Cody Walzel

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Ralph the Dog Man

The neighbor’s dog sounded like a man shouting “woof.” The owners didn’t take it on walks. It wasn’t visible through the windows. Where did it go to the bathroom? Did it wear diapers? My apartment’s balcony looks over their backyard, but the dog never went outside. Next to the shed, there was an empty doghouse labeled “Ralph.” 

My apartment sits seven feet from their house. A month ago, while I was using the bathroom, he barked right next to me. He was barking at my pee. The owner shushed the dog. I stood on the toilet seat to peek through the window, which turned out to look directly down into their house. 

My neighbor sat in an office chair, partially cropped by the wall, his hairy legs poking out of tube socks. Something big crawled towards him. A gigantic, flesh-colored dog? No, the movement was unnatural. Arthritic and stilted. The thing was almost completely hairless. My stomach tickled, and I jerked away from the window. This wasn’t man nor dog, but some unnatural hybrid—a loose-skinned quadruped with a leathery snout, opposable thumbs, and intelligent, human eyes. 

I inched up for a second look. Only the muzzle was visible now as the creature slowly licked and licked the palm of my neighbor’s hand with a thick, manlike tongue.

# 

Ralph’s owners are a young couple named Hunter and Maddy Gack-Furber. Maddy’s parents helped them purchase the home at peak-market prices, then moved them in like college freshmen. Hunter longboarded holding his infant nephew, Maddy told different friends the same rehearsed stories, and they painted their little bungalow house Pumpkin Orange. They wanted people to notice them so they wouldn’t notice the dog. When people asked about Ralph, the Gack-Furbers changed the subject. 

Weeks passed. I kept the secret. Feared going outside. I’d sit in the bathroom eavesdropping on the neighbors for more clues, but got mostly inane chatter. 

“I’ve been so constipated lately,” Maddy said. 

“Oh yeah?” 

“Yeah, I’m all bloated.” 

“Maybe we could make some oatmeal in the morning,” he said. 

“Oh, that’s a good idea!” 

One day the barking went quiet. I’m a self-employed mechanic, and was down the street replacing a client’s fan belt when I noticed a car in the Gack-Furber’s driveway. They had their two Jeeps on the lawn. They treat that home like it’s a fort and they’re playing house. That night I stepped out on my balcony and saw a balled-up form shivering inside the dog house. He seemed to be padlocked to a chain. My wife, Annie, couldn’t see it. Through the dark, I could swear I felt his eyes staring into me, and it made my hair stand on end. 

The neighbor’s visitors stayed the night. What was it like out there? Would the dog man catch pneumonia? I sat naked on my bathroom tile and let shower water sprinkle me. It was freezing. And lonely.

How did the dog man come to be? Was he created through surgery? I pictured underground labs full of dissection platforms, cold storage devices, scalpels, bloodied surgical clamps, genetically modified human organs, I.V. bags, and sewn flesh. 

Maybe Ralph was grown inside some giant, cylindrical vat? Microscopes and test tubes came to mind. Enucleated egg cells and electrofusion apparatus. I saw rooting gel flowing placental nutrients through tubes, and abominations in ultraviolet illumination. 

Or, darkest of all, maybe Ralph was made the “natural” way. In came intrusive thoughts of nauseating bestiality in darkened barns. Of birth canal-tearing, cross-species childbirth. I saw monstrous, stillborn offspring, and their deformed, cursed, surviving siblings. 

I woke up on the floor with a fever and shuffled back to bed. If Ralph’s sickness killed him, would his owners bury this half-human pet in the yard like a hamster? Would scientists seek answers in the dog man’s dissected body? As he waited to die, would Ralph know the approach of death with human awareness and feel sadness? 

# 

I watched Annie’s shaky hands painting jagged lines. It was unfair how her body had betrayed her. And how nothing I could do would help. I wished the curse of illness on no one. Involuntarily, I blurted out that Ralph was some kind of creepy human-dog creature. I knew I sounded deranged, but I saw it. 

“You mean in the doghouse that night?’ 

“No, through the window.” 

“You looked through the neighbor’s window?” 

“No, through our window.” 

“Our window?”

“I stood up on our toilet seat and looked through our bathroom window. It looks straight down into the neighbor’s house.” 

She stopped painting. “Steve, are you putting me on?” 

I needed her to believe me. Needed my best friend in on this twisted secret because, here, finally, was some excitement. Our lives were tethered to the routines of illness. Nature denied us the messy joy of children, and the years flew by so quickly. 

The next day Hunter cut half his lawn with a push mower. I resented the quirky affectation. That said, if I could give my wife a house, I’d gladly trim the lawn with safety scissors. Hunter gave up, and gardeners finished the job. When they left, I pushed my face into the mesh of the neighbor’s screen door and tried to get a picture. Ralph exploded in these booming barks. An old couple saw me fleeing. 

When night fell, I put on a baseball cap and snuck into the alley between my complex and their house, then raised my phone over the fence to film into their window. My upstairs neighbor lady saw me and screamed “pervert,” “police,” and the like as I scrambled away. 

Soon, alarmist flyers papered my apartment complex, warning about a “prowler threat.” There were security footage screenshots, but they were grainy and the figure unidentifiable. Then our upstairs neighbor cornered my wife and told her I was the prowler. That she watches me snooping from her balcony. My wife pointed out the irony, which only annoyed the lady. Later, Annie told me to knock it off. 

#

It would’ve ended there if not for the phlegmy hacking. I got out of the shower, dripping wet, to climb up on the toilet seat for a look. Only parts of Ralph were visible—his dangling teats and freaky hands. He drank from the toilet. Dehydrated. Trembling. I told Annie the neighbors were killing the dog man. She told me to let it go. 

It flooded. A noise shook me awake over the rain at 2:00 a.m. Panicked barks? I got closer to the window and the sounds clarified into horrifying yelps. They were beating Ralph. I froze, my face pressed into the screen, grimacing with every blow. In long, tense moments of silence, all I’d hear was rain drumming on their roof. Then—whack. And buzzes from shocks. Ralph whined, doglike, then the blows fell harder, and his screams turned chillingly human. Indistinguishable from speech. The neighbors hit Ralph so hard that he cried out in tongues. 

The beating finally stopped. I got my phone to call the cops, but wouldn’t the neighbors just hide the dog in the rain again? Still, I had to check on him. 

I crept into the alley bordering the Gack-Furbers’ house. Their backyard was a muddy, two-inch-deep lake, hammered by rain. I pried loose a rotted fence post and squeezed in. Through the window, I saw Ralph wheezing, bruised, and still wearing the shock collar. I got on all fours and stuck my head through the doggie door. 

Inside was quiet. The fridge hummed. My wet head dripped on the linoleum, and Ralph whipped around, terrified. 

“Shh, easy. It’s okay, boy.” 

He stared from the shadows, oddly shaped, a dog face rising from a mound of flesh. But his eyes glowed, bloodshot and horror-stricken. He inhaled to bark. I tensed; then he exhaled. Footsteps approached. I yanked my head out of the door and lay in the mud. My leg shot out and triggered the porch lights. Maddy Gack-Furber looked outside and went to the window. If she looked down, I’d be lying in a spotlight. If she noticed the puddle, I’d be arrested. If the dog man ratted me out, life as I knew it would end. Instead, Hunter mumbled something from the next room, then Maddy looked at Ralph and said, “I think I have a yeast infection.” The rain drowned out Hunter’s response, and Maddy went back to bed. 

I army-crawled until I was out of the light, then bolted to the fence. Because I had no photo, I couldn’t tell the police without sounding like an unmedicated schizophrenic. The only direct evidence of animal abuse I’d seen was while trespassing in the middle of the night. 

#

The next week was spent camped in the bathroom with an ear to the window. I studied these people like a khaki-clad chimp scientist. I knew when my neighbors ate and slept and urinated and beat that poor mutated freak of a dog. But what I was searching for was how they communicated with Ralph. It turns out, a lot of contextual noises and vocal tones. No clear system. 

One day, Hunter and Maddy paced back and forth in their office, repeating something. 

“We’re doing a little—” 

“Hey, next Saturday we’re having a little—” 

“Want to come to a BBQ next Saturday?” 

“BBQ next Saturday if you want to stop by…” 

They were practicing the most casual way to invite someone to a BBQ. Ralph squeaked his chew toy. That sound haunted my dreams now. 

I woke up early and made muffins from a YouTube tutorial. Years before her MS, Annie and I used to bake together. Once I helped her make a pie for a friend’s party, then held it on my lap on the drive over. Cherry filling leaked onto my crotch. I met her friends for the first time looking like my genitals had exploded. But my fallibility made me endearing, and I won them over. How I missed those nervous early days. We used to be so young; how did we get so old?

I put the muffins in a basket and told Annie I was heading over to give the Gack-Furbers a peace offering. The dog man business was behind me. 

At the Gack-Furbers’ house, Hunter answered his door with the chain still bolted. He took the muffins. I explained away the prowling incident by pretending I’d been coming to warn him about his exposed porch light wiring. He shrugged. 

“It’s a starter home.” 

The window in mine and Annie’s lives where we’d dreamed of homeownership had come and gone. Medical bills took care of that. But I nodded like I understood and walked away, laying on the sad sack energy pretty thick. 

Hunter finally softened. “Hey, you know, we’re actually having a BBQ next Saturday if you and your wife want to come.” 

# 

On the day of the BBQ, Annie came out dolled up, wearing a dress I hadn’t seen in years. She looked incredible. I cursed myself for not taking her out more. We told ourselves she was too sick, but now that she stood in a sunbeam radiating life, there was no denying what it meant to dress up and participate in being human. 

We baked a pie together for the first time in years and took it next door. When Maddy answered, I handed her a rubber T-bone. “For your dog.” 

She faltered a moment then said, “Oh! Cute! Thanks! Yeah, he’s locked up for the party.” I bet he is, I thought but didn’t say. 

Annie gave me a look, but I pretended not to notice.

We waded through the guests to the Gack-Furbers’s backyard, meeting neighbors. These people gossiped about me the day before, but now they seemed a little less afraid. Good to be part of the tribe. 

My week-long stakeout taught me that dog man-to-owner communication was minimal. They had no way to express the nuances of things like whether or not to heed the call of that annoying squeak. So the Gack-Furbers hid all the toys for the party. All except the rubber hot dog I’d hidden under their loose fence board. 

If Ralph was locked up, he’d still likely reveal himself trying to respond to the toy. When Annie was safely out back, I retrieved it and pushed my way into the house. I didn’t just squeeze that hot dog; I rang it like a bell. There was a shock wave of heads turning. Maddy screamed, “Dooooonnnn’tt!” Then things. Went. Bananas. The knob rocketed off the bedroom door, denting the opposite wall. The door splintered off its hinges. The pale, nude, beaten, sexually engorged dog man charged into the screaming crowd. In that initial moment of stunning mayhem, it took the guests’ collective brains a moment to make sense of what their eyes were seeing as some fleshy, snouted, deformed monster ripped through the party. People threw food and dishes. Many fell. Panic spread like a virus. A terror-stricken soccer mom trampled me. Stampeding neighbors checked each other into walls, shattering side tables and shelves of knicknacks. Glass shattered, the TV toppled, liquids spilled. People tumbled over furniture and slipped in puddles, breaking ceramics on their way down. On the ground, people crawled through a soup of booze and broken shards, cut themselves, and smeared blood on the hardwood floors. Frenzied neighbors tripped over fallen people and joined them down below. Ralph howled. Hunter barked commands in gibberish. A guest pulled a butcher knife. Maddy screamed bloody murder and ran to stop him. People fled the house, never to return. Cars peeled out, smashing trash cans and each other. Hunter dragged the confused and bucking dog man out back and into the shed, to the additional horror of the guests too stunned to run. 

From the ground, I saw Ralph in the light for the first time. It wasn’t a leathery snout, but a strap-on, skin-tone muzzle. This was no chimera, just a heavyset, middle-aged man in a dog mask. It wasn’t tongues I’d heard the night of the storm; it was Ralph crying for mercy in some foreign language. But to the blurry sight of the hysterical guests, Ralph was a nightmarish Frankendog. 

I regained my feet and stood in the eye of the hurricane, soaking up this moment of perfect chaos, feeling a sense of things to come. Of neighbors who, hours before, had labeled me a prowler, but who now looked from me to the dog man, with some dawning understanding of the situation. Of the police investigation into both the Gack-Furbers and me, which would ultimately be worth it for the freed dog man. And of a future less wasted, spent enjoying time in the sun with Annie. 

Across the party, I spotted my wife, and time slowed down. She looked windswept and radiant and absolutely amazed. Through all the screams and commotion, I caught her eye and waved at her with my rubber hot dog. Despite herself, Annie laughed and laughed.

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Banner Art:
Edvard Munch, “Dog’s Head”, 1942, Wikimedia Commons