Migration & Displacement series: Lullaby

He put cardboard on the ground and unrolled his sleeping bag. His dog nosed her blanket, the way dogs do. The $20 bill I shoved in his face probably knocked him off balance. Thank you, Miss, he said. Thank you. He kept thanking me as I walked away. In truth, it was the dog. The friend I was with told me I was kind to homeless people. I didn’t tell her I gave the money to the dog.

They were still in the doorway behind the theater after the movie. He grabbed my hand as I passed. The streetlight shone down so I had no choice but to look at his face, wide-open, like he never learned people don’t want to see that far into you. I pulled my hand back. His dog looked up from her bone. Her feelings were right there too in her eyes, open, trusting. Dogs are like that.

In bed that night, I thought about the dog. She looked like a beagle. I got up and drove back to the theater. They were in the doorway, curled up together. Yes, she was a beagle. I circled the block and went home.

***

The friend passed my cubicle at work, said she’d call later, to arrange dinner. She didn’t call so I drove to Smiths for frozen pizza, but when I pulled out of the parking lot, I turned right instead of left. Right took me downtown, to the theater.

I handed him $10. He asked did I want to visit with them a while and gave me a piece of cardboard. You’d be surprised how cold cement can be, he said. I scuttled into the doorway. The dog licked my hand. I touched her ears. Dog’s ears are unbearably soft.

I asked was this his permanent spot. He said it was, for now, well hidden, safer than other places. He asked what I worked at. Office job, I said. I also told him I was from Ireland. I don’t know why because he didn’t ask. He said he was from Michigan, so we both knew where we were from. We didn’t say much after that, just listened to the traffic out on Central Avenue. I petted the dog for a while, then I told him I better get home, work in the morning.

***

My manager asked me to take notes at a meeting where everyone sat around a table. I watched their faces speaking. They said we, we this, we that. They were all we. After the meeting, small groups hung around the office. Their faces still talked about we. I listened as I typed my notes. The design team were being let down by procurement. The sales group thought they should have priority because without them, where would everyone else be? The people from quality got quite worked up about forms. Their sounds filled my head, every part of it, until my fingers wouldn’t type any more. I had to leave.   

When I stopped at Smiths for another pizza, I thought the beagle would like some wet dog food for a change. I gave him the cans, and he asked me if I’d like to sit for a while. The dog crawled into my lap. She was warm. I hugged her for a long time.

He asked me how was work. I told him it was okay. Then I asked him had he ever seen The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd on TV years ago. Molly lived in an apartment building with an elevator that stopped about a foot above floor level. Work was like that, I told him. I was in the elevator looking out, not knowing what to do, and the others were all on the floor doing important things. I seemed to be the only one who noticed because everyone went about as if we were all on the same level. And I went about that way too.

He asked why I didn’t change jobs. I decided not to go back.

***

I went to work and I went home and once in a while I went to dinner with my friend. I lived in a one-bedroom apartment, people on all sides of me. I could hear them sometimes, muffled sounds of the TV or music. Then one night, words came through:

Fuck you. Bastard. Fucker.

A man, a woman, clear, like they were inside my apartment. Then all the TVs got louder, screaming loud. I pulled the bedcovers over me and pressed the pillows to my ears, but the sounds wouldn’t go away.

I called the friend to tell her about the sounds, but she just kept talking about work and the new dress she was going to buy. I tried to break into her words but it was exhausting so I gave up. Listening all the time was exhausting too, so I stopped calling her.

Then the sounds got worse. In my apartment every night, in the corner behind my couch, up near the ceiling, in the bathroom. I put my hands over my ears but they seeped through the space between the bones.

What the fuck are you thinking, bitch? Thud, hand on bone, the side of her head probably. Hide. Before he sees me. Under the stairs with the shoes and the dog’s bed. The dog is dead, buried in the garden, but her smell is still on her bed. Crawl into it. Pull her blanket up. Breathe her smell. Hum louder, hum the song she sings to me after he’s gone out, Lullaby and goodnight, thy mother’s delight.

Then there was a different sound, whimpering like a pup, but it was me so I stopped it.

***

After the sounds came into my apartment, I brought him more dog food. He never asked why I had stayed away. I kissed the beagle on her silky head and we listened to the cars on the other side of the cinema.

You don’t like to talk, he said. I told him I used to talk more but now there was nothing to say. Not talking when you’ve nothing to say is a reasonable approach, he said. We listened to the cars for another while, then I thought I should make an effort so I asked him how he got to Albuquerque. He told me his wife died, then his dog died, the one before the beagle, and then he lost his job. Because he lost his job, they took his trailer home. He came to New Mexico because he thought the Rio Grande would be a good river to jump into, get carried out to sea. But the water was so low that year, it was just a muddy stream. When his car broke down, he left it on some street. He met the beagle in Roosevelt Park. She kept following him so they stayed together.

He asked how I got here, so I told him I went to New York from Ireland a long time ago, before 9/11, and I met a man who told me to come to Albuquerque where he had a ranch. I’d fit right in, he said. When I got here, he was gone, but it was warm, so I stayed and got the job in the office. I fell asleep then until an ambulance out on Central woke me, I moved the dog’s head off my lap and went home.

***

The friend called. Did I want to go to a show. I didn’t, but people say it’s not good to stay by yourself all the time, so I went with her. I couldn’t follow the play. I was finding it harder to follow things, I noticed, but that was something the friend didn’t want to hear, so I nodded when she talked about it, and then about her new car and her new couch.

***

Fuck you, a woman. Fuck you too. Bang, a door slams.

I opened my own door a crack to see, but there was nobody in the corridor. The TVs were on, all  different stations,  full volume, inside my apartment. I tried to find them, to turn them off, but I only found one and it was already off.  

She guides me out from under the stairs. Lullaby and goodnight/with pink roses bedight. Her voice slides over the words. With lilies o’er spread/is my baby’s sweet head.

I wanted her to keep singing, louder, loud enough to drown the TVs. But she didn’t, or couldn’t. I had to leave. I had to get downtown.

His eyes opened as I crawled in beside the dog, then closed again. The dog curled up with me beneath the quilt I brought. I fell asleep.

***

I passed your building last night, the friend said the next morning. Your car was gone. Where were you? I told her I went to Smiths to get a few groceries. Hard night at the supermarket then? she asked and her eyes moved from my hair down to my shoes. My clothes looked like I’d slept in them which I had. There was nothing I could say. She walked away.

***

 He tells her she’s a slut. Asks who she’s been fucking this week. Go to bed, she yells at me. I run out of the kitchen and crawl under the stairs. I pull the door closed, but not fully. I want the shouting to stop but I can’t stop listening to it. Fuck you. Bastard. Slap. Then there’s a soft sound, a stomach punch maybe. She’s crying. His feet are in the hallway. I shut the door. I know he sees it because he thumps it as he goes by. The front door slams. He’s gone. I can’t move.

When I showed up in the doorway, he just handed me cardboard and half a sandwich. I took it and give him a bag of dog food. I spread my quilt and the beagle crawled under it with me.

I left my kids, he said, after my wife died. I left them with their grandmother.

He picked up a bottle of blue Gatorade. Offered me a swig. He just told me the worst thing he’d ever done.

I’m illegal, I said.

We both knew each other’s secrets then.

I never told anyone about my legal status before. I had documents, all fake, but nobody ever guessed. I got my job before they started tightening up after 9/11. I never could just change jobs, and now, with the raids… I couldn’t think about the raids. I slid down onto my back with the dog and pulled the quilt over my head. After that, I slept in the doorway most nights.

***

My manager called me into her office. I couldn’t show up for work looking like I slept in my clothes. There had been complaints. I must wash my hair.

So, I went home, got into the shower and put some shampoo in my hair. When I rinsed the soap out, I heard the squeaky sound hair makes, and then I remembered when I’m all stuffed up with a cold, I can hear my hair move. Maybe the sounds were coming into my head through my hair. Maybe it would be quieter if I didn’t have so much of it, so I got a scissors and cut it off.

What did you do to your hair? my manager asked. I looked at the floor because the sounds from her mouth were sharp like glass. Have you looked in the mirror? I put my hands over my ears. Lullaby and good night. Lullaby and goodnight. She called a man in. He asked me to tell him what was wrong. Something was wrong? Someone was singing. Lullaby and good night. The manager told me to shut up and get out, don’t come back.

***

I think I was fired, I told him. The Beagle licked my hand. It happens, he said. Pack some clothes, and your ID. Your ID is important. Tomorrow, I said, and the beagle curled into me and we listened to the sound of traffic out on Central Avenue.

Catherine Dowling was born in Ireland but lived for many years in the US. Her published books are: Radical Awareness (Llewellyn, US) and Rebirthing and Breathwork (Piatkus, UK). She received the Iceland Writers Retreat Alumni Scholarship 2025. Her writing has appeared in Lowestoft Chronicle, Stillpoint Quarterly, HerStry, Oneing, and more, available at http://www.catherinedowling.com.