Lucy’s trip to the big city

I arrive back in Brooklyn on Tuesday morning from a much-needed rest at home in Narrowsburg. My roommate Mark is away on a film shoot and arrives home later in the day. With him is a special guest star, Lucy, his parent’s dog, who we will be taking care of for the week.

Lucy is a regular-sized poodle, and at four months, she is already 25 pounds. She is brown, with soft curls and big brown eyes. She reminds me of a Muppet (Fozzie Bear) and I find her to be incredibly sweet. She licks my hand excitedly as Mark explains that everyone on the shoot loved her.

“Nothing like having a cute puppy around,” he says. “She sat right under the camera as we shot and never barked. She’s great.”

He throws a ball across our apartment and she scampers awkwardly after it, bumping into the wall. At four months, she is still figuring out how her limbs work and doesn’t quite have a handle on her motor skills. She plops down, finished with the ball and starts licking the side of the couch.

This is her first trip to the big city and she is fascinated and excited by everything. She stands on her hind legs, paws resting on the windowsill, nose pressed against the glass, watching the cars and people go by.

Mark takes her to the bar around the corner where we are regulars and she is a smash hit. We play pool in the back room (it was league night) and Lucy hangs out under the pool table, watching everyone’s feet go by. When asked whose dog it is by a particularly attractive blonde, our entire pool team responds, “Mine.”

“It’s mine,” says Mark, with a grin.

“She’s very cute.”

On the bar’s outside patio, Lucy hangs out in the setting sun. Everyone who walks by stops to pet her on the head. She gives each hand a lick and I am struck by how completely trusting she is. She breaks through the walls that people keep up in New York. To her, everyone is nice and everyone is approachable. She looks people in the eyes when they pet her.

It’s beautiful out, late in the day, and a slight breeze ruffles through her hair. The streets are quiet and the sunlight is orange, the calm before the storm.

“I’m going to get another drink,” Mark says and stands up. Lucy, not on a leash but attached to Mark anyway, gets up and follows him inside. I stay outside.

A bark. A growl. Commotion.

I stand up and look into the bar. Another bark. “No!”

A glass falls. A loud gasp.

Another dog has entered the bar and its owner, a large tattooed fellow, is pulling on a leash with all of his might. The other dog, a huge, muscular, scary beast, bigger than a pit-bull (I know nothing about dogs), breaks free and lunges at Lucy.

A horrendous sound follows: a yelp, mixed with a choke, and a scream so terrible that everyone stops. It all happens in slow motion and I find my feet glued to the patio, my hand clapped over my mouth.

The scream continues. The scary dog is clamped on Lucy’s neck. Three people try to pull him from Lucy, who struggles to free herself. Another glass breaks. Everyone is shouting so loudly that you can barely hear the music.

The scream continues.

And like a snap, Lucy is free, the other dog dragged away, still struggling against his owner. Lucy scampers frantically into the back room where the pool match is still going on and buries herself under the table. A quiet murmur washes over the bar and slowly everyone goes back to what they were doing.

I realize that I am still standing outside, my hand still frozen over my mouth.

“Is she okay?” someone asks me.

“I don’t know,” I say.

I walk slowly into the back room. Lucy is shaking under the table.

“She’s okay, I think,” Mark says, his face white and distant, still shocked.

“Is she bleeding?”

“I don’t think so. Her neck is all wet, but I don’t see any blood.”

Mark picks her up to take her home. Everyone at the bar tries to pet her as she is carried away. But she doesn’t look up from Mark’s shoulder.

Later that night, she sits beneath my feet shuddering, breathing erratically, trying to catch her breath. The next day, she’s in the exact same spot on the floor.

The next night, I take her for a walk but when we get far enough away from our apartment that she can’t see it, she stops, refusing to go any further and drags me back inside. Other dogs make her hide behind my leg and she is no longer interested in the passing cars.

The day after, she licks my hand timidly as I leave for work, a glimpse of her old self.

The day after that, she’s fetching her ball and eating through a video game controller (no more two player FIFA), seemingly content.

She’s gone now, back upstate with Mark’s parents. A nose print on a window, a chewed-up video game controller and the recollection of that horrible sound ringing in my ear are the only remnants of her stay.

The fight in the bar is a distant memory of a lesson learned for a young dog on her first trip to the big city.