In my insomnia, I waited for the digital 2:59 a.m. on my globally-or-atomically-or-somethingly-precise cell phone to change to 3:00 a.m. My wristwatch was behind, and I thought to synchronize all clocks in my place. But I heard this moaning out in the streets and looked up. When I glanced back down, the cell phone clock had flipped over. I bent my ear to the window.
It was this two-syllable moan. Over and over. Maybe not human, but something wrecked. “Gray-Sea … Gray-Sea …” I pictured a dog floating in the ocean, then a guy looking for the dog at exactly 3:02 a.m. in Inman Square.
I knew I wasn’t sleeping anyway. I knew setting my clocks wasn’t going to stimulate me much longer. And this guy, calling out, Gracie, again and again, was something to do. I pictured the guy. A lonely guy looking for his lost thing. I could help out. I wanted to know that this messed-up guy got her back. I needed to know that he wasn’t going to crawl into bed alone tonight.
I tugged a winter hat on, grabbed my smokes, and pulled on my ripped jeans over my sweatpants. Then, I was out on the streets, stopping whenever I heard the guy’s call, triangulating him. I reached B-Side Bar, but now he was calling from the basketball courts on Elm. When I got to the courts, he was moaning for Gracie at the little square at five corners. At the little square, he was calling from back at my place.
I lit a cigarette and sat on a bench, thinking that Gracie’s probably having the same problem as me. How does he expect to get his dog back if he’s constantly moving? Each time she goes to him, he’s gone. Hug a tree, dude. Stay in one place. When I heard him call out again, he’d moved impossibly far from his last spot. He got behind me somehow, calling from blocks away, down by the Somerville line. I heard him again, and he was back in front of me, somewhere up Hampshire Street. Crazy. It was the same voice. What are the odds of two guys missing a dog with the same name? Then I caught my-idiot-self and realized it was two guys looking for the same dog. But the same voice called from the south, then again from the north. Four guys? I heard it back near my place again.
I pictured the guy on a bike or scooter or motorcycle or something, crying out for his lost love. This Gracie, this dog had become all the guy’s losses—his dead mother, his job, the missed opportunity with some crush who left town, all his boyhood dreams. This Gracie was now the white-hot core of stuff. She better be worth it, I thought, and headed off to help find her.
I passed a couple on my way down to Harvard. They stumbled, tangling their arms in painful-looking webs, but they were laughing. I heard it again, “Gray-Sea!” The couple kissed each other sloppily and backed their way into an apartment building, where they would climb the staircase, a four-legged smooching machine, crash into their small but clean studio, and ignore the puppy and his slobbered tennis ball. Then, I wondered how Gracie got out. What was the problem, girl? He didn’t leave the door open. No, he loves you. All he really wants is your happiness. He found you as a puppy, needing someone to care for, needing to absorb himself in someone else’s wellbeing after a loss, to not get confused in his own thoughts. He was careful with you, thinking you were his one, believing it was good. You were sensitive—he knew this and loved this about you. How did you get out, girl? “Gray-Sea,” echoed through the blocks again.
I gave up and lit a cigarette on the curb. My wristwatch read 3:34, my cell phone, 3:35. I was changing a name in my contacts list to Gracie, and about to hit Call, when a dog came running up to me. I shoved the phone in my pocket, chucked the cigarette, and spread my arms. “Hey, girl,” I said in a traditional dog-greeting voice. She trotted, happy enough. We embraced. She didn’t have a tag, but what were the odds? I sat down and put my arm around her, making sure she wouldn’t be going anywhere this time. For the guy, I figured I’d stay put and hug a parking meter.
As with most advice I give anyone but myself, my plan worked, and the guy’s voice grew louder and closer. He was going to find us. I was going to watch this reunion. I was going to tell the guy to get her a damn tag, keep her on a leash, fence her in, don’t let her out of your sight. She’s the one, and you’ve got to watch her all the time. But when the voice came from around the corner, Gracie struggled out of my grasp and headed off in the opposite direction. “Hey, Gracie,” I whispered. She stuck her tail between her legs and looked back. “What the fuck? What the fuck’s wrong with you, girl?” I had a quick thought that the guy beat her or something, but she was fine. She was perfectly fine. The guy obviously fed her enough and all that. “Gracie? What the fuck?” Then, in a snap, she bounded off, disappearing into the black forest of buildings beyond a streetlamp. She wasn’t lost. She was escaping. Do what’s right for you.
“Hey!” A voice shook me back to the present. I spun around and finally laid eyes on the poor sap.
I didn’t respond. Who was I? I was just some guy, out in the middle of the street at nearly four in the morning. I could have been a bad guy, for all he knew. But he didn’t seem to know much beyond some sad panic.
“You seen a dog tonight?”
“Dog?”
“Yeah, a white dog about this high?”
“I haven’t seen a dog, guy.”
He put his hands on his knees and breathed loudly.
“How’d she get out?” I asked.
“I have no idea. I locked up the apartment. She got into bed, and when I came out of the bathroom it was like she never existed.”
“Maybe she’s in your house still.”
“I thought of that. Everything.” He raised his face to the streetlight and closed his eyes.
“You’ll find her. I’ll keep my eyes out.”
“Thanks.”
I reached for my smokes as he jogged after her, vanishing at the same point she had. Before I had the cigarette in my lips, I heard him call from an impossible distance.
I headed back home. It had to be past four. I finally felt tired enough for sleep. I didn’t want to go in, though, when I reached my stoop. I knew what wasn’t in there. The guy called out again, from the north, then, right away, from the south, then the east. It’s easier to find things in the light of day, but easier to search at night. I made my way west, tired and hopeful. I joined all the other guys in town, calling out, “Gray-Sea,” as if it were a matter of finding her.