A meet-up had been arranged for me to see Chunker for the first time in seventeen years. By then, I’d assumed Chunker had died, like most dogs would’ve done. I knew Chunker had joined the Pet FBI, though, from the note in my then-mailbox on the last day of May nearly two decades ago—same year me and Angie had gotten engaged, same year we’d taken in Chunker, same year we’d gotten married, same year she’d gotten pregnant, same year Chunker ran away and joined the feds, same year as our divorce. A lot was going on then, so I believed in any message that came from a higher power about the things I was losing, especially if it meant they were alright.
I was parked with my flashers on by the city’s pier. It was a muggy morning in early June, and no tourists or fishermen were there yet, just a ruddy attendant in a yellow vest squinting at me from her info booth. I kept checking the time on my phone, then glancing at the car radio clock that was two minutes ahead, then checking my phone again, as if the radio’s time would speed up the phone’s. My background was a photo of a Polaroid—cleanshaven me, full head of hair, holding puppy Chunker up to a cloudy sky.
A white van crawled from the loading zone at the end of the pier towards me. One of its headlights was out, which may or may not have been a sign from the Pet FBI. This was the only other car on the pier, and it was 6:29am—this had to be it. I realized that my cup holders were jammed with gas station receipts and fast food wrappers but it was too late to clean up the place, or to turn back.
As the van inched closer, I looked to see if the attendant was still staring but her booth was empty. Must be in cahoots with the Pet FBI, I thought, imagining a pitbull wearing a blue polo and a reflective vest. Then I shook my head and rubbed my over-caffeinated temples, staring forward through windshield grime at the approaching van.
There would be no dogs disguised in people-clothes or burlap sacks placed over my eyes or secret underwater bunkers or my sweet labradoodle puppy in my arms, licking my face, heading to his new home, which would temporarily be my four-door hatchback with no A/C. Like my pastor said: I wouldn’t understand any of it, and I wouldn’t have to.
So I accepted it when the terrier-faced figure wearing a fedora and trench coat materialized on the walkway. I accepted the smack against the top of my car door as I stepped out and a bag was thrown over my face and I saw nothing. When I heard the van turn off and the doors slide open and sets of keys and hardware jingle out of the seats and low voices murmur to each other, pants and whines between pauses—I accepted all of it. A long fart pushed itself out of me as I stood, palming my pockets for my phone to show Chunker our picture.
I screamed when the first bullet was shot, then another, then another, paws squeezing me tight and shoving me onto the pavement, hands on my ears, barks and roars and hisses and unloading machine gun clips all around. A heavy splash. The van peeled off and crashed into something and the alarm went wild. And the guns—endless gunshots, endless howls. I felt sick. Marching boots shook the ground along with my entire body. I didn’t notice my sobs until the pier went silent.
After what could’ve been a minute or half an hour, I reached for the ends of the bag while rising onto my knees. Just when I grabbed the burlap, someone pulled me by the armpits and, while I shrieked and flailed, lifted me into the air. They growled behind me, breath fishy, whiskers jabbing the back of my neck through the fabric. I don’t remember all I said, but my voice was to shreds so it may not have been much. I might’ve been praying. They stilled, meowed like a cuss, then I was on the ground again.
The pier was empty when I got the sack off of my head and the sweat out of my eyes. Only bullet casings by the dozens, pieces of shattered glass around the wrecked van, and trails of blood left. My car—the only place I could call my own, besides the shower at the gym or my sports betting app or my camera roll—had one rearview mirror pushed in, but was otherwise untouched. As I turned to see what the hell had just happened, I saw him over the water.
He was peeking out of the hatch of a submarine—his red shock of hair now grayed. I only caught him for a few seconds, but it was my Chunker, wearing a metal dog tag, holding a hunting rifle. Then he closed the hatch with one paw and the submarine went under.
I didn’t have enough time to shout anything, and by the time I understood that it was him, I was crying. I cried for a while there, in the wreckage of the morning. My ex-wife and I hadn’t spoken in years, but I had to tell her that Chunker was alive. Maybe she’d remember how things were when we owned him, how they could be again. But I had no clue how to tell her. A sense that I was being watched grew—I looked over to the info booth. The attendant was a star-nosed mole.
________
Julián Martinez is the son of Mexican and Cuban immigrants. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in HAD, Hooligan Mag, Little Engines, The Sonora Review and elsewhere. He is the author of the chapbook, This Place Is Covered Head to Toe in Shit (Ghost City Press 2024). Find him online @martinezfjulian or martinezfjulian.com, or IRL in Chicago, IL.