A Map, A Wolf, An Obsession

I think I really needed a short story collect, so Groff’s Florida comes at a great time. I’ve had Fates and Furies on my shelf since it was published. I started and stopped, started and stopped, at least twice. I was surprised in the best of ways by the assigned stories in Florida. Where Fates and Furies hangs on a marriage, the stories in Florida hang on the landscape. Each of the three stories assigned this week are gutturally connected to place, so much so that place almost becomes a character. 

The question for the week is “mapping the short story movement.” I want to focus on “Dogs Go Wolf” as I think Groff made some interesting choices in shaping this narrative. So let’s map it!

We’re dropped into the narrative amid a storm that has “erased the silence from the other cabin” (44). The adults have fled an island leaving two young girls (though we don’t know how young) alone. As a moment for beginning, the storm and the isolation create immediate tension. There’s heat from the first sentence: “The storm came and erased the quiet” (44). The story is already loud. 

Section break—

Groff uses a fairytale motif in the next section with the older sister (OG) telling the younger sister (YG) about the rabbit princess finds her family. The last two paragraphs are musical—like a lullaby—which fits because OG is lulling YG to sleep with the story. 

SB—

The third section moves back before the storm, introducing Smokey Joe (can we pause for a moment and ponder this ridiculous name) and Melanie. Then the two “adults” leave because, in the words of Smokey Joe, “Safer to leave ‘em.” And this begs the reader to ask, for who? Or is it whom? I digress. The section ends with a catalogue of befores, a movement perpetually past into the string of men and places their mother dragged OG and YG through. All the way back, to where OG “was too small to remember. Or maybe there was nothing” (50). Apt, because before one can remember there really is nothing. Memory is a catalogue of nothing punctuated with events like this list of places and men. 

SB—

The girls are in full Lord of the Flies mode without the all the toxically masculine bullshit. The dog runs away when OG takes him out to pee on a leash. That leash comes back. Just wait. YG cries about the dog; cookies are relief. An air conditioner eats a snake, which may be my favorite moment of the story. 

SB—

OG and YG suffer in the heat because the generator, the last vestige of civilized life, empties of gas. Things get really wild when OG and YG put on their mother’s makeup and realize they are thirsty. They walk through the woods terrified of mythical monkeys and carry water home. 

SB—

OG and YG find porn magazines, paint their nails, then go on a dog hunt. YG scares OG by dropping into a hidden cavern (which also comes back—lookout!). They find the dog waiting at the camp. He drinks water and runs away. What a user. 

SB—

They girls are dirty now, which makes sense. We get a fairytale again about a cannibalistic riff on Hansel and Gretel who “ate the lady all the way down until there was nothing left, not even blood” (58). YG is disturbed by the the kids in the story’s desire to eat the wicked stepfather, though I think this may be the best decision any two kids could make. 

SB—

A lyrical moment in which OG is happy. 

SB—

A man comes. A bad man. OG and YG run away, hide in the little cave from before— I told you to lookout. We know now that something awful has happened to mom. And it’s at this point that I find it hard to continue. I do, continue that is, but my mom senses start freaking out because I worry that these two might actually die of starvation on this island alone. 

SB—

YG asks about the “lady” who’s supposed to save them. They’re so hungry their “hearts make music in their ears.” They dream of food. 

SB—

OG is made of air. A mosquito bites her. And we flash forward, thank the author we’re saved, and we learn that OG and YG do in fact make it out of this starve-y mess. But the future we get is one in which YG leaves OG, like the mother, for a man and it’s almost more sad than her “ugly wish” to stay on the island. One more fairytale about girls made of air. 

SB—

The dog nearly asphyxiates itself with that leash (I promised it would come back) but OG saves him. He was not grateful. YG eats not yet ripe bananas and blames a monkey who disappeared. A noise calls them to the other side of the island. 

SB—

The girls clean up. You can’t be saved if you’re a dirty kid. A woman and a man on the beach are having a nice day, a picnic with beers and bathing suits and bikini bottom feels. OG and YG put lipstick on each others lips and cheeks. They run to the woman and the man, and we know what happens next. 

END. 

As an exercise in craft, I thinking mapping the movement of this short story in particular taught me how to lay some breadcrumbs (or blue pebbles from a fish tank) out. Little moments come back, motifs return again and again. I’m obsessed with this story, I think because it’s wild and constrained at once. And that title, “Dogs Go Wolf.” I’m set up to expect something, a dog going wild, and that does happen, but the title works on so many more levels. The men could be dogs gone wolves eating OG and YG’s hope at a happy future at every opportunity. Or OG and YG themselves go a little wolf, a little wild. And wolf instead of wild says something. Wolves are an endangered species in North America. Are little girls? Is innocence? 

I would love to hear everyone’s thoughts on this story. 

PS—

Here’s a random observation: I think Groff thinks people in Florida are obsessed with air conditioners or maybe Groff herself is obsessed with air conditioners. Either way, air conditioners appear in all three of these stories and I found that compelling or coincidental. Maybe both.