F is for Fiction

St. Monica’s Bay had a stray dog.

A boy, no older than 5, would stand at the corner of the street every morning and wait for the stray. He would stare at the passing trains and rubber ducks in the clouds until the dog tickled him with a lick to the neck. He called him Toto. Like the dog in his favorite movie. His stubby fingers would grasp a tuft of greasy orange fur on Toto’s back and the two would walk. The boy’s head would tilt back up and he would stare at the frogs in the clouds while Toto steered him across the streets and down the road to school. Another tickle to the neck and the boy would dawdle up the stairs and into class.

The stray would pant towards a house with broken shutters and peeling paint that was once a brilliant robin’s egg blue. An older women, who was once brilliantly beautiful herself, would be holding a plate of breakfast scraps for him. She called him Charlie. Like her youngest grandson. Charlie would slobber on the Daily Bay when he picked it up for her. She would just gather her hands in the front of her faded moo-moo and wipe them dry. Charlie would lay on the concrete porch by her rocking chair, and listen to her ramble as she fell asleep. The mailman would walk by, Charlie would howl, and the women would wake up and go inside.

Across town was a barefoot fisherman who would spend his afternoon gutting and cleaning the catch of the day. The fisherman would struggle because birds would swoop down at his fingers. The stray would come sprinting down the dock barking and biting at the birds. The fisherman called him Gilligan. His number two. Gilligan spent the evening up and down the harbor keeping the birds away until there were no more fish to clean. The fisherman would lean against the railing, pick a splinter from his toe and throw back a beer, while Gilligan lapped up water from a old tuna dish. 

The stray dog was sleeping on a gravel road at the entrance of town when a van pulled by. The man inside was passing through St. Monica’s Bay and whistled to the stray. He slid open the door and decided to call him Red. Like his father. The man talked to Red while they drove through town. The man was at a loss for words at the sight of the little boy looking up at the sky, then at the woman in a moo-moo sleeping on her porch, and finally at the barefoot fisherman swatting and screaming at birds to get away from his catch. The man in the van scratched Red behind the ears and sighed as they left St. Monica’s Bay which use to have a stray dog.