Dog

 

Dog

 

Let’s get this straight from the start:

it’s not the dog’s fault it smells. Reeks actually,

(a good a name for a film as any I’ve heard).

 

Some kind of halitosis, this claggy sweaty aroma

hanging oppressive, thick in the air, an abusive odour

assaulting the tongue, with eau de damp hair

and mildew chipboard paper peeling off bedsit walls.

 

This stupidly big black and shaggy alsatian,

is taking up about half the front of the bus.

 

She’s oblivious to passengers who trip and curse

their way past, swearing under their breath,

in that typical ineffectual English way,

looking at other passengers, all tsk and rolling eyes:

well, nothing’s will surprise them these days.

 

In what space remains, she’s strewn a ton of baggage

similar to those less choice unsavoury items

found in your average tramp’s shopping cart

and for the dog, she puts down a bin bag and calls it bed.

 

He’s straining at the leash. ‘Bed’, she says,

loudly, to let it be known she’s accountable,

but he’s ignoring her and emits loathsome farts,

sniffs reluctantly amongst the raffia tat and cloth bags,

looking dog-eared and sad amongst her other rags.

 

‘There’s raw meat in there’ she announces,

to any nobodies in particular intent on ignoring her

with studied indifference. She yanks at dog's fur,

thrusts him down, picks up her phone,

punches it - to make it known she's never alone.

 

‘I have three,’ she shouts to the driver and his mate.

We’ve set off now from Terminal 2, departed late,

due to some altercation she'd had at Victoria,

they’re not responding, so she phones a friend.

 

She doesn’t monologue, but treats us to loud speaker

instead, using strident didactic tones that suit a teacher

best and hollers: ‘Meat's defrosting. He’ll only eat raw,

should be getting into Bodmin late - maybe about four,

I’ll pick up a red, a white. Yeah, on me way home,

and what does watsisname want? Cider? Four tins?

What sort? Anything will do, yeah? I’ll get it in

and fish and chips, yeah, too tired to make something,

been up 26 hours, in London, dragging these bags

and my dog.’

 

And her head, inside its knitted woolly hat,

is bobbing to and fro like loose scooped monkey nuts, 

let fly with her catapult whether you want or not.

‘Well, this woman at Victoria, she won’t let us on.

It’s the dog. I told her - it’s a special dog, she’s wrong,

regulations, she said, no dogs on busses,

me, with my two strokes, dodgy legs, spine, crutches,

well, who does she think she is?’

 

But the phone’s gone dead.

She shakes it, turns to me,

sitting behind. ‘Mind if I close these curtains?

Will it obstruct your view? I had a difficult day…’

but, anxious that I’m going to hear all she has to say

a second time, I grunt, nod, quickly raise my paper.

 

It’s all in the eyes. Don’t catch their eyes, you see?

Denied satisfaction, she turns forward, grabs her hound,

shakes it by its shaggy mane until it’s up and about

those nearby ankles and knees, a thrusting sniffing snout.

 

‘Bed’ she snaps, after it’s attracted enough attention,

as though she’s about to give the beast detention,

but shoves it back upon its plastic sack.

 

He looks wounded, and scratches at the horrible coat

she’s caged him in - it’s patchwork plastic,

declares 'Best Friend', in garish font

late of multi-coloured swapshop and will float

out to sea one day to join that trash island that boats

avoid, once somebody down the line chucks it out

upon finding it amongst unwanted jumble.

 

By now, our two bus drivers working tandem, grumble.

The smell, the noise, the incessant distractions

from her lofty vantage point.

 

She’s whipped out a pad

from God knows where; needs help from the lads

to write a letter of complaint.

‘Sit down, Miss,’

because she’s tapping them on the shoulder - a hiss

and we’re fearing a diatribe on pronouns or gender,

but no.

 

Instead, as she writes, she calls it out, shouts:

‘How do you spell National Express, what address?’

But nobody answers. We’re listening of course,

we’re given no choice there, but you're all past caring,

the bus has had enough of the life she’s sharing.

 

And when, after a matinee of eight pantomime hours

she’s finally kicked off, her bags dumped like the shower

of shit they are, she blinks in the dark as we leave,

gripping a straining dog that pulls and tugs at its lead.