More lights popped on in the house behind me.
In an instant, I went from being a shadow of my former self, to a sitting duck.
The dog barked.
And then another dog barked.
And then there was an unfamiliar cold nose sniffing at my ear as though trying to inhale my brain.
"Buster! Come here this instant."
Another voice from deep in the bowels of the house: couldn't make it out.
In response, the first one said, "I don't know, he's found something on the lawn.... You know I'm not wearing my contacts.... I don't know.... You're so curious, you can come look for yourself."
Those lights that had not already responded to the car crash, seemed interested in this long distance conversation that was punctuated by dog barks.
The sirens grew louder.
I turned my head just enough to see my dog waiting at the next corner. I think he considered investigating this strange dog giving me the olfactory once-over. He several times made like he would come to my defense only to become distracted by some new and more interesting smell.
Good.
As long as he stayed interested, he would be safe. Still a high-value target, but far enough away that they couldn't watch both him and me.
"There's been an accident," Buster's human bellowed to an unseen partner. "Next door.... No, the other next door.... I don't recognize the car.... Hit the pole.... I'm not doing this. You can look for yourself and, while you're at it, you can get your dog in the house."
There were more people now standing in front of their houses wondering what was happening; trying to decide which was more interesting: the accident, or this one-sided domestic.
And then we couldn't hear the nosy dog people. They were drowned out by the approaching sirens. It was eerily pretty to watch the red rotating lights pierce the ground fog.
I waited for them to pull up.
If I had judged it right, at least one of the vehicles would block the line of sight between me and whoever might be out there.
The balance was tipping. Not much longer now.
As it worked out, the fire engine pulled up closest to me. A big red brick of a vehicle with lots of parts and doors--lots of doors. "A place for everything and everything in its place," as my Mom used to say.
I think she would have liked me to be a fireman.
Time to grant her wish, if only for a moment.
The nosy dog had lost interest in me as soon as he had the fire department to bark at.
I thought the sniffing was loud, but when Buster opened his mouth, I winced. It was the kind of bark that would make Lassie forget all about Timmy and that well.
It was a bark that made the firemen nervous. They had no trouble trying to reach the kids in wrecked car, but this seventy-pound dog was making them second-guess themselves.
All the space I needed.
I got to my feet as unobtrusively as I could--not as easy as it sounds.
The firemen were trying to decide among themselves how to respond. They crowded around the bravest of their number as he pulled out his radio and called for Animal Control. It seemed to me that they were considering withdrawing to the safety of the high-cube style ambulance until they could themselves be rescued.
I circled around behind them and made my way to the passenger compartment of the fire truck. This is the bus shelter like area behind the enclosed portion of the cab and reserved for firemen waiting either for transfer or promotion.
"They're afraid of Buster," was the audible portion of the conversation that had apparently continued unabated since I first met their dog.
I pulled a turnout coat from the truck and tried hiding in plain sight.
My first concern was to get my dog out of harm's way.
I had an idea.
I grabbed the other turnout coat and went to reintroduce myself to my nosy friend.
The firemen were close to the back door of the ambulance, ready to snatch it open should Buster even feint in their direction.
I closed about half the distance between me and the dog.
At the corner, I could see my dog sitting down to better take in the show.
I sat down.
I tossed the heavy canvas coat in the air and, as it came down, I started to make a noise like a new-born kitten.
Things that squeak are for killing.
Nosy Buster didn't know what to make of this. He was curious, but he didn't know what to make of it.
I had his attention.
I tossed the coat again, only this time so it landed in the open space between us.
More squeaking.
Buster started to move toward the coat.
I pulled one arm out of the sleeve of the coat I was wearing while, with the other hand, I reached for the sleeve of the empty coat that was closest to me.
Buster understood immediately. He sprinted for the coat.
I transferred my grip on the empty sleeve to my free hand and quickly shrugged off the second sleeve of my coat.
Buster clamped down on the canvas coat determined to drag it away from me.
I was just as determined.
I used Buster's pulling strength to lever myself to my feet as I gripped the coat I had just been wearing by its reinforced collar.
My chest was pounding.
A crowd had formed to watch. They were, I suspect waiting for me to lose; waiting for me to get bitten.
I dragged the dog closer to me with one arm, while I dropped the free coat over the dog like a bath sheet and quickly enfolded him like a burrito.
This he did not care for.
As I scooped Buster up and tried to hold him tightly to me, I began moving toward his owner.
"What do you think you're doing? One of the firemen picked him up. You know he doesn't like to be picked up.... I don't know why he did it."
In my arms, Buster thrashed like a Marlin on a hook. It was his turn to make a high-pitched squealing noise.
"Where do you think you're going?"
"Save your dog," was all I could muster as I brushed past her and into their house.
I put the dog down and I didn't stop moving.
To the back of the house, the back door, the backyard, the next block.
A couple of ninety-degree corners later I was on the dark side street that ran into the corner where my dog was waiting.
I whistled.
He heard me.
I hadn't taken more than a couple of steps and already I was feeling the pain.
Somewhere, in the back of my mind, I had this image of a loping gazelle or a thoroughbred race horse--all lean muscle and determination.
I didn't lope so much as trot; I didn't so much resemble a race horse as an old steam engine working its way up a long grade and pulling a heavy load. And, like the steam engine, I was huffing and puffing and leaking at every joint.
Easily the dog passed me and, just to rub it in, as he passed, he turned his head to look at me as if he couldn't quite believe how badly I was doing.
As I became acutely aware of every joint, ligament and musculoskeletal connection between my toes and my hips, I was also reevaluating my options: no way was I making it back to the house.
First priority: get out of the light.
There was light everywhere: from the streetlights and from the houses that lined both sides of the street. There was also light from all over town bouncing of those lazy clouds. If there was someone watching, this was way too easy for them.
I had no way of knowing how long it would take for him to turn his attention back to me after the car had safely passed, but I was certain it wouldn't be a lot of time and so I needed to make the best use of it.
My leaky old steam engine was just about out of the pool of straw-colored street light. Maybe ten feet and I could feel the sweat rolling down my back and the jackhammer in my chest.
You spend the first few decades of your life drafting a description of the person you are. And, like all good writing, that draft is full of false starts, dead ends, strikeouts and corrections. By the time you hit your thirties your character is pretty much set: you are who you are. As you get older, you continue to be who you were. It's like a good book you return to again and again: the images are static, the characters make the same predictable choices and yet the story takes on different meanings.
My character was always the gym rat and so I thought I was still that same guy. I know it's a half-century later--believe me, I am reminded of that every morning--but I also know that if you asked me I would say with great confidence that I could still bench the four-twenty and that I still had a respectable quarter-mile.
Rewrite!
Up ahead, the dog had stopped and was looking at me and my embarrassing attempt effort to keep up.
I could see him standing there, mocking me.
I could see him.
There was no light on this part of the street.
The light moved and so did I.
And then the light stopped moving.
The silence of the night was broken by the drone of the car horn backed up by the baseline of some shitty rap music from its sound system.
I turned to see a cloud of steam billow up from the pleated front end of the car now wrapped around a lamp post. The cloud was briefly silhouetted by the next operating streetlight before joining the polyester choir that lingered over our heads.
Decision time was over.
I pulled the Derringer from my pocket and stuffed it into my sock. The flashlight went into my back pocket along with a handful of poop sacks. I dropped my coat and kept moving.
I wasn't going to run anymore.
In the distance, I heard the sirens that meant quiet time was over. I just needed to keep my head down until they got here.
There was a strong sense of possibilities as I followed my dog around the corner and toward the dark end of the street.
You could tell where the common good and public safety had run into personal greed by the irregular distribution of street lights. And those that were on would periodically blink off in what I could only assume was some sort of cost-savings move.
I couldn't see shit.
There was not enough light to see and not enough darkness for my eyes to adjust.
The dog saw everything.
The first thing I noticed was when his ears swept forward and he slowed down.
No longer was he focused on the smorgasbord of smells coming up from the muddy beds that would soon be the front lawns, he had heard something.
Was it that German?
I couldn't see shit.
We had come across the German several times on our walks. He was a big dog--one of the few that could look mine in the eye without craning his neck. They would stare at one another from across the street.
The German never approached, never barked, but was clearly at full alert. At first, I thought he was just well-trained, but then I noticed the small black box riding on his collar.
He'd been invisibly fenced.
I never trusted those systems. There are lots who swear by them, but I have met some stubborn dogs who, like prisoners, are more than willing to risk the pain of the shock collar in order to reach their goal.
And, however unlikely, anytime we were in that part of the walk, I had to wonder if this might be the day that the German decided to "go for it."
The golf course at the end of the street was also popular with the deer. It was as though they recognized that their traditional habitats and feeding areas were now forever beyond their reach and so they took great satisfaction in feeding, rutting and shitting all over the course's carefully manicured lawns.
Except during hunting season, the deer generally stayed well away from the street, so it was unlikely that that's what the dog was smelling.
Instinctively, I buried my hand into my packet. Under the poop sacks and the flashlight was the Derringer. I knew it would be useless at any distance, but if anyone wanted to get friendly, I could be just as social.
Maybe a minute had passed since the dog had stopped, but it seemed like a lot longer.
As it happened, we were standing under a streetlight. The amber color of its sodium vapor source contrasted and complimented the cobalt blue night that encircled our setting like a collectible lampshade.
There was also a low-hanging cloud that lined the inside of that shade like the polyester fiber fill that kids use to make cobwebs at Halloween.
Spring was coming.
The ground was getting warmer and, on nights like this, when it was cold and damp, those low-hanging clouds were pretty common.
The lights of the city on the other side of the golf course would bounce off the clouds and create a soft glow that made it possible to pick out some of the larger shapes in the darkness.
That's all I could see from my present position: shapes. At that, I could only make out the biggest and the closest ones.
The old instincts were still there. I needed to get out of the light and find some cover.
Casual: it was important to remain casual.
I gave the leash a quick snap and started walking.
I never trained the dog for this kind of thing: a quick look around my house and you would know that I believe in letting things and people find their own level. I got to the end of the leash and it went taut: like the dog was correcting me.
He hadn't moved.
I looked at him, but his eyes were still locked on his target.
I called his name.
He looked at me for a fraction of a fraction of a second, before going back on target.
I was ready to give the lead a good tug and make good use of the hundred pound difference in our sizes, when I noticed he was having trouble reacquiring his target.
His muzzle flashed from side to side and all around. He sniffed deeply trying to get a trace.
Nothing.
Shit.
This was the wrong neighborhood for this sort of thing: all off-the-street parking and broad, treeless lawns. No cover anywhere.
I tried to rationalize and strategize in equal parts. It was probably just a skunk, or a dead possum that had drawn out the hunter in my old friend. I was so long out of the game that no one would be coming for me. Would they? I wasn't management, I didn't call the plays. If anything, I was glorified tech support.
There was a snap of dry wood from somewhere across the street.
That wasn't right.
Timing would be very important.
We were maybe at two minutes by this point. Felt longer; felt like I had passed a dozen birthdays.
And then there was the deep thump of bad music that heralded the arrival of some teenager's car.
I started to look in the direction of the sound, toward the headlights that were casting shadows on the lethargic clouds, but then I had a better idea.
I dropped the leash and ran in the opposite direction.
Since I was moving, I was now more interesting than whatever it was across the street, the dog followed. For him it was a great game. I used to think that way about the work I did.
It wouldn't matter how good the other was--if indeed there was someone across the street--they would first have to evaluate the threat posed by these unexpected potential witnesses before acting against me. That would take time.
I hoped it would be enough time.
