Joan Larkin

If You Were Going to Get a Pet

If you were going to get a pet,
what kind of animal would you get.

—Robert Creeley

CHARACTERS
Child
Parent


PLACE
A moving train


TIME
Winter


The light outside grows darker, colder, as dusk comes on.

* * * * *

CHILD
Tell me again.


PARENT
We were poor and hungry.


CHILD
But you had Black Dog. Black Dog was smart. Fearless. Loyal.


PARENT
The house was old.


CHILD
Made of stone.


PARENT
The damp and cold went into our bones. There were deep cracks in the stone walls. The windows shook in the wind,


CHILD
and Black Dog barked.


PARENT
Howled.


CHILD
You were hungry.


PARENT
We missed our mothers,


CHILD
especially at night.


PARENT
We cried.


CHILD
Howled.


PARENT
In daylight we looked for food. There were still turnips to dig out of the garden.


CHILD
I hate the taste of turnips.


PARENT
Some kale still grew, even in the cold.


CHILD
What's kale?


PARENT
A tough, scratchy leaf—


CHILD
(finishing the sentence)

—that's good for you!


PARENT
We searched under the trees for mushrooms. We had a little bread—


CHILD
and that's why the rats came.


PARENT
There were rats in the old house. They came where we slept. They came for the bread we took into bed with us.


CHILD
And didn't Black Dog chase the rats, and eat them?


PARENT
We fed Black Dog our food. We waited quietly for the rats to leave. We didn't want to frighten them.


CHILD
Black Dog grew fat.


PARENT
Black Dog devoured any crumb that fell.


CHILD
You were waiting for your mothers to come.


PARENT
They sent letters on thin blue paper. My mother wrote to me—


CHILD
"Be good!"


PARENT
"Be like the others."


CHILD
"Take care of Black Dog."


PARENT
We practiced running and took cold baths. We copied formulas, improved our accents.


CHILD
"Be like the others!"


PARENT
We kept diaries. A boy kissed me as we stood under a tree together, holding hands.


CHILD
Everywhere you went, Black Dog came with you.


PARENT
School room, turnip patch, woods.

CHILD
Black Dog, Black Dog!


PARENT
His eyes watched us. His soft coat grew coarse in the winter cold.


CHILD
Black Dog was keeping you safe.


PARENT
We had no more bread. Black Dog hunted rats in the night,


CHILD
and ate them!


PARENT
Black Dog growled in the doorway—a low growl in the throat that rose higher and became a wolf's howl.


(CHILD growls, barks, howls.)


PARENT
We would try to sleep—


CHILD
but Black Dog—


PARENT
waiting for that terrible barking we knew would wake us.


CHILD
And Black Dog's eyes—


PARENT
Black Dog's eyes burned like coals in the night.


CHILD
And you stopped sleeping.


PARENT
Asleep, we dreamed Black Dog. Awake, we watched over our shoulders.


CHILD
You watched for Black Dog.


PARENT
Black Dog could smell us.


CHILD
Followed you.


PARENT
Wherever we went.


CHILD
You ran to the woods.


PARENT
When Black Dog was sleeping.


CHILD
Black Dog was dreaming you'd left him.


PARENT
We ran deep into the woods, far from the stone house.


CHILD
You couldn't bring anything with you.


PARENT
We were trying to get to the mountain and then—


CHILD
Black Dog couldn't find you!


PARENT
We crossed a stream—


CHILD
You drank the water.


PARENT
We drank the icy water as we waded across on slippery stones.


CHILD
Holding hands. Trying not to fall.


PARENT
We reached the mountain and climbed in the dark.


CHILD
All of you?


PARENT
Some of us reached the mountain.


CHILD
Black Dog followed as far as the stream.


PARENT
We always knew Black Dog could find us.

CHILD
Black Dog! Black Dog!

PARENT
It's night now. Time for sleeping.


CHILD
Black Dog watches me all night.


PARENT
Black Dog—


CHILD
—still lives in the house.


PARENT
Close your eyes.


CHILD
I think I can hear Black Dog breathing.


PARENT
Black Dog is sleeping now.


CHILD
I think I see him moving.


PARENT
Stirring in his sleep.


CHILD
Black Dog.


PARENT
Stirring in his sleep.

 

(Lights dim to darkness as the train continues on its long way.)

 

 

 

Joan Larkin's poetry collections are Housework, A Long Sound, Sor Juana's Love Poems (co-translated with Jaime Manrique), and Cold River. She has edited four anthologies of poetry and prose, and co-edits the Living Out autobiography series at the University of Wisconsin Press. Her writing includes The Living, a verse play, and The Hole in the Sheet, a Klezmer musical farce.

Winner of the 1998 Lambda Award for poetry, she has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York Foundation for the Arts, and the Massachusetts Cultural Council. She teaches writing at Sarah Lawrence and New England College.