Of the 100 submissions for this year’s 2024 BCLF Elizabeth Nunez Caribbean-American Writer’s Prize, the Brooklyn Caribbean Literary Festival (BCLF) shared that Stefan Bindley-Taylor’s story was a clear favorite and contender for the top prize among judges Lauren Francis-Sharma, Desmond Hall, and Wandeka Gayle, who were unanimous in their decision. This is what they had to say about Stefan’s story:
It is, at first, an exploration of a twisting familial relationship that embodies the hopes and expectations that live between perception and actuality. But with a sure hand, “The Trouble with the Dog” takes us through the perspectives of an uncle and his niece grappling with loss in different ways. The story, not just a psychological study, also presents their struggles with a directness, a wry humor, and without overt sentimentality yet still offers an emotional resonance and tenderness that guides the reader through the silences between generations, the silence that threatens to stifle intimacy between people committed to loving one another. This short tale shows us another way.
- Advertisement -
The Trouble with The Dog
Sterling was an enigma to all who claimed to know him. He kept in touch with few and spoke nothing of his personal life. When he got married, he said nothing. When his wife left him, he said nothing. When he had a son, he said nothing. When he buried the son, he said nothing. He rarely showed up to places he was invited; he never failed to appear at parties, funerals, and weddings for which he had no invitation. He was perpetually running late, and he used the same excuse every time.
“Sorry, had some trouble with the dog.”
This was another one of his oddities—Sterling did not own a dog and never had. No one knew how the line originated, but it had become a sort of catchphrase. Neighbors would pass his home, where he sat outside on a staircase smoking, and cry: “Eh Sterling! What happening? Any trouble with the dog today?”
He would grin and say nothing.
Perhaps the only person who really knew Sterling was his niece, Alisha, who would come down from the United States to visit him every summer of her childhood. Whenever she came, the trouble with the dog seemed to cease, for he found the time for the two of them to drive all over the island—up the sides of winding mountain roads, through the heart of thick jungle and bush, down swaths of dark, flat coastlines.
Sterling was her blood relative (albeit through a genealogist’s nightmare of second and third and fourth cousins; what the locals would call, pumpkin vine family) and the only real family she and her father, Errol, had left on the island.
Those summer visits had been magical. Alisha, a child who was slowly coming to build her life around a sense of achievement, saw Sterling’s seemingly effortless comfort with solitude and what adults in her family termed, in hushed tones, a failure of a life, as nothing short of a miracle. And Sterling, a man who had long since felt the command of his life’s possibility drift away, found comfort in Alisha’s ambition and rash youthfulness.
Time had eroded the frequency of their visits. Alisha became busy with summer training academies, new friends, division 1 college offers; Sterling, busy with the dog. They had not seen each other in donkey years. Until one year, she was set to return to him—as a star, nonetheless!
It was the 2031 Women’s World Cup, the first to be hosted in the Caribbean. Alisha—to the surprise of no one—had since become a world-class football player and—to the surprise of almost everyone—turned down an offer from the United States to instead play for her parents’ home country. The gamble paid off. The Trinidadian team had made it all the way to the finals against the United States. Alisha was the highest goal scorer of the tournament so far, and a pivotal force to Trinidadian team’s offense and defense—a real box-to-box midfielder. Or at least, this is what Sterling had read in the newspaper articles about the team, which he consumed voraciously in the weeks before her arrival.
He was not much of a football fan himself, but even he knew that what was taking place was a miracle by every stretch of the imagination. Bookies and sports analysts were set to lose a fortune, records were being broken by the second, bars and public squares were packed every evening. It seemed that the crop of local talent could not stop winning.
The team arrived the day before the final. They had taken a private red-eye flight to avoid run-ins with media or fans. When they landed, the tarmac was desolate save for a few bodies in bright orange vests, nestled in the seats of idling trucks, making equally idle chat. Iridescent sheets of jet fuel peeled off the asphalt in waves. The sun crept over the northern mountain range, streaking the skyline with soft pastels. With the finals a day away and Alisha set to stay with her uncle once more, it was a scene destined for a heartwarming reunion.
But as Alisha stood alone outside of the airport, the rest of her teammates having already departed, she felt keenly aware of the difference in her American movements—something unquantifiable in the flow of the gait, the drift of the hips, the speed of their blinking. A fact she had become all too aware of over the past weeks on the road, in endless press conferences and locker room jokes that felt just beyond her reach. She tried to mask her posture so as to not stand out. So when Sterling finally pulled around to pick her up from the airport—an hour late—he found Alisha looking irritated and slightly itchy. He got out of the car and kissed her on both cheeks before grabbing her bags.
“Sorry I’m late — had some trouble with the dog!” He spoke like a sitcom character, remembering how she had loved this bit as a child.
Alisha replied flatly. “That dog is always giving trouble. You sure it’s not time to put him down, Uncle?”
Sterling gave a nervous laugh as he opened her door.
Alisha slid into the interior of Sterling’s burgundy sedan, the same one in which he had driven her around during her summer visits. Back then, it had felt like a fortress. The windows were tinted a cool dark blue. The smell of cologne and tobacco clung to the seats. The metal seat belt clips were always piping hot from hours in the sun (it was for this reason Sterling said he never wore seatbelts, though he always insisted she put hers on).
When she climbed into the car this time, the heat felt stifling. The smell of cologne and cigarettes made her roll down the window. Her seatbelt remained unbuckled. The two faced each other; something between them felt starchy and liable to break.
Up close, Sterling saw how much she had grown. Her ears and nose were pierced, her cheeks had flattened, her chin elongated. Her frame was stocky and athletic She had a mole on her forehead and another on her neck. She no longer wore beads in her hair.
Alisha saw how her uncle had aged. His sinewy figure hinted at an athletic youth long past. His face was divotted with little strips of discoloration that resembled a chain of minor outlying islands she had seen somewhere on a map. His wispy hair had retreated from his head and now advanced in thick battalions from his nose and ears.
The two of them drove through the winding turns of the roundabouts that led out of the airport in silence. It was just like Sterling to have read all about her success in the paper and have nothing to say in person. Growing uneasy, he offered what he could.
“You ‘wan something to eat?”
Alisha mumbled something non-committal. She had her head out the window, gazing up at the sky. This was the 6th country’s skyline she had seen in 2 weeks. It was a miracle how similar they all looked. On the field before games, she could see the curvature of the earth and the clouds stretching over stadiums, limber and damp. It made her feel tiny and infinite. But when the game was over, the sky appeared to be a flat slab of blue staring back at her, something cold and firm that might as well have been wallpaper.
They stopped not far from away from the airport at the side of the road for doubles, the iconic Trinidadian staple: two golden fried pieces of dough piled with curried chickpea, tamarind, and cucumber. It had been her favorite treat as a child. Sterling clambered out the car to get the food. He looked back to see Alisha remaining seated in the car, still staring out the window. He thought better than to ask if she wanted to come out.
Filled with nervous energy, he found himself making small talk with the doubles man.
“Eh-eh, morning Sterling. You up early. No trouble with the dog today?”
“No, no, none of that today, man. Went to pick up my niece from the airport. She a real big star you know? Going to win a trophy for the island tomorrow.”
“Eh-heh?” The double man, used to all sorts of fantastical stories, looked up quickly, and then glanced back down, twirling the doubles in wax paper and stuffing them in a brown paper bag.
Seeing the two men looking at her, Alisha rolled up the window, reclined her seat all the way back, and closed her eyes. The sunlight washed over her eyelids, painting soft, fuzzy Rorschachs of violet, brown, red. In them, she saw the backs of her teammates, which she watched this morning disappear, one by one, into the arms of huge caravans of families that had arrived to welcome them and take them home. She knew they would spend the day visiting places they had grown up. Seeing old friends, touring the schools they had attended, driving to the deep recesses of the island to lime by rivers that only they knew the secret pathway to. The veteran players would take their young children for walks around the savannah, dribbling the ball into the sinking facade of the sunset. And wherever they went, they would be seen as heroes. Local icons who had been grown by the soil and food of the people. As was their right. They were home. Where was she?
The car door opened, and Alisha opened her eyes to find herself staring at the bald patches on Sterling’s head.
“Well. You feel like just because you gon’ America so long you can’t eat doubles by the road like a true Trini?”
Alisha got out. The two of them stood separated by the car bonnet. Sterling glanced from her to the sky, trying to catch her eyes. When they finally made contact, he was met with a guardedness that hurt him and made him look away again.
“So how you been, child?” Sterling spoke between hot mouthfuls causing his vowels to sound hollow and stretched.
“I’ve been good, Uncle.”
“Right, right. You really been giving them hell out there!” Sterling reached across to tap her on the shoulder, having to lean awkwardly against the hot metal of the car to do so, burning his soft belly which had been exposed by his uplifted shirt.
Alisha gave a quick and vanishing smile.
“You must be tired though. All them games and traveling.”
She looked now again at her uncle, seeing what he was trying to do, and softened a bit. “Yeah boy, I real tired. ” She spoke with the dramatic, strained Trini accent she used to put on for him when she was young. Sterling laughed. He was relieved to see a glimmer of the child he knew. Yet he recognized it now to be merely a small part of the adult he knew nothing about.
They finished their doubles and got back in the car, their chins sticky with sauce. Sterling jerked the old handbrake back into position, and they continued on. They drove the rest of the way in silence once more. Long stretches of highway revealed new developments, shopping centers, and pristine American franchises fighting for space amongst the tall grass. All things Alisha had not seen before. But eventually, the new gave way to the familiar. Colorful Hindu prayer flags rose from overgrown gardens of creamy blue houses with wrought iron gates. Snack shops, operating out the bottom verandahs of houses, advertised their goods with handmade signs. A group of hens roamed the street, inspecting open gutters. They were back in the Arima neighborhood of Trinidad, home of their summer escapades.
Sterling’s house was hard to miss. A red clay staircase, visible from the road, rose in the front yard like an obelisk. It led to nothing. The second floor had never been completed. It was almost avant-garde. Once, when Alisha was young, she tried to climb to the top to look out at the sunrise creeping over the northern mountain range in the distance. When Sterling had seen her, he rushed up and grabbed her, staring her down coldly and shouting incoherently, his yellowed teeth foaming as his mouth choked out syllables about how dangerous it was. It was the only time she had ever been afraid of him
More friendly reminders of her life there: the driveway was still stained with soot from the little bags of gunpowder Sterling gave her one New Year’s Eve that had popped and crackled when she threw them on the ground. The front door was caked in peeling layers of garish yellow paint, a color chosen at her request. Whenever she came to visit, Sterling slept on a sofa in the living room and gave her the small back room of the house that contained a thin mattress, a desk, and a poster of Trinidad’s first Ms. Universe—though, Sterling took this poster down when she was around.
Alisha was unmoved by these nostalgic totems. Instead, stepping into the dimly lit house, she focused on what she had not noticed back then—the stench of open liquor and rotting fruit; the frayed fabric and flecks of ash on all the furniture; the fat flies perched on moist crumbs in the sink.
“Sorry I didn’t have a chance to clean—”
“Trouble with the dog?” Alisha interjected.
“You jus’ go in the back and take a rest. I’ll deal with out here.”
Alisha did not argue. She grabbed her bags and disappeared into the backroom, shutting the door behind her. The walls here were made of a flimsy stock board covered with a wallpaper designed to look like real wood. At parts, the paper had wrinkled or peeled away, revealing the dark brown sandpaper-like surface beneath it. Some of the spots had been touched up with tape. She could tell Sterling had tried to neatly make up the room for her. He had even organized a small stack of newspapers with her face on the cover on the lone desk and placed a few bottles of water on a bedside table. A small fan struggled to defeat the stuffiness. Through the thin walls, she could hear the sound of empty glass bottles clinking together in a trash bag. The dull scraping of a coconut husk broom whisked across the floor.
Alisha began to cry. She knew she was being cruel to her uncle, but she had no energy to pretend to be the child he missed. And why should she? She already had to pretend to be something for everyone else. Team captain, poster child for the nation, answering questions that never stopped coming. What would it take to win tomorrow? What would it mean for the country? Not to mention the things whispered in dark corners about her in particular. How could Alisha— an American born of Trini descent, a yankee, a word that was spat out more than spoken— be the one to lead the team to glory? Why had she chosen to play for them at all, even after receiving offers from the Americans, the all-time record champions? Was she really committed enough? Was she secretly going to throw the game for the Americans to win? She couldn’t remember the last time she had been alone. Her life had been filled with moving buses, shared bunks, locker rooms with leaking ceilings. The country’s sports federation had not taken the women’s team seriously, and despite all the public rallying they were doing around the team now that they were winning, the truth was that the women had triumphed in spite of them, not because of them. She hated that her face was all over the town, her disembodied limbs strewn across magazines and billboards for the island to make meaning of. What more can be asked from a body already so divided into symbols?
She pressed her palms into her eyes, plugging the well. There was no time for this, whatever it was. The final was tomorrow. If she won, things would fall into place. Winners set the terms. Nobody could tell her shit. If she lost? A question too big, seismic, for this small room.
* * *
Alisha woke drenched with sweat. The room was dark and still. She had had a terrible dream, the details of which she could not recount. Her body was still wired and delirious. A second fan had found its way into the room. She thought back to her interactions with her uncle the day before and groaned, pushing her fingers into her teeth.
She stumbled out of the bed into the living room. The lights were off. Sterling was sitting upright on the sofa, his fingers pressed into his eyes. A Bollywood soap opera played on the television, flaring through his glasses, which were resting on the table. He looked older without them on.
Sterling saw her and jumped. He tucked a bottle by his side beneath the blanket. “Lord, I thought you was a jumbie. What you doing up child?”
“What you doing up?” She spoke again in her jagged patois, plopping down on the sofa next to him— a thinly veiled olive branch. Sterling accepted without hesitation.
“You hungry?”
“A little. But it’s too late to eat.”
“Listen, you may be an athlete, but you still a Trini. Better belly bust…”
“Than good food waste.” Alisha completed the idiom and laughed.
Sterling went into the kitchen to microwave some leftover curry chicken. The television flickered as the microwave turned on, the actors’ faces warping, squishing, then returning to normal when the sharp ding rang out.
Alisha ate slowly, her fork scraping the bottom of the enamel plate, revealing the faded illustrations of hibiscus flowers beneath.
“You know uncle, the news is saying I only opted to play for the Trinidad team because I wouldn’t be starting for the U.S. But that’s bullshit. I chose it because I’m from here too.”
“But of course. You’s a Trini just like all of we!”
“Right! You know. Sometimes I even think of moving down here.”
Sterling grew quiet. “Why?”
“Life here just seems so much simpler. And I don’t want people to see me as a Yankee anymore. If—when—we win, I want people to see that I belong here.”
He chose his words carefully.
“I’m not sure if you’d like it here. It’s not like America, you know.”
“Well, obviously it’s not, I know. But it’s not like I’m some foreigner. Like you said, I’m a Trini too.”
“Yes, true. But you know how many people down here wish they could be up there in the States where you are?”
“Do you wish you were in the States?”
Sterling let out a hearty laugh that caused him to choke. “No, no. I good right here.”
Alisha found the rage bubbling in her voice.
“So, what’s so different about me then? What do you think you can handle here that I can’t?”
The child he knew! The temper, quick to rise to the surface and spill over. It was no wonder she had grown into such a brilliant competitor. He smiled.
“Well, for starters, not everyone can handle the trouble with the dog.” He had meant this lightheartedly, but Alisha was already over the edge.
“Yeah. You’re right. Not everyone can handle wasting their life away pretending to have trouble with some imaginary fucking dog just so they can sit around and drink all day.”
The smile faded from Sterling’s face. He continued to stare straight ahead. He opened his mouth and closed it again. He pulled the bottle from beneath the blanket and took a sip. He got up from the sofa and stepped outside, leaving the door open behind him.
Alisha craned her neck back to look at the ceiling. She watched a lizard crawl through the open slits to the outside. She drew a breath and ran her fingers through her hair, her face hot and flushed. Eventually, she followed Sterling into the yard, where she found him sitting at the top of the steps he had once scolded her off of, staring off into the stars.
“Uncle, look, the tournament has been exhausting. I think I’m just working through a few things and…I’m sorry for what I said. You didn’t deserve that.”
Sterling shook his head and smiled, waving her words away with a thin hand. He pulled a cigarette from his pocket and lit it. The warm night air made their tongues slack.
“You know, I did think of moving to the States once. Just before you was born. I even talked to your daddy about coming up and staying with him.”
“Really?”
“I thought it would change things for me and the wife. I did love she plenty. But the two of we did argue like cat and dog. I figure if we moved up there, we could start a new life.”
Alisha furrowed her brow. “I never knew you were married.”
Sterling closed his eyes and pulled on his cigarette, nodding his head, the glowing ember moving like a lightning bug.
“Had a son, too. He used to spend the whole day playing on these steps. We were trying to build a second floor so he could have his own bedroom one day.” Alisha watched her uncle swaying. Moonlight spilled in pale strokes across his hairless calves.
“But he did like to play a little too much.” Sterling paused. His eyes glittered like a tide pool, creatures in them waiting to be scooped up and held, trickled back down through cradling hands. “Or maybe we did like to fight a little too much. Too busy fighting to notice when he fall off the top of the ledge, right there.” He motioned at the flat platform behind him. “We bury him right down the road where your daddy used to go to church. We never argue again after that. We just cry and cry until it was quiet. We didn’t speak about America anymore. Then we didn’t speak at all.”
He ashed the cigarette beneath his slipper.
“After that, couldn’t get my head right. Some days I didn’t leave the house. Some days I didn’t leave the room. Quit my job at the university. Your daddy used to be sending me money just to live.”
He paused to light another cigarette.
“I never thought of myself as a man that did fear loneliness. But then again, I had never been truly alone until then. So, I made friends with the dog.” He shook the bottle in his hand. “But it did start to give plenty trouble.”
They sat together for a while in the damp darkness of the night. The air smelled faintly of smoke from a bushfire. Sterling hovered his foot a few inches off the ground, flexing his toes so that his slipper clapped against his heel. He felt he had shared too much. He knew this would be the final brick in the wall forming between them. He braced himself for the loss.
“I don’t know why I telling you all this. You mustn’t bother with the troubles of an old man like me. You’s a big athlete now and—”
Suddenly, in one continuous motion, Alisha snatched the bottle from his hand, unscrewed the top, and took a long swig. “Yes, I am a big athlete.” She patted her stomach with loud, long slaps and proclaimed in her slipshod Trini accent, “But I’s a Trini too.”
Sterling was mortified, his mouth agape. Slowly, his face cracked, giving way to small wheezing noises, then laughter, until he was almost in hysterics. His voice shook the empty street. He wanted to weep. He snatched the bottle back from her and took a swig, throwing his head back to keep the tears at bay. When he looked down again, eyes wet, the face of the child had changed, bent, and twisted. The years collapsed and folded in on themselves. Something in the air softened. Uncle and niece appeared to each other anew, crooked, imperfect, more human than before.
They spent the rest of the night huddled in the fragrant shade of trees in the yard, smoke rising in wisps from Sterling’s mouth, drink stinging Alisha’s belly. They squabbled over tactics and what the coaches were doing wrong. Alisha spoke of life on the road. They talked about politics and the fate of the nation. They gossiped about family. They told crude jokes. In the private glow of the moon, they spoke in belligerent and forceful tones, gesticulating wildly, each trying to outdo the other.
As the night sky pulled away its dangling stars, clearing space for the sun to rise, they found themselves feeling small and surprisingly docile. They climbed the steps to gaze out into the languorous hues of the imminent sunrise. At the top, they stood together, like children, hoping that tomorrow would arrive late—that it too was out there somewhere, having trouble with the dog.
About The Author
Stefan Bindley-Taylor, a Trinidadian-American author, musician, and educator born and raised in Maryland. His stories balance absurdist humor with real emotion to showcase characters from the Caribbean diaspora through a nuanced, humorous, and humane lens. He draws inspiration from both classic and contemporary Caribbean authors, and his writing explores how the visions, philosophies, and ideals of post-independence scholars and authors apply to the modern world and the diasporic experience. Outside of writing, Stefan has been a performing musician for over a decade. He writes and performs in a punk project called FISHLORD and an alternative hip-hop project called Nafets. He has amassed over 8 million streams worldwide between the two projects and landed sync placements with Netflix, HBO, Hulu, BET+, The CW, and more. He currently splits his time between New York City and Virginia and is pursuing his M.F.A at the University of Virginia.
