Something about this seemed familiar, but I was damned if I could put my finger on it.
“Gil?”
I blinked, then looked at Cheryl. “Yeah…?”
“Are you okay? You looked… I don’t know, kind of out of it for a second there.”
(“Out of it”? Oh, pal, she has no idea…)
“The mind wanders.”
She studied me for a moment, then began slipping the binoculars into their case. “I think you need to get out more. I think you need to meet someone. I think I’m going to set you up with one of my friends.”
“What happened to your concern for strangers by the roadside?”
“This makes me nervous, Gil, and I tend to babble when I’m nervous. An old guy like that standing by the highway… this can’t be good. So I’ve decided to babble about setting you up with someone. It calms me. Deal with it.”
I continued staring out at the old man.
I knew this image. Goddammit, I knew it-and not just from the Magritte prints or my air freshener, but from real life.
Okay, not this guy, of course not this guy, but another one just like him… right?
(Listen, can you hear that? The sound of something back there in the old brainpan waking up and looking for the light switch? Hello? Hello? Is this thing on…?)
I couldn’t pin down the expression on the old man’s face; one moment he looked almost blissful, then he’d glance behind him and appear nearly frightened. Maybe Cheryl was right, maybe he’d left his sick wife on the access road in their brokendown jalopy.
Blissful and frightened.
What the hell was going on, and why was the sight of him ringing so many rusty bells in my head?
I hate it when this happens, and it has been happening a lot lately.
(That’s because the meds ain’t working like they’re supposed to, pal. It’s coming back to you and you don’t want to remember that night, do you?)
Fuck off already, thanks very much.
I was four car-lengths away when a gust of wind snatched the bowler from the old man’s head and bounced it across all three lanes of traffic.
Amazingly, the hat wasn’t struck or flattened by any of the cars. The old man slapped a hand on top of his skull to find that, yes, drat!, the bowler was indeed gone, and in a series of movements equal parts stumble, slide, and run, he darted into the river of oncoming cars.
“Jesus Christ!” said Cheryl. “He’s not even looking at the traffic. Oh, God, Gil… that poor old guy.”
But I wasn’t watching him anymore.
I was staring at the dogs.
Just before Magritte-Man had darted after his bowler, two huge black bull mastiffs came bounding up the incline behind him, snarling and snapping. Each dog easily weighed 120 pounds and stood just under three feet in height.
They looked insane; rabidly, violently insane.
And it seemed that Magritte-Man was the focus of their fury.
I had just enough time to say, “What the-?” before hitting the brakes because the car in front of me swerved to miss the car in front of it, which slantdrove across the lane to miss another car as it barely missed the old man, who by now was well into the center lane where the traffic was moving much faster but was also better-spaced. He almost had the bowler in his hand when another, stronger gust of wind blew his frame in one direction and the hat in another.
He looked upward, face devoid of expression, watching helplessly as the bowler performed a bouncing, twirling, oddly graceful aerial ballet on its way back to my side of the road.
The dogs were pacing back and forth, looking at him-no, make that glaring at him. They were so tensed, so angry, that even from this distance I could see the muscles rippling across their backs and the tendons standing out on their short but powerful legs. One of them bared its teeth, then began barking and snarling, jerking its head from side to side, spraying ribbons of foamy spit from its mouth.
They’re after him.
Still not checking the traffic, Magritte-Man moved in the direction of the hat as if in a trance, arms reaching upward, imploring.
Everyone, including me, was sounding their horns and rolling down their windows to shout at the old fellow to watch himself, get out of the way, move it fer chrissakes, you crazy son-of-a-bitch.
The dogs were howling, jumping up and down, looking for a break in the traffic.
The bowler landed smack-center on the hood of my car, skittered up against the windshield, and caught on the edge of a wiper blade.
The dogs snapped their heads in my direction.
“Get it for him, Gil. Hurry before the wind comes up again.”
I nodded at Cheryl, and then-checking to make sure the lane was clear-opened my door to get out and retrieve the damn thing, hoping like hell the dogs wouldn’t decide that since they couldn’t get to Magritte-Man, I’d do as a consolation prize.
There was a break in the farthest two lanes of traffic, and for a moment the dogs had a clear path to their prey and Magritte-Man had a clean shot at making it back to this side of the road.
He took a step forward, saw that the dogs were doing the same, and froze.
Looking at me, Magritte-Man gave a little wave and mouthed what looked like Hello, Gil.
Another wave of traffic came screaming down the road.
The minivan in the center lane laid on its horn but never slowed, even when it became obvious that the old man wasn’t going to move out of the way in time.
Cheryl screamed a warning to him, but her voice was drowned out by the blaring of horns, the squealing of tires, and the howling of the dogs.
The minivan hit the old man head-on, crumpling him against its grille and dragging him several yards before whatever forces govern such human catastrophes saw fit to release his destroyed frame and spin-roll it several feet, scattering small and not-so-small pieces along the way before it stopped with a sudden, silent, wet finality.
The dogs stared at the old man’s mangled form, backed away, looked at each other, ceased their snarling, and sat down.
Staring at him.
Looking contented.
In the car, Cheryl was crying. I couldn’t blame her. I felt like crying, as well.
Hello, Gil…
I honestly don’t remember retrieving the bowler, but the next thing I knew I was standing over the old man – who was somehow still alive.
I knelt down and offered the hat to him-I couldn’t think of what else to do.
He reached out and touched my shirt with a bloody, demolished hand. My heart tried to squirt through my rib cage, and then something else happened but even as it was happening I felt removed, distant, an observer watching this from miles away.
The old man spit up blood, getting a lot of it on my shirt.
The dogs watched us; God, how they watched us.
Magritte-Man tried to speak, almost made it happen, but in the end settled for thick, wet whisper.
“… eepers… are… ming…”
I leaned down toward his shredded, pulped lips and said, “What?”
He gripped my shirt as a wave of pain hit.
“Do you know me?” I whispered to him.
Something flashed across his eyes. Recognition? Acknowledgment?
By now other witnesses were pulling over and getting out of their cars.
I looked at the old man. “What did you say?”
