Christmas Cigarettes

A Christmas story about a dead dog

I started smoking when I was 13 on Christmas Day, a few hours after somebody killed my dog.

My dog, Tara, had a bad habit of running out the front door whenever she had the chance. Since it was Christmas that day and lots of relatives were coming by, she got a lot of chances. I wanted to keep her in the backyard, but it was too cold out. My mom put her in my bedroom with the door closed, but Tara barked her disagreement with that until we had no choice but to let her join the Christmas party in the living room. At first, things went smoothly. I was able to see whenever somebody was about to come through the front door, and I’d just grab ahold of Tara until the new arrivals entered and shut the door. But then I got distracted by the Denver Bronco’s Olandis Gary scoring a 45-yard touchdown against the Detroit Lions and didn’t notice my uncle Ron coming through the front door with his entourage of kids. It wasn’t until I felt the cold air from outside hit my face that I realized the door was open. I looked towards the door and saw Tara’s fly tail in between uncle Ron’s legs heading outside. I jumped off the couch and almost knocked over a few of Ron’s kids, a sick worried feeling in my stomach because she got such a big head start. I guess I had a hunch about what was going to happen.

Tara was already halfway down the block by the time I got to the sidewalk. My friend Jerry was passing by on his motorized skateboard at that moment. I never liked Jerry very much - nothing against him, we just didn’t click very much. He lived close by and so we hung out often, more than we should have. But I was sure glad to see him and that skateboard. 

“My dog!” I told him. “We gotta get her.”

Jerry pressed whatever mechanism it is that powers those things and he sped ahead. I ran as fast as I could. Tara was going towards the main road where drivers liked to drive fast, but no cars were around, so I figured we would get her safe and sound. 

Tara was an 8-month-old chow with golden brown hair. My mother got her about three months prior from a friend at church and I really adored her. We always lived in apartments and I always wanted a dog, but could never get one. But that year we moved into a house with a backyard, so I was finally able to get one. Unfortunately, I didn’t know how to train them. 

Tara got to the main road and stopped right in the middle. I tried to walk gingerly so she wouldn’t keep running. That’s where I screwed up. If I scared her, she would have ran off into the next subdivision. But she stayed on the road, staring at me, waiting for me, when a bright red Camaro with a souped-up engine turned onto the main road a thousand feet or so away, and it was coming right at us. 

Me and Jerry tried to signal to the car by waving our arms and pointing to the dog. I yelled out “Dog! Dog!” even though the windows must have been up in this cold. Even if they were open, whoever was driving probably couldn’t hear his own thinking over that engine. But when you’re helpless, you try things that you know won’t work just to make you feel like you have some power. 

Tara saw the car coming, too, and moved out of the way, onto the other side of the road. She looked like she was about to walk out of the road completely, and that knot in my stomach subsided a bit. As soon as the car passed, I’d go get my dog and tie her up in the backyard, no matter how cold it was.

But the driver inside that bright red Camaro had other plans. As he got closer to Tara, he deliberately swerved into the left lane and ran over Tara. After hitting my dog, he hit the gas pedal, his engine roared and a big cloud of black smoke shot out of the exhaust pipe. For a few seconds, I couldn’t see Tara amidst all that smoke, but I could hear her cry.  I ran over to get her. She was mangled. Her body shaking and twitching. Her eyes looked into mine like she was trying to tell me to make the pain stop. I looked away as I picked her up. Her body was hot and smelled like rubber. She felt broken. I felt looseness in her body from all the broken bones. She didn’t feel like a living creature. She felt like a broken toy. But she was real and she cried out loud and hard, unable to comprehend why she was in such agonizing pain. 

Jerry screamed out: “That motherfucker!” and made a valiant effort to chase down the Camaro. But the Camaro was long gone.

I ran back home with Tara in my arms. I hesitated at the front door because out here, somebody murdered my dog. But in there was Christmas and people were happy and having a good time. I was just gonna walk in with a dying dog and ruin everyone’s Christmas? Make all the little kids inside see this poor, broken animal in excruciating pain and let that image tattoo their minds for the rest of their lives? I got angry at myself for thinking about etiquette at a time like this, but I was at the age where I was starting to understand the effects of my actions, and although one can easily mistake deliberation for wisdom, in this case, I was right. Nobody inside cared about this dog. Why should they? She wasn’t their dog. But more importantly, there was nothing anybody inside could do. If anything, I was only making matters worse for Tara, adding more confusion to her state of mind, and prolonging her pain. 

I said to Jerry: “Your dad has a gun, right?” 

“Lots of ‘em,” Jerry said, nodding, knowing what was on my mind. He put his hand on my shoulder as we walked toward his house. 

In Jerry’s backyard, I lay Tara down on the grass. Her shaking and twitching calmed down some, but her cries and whimpers were still loud and agonizing. Her fur was soaked in dark red, glistening blood. She smelled like tire rubber and now that I was looking at her more closely, I saw tire streaks on her back. I thought about the person driving the Camaro and how he swerved on purpose to hit this dog, my dog. Went out of his way to kill this animal. 

“It’s loaded. Just pull the trigger,” Jerry said, putting a Glock in my hand. 

I never shot a gun before. I never killed an animal before. I never had a desire to do either, but now I had to do both. 

I was about to kiss Tara and tell her I’m sorry, but I didn’t want Jerry to see me do that. I felt a slap of guilt for feeling that way. But since I was at the age where you understand the effects of your actions, I know that Jerry would tell others and I’d be seen as either soft or crazy, and I didn’t want that. So I put the barrel of the gun on the side of Tara’s head and pulled the trigger.

“I need a smoke,” Jerry said. 

He lit up a Marlboro Red.

“Give me one,” I said.

Jerry did, but with a slight raise of his eyebrows because he knew I didn’t smoke. I was never interested in it. Never made sense to me. But at that moment, it did. I inhaled and coughed, but didn’t feel anything, just like my dog.