Writing

When I hear the word Harley, the image that comes to mind is a loud, shiny motorcycle racing along vast stretches of open road. When my housemate Shannon brought home a baby chihuahua called Harley, it was not just the name that was turned on its head, but our entire unhappy house.

Harley was a rebel, all right. His existence in the house went strictly against the rules of our rental agreement, and Shannon had to sneak him to and from her classes in order to keep an eye on him. If left alone, he might have made noise or chewed on the furniture -- though his tiny teeth would not have done much damage. I suspect Shannon’s real motivation was the reaction he got. The last thing anyone expected to see emerging from her gigantic pink handbag was a little dog. He went to sleep as soon as she closed the bag, and popped out like a jack-in-the-box when he heard the zipper opening, ready for his spotlight. She scooped him up with one hand and nuzzled him against her shoulder, and in his excitement, his little paws and corkscrew tail wiggled in all directions. This spectacle invariably brought high-pitched exclamations and giggles from any females nearby. Harley was a three-pound ladies’ man, a “chick magnet,” the way motorcycles seem to be in advertisements. Luckily for Shannon, men were just as enamored with the little dog.

As he was passed around the onlookers to be cooed at, Shannon stood back in motherly pride with a huge smile on her face. She certainly wasn’t the classic motherly type, though. At six foot four, with broad, muscular shoulders and cropped blonde hair, she looked more like she should be riding a Harley than baby-talking to Harley. Even in high heels and pink glitter, she could out-drink any frat boy -- and she did, several nights a week. Shannon talked loud, played her rap music loud, and stomped loudly up the stairs at three in the morning. But she was so friendly that nobody could be upset with her for very long. The same was true for Harley if he accidentally forgot he was paper trained or knocked something over.

Even though Harley was a sweetie, there was always the chance that one of the housemates could turn Shannon in for breaking the rules. I was afraid it would be Anlai. She was an exchange student from China, and she seemed to get along better with the manager than with anyone else. She was a pretty girl, with long black hair and wide-set dark brown eyes. She was working towards an MBA, and in her tailored jackets and pressed slacks, she looked every bit the businesswoman. She never really talked to anyone, and I couldn’t imagine why she would want to talk to Jerry. Almost anything was an excuse to call him -- the people next door were having a noisy party, the internet connection was down, a lightbulb needed to be changed, or the bathroom floor was a little dirty. These visits always lasted too long for my comfort.

If there was any conflict in the house, Jerry and Anlai seemed to be on the same side. Since each tenant was on an individual lease, everything in the house was well-separated. Every storage space was labeled in permanent marker with who should be using it, and Jerry drew lines on the doors to the three refrigerators to show exactly how much space each person got. When Anlai moved in, the first thing she did was claim her territory. She stuck post-it notes on shelves and drawers in the kitchen that were labeled with her room number, telling the rest of us to move our food -- even though there were plenty of other shelves and drawers left empty. I began avoiding Anlai. I was nervous that she would turn me in for keeping goldfish or burning incense or having friends over late at night. The last thing I needed was a screaming match with Jerry.

The thought of anyone voluntarily spending time with him was inconceivable to me. He was the complete opposite of the charming and friendly Harley, and the epitome of the our house’s stressful atmosphere: insane in a way you couldn’t quite put your finger on, popping up at the least convenient moments, and completely unpredictable. He talked too loud, too fast, and his watery blue eyes darted around like a criminal’s. His dingy gray sweatsuits smelled like paint thinner and beer, and he kept enormous model guns in his cluttered little office. Even though his properties were within walking distance of each other, he rode through the neighborhood on a battered motorbike that sputtered almost as much as he did.

On good days, he made cryptic political declarations like “World War One was won by Everyman, World War Two was won by Anyman, but this war will be won by No Man.” He told one of my housemates that the world was screwed up because women had strayed from their rightful place, but half his tenants were female graduate students. Two months after 9-11, he invited me to Afghanistan, all expenses paid. He told me “Taliban is a state of mind, you just have to understand their thinking, and you can be Taliban too.” Pointing to his forehead, he said “I’m Taliban, right here.” I’ll bet he was Taliban in his head.

On bad days, his tirades were terrifying. One quiet afternoon, the door slammed open and I heard heavy boots storm up the stairs two at a time. Jerry’s scratchy, nasal voice boomed into my room, screaming at one of the other girls for some sort of violation. I have no idea what caused the fight, but the entire neighborhood could hear his rage: “This is MY house and I can do whatever the hell I want with it! This is NOT your house, not for a second! If I wanna come in here and watch TV, if I wanna come in here and take a piss, that is my RIGHT and I will damn well do what I please! And if you don’t like it, you can leave!”

Before Harley joined us, it definitely wasn’t our house. It might as well have been six separate apartments. With no living room, socializing just didn’t happen. We left our doors closed and had our own phone lines, and most of the time it was like living alone. On the rare occasions when we passed in the hallway or shared space in the kitchen, detached greetings were exchanged, but nobody really talked. If I needed to borrow something or ask a favor, it was easier to walk a few blocks to one of my friends’ apartments, rather than bothering one of the people in my own house.

Not that I didn’t want to get to know my housemates. They seemed to be interesting people. Emilia was another exchange student from China, though she was the complete opposite of Anlai. Her dark, pixie-styled hair had blonde highlights in it, and her clothes were bright and colorful, a wide array of the latest capri pants, cartoon t-shirts, and denim jackets. A constant stream of telephone conversation came from her room. When she wasn’t on the phone, she had friends visiting, or was out with her boyfriend driving around in a shiny black car. Every Sunday, she filled the kitchen with the smells of ginger and garlic, preparing enough food for the week and storing it in plastic boxes. While she cooked, she hummed cheerful little songs, but she never stood still long enough to get a conversation started.

Agnes was a fifth-year architecture student. She wore dark clothes, decorated with unusual geometric patterns that reflected her field of study. Hard work and lack of sleep made her look older than she was. She came and went at any hour of the day or night, to work on her projects at the architecture studio on campus. The sounds of techno music spilled from her room constantly, along with animated phone conversations in English, Italian, or her native Polish.

When Harley arrived, I was sure Shannon would get evicted immediately. But days turned into weeks and Harley was still a secret -- to Jerry, at least. The little dog was a hit with everyone else. Soon the fear of discovery was outweighed by Harley’s energetic curiosity. He reminded me of Shaggy from Scooby-Doo: enthusiastic, quick to react to anything, a little bumbling, and not too smart, but ultimately cute and endearing in his blunders. Shannon started letting him run around the house, though she had to carry him up and down the stairs because his little legs were too short.

Given a bit of freedom, Harley seemed to be everywhere at once. For a creature only slightly taller than my ankles, who wore a bracelet as a collar, he could move fast! Not gracefully, but fast. His gait was jerky, and his front legs seemed to work independently from his rear legs, with the result that all four got tangled up when he wasn’t paying attention. As he grew a little bigger, his movements smoothed out a bit into a self-important trot. It was almost like he knew he was named after the world’s biggest, baddest motorcycle, and he demanded respect with his arrogant walk. But when he got excited, he forgot everything else and bounced around like a toy that was wound up too tightly.

He decided that we humans existed for the sole purpose of his entertainment. He wanted to explore every corner, taste every crumb on the kitchen floor, and attack every forgotten sock under the beds. But more than anything, he wanted to be friends with everybody. It wasn’t hard. He was enthusiastic about everything. When someone walked down the hall, he bounded behind them at full speed to see what the big adventure was. In the kitchen, he was quick enough under our feet so we didn’t have to worry about stepping on him. But he did not like being ignored, and he demanded recognition by jumping up and stretching his tiny paws onto our shins.

It was an unusually cold California winter, and there was only one heater in the house, so we began keeping our doors open in the evenings to get some warm air. At this point, Harley had figured out how to get down the stairs. Inevitably, he would sneak up on somebody. Emilia was his favorite victim, and definitely the most vocal. I knew he was downstairs when I heard her cry “Ah! Hah-ley! You scare me!”

When he came into my room, it was a chance to take a break from working. There is nothing more relaxing than crawling around on the floor with a dog. For a little while, I forgot about the stress of my classes. All that mattered to Harley was whether or not I had a sock for him to play with, and the world was simplified into the game of making him jump for that sock. Sometimes he got so excited about it that he tore out into the hallway and raced around in circles like the motorcycle of his namesake.

Despite the laughter that Harley’s antics produced, I still got nervous every time I heard Anlai’s door close against the noise. She had a lot of work to do and did not like distractions. One of Jerry’s warnings echoed in my mind: “if I don’t hear about it, I don’t care what you do. But if you piss off one of your roommates, then I hear about it, and I will take care of it. The person who complains is always right. No exceptions.” Irrationally, I imagined he might use the giant guns in his office to “take care of” Harley.

In the middle of February, we began seeing a lot more of Jerry. The sixth housemate, who I had seen only once or twice, was going abroad. When she moved out, Jerry wanted to make sure the house was in “100%” condition for a new tenant. He ordered his workers to scrub down the bathrooms and finally make the repairs in the kitchen he had promised for months. He also wrote angry notes about the dishes in the sink, in permanent marker on the wall. The next day, he threw them in the trash, with garbage on top of them. After fishing them out and washing them with bleach, my rage boiled over. I wanted to smash one of the dishes over his head or throw HIM in the trashcan. Or at least get some answers about his insulting behavior. But in fear of eviction, I kept my mouth shut.

Over the next few days, more dishes found their way into the trash. They became a smelly, constant, uncomfortable reminder that our house was not really our house. With Jerry’s now-frequent unannounced visits, the danger of Harley’s discovery increased. But Shannon, in her laid-back and easygoing nature, still gave him free reign of the house. When I knew Harley was around, I kept alert for any sign of Jerry. More than once, I scooped the little dog up and closed my door just in time to escape Jerry’s arrival.

This didn’t last long, though. Within three weeks, we had a new housemate. Michele was not a student, but an activist who was doing an internship with a local social justice group. She had just returned from a year-long project in Uruguay, and she seemed a little overwhelmed by life in LA. She wore t-shirts from her various volunteer activities, and kept her light brown hair cut just below her chin. Originally from Alabama, a Southern drawl surfaced occasionally in her speech.

Jerry finally left us all alone, and the house settled into a routine again. After Spring’s first set of midterms were over, Anlai seemed to be less stressed out, and she played with Harley more often. Even during Jerry’s constant visits, she had not turned him in, and I realized that we had nothing to fear from her. My tension around her relaxed. We even started having conversations in the kitchen while cooking meals, usually with Harley underfoot. I learned that she had been stressed out about her classes, and too busy to talk to anyone. Jerry had told her to call him if she needed anything, and even though she didn’t like him, she felt better asking him for help than bothering us. Ultimately, it was Harley who made me see Anlai as a real person, not just an unpleasant element in the house.

One night, there was a car accident nearby which caused our street to lose power. Most of the housemates were out, but Anlai and I were both studying. I lit candles around my room, and knocked on Anlai’s door to give her some light. I thought she would immediately get back to work, but she seemed fascinated by the changes wrought by the blackout. She set the candles down on her desk, then wandered out into the hallway to examine the house. Without the hum of appliances or the babble of television, all was silent. The old plaster walls insulated noises from outside, giving them the whispery, faraway quality of sounds heard through snow.

We sat out in the hallway, talking for hours. Once Anlai came out of her shell, she was animated and enthusiastic. She told me about different cities in Asia, her hopes for a business career, and her impressions of Americans. To her, people from the East Coast talk much faster than people from the West Coast, though Easterners seem to be more genuine. She told me about the hassles of getting a visa, and her fears that if she went home for the summer, she would not be allowed back to finish her degree. We talked about international politics, corporate policies, school. I could not believe that only a few months earlier, I had distrusted and disliked this girl. When the electricity came back on, I was sad to see our conversation end as we were forced back into our rooms to finish studying. But I was glad that the blackout had given me an excuse to get to know Anlai a little better.

Harley was an excuse to get to know everyone better. He wanted to play with all of us, and we all wanted to play with him, so we had to stop what we were doing and interact with each other. We were all so busy, but he forced us to slow down long enough to see the people in our own house -- quite a feat for a dog named after a motorcycle. Shannon began leaving him home when she went out, and we became communal baby-sitters. It was a particularly intense semester, with graduation looming for Agnes and I and hard work for everyone. Newspapers and TVs constantly bombarded us with images of terrorism and war, and there was no way to escape from the bad news. It was all anybody talked about. But Harley made it bearable, giving everyone the chance to unwind and forget for a little while. Slowly, our house became a home.

This happy arrangement continued for months. There was always someone sitting on the floor in the hallway with him, or you could hear laughter from someone’s room. Time in the kitchen was great fun, playing little games with Harley while waiting for water to boil, or tempting him with bits of food. When two of us cooked at the same time, it was a chance to swap stories. Almost every conversation started with “did you hear what Harley did yesterday?” Even when he wasn’t around, his happy energy seemed to float through the house and keep us in good spirits. Seeing one of his little toys on the floor always put a smile on my face.

One Monday afternoon in April, I ran into Agnes in the hallway. I started with the ordinary greetings, but the look on her face stopped me immediately. Her eyes looked exhausted and red, and her usual smile was gone. I thought that maybe something had happened with her boyfriend or her classes. Three months earlier I would have ignored it and walked away. Now her troubles were important to me. “What’s wrong?,” I asked.

“I don’t know if I should be the one telling you this...” she said. “But I guess nobody else knows. Harley got hit by a car on Saturday.”

“Oh my god! Is he okay?”

She shook her head and took a deep breath. “No. He’s not. Shannon was just taking him out for a little while, and he ran in front of a car. I guess the car tried to swerve out of the way, but he was so little... He just... Died.”

I couldn’t believe it. It didn’t seem possible that he could be gone. Our little Harley. I mumbled as much and Agnes nodded, avoiding my eyes. “I never had a pet before,” she said. ”In San Francisco we didn’t have room for an animal, and I never really liked dogs. I never thought I could love a little dog like that. But Harley. He was just so sweet and he just came right in while I wasn’t looking.” I knew she wasn’t talking about the times he’d wandered into her room while she was doing homework. “Shannon’s really upset about it. She started to tell me, and she just started crying and couldn’t talk. Her friend Melody had to finish telling me.”

She shook her head in disbelief. Her voice was low and sad and she avoided my eyes. “It doesn’t feel real. It feels like he’s just back in Orange County for the weekend or something, and he’ll be back. But he’s not coming back.”

The house was very quiet after that. Once everyone found out, we were all in shock. Nobody mentioned Harley, and greetings dwindled to small, sad smiles. After a week, Michele bought a card for Shannon, and everyone wrote long notes in it for her. Every single one began with “I don’t really know what to say, but...” Anlai and Emilia’s notes said that “Halley” had been a special dog. They didn’t hear the R, and never got the joke about his name. Somehow that made me smile.

We had all loved Harley so much, and we all wanted to comfort Shannon, and each other. It seemed like he had come to work his little bit of magic, bring us together, then leave just as quickly. Not a word was spoken about the card, but words were not necessary. Shannon knew we all cared, and slowly we began to heal.

Like the car accident which caused the blackout had brought Anlai and I together, the car accident which took Harley away brought all of us together. In our grief, we understood each other better. With finals fast approaching, we did not have the luxury to dwell on our feelings, but everyone became a little more supportive. We had our conversations in the kitchen and shared food because nobody had time to cook every day. Finals came and went, and suddenly we were all leaving. Agnes and I graduated, Emilia and Anlai went traveling, Michele went to Columbia on a peace mission, and Shannon went home to Orange County. Even with our exciting plans, we were all very sad to leave our little family.

In the midst of all this, Jerry held a surprise inspection, hearing from the neighbors that we were hiding a dog. Unfortunately, there was no dog to be found.