ve been praying, Keep going, keep going. Stay away from us. And for the most part they do, heading farther down the road, toward the dreaded dog park at the very far end of the park. The Doberman affair is the closest weve come to an actual encounter.

The car with the Dobie disappears down the road. Barney takes the lead, unraveling the leash to its full length. “Barn, what am I going to do with you?” I say, talking more to myself than him. He swivels his head, acknowledging me briefly before returning his attention to yet another interesting section of pine branch. In the silence of the woods, my words echo back at me. What am I going to do with Barney? The better question is: What am I going to do with me? Pm the one who overreacted. But what if the Dobie did jump out of the car? My dog Sundance used to do that all the time. Things like that happen.

But it didn’t.

With no car in sight, it seems foolish to turn back, so we continue toward the gatehouse. After we pass a thicket of pines and a deer path, another car s and Deliverance.

Gary, Janice. Short Leash: A Memoir of Dog Wi Press, 2013, https://doi.org/ noh421/9 /9781611860726.

E-book, East Lansing, MI: Michigan Sta sity Downloaded on behalf of Unknown Institution appears. Once again, there’s a dog in the backseat. I pull Barney in and try to put as much space between us and the road as possible. My neck muscles tighten as the vehicle approaches, but the dog, a sedate tan hound, quietly watches us through the window as the car passes.

When the hound is out of sight, we resume the walk, crossing a service road to a small hill where a young dogwood stands among a few smaller trees. Barney and I walk up the rise to get a better look at the little tree, which still has a nursery tag dangling from a branch. I tamp the loose ground around its roots with my sneaker just as Barney begins to lift his leg. “This tree’s got enough problems,” I tell him. “Give it a break.” The sky is clouding up now, and for some reason it makes me afraid. The sapling is so exposed on this hill, I wonder if it will make it through the winter.

We turn back to the car. The wind picks up, and the crispness that first greeted us becomes raw as the sun hides behind the clouds. I pull my coat closer, worrying about that little dogwood. Walking beside the forest, I can see row after row of thin saplings rising from the forest floor, their varying sizes a testament to years of growth.

What makes me think the dogwood won’ survive? Little trees make it through the winter all the time, enduring the cold to emerge taller and stronger when spring comes. What’s that old saying? What doesnt kill you makes you stronger.

We continue down the road, Barney’s ears flapping in the breeze, a big smile plastered across his face. It’s odd, but walking into this wind—plowing through it head-on instead of cowering before it—I feel something warm and certain stirring in the deepest part of my being. I’m tempted to cross back to the meadow, but I don't. I let the leash out and follow Barney down the road. Just before we get to the car, the clouds break apart and the entire forest shimmers with light. Another car snakes toward us in the distance. I pull in Barney’s leash like before, but this time I take a deep breath and keep walking as the car passes.

Two weeks later, were walking next to a wildly contrasting forest. Some trees have reached their peak of color, while others are already stripped down to bare bark. It strikes me that trees are not so different than people, each one reacting differently to the same set of circumstances. Take the s and Deliverance.

Gary, Janice. Short Leash: A Memoir of Dog Wi e a Press, 2013, https://doi org/10h 42179781 611860726.

E-book, East Lansing, MI: Michigan State Univers Downloaded on behalf of Unknown Institution weather. Why do some trees go into shock when the temperature drops and lose all their leaves, while others hang on until the last minute and flame out in a blaze of glory?

While Barney sniffs a stubby patch of grass, I study the pale yellow leaves of a young birch at the side of the road. The leaves are tissue-thin, so transparent you can see right through them, and yet they cling sturdily to the branches, waving like paper lanterns in the breeze. If I were a tree, I would probably be like this one—small and thin, quick to react to the shock of cold, yet not willing to completely let go of the past. I’m pondering this, considering what it means to hold on in this way, when the sound of breaking twigs erupts from somewhere in the woods.

Immediately, adrenaline rushes through my veins. Gripping Barney's leash handle, I turn toward the noise just in time to see a small herd of deer running from us: three does and two little fawns. The babies follow behind the older deer, the white dots of their tails getting smaller and smaller as they bounce farther away into the dark of the forest.