If Lloyd Alexander were writing me as a character, I think the book would begin by telling you that I lived on the Street of Barking Dogs, which would immediately set the character of where I lived, and establish me as both plucky and a little down-and-out. And living in fictionalized medieval China.
In fact, the place to which I have moved is called Lake Avenue, but I think from now on I will refer to it as the Street of Barking Dogs, because I suspect this is its true soul-name. My street has a sprit animal, and that spirit animal is a tiny, impossibly loud and yappy neurotic dog chained to its owner’s rickety old porch.
Every morning since I’ve moved here, they begin at about five-thirty or six a.m.: first the skinny, crazy-eyed animal across the street, howling and yipping as it begins to roll and scrabble around its tiny chain-link pen, then the big dangerous one out back, darkly growling and snapping as it races around on its chain, then the shrill Chihuahua mix up the block, then a terrier/beagle/fire-alarm two houses down, then at least twenty-five other dogs, all crazy, all bored, all intensely loud, and all non-stop.
I mean this completely literally. Yesterday, crazy-dog-across-the-street commenced his howling at 5:52 a.m. From that point on, there were at least one, and most often five or six dogs barking continually until 11 pm. Continually. If you added up all the minutes when no dog was barking, you might get an hour, but I doubt it.
I don’t know what it is about this place. Obviously, all of these dogs are horribly bored, because they’re chained up and penned in, which itself says something about the income level of the owners, I think, but I also feel as if there’s some aura of niggling, rubbing agitation that must hang over the block, the canine equivalent of the paint that seems to be chipping off each house, or the gnarly, almost-leafless dandelions that snake around the bases of the oak trees, grown immense and shadowy in the time since this street was new, and clean, and prosperous.
It isn’t a horrible street, really. It’s tolerable. It’s down at its heels, sometimes even a little grieving, but not desperate by any means. And people seem to know each other, to have a variety of occupations, to be a variety of ages, all of which speaks well for it. But it is nonetheless the Street of Barking Dogs – and of a cat in heat, this morning, who was louder than all the barking dogs combined – and that seems to mean something.
This is a fretful street, I think. A street with not quite enough room to run or means to be free. Rent aside, I think that by itself is almost reason enough to want to move out as quickly as I can. I don’t want to grow to suit this street, penned-in and barking, barking, barking, but never sure why I’m giving the alarm.
In fact, the place to which I have moved is called Lake Avenue, but I think from now on I will refer to it as the Street of Barking Dogs, because I suspect this is its true soul-name. My street has a sprit animal, and that spirit animal is a tiny, impossibly loud and yappy neurotic dog chained to its owner’s rickety old porch.
Every morning since I’ve moved here, they begin at about five-thirty or six a.m.: first the skinny, crazy-eyed animal across the street, howling and yipping as it begins to roll and scrabble around its tiny chain-link pen, then the big dangerous one out back, darkly growling and snapping as it races around on its chain, then the shrill Chihuahua mix up the block, then a terrier/beagle/fire-alarm two houses down, then at least twenty-five other dogs, all crazy, all bored, all intensely loud, and all non-stop.
I mean this completely literally. Yesterday, crazy-dog-across-the-street commenced his howling at 5:52 a.m. From that point on, there were at least one, and most often five or six dogs barking continually until 11 pm. Continually. If you added up all the minutes when no dog was barking, you might get an hour, but I doubt it.
I don’t know what it is about this place. Obviously, all of these dogs are horribly bored, because they’re chained up and penned in, which itself says something about the income level of the owners, I think, but I also feel as if there’s some aura of niggling, rubbing agitation that must hang over the block, the canine equivalent of the paint that seems to be chipping off each house, or the gnarly, almost-leafless dandelions that snake around the bases of the oak trees, grown immense and shadowy in the time since this street was new, and clean, and prosperous.
It isn’t a horrible street, really. It’s tolerable. It’s down at its heels, sometimes even a little grieving, but not desperate by any means. And people seem to know each other, to have a variety of occupations, to be a variety of ages, all of which speaks well for it. But it is nonetheless the Street of Barking Dogs – and of a cat in heat, this morning, who was louder than all the barking dogs combined – and that seems to mean something.
This is a fretful street, I think. A street with not quite enough room to run or means to be free. Rent aside, I think that by itself is almost reason enough to want to move out as quickly as I can. I don’t want to grow to suit this street, penned-in and barking, barking, barking, but never sure why I’m giving the alarm.
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