“I don’t know why people always say that. No bark is worse than a bite. A bite is always worse.”
In a collection with the title Bark, there is a surprising dearth of stories featuring dogs. Even more surprising, perhaps, is that there are no stories at all that could accurately be described as “dog stories” or even stories in which a dog is the central character, including this story. Just as surprising, maybe, is that this story titled “Wings” is not about pilots or flying or birds or even houseflies, but two musicians and an old man. Milton is the old man and he is responding to the protagonist of the story, K.C., making that oft-repeated statement in reference to her own dog—named Cat—barking at the old man who is a total stranger at this part. The quote is significant not because it has any real important relevance within the story, but because it is not entirely obvious why this collection bears the title it bears. This may be clue, however.
Not being hard on people—“You bark at them,” Marilyn used to say—was something he was trying to work on.
While there is no story specifically about a dog in the collection, the very first story is titled “Debarking.” This title is a form of the verb “debark” which has various definitions: unloading cargo, the removal of bark from tree after it has been chopped down, and to purposely do the surgery necessary to remove the capacity of a dog to bark. It is also an alternative form of “disembark.” Here, however, the word means none of those things. Based on contextual connotation it seems to exist most closely to the dog deal as the protagonist is described thinking here in something along the lines of a concerted effort to restrict the volume and opportunity of his loud outbursts. Admittedly, earlier in the story he has been described as stopping to bend over and tie his shoes “after debarking from a plane” but clearly in this instance the reference is something else entirely. Another clue as to what the overall title of the collection may mean, but still ambiguous.
“Actually, I saw something on PBS recently that said only the outer bark of the brain—and it does look like bark—is gray. Apparently the other half of the brain has a lot of white matter. For connectivity.”
The first-person narrator of this story is a mother with a fifteen-year-old daughter named Nickie. It’s one of those stories where nothing really happens but something happening is really the point. The point is the narration and the interaction between the characters. Interaction such as the little conversation taking place between mom and daughter peppered with just the slightest bit of snarky flavoring about the fact that another character named Maria is going to be wearing white at her wedding, a fact that Nickie can’t believe. When her mother inquires as to what color Maria should wear, Nickie is already fully loaded as if prepared ahead of time, suggesting the appropriate color would be gray. Why gray? “To acknowledge having a little brain. A little gray matter.” And the above quote represents, of course, her mother’s reply. So here we come to a third reference to bark and another possibility to add to the explanation of what the collection’s title might mean.
