Man & Beast Read online

  After one such Friday, I returned home to find that Lassie was missing. All Saturday I searched for her, riding my bike up and down the eroded gullies that passed for roads on the outskirts of Eltham. It wasn’t until Sunday night, hoarse from calling, that I suddenly knew where she was. Keeping out of sight so I wouldn’t yell at her, she’d followed me to the pictures, so I was looking for her in the wrong place. I rode my bike into town and, yes, Lassie was sitting outside the cinema. I can still see her, on the deserted footpath, looking at the shuttered doors with patient expectancy.

  All too often, and to my eternal shame, her reward for this sort of loyalty was a hiding. It’s often the lot of a dog to cop the kicks received by its master. Most of the time we clung together, united in our hatred of our uncommon enemy, the deranged man who’d suddenly throw a bucket of water on the fire I’d lit for Mum, or who’d suddenly appear on the platform of Greensborough station, pulling me from the carriage when I was on my way to visit my real father, scattering the contents of my suitcase under everybody’s feet.

  But there were times when I was so tormented by his bullying and sadism that I’d take it out on Lassie and thump her until I was exhausted and weeping. And then she’d come quivering to me and lick my face, shaming me with the sort of understanding you’d expect from some beatified paragon. And we’d huddle together, me begging her for the forgiveness she’d already given.

  Lassie’s saintliness recalls the arguments I’d have with our religious instruction teacher, who regarded my insistence on her having a soul as blasphemy. But I knew she did, that she must, and that if there were a heaven and heavenly justice, she’d have to share in immortality. ‘No,’ he’d say, ‘dogs do not have human understanding. They do not know about good and evil.’ ‘Not much she doesn’t,’ I’d protest. ‘She feels all of the emotions you do—happiness, sadness, love, fear, compassion.’ And he’d get angrier and the kids would flick wads of blotting paper at him. Yet I was entirely serious. Lassie had more sensitivity and understanding than almost anyone I knew. And in the unlikely event of there being a God, He’d know that I was right.

  ‘God is dog backwards,’ offered Graeme Wrigley helpfully, only to earn instant excommunication from the class.

  I don’t know whether Lassie was special, as she’s the only dog I ever had, ever knew. She could understand dozens and dozens of commands, comprehending the words, not just the tone of voice. (I would try to trick her by saying the words in different ways, but she always knew.) More than that, she had compassion—so that any theology that failed to encompass Lassie seemed absurdly inadequate.

  Although my stepfather was a prominent KCC (Kennels Control Council) dog judge, always going off to agricultural shows to choose the Best Cocker Spaniel and the Best Bitch in Show, he disliked dogs as much as he did people. Even then, as a boy, I was sufficiently objective to realise that his cruelties must have been the product of great torment in his own childhood. But there was little consolation in that awareness when he was exacting vengeance. Inevitably, my closeness to that bloody dog infuriated him, and he was always making threats about getting rid of her. Not that he dared to try. I think Mum and I would have killed him first.

  Yet, finally, he did find a way to punish us both, Lassie and me. She’d just had pups (the father was a big black dog who also hung around the high school) and I’d watched them both being born with a mixture of horror and awe. I’d spend hours on end with them, watching Lassie lick those blind faces, me tickling their tummies and ensuring that everyone got a feed.

  And at the end of the week, I was ordered to drown them. No, nobody round here would want them. No, we wouldn’t waste money putting an ad in the paper. Just pop the bloody things in this sack and take them down to the creek.

  Because I couldn’t let him see my anguish, because I wouldn’t let myself beg, I took the puppies from Lassie, who looked at me with puzzlement and trust, and, having locked her in the garage, walked the mile to the creek. And all the time they wriggled and whimpered in the bag.

  The reason I’ve written this recollection of a dog is because the horror of that day recently returned to me, undiminished. I found myself driving by what subdivisions had left of the creek. I was a child again, sitting on the bank, crooning to the puppies as they crawled and tumbled in my lap. And once again there was nothing I could do but push them back into the sack, retie it and hurl it into the deepest water. Once again, I remembered my pledge to murder the man who’d sent me there.

  When I got home I couldn’t look at Lassie. When she came up and licked my hand I couldn’t bear it. Thanks to my stepfather I could never be as close to Lassie again. Two years later I got a five-dollar-a-week job and left home for the city. My guilt at leaving Lassie was as intense as my guilt at drowning her puppies—so intense that my memory has kindly clouded the issues, so that I can’t quite remember what became of her. I think that Mum gave her to a neighbour’s kids and hoped that things worked out all right. But perhaps I’ve made that up, in expiation.

  The same day I passed the creek, I drove through the Greensborough shopping centre. There’s a supermarket where the cinema used to be, yet Lassie was still sitting on the footpath, looking like the trademark for His Master’s Voice. And when I drove through the school grounds of Eltham High, there she was, chasing cricket balls on the oval.

  My religious instruction teacher is now in orbit high over Eltham, enjoying his eternal rewards. And if I’m right, his pleasures in heaven will be marred by the faintly blasphemous presence of my ecumenical dog, chasing the cricket balls.

  Four Legs Bad

  Greg Baum

  Man, wake up. This idea that a dog is your best friend: you’ve been had. The time has come for man to unfriend dogs.

  Dogs aren’t the cute and clever creatures they seem on the internet, or in other people’s photos, or your own, for that matter. They bark, mewl, growl, drool, lick—lick!—slobber, sniff, gnaw, paw and nuzzle. Nuzzling might seem innocent enough, but I can never get out of my mind where that nose last was. Dogs cannot resist other dogs’ anuses. They fart, spray and shit in random places, and expect you to pick it up. Humans don’t do that. Not all of them.

  Dogs bite, and think it’s play. They eat things. One in our house tried to eat a chair. They leave toothmarks everywhere. And did I mention shit? Right where you are likely to walk next. Stepping on a dog turd is like getting hit in the groin in cricket: everyone thinks it’s funny when it happens to someone else. It’s not.

  Dogs leave detritus strewn all over the house and garden. So do babies and teenagers and some relatives, but at least when you bellow at them to pick it up, they do, however grudgingly. A dog just sits there and fixes you with a silly grin.

  Dogs eat holes in underwear. Dogs eat holes in overwear. Dogs eat holes everywhere. As if it isn’t hard enough to keep a pair of socks together in the first place.

  Dogs destroy perfectly good tennis balls, until they are unusable for backyard cricket. Otherwise, they field in backyard cricket, which so misses the point. There’s little enough to do anyway without outsourcing one function to a mutt.

  Dogs are devious. They tear a book to shreds, or a T-shirt, or a couch, then sit there with a calculatedly dopey look on their face, knowing you’re probably going to pull out your smartphone and post it all over the internet. That’s another thing: they’ve ruined Facebook.

  They sit. Like, wow!

  Dogs are supposed to be smart, but cats are clearly smarter, by a long way. Cats aren’t anyone’s best friend; they just let you think it from time to time, for strategic purposes. Dogs might have goldfish covered, although how would you know?

  Dogs smell, but do nothing about it. You wash them, they protest and then start smelling again, immediately.

  They hate clean, hot water. But any other sort of water, they plunge into it, and leap out of it, and shake themselves and the spray goes everywhere. The only thing worse than a dog is a wet dog.

  They grow. Or they don
’t. Almost none of them is the right size. Either they trip up under your feet or they leap upon you and try to flatten you. If they succeed, they lick you. If they don’t, they try again. They do this even to complete strangers. If a human ‘friend’ did any of these things, they would be reported to the authorities, compulsorily. Dogs are patted for it, which means that they do it all again, of course.

  They are loyal? They love you unconditionally? I don’t think so. Watch how quickly a dog moves on to the next feeder/patter/walker/coochie-coochie-coo-er/more interesting-smelling anus if you don’t provide.

  They have to walk or they go crazy, but if you do walk them, they constantly tangle up the lead and you go crazy.

  If you walk for exercise, they take you on needless detours. If you walk for recreation, they take you on needless detours. I’d rather walk with my own thoughts. Granted, those can be a bit scatty and undisciplined, too, which is why I don’t need a dog to try to control as well.

  Walking dogs breaks down social barriers? Excuse me, telling a complete stranger that her dog is gorgeous, guessing the breed and banging your head when you get it wrong does not constitute socialisation. Might as well just sniff each other’s bums.

  Dogs shed, and malt, and get fleas, and scratch themselves in public. They dig holes, which would be OK if they then put their poo in them, but they don’t.

  They dig up whole gardens, then trample the mud through the house, and expect you to love them for it. Or at least give them a biscuit.

  They howl for your attention just as the footy gets interesting, or as your favourite miniseries reaches a crucial point. They interrupt everything: phone calls, meals, conversations, reading, coitus. Some things are unforgivable.

  They go to puppy school, but don’t learn anything. They get a pass anyway, and you get a bill. They go to obedience school and don’t get much past ‘sit’, and you get another bill anyway.

  Dogs run up bills: food, shelter, vet, sundry toys, council, grooming, holiday accommodation, legal fees, cleaning agents.

  Counselling.

  Dogs confound holiday plans. If you can’t take them with you, you have to make provisions. If you can take them with you, you have to make provisions.

  Dogs scare kids. I’ve seen this, often. They scare adults: I’m one.

  Their owners expect you to admire them, and not to notice their snub noses, pushed-in faces, stumpy legs, ridiculous hair, misshapen ears, roly-poly shape, gimpy gait or patches of missing fur. Or that they’re really, really fat. In this, dogs are worse than babies.

  Worse than all this, they’ll turn your real friends into blithering idiots who somehow think it’s amazing when their dog runs and fetches and brings back a stick they just threw.

  And knows its own name.

  Dogs reduce intelligent humans to the level of infants, calling out unintelligible non-words in high, non-natural voices. Somehow, dogs think that these are endearments.

  Dogs have to be replaced, more often than humans. Yet we keep replacing them, knowing how it will all end. I’m not going to say outright that Koreans have the right idea, but let’s face it: we eat lots of other creatures and think nothing of it.

  I’ll concede this much: bulldogs. I read that they sleep twenty-two hours a day. That sounds friendly. I could negotiate around that.

  But who appointed dogs as man’s best friend, anyway? On what basis? What about, say, horses? Horses have served man so well for so long in all sorts of ways, yet only dogs are called man’s best friend. Chickens have been right there, too. Then again, who wants to be the best friend of a species that calls dogs its best friend?

  OK, dogs rescue souls lost in deep snowdrifts in alpine blizzards, but, frankly, there’s not much call for that my way. They round up sheep, but that hardly constitutes an argument for amigos para siempre, or else trail bikes would have to be considered, too. Dogs sit for hours by their critically injured masters, but wouldn’t it be a whole lot more useful if they could administer first aid, or make a phone call? If a real best friend sat there doing nothing other than lick you while you slowly lost consciousness, he wouldn’t be your best friend for long. Dogs sound the alert at a break-in, but so does an alarm system, and it doesn’t evacuate its bowels on the back doorstep twice a day.

  This leads to the really delicate part. I have this hunch that some people love dogs because dog-love gives them the sort of mastery in a relationship that they could never have over another human being. It’s about dependence, and the power that comes with it. Loving, yes, but the lines of control are clear. Dog owners I’ve run this past protest a little too vehemently for me not to be even more suspicious. The saddest thing is that even on those terms, it doesn’t always work out.

  Maybe I’ve just been lucky, but I’ve always had a set of human friends who provide all the nourishment on all the levels I need, and don’t commit any of the foregoing atrocities, not often anyway, and if they ever do, at least we can talk about it. It hasn’t always been easy, but it’s worked much better for me than the naughty corner in the bad times and a biscuit in the good and a lot of goofy-eyed, smelly-breathed face licking in between.

  I know that in my position on dogs, I’m in a tiny minority. I’m happy there.

  Mustang Sally

  Tony Birch

  When my uncle, Michael, was sixteen years old he spent a year in a youth detention centre after being convicted of a break and enter at a factory in Collingwood. I would visit him with my mother occasionally, walking from our home in Fitzroy to the Turana Boys Home in Parkville. I loved my uncle. He was a sweet-faced kid and he and my mother were close. He was the second youngest of eight children and she was particularly protective of him. Some said that Michael was slow, but I think he was a dreamer. I was only five years old during the time of those weekend visits and could not quite understand that each time we left the home my uncle could not come with us. When the time came for his release, Michael came to live with us. Our home was already overcrowded. My parents shared the front room of the house with the lounge suite, the television and the fireplace, and I slept in the second room with two brothers and two sisters.

  My father dominated that small house with his physical presence, his sullen moods and unpredictable explosiveness. Michael arrived with his only belongings in a battered suitcase, consisting of a few items of spare clothes, a breadboard that he had made for my mother in the home and a few comic books. I moved into a bottom bunk with my older brother; Michael took the top bunk. He settled in, got a job in a factory around the corner, and changed the tone of the house with his laughter, practical jokes and storytelling, which filled the bedroom long after the lights were put out for the night.

  If one new arrival in the house tested my father, two had the potential to send him into a rage. About a month after Michael moved in I was sent around the corner to Brunswick Street one Saturday morning with my older sister, Deborah, to do the shopping for my mother. My sister went into the butcher’s and I stood outside, looking in the window at the cuts of meat. I felt something licking the side of my leg and looked down to see a dog. She was brown with white socks on all four feet. After I gave her a pat she ran around me in circles, wagging her tail wildly. When Deborah came out of the shop we began walking home. The dog followed us, first at a distance, but as soon as we’d turned the corner, she caught up and ran around me excitedly. My sister tried shooing her away, without success. The she unwrapped the parcel, took out a chop, waved it in front of the dog’s face then hurled it as far as she could. The dog ran after the chop, sniffed at it for a moment and bit into it.

  By the time we’d turned into our street the dog was back for more. She followed us home to our front gate. Several times in the past we’d asked my father if we could have a dog. In those days puppies were given away free. Sometimes a box full of pups would be left outside the corner shop for anybody who wanted one. My father had always said no, telling us he could hardly afford to feed his own kids let alone a dog.

&nb
sp; He was sleeping off a hangover that Saturday morning and I managed to sneak out of the house with another chop, without being discovered. The dog and I spent the day on ‘the flat,’ a scrubby piece of land behind Young Street, Fitzroy, where kids played marbles, British Bulldog and learned to smoke cigarettes. By the late afternoon, when it was time to go home, I wasn’t sure what to do with the dog. In the end I let her follow me and snuck her into the house by the side gate. I tried coaxing her into the toilet in the corner of the yard, where I planned to hide her. She was too smart to allow herself to be locked up and sprinted around the yard in wide circles, as if I were a sheep she was rounding up. She barked at me so loudly that my mother came out of the kitchen. She pointed and screamed a dog! Michael wasn’t far behind her. He smiled, ran to the dog and tickled her behind an ear. She jumped up at him, barked again and licked his face. My mother looked at me ominously and walked back into the house, leaving Michael and me to play with the dog until sundown.

  We could set the clock by my father’s pub hours. He got home exactly ten minutes after six o’clock closing time. The dog was in the yard. I began to pray that she would keep quiet at least until my father fell asleep in front of the fire, which he always did. My mother cooked chops that night and the dog smelled them as they were being dished up at the table. She barked, yelped and scratched at the back door. My father jumped up from the table, pulled the door open and screamed what the fuck is this! My brothers and sisters ran into the yard, screaming with delight, and gathered around the dog. I looked up at my mother’s face and saw her look of fear.

  In any other circumstances my father would have kicked the dog up the arse and thrown it into the street. But Michael came to the rescue. He saved me, my mother and the dog. He told my father the animal belonged to him. When my father delivered his usual complaint that we couldn’t afford to feed it, Michael assured him that he’d pay for the dog’s food from his own money, he’d pick up her shit in the yard and make sure she wouldn’t be a nuisance. We looked at my father for a response but got none. He walked back into the house, defeated for one of the few times during my childhood.