The Unofficial Dogpark Down by the River by Michael Chaney

Simon browses sawgrass. Cricket snorts the bank. Then, Flipper! Cricket rushes. Then, Zoe! poodling hysterical. Tension from Flipper’s mother stains the air. Danger syrup. Simon nods to Zoe’s mother. Elderly stalk of wild cotton. Flipper whimpers as Zoe circles away and back. Neck hairs electrify. “Zoe No!” snaps Flipper’s mother. Zoe’s mother surveys trees. Rotting broccoli mountains. Flipper yelps when Zoe bites her hard on the haunch. Simon imagines a Gaullish plain, a trip of wizened goats herded by a sepia version of Zoe. But the unofficial dogpark has no time for history. “Goddamnit, Brenda! How many times have I told you to train your dog?” Circling, Zoe bites Flipper hard again on the leg. “No! Stop, damnit!” Flipper curls supine as his mother kicks the poodle whose mother shrieks. Simon steps back. “How dare you kick my dog.” “Brenda! For the last goddamn time, train your animal.” “I’m never coming here again.” Zoe’s mother storms. Simon drifts to the last time a woman that age cried so public rough: the home before his mother passed. Homeward, memory burns a hole in his pocket. He flips it with a biscuit chip. Both disappear into Cricket’s maw. Aerial velocity. Common at the unofficial dogpark.

Michael Chaney is a native Clevelander, an academic in New Hampshire, a writer in Vermont, and a walker of a dog named Vegas. When less spatially confused, he works diligently on a novel about the absurdities of the pharmaceutical industry.