The Neighbor

   Wordle #283

Prompt words in red.

     My neighbor claims to have a huge male Alaskan malamute.  I’ve certainly heard it.  Not often, but what a voice!  It caused chills to run up and down my spine when I heard it.   I think I caught a glimpse of it too, when the neighbor’s front drapes weren’t closed securely.  He seems careful to keep the dog out of sight and the drapes closed though, he’s almost paranoid about it I’d say.  He’ll come out front, turn and face the windows, then hurry back inside, where I see the fabric shake and pull to seal up any gaps.  At night, there’s not a single glimpse of light showing.  The dog never noses his way between the panels to peer out at passersby.  It’s weird.  I mean the obsession with the drapes, but I guess it’s a weird dog too, not being interested in the comings and goings in the neighborhood.  I know my dog loves to watch the world parade by or at least watch the garbage trucks on Thursday.   He may actually be obsessed on Thursdays!  

     Getting back to this husky.  Ooops, sorry… the neighbor once became highly agitated and loud when I mentioned not seeing his “husky” around.  “ALASKAN MALAMUTE!  THEY ARE NOT HUSKIES!”  Okay.  Okay.  Relax, Buddy. It’s just a dog.  It’s not like I called your kid an “it.”  Boy, that little slip once made a woman at Walmart scream at me like I tried to touch her little brat.  Parents can be so touchy. Besides, what I’d told him was true, for a man with a dog; I rarely see the dog.  I’ve seen it probably six times since he moved in, which was about six months ago.  He posted signs on his lawn the day he moved in, painted in large red letters, reading, “BEWARE OF DOG” and “KEEP AWAY, THIS MEANS YOU!”  He didn’t have many visitors, that’s for sure!  I think he must have worked from home; he didn’t have a car, and I never saw him leave for the bus stop or be picked up.  Nice job whatever it was!  

     As I say, I saw the dog just six times.  In the middle of the night.  I had come home late once, well after midnight, and caught the tail end of a tail end just as the neighbor’s gate closed.  A huge, hairy tail end.   Another night I’d gone to the kitchen for a drink of water and a couple of aspirin, when I saw a hairy beast walking up the driveway of my neighbor’s house.  Walking… on two legs.  I rubbed my eyes and looked again.  Instead of the dog though, there was my neighbor, barefoot, with a bad case of bedhead, unlocking his front door.  I finished my water, shook my head at my own imagination and went back to bed to dream of packs of baying hounds.  The other nights I saw the dog were hot nights when I’d sat up late on my porch, slapping off mosquitos and watching bats swoop in the light of the full moon.  He would be sitting on his owner’s lawn, howling to that moon.  I’d have to say the howling was unearthly, but I’d heard huskies… oops… Alaskan malamutes can be loud.   An understatement if I’ve ever heard one. 

     The last time I saw the dog was last week.  I didn’t see my neighbor out with it, so crossed the street to make sure the dog was supervised and safe.  Like on a tether or something, I didn’t want it to run off.  As I neared, he slowly turned towards me in mid-howl and met my eyes.  I thought huskies had blue eyes… oops, sorry, I remember now, Alaskan malamutes have brown eyes.  Anyway, this dog had yellow eyes.  Yellow, but uncomfortably human.   Hard as it was to break that gaze, I glanced down and noticed it was wearing a watch.  You might be expecting a joke around now, watch… dog… watchdog?  But, no joke, I panicked, turned and ran.  I recognized that watch.  I’d admired it in the past, mentioned to my neighbor that I wish I could afford a watch like his.  Stupid thing to do, turn your back on a strange dog as heavy as yourself and run, but that’s what I did.  Fortunately, the dog didn’t follow after me, and by the time I got home, inside, with my door firmly dead bolted behind me, the dog was gone.

     Funny thing, after that last night, I never saw the neighbor or his dog again.  I don’t miss that howling each month on the night of the full moon, that’s for sure.    It looks like I’ll be getting new neighbors, a truck pulled up in the dead of the night.  I heard them unloading until dawn.  Now it’s as quiet as a crypt over there.

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