Alan Sincic

          It’s about time the mailman got him a dog of his own is what we said. Back in the day, when he’d come traipsing up the white walk in that huckleberry blue suit with the bounce of the cap and the slap of the leather bag ­­on the sling at the shoulder, that’s what we said, that’s what we were thinking. When he’d jangle the garden gate the birds’d burst up into the blue, the cats would scatter up onto the sill, the guppy bubble and the hamster fret. At the house with the baby he’d open the flap on the door, the flap the height of a baby, and in through the slot he’d whisper the letters, and the baby’d gurgle and coo, and up onto the pile paddle to swim in the blizzard of manilla and linen and cotton bond, parchment and papyrus and vellum. The neighborhood dogs would yap and yap, make a music up and down the street, and when he’d arrive they’d rattle the door and set the screen to sizzle with a swipe of the paw – the Collies and the Corgies and the black dab of the Toy Poodle pooching up into position to lick the fingers and the knuckles and the fatty calf the mailman flashes. A comfort is what it was. Like a regular was he. Reliable like a sky.

         Great. But then he goes and gets him a dog of his own and damn. Damn is that dog a beauty! Got a skull like a sledgehammer. The body a barrel. And the growl up under that bed of bristle? No wonder things are what they are, things ain’t what they used to be.

         And who’s to blame for that? The dog would know. The dog would know but the dog don’t tell. Sure we got a feeling, about the dog we got a feeling, in the hollow here under the ribs we feel it, but what good is a feeling without the name to name it? Go on. Call up a name. Beckon him with a name of your choosing, but if you utter a name that is not the name that he goes by, then guess what? That’s right. You should have known better. But did you? Do you?  Are you? Better? No. You got nobody but yourself to blame.

         The dog is the namer of the name. The mailman takes a knee, kicks back the visor of that mailman cap of his, leans in close for a listen to the whisper the dog whispers.

         But too late now, right? If only, right? By torchlight now the mailman makes the rounds. He got a leash for that dog of his, but a dog like that don’t believe in a leash. The mailman holds the empty leash in a loop-de-loop, in a wind around the knuckles like a bandage or the leather wrap they wrap to buffer the knuckles of a brawler. With them three fingers of his he grips the bag of mail. Slimmer than he used to be, the mailman. Not but three fingers on the hand that holds the leash. What become of the other fingers? The mailman shrugs. Smiles. Hey. Ask the dog. The dog knows. The dog knows but the dog don’t answer.

         But what a team! Look at them go! And such a relief to go where the dog decrees, to no longer follow a route. The mailman follows the dog, the dog follows the scent, the scent sings out from every crevasse of the flesh. No matter how hot the shower or thick the suds or fierce the luffa and the pumice and the rasp, the body breathes, the scent billows out the bath and out the door and down the street to skim up over the flank and into the window of the little blue truck the mailman skippers. The dog beside him bristles. The truck chudders to a stop.

         The moment of reckoning arrives. The clouds coalesce. The moon ruddies up to bloody the sky. The only one left to post a letter now is you. The cops? Gone. The neighbors? Erased. And the kiddies that stir the Kool-Aid and pedal the bikes and ricochet out over the lawn? And the Encyclopedia salesman and the Avon lady and the Popsicle man in the calliope cart with the tiny silver bell? What gives? Where’d they go? And the dogs. And the babies. What become of the babies?

         The dog. The dog knows.

         He has acquired a taste for what you have to offer. Whatever it is he hankers after – quite a night, it’s been quite a night – it is not enough. Just off the pantry, amid the wreck of breakfast, a thigh bone simmers in the morning light. If you had a strip of leather for a grip, a space of a size to swing, a strike zone of a shape to serve the purpose, you could swing a thigh bone like you swing a bat. If you could reach the bone, if you could ask the mailman, but the mailman’s even slimmer now, too slim to answer. Pocky the bone, like a cob of corn. Shards of blue serge. Buttons of brass.

         At the kitchen table you sit. Between you and the door, the dog. Good dog. Is the mailman’s dog a good dog? How good of a dog? Halt you say and he halts. Stay you say and he stays – the anvil black of the body, the tongue a lick of fire, the hot breath in a blush up the bare flesh of them legs of yours. You would pet him but your hand is in a hurry here. Them big eyes of his track the path of this pen you pilot across the page, but not to worry. He knows how to read. He hears your confession. With a quiver of the ears and a twitch of the tail, he readies himself to administer the blessing.