Balk

"How can an old world be so innocent?"

-- Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

--

Mom asked me to get the paper a few minutes ago. It's dark outside, and cold--such a late winter night. Ajax saw my purpose as I shoved my feet into my sneakers, and he started whimpering and hopping with anticipation, like a kid in the backseat when the car gets close to the amusement park. So I had him sit at the screen door, a lesson in patience, and then with one grand motion flung open the door and hissed, "Come on, let's go!" He shot out of the warm house into the dark, frozen grass.

I must have thought he knew I only meant to walk to the end of the driveway and return; I put on my shoes only, no coat or scarf. He began to run circles around me as I jogged back, teeth chattering, to the front door, and when he saw I was in no mood to play, he gave up on me and ran to the sidewalk across the lawn. He paused only to look back at me, a kind of smile on his furry face. "Come on, let's go!" he seemed to say. We had switched roles: Now, he, holding me in place and asking me to go; now, me, stuck until his whims aligned with mine.

So I dropped the paper in its tight plastic sack and made for him, dropping to all fours in the icy grass, grassy ice, snarling and snorting joyously for the winter. I darted left; he countered to his left; I faked right, he balked to his left and shot between my feet. The two of us were boxers on the lawn, dueling without gloves or contact, I the aggressor and he the underdog, I the trapper, he the squirrel.

And then, on the grass in the hostility of night, Ajax squatted, his tender belly settling on bristling blades, his skin feeling the microscopic ice through the young thin wisps of hair. He stared at me, his eyes beaded in the light from the porch, pinpricks of white firing back from his retinas. I stared at him, a looming silhouette, the essence of the house (the posh cage, playground and dungeon for darlings and dogs). We panted, each considering the other.

Then I turned, retrieved the paper. He stayed on the grass, paws down, wondering if I meant it, one set of legs twitching to follow, the other set planted, wanting to sprint with the domesticated half of his brain--all potty training and cheap tricks--but feeling the tug of a different leash from mine.

We went inside.