I got back in the car and drove toward home. I needed to change my clothes and take a quick shower. I’d call the group home and tell them why I was going to be late. They’d understand. Gil Stewart was never late, not when it came to his nephew, so it must be something drastic.
Everything was okay.
I was fine. I was fine. I was fine.
Still, I kept glancing in the rearview mirror all the way home, looking for black shapes.
FOUR
The dismal bitch lay on her side in the dry gray October twilight in my front yard, her black wrinkled teats lumped beside her like a cancer growth far too large and malformed for her body to hold inside. Her sides shivered as she labored to pull in air, and the sound of her breathing-wet, thick, ripped-raw painful-was too close to another sound I’d already heard once today and did not want to hear again.
I climbed out of my car and slowly approached her, all the while looking over my shoulder, halfexpecting to see the black mastiffs from the highway.
It appeared this was my day to deal with dogs.
Her coat was patchy with mange, her eyes bloodshot and mad; when I came closer, they narrowed into slits and a low growl came from her throat. I could smell her from ten feet away, a ripe, sick, sweetrotten smell. Underscoring the smell was a moist kneading sound, soft but persistent; as I reached out toward her she jerked to the side and a flap of flesh held in place by the thinnest thread of tissue fell back. Beneath it, maggots teemed in an open wound whose too-bright blood seeped outward into her fur like the ever-expanding strands of a spider’s web, some of it dribbling onto the lawn and trickling toward my feet, forming rivulets in the grass.
I couldn’t help but think of the old man on the highway, and it almost cut me in half.
“It’s okay, girl,” I said in what I hoped was a tender voice. “It’s okay, shhhh, there, there, just let me take a look so we can make it all better, okay?” I continued on like this for what seemed like an hour but was probably less than a minute. Once I thought she might let me touch her long enough to see if there was a tag on her collar but she made a snap for my hand at the last moment, startling both of us.
I’ve never done well when it comes to ministering to sick or wounded animals. I guess it stems from an incident that occurred when I was a high-school sophomore, one of those “It Happens” incidents that you think you’ll eventually get over but never really do, even though admitting to it some three decades later feels embarrassing… but the sight of this pathetic animal on my lawn caused this particular instance of “It Happens” to happen across my memory once again.
(See there, pal? You can remember things if you want to. If you’ll just go a little further back…)
Go away, please.
After school I had a part-time evening job at Beckman’s Market, a local neighborhood grocery store, one of those mom-and-pop operations that had been in the area for as long as anyone could remember. I was cleaning the beer cooler one afternoon-it had been defrosted the night before or something-and there was this big puddle in front of the side entrance door. It was the first thing that the customers saw when they used that entrance, which a lot of them did, so the boss wanted it to look nice.
One customer came in and accidentally pulled the door’s spring off its hinge and the thing slammed shut like a vice grip. I started messing around with it but the boss told me to leave it alone, he’d fix it himself in a little while.
A few minutes later another customer came in, followed by this little gray cat. Cutest thing you ever saw, all furry and friendly… and evidently hungry; it kept darting over to the produce section, trying to get at the apples and oranges. I thought whoever owned it must keep it on one hell of a diet.
My boss told me to get rid of it. I picked it up, kicked open the door, and threw it out. I threw it quite hard, on purpose, so maybe it’d get the hint and go back home.
No such luck.
The door started to slam shut just as the cat was making the feline version of a mad dash to safety back inside.
It never had a chance.
The door slammed right on its neck. I was only a foot away and heard something crack. Then another customer came in and the cat did not so much fall back out as… spasm.
I opened the door and saw the cat choking to death. It just kept kicking and coughing and spitting, making horrible, heart-sickening sounds… and it never once closed its eyes, just kept staring at me the whole time like it was my fault. It spewed blood and vomit from its mouth while its other end evacuated all manner of pained foulness.
It had to have been a horrible, agonizing death. And all I could do was stand there and watch it happen.
My boss made me toss it into the trash out back. God, I was sick about the whole thing: I didn’t mean for it to die, but now here I was, scooping this dead cat into a shovel and dumping it in the trash. It should have been on its way home to a bowl of milk or a can of tuna. It should have been rubbing up against strangers’ legs, purring in that warm, please-love-me way that almost no one can resist. But it wasn’t lapping milk or rubbing someone’s leg; it was lying on top of a trash pile, flies already swarming over its still-warm body, and I was the one who’d put it there.
I dropped the shovel and picked up the cat’s body, my thumb brushing blood from the silver tag on its collar, whispering “I’m sorry, kitty,” over and over as if the thing were suddenly going to rally and whisper its forgiveness. For some reason, I wanted to wipe all the blood from its tag, I wanted to know its name; it seemed to me, at that moment, that something should be done to make its body more presentable-but to whom or what I couldn’t have said. I just wanted to give this poor thing some kind of dignity, I guess, before I tossed it in among the empty egg crates and tin cans. I knew how silly this would look to anyone passing by but I didn’t care, I just kept apologizing again and again, wiping away at the tag (which refused to come clean) until its ass began leaking something dark and thick down the front of my shirt and apron.
I spent the rest of the day crying. My boss sent me home early. I was depressing the customers.
(Let’s hear it for Mr. Recall, folks. One memory down, one to go …)
Are you still here?
(Three guesses, and the first two don’t count…)
I shook my head. I would not stand here and watch this dog suffer. I didn’t need that on my conscience.
I went inside to call the pound, who instructed me to contact Animal Control, who told me to get in touch with the nearest emergency veterinarian service, who in turn told me they had no one available to come and collect the dog, could I possibly get her into my car and bring her over? They would have someone waiting to take her right away.
Your Cedar Hill tax dollars at work.
I said I’d call them before I left, hung up, and went to look for something in which to wrap her. It seemed the right thing to do, the decent gesture, a last act of kindness before we parted ways.
I didn’t bother changing my clothes; my pants and shirt were already ruined with blood and the fetor of fresh death was still all over me.
I dialed the number of the group home and got one of the on-site habilitation specialists who works there, told her that I was running late, it was unavoidable, and to please tell Carson not to worry, that “UncGil” (his nickname for me) would be there in time for us to make the next showing of the movie.
Standing now in the supposed safety of my home, I realized the blanket I’d selected from the linen closet was far too big for the dog in my yard… but just the right size for wrapping an old man’s broken body. I put it back at once and selected one of more appropriate size, all the while knowing that something in the back of my memory was trying to wake up and get my attention, but I was moving now, moving right along, and it was important that I keep moving at all costs and not stop to think about anything for too long, so I shut the closet door and made my way outside.
The dog had disappeared.
I didn’t panic. It had obviously been in a great deal of pain so it couldn’t have gotten very far. Altogether I’d
