Growing up, Calvin James Barnes had a dog named Spike that his family tied to a tree and fed leftovers and scraps from their dinner every night.
When Calvin was eight years old in Ladoga, NC where he grew up, a hurricane blew through his neighborhood. He had never heard winds make so much noise and he was terrified. His parents gathered the family under their queen-sized bed, which was by far the biggest in the house, until they heard over their battery-powered radio that the hurricane was likely to destroy houses in their neighborhood. Calvin’s parents rushed everyone from under the bed and yelled until everyone was properly dressed to face the winds that were already whining outside.
Calvin’s father yelled, “Run straight to the car, we don’t got a whole lotta time!” and everyone made a dash for the family car, a 70’s-style, tan sedan.
As he ran, Calvin felt his heart beating out of chest. He was holding his older brother’s hand as tight as he could, afraid that if he let go, the wind would carry him far away. His brother complained, “You ain’t gotta squeeze so hard!” but Calvin never let go.
Just before jumping into the back seat of the car, Calvin remembered Spike tied to the tree in the yard. He looked in the dog’s direction and cried,
“What about Spike?! Go get Spike!.”
It was a wake up call to the entire family when Calvin said it. They had all forgotten him in their panic. “He’ll be alright,” Calvin’s father said weakly until he started the car and headed to the nearby school gym where the Red Cross had set up shelter for neighborhood residents. Calvin watched Spike from the car’s back window, standing solidly on all four of his legs as though he was protecting something he loved from an interloper.
At the school, Calvin sat on a cot hugging his mother as the storm passed loudly. The gym was crowded with the families of his schoolmates and neighborhood friends. They played games and joked to the chagrin of their parents, but even Calvin’s best friend could not move him from his seat beside his mother. “That girl Jessica gone eat a bug we found under that big table, you wanna see?” Calvin did but his mother went over to stop the girl before she could go through with it and Calvin just sat instead, wondering about the fate of his very brave dog.
Usually, Spike was tied to the tree in the family’s yard, but every now and then, Calvin’s father untied him and let Calvin walk him around the neighborhood. It was hard to identify the dog’s breed, he was obviously a mutt and because he spent so much time outdoors, his coat was mangy and brown. He was big, almost as big as Calvin who was tall for his age in adolescence, and on all four the dog stood taller than Calvin’s waist. When he walked the dog around the neighborhood, random strays would come to fraternize with him, as though they were old friends catching up, which was very possible seeing that Calvin’s father chained Spike to the tree in their backyard because he spent so much time there and drove away all the stray cats that kept Calvin’s father up late at night.
When Spike encountered a female out on their walks, whether a stray, another outside dog that most families in Calvin’s neighborhood had, or even the very clean house dogs of the few families that had them (mostly white families that lived in the newly built houses at the edge of the neighborhood), Spike would mount her until he was satisfied, no matter her size or the objection of the owner. Calvin thought it was the funniest thing to watch Spike ‘do it’ as his brother called it, so he never tried to stop him. But if the female’s owner even made a move to interrupt, Spike would growl like someone was trying to take his food.
Calvin liked it most when Spike encountered other male dogs. If they were leashed, their owners would cross the street at the sight of Calvin’s mutt, but if they were strays or maybe dogs with owners who wanted their shot with the neighborhood bully dog and managed to sneak away from their homes to find the mangy dog strutting around on a flimsy chain that the young Calvin usually wielded alone, Spike would square himself, the way that Calvin would never forget he had the day of the hurricane, sturdy on all fours, ready to rip an opponent apart.
Once, on a Saturday afternoon, Spike encountered a stray about his size that first seemed to demonstrate aggression towards Calvin. Spike jumped at the dog, yanking the chain from Calvin’s hands, and the two were biting and growling on the sidewalk next to the convenience store Calvin passed to get to school every morning. There were two teenage boys who often idled next to the convenience store, selling weed or crack to the store’s patrons. The owner was a kindly Vietnamese man who learned to coexist with the drug dealers because they made sure no one ever robbed his store and he had heard of so many stores like his own being robbed across Ladoga. All the boys watched in awe as Spike pinned the stray to the ground by the neck and the stray stopped breathing. Calvin was a tiny hero to the drug dealers and Calvin was proud of his mangy dog, Spike, with the blood-stained coat.
Calvin’s father was very concerned when an excited Calvin explained what had happened. Calvin’s father tied the panting dog to the tree in the backyard and blasted him with the water hose.
Calvin never heard the conversations his parents had following that incident, very serious conversations about what they should do with the dog that probably had rabies. Calvin’s father wanted to shoot him and tell Calvin that the dog had run away or been hit by a car, but Calvin’s mother knew what the dog meant to the boy. It was his best friend since his older brothers were much older and not interested in spending their play time with him and his sisters never spent time playing with their brother unless they were forced to. Calvin’s mother wanted to have Spike tested for rabies, it was possible that the stray didn’t have anything, but Calvin’s father refused to spend any money on the dog. His parents kept him from playing with Spike and that upset Calvin a lot until the day the winds came and he held himself close to any family member he could get a hold of.
The day after the hurricane, Calvin and his family woke up on cots in the school gym surrounded by their neighbors who were either still sleeping or slowly gathering their things and leaving. Calvin’s family drove through their neighborhood cautiously and had to take many detours because of downed power-lines and trees. When they pulled into their driveway, they all let out a sigh of relief that their house was still standing though some trees had fallen into the yard that would take effort to move.
“Guess I know what I’ll be doing this weekend. Y’all boys too,” Calvin’s father said as they walked slowly to the front door and gazed around at their neighbors’ homes that were in a similar state.
Calvin ran to the last spot where he had seen Spike in the backyard. The tree where the dog should have been chained was still standing, but he was nowhere in sight. Calvin started to cry and his parents consoled him; his siblings made fun of him. Calvin’s mother hugged him and told him that maybe the chain had broken and Spike ran off to find a safe place. “He’ll be back,” she said in a sympathetic voice. “I hope not,” Calvin’s father mumbled loud enough for his wife to hear, and when she did, she jabbed him in his side.
Calvin’s father refused to replace Spike because “You can’t just replace a member of the family. When they gone, you have to learn to say bye.” Mostly he was grateful that the hurricane had done his dirty work for him; it would have been impossible for his father to separate Calvin from that dog. His mother understood that they had dodged a bullet and encouraged Calvin to make human friends.
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