Dog 137
a novel by
Howard Veregin
~240 pages, $17.95 (+ shipping)
Projected Release Date: March/April 2026
An Advance Sale Discount price of $11 (+ shipping) is available HERE prior to press time. This price is not available anywhere else or by check. The check price is $15/book (which includes shipping & sales tax) and should be sent to: Main Street Rag, 12180 Skyview Drive, Edinboro, PA 16412.
PLEASE NOTE: Ordering in advance of the release date entitles the buyer to a discount. It does not mean the book will ship before the date posted above and the price only applies to copies ordered through the Main Street Rag Online Bookstore.
Dog 137 is a deeply moving story that is hard to put down. The vividly descriptive detail and historical accuracy drenches the reader in the ambience of WWI poverty-stricken America. The struggles of a homeless young teenager trying to survive on his own while confronting the brutal and questionable mores of the time make for a damn good read. ~Byron Brumbaugh
It’s amazing how much is packed into the pages of Howard Veregin’s Dog 137. History. Alternative history. Fantasy. Reality. And one compelling main character. His name changes according to who he’s with and what situation he’s in, but he calmly leads us from beginning to end. While the story is full of twists and turns and convolutions, you will never feel lost. Then close the book, shut your eyes, and sigh in satisfaction. ~Kathie Giorgio, Hope Always Rises, Don’t Let Me Keep You, and more.
CHAPTER 1
Until the age of seventeen, I lived like a dog. At that time, a shantytown – known to everyone as the Squats – sat next to the dockyards. I made my home on the corrugated metal roofs of the shacks, or any place I could find a corner to curl up in. I did odd jobs in exchange for meals and sometimes stole vegetables from the small garden plots that filled the vacant spaces between buildings. At times, I relied on the charity of those residents who took pity on me and gave me blankets or a bite of food to eat. They had little enough to share. The Squats was isolated from the outside world, which seemed full of commotion and noise – a nearby railroad switching yard where the train wheels screeched on their rails late at night, a viaduct above the shacks that rattled day and night with wagons and trucks, dusting me with flakes of rust and chips of coal. Only the ships were silent and still as they sulked in the dark waters of the harbor, waiting to be freed from the chains that bound them to the shore.
It seemed to me the Squats always existed. It was as old as the earth itself. The shacks and shanties were crude constructions, cobbled together from the merest scraps of wood and metal, yet, to me, did not seem transitory or temporary. Their tenants attended to them with great care, repairing and patching them to withstand the elements, and decorating them in ways that evoked domesticity. Not infrequently seen were lace curtains gracing a windowpane, a wisp of smoke curling up from a chimney, or the yellow glow of a candle flame. A little crude, perhaps, but also inviting. It was as if the fundamental desire for sanctuary surfaced even in this impoverished environment. A few businesses, huddled together at the foot of the breakwater, served the needs of the community – a little Bohemian pub, a gymnasium where boxing matches were held on Saturday nights, a small store that sold tobacco and alcohol. In the back of these simple buildings was a kennel for the big dogs that pulled sleds in the winter to collect firewood.
There were dogs everywhere, all shapes and sizes. I kept my distance from them. They lived on the street, beneath me. I looked down upon them from the rooftops. Most of the dogs were feral, born in alleys or under abandoned buildings. But others were runaways, and some still wore the collars to which a chain or leash had once been attached. Perhaps they ran away to be free of these shackles, just as the ships tugged at their chains and anchors. But the lure of captivity – the thought of a warm bed and regular meals – still pulled at them. When the wardens of the dog pound swung through the Squats to pick up strays, many were easily captured, when all but the oldest and slowest dogs could easily have escaped. Perhaps they saw it as a game. But I conferred on them no sympathy. While the notion of an animal being chained up was repellant to me, the idea that some welcomed it was doubly so.
My life might have seemed precarious to some, but the Squats was home to me. It was only the winters that were difficult, and then only if the weather was especially wet or cold. I was able to survive without much effort and the Squats was peaceful. The pace of life was unhurried. The residents moved about without much fuss, hanging their washing out to dry, heaving their boats into the water, weeding their gardens. The sun rose and set at the expected times. The seasons passed in the proper sequence, year after year. A sense of predictability existed and imparted a quiet dignity to the settlement and the people who lived there. It was timeless in a way, as if nothing changed since their great-grandparents’ age.
But security is often an illusory thing. One late summer morning, my life in the Squats was upended. Just before sunrise, a rattling commenced. It grew progressively louder, rousing everyone from sleep. Anxious faces appeared in windows and open doorways. A procession of vehicles soon arrived – trucks, tractors, steam-shovels – accompanied by a crew of burly workmen lugging shovels and picks. The shacks were gone by evening, just wiped away. A house constructed of mismatched odds and ends is easily destroyed. The workmen threw the wooden parts into smoky fires and hauled away the metal roofs. A line of constables with revolvers strapped to their belts formed a cordon along the shoreline and forced the residents to leave. And then their meagre belongings were tossed into the muddy creek or one of the fires. The dogs howled through the whole ordeal and the workmen swung at them with their shovels.
When the vehicles first arrived, I climbed up into the rusty viaduct above the shacks, and there I slinked about, looking down on the workmen and the dogs. Unlike the other inhabitants, who had to carry their most important possessions or have them snatched away, I had nothing but the clothes I wore. I watched them file away over the footbridge, the only path leading inland. When it was all over, with the shacks gone, the dockyards was a sepulchral place. Nothing moved except the orange tongues of the fires and the inky smoke they spewed. A few dogs yelped in the distance, and I could hear ships’ chains clanking from the harbor. That night, I hid amongst the broken remnants of kitchen sinks and cooking pots near the creek.
Morning came and the sun rose. There was not a building left standing in the Squats. Where the community once stood, there was now a sea of mud, littered with scraps of wood and broken bricks. Tire tracks ran in chaotic patterns across the landscape. The fires were all burned out, leaving piles of blackened timbers and planks. A few dogs nosed around, looking for something familiar. My home no longer existed. Without warning or explanation, I had been suddenly exiled. There was little time for sentimentality. My immediate concern was survival.
I crossed the salt marsh on the wooden footbridge, the same one the inhabitants crossed the night before. For a few moments, I watched a swimming terrapin, its spotted head bobbing up and down in the water. I wondered how this creature learned how to thrive in this briny interstice between the land and the sea, a transitional place that emptied and refilled with brackish water twice a day. How did it manage to grow a home for itself and carry it around wherever it went? It could not be mere necessity, for all animals need homes, and yet most do not carry them upon their backs. At that moment, I could have used a home upon my own back, even a rude tent to pop up over me wherever I chose to sit. The terrapin captured a small crustacean in its mouth and then quickly disappeared. Dragonflies and saltmarsh sparrows flitted across the surface of the water.
I continued across the footbridge and headed north, following a path that wove its way through thick, shrubby vegetation. A few dogs followed me at a distance. At length, the path ended at a large road. On my right, the road led into the hazy morning sun. On my left, in the distance, loomed the gray city. It summoned me in a clamorous manner. “Boy! Hello, boy! This way! This way! What are you waiting for? The past is dead! This way!” Car horns hooted in the distance as if a parade were in progress.
* * *
When I first arrived at the Squats, several years earlier, Widow Walewska took me in to live with her. She had a small home that contained only one room. In one corner was a large iron stove used for heating and cooking. A metal duct for smoke ran straight up from the back of the stove, then took a sharp turn, and pierced the wall. A stack of firewood sat next to the stove in a wooden box. On the other side of the room was a bed with an iron frame. Its vertical rails looked like the bars of a jail cell. In the center of the room sat a wooden table with three mismatched wooden chairs. There was always a vase at the center of the table. In the summer, it usually contained a single flower, something colorful in bright yellow or orange. Situated on the wall to the left of the stove was the building’s only window, decorated with simple curtains. The walls were painted a dull white that barely concealed the roughness of the boards underneath. There was an outhouse close by, next to a scruffy shrub that attracted bees when it blossomed in spring.
The widow was similarly unadorned. She wore the same uniform every day – a faded, shapeless dress made of fabric printed with flowers, thick wool stockings (even in summer) and slippers. Her gray hair was gathered into a bun at the back of her head. When she walked, she waddled slightly from side to side, her feet shuffling on the floor.
I was brought to the Squats by a man and a woman I hardly knew. They were quite young, barely older than I was. They had a large white dog named Patou. We arrived in the Squats on a winter day, with snowflakes as large as autumn leaves falling gently from the sky. Widow Walewska gave me a place to stay and food to eat, and in return, I helped her maintain her home. I chopped wood, weeded her garden, fetched water, and performed other household chores. I became adept at scrambling onto the roof to patch leaks, a common problem given the state of the shingles. Widow Walewska’s eyesight was quite bad. The pupils of her eyes were milky white, and sometimes, especially at night, she needed help to navigate the room.
She served meals on the wooden table. The most common meal was soup, made of whatever vegetables were available – potatoes, carrots, beets, onions, cabbage. The widow and I usually ate alone, but sometimes one of the denizens of the Squats, someone down on his luck, would join us. The widow was a kindly person, and she recognized the importance of the community supporting itself, given how tenuous existence was. She was once married, but her husband died in an accident. She never offered details. She lived alone after that, although she had a son who lived far away.
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Howard Veregin is a professional cartographer and writer. He received his PhD from the University of California, Santa Barbara. He has been a professor at Kent State University and the University of Minnesota, Director of Geographic Information Services at Rand McNally in suburban Chicago, and Wisconsin State Cartographer at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. His works include maps and atlases, professional publications and non-fiction essays. He blogs about the unusual geography and history of Wisconsin. Dog 137 is his first novel.