Short Story by Sean Ennis
Like a lot of people who adopt dogs, Clip was in need of rescue himself. He chose a dog that seemed to come from the longest line of mutts. It was a dog only in the sense that it barked and panted and wagged. There might be goat or bear in its genes. It walked on four legs, had a snout. Eventually, it ate dog food.
I went with Clip on the day he picked it up. Clip was very proud. He had scoured the cages at the shelter for a few weeks and finally made a decision. The staff at the shelter reviewed his application for thirty seconds and accepted it. He signed the paperwork and paid his eighty bucks. I thought, “Eighty bucks? That’s a lot of charity.”
In the parking lot, he held the puppy up and fully appreciated that it had a penis.
“There’s only one name for this dude,” Clip said. “King Kong.”
King Kong sat in my lap as Clip sped home. King Kong cried the entire time.
“He liked his cage, I guess,” I said. “He’s kicking and biting me.” The dog was not happy. It was, like, chirping. “It’s part bird,” I said.
“He doesn’t know what he’s in for,” Clip said. “Big-time happy puppy party.”
Clip stopped at the grocery store, and I waited in the car with this young life. I told it, “Welcome to the big show!” I said, “You’re free. This is the greatest country in the world.” But King Kong had buried himself under the seat, so I sent a few text messages.
I was waiting to hear about a job, and I had this superstitious way of thinking about my phone. I guess I thought about it like a dog. If I paid it enough attention, it would reward me with affection. But my phone wouldn’t vibrate.
Forty-five minutes later, Clip returned with a T-bone, a bag of dog food, two plastic bowls, and a gallon of bright-blue Gatorade.
“Planning on exercising?” I said. “Need your electrolytes?”
“It’s for King Kong,” Clip said. “Gatorade is like penicillin for dogs.” He scratched the dog’s head, and the car veered onto the shoulder. “I googled it,” he said, and we got back on the road.
• • •
Clip was in need of rescue. Nothing was going right for him. Times were tough.
For instance: He had a kidney stone he was waiting to pass in pain. He was becoming strange. He’d call me into the bathroom and point to the toilet. “Now that color is just not natural,” he’d say. He ate fourths of Percocet all day in expectation of this event. “Punch me,” he’d say. “I can’t feel it.”
For instance: His student loan lender had finally tracked him down and sent two Persian thugs in soccer jerseys to his apartment to suggest he refinance. Clip blamed the bad economy, but he was spooked. He worked for a company called “Clean Water Now!” He went door to door, scaring housewives with a jar of murky water he claimed was from their source. But donations were down, and his hippy bosses were now acting very corporate.
For instance: Two of Clip’s girlfriends had found out about each other when he took a third who was better at going through his cell phone’s history. He referred to this event as “Julie-Gate” and didn’t start many sentences after that without saying something like “Well, before Julie-Gate…” or “If Julie-Gate has taught me anything….” The girls had actually teamed up against Clip, putting aside their differences to get revenge. They had spray painted “Untrustworthy” on one side of his car. On the other, they wrote “Insincere.” When he saw the car, he said, “Well, that’s not entirely true.”
Clip drove a used Toyota Aptitude. The guy he bought the car from had claimed that it was a prototype that never made it to the States. He said the name of the car was a poor translation of how the Japanese kick ass in things like math. I said, “Isn’t it the Chinese who are good at math?” but Clip ignored me. The car had its own set of problems. There was a sweet spot on the passenger side floor that turned off the electrical system. Greenish smoke puffed from the exhaust pipe. The trunk wouldn’t open, but we could hear something roll around every time he stopped at a red light.
It was not in Clip’s nature to admit defeat, but surely he was feeling defeated. And so: King Kong.
• • •
Clip let the dog run free as soon as we got it back to his apartment. He had not puppy-proofed the place. In fifteen minutes’ time, King Kong destroyed four pillows from the couch, emptied three trashcans, pissed in two rooms, and chewed through one electrical wire. This last bit of destruction ended his reign of terror because he received a mild shock. Finally, King Kong lay down on the carpet and caught his breath. Clip thought this was all hysterical. “Don’t touch that,” he said to me, laughing. “That cord is still sparking.”
Then Clip put a pan on the stove top and laid the T-bone in it. “This will teach him to love,” he said. As the steak began to cook, King Kong rose up from the carpet in the living room and walked into the kitchen. “See?” Clip said. “He can’t bear to be away from me.” King Kong settled on the linoleum.
In the fluorescent light of the kitchen, I got a better look at the dog. It was drooling because of the steak and panting because of the chaos it had just caused. Its fur was brown and gray and black all at the same time. It had ears like a bat.
“He has ears like a bat,” I said. “Maybe he’s blind.”
“All dogs are basically blind,” Clip said. “But he can smell your mood.”
King Kong looked at me. My mood was fine for the moment. I was enjoying watching Clip play mother to this animal. I had never seen him cook before.
“That steak smells good. Should I set the table?” I said. I pointed to the air hockey table in Clip’s kitchen. King Kong got up and sniffed my ankles. I said, “See? I’m happy. I’m friendly. I’m feeling even keel.”
Clip flipped the steak, and the new sizzle from the pan caught the dog’s attention. It walked closer to the stove top and lay back down.
“I feel really good about this,” Clip said. He scratched the dog’s head. “This is exactly what we needed.”
• • •
When King Kong was finished with the T-bone, he threw up in the living room and then ate the vomit. Clip said, “Well, that was easy.” The dog began to snore, and so Clip turned the volume up on the TV. Two men in suits were discussing the economy. The graphics at the bottom of the screen read: “The Big Bailout: How it Affects You!”
“Shut up a minute,” Clip said. “I want to hear this.” I hadn’t been talking.
Clip had never once discussed an issue with me that did not involve himself directly, and so I thought this was noteworthy. He was taking an interest in global affairs.
“The problem was that there was no transparency in the credit default swap market,” Clip said. “It was totally unregulated.”
“Does the dog need to go out?” I said.
“Leverage is out the window,” Clip said. He shook his head as if he had predicted this turn of events. I felt the need to chime in.
“To what extent was Julie-Gate a contributing factor to this current crisis?” I said. I was trying to get the conversation back to familiar territory. Girls and money—surely there was a connection.
He took the bait. “Julie always wanted me to get a dog,” he said. “I should call her. She would be so pissed.” I wasn’t sure which Julie he was referring to, but I liked the idea. The men in suits on the TV were boring me. They were making Clip boring, too.
He didn’t budge, though. He kept staring at the TV, and King Kong was still sleeping. The men in suits were discussing the “paper market.” I assumed this was about recycling newsprint, but instead they spoke about banks lending to banks. Why would they do that? And every time someone I knew wore a suit, they were going to court or marrying someone they shouldn’t. I nudged King Kong with my foot to try to get something going.
The dog grunted and stretched. It yawned and rose.
“He looks bigger,” I said. “That steak and that nap really did something.”
“Blue Gatorade,” Clip said. He walked to the kitchen and poured the dog a bowlful. The dog followed and drank.
When Clip came back to the living room, those particular men in suits were gone. The topic changed to war. The topic changed to health care. The topic changed, and Clip wasn’t interested. He turned the TV off and got down on all fours. King Kong bounded into the room. Its feet were gigantic. It wanted to play.
Let me say that the economy was on my mind, too. I was unemployed. I had sold off my CDs and books and Indian arrowheads, and that had paid my rent and Internet the past month or so, but this sort of personal recycling was drying up. I had applied for a job that involved tailing newspaper delivery trucks to see if they were actually making their rounds. I applied for a job inserting pharmaceutical patents into a scanner. I applied to drive an ice cream truck. I had a college degree. So when I found out that the government was going to bail out the banks, I said something like, “Well, that’s just great.” I chanted, “Main Street!” like everyone else. But I had never assumed that any bank would approve me for a loan. I guess I had been wrong. Honestly, this whole crisis seemed like a missed opportunity for me. I should have bought a house and gotten a couple credit cards.
Clip was playing with the dog. “Did you get a credit injection?” he said in a high-pitched voice as he tugged on King Kong’s ears and legs. “Did you?” The dog was nipping at his hands and wagging its tail. This moment was interesting for a couple of reasons.
“So you bailed out King Kong?” I said. “I get it now.”
“This dog is not a metaphor,” Clip said. “It’s a human life.”
“Well,” I said. The dog barked because Clip stopped playing.
“You know what I mean,” he said. “The dog is not a bank. I’m not the Treasury Department. What would be the point of that? A pet is a big responsibility. Not a symbol of fiscal policy.”
King Kong went back to the blue Gatorade in the kitchen. Then it knocked over the trashcan and started eating something—Clip’s bills, it looked like. Everything the dog did now had much more meaning.
• • •
I could tell Clip was mad at me, so I walked two blocks to the bus stop—he wasn’t going to give me a ride in the Aptitude. I waited for a minute and then remembered that I didn’t have any cash. I started walking home. Clip sent me a series of text messages. “The dog is a metaphor,” the first one read. I didn’t respond. Three blocks later, he wrote, “Think about the best part of that movie.”
I imagined the dog climbing the Empire State Building. Biplanes firing away. Spotlights. Clip screaming on the ground. Is this the image he wants? I never watched the remake.
Before I could write him again, he texted, “Julie coming over.”
Julie was Ann Darrow—I googled it—though which Julie I couldn’t be sure. So this was a bad plan to get one of the Julies back. Clip was Denham. I got it. I didn’t think Clip was “Untrustworthy” or “Insincere.” He was my best friend. But I understood. He had chosen his metaphor and was running with it.
Back at my own apartment, I was still thinking about the economy because of Clip. I was broke. And now it seemed everyone was. Even Clip was worried. Was this a good thing? Probably not, but there was some comfort in no longer having to pretend I wasn’t. To be rich, it seemed, was a sort of sin now. I googled “economy” and started studying up.
Clip sent another text message. It said, “Julie here. Ooh la la. KK provided stimulus.”
I wrote him back. “Does ‘bailout’ mean getting water out of a boat? Or ejecting from a plane? There’s a difference.” I waited and got no response.
I listened to a podcast about Ponzi schemes. The concept made sense to me, but it sounded like people thought it was illegal. I constantly made decisions assuming that the future would be better. Who didn’t?
• • •
My vocabulary became richer over the next few days, and so I decided to play the market myself and call a Julie, hoping it would be the right one. I had consumer confidence. I was trying to do my part.
I invested wisely. Julie came over, and we stole a Netflix movie from my neighbors’ mailbox—The Secret Life of Bees. We split a labelless bottle of something she called “Alien vs. Predator.” The drink tasted like the Listerine that someone who had been drinking bourbon and smoking all night had spit out. It wasn’t bad with a little ginger ale. Times were tough. This Julie worked as a dental assistant. She told me that many were not going to the dentist anymore because they lost their insurance. Some days she’d just sit in the complicated chair and read magazines and rinse.
When we went to bed, Julie asked if I wanted to put her bank through a stress test before I nationalized her. She thought that would be prudent. I had chosen the correct Julie.
• • •
The next morning I got a text message from Clip. It read, “KK missing. Julie too. Hostile takeover.”
My Julie was gone, too, but I was grateful. The Secret Life of Bees was still looping on the TV. I couldn’t recall any of the film. Was that Queen Latifah? I stopped the disc and taped it back into its prepaid envelope. My front door was half open, but it didn’t matter. It’s not like I had a dog. When I was walking the movie back down to the mailboxes, Clip called me.
“I can’t remember how the movie ends,” he said. “Can you?”
I was confused. I said, “The Predators basically accept the chick as an equal hunter of Aliens and leave.” I was thinking of what Julie and I had been drinking.
“King Kong is an alien?” Clip said.
“Oh,” I said. “Never mind.”
“Julie went through my phone and read my text message that King Kong was a metaphor, I bet. She took him.”
“That didn’t take long,” I said.
“For what?” Clip said. “Her to go through my phone? Or for me to lose the dog?”
“I’ll be right over,” I said.
I walked the twenty blocks to Clip’s apartment thinking about The Secret Life of Bees. My guess was that Queen Latifah was much too big to play a bee with a secret life, and she didn’t even strike me as the beekeeper type, so I assumed the title was a metaphor. Maybe the movie suggested that we are all a lot like bees. Being unemployed, I imagined myself in new careers all the time, and bees have a job as soon as they are born. No application required. Maybe the movie was about the economy. I resolved to steal the movie again and also to google it. Maybe make the movie my metaphor.
As I walked, I listened to a podcast called, “Mark it to Market.” Made sense to me. I listened to a podcast called “The Toxic Asset Avenger.” It had been a while since I’d seen that movie. And I marveled at the pairing of those words, “toxic” and “asset.” The things these people did with language.
When I finally knocked on Clip’s door, I heard barking inside. That was a good sign. He opened the door with a sad sort of smile on his face. King Kong leapt and wagged. I was the second real person he had met outside of the cages, and he was glad to see me. I asked Clip how he was doing.
“Not good, boss,” Clip said. “Look at what they did to King Kong.”
When the dog settled down, I noticed blue spray paint on its flanks. On one side the paint read “Bad Dog.” On the other it said “Go Home.” Otherwise, the dog was unharmed. The smell of spray paint and dirty mutt was something, though.
“Who would do such a thing?” I said.
“‘Untrustworthy’?” Clip said and gestured towards the Aptitude in the parking lot. “‘Insincere’?”
“This message feels fundamentally different,” I said. “This was not the Julies.”
I said this knowing at least one of them was with me the night before. Could she have snuck out in the morning just to accomplish this? Were they still operating under the terms of their previous anti-Clip merger? Should I fess up?
“Want a drink?” Clip said. He pointed to a pitcher that was vaguely blue. I sniffed it, and it smelled like my prom in the late ’90s. The economy blogs called that time the “dot com bubble.”
“It’s CK Be,” Clip said. “I found an old spray bottle in a drawer. It’s cut with a good deal of blue Gatorade.” He lifted his own glass. “It’s not like I’m going to wear it.”
I poured one. Times were tough.
“What’s it called?” I said. “What do you call the drink?”
“It needs a name?” Clip said. “Old cologne and Gatorade?”
“Everything is something else these days,” I said.
“How about ‘Wall Street’?” Clip said. “Or ‘Godzilla.’ I don’t care. I’m thirsty.”
“To monsters,” I said.
• • •
After we had finished the pitcher of Gatorade and cologne, scrubbed King Kong three times and shaved him, gone to Coinstar to redeem our $16 in change, and purchased an actual bottle of gin, we convened The Julie-Gate Hearings. The Julies arrived about two hours late in a GM Compliance. It was a two-door SUV with a mirror for a trunk. It was bright red. Four Julies piled out. The problem had gotten bigger.
The Julies took seats at the air hockey table. I poured them each small glasses of blue Gatorade in silence, while King Kong moped around, thirsty and ashamed of his baldness.
My Julie from the night before looked at me as if I were a stranger. Had we not shared “Alien vs. Predator”? The Secret Life of Bees? The fourth Julie was their fat friend. While Clip and I prepared for the hearing in the powder room, he referred to her as “the pork,” but I understood she was the boar meant to gore us.
Clip said, “They are going to argue for insolvency here, but it’s really a crisis of liquidity.” Then he grabbed at his lower back and grimaced.
These terms were familiar to me from my research, but I did not know what he meant, metaphorically. He could tell.
“They think,” he said slowly, ”I’m a bad boyfriend. But really I just don’t have enough time for all of them at the moment. But I will.”
Then he leaned against the bathroom wall and sank a bit. He closed his eyes. King Kong started spinning toilet paper off the roll with his gigantic paws. Clip took a pill from his pocket and crossed to the faucet. The dog had a drink from the toilet while we talked.
“I’m dying here, boss,” Clip said. “I can’t do it. It’s too much.”
“This crisis is all about confidence,” I told him.
“I am a bad boyfriend,” he said. “I’m a zombie bank.” He swallowed the whole pill and turned gray.
“You are not a metaphor,” I said. “You are a human being.”
“I think I’m going to pass this kidney stone,” he said. He had both hands on his back now and was wrenching in pain. “You’ve got to straighten this out for me. Go talk to them.” He put the seat down on the toilet, dropped his jeans, and sat down.
King Kong looked at me, and I could still see the remnants of blue paint on his skin. Clip was sweating and breathing heavy now.
“Okay,” I said. “Let me know if you need something.” I left Clip in the bathroom with his pain, and King Kong followed me out. The Julies were still sitting at the air hockey table comparing text messages Clip had apparently sent them all, sipping their Gatorade. The fourth, mysterious, Julie stared into her empty glass and snorted. I held up a finger to them, grabbed the gin by the neck, and went into the living room to review my own notes. My Julie—my secret bee—followed me.
“We were misled into a relationship we didn’t understand,” she said.
I took a swig. “Whose fault is that?”
“We are willing to accept some blame here,” she said, taking the bottle from me and swigging herself.
“What you did to the dog was a bit much, don’t you think?” I said. “I thought we had a nice night together. You snuck out?”
“We did, you and I, have a good night,” she said. A smile crossed her face, but she wouldn’t share the bottle now. “But the dog is a metaphor.”
I sighed. There was no denying it. I looked at King Kong—that climber of Empires—and he was shamelessly licking his privates.
• • •
When I was done negotiating with the Julies in the morning session, we had come to some concessions. The gin was gone, but the fat Julie produced a bottle of something from the SUV they called “Waiting to Exhale.” It was a pinkish liquid with green leaves in the shape of little blades at the bottom of the bottle. It looked like poison sumac.
I shrugged and pointed to the bottle, “May I?” They conferred and stared at me suspiciously. “We’re off the record right now,” I said. “C’mon.”
My Julie offered me the bottle. It smelled mostly like rubbing alcohol. Times were tough. As a sign of good faith, I drank right from the bottle without even wiping off the opening.
“There’s fresh pomegranate juice in there,” my Julie said. “And powdered Jell-O.”
“It’s delicious,” I said as I put the bottle down. “Anti-oxidants,” I said. “Is the movie as good?”
“You wouldn’t get it,” the fat Julie said. “Let’s summarize what we’ve established and break for lunch.”
In summary, we had agreed that Clip had sold them on some options and futures that might have been questionable. I got them to assent that without a wedding ring, he was fully within his means to do so—they were willing buyers. I agreed that Clip needed more regulation but asserted that we had to outline exactly what that might mean. We didn’t want to limit him too much because it would stunt growth for the entire community, mainly me and King Kong, but also some Julies.
The whole time, Clip was moaning in the bathroom, trying to pass that kidney stone. We broke for lunch.
• • •
Clip was sitting on the toilet, crying. “You didn’t see me like this,” he said. “Can I have some Gatorade?”
“Should we go to the hospital?” I said. “You were drinking cologne not that long ago. Your kidneys couldn’t have liked that.”
He pulled his jeans up to his knees. “How are the talks going? Where’s the dog?”
“You could die,” I said. “Kidney failure kills people. King Kong is right here.” The dog was licking Clip’s bare thigh at that very moment.
“What did you promise?” Clip said. His head was in his hands now.
“Not much,” I said. “I admitted mistakes were made. They are willing to admit that, too.”
“The fat one,” Clip said between gritted teeth. “What is the fat one saying?”
“She’s playing strong-silent,” I said. “I don’t think there’s much substance there.”
Clip laughed on the toilet. “There’s plenty of substance to her. But I’ve never seen that girl in my life. What’s her purpose?”
“She’s a metaphor,” I said. “For toughness. And for the larger community that your behavior is affecting.”
“It’s my fault their fat friend is tired of hearing the Julies complain about me?” Clip said. “Is it my fault she is unattractive? Where does it end?”
We agreed to try to end the afternoon session as quickly as possible. Did these girls not have some place to be? Didn’t they have jobs? King Kong’s tongue was blue from licking his itchy flank. The message was unclear now.
• • •
The Julies returned 45 minutes later, each carrying a collectible, fluorescent daiquiri cup. There were seven of them now. They threw fast food trash into Clip’s recycling bin. The fat Julie burped and did not excuse herself. The Julies I didn’t recognize didn’t introduce themselves. Some of them cracked ice from Clip’s freezer.
“You went to The Recycled Bar and Grill,” I said.
“Just for a minute,” my Julie said. She grabbed me by the hips and smiled. She danced us to music that wasn’t there.
“Clip needs a stay,” I said. “He’s in a lot of pain.”
“We all are,” she said. “Times are tough.”
“No, I don’t mean it metaphorically,” I said. “He’s leveraged.”
My Julie scoffed; she didn’t get it.
“So the whole world should stop, right? Because Clip doesn’t feel well?”
The Julies all laughed. There was a general sputtering about the plight that is Clip-dating. I was overwhelmed and exhausted. Had he dated all seven? I walked toward the bathroom and looked at my phone. I had missed a call from a number I didn’t recognize.
Through the door, I could hear Clip moaning more intensely now, and it sounded as though he was punching the wall. King Kong was whining along with him, licking his flanks raw. The Julies were laughing in the kitchen, spilling blue Gatorade all over the floor. Hopefully, the crisis was reaching its bottom.
• • •
I checked my messages. A recorded voice said the newspaper industry was a vital aspect of our society and therefore needed regulation. Did I have what it takes to help? They thought from my application that I did. I had an interview.
For a moment, I was relieved. Times were tough, but they would get better. I was on a new career path. Regulator.
But when one of the Julies turned on the air hockey table’s fan, King Kong had had enough. It is an old, loud machine—a gift from Clip’s father. The game required no real skill, just violence, just a franticness that feigned precision. Clip and I understood the game in an intimate way. That sort of banging away to score some small victory was familiar to us. It’s a good game.
But King Kong began barking at the Julies in a dangerous way. He did not like their laughter at his master’s expense, the way it echoed in the kitchen. He nipped the fat Julie’s ankle, and she squealed. I half-heartedly called him back. His act was just a gesture, nothing more—a metaphor for his anger. Mine, too. He smelled it. But as the girls retreated out the door, King Kong sat beside me, chest out, legs bowed, and he looked very much like a gorilla.
When Clip emerged from the bathroom, he wore only a t-shirt and his boxer shorts. His eyes were puffy from crying. We both said, “Is it over?” at the same time.
King Kong rolled over onto his back, submitting to the day.
Clip kneeled down gingerly and scratched the dog’s stomach. “Did you bite one of those mean girls? Did you?”
“Not too hard,” I said. “I think they got the point.”
“If Julie-Gate has taught me anything, they’ll be back,” Clip said. “I created this monster. But I feel better. My stock is up.”
I had a strange thought. I wanted to see that stone that had leveled Clip. I said as much.
“There’s nothing to see,” he said. “The doctor had said that might be the case.”
“You didn’t see it? So how do you know it’s out?” I said, but it was a stupid question. Clip was pale and sweaty and shaking. There was a little blood on his hands.
“That kidney stone was not a metaphor,” Clip said. “It’s just a razor-sharp calcium deposit formed as a result of heredity and diet. If I’m lucky, it doesn’t suggest a larger renal problem at work. Plus, it hurt like hell, and then it stopped.”
It seemed Clip was already adopting a new language for this post-Julie-Gate age. Was he a doctor now, a scientist?
“And the dog?” I said. Had he given up on metaphor as well?
“I just wanted something trustworthy and sincere in my life,” Clip said.
Then his phone began to vibrate and ring in a myriad of patterns and tunes. King Kong whined. It was clear who was calling.
“I have a job interview,” I said, surprising myself. “In the newspaper industry.” Even I was tired of talking about Clip.
“You see?” Clip said. “Recovery.”
Art Information
- “Fenris on Blue” © Matthew; Creative Commons license
Sean Ennis is a Philadelphia native now living in Water Valley, Mississippi, where he teaches for the University of Mississippi and the Gotham Writers’ Workshop. His work has appeared in Tin House, Bayou, The Greensboro Review, Crazyhorse, Lit N Image, The Good Men Project, and The Best New American Voices anthology.
