“Swift the Winged Whippet” and the Vivaldi Concert

“Swift the Winged Whippet” and the Vivaldi Concert
       by Douglas Reimer

Bob Nighty walked up the sidewalk. Next door, Rover barked at his wire gate, and when the dog stopped doing that he stood looking intently out, irritated at Bob’s failure to stick his head around the corner of brick by the front door as he used to do when the golden retriever had first trained him to acknowledge him. Rover turned and walked to his own house door, and soon hurried back to look some more for Bob Nighty. 
     Life in Rover’s backyard on Niagara Street sucked. It went without saying that he’d seen all of it a million times and was sick of the whole thing. And then to top it off, Bob had built a 6 foot high fence around his whole backyard and now he, the dog, couldn’t see the neighbours come home or walk out of their back door into the rear yard, and he had no one to bark at or make conversation toward. He used to enjoy forcing Bob or his wife, Miranda, to come to the fence and make small talk while he roared at them as if they were intruders. Once they had given him doggy biscuits, he usually shut up for five minutes, as long as they made no sudden movements. Because if they did, such as banging something, or sliding a metal ladder down from the eaves, or coming to dig a bit in the flower bed next to their border with the Smooltots, he had an excuse again to jump and reverberate and threaten.
     He knew, while barking insanely at Nighty one day, that something was going to change when Bob grabbed the first thing he could layi his hands on and smashed time amd again at the wire fence close to his (Rover’s) face, screaming and calling him down. A baseball bat! Rover had barked very loudly at that, snarling and showing his lips, turned up and black, and his great, white fangs. The babysitter who happened to be in his (Rover’s) back yard at the time, had taken the two boys and the two dogs (Rover and his quiet retriever friend, Matthias), inside for an hour while she fussed at the window to see if Bob could be trusted. Bob seemed unperturbed by his outburst and continued some sort of digging at the fence, putting in fence posts as it turned out later, and she (the babysitter) eventually let everyone back into the compound. She was worried and cautious. She sat in the kid’s swing with her hands in her lap and waited a little to see if Bob would continue in a trustworthy way what he was doing. He glanced up at her and she knew then by his relaxed face that he would be okay for the moment  
     Rover found that Bob had built the fence all the way to the corner and even past it so that he (Rover) couldn’t see the family members when they got out of the car. Even in front of the vehicles Bob had continued the fence, too. So, now the Nightys’ parked out of his (Rover’s) sight and walked invisible through a gate to get into the backyard. He (Rover) could hear them arrive, but it was no fun barking if he couldn’t stare into their eyes from between the wire fence squares. When the old grandfather (Mr. Smooltot senior) came out of Rover’s house for a smoke, he now sat looking through the fence not at Bob, or Miranda, or their married daughter with the little kid, but at a fence. Just like Rover, Smooltot used to also like to notice all these people next door and quietly observe their comings and going’s and so on. Before the new fence, Smooltot sometimes rebelliously lifted the kid over the wire fence and placed her among the boys on the swing, even though the mother often said no, she should just stay in the yard because she (the mother) was not staying long. Smooltot Senior lifted her over anyway and made her play there. And Grandma Smooltot would invite the little girl into the yard, give her and the boys each a sandwich at the little table, and act very nice until the little girl took one of the boy’s  sandwiches and bit into it and then she (Smooltot) would yell HEY!! at the little girl. But now that the fence was up, Rover’s family didn’t have the chance anymore to see and so invite or interact with any of the Nightys. For Rover it was now so boring here. Nothing to see but a stupid fence. No one to train. No people to make do things. No one to be quietly observant of who pretended you weren’t there once they said hi how are you and immediately go on about the business they had come into the backyard to do. This was actually completely true for all of them, Rover and the Smooltots.  Well, there was always the concert coming up. Smooltot Senior and the Mrs we’re going to hear Vivaldi tonight and fence or no fence they would have had a break from the boredom and some real, as well as some fine cultural cuisine to feed them, to provide them much needed mental stimulation. Yes, this at least was good.

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