Just a Dog
I always hate it when that sort of thing happens. I'd been driving down the road and suddenly a bird, a stupid dove, what else, white-tipped wings a blur, flew right in front of my car. Next thing I knew, wham, a big-assed dog smacked into me, hitting so hard my windshield cracked. I heard this quick, shrill yelp and saw this stupid dog fly at least ten feet into the air. It all happened suddenly, but I saw it real slow, like a film in slow motion. Five minutes later, I could still see the dog's image, some kind of fancy dog, not a mutt. And then I felt guilty as hell.
If I hadn't been in such a hurry to get to the Blue Star Art Space, I would have stopped. But I didn't see how I could do anything to help the dog, I mean he was dead, doomed anyway, and I could see all right through the broken windshield and, besides, I didn't want to be late again.
My girlfriend, Margaret Ellis, was fidgeting over her first major exhibit and expected me to be there to give her moral support and maybe afterwards, if things went right, a little immoral comfort. I felt bad about the damned dog, though. I would have stopped except I knew how ticked off Margaret would be if I showed up even a few minutes late.
All that evening, I kept seeing the dog bouncing off my windshield. Frozen in mid-jump, a white-tipped dove just out of reach. The dog, his tongue out, glared at me even through the great swirls and gobs of reds and blues on gray in Margaret's paintings. I laughed, very quietly I thought, reminded for a moment of the lovers my old English teachers had talked about on Keats's Grecian urn. He'd been a fine looking dog, though, could really jump. I drove a Bronco II, not some little Miata kind of a car. It took a real jump for the dog to hit the windshield.
"You look lost in thought, Paul." Margaret handed me a glass of wine and a toothpick with a small cube of cheese. "What's so funny? You don't like this painting?"
"Just thinking about a dead dog, Margaret."
"Glad you're not an art critic!" Margaret frowned and hit me in the stomach, hard, then let the palm of her hand rest there for a moment. "Think it's going okay?"
"Hell, babe, you know it is. They love you." I slipped my arm around her waist and pulled her against my hip.
* * *
Slightly hung over, my head throbbing, I left Margaret's house early the next morning. Driving slowly back to my own place, each bump in San Pedro Avenue causing my head to throb, I saw a man standing in front of the closest house to the spot in the road where I'd hit the dog. I let the Bronco roll to a stop and walked over to him. "Just wanted to tell you how sorry I am about what happened yesterday afternoon," I said. But he didn't say anything back. "I mean about the dog and all. If he was your dog."
"Yeh," he said. "The dog was mine. I recognized your pickup."
"You're not from around here, are you?" Not quite as young as I had initially thought, he was one of those men who blew their hair dry so it would poof up and cover most of the thin spots. Yeh, folks from around here did that, but no real Texan would call a Bronco II a pickup.
"No, we're not from here."
"Where you from?" I asked. "My name's Paul Broller. Been living in the neighborhood for about ten years."
He kept on staring out at the road and not talking, just kind of looking at nothing, until I finally decided I'd had enough of the silence and started to walk back to the car.
"Cleveland," he said, "Ohio," like he thought I wouldn't know where Cleveland was unless he told me. You know how some of those Midwesterners can be. "My name's Johnson. Wait here a minute. No, come on in. Maybe, you can explain the damn dog to her."
The house looked like all the other houses in the neighborhood: saltillo tile in the entry bumped against beige carpeting on the floors. What art hung on the walls was mostly decent prints, impressionists and cubists, a pale imitation of Van Gogh's sunflowers, Picasso's "Man with a Blue Guitar," that sort of thing. Really gettin' to be an arts snob since Margaret, aren't you? I grinned. I hadn’t known a damned thing about art until I’d started sleeping with my own art dictionary.
Johnson's wife sat at the counter where the kitchen overlooked the breakfast room. I smiled automatically when I saw her, a good-looking woman. Thin, with short black hair curled under, evenly, all around her head, she had a long, aquiline neck, that the undercurl of her hair accented. Pretty, but almost artificially so, kind of like the prints hanging on the walls. She deliberately opened her eyes wide before looking directly into mine. You know how some women can do that, just pull something up from about surface deep and their eyes widen all of a sudden?
"Who are you?" Her voice was husky like she'd been crying a lot.
"He's the man who killed Sebastian," Johnson said.
"Well," I said, smiling, still looking directly into her eyes, a staring contest like I used to have with my older brother when I was a kid, but not really happy with the way I'd been introduced, "not quite, Ms. Johnson. But I am the man against whose car Sebastian committed suicide, assuming Sebastian was the name of your dog." I cleared my throat. "My name's Paul Broller and I live up the road a bit from you."
She didn't even blink. "That wasn't very funny, Mr. Broller," she said.
"Perhaps not, ma'am, but it's true. Don't believe I caught your name?"
"We should never have moved to San Antonio, Robert," she said. I assumed that was Johnson's first name since he was the only other person in the room. "It's not a civilized place."
I couldn't help smiling, choked back a laugh. "Like Cleveland?"
"Yes, like Cleveland. Cleveland's wonderful, civilized, not some silly town that sprang up overnight like all these cowboy places."
I stuck my thumbs between the thick leather of my belt and the rough denim, thrusting my hips forward slightly. I couldn't help myself, played out the cowboy role a bit. If I'd had a rope I would have fiddled with it, even though I'd never roped a steer in my life. I sometimes overdo it when people act like that. "People been living and loving and playing good music here since Cleveland wasn't even thought about, ma'am," I said. But she didn't seem to hear me.
Her eyes turned from mine, followed my hands and focussed on the silver belt buckle Margaret had given me, an engraved seahorse pointed upside down.
"We should never have moved to Texas."
"That may be ma'am, but I just came by to say how sorry I am about your dog. Guess I'd better leave you folks alone." When I turned around and started back out to the front door, Johnson grabbed my right arm and squeezed it. "That dog cost $640," the man said. "Who's going to pay for it?"
"I suppose you folks are." I gently, but firmly, pulled his hand off my arm, squeezing it tight. Had no idea why these people brought out that kind of play in me. "If you want to replace him. Lots of money to pay for a dog, though, when you can get one at the shelter for only twenty-five bucks. That's where I got both of mine."
"I'd like to see your driver's license, please," Johnson said, "to bill you for the cost of Sebastian."
I drew back for a moment, kinda smiled at him to keep from answering too loudly. "Let me see yours, Mr. Johnson."
"Why do you need to see mine?"
"Gotta give it to the insurance company. Your damned dog broke my windshield and then put a little dent in my hood. Must be seven or eight hundred bucks worth of damage." I propped my foot up on the arm of one of Ms. Johnson's chairs and dropped my fingers back over my belt buckle. "Tell you what. I'll skip the windshield. My own insurance'll pay for that."
"That's an interesting belt buckle, Mr. Broller," the woman said. "Why's the seahorse upside down?"
"As soon as your husband and I come to terms, ma'am, I'll tell you all about it." I turned back to Johnson. "We got an ordinance in San Antonio, Mr. Johnson. Says you've got to keep your dog on a leash or in a fenced-in yard. I don't like running over dogs, but your damned dog leaped right up against my windshield while he was chasing a bird. You had a fence, he'd still be here."
"Let it go, Robert," she said. "Mr. Broller must know much more about this kind of place than we ever could. We'll just have to get another dog." She looked at me as if I were one of the exhibits down at the Blue Star: 'Tall Texan with Belt Buckle.' "Now tell me about that upside down seahorse, Mr. Broller."
"Paul, ma'am. There's really not much to tell. Just a gift from a girl friend. Seahorse is upside down 'cause she tried the belt on herself just to see how it would look and it looked fine. She didn't think about how men put their belts on backwards from women." I stopped talking and looked at her carefully. She seemed to be listening but had that sophisticated way of not appearing to pay attention. "Anyway, I like the damned thing, even upside down."
Everything went real quiet for a minute. Then Johnson said something like it didn't seem we were getting anywhere and I agreed with him and apologized again about their dog. Ms. Johnson said to forget about it and stood up. "Not the nicest way to meet a new neighbor, Mr. Broller," she said and held her hand out in that kind of prissy, stuck up way some women have, making her hand real small and bending at the wrist. Margaret had a good handshake, strong and direct. When I took Ms. Johnson's in mine, it was just kind of there, no pressure, nothing.
* * *
Margaret dragged me out to another art opening in October, this one at a gallery on the north side of town, near the Medical Center. The work wasn't anything like hers. I bought a painting of a little toy boat being pulled through water running down a ditch, grass blades bright and dark green on either side, a string held by a kid you couldn't see anything of except his hand kept the little white boat in the center of the stream.
She stood behind me. I thought it was Margaret for a moment, didn't really see who it was as I finished paying the gallery owner. It wasn't until I turned around and brushed against her that I realized it was the Johnson woman, the one with the dog. She looked embarrassed for a moment, then smiled and held out her hand. "I didn't know you were a collector, Mr. Broller."
I covered her hand with mine, squeezing it a bit like I was shaking hands with a human being, and looked her in the eyes. She was dressed in clothes that might have been appropriate for Cleveland in October, but couldn't have been too comfortable that night. Her hair didn't seem to be affected, though. Still perfect, that little curl under that accented her neck. "I'm not really a collector. Just buy a few things when I like them."
"And you like this?"
"Romo's boat? Yes, ma'am. It's real fine. The colors, the sharp edges. Margaret calls it ‘practiced primitivism.’ It's kind of raw and emotional. You have to see some of the paintings by Ito and some of the other Chicano painters around here to know what's vital in this whole area." I stopped, embarrassed a little. "Didn't mean to start a lecture, Ms. Johnson."
"It's Judith, Mr. Broller. We don't get out much with all the shootings and stuff, but this isn't too far from home." She looked around her nervously. "This place seems safe enough and I get tired being cooped up in the house. Robert doesn't want to go out much. Too much violence everywhere."
"Sounds like you've been watching too much TV, Judith. Hell, Cleveland's got more crime per capita than San Antonio. But you watch the local TV and read the newspaper and you'll think we're the worst place in the country." I let her hand drop. "There I go again, sounding like the Chamber of Commerce." I looked around, saw her husband standing near the door. "Looks like your husband's about ready to leave."
She looked down at my belt and grinned. "I see you're still wearing your trademark, Paul. Or is it a brand?"
"It's just a belt buckle, ma'am. I don't really believe much in branding..."
She reached out and touched the seahorse, traced its edges and looked back up at me. "No?"
About that time, Margaret saw me talking with her and walked back over. When I introduced them, Judith smiled, "Oh, you're the one who bought the belt buckle for Paul."
Margaret wrapped her arm around me. "Stupid of me, wasn't it? But he wears it everywhere, even to the court house when he has a case."
"You're a lawyer?" Judith laughed. "I thought you were a rancher!" She had a good laugh, deep and a little husky, not the kind of laugh you'd expect from her handshake. She looked back up at me. "Robert's ready to go. Nice to see you again, Paul."
Okay, it's stupid, but I did start thinking the belt buckle was like a brand. 'Property of Margaret Ellis' it said so everyone I knew could see it. I stepped back a little, her arm falling away. "Time to go, sweetheart."
When we got back to her place, I looked at the rooms a little differently. Her paintings were hanging everywhere, cluttered, on chairs, all over the walls, little bits of Margaret whichever way I happened to look. When we made love, it felt almost mechanical, just another piece of Margaret's work. I almost expected her to sign my ass, on the bottom of my right cheek.
* * *
I didn't see Judith Johnson again for a few weeks and then bumped into her, literally, at the supermarket. My basket banged into hers when she turned the corner from the wine aisle. When she saw who she'd hit, she said, "First my dog and then me! Paul Broller, what have you got against my family?"
"Shit, well, at least you didn't get killed from jumping in front of me. Your fault, ma'am. I was going straight down the lane and you turned and hit me. Any judge would find in my favor."
She closed her eyes for a moment and I saw a faint blue shading her eyelids, nothing sparkly or cheap, just a taste of color added, hardly noticeable unless you were standing close to her. "Any Texas judge! If I had you in Ohio, though, I'd be wearing a neck brace and talking to my attorneys."
"Good thing we're in Texas, then. I'd hate to see that pretty neck of yours all wrapped up with a thick brace, ma'am." I don't know what it was about her that always pissed me off a little and made me drop into the cowboy mode, but she did. I'd have taken off my hat if I were wearing one. "What's your husband doing, Ms. Johnson? Still working on the fence?"
She worked her basket out of traffic and then turned back to me. "No, he had to go back to Cleveland for a few days on business. The company has a small operation there and Paul’s being transferred back. We’ll be moving again in two weeks."
I listened to her, but was mostly watching the way she moved, the front of my basket only a few inches away from her nicely rounded bottom. I did manage to make all the appropriate noises about how sorry I was that she and her husband were having to move again and asked what business her husband was in. I wasn’t terribly surprised when she said "Computers. He’s a distributor for a company in Cleveland." I was stereotyping, but had an immediate picture of Robert Johnson with one of those little pocket protectors in his shirt pocket and computer screens reflected in his thick glasses. Not fair at all, I know, but there it is.
Sometimes things happen that really shouldn’t happen and you even know they shouldn’t but you go ahead anyway and let them happen. I’d known since Judith Johnson, dumb name, I wondered if she’d married him for the cute initials, had reached out and outlined that little seahorse on my belt buckle and I’d felt the slight pressure of her fingertips pushing it against my stomach that what I’d really like to do. Now I don’t like myself when I feel this way, but what I’d really like to do was to reach out and muss up her perfect hair, just run my fingers all through it and uncurl that little wave under thing and make it all tangled and messy. I was thinking about that so much that my cart bumped right into her rear end when she came to a stop next to the hamburger section in the meat department.
"Sorry, Ms. Johnson." I laughed and pulled the cart back. "That was an accident, kind of day dreaming. Guess you’d better buckle your seat belt in this kind of traffic."
She gave me that stare again, the open eyes looking right into you kind of a stare. "That’s called ‘rear-ending,’ Paul, and any judge, even in Texas, would find you guilty of reckless driving."
"Yes, ma’am, I’ll just plead nolo contendere to the charge, your honor."
She had to have the last word, though. She lifted her head up, eyes still staring into mine, and said in what for a Texan would have been a very affected voice, but was her natural way of speaking, "The court finds you guilty, Mr. Broller. Your sentence is to follow me home, not too closely please, and help carry all this stuff in for me. I’ll give you the rest of the sentence when we get there."
Her eyes flicked back down to that damned seahorse. "And watch out for Sebastian II!" She put a pound of hamburger with the rest of the stuff in her cart and wheeled it on down to the checkout line.
I followed her, three seconds behind, just like they teach in defensive driving school for people who get tickets and pulled my Bronco II into her driveway, parking it about two feet from her little Geo Prizm. She loaded me down with three heavy bags of groceries and then seemed to take forever to find her housekey and get the door open. The new Sebastian barked, but he was out in the back yard, running free inside the new fence.
"Just put them down on the counter," she said.
She was standing right in the pathway to the kitchen, so I had to brush up against her to get through. I managed to get all three bags down without dropping anything and then turned back around to leave.
"The second part of your sentence, Paul," she said, and she reached out and took my hand in hers, pulling it to her cheek, "is to do what you’ve had in mind since that first day you walked into my house and saw me." She turned her head slightly and just very softly kissed the palm of my hand.
Well, she was the judge and I was the condemned man and, in my professional life, an officer of the court, so I did what any man would have done under those circumstances. I pulled her into a real tight hug and then let my hands stroke her back and neck a little bit. She felt real good up against me like that. Then I did it. Moved my hands up and rubbed them all over her hair, tangling it all into a real mess so you couldn’t even see that little perfect curl anymore. She looked a lot like one of those punk rock stars, but with black hair instead of orange or purple.
What I didn’t expect was her reaction.
She just stood there for what must have been a full minute, staring at me, and then a big old tear welled up in her eye and ran down over her cheek. I still think that was deliberate. Good actresses can make that happen almost like the rest of us can force a smile every once in a while.
"Damn that felt good," I said. "I’ve been wanting to do that since the first day we met."
That’s when she started screaming at me. I won’t repeat everything she said, but it sure didn’t sound much like the Cleveland she’d been talking about since day one. Turned out I was an SOB, an unregenerate cowboy lawyer, a total failure as a man and several other things I just don’t feel quite like repeating. I stood there and took it for a while and I guess I deserved it. She’d expected something else and some of us just don’t like surprises very much.
Finally, when she’d wound down again and had started repeating herself and that took a good little while, believe me, I apologized. I’m still not sure I should have apologized but it’s usually a good deal to say you’re sorry when someone’s real pissed off at you for something. And I guess I did feel a little guilty.
"Your turn," I said.
"What?"
"I did what I’d been wanting to." I grinned sheepishly at her and started putting my fingers through my belt loops, a habit I have when I’m nervous. I never know what to do with my hands. "So, you can do what you’ve been wanting to do."
I didn’t really like the look in her eyes when she hiccupped once and then walked over to me and knelt in front of me, but it felt pretty good when her hands slipped down just inside the waistband of my jeans. "How do you unbuckle this thing?" she asked.
I looked down at her and combed her hair with my fingers. "It’s a western belt, Judith," I said. "It just pulls loose."
She managed to get it loose and pulled the belt all the way off. Then she stood up, turned around and walked into the kitchen. I followed her in and saw her fumble around in one of the drawers for a minute. I got a lot nervous when she pulled out a butcher’s cleaver and held it up. It was real shiny, the light from the kitchen reflected off it and into my eyes.
"Hey, wait a minute! Damn it, wait!" I yelled at her, but she was just too ticked off to listen and then, THUNK!, she banged the cleaver down and severed the buckle from the belt.
She looked up at me again and grinned. "I’ve wanted this damned sea horse for a long time, Paul. My friends in Cleveland will love it!"