A Common Pornography: A Memoir

Dog Days

“Have you been having bad dreams about dogs?” Mark asked me. “Because Mom and Dad said they might have to send you to a shrink or something. So you better knock it off.” This was partially Mark’s fault anyway, since it was his roommate’s dog that bit me at their house. Three different places: leg, elbow, forearm. I shielded myself with the screen door until they got home and found me there with blood dripping on the welcome mat.

At the hospital I was given three shots. Before I left, the nurse showed me a cardboard box with little plastic toys in it. I didn’t take any.

A few months later, Mom and Dad let me pick out a puppy for myself. I chose a German shepherd with floppy ears that was just a couple months old. I took Polaroids of him for the first year and a half, documenting his quick growth in our tiny apartment. His name was Scooter. He slept in my bed and I talked to him as I fell asleep each night.