Dogs Don’t Know About Fallujah
Paul Curley
Tom Howard/John H. Reid Fiction & Essay Contest 2025 (view all the winners)
Honorable Mention, Fiction
1.
My daughter Hazel tells me things, that's how it works. She sits on the couch as though it were a raft that could tip at any moment. She leans against the armrest in her raincoat, pressing her palms and the soles of her feet into the cushions, as her brain scrapes away at the hard edges of worry until she spits out something like they bombed a wedding in Kabul or ISIS beheaded two journalists in Mosul. Or Mom's moving to the Skagit Valley. Seems she's learned most of her geography from one war or another.
Dad, there's a man, she says now. She's wearing noise-canceling headphones, so it comes out louder than she means.
Old news, Hazel. I'm standing in the middle of the dining room, my head tilted upward as my eyes follow the sound of squirrels chasing each other in the attic. I've got Kenny from EcoPest on the phone. At the start of winter, it's common, he says. Find out where they're getting in, then trap and release them across at least one river. Or kill them. Kill them? I ask.
April left us two months ago. Our marriage was tempestuous, even warlike at times. Hazel and I ran reconnaissance, found the Skagit on a map, her new address on Google Earth. Now I know she's living with a man named Kristoff, who owns a roofing company and raises llamas. Hazel told me. Kristoff. Skagit. Names with edges that cut my tongue if I say them too quickly.
Dad, there's a man! Hazel's eyes have gone big all at once. She points to the porch. No, I certainly don't want to kill them, Kenny. EcoPest no longer traps squirrels, he says. I wonder if maybe they're tired of driving them across rivers. I picture a squirrel swimming across a river in the dark, a knife in its mouth and revenge in its heart, when I see movement through the curtains behind Hazel and I tell Kenny I have to go.
The discordant drumbeats of the man's footfalls reverberate in the hollow under the porch boards. On my way through the living room, Hazel slides her headphones down to rest on her shoulders. I ask her who it is. I told you, a man, she says. I position myself to the side of the front door and peek out the window. Yes, a man who's apparently laying out his bedding.
I step out. Cold wind, raindrops slapping at the daphne leaves where the porch light spills into the yard. What's going on? I ask. He was bent over as he unrolled a foam mat, a plastic garbage bag rumpled at his feet, but now he straightens as he looks up. His cargo pants and army surplus coat are oversized, suggesting that they had at one time fit properly, and his brillo of a beard, gray-streaked and wiry where it bushes wide of his face, makes him look ragged with age. But then I see his eyes and I realize he's younger than I thought.
Portland's homeless crisis has been in the news as Metro debates whether to expand the urban growth boundary. My opinionated neighbor Gil's voice pops into my head. Do I want to preserve habitat and farmland? Sure. Is it worth terrible traffic and homeless people shitting in my yard? No.
Just looking for a dry place to sleep, he says. I know it's tough out there, I tell him. I'd rather not have this man sleeping on my porch, what with my sixteen-year-old daughter in the house, but Hazel would hate for me to use her as an excuse to send him off. She's on her knees on the couch, her pleading face in the front picture window.
She's been this way since she was little, begging us to help every homeless person we see. Just last summer, she made sandwiches for a homeless couple that was van camping across the street with their goat. April lost it when she found Hazel inside the van drinking a La Croix. She can't say boo to kids she's known for ten years but is suddenly Mother Teresa to the goat hippies? she said. This is your fault, Michael. April could never see Hazel's sensitivity as a gift.
Just one night, the man says. No problem, I tell him. Can I get you anything? I go back into the house to make him a piece of toast with peanut butter. Hazel follows me into the kitchen, perches herself on a barstool, palms down on the island—a mannerism that she's kept since her toddler years. She's beaming at me. What a great dad moment. As her only parent who didn't leave for the Skagit, it's up to me. Can I have one too? Hazel asks. With the distraction, I'd almost forgotten about the squirrels. Maybe there's a hierarchy of aural input. A man asking for shelter, a daughter asking for food. But now I hear them again. Be glad you have floorboards up there, Kenny had told me. Otherwise, there'd literally be just half an inch of plaster separating them from you.
I take the toast out to the porch. I'm Michael, I say as I hand him the plate. Rob, he says. OK, have a good sleep, Rob. He's looking past me, so I turn to see Hazel, who's in the doorway wearing her bright orange raincoat. This is Hazel, I say. Without speaking, she waves to Rob, who's still staring at her. OK, just one night, I remind him. Enjoy the toast. Thanks, Mike, he says. Michael, I correct him.
I turn away, and Hazel's smiling at me, only now more teasing than proud.
If anything irritated me in my marriage, it was how April used my name to mock me. When I refused to argue the bill at a restaurant, she'd snap, I'll do it, Michael. And when the hippies were parked for days in front of our house last summer, she said, how are you so OK with this, Michael? The way she said it, Michael meant pussy.
When we first started dating, it was playful, a teasing that fit into her broader narrative that Portland men were pussies. Her word, not mine. The evidence that she loved to cite was that she never got hit on in Portland bars. Oh, because you're so hot? I'd say. Yeah, Michael. Then she'd pull off her shirt and prove it. But now it's an unspoken joke between Hazel and me. Weird, but I'll take it.
Later that night, I pop into Hazel's room to say goodnight. She's leaning against her headboard, pen moving furiously across the photo album that she uses as a writing surface. Tiny papers flutter to the floor, something she calls prayerfetti. I pick one up. Rob. They all say Rob. She watches me out of the corner of her eye—it's OK for me to read as long as I don't ask questions.
When Hazel was in kindergarten, her differences became another irritant in my marriage. Families from her class had gone to a corn maze on Sauvie Island one October, a sunny day too warm for sweatshirts, too cool for tees. The farm buzzed with hayrides to the pumpkin patch, pig races, face painting and pony rides. The occasional small aircraft rumbled overhead. Hazel darted in and out of the cornstalks in the maze with her classmates, a group of us parents following along. We were debating whether immunizations cause autism when I realized Hazel was no longer with us.
I retraced my steps, called her name. With each turn, each dead end, the less sure I grew which way we'd come. My fear billowing into panic, I turned another corner and another but all I could see were walls of corn that all looked the same. One more turn, one more dumb guess, and there she was, planted as still as a scarecrow two or three rows deep in the stalks. Her hands covered her ears as her eyes dropped their payload of corn pop tears straight down her cheeks. When she saw me, she pointed to the sky. Bombs! She yelled. I didn't know what she meant until another prop plane passed low. That was the start of prayerfetti. Peepl on TV that night.
Hazel's quirks have always pissed April off. The headphones, the raincoat inside the house, the prayerfetti. Deep down, April sees her inability to change Hazel as her own failure as a mother. The prayerfetti especially drives her crazy. She once said, I can't live in a million shreds of paper like a fucking rodent, Michael.
2.
I open my eyes and listen. Nothing. Kenny had told me that the squirrels would be loud around sunrise but he was wrong. Hope mounts that they're gone until I remember the earplugs and slip them out. Still there. I pull Hazel's door closed on my way past her room. It's Sunday, so no school. As I spoon coffee grounds into the French press, I see Hazel's toast plate on the kitchen counter and remember. I add the hot water, then walk to the front windows where all I see of Rob is a heap of blankets.
I miss April the most in the mornings when I have to drink my coffee alone. No matter how tense the previous night had been, in the mornings April was usually disarmed and vulnerable. Our morning coffee was a reset button. I pour a cup and use the back door so as not to disturb Rob.
Walking the narrow stretch of lawn toward the front porch, I search the roofline for a gap big enough for squirrels. I hear my neighbor Gil before I see him. What are you up to? He sounds amused. I turn to see his German Pinscher, Jacko, straining at the leash. Gil holds his hand out to shake, which means I'll have to get close enough for Jacko to jump on me. He says, Off Jacko, but it never works and now there's a smear of mud on the jeans that I just washed. At least I didn't spill my coffee. What's up? Gil asks again. I tell him about the squirrels. He nods. Careful to leave an exit, he says; otherwise, they'll eat their way out of your house.
Jacko barks and lunges for a squirrel that has just run onto the lawn. Two steps until Jacko runs out of leash, Gil's grip taking the dog off his feet. The squirrel scrambles into a cherry tree in the parking strip, where it now barks back at Jacko. Kenny from EcoPest called it chucking. They chuck when they feel threatened, he told me.
Squirrels aren't your only problem, Gil says. He flicks his nose at my porch.
One morning last summer, I was pinching the tomato plants on the side of the house when Gil called my name. He was standing in the flowerbed between a rhododendron and his house, waving me over with a hand inside a green plastic bag. I approached and saw a pile of poop near his feet. Jacko's? Even as I asked, I knew the answer. Gil picked it up and marched into the street. Bacon smoke was rising from the open rear doors of the hippy van, the goat tethered to the roof rack. Gil chucked the bag of hippy shit through an open window. Then his phone was in the air, filming. What the fuck? The young guy's voice came from inside the van before his head appeared in the window. Next time, it won't be in a bag, Gil said. I want you gone today. He's not big, but attitude counts for a lot. They were gone in twenty minutes.
I follow Gil's gaze to my porch. I'm learning that home includes the people you love, and though I still have a roof and a warm dry bed, in my lonelier moments I feel homeless without April. I sip my coffee, then look at the grass where Jacko's licking his nuts. Hazel once told me that Jacko's lucky because he doesn't have to go to school and doesn't know about war and earthquakes and climate change. Probably doesn't even know he'll die someday. I rattled off a list of all the ways that Jacko was anything but lucky, including that he eats the same thing every day and has to live with Gil. Now I must concede defeat. It's his resilience—a moment ago putting his body on the line when he so passionately wanted that squirrel, now content to make lemonade with his balls in the very spot where he landed. Must be nice.
Gil's still glaring at the mound of blankets on my porch. Stick Jacko in your attic for a night if you want. His breeding says he'll take care of your squirrels. I'm going to live trap them, I say. Gil's head lists to the side as he studies my face. April's voice comes into my head to translate. Pussy. To each his own, but here's how I see it, Gil says. Do I want to treat all creatures humanely? Sure. Can I tolerate them fucking, crapping and pissing all over my house? Course not.
3.
Ninety-five Americans died in Fallujah, Hazel yells as soon as I walk back through the kitchen. She's in place on the couch wearing her headphones and raincoat. Prayerfetti is scattered on the floor. I pick one up. Veterans. How do you even know he's a veteran? I say. She can't hear me, but her glare calls out my moving lips. He's probably too young for Fallujah, I press on. She says, Vets are twice as likely to become homeless—it's not his fault.
Through the curtain, there's movement on the porch. Rob is sitting up. I give him a minute before stepping out. So how were the accommodations, sir? Real fancy, he says. How about some coffee? I ask. Yeah, I'll take a cup. As I walk through the living room to the kitchen, I can feel Hazel's eyes on me, and when I return with the coffee, she takes off her headphones. Dad, you're a good person, she says. Oh my God, that feels good. I really don't want anyone sleeping on my porch but he can stay for days if Hazel keeps that up. I continue outside with the cup. Thanks, Mike, he says. Michael, I correct him again. When I go back into the house, Hazel's smiling.
The squirrels are quiet. Sleeping or just out for the day, I don't know. I would like to leave too—the feed store for traps, New Seasons for groceries—but instead I busy myself with chores so that I can keep an eye on things. I don't want to leave Hazel alone with Rob here. Not that he would do anything, but still.
Dad, you're dusting, she says. Very good, Hazel. I run a rag along the fireplace mantel, under the blank space where our wedding photo used to hang. Dad, he must have fought in Afghanistan or Iraq. We could just ask him, I say. As I walk to the window, she looks nervous that I might actually do it. I peek through the gap in the curtains—he's sitting up, seeming to organize his things. I start a load of laundry and vacuum the bedrooms, then look again to find him sitting in exactly the same position, still moving his things around, something that I find highly aggravating. Not to be mean, but he barely has anything—what's taking so long? I clean the bathroom before checking again. Finally.
I walk onto the porch with the broom, but my relief that he's gone immediately gives way to dismay when I see his bedding folded under the porch swing. We had a deal, but now it looks as though Rob is planning to spend another night here. I lift the edges of his blanket to see what's underneath. I'm not sure what I'm looking for—drugs, needles? A weapon? But then that feels like an invasion of his privacy so I stop. And I say, Shut up, April.
I take advantage of Rob's absence to run my errands. When I return, Hazel confirms that there's been no sign of him or the squirrels. I fish two plastic yogurt lids out of the recycling bin, spread peanut butter on them and slide them into the cages. When I reach for the door handle to the attic stairs, I picture the squirrels waiting on the bottom step for their chance to rush the gap and run amok on the main floor, but there's no sign of them anywhere. I place the traps along opposite walls in the attic, then close the door behind me at the bottom of the stairs.
I spent the morning waiting for Rob and the squirrels to leave, and now a sense of dread builds that I might spend the rest of the day waiting for them to return. It feels like a good afternoon to zone out to mindless TV, but I'm still trying to wean Hazel off of it. When April left, I stowed the TV in the closet. She used to run it constantly for background noise, said the house felt empty without it. Hazel was often the only one watching; school shootings, rising sea levels, wars—she saw it all.
I grab my book but even as I plop into the armchair across from the fireplace, I know I won't read. My eyes land on the rectangular patch over the mantel, a darker green than the surrounding wall, and I ask myself for what must be the hundredth time why she would take our wedding portrait. Is it her memento, the way a tourist steals a piece of art from a hotel room? A trophy, the way hunters keep the head? Or maybe she simply wants me to ponder the dark patch the way Hazel watched TV, to see my own war, the one in the Skagit where a man named Kristoff might be sleeping with my wife.
They bump into each other in the kitchen at daybreak, the night's sex stuck in their heads like a new song. She slaps his ass and hops into his arms, locks her legs around his waist. Later, they gaze out at the fields from the porch with their coffee and talk about the day. Maybe they have to move the llamas to the upper pasture where the winter grasses are ready. There's a fence to mend, or maybe Kristoff has to run roofing supplies to a crew in town.
These wouldn't be bombs except that I still love her. I desperately want the dark green patch to be a sign that I still mean something to her, but if she could see me, she'd likely sneer, Still waiting for me, Michael?
Sunday night, I've hauled the TV out of the closet and we're watching a movie when I hear the thumping of boots on the front steps. He's back, Hazel says redundantly. I step out. Rob is sitting on the porch swing, one arm extended along the backrest like he lives here, the way I used to sit with April. Hello Rob. No response—are his eyes even open? Rob? I say louder. He turns his head. 'Sup, Mike? He's slurring, so I don't see the point in correcting him. We had a deal that you could stay one night. I know, he says. Did you try the shelters? I ask. Tried the Benson, but they're full up. He has his coat off, revealing a tattoo on his arm. Ready to die for country. He appears to be falling asleep again so I go back into the house. Gil's rationalizing voice comes to me. Do I want Rob off my porch? Yes. Do I want to harass a drunk man who's ready to die? Not tonight.
4.
It's after work on Wednesday and the Hawthorne Bridge is up. I'm anxious to get home but am stuck behind a line of cars waiting for a boat to pass. I can't even see the boat, but I want to hate it. I want to hate April, too, but I can't. I'd settle for healthy anger, so I'm listening to a podcast called Justified Rage. Their anger professional jokes that if you're listening to a podcast to learn how to feel angry, then you should be pissed at yourself. Now I want to hate that guy, too.
I'm sleep deprived and I have a headache that pulsates in my eyes. It's the squirrels, it's April, and it's Rob, who's still sleeping on my porch. I've been leaving for work late so that I can be home until Hazel goes to school, then knocking off early to be around in the afternoon.
The bridge lowers and traffic moves again. The grated bridge deck rattles the car and exacerbates my headache. Raindrops bounce off the windshield—feels like weeks of continuous rain. I drive up Hawthorne. Groups of homeless people and their dogs shelter under the eaves of shops, which reminds me that I saw Gil and Jacko as I was leaving for work yesterday—or was that this morning? He started to say something, but the rain was a good excuse to get straight into the car. No need to talk, because I already knew.
Rainfall grows heavier as I continue east, the thickening ceiling of clouds casting the world in a gray half-light. I approach New Seasons on the right, where people cluster under the black iron awnings. A bright orange raincoat like Hazel's catches my eye.
I look over my shoulder, then search in the mirrors, but the orange coat quickly recedes behind me. Was the orange coat standing with a bearded man in camo? Might have been. Possibilities drop like rain into my puddle of a brain. If that was Hazel and Rob, what were they doing together? Had they planned to meet or just run into each other? I tell myself it probably wasn't her, that she should be home from school by now, but is that just wishful thinking?
I resist the urge to circle back. Last summer, when April pulled Hazel by the arm away from the hippy van, Hazel didn't talk to her for days. I have to protect my relationship with my kid—I'm all she has. If I were to go back, I'd be telling her that I don't trust her. Anyway, I don't even know that it was her. She's probably home.
It's just a few more blocks to the house. Inside, my eyes search the coat tree for Hazel's raincoat. Not there. I drop my workbag on the empty couch and stand in the middle of the cold, dusky living room. The dark green patch above the fireplace taunts me, this time with a memory. Hazel, a bruise on her forearm from April's grip. April, jabbing a finger into my chest, in tears about always having to be the bad guy. You hide behind your fuckin' principles so that you don't have to grow a sack, Michael, she yelled. She'd been wrong in so many ways that I didn't even consider that she could be right about anything.
I call for Hazel, but the only answer is the scurry of squirrel feet overhead. I burst into tears, a brief but intense squall. When it lifts, it leaves behind a clarity that I haven't felt for a long time. Do I want to be a kind person? Absolutely. Do I want to be a chump for the rest of my life? Shit no.
Back outside, I march across the sodden grass and rap on Gil's door. Good timing, he says, I was just about to feed him.
Now Jacko strains against the leash as I tromp back onto my porch. He pulls to the right towards the swing, sticks his nose into the pile of blankets and clothes, his wet paws slipping on the porch boards under his effort to get closer. No, Jacko, I tell him. Not yet. I yank hard on the leash to haul him into the house.
The attic steps are across from Hazel's room. As soon as I unhook the leash, Jacko's nose leads him straight up. I close the door behind him. I turn away and see that Hazel's light is on, her door cracked. I walk in. She's on her bed, leaning against the wall and dropping prayerfetti like nobody's business. Her noise-canceling headphones protrude from the hood of her raincoat.
Hazel, I was worried about you, I say. Only I no longer feel worried, just an anger that takes me by surprise.
She can't hear me. Without looking up, she says too loudly, A package came from Mom.
Package? What package? I'm yelling.
She points to her desk. I see the flat box, opened. Next to it, the portrait of a smiling me in a tux, a smiling April in white. There's a yellow sticky note on the glass. I go closer to read. In her messy scribble, the way that she might have left me a note on the fridge to tell me we need eggs, or that she'll be back in ten minutes, April wrote, Michael—don't know why I took this.
It's then that the squirrels chuck and Jacko barks. There's an explosion of feet, screeches and growls overhead, a violence that vibrates through the bones of the house.
Hazel pulls the headphones away from her ears, her eyes wide with alarm. Everything is suddenly still overhead. I kneel next to Hazel in the shreds of prayerfetti, pick one up. It says Dad. They all say Dad.
