If I Had Died In Elementary School, My First Question for God Would’ve Been, “What’s My Neighbor’s Dog’s Name?”

Almost every day, after I ate a snack, chugged a glass of green Kool-Aid, and finished my homework, I shot hoops with my dad in the driveway.  Oftentimes, we played Pig, which was really just my dad’s not-so-secret method of making me practice more difficult shots like 3-pointers or alley-oops. I never won. My dad would go inside to start dinner, and I’d keep at it. Determined to make the exact shot my dad made. The shot that sealed my demise. More than once this meant shooting from behind the hoop, over the backboard, and in with nothing but net.

It was during one of those post-loss practices that I heard barking coming from the other side of our chain link fence. I tucked the basketball under my arm. Tried to peer around my neighbor’s garage into their backyard. Most likely, Mrs. Cole’s Bolognese got out again and, sick of crapping on our lawn, moved on to Scott and Becky’s. I called Casper’s name, but he didn’t come. He stopped barking, so I figured all was well. Turned back to my ball and dribbled between my legs before faking left and going up for a layup. The barking resumed.

“Casper! Come here, boy!”

Nothing. Just a response bark from Roxie, the golden retriever across the alley.

A cycle ensued. I dribbled, Casper barked, I stopped dribbling, I called his name, he didn’t come, I dribbled again, Casper barked again. After 10 minutes of this, I trudged over to our porch stairs, where my water bottle sat, and raised the plastic spout to my pursed lips. What a stupid dog. I set the bottle back down, picked up my ball, and walked over to our make-shift free throw line (a crack in the pavement). This time, as I dribbled, the barking grew louder. There was a bit of a bite in it, a low growl. I sighed and turned around once more towards my neighbor’s house. A white bull terrier emerged in the driveway next to the garage.

 Minus a few brown spots, it looked just like Scud from the first Toy Story film. You know, that evil kid Sid’s dog/henchman. We first see Scud when Sid returns home from Pizza Planet, having won an alien, Buzz, and Woody from a claw machine. Sid tosses the alien to Scud, who shakes it in his mouth. Just like his owner, Scud gets pleasure from destroying toys, tearing them limb from limb. Heck, he was named after Cold War-era Soviet tactical ballistic missiles. Scud’s got game. He’s one of the only non-toy characters in the franchise to know the toys come alive.

 As Buzz and Woody attempt escape back to Andy’s house next door, Scud stalks them like a lion. He loves the chase. The fear. And when he barks or snarls, it’s not your typical sound-engineered dog noises. Gary Rydstrom, one of Pixar’s sound designers, recorded his dog Buster to make Scud seem more real for the audience. Ohhhhh, it worked. Scud was the first dog that terrified me. Scott and Becky’s new dog was the second.

I approached the fence to greet my new neighbor, “Hi, puppy! Who are you? Hi, puppy!” He never stopped barking. The closer I got, the more vigor he barked with. I crouched down in the strip of grass beside the fence and hooked my fingers through the metal diamonds. “Hi, puppy! It’s okay.” He had these beady black eyes that sunk deep into his skull, into the severe angles of his face, into my soul. I swear to God, that dog didn’t blink as he snarled at me. I once read that real-life bull terriers are nothing like Scud; they’re gentle and non-threatening dogs. Beg to differ. I bet Bullseye the Target mascot isn’t all fun and games either.      

My dad opened the screen door and called me for dinner just as I stood up and backed away from the fence.

“I didn’t know the neighbors got a dog,” I said.

“Yeah, I talked to Scott the other day when he brought it home,” he said.

“What’s its name?”

“I don’t know,” he said.

“You didn’t ask its name?”

“Just never mind.”

“Why can’t I know the dog’s name?”

“I said, just never mind. And don’t you ask the neighbor either.”

All throughout dinner I stewed in thought. I already heard swears on TV. And from that kid Robbie at school. He swore. I knew the b-word, the s-word, the a-word, the d-word, all of them. So who cares? Did he not want me to hear him swear? It’s not a sin if you’re just repeating for clarity’s sake. How else do you tell your teacher that Robbie called you a ‘bitch’? I wanted to press the issue, but I knew better. This wasn’t the suggestion box sort of conversation we often had; earlier his tone had leaned towards parental law. If I asked him again, he’d just growl back at me with accusations of disrespect, and I had enough of that from the bull terrier. So I restrained myself and waited. Sprinkled my questions throughout mundane moments. Tried to catch my dad off-guard.

Getting out of the car after church: “Have you seen the neighbor’s dog lately? Do you think he’s okay? What’s his name?”

Watching Toy Story: “Scud’s a bull terrier just like our neighbors have! Isn’t Scud a funny name? What’s our neighbor dog’s name?”

Hearing the bull terrier bark through the mail slot at our mailman Jim: “Gosh, that dog’s annoying. If I knew his name, I could yell at him. Jim doesn’t deserve this.”

My dad stood as firm as a good jello. Had no plans to tell me that frickin’ dog’s name.

A couple years later, now a junior higher, I was outside doing the daily grind. I had made the JV team and wanted to ensure I got to start. When the ball hit the pavement, the bull terrier, as he had hundreds of times, dead-sprinted from his backyard and unleashed a barrage of angry barks at me. My neighbor Scott tottered after him, screaming, “Boner! Boner! Get back here! Boner!” He grabbed the bull terrier by the collar and tried to pull him away from his sentinel post. “I’m sorry,” Scott said to me, “I’m sorry about the barking.” and then, “Boner, shut up. Shut. Up.”

“It’s okay,” I said with a smile.

Later when my dad called me for dinner, I asked, “Guess what happened? Guess who I saw?”

He couldn’t look at me. I watched his eyes move from the ground to the screen door handle to our neighbor’s house and back. He furrowed his brow and un-furrowed it. Traced each of our porch’s 2x4s with the tip of his socked foot. “Well, I guess you know,” he said.

But I didn’t know. As an only child (a girl) in single-parent household (a dad), I never got the sex talk other than boys only want one thing. It wasn’t until college, when my Christian friends and I pieced together what we each knew, that I understood the sheer comedy of Boner, emerging from the backyard, barking at me. But also Scud, the tactical ballistic missile. 

Anissa Lynne Johnson is a disabled writer and speaker from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Her work has appeared/is forthcoming in The Daily Drunk, Press Pause, Wig-Wag, and elsewhere. More often than not, Anissa can be found walking in the woods or watching the sort of movies that *sigh* never win awards. Say hello on Twitter @anissaljohnson.