the dog’s chain

by Wesley R. Bishop

The AC in Roxy’s car was losing the battle. Heat radiated through the windshield like someone had strapped the sun across the hood. Her phone was clipped to the vent, chirping the next DoorDash order — some combination of tacos and sweet tea for someone named Derek.

“Two stars if it melts,” Mira said from the passenger seat, lifting the brown paper bag and pretending to sniff dramatically. “Three if it spills.”

“I’m going to start making you walk these up to the door,” Roxy replied, cutting the wheel down a residential street. “Make you do the Tip Tango.”

Mira grinned. “I’d leave a Yelp review on these sidewalks. One star, do not recommend.”

They were half-joking, half-exhausted. Roxy’s summer break from college had not turned out the way she pictured. Delivering food in her dust-colored Civic wasn’t exactly educational. But Mira riding along made it better. They could talk like they used to — in the cracks between other people’s doorbells and hungry hands. Roxy had missed this. Missed her.

The houses on this street were wide and low to the ground, ranch-style, with weather-faded siding and driveways that ended in patches of gravel. Most had American flags hanging limp in the still air. One yard had a gutted car under a tarp, and another had a sign that read: “NO TRESPASSING. VIOLATORS WILL BE SHOT! SURVIVORS WILL BE SHOT AGAIN!”

Mira whistled low. “That’s a warm welcome.”

“Wait,” Roxy said, pointing. “There.”

They slowed at a corner lot. The yard was kept, but barely, weeds tall enough to sway. A doghouse sat near the back fence. And then — nailed to a post by the gate — the sign: “WE DON’T CALL 911,” beneath the silhouette of a handgun angled just so.

Mira leaned forward, her expression shifting. “Charming,” she muttered. Then, without missing a beat: “I am offended they think I want to visit them.”

“I forgot how many American flags people fly out here,” Mira said, watching one flap angrily on a mailbox. “I am so glad. I almost forgot what country we are in.”

“Technically, we’re flying one too,” Roxy said, nodding at the rearview mirror where a tiny rainbow flag swung next to a keychain of Frida Kahlo. “Dual allegiance.”

Mira got out with the bag and jogged up the walkway. She rang the bell. Waited. No answer. She knocked. Still nothing.

“Hello?” she called, giving it one more shot.

Behind her, the sun pressed down like an accusation. Mira crouched, set the bag on the mat, angled it just right, and took a picture to upload.

As she walked back toward the car, Mira caught her sister’s gaze, turned to follow it, and saw the dog.

It was tethered by a thick chain to a run-down box, paint peeling, the roof sagging on one side like a collapsed tent. The grass around the box had been rubbed down to dry, cracked earth, forming a wide, uneven circle — the farthest the dog could go. In the center of the ring, the dog sat in the heat, sides rising with shallow breath.

The backyard opened onto a kind of alley — not paved, but driven enough that two tire tracks ran behind the fences. The kind of space where boundary lines zigzagged and neighbors argued over who owned what.

“God,” Mira said quietly as she climbed back in.

The dog didn’t bark or whine. Just sat there.

“That’s depressing,” Roxy said, tightening her grip on the wheel. “He looks like he hasn’t moved in a month.”

“Or had a bath in a year,” Mira added.

Neither of them said anything for a few seconds.

Then Roxy reached over and tapped her phone. “Okay. Next drop. Let’s go see what Olivia wants for lunch.”

But in the mirror, the dog’s circle of dirt stayed etched into the background, like a stain they couldn’t quite scrub from their minds.

Back on the road, Roxy turned the volume down on the radio — some indie playlist Mira had queued up — and glanced sideways at her sister.

“So,” she said, “you’re really not going to tell me more about the walkout?”

Mira groaned theatrically. “I already did.”

“Not really. You said it happened; that’s it. I had to find out the details from mom.”

“It wasn’t a big deal.”

“The local news covered it. That makes it a big deal.”

Mira picked at the ripped jean holes at her knees.

“Fine. But only because you’re driving and I can’t escape.”

“Correct.”

Mira sighed. “It started after winter break. A couple of us found out how little the janitors were being paid. Same with the cafeteria ladies. Like, it was bad. One of them was driving in from two towns over because she couldn’t afford to live closer. No benefits. No raises in, like, five years.”

Roxy shook her head. “Jesus.”

“Yeah. So, I made a little flyer — and it kind of snowballed. We organized a walkout. Just fifteen minutes. Peaceful. Signs, chants, all that.”

Roxy grinned. “I saw the video. You with the megaphone, on that weird brick bench thing near the flagpole?”

Mira rolled her eyes. “I didn’t know what to do with my hands.”

“You looked like a leader.”

“Yeah, well.” Mira looked down, then out the window again. “It felt good. Real. I don’t know. Like something that mattered.”

Roxy nodded. “It did matter. I was proud of you.”

“They were proud too,” Mira said, meaning their parents. “In the ‘this-will-look-great-on-your-college-essay’ kind of way. Not so much when I had to go to the principal’s office three times in one week.”

“Beaderman?”

Mira gave a tight smile. “The one and only.”

“He always gave me weird vibes.”

“He hates me now,” Mira said, drawing out the word. “Swears I disrupted the whole school environment. Said if I so much as sneeze the wrong way next year, I’ll be off student council, out of choir, and banned from theater.”

Roxy blinked. “Seriously?”

“He didn’t say ‘banned,’ but he said, ‘I’ll be forced to re-evaluate your eligibility to represent the school in public-facing events.’ Which is principal-speak for ‘get in line or get out.’”

Roxy whistled. “So… no more protests?”

Mira smiled again, crooked this time. “No more public protests.”

They drove on in companionable silence, the sun slipping past its high noon perch, casting long shadows from the mailboxes and telephone poles. Roxy glanced in the mirror again. She couldn’t stop thinking about that dog. Stuck in that circle. No voice, no protest. Just waiting.

“You ever think about running for student body president?” she asked suddenly.

Mira blinked. “Why?”

“Because I think you’d win. And I think you’d burn it all down if you had to.”

Mira laughed, loud and free. “God, I love you.”

“I know.”

The city opened around them in pieces, stitched together by streets that once had a plan. Out here, in the forgotten stretch between neighborhoods and industry, the road ran broad and flat under the sky the color of old steel. One moment they were gliding past clapboard homes with sagging porches, the next past chain-link lots with wild grass jutting through abandoned tires. Some houses stood proud, their brickwork scrubbed clean, with geraniums in pots and fresh coats of white paint. Others seemed half-asleep, caught in a slow crumble — tarps where shingles should be, windows peeking out like tired eyes.

The Civic rattled over a seam in the pavement. Then another. A pothole caught the back tire with a thunk and made Mira grunt.

“Every street’s a percussion section,” she muttered.

But then the road smoothed again. They turned onto one of those endless boulevards, the kind that felt like it was built for something bigger. Four lanes wide, plus a turn lane. Empty but for a few cars between rush hours. It urged you to speed, to fly through the long, shallow curves past strip malls and hardware stores and the occasional Baptist church. In the distance, the skyline hunched low — just a few squat buildings above the treetops — but the sprawl reached for miles.

They made good money that day. A few double tips. A family left a “thank you” note in the app.

“I think I want to teach,” Roxy said suddenly, merging onto a half-ramp that wrapped toward the outer belt.

Mira looked up. “Yeah?”

“English. Theater, maybe. I still love singing, but… there was this study group last semester. We each had to take part of a unit and ‘teach’ it to the others. I got assigned A Raisin in the Sun, and as I was talking about it, I saw this one girl’s face just—” she snapped her fingers, “—light up. Like it clicked. It was the coolest feeling in the world, Mira.”

Mira smiled. “You’re gonna be so good at that.”

Roxy flushed but didn’t look away from the road. “Yeah. I think I might.”

The boulevard narrowed again. Another bump. The Civic’s shocks groaned. The city never ended — just curled back into itself, new zip codes papering over old problems.

That night, after their DoorDashing, they were back at their mom’s house (they’d visit their dad in a few weeks). The house had gone still in the evening dusk. Outside, the cicadas sawed the coming darkness into pieces. Inside, the hum of the upstairs fan stirred the thick summer air, brushing the edges of posters and curtains. In Mira’s room — once their room — the carpet still held the faint smell of vanilla from some long-gone candle.

They lay flat on their backs, heads close but not touching, phones held above their faces, thumbs flicking. The screen-light gave their cheeks a faint blue glow. Mira’s finger hovered mid-scroll. Roxy reached over and gently held it like a lever.

“Just making sure you don’t scroll past anything scandalous,” she teased.

Mira smirked. “It’s all scandal in Trump’s America, sis.”

They didn’t need to say much. The comfort was in the silence — the old rhythm of being two halves of the same thought. Roxy’s phone let out a soft buzz, and she ignored it. Somewhere between the overhead light and the floor, this room had always felt like a little raft, floating above the world.

“There’s this boy,” Mira said suddenly, voice light but just serious enough.

“Oh?” Roxy grinned, turning her head slightly. “Details, please.”

“I don’t know if he likes me,” Mira said. “He’s… cute. Smart. We were in the same AP class. He always made jokes under his breath during lectures. I think he likes me, but I don’t know. Sometimes he laughs at my texts but doesn’t send anything back.”

“Hmm,” Roxy said, considering. “If he doesn’t respond, he might be nervous. Or dumb. Or both.”

“That’s not helpful.”

“I contain multitudes.”

They giggled softly.

“I had a crush on this guy in Chemistry,” Roxy said after a beat. “Tall. Glasses. Killer dimples.”

Mira made an approving noise.

“Then he casually dropped that he was in the NRA.”

“Oh, my God,” Mira groaned. “Barf.”

“Right?” Roxy shook her head. “I was like, ‘This lab partnership is over, sir.’”

Mira started humming a song from Hamilton, and Roxy picked up the harmony. Just a few bars, then silence again.

Mira rolled over on her stomach, eyes wide in the low light.

“I have an idea,” she said.

Roxy raised an eyebrow.

“Might sound crazy… but hear me out. You remember that dog we saw?”

Roxy blinked, eyes still on the ceiling.

“Dog?”

“Yeah. The one chained up out back in that guy’s yard. From the DoorDash run. The ‘We Don’t Call 911’ house.”

“Oh.” Roxy’s brow furrowed as the image returned: the sagging doghouse, the circle of dead grass. “Yeah, I remember. What about it?”

“I’ve been thinking about it all afternoon,” Mira said, sitting up now, legs crossed, phone forgotten beside her. “The way it just… sat there. Not even barking. Like it had given up.”

Roxy turned her head. “That was sad. But I mean… it’s not really our—”

“It is,” Mira interrupted. “Guys like that — like the guy who owns it — they’re always like this. Gross. Mean. You know he had a tarp nailed over the window on the front porch? Who does that?”

Roxy smirked faintly. “Paranoid guys with pistols on their signs and always on their hips?”

“Exactly,” Mira said. “You know his name?”

“No.”

“I made sure to remember. Derek Brinker. I also memorized the address.”

Roxy sat up a little. “Why?”

Mira looked at her, dead serious. “Because I want to get that dog out of there.”

Roxy stared.

“I’m not joking,” Mira said. “I have a friend at the shelter — like, legit works there, with a clipboard and everything. She could find it a good home. A better one.”

Roxy let out a low whistle. “That’s… bold.”

Mira gave a little shrug. “It’s not stealing. Not really. It’s rescuing.”

“You realize if you get caught, Beaderman’s gonna have a field day. He’ll kick you off everything.”

“That’s why,” Mira said slowly, “we have to be sneaky.”

She pulled her phone back toward her, thumb already moving. “We just need to know when to go… maybe late at night. And a place to park. And a way in and out through that alley behind the fence. I saw it — it cuts clean through the block.”

Roxy hesitated. Her brain was already filling with possibilities, timelines, disguises. “Mira…”

“I know. I know,” she said, eyes still on her phone. “It’s risky. But doing nothing is wrong.”

The room was quiet again. Only the fan moved, casting soft shadows that flickered like second thoughts.

Roxy exhaled. “Okay. Hypothetically… what’s step one?”

Mira grinned. “We go back tomorrow. And we watch.”

The next day was somehow hotter. Roxy pulled the Civic into a slow crawl down the same neighborhood street from the day before.

“You got the food?” Roxy asked.

Mira held up the brown paper bag and grinned. “Two cheeseburgers and curly fries. The classic peace offering.”

They parked half a block from Derek Brinker’s house. Mira slipped out of the car, adjusting the bag in her hands. Roxy followed behind, her keys in one hand, phone in the other — half-primed to make a rescue call if needed.

They headed to the neighboring house, just a few yards over. The paint on the trim had peeled into long, curling ribbons. A wind chime clinked out of rhythm near the door.

Mira rang the bell.

An older man in cargo shorts and a faded graphic tee answered. He looked like someone who’d once built a deck by himself and wouldn’t stop bringing it up.

“DoorDash?” he asked, squinting.

“That’s us,” Roxy said, smiling. “Got a delivery for a… Gina?”

He frowned. “Gina? No Gina here. You sure it’s not for next street over?”

Mira leaned forward, peering at her phone. “Ugh, this app. It glitches like three times a day. We already had someone earlier try to claim they didn’t order wings and then ate the wings while telling us they didn’t order them.”

She was talking a bit too fast, Roxy noted.

Mira offered a sheepish smile. “They’ll just throw this out if we bring it back. Wanna take it? On the house.”

He paused for a beat, then shrugged. “Hell, sure. Beats cooking.”

He took the bag and opened it right there on the porch, popping a curly fry into his mouth like he’d been waiting all day for someone to offer him lunch. Chewed loudly.

“You been here a while?” Roxy asked, trying to keep it breezy.

“Yeah, work from home. Rarely leave. Same with most of us on this street. It’s nice and quiet from downtown. I catch all the neighborhood drama whether I want to or not.”

Mira pointed subtly with her thumb. “That house next door… the guy with the dog?”

The man’s chewing slowed, just a little. He looked toward the fence, then back at them. “Brinker. That’s him. Keeps to himself. Has some… ideas, if you get me.”

Roxy raised an eyebrow. “What kind of ideas?”

He shook his head, stuffing another fry in his mouth. “Not the good kind. Keeps that poor mutt chained up like a lawn ornament.”

Mira frowned. “That’s what we thought.”

He licked salt from his thumb and met their eyes, his tone quieter now. “You seem like decent girls. But best let sleeping dogs lie, if you know what I mean.”

He smiled, then closed the door.

The deadbolt clicked.

Out back, behind Derek Brinker’s squat single-story house, what used to be a lawn had surrendered to dust and weeds, the kind of patchy earth that crunched underfoot and spat up bugs when disturbed. But in one precise, miserable ring, it was absolutely barren—burned out by urine, trampled by pacing, and bordered with a thin lip of dead, cracked grass. A perfect circle.

That was as far as the chain went.

The dog had paced it for years. Around and around. No further. Not toward the shadowy tree line where breeze gathered. Not toward the broken-down lawn chair Derek sometimes sat in while scrolling through Reddit forums on his phone. Just the circle.

The dog box had once been painted blue. Now it was the color of faded cornflower. The roof sagged slightly in the middle, the shingle edges curling up like old paper. When it rained, it leaked.

In the heat, the box baked.

In the cold, it cracked.

But it was shelter, Derek insisted, and that was more than some people gave their animals.

The water bowl, a rusted steel pan, sat off to the side. Half-filled with a greenish film, algae spreading in delicate fingers across the surface. Mosquito larvae danced in the scum. Derek had cleaned it once that summer. Maybe twice.

“Dogs don’t got the taste buds to notice,” he muttered once, when someone—that retired woman three houses down—had dared to say something. “They lap up toilet water, for Christ’s sake. You think they care if it’s a little green?”

He’d laughed at that.

The dog, whose name Derek never used, had once been a puppy so small it fit into the crook of his now ex-wife Tanya’s arm. She’d carried it out of the flea market like it was a treasure. Now it was middle-aged and dull-coated, matted fur at the haunches and eyes crusted at the corners. It didn’t bark much anymore. Sometimes it didn’t even stand when Derek brought food—dry kibble tossed into a second bowl with the same thoughtless rhythm as someone feeding fish.

And behind the house stretched the unofficial alley—a ribbon of field marked by half-fallen fences, low brush, and tire tracks. Everyone on the block treated it like it was theirs: kids cutting through on bikes, neighbors dragging trash bins, the odd truck nosing through to reach the opposite side. There were no posted signs, no real sense of who owned what. But everyone knew that if you needed to get through, you could.

It was that alley that offered an escape route.

All someone had to do was pull through slow, park just beyond the shed, slip the chain, lift the dog—quiet now, barely resisting—and roll forward again. Gone before Derek Brinker would notice.

And so, Roxy and Mira waited.

The sun was still high, so they filled the time the only way they knew how — a couple more deliveries through the denser parts of town. They dropped off Thai food at a warehouse turned art studio, handed over milkshakes to a family whose kids came running to the door like it was Christmas, and got stiffed by a man who looked them in the eye and said, “You’ll get yours in heaven.”

“Great,” Mira said. “Can’t wait to share the tip with the angels.”

Later, they parked downtown and ducked into their favorite record store — a converted two-story building with creaky wood floors and mismatched bins. The place smelled like the 1970s, old cardboard and denim. It was a quiet refuge tucked between a vape shop and a boarded-up furniture outlet.

They flipped through records without speaking much. Dusty jazz. Bowie reissues. Something pink and moody and obscure. It wasn’t about buying — it was ritual. Roxy had seen it in a movie once: characters on a stakeout, passing time in a dim shop, keeping their nerves cool by pretending the world was still ordinary.

“Uh… isn’t it a bit cliché?” Mira asked looking at the cover of Olivia Newton John album. She was in a blue pool, coming up from the water as if to say something important, and sexy, and needed. “God, she is beautiful,” Mira said.

“Its not cliché. Its Hollywood!” Roxy answered.

Seemed right.

By the time the sun dropped behind the line of old grain elevators and cell towers on the west edge of the city, they were ready.

The Civic nosed its way into the alley with the headlights off. The gravel crunched softly beneath the tires. Roxy moved slow, careful, windows down so they could hear every sound. The night air was close and quiet.

Mira had the flashlight ready, cupped low against her palm.

“There,” she whispered.

The backyard was dim, but the moon gave just enough light. The dog was there, curled near the edge of his little circle of dead grass. When he saw them, he rose, tail thumping once, then again. No barking. Just a soft, eager whine.

“Thank God,” Mira breathed. “Thank you thank you thank you.”

Roxy hopped out, heart pounding. She unlatched the gate with shaking fingers and moved toward the dog. He wagged harder. Closer now, the smell hit her — old water and matted fur. She dropped to one knee, Mira right beside her. Together, they undid the collar from his neck.

He didn’t fight it. Just leaned into their touch, like someone exhaling after a long time holding still.

The dog jumped into the backseat without needing coaxing, tail wagging like it might lift him off the seat.

As Roxy pulled away, they watched Derek Brinker's yard disappear in the rearview mirror — the slumped doghouse, the algae bowl, the sagging fence post leaning like it wanted out too.

“Welcome to your second chance,” Mira whispered.

Roxy cracked the rear window. The dog stuck his nose out instantly, ears flapping in the breeze. The smells of the world rushed in — night grass, dust, streetlights, and summer. He drank it all in like a dog who knew what freedom tasted like and had nearly given up on it.

Roxy smiled.

“Looks like someone’s enjoying the view.”

The next morning Derek Brinker opened the back door with a mug of black coffee in one hand and a sour taste in his mouth. The dog was not where it was supposed to be.

The heavy chain trailed loose in the dust, still clipped to the corner of the dog box. No barking, no whining. Just the stiff heat of morning and a stillness that settled into his chest like a stone.

He stood there a moment, blinking at the empty space like it might resolve itself if he stared hard enough. Then he stepped down off the porch.

“Goddammit,” he muttered, crouching to inspect the collar. Still intact. Whoever had done it had taken the time to unclip it. Not an accident. Not the dog getting loose. Deliberate.

The coffee sloshed as he straightened. “Someone took it,” he said aloud to no one.

It.

Not “him.”

It.

He turned on his heel, went inside, and set the coffee down without drinking it. His laptop was open on the dining room table—he worked from there most days now. The firm gave him wide latitude. Third-party cybersecurity, mostly corporate clients, sometimes local municipalities. He’d always had a knack for spotting weak points—other people’s mistakes—and exploiting them.

This was no different.

The first thing he needed to do, he thought to himself, was gather information.

He’d start with the neighbor — Gary, or Gerald, or something like that. Walked over, knocked heavily and waited. The door opened half an inch, and the man behind it leaned his full weight against it, as if Derek might storm the place like a repo man.

Derek didn’t bother with pleasantries.

“My dog’s gone.”

The neighbor blinked, then scratched his belly like this was just another ad for heartburn meds.

“Okay…?”

“Was he barking last night? You hear anything?”

“Nah.” The guy shook his head, already tired of this. “Been quiet, actually. Peaceful.”

Derek’s jaw tensed. “You can’t think of anything?”  

The man gave a dramatic sigh. “Well, come to think of it. Yeah. Couple girls came by my place yesterday?”

Derek stood there waiting. “And?”

“You know, Brinker,” the man—Jerry?— said, “when are you going to start mowing your grass?”

Derek closed his eyes in annoyance. “Well, how about this, I get my dog back and I can see if that kid down the street wants to make a few bucks.”

The neighbor man stood thinking. “Alright. DoorDash or something. Girls said they had the wrong house. Gave me a bag of free food. Not bad.”

“You didn’t think to ask why teenagers with food were poking around your yard?”

The neighbor chuckled. “They didn’t poke. They just… stood there. Asked about the dog, asked something about how long he’d been back there. One of them had that look, you know? Like she already knew the answer.”

Derek took a step forward. The neighbor didn’t flinch, but he did shift the door a little more closed.

“You get a name? License plate?”

“Jesus, what is this — CSI: Cul-de-Sac?” the man muttered. “You think I take notes whenever I talk to someone? Look, they asked about the dog, then left. You want me to say they were spies from PETA or somethin’?”

“You’re not helpful.”

“You’re not welcome,” the neighbor shot back, leaning in now. “Let me give you some advice, Derek — some dogs, they don’t bark. They wait. And when they go, they don’t come back. Maybe ask yourself why.”

And with that, he shut the door.

Derek stormed back to his truck and started it with a forceful growl.

“Dickhead,” he muttered. For that little jab he’d make sure to never mow his grass all summer. “Let them come and bail the damn thing for hay for all I care,” he said.  He backed out of the drive, dust puffed up behind the tires. His phone buzzed on the passenger seat, but he ignored it. He had one stop to make: the sheriff’s office. And someone was going to pay.

The dog had been a point of principle.

He could still hear Tanya’s voice in that damn mediation room. “You don’t even like the dog, Derek. Why are you making this hard?”

Because it was not about the dog. It was about what was his.

She had walked out with the dining set, the sofa, the washer-dryer—they were hers, technically. Her name on the receipts. She had fought like hell for every piece. The dog, though—that had been a curveball. A freebie at a flea market, a limp little mutt she had cradled like it was a prize. Derek hadn’t cared one way or the other, not at first.

But when she asked to take it, he had said no. Flat. Final.

He remembered the look in her eyes. Not sadness. Rage. And then the mediator had sighed and said something about compromise.

The dog had stayed.

Afterward, Derek had taken satisfaction in that. A small thing, sure. But a win. Something to say he wasn’t just a man people walked out on. Not just a pushover. The dog was proof he could hold onto something.

And now it was gone.

Stolen.

Taken from him.

He gripped the wheel tighter as he turned off the wide road. Someone was going to answer for this.

You couldn’t just take a man’s property and expect nothing to happen.

Not here.

The sheriff’s office smelled faintly of burnt coffee as Derek entered. Behind the front desk, Deputy Josh Barnes sat going through an incident report.

“Deputy. I am here to report a theft.”

Without looking up, “Afternoon, Mr. Brinker. What’s happened now?”

In a county with this large of a population, most officers didn’t know residents’ names, but then again, Derek Brinker was a special case.

“My dog was stolen from my yard sometime this morning or last night. It was chained securely beside his box, same as every day. When I checked this morning, poof, gone. Collar left behind. Gate closed. No signs of struggle. Someone entered my property and stole my dog.”

Deputy Barnes looked up skeptical. “You got all that on camera?

Derek smiled tightly, “My network was down late last night—firmware update on the mesh node. The camera feed cut off in the evening. I’ll log that with tech support. But my neighbor saw the whole thing. Two girls—late teens, maybe early twenties. He said they acted like they were saving the dog, like they were heroes. Emotional posturing. Not property owners.”

Deputy Barnes began writing lazily, “Did they look familiar to him?”

“He wasn’t sure. But I suspect they are local... maybe,” and this dawned on Derek, “they could be working for my bitch of an ex-wife.” Derek thought some more. “I can get more details from him if this department intends to take it seriously.”

“Okay, okay. Let’s not get carried away. Let’s focus on what we know. What kind of dog is it?”

Derek proceeded to give the description. Barnes wrote what he was told. After a few moments he paused, leaned back in his chair, “And the dog was chained all the time?

Derek narrowed his eyes. “The dog was where it belonged. There was plenty of water, shelter, and most important it was on my property. If you want to ask whether the dog was happy, Deputy, I would suggest that is not your legal concern. Title 21, Section 1716—this is felony theft. The law is clear. The maximum fine is three times the property’s value, and I can produce paperwork establishing the dog’s worth.”

“You know, you quote the law awful well for someone who broke it the last time we had to speak to you.”

“You’re referring to an entirely unrelated matter.”

“You mean when you walked straight into that restricted lot, posted video of a county impound like it was Area 51?”

“That land was not clearly marked. The signage was minimal and obscured by brush. I had every right to question what was being concealed from the public. You know as well as I do that government vehicles parked in the open should not require a perimeter of secrecy.”

“Brinker, it’s a fenced lot with six impounded cars and a bunch of old snowplows.”

“And yet you charged me with trespassing. I still have the court paperwork. I could have fought it, but I have other priorities. This time, however, I am not the one stepping over the line. If you think this department can afford to look lax on felony theft, by all means, ignore this report. But I guarantee you, I will pursue it. I work in cyber security. My firm handles corporate risk mitigation and private investigations for clients with considerably more influence than this town. I am not bluffing. And isn’t the sheriff facing re-election this year?”

Deputy Barnes exhaled slowly, annoyed, but now writing more carefully. “Alright. We will run it through—see if we can pull that plate, check the cameras on Route 16. No promises. This might take a while.”

“Then I suggest you begin today. Because if that dog is not back on my property by the end of the week, I will escalate. Through legal channels. And I will be very public about it.” Derek turned and made his way to the door talking to himself. “They want to start a war over a dog? That is fine by me. Just do not come crying when people start protecting their property the real way.”

Deputy Barnes watched him leave. As the door shut, he said, “Okay. Well, you have a nice day too.” He turned back to his computer. “Protecting property the real way,” Barnes muttered, shaking his head. He typed a few more notes into the report, but his fingers hovered uncertainly over the keyboard. He leaned back in the squeaky chair and let out a slow breath.

This was not what he’d pictured.

When he was thirteen, Joshua Barnes had been in the back seat of his mom’s battered Toyota when they were rear-ended outside the Piggly Wiggly. His little sister had hit her head on the window, not badly, but enough to make their mom panic. The officer who showed up—Deputy Lacy—had crouched down by the car door and spoken to them so gently, so clearly, that Josh had felt the panic ease in the car like air slowly leaking from a balloon. He remembered the little notepad the man had pulled out, the way he had written things down so calmly, like it all could be sorted out.

That was the moment.

Not the TV shows, not Law & Order marathons with his dad after work, or the endless reruns of CSI: Miami. It had been that simple moment: a guy in uniform who knew how to speak to people. Who made a bad moment feel less like the end of the world.

Barnes had wanted to be that guy.

But the reality was something else. Property disputes. Meth houses. Kids being hauled in for truancy. Bitter custody fights that spilled into the station lobby. And Derek Brinker—angry, smug, paranoid—spouting off legal codes like he was arguing before the Supreme Court, all because someone took his dog. The same dog Josh had seen out there in that yard, chained to a post in the middle of July heat, drinking from a bowl filled with algae.

He had filed the complaint anyway. Had to. That was how it worked.

But it left a bad taste in his mouth.

Lately, the work felt heavier. The protests from a few years ago were still fresh in his mind—marchers outside city hall, signs and chants and the silence he’d been ordered to hold. He’d overheard one of the older deputies refer to the protestors as “animals,” and when Josh had flinched, the guy just laughed and said, “You’ll get used to it.”

But he hadn’t.

He was twenty-five now. And every few months, he started looking at trade school ads. HVAC. Welding. Even teaching. He had thought about getting a counseling certificate once. Something that actually helped people.

He glanced at the report again. “Complainant: Derek Brinker. Alleged theft of dog. Suspects: two young women in red Civic.”

He closed the file and rubbed his eyes. He’d start looking through security footage after lunch.

The shelter sat behind a church, low-slung and plain, with a hand-painted mural of dogs and cats chasing butterflies across one cinderblock wall. Inside, the air smelled faintly of bleach and sawdust, but it was warm, bright, and full of movement — volunteers brushing out fur, scrubbing bowls, typing notes on battered laptops. Lisa met them at the back door with a grin and a finger to her lips.

“You brought him?” she whispered, excited.

Roxy opened the back hatch, and the dog wagged his tail so hard his entire rear swayed. His coat was still dull and patchy in places, but his eyes were bright now — curious and alert.

Lisa knelt. “Well, hey there, buddy. You ready to lose that dirt and get yourself a fresh start?”

They got him inside, into the bathing room where Mira helped hold him still while Lisa sprayed him down. The water ran brown at first, and then green — algae, dirt, some sticky residue that clung to his fur like glue.

“Oh, my God,” Mira said, eyes wide. “This isn’t a dog, it’s a science experiment.”

“He’s a miracle,” Roxy corrected, scrubbing behind his ears with a soft brush. “A survivor.”

“You know what I’m gonna call him?” Mira said, over the sound of the sprayer. “Olivia Newton John. Because he’s such a pretty boy.”

Roxy laughed. “No, no, no. He’s a Prince. Look at those eyes. Regal.”

Lisa leaned in, flicking soap suds off his tail. “You’re both wrong. He’s Rusty. Because he had all that crud on him, but now he looks all nice and shiny.”

The dog — Prince Olivia Rusty Newton the First — panted happily, his tongue lolling, basking in the sudden abundance of touch, of kindness. The three of them surrounded him in towels and laughter, a small revolution in the tiled back room of a shelter that had seen too much of the world’s leftovers.

For the first time in a long time, the dog looked like someone loved him.

Roxy and Mira left the handsome boy now sporting three names with Lisa and went home. On the first night, Roxy kept saying things like, “Do you think they’ll figure it out?” Every time a siren sounded in the city, she jumped a little. Roxy played it much cooler, but she was half expecting to hear a knock at the door. She did some research on their state laws, and damn, what it lacked in protecting animals it made up for in punishing theft. Six months to three years in prison. Fines as high as $500,000. Jesus Christ. Pet owners had more rights than her uterus. She didn’t tell Roxy this, just played it nonchalantly.

By the end of the week, they had eased considerably. They were DoorDashing in the day, doing improv karaoke in the evening in their rooms, and planning what they wanted to do for the weekend. They stopped once at the shelter to play with the rescued dog. His tongue lolled as they pet his stomach. It was hard to believe this was the same animal they had rescued a few days before.

On the following Monday the knock at the door came. Roxy was gathering her keys, Mira was still putting on her shoes. And when they opened the door there stood Deputy Barnes of the County Sherrif’s Department.

“Fuck,” Roxy said.

Mira jumped to her feet, “Um, officer, what is the matter? How can we help?”

Deputy Barnes looked back and forth between the two. Short, same build, hair dyed with pink and blue tips.

“Okay ladies,” he said sizing up the situation. “There’s been a report of a stolen dog.”

“Oh… that’s horrible…” Mira said.

Barnes lowered his head in exhaustion. It was too damn hot for this.

“The owner wants the dog back and is going to press charges.”

“I… I mean… wow… I mean… that’s his right!” Roxy finally offered.

“Yeah, totally his right,” Mira said, “if I had a dog, which I don’t, I would do the same.”

Barnes looked back and forth again at the two. This did not take a world class detective to solve. He’d run their plates, which had been captured by a video cam. It led him right to here. Looking at the two, especially how the oldest shifted uncomfortably, these were bleeding heart types. Hell, he could understand why they did what they did. Poor dog deserved better than Derek Brinker’s janky backyard. But he knew that Brinker was serious and would escalate and the Sheriff would be all over him if he fumbled this, a pretty simple case.

“Okay, ladies, here’s how its going to go. I am going to go back to my office at the Sheriff’s Department. The dog is going to be at that office by the end of today,” he looked at his watch, “5:00 PM, that gives you more than eight hours. Once the dog is back, well don’t you know, I can tell the owner that a good Samaritan turned him in! We all go home happy, no charges.”

“But officer…” Mira started.

“And if the dog is not in the office at 5:00 then we do the arrest, the paperwork, you know I hate paperwork, and things go from annoying to bad… for you. And the dog will end up back with the owner regardless.”

Neither Roxy nor Mira said anything. They were busted, and they knew it.

As Barnes turned to leave, he said, “Look, I appreciate what you tried to do. Look at it like you gave the poor thing a few good days, a vacation. But trust me, ladies, its not worth it.” And with that he was walking back to his cruiser.

As he drove off Mira muttered, “Fucking fascist.”

“Only following orders,” Roxy said. “Which… yeah… makes him a fascist.”

In the split second that followed the decision was made before either said anything. Mira would have been more than happy to face the consequences, to hell with Beaderman, but Roxy wanted to be a teacher… a felony on her record…. Roxy, although not as brave in words, would not have folded if it was only her neck on the line. But her little sister was already in trouble. She had a shot of being someone someday. She meant it, class president, really good college, who knew what she could achieve.

So, they loaded themselves into the Civic and made their way to the shelter. There are certain moments in life that are so hard to bear that when you experience them it seems like you are slowing a nickelodeon down and watching each frame in succession. You know what has to come next, and you plow through, thank God for that inertia of life because it was the hardest thing they had ever done.

Loading the handsome boy back into the car, they made their way to the Sherif’s Department. He wagged his tail and stuck his head out the window the whole way. Roxy suggested, and Mira fully endorsed, stopping and getting him two cheeseburgers and pup cup from the local coffee shop. He lapped these up readily.

As they walked him in to Barnes with the leash Lisa had given them, they left him without ceremony or comment. Turned as soon as the leash was in his hand and walked back out. Neither looked back; their failure would have been too hard accept if they had.

Barnes called Brinkman and waited. The dog sat beside him panting happily. The AC in the office was a nice change, and he was still enjoying life beyond the dead circle of Derek Brinkman’s yard.

“You’re a good boy, aren’t you?” Barnes said, scratching his ear.

With that, the dog licked his nose and laid at the deputiy’s feet ready for a nap.

The dog was gone by 3:00 P.M., Derek showing up and taking him.

“And did you find who did it?”

“You, know, no,” Barnes said. “Darndest thing. Someone saw him walking along the road. We had put out a bulletin for him, Derek, because we here in the Sherrif’s Office take theft very seriously.”

Derek rolled his eyes and left, the dog on leash following behind him, resigned to his fate.

It should have been enough, shouldn’t it? Barnes thought. The next day he was still thinking about it when he got a call to respond to a car crash.

The heat hadn’t broken all day. It lay thick over the pavement in shimmering waves, warping the world at the edges. Deputy Josh Barnes wiped the sweat from the back of his neck as he stepped out of his cruiser and approached the scene of the fender bender. Two cars, both sedans, had come to a sudden halt near the four-way intersection by the Dollar Mart, their bumpers kissing in the way that still demanded a report, no matter how pointless it seemed.

A teenage girl stood near one vehicle, arms crossed, mascara smudged under one eye. She was shaking, trying not to cry. A man in his forties, red-faced and loud, paced in front of the other car and barked into his phone, probably giving his version of the story to an insurance agent who didn’t care.

Barnes pulled a pen from his shirt pocket and flicked open his notebook. His hand moved automatically, scrawling notes he barely read. Year, make, model. Description of damage. Who had the right-of-way. Nothing unusual. Nothing worth remembering.

The girl glanced up at him, her lower lip trembling.

“You okay?” he asked flatly, not looking up from his pad.

She nodded quickly, then stopped. “I think so. Just—shaken.”

Barnes grunted. “Airbags didn’t deploy. You’re lucky.”

She tried to smile but didn’t manage it. He didn’t notice.

He walked over to the other driver, who was now off the phone and steaming with self-importance. The man pointed to a scratch on the bumper like it was a bullet wound.

“I had the light. She came outta nowhere.”

“License and registration,” Barnes said, voice clipped. “We’ll figure it out.”

As the man stomped toward his car to retrieve it, Barnes muttered under his breath, “Idiots. No better than animals.”

He wasn’t sure which one he meant. Maybe both. Maybe everyone. He stepped back and looked at the sun cutting across the blacktop. His boots were sweating through his socks. Somewhere behind him, the girl sniffled again. A memory stirred—hot pavement, his mom’s voice shaky on the phone, a blue-uniformed officer kneeling next to the crumpled fender of their old Corolla. Officer Lacy. Calm. Patient. A steady hand on his shoulder. But the memory evaporated before it fully took shape. Barnes blinked it away like dust in his eye. He finished the report. Gave both parties a copy. Told them the insurance companies would sort it out.

Then he climbed back into his cruiser and slammed the door harder than he needed to.

Inside the car, it was quiet. He sat still for a long moment before turning the ignition. Outside, the girl was still standing by her car, unsure what to do. He didn’t wave. Didn’t check to see if she had a ride.

He drove off. Back toward nothing. Maybe he would look at the HVAC training? But in the back of his mind he knew, he had been too chicken to save the dog, and he was too cowardly to start over.

A year passed, and it was late summer—almost exactly a year since they’d driven down that long, cracked alley with the headlights off and the dog in the backseat.

Mira had finished a year as class president, somehow. Her campaign posters had featured pictures of her in faux glasses (oh so close to Beaderman’s) with the slogan “This Time, Someone’s Actually Listening.” Everyone had laughed—especially the seniors who’d clashed with Beaderman over the years. And they voted.

Roxy, meanwhile, home from college for the summer was prepping for student teaching in the fall. She’d gotten placed at a magnet school that had a surprisingly strong drama department. She already had plans for a stripped-down Midsummer Night’s Dream and was gently mentoring a sophomore who wanted to direct the winter showcase.

“She reminds me of you,” she’d said to Mira once. “Terrifying in the best way.”

They didn’t talk about the dog. Not out loud. But sometimes, when a DoorDash route pulled them near the edge of town, they’d find themselves detouring down the same old street. Not to see the dog—but because of what they had started.

Derek Brinker still lived there. Still didn’t mow his yard, and had put up new signs that said things like MY PROPERTY IS PROTECTED BY GOD AND GLOCK. And he still, every few weeks, opened his mailbox to find a shiny envelope containing either a commemorative coin from the Battle of Shiloh or a faux-gold statue of Ronald Reagan holding a bald eagle. They came from companies that banked on confusion: keep the item too long, forget to send it back, and suddenly you owed $29.99. Or $99.99. One, a “wonderful” full portrait of Mount Rushmore that lit up and played the Star-Spangled Banner was a real deal— only $499.99!

He returned them with gritted teeth. Every time. Down to the Post Office with the return packaging. It was becoming a part time job.

He often thought it was his ex-wife, Tanya. Sometimes he blamed his neighbor across the way, the one with the rusty grill and the loud opinions about fertilizer. But he couldn’t prove anything. Just like he’d never figured out who took the dog.

Now, as Roxy and Mira cruised toward their next delivery, a box of kung pao tofu and bubble tea in the backseat, they passed his house again. Mira was scrolling on her phone, half-listening to a podcast about a labor strike in California.

“You think he’s gotten the James Madison collectible bust yet?” Roxy asked.

Mira snorted. “I sent it priority mail.”

They laughed—not loud, just enough to make their shoulders shake.

The sun was dipping low, throwing orange across the rooftops. Their tires hummed along the pavement. Ahead of them, the wide street opened up like a promise.

Neither of them looked back.

*Stay tuned for the next installment of A Certain Kind of Resistance, a bimonthly short story series, on August 7, 2025.

Photo of Wesley R. Bishop

BIO: Wesley R. Bishop is a historian, poet, and editor living in NE Alabama. His books include Liberating Fat Bodies: Social Media Censorship and Body Size Activism, The Long March of Coxey's Army, An Atheist's Book of Prayers, and COVID19 Haiku. He is the founding and managing editor of North Meridian Press.