As Americans grapple with the unique challenges of life in quarantine — from grave economic difficulties, accessing food, surviving domestic abuse to discovering how much television a person can truly binge — there is another American whose story has gone untold.
My dog, Elwood, is a very enthusiastic fellow. Eager and earnest, he is always ready to say “hi” to a neighbor or make a new friend. Every time a car pulls into the driveway he fervently wags his tail and says “oh boy! Someone’s here to see me!” But even more than people, he wants to socialize with other dogs. As the only dog in a house with two cats and an infant, he’ll be the first to tell you that there frankly aren’t enough dogs in his life.
Immediately before the world locked down and we all took to our couches, Elwood got a girlfriend. Her name is Snickers and he thinks she’s beautiful. She has long shaggy black hair just like his, but with patches of white and auburn that catch the sunlight and match the sparkle in her eyes. And she’s enormous, the size of a small cow. She’s as wide as a doorframe and the ground trembles when she approaches; he didn’t know they made dogs so big. And best of all, she likes him too.
Elwood, like so much of the world, has an issue with respecting women’s boundaries. Despite being neutered, his sex drive has been persistently pernicious; I can’t begin to count the number of times I’ve had to tell him to keep his paws to himself. He’s utterly submissive so the ladies have no problem putting him in his place, but, to his deep chagrin, he’s still quite unpopular in certain circles. But from the moment he met Snickers on a sunny day in front of the mailbox, she understood him. She even let him lick her face. After so many years of putting himself out there and being rejected, finally his love was requited.
But then the pandemic hit. Suddenly there were no more friendly chats with the neighborhood dogs and their people; the only visitors to the house are delivery drivers with whom he isn’t even allowed to interact. Now his days are spent on his favorite couch by the front window, his bottom perched on several pillows and his chin resting on an armrest. He stares out the window longingly, watching, waiting.
And once a day, if he is attentive enough and the dumb cats aren’t distracting him, he sees her. She strolls by on her daily constitutional, every enormous inch of her shining like a beacon of hope. When he first sees her, he freezes, unable to believe his eyes, but then he stands up, wags his tail so intensely the whole house shakes and he barks at the top of his lungs. “Snickers! I LOVE YOU!” He prays she can hear him. But as she continues past the house, his desperate pleas turn to despair and he whimpers and collapses back onto the couch, knowing that another day will pass without his love.
He, however, briefly finds the will to live again when it’s his time to relieve himself outside. As soon as the door is opened, he pulls on his leash with all his might until we arrive at the front corner of the driveway. That’s the spot they’ve agreed upon to leave their love letters. His nose to the ground, he reads how her spirit is faring, what she had for breakfast, how many belly rubs she’s gotten that day, and then he urinates his reply. He tells her that he misses her, that he dreams of her every night, and he promises that one day they will be able to be together once again.
Miranda McCarthy is a writer, maker and social worker who lives with her family in Pelham.