EARS by Jessi Lewis
When they bought Ears on the side of Route 50, Ruby’s mother haggled expertly, noting that the lady-dog’s nipples were stretched low after weaning puppies. The seller was a man in his sixties with thick glasses and overalls covered in motor oil. He had little use for a ladydog like that.
Ruby watched the sale from the truck. Her mother’s lit cigarette stuck out the side of her mouth at a sharp angle during the conversation. Her hair was blown out big the way it always was when they went into town. As the price dropped down from sixty dollars, the cigarette moved up and down, dropping ash. That day was Ruby’s eighth birthday, when all she wanted was a puppy – maybe a dachshund or a greyhound. But her mother paid ten dollars for the dirtdoused Ears, including collar and nametag. Her mother looked at Ruby’s reddening face and rolled her eyes. They made room on the bench seat for the dog.
“Be grateful. You’ll never find a more loving girl.”
Ears’ claws scraped roughly on the truck seat. Her panting was wet on Ruby’s cheek.
“What kind of a name is Ears?” Ruby said, convincing herself to pat the dog’s side. Ears wasn’t beautiful as she sat on the seat panting – she was stretched from pregnancy and scarred from a slash of barbed wire across her chest. Ears turned to the window and whined gently. Ruby’s mother sighed and waved with two fingers to Ears’ prior owner turning his truck onto the highway westward.
Then her mother said, “There is nothing more unappreciated than a bitch dog – a mother dog – that’s up for sale. Ten dollars – ” she paused to hold a hand up to the tan skin of her forehead, “Can you believe that? Someday you’ll see it and wish you weren’t born a girl. And her name is ‘Ears,’ ” she added, touching a finger to make Ears’ right ear swing, “because look at them. Look at them.”
With every mention of her name, the dog looked up expecting a command. Ruby’s mother looked tough as she smiled at Ears and bit too hard into the cigarette filter.
* * *
The rough-coated dog, Ears, a Heinz 57 with over-sized Labrador ears, pit bull chest and German shepherd tail, obsessively followed her girl. Even that summer, in the yard, when the warm came in and lay over their roof and groundhogs scrambled in between field and tree, Ears didn’t let herself become distracted. That summer, the sky and the ease of time would alter for Ruby, but the warm body of Ears leaning against her would not.
Ruby sat cross-legged in the dirt, ripping up the grass at her ankles methodically. They waited for Ruby’s mother to get ready to go to town. Ears drifted in and out of sleep, only to snap at a passing bee every once in a while. When there was little switchgrass left, Ruby smacked the ground, stood and strode to the base of the poplar tree in the corner of the yard. Ears followed.
Here, Ruby kept items hidden that only Ears knew about. The stash included a MAD magazine that didn’t make a whole lot of sense to Ruby and four cigarettes she’d stolen for a day she couldn’t predict. Ruby included Ears’ greatest finds there too – an old raccoon sternum bone, a half-eaten, grayed ball and a deer antler. Ruby pulled this collection out from the base of the poplar, wrapped in a green hand towel that her mother hadn’t noticed was missing. Ruby held each item up to the summer sun and squinted. Ears ambled close, her legs stiff. She chewed on the bones a bit, snuffled around the ball, then leaned again on Ruby despite the heat.
Ruby practiced holding a cigarette in her hand. Her mother had a way of holding a cigarette in different situations, and Ruby was careful to practice each form.
In the yard, in the yellow light, with gnat clouds moving over the grass, Ruby took a cigarette and stuck it out the side of her mouth. She looked to Ears, and the lady-dog looked at her, a deer tick crawling
up the smooth of her snout. Ruby reached to remove it and pressed its hard body under her shoe.
“No, you don’t know, Ears. You just don’t know,” she practiced.
Ruby brushed her hair back, cigarette akimbo, and listened carefully to see if she could tell what was taking her mother so long. Their house was so small it was easy to hear from the front yard what was happening inside. Sometimes, she could even hear her mother turn newspaper pages and the wet note of a coffee mug coming to rest on the table. Ruby listened and Ears lowered her head to rest it on Ruby’s knee. There was a light sound of clinking, then the opening of the bathroom window.
“She’s done showering, now she’s putting crap on her face,” Ruby said.
The house was a tiny structure framed by cornfield, then apple trees, none of which belonged to her mother. Originally, the orchard owners used the rental to lodge seasonal workers instead.
The driveway was a three-mile dirt road that looked like every dirt road. But Ruby knew it better than anyone – each bump, each pocket of dust. Now, she heard the low rumble of a little car with too much work done on the engine. She knew who this was. Ears barked and sat up. Ruby hid the cigarette with the others in the pocket of her jeans. It was Dennis, her mother’s boyfriend, in his little Chevy with the nodding Hawaiian lady on the dash. Dennis let the engine murmur and waved Ruby over. Ears followed her, then growled low at the open window.
“Ears,” Dennis said, “it’s just me. What a guard you got there,” he said. Dennis had a deep respect for Ears.
Ears sat in response to Ruby’s finger pointing at the ground. Ruby leaned toward the car’s open window. They both eyed Dennis. He had grown a thin mustache that Ruby did not like. It would never get thicker.
“Listen,” Dennis said, “is your mother at home?”
Dennis was a bank teller, tie still on.
“Yes, sir. We are getting ready to go into town.”
“Yeah? How soon?” he said, and his voice quivered.
She shrugged. His eyes looked from her to the front door of the house. He wiped his palms on his jeans. “Has she been out a lot this week? Maybe going to the bar in town?”
“Don’ know,” Ruby said.
A lie. Her mother never kept anything quiet, and had asked once or twice if it was okay for her to stay out all night and not come back until morning. Ruby always said it was okay, that she and Ears were fine at night if they had the television for company and Ruby’s ongoing paint-by-numbers project. Her mother never actually stayed out all night though. She’d always come in around two or three in the morning and make Ruby put on the Michael Jackson record – something to end her night right. They’d dance oddly on the green carpet, Ruby wiggling on her heels, her mother shimmying, Ears wagging.
Right now, though, it felt important to lie. Dennis was going to start crying – the tide rose over his pupils. Looking through his driver’s door, Ruby eyed his hands. They had formed fists on his thighs.
“You don’t know,” Dennis said. He sighed and let his eyes stay on the house’s front door. His lips twitched. “God damn it, Ruby,” he said, spitting a little. “You’re certain you don’t know? Certaincertain?” Ruby nodded as she took a step back. Dennis’ voice wasn’t right and he had never cursed at her before.
“Okay. Fine, girl. That’s fine.” He pressed his forehead to the steering wheel. “Tell her,” he said to the steering wheel, “tell her I’ll be back in a bit. Don’t go to town until I get back.”
“You okay?” she asked and he glared. “Yes, sir.”
He nodded and waved in the direction of the house.
Dennis reversed the car in the dust and drove back toward the highway. Ruby and Ears watched his dust cloud disappear, and then Ruby made a decision and stomped up the steps. She stepped one foot onto the green linoleum of the mudroom and called out, “Mama! Ma? Dennis was here.”
There was no response. Her mother couldn’t hear her over the hair dryer.
“C’mon, Ears,” she said, “we’ll just wait.” The last time she had interrupted her mother she had been pulled into the bathroom. Ruby’s mother spoke as she used lipstick for blush and Ruby was required to sit on the toilet and listen. In the end, her mother fished a tampon out of the drawer and showed Ruby how to push the soft body through the plastic tube.
Her mother had said, “We better talk about these things before time gets past us. My mother never bothered and that’s why – you know, Ruby.” Ruby had kept her eyes on the tub drain the whole time. Ears cried in the hallway to be let in on the conversation.
Rather than go through that again, it was easier for Ruby to wait until her mother walked out on the porch as she always did, all made up, her eyes fresh and strong in the light, her long white leather purse with the tassels swinging. Then Ruby would tell her about Dennis.
Ruby could guess that there was something wrong with Dennis that her mother wouldn’t want to discuss anyway. For the last three weeks, her mother had been careful to wear nicer things when they went into town because she kept coming across Rex, an old friend from high school. He had moved back home to help his father’s carpentry business that served the rich little houses all the way to the edge of the District. Ruby liked the way he looked because he was blond, and she hadn’t been around too many blond men with goatees. He was sizable too – towering on the sidewalk outside the hardware store whenever they’d run into him.
Running into Rex had taught Ruby to listen carefully. She didn’t mind being overlooked so much, but she tried to spend that time studying her mother, the way she spoke her o’s like her Jersey parents, the way she leaned on one hip.
Whenever her mother met a man on the street or in a restaurant, she held a cigarette daintily in her hand as though holding a pencil. When she’d bring it to her mouth, it was like she was kissing it.
Ruby practiced this once she’d landed back in the green of the yard. Ears’ head was back in her lap.
Ruby’s mother used to smoke this way around Dennis. Ruby could admit that she liked Dennis better than Rex. While he didn’t have Rex’s big shoulders and he spoke with a voice that was low, yet squeaky, he still really seemed to give a damn. He helped her mother pay the bills when her mother cried over them late at night. He called every once in a while and talked to Ruby – only if her mother was in the shower or made a face and waved away the telephone. Rex, on the other hand, didn’t talk to Ruby at all. He looked to her mother when they came across him on the street, and he never let his eyes drift down to Ruby’s height.
Either way, Ruby could imagine that kissing Dennis was far better. Rex seemed like he would have clunky lips, like he’d suck too hard or slobber too much. She had seen Dennis kiss her mother expertly. Her mother’s back was always against the passenger side door of his car when he’d drop her off. He’d have one hand on her mother’s waist squeezing tightly at her hip, the other touching the skin of her collar bone. Sometimes her mother would make a soft sound that made Ruby’s neck hair stand. Sometimes her mother would unwrap his hands and end the kiss early as though his grip had been too tight.
Now Ruby thought about Dennis’ shaking shoulders against the seat of his little car. She took the cigarette out of her one hand and rolled it back and forth between both.
“Ears? Huh? What do you think? Need a light?”
Ears stood up and walked over to their special collection in the grass. The dog looked down at the antler, picked it up in her jowls and dropped it again. Ruby followed, then rolled everything back up into the dirty hand towel. Her mother would be out any minute with a smack if the secret cigarettes were found. Ruby went to the base of the tree and pushed the little bundle back into the hole, perfectly tight for its contents. The tree bark scraped at her knuckles.
Ruby saw the copperhead before it made its move, but she never heard it. Its brown bow tie coloring dragged tight to the trunk of the tree and Ruby’s wrist almost touched its slick head. She fell back from her sitting kneel and the snake reared, coiling. It moved its head to a silent beat. Ruby cried out as Ears scratched over her legs. The dog rose to stand between them and barked her harsh single warning sound.
Ears dodged and darted as the snake took bites of air in her direction. Ears moved her front paws like a boxer’s fists, drew her lips back and snapped over and over. Her white teeth clacked.
“Ears, no, get back, back away,” Ruby yelled.
The copperhead snapped again, this time catching a bit of fur from Ears’ front leg. Ears danced backwards, surprised at the bite, then forward again, rearing back on her hind legs for a second. When their jaws met, Ears caught the copperhead in her mouth. The dog shook hard. The snake went limp.
“Ear-y?” Ruby said.
The dog turned, the snake sagging in her mouth, but its ugly head had clamped tight to Ears’ snout and dug its fangs deep. Ears dropped the snake. It hung on her snout from its fangs until she shook her head. The snake flew through the air and lay limp on the line between yard and the young cornfield. Ears took to rubbing her snout with both paws and crying gently.
Ruby landed on her knees in front of Ears.
“Ears – Ears, let me see.”
She turned the dog’s head to see the bite marks. Already the skin was swelling at the puncture points. Ears pulled away and cried as though burned. Ruby struggled to think of what to do. She stood and circled her dog twice, looking from the destroyed snake’s body to the house and back. She tied her hair into a ponytail twice.
It made sense to call for her mother, to drag her away from the mirror, to beg her to take Ears to the veterinary hospital. But Ruby knew that that place was expensive and Ears had only cost ten dollars in the first place.
“Or maybe we go to the Mulroneys’ place,” Ruby said as she dropped back to her knees next to Ears. Ruby considered the wideness of the dog’s eyes and immediately shook her own head at this thought too.
The Mulroney couple lived in a trailer on the other side of the cornfield – five acres away. Melinda Mulroney taught home economics at the high school and Greg Mulroney worked on a turkey farm. He had fat, leathery hands. But, Mr. Mulroney tended to put dogs out of their misery more often than he took them to the vet. That’s what happened to Trudy, their beagle, who had met a raccoon late at night and had her eyes scratched. Ruby shook her head again. The Mulroneys were nice, but they weren’t an option either.
“Ears, don’t worry,” she said, rubbing the velvet of her flop ears gently. “You aren’t going to get put down. I promise this – ,” she looked around the yard again for an answer. “I should make you something – like from a medicine woman? Dr. Quinn?”
Ears was panting now and tried to lick her own snout with her tongue. She looked up to Ruby and whined gently. One ear stood straight, the other flopped.
Ruby could see the swell even more clearly now under the dog’s skin. It was spreading. She reached to touch the two fang marks. When her fingers met the fur, Ears growled. It made Ruby’s tennis shoes scratch over the grass. She clasped her hands together.
“Ears, what do I do now? You tell me if you’re going to get all pissy.”
The dog stood slowly and looked to Ruby, as though considering what she should do with her child. Ears’ tongue still hung out of her mouth, her pupils small and nervous. She plodded over to the porch and drank a little water, crying at the pain of it. Ruby watched as Ears lapped, then as the dog walked to the side of the porch and crawled under, her back legs dragging under the skirting boards.
“Ears, no. Come back. We can take care of you.”
Her back paw disappeared, dragging in the rocks.
“Ear-y, c’mon out now. C’mon,” Ruby called louder this time. She patted her thigh.
Ears did not reconsider.
Ruby knelt for a second eyeing the darkness and the form of Ears’ left ear – all she could see. She wondered if there’d be more snakes under the porch, or black widows or something else with venom and a bite, legs and eyes. She huffed once, got low and scraped under the bottom board where there was just enough room for her hips to get through.
Ears moaned when Ruby crawled next to her. The lady-dog was on her side, panting hard. Two summer lizards scuttled out to the sunlight. Ruby drew herself in between Ears’ four paws and leaned against the warmth of her fur. Through Ears’ belly and rib cage, she could feel the movement of the dog’s blood and organs, and the light fever that was rising to the surface. The bare dirt pressed against Ruby’s cheek.
“Ears, you should be all right. No snake can win against you.”
Ruby wasn’t confident. She held her breath and tried to think about what to do next. The wind passed through the cornfield and the sound of the adolescent stalks dancing with each other gave some comfort. Ruby stayed. All she could see was the light in between the porch boards in perfect lines above her.
That’s when Dennis’ car drove up the road again – the same rough engine, the same avoidance of the potholes he had come to know so well over the last six months. Instead of idling on the road this time, he parked, but now Ruby could hear him gasp even when he hadn’t opened his car door yet. When he got out, he was crying. Ruby listened and Ears tensed as she did too. Dennis called out over the yard, “Ruby! Ruby-girl?”
Ruby sat up on an elbow. Dennis could be the answer. He knew about snakes and voles and owls and things from Boy Scouts. Ears could have a better chance with Dennis on their side. She thought about calling out to him.
But then, Dennis let go of a sound from his throat like a hurt animal himself. It was deep and full of spittle. Ruby held her breath. Ears put one paw on top of Ruby’s side.
“Ruby!” The word fell out of his mouth between sobs. Only a mockingbird replied. Dennis took the porch steps up to the front door. From Ruby’s position, she could see his nice pointed boots through the cracks, the ridges of his legs and belt, and then something silvery in his hand. He snugged the silver into the waistband of his jeans and untucked his shirt to cover it.
“That woman, that girl,” he said, “that fuckin’ woman.” When he banged on the front door, he placed his forehead against it and sobbed once, then twice. Ruby heard her mother’s light footsteps from the bathroom. She opened the door and all Ruby could see of her was a dark skirt, bare feet and a hand on Dennis’ shoulders.
“What’s wrong, Denny?” she asked. “Is Ruby out there? I’ve been making her wait forever.”
“Tell me you didn’t fuck a man in the back of his truck for all of the goddamn town to see, Emily.”
“Who’ve you been talking to?” her mother asked in her deepening voice. Ruby considered this to be her mother’s power-voice. When ever her mother spoke low she was getting ready to be tough, to hold back any smile below the high cheekbones that Ruby did not inherit. Her mother had complained once about how harsh her own voice could be – how manly – and Ruby hadn’t understood the slight. She knew her mother’s deep tones as muscle, as the power of a tight spine, a gripped fist.
Now, her mother led Dennis inside. The door closed.
“Ears,” Ruby said, “I should go.”
Ears chewed the corner of Ruby’s shirt in a disoriented way, eyes unfocused.
“Please, Ears,” Ruby said, trying to wiggle away. Her shirt ripped, and Ruby cursed under her breath. She moved to leave, but then there was yelling inside the house. Ruby hunkered back. Her mother and Dennis moved deeper into the living room.
Her mother called something about being stifled. Dennis roared louder: “– for you and your kid? What kind of woman are you? What kind of mother, Emily?”
There was a lower pitch, then even lower tones, then her mother saying, “You’ve got no goddamn right.”
There was a crash – the heavy sound of somebody hitting the floor. As far as Ruby could tell, one of them had hit the other, hard.
She hoped her mother was the one standing up strong, fist to her chest, knuckles aching. But Ruby could only hear a fraction, as though the argument was being screamed into somebody’s deep purse. There was scraping on the floor, someone standing roughly to their feet.
Finally, there was a word, long and low and significant, but Ruby could not hear it clearly. It was followed by a loud sound, a deep bang, as though someone had dropped a cast iron pan on a stone. The whole world inside Ruby’s head fractured. The bang made the darkness of the porch’s crawlspace wobble and Ruby felt sick. There was the sound of breaking. Then quiet.
Ruby waited and Ears breathed thick and heavy.
Her swollen snout threatened to block her eye. Wet rolled out of the nostril below the snake bite. When Ears breathed, the sound was raspy with drool.
“Ears, should I be sucking out the poison, or what?” Ruby said, ignoring the other questions she had, and the fear that rippled. It felt as though she had someone inside her chest, another voice telling her to stop speaking. Please, stop being so loud.
There was crying again, deep in the house, then closer through the opening of doors. Ruby held her breath. It was Dennis. He gasped as he closed the front door. The bottom of his shoes passed over the boards. Even from below the porch, Ruby could see dark staining his soles. He stood over the yard for a while, shoes looking down through the cracks.
Dennis yelled one last time, “Ruby!”
Ruby and Ears held still. Dennis took the steps two at a time, got into his car, turned the engine and idled. He was out of sight, but Ruby waited, wondering how long he’d stay.
Eventually, Dennis reversed his car, and then rolled away and up the road. The sounds of the yard replaced him slowly. Cicadas gnawed at the air. The deep bang in the house beat around inside Ruby’s head, but even that seemed to quiet when the cardinals started calling to each other in the poplar. Ruby breathed deep and matched the movement of her lungs to her lady-dog’s. They lay under the porch together as though someone else might arrive, as though Dennis might come back, as though her mother might stride out on to the porch boards looking for her. But there was nothing, only soft sounds of wind and the warmth of the sun as it deepened toward afternoon.
“Ears,” Ruby said, “what was it?”
Ruby tried not to let her mind wander to the inside of the house. She could taste the dirt of the sun-thirsty porch boards, and breathe in the ash that her mother took from the wood stove to throw over the ice in the winter. Ruby did know what the deep sound had been. She had heard Mr. Mulroney target practice with his handgun on the other side of the cornfield. He had offered her a chance to try once, the gun grim in its holster on his chest, and she had turned it down. Under the porch boards, for a moment, there was a pang in Ruby’s stomach, somewhere full of nerves. She could feel the wave of it up her body – the knowing.
“Ears, please keep breathing. Oh my Gawd, I love you lady-dog.” The dog complied, and Ruby listened to the sound of her animal struggle. Ruby turned to press her flat chest against Ears, so tight she could feel the dog’s ribs, rough fur and nipples through her t-shirt. She lifted her head to the dog’s ear and listened to the wet breath, the strong pulse. Later she’d go inside to her mother, but here in the dark, lines of sunlight graphed out the girl’s body and the dog’s body, a pause before everything would catch up.
Jessi Lewis’s work has appeared in Oxford American, The Hopkins Review, Sonora Review, Zone 3, and Appalachian Heritage.