The Three Streets

The dog knew the way before the man did. That was the first thing. The man had walked these streets for eleven years and the dog for seven of them, and the dog had learned the route faster: the way dogs learn routes, by paw and by smell, by the particular angle at the third gate post where the pavement dips and the base of the post holds every dog's message from every walk.

The man talked. That was the second thing. He talked the way people talk to dogs, which is to say he talked the way people talk when no one is listening, which is to say he talked the way people talk when they have stopped performing. He told the dog about his pension. He told the dog about his daughter, who was in Manchester, who had not called in three weeks. He told the dog about the roof, which would cost more than the house if the winter did what the last winter did to the left side of it.

The dog did not understand any of this. The dog leaned at the third gate post. The dog sniffed the base of the post. The dog walked on.

The man followed.

This was the walk: the three streets, the gate posts, the talking, the silence at the second post where the lamp was missing, the dog's physical actions and the man's words, side by side, the way a walk is side by side, the way a lead is a connection and a constraint at the same time.

The man did not know what the dog did for him. He did not know that the dog compiled, that the gate posts received, that the walk was the relationship and the relationship did not need a name. He did not know that the dog's not-knowing was the condition that made the talking possible. If the dog had understood, the man would have been performing. He would have been telling, not unloading. He would have been choosing his words. He did not choose his words. He said "pension" and "Manchester" and "roof" because the dog did not know what those things meant, and the not-knowing was the permission.

The dog walked. The man talked. The gate posts stood.

At the second post, where the lamp had been missing since March, the man said nothing. The dog leaned. The silence was the same as the talking - it went into the same place, wherever that was. The dog compiled the silence too. The dog did not know it was compiling. The dog was leaning.

At the door, the man unclipped the lead. The dog went in. The man stood in the yard. He looked at the lead in his hand. He did not know what to call the thing the dog did for him every night at the same three streets.

He called it nothing.

He went in.

The dog was already asleep on the kitchen floor, compiling.