Breaking & Entering (What Blogagaard is Working On Now)

By David Oppegaard
By the time the little dog works up the courage to protest our invasion we’re already upstairs in the master bedroom, filling our gaping suitcases with anything that looks expensive.  It’s dark, the only light available a half-moon outside, and I don’t even notice the little yapper standing in the room’s doorway until it barks at us.  
“bark.”
Such a small sound, you can tell it’s nervous.  
“Looks like we have a visitor,” I tell Scythe.  She’s standing in the wife’s closet, pushing hangers around.  
“Take care of it, Hewitt.  I’m busy.”
“A little dog,” I say.  “What the hell do you do about a little dog?”
The dog barks again, as if it knows we’re talking about it.  This bark is louder.  Less nervous and more on the angry side.  We are invading its home.  This is its turf, goddamn it—
“BARK BARK BARK BARK!”
The dog charges forward, then stops about four feet from my ankles.   Scythe looks up from the jewelry box she’s emptying into one of her suitcases.  She is tall and dark skinned, darker than mocha, and when she walks across a lawn at night she disappears at certain angles, as if her thin body doesn’t exactly exist on this dimensional plane alone.  As a short, stocky white man, I both love and fear her.    
“Christ, Hewitt,” she says, “shut that bitch up, would you?”
I set down my own oversized suitcase (which is already heavy with a slim plasma TV, a small but apparently authentic Rodin sketch, and a three thousand dollar CD/stereo receiver) and kneel in front of the little dog.  Dressed in a fuzzy pink sweater, the jumpy, beady-eyed dog hovers just out of reach, and at this distance its bark is deafening.  Enormous.  
“Come here, baby.  Come to daddy.”
“BARK BARK BARK BARK!”
I lunge forward, but I’m way too slow.  The dog zips backwards and keeps barking, even louder now (if that’s possible).  I crawl forward on my knees, my gut dragging on the hardwood floor.
“Come here, mutherfucker.  We need to talk this over.”
Scythe looks out a window, peering through the blinds.  “Christ.  A light just came on in the neighbor’s house.  I think they hear the dog.”
“Fucking Cambodia can hear this dog,” I say, standing back up.  My knees hurt from kneeling on the hardwood and my head is throbbing, my already severe hangover made exponentially worse by the dog.  Scythe goes over to other walk-in closet and digs around the husband’s stuff.  The dog barks again and suddenly something dark hurtles through the air and smacks the dog right in the head.  It yelps and falls over.  I look from the dog to Scythe, whose smiling at me from the shadows as she runs a hand through her long dark hair.
“Okay, Hewitt.  Let’s go.”
We grab our large, overstuffed suitcases and walk quickly downstairs in the dark.  An answering machine is beeping (the owners have three messages) and hardwood floors creak underfoot in the entryway.  As we leave the house, shutting the door softly behind us, I imagine Scythe and I as a married couple about to leave for a long vacation, maybe to Mexico, or France.  Have we stopped newspaper service?  
     Our getaway SUV is idling quietly in the driveway, almost looking as if it actually belongs parked beneath this huge Tudor mansion.  Our driver, an obese man we call Bug, is sitting at the SUV’s wheel, watching us with mild interest as we carry our heavy suitcases towards him.  He makes no move to get out and help us.  We drag our loot to the back of the SUV, pop open the rear door, and shove the suitcases inside.  Then Scythe glides into the SUV’s passenger seat, ready to get the hell out of Dodge, but I pause outside my own door, head cocked towards the mansion.  Yes, that’s it.  A faint barking sound.  The little yapping dog has come to and now barks at a vaguely remembered wrong, something to do with strangers and perhaps the rubber sole of a shoe.  I’m glad the dog’s okay.
     Nothing wrong with trying to protect your home.