I was walking Wiggles and listening to an audiobook when a woman walking toward us started waving her hand at me and making gestures that indicated I had to stop to find out what she wanted. When I freed one ear for her to state her business, she asked “Is your dog friendly?” I hate when people ask me that. What they mean is, “Will your little dog bite me if I put my hand near him?” And while the answer to that is no, Wiggles doesn’t really care for strangers. I mean, he doesn’t give a fuck about them at all. Someone could get hit by a car in front of us and he’d barely look up from the patch of grass he was sniffing. A year ago, a woman stopped us mid-walk to amble down her yard and clamor for Wiggles’ attention. He didn’t pay her the time of day. She looked offended, and asked me if he doesn’t like people. “He doesn’t care about attention from strangers,” I said. This seemed to offend her more, even though it was meant to indicate that his reaction was nothing personal. I’ll never understand why people push their little expectations on pets. They’re pets. We’ve domesticated them to the point of needing us just to survive. The least we could do is leave them alone sometimes.
“Is your dog friendly?” the woman on the street repeated. “Yeah,” I said. She reached an ashy hand out of her coat pocket and stuck one dry finger in front of Wiggles’ face for him to sniff it. He looked away. “Have you heard of the wolf?” she asked me. We were on a busy street, and I hadn’t paused what I was listening to, so I said “No…?” thinking I wasn’t hearing what I was very obviously hearing.
“You haven’t heard of the wolf?” she asked. “A wolf…you mean like the animal?” I replied. “Yes!” she responded. “I had one for 12 years. He stood this tall!” and put her hand above her waist, searching my eyes for some kind of reaction. “Oh, wow” I said. “May God bless you!” she replied as she scurried away.
Sometimes when a situation is too strange, I wonder if it really happened. I didn’t dare turn to watch this woman walk away, because if I had turned around and she somehow wasn't there anymore, I would’ve dropped dead on the spot. I had plenty of questions that popped into my mind after the fact. Like, was she insane? Did she really have a wolf? Was that legal? Did she bring home slabs of raw meat to feed it? Or was it just a husky with big bones? If it was a husky, and not in fact, a wolf, did anyone argue the fact with her? What if there was no wolf or husky or any kind of dog at all? What if this woman just liked lying to strangers on the street? For some reason, that is the only answer I really wanted. I wanted her to be a pathological liar, interrupting people’s lives to spin little yarns and completely fucking vanish right when the questions start bubbling up in their heads.
In my early twenties, I had a friend who was obsessed with lying to men when we went to the bar. She would come up with entire storylines about her fake life while we were squeezing into bandage dresses or putting on eyeliner. She was someone who truly committed to lying. She did it for the love of the game. I had to stop going out with her because I couldn’t keep up with her personas each night, and it was exhausting to listen to her character briefs while pregaming. I did support her cause, though. She’s married now, and we’re friends on Facebook even though we haven’t talked in forever. I wonder where she focuses her lying energy now. She was so good at it that it seems like a waste to just never use the skill anymore.
Maybe she still goes out to bars, sidling up to men while clutching a gin and tonic, whispering that her name is Diane or Bianca, or whoever she chose to be that night. One time, a mutual friend told me that she thought our friend lied because it was “better than the truth,” and “she must be really unhappy with her life,” but didn't think that was the case. If you could’ve seen her — the way her eyes lit up like neon while she giggled and talked while stirring her drink and slipping deeper into character — you would understand. I think she loved her life more because she could step outside of it sometimes and be someone else.
I thought about lies and the people who tell them for the rest of the walk home. There’s no way to know the truth about anybody, really. None of it mattered in the grand scheme of things, but goddamn I’d like to see a picture of that wolf.
this is amazing. thank you for writing.
this is so good it makes me want to get high and read it again lol