ISSUE 2 - December 2006

It was the kind of autumn day you want to last forever.  A breeze moved out of the northwest smelling of pine, the sun was at its zenith, glowing warm and bright.  Not the kind of day I figured I'd be tearing off my sweater, both sleeves soaked in blood.

 

Just a few minutes before, my eleven-year-old son came running toward me from upstream.  He had moved north thinking he would have better luck just around the bend. 

 

“Dad,” Mitch yelled. 

 

At some point he had abandoned his fishing pole, and as he ran, he pointed out into the slow moving stream with both hands.  “Out there, do you see?”

 

I set my hook down and looked out across the water.  Upstream moving just in front of my boy was a head bobbing up and down on the surface.  Not human, a bear, I thought.  No.  Not big enough.

 

“It’s a dog,” Mitch said, arriving at my side.  His voice was excited, as if he was on the crest of a new adventure.

 

I brought a hand to my brow.  “Yeah, looks like.  Poor thing.”  My voice remained calm. 

 

He grabbed my sweater.  “Dad.”

 

I looked down and met his wide eyes.  There was a sense of urgency in them as if something amazing was happening and we were on the verge of missing it.

 

“We got to help him,” Mitch said.

 

My heart skipped a beat, realizing he wanted me to go in after the damn thing.  “Son,” I said going down on one knee.  A carousel of excuses rotated in my mind.  I knew somewhere mixed in with the reasons I didn’t go back to school, never asked Marge Watson to the prom, never applied for management at work, never dabbled in the stock market, or started writing that novel I’d always dreamed of, somewhere in there I would find an excuse to give my son.  One that allowed both of us to stand on the shore, watch the dog move by, and then go on with our lives.

 

But as I looked at my son his sense of urgency, wonder, and adventure faded into something else.  His eyes narrowed and he looked at me as if for the first time.  I was someone he recognized but different than he remembered.  Something he had never noticed before dominated my character.  I could read it in his eyes.

Coward.

 

I knew that in a month or two he might forget about what happened to the dog, as I have forgotten about all the goals I never reached, feats I never attempted.  But I also knew that my son would never, could never, look at me the same way again.

 

Could I live the next forty years in this moment, never forgetting what my son thought?  His disapproving gaze never letting me forget.  In an instant I knew that I’d rather die a thousand deaths than have my son look at me this way a second longer.

 

“Come on,” I said, standing up.  “If we hurry we can get ahead of him.” 

 

His face bloomed so brightly, I knew that the thought he had about his old man didn’t have time to take root.

 

We moved fast toward a spot were the stream narrowed.  I took off my heavy parka and waded into the cold water, catching sight of the dog as it rounded a bend.  I was able to get to the center of the stream still standing, the water at my chest.  I put my hands up, arms out waiting patiently like a catcher often will for an injured pitcher to gather his strength. 

 

The dog was heading my way –- a line drive down the middle.  I glanced over at my son.  He moved from foot to foot, like a nerves sports fan, tension so hot on his face I thought he would catch fire.  He kept looking from the dog to me, and every once in a while over his shoulder as if he were looking for someone so he could say -- that's my dad out there. 

 

The dog neared.  My hands were outstretched and I started to think this was going to be easy, when suddenly it started moving away.  Like a curve ball, the dog began to move to the outside, just beyond my reach.  “Damn it.”  It was as if something, the stream maybe, didn’t want this animal saved. 

 

Remembering how my son was looking at me from shore, aglow with hero worship, I jumped.   My arms enveloped the dog and we both went below the surface.  My feet scrambled for footing, finding nothing but cold deep water.  Then my right foot grazed a boulder and I pushed up.  I broke the surface, dog in my arms, like a submarine bursting up from the depths of the ocean.

  

It yelped in pain and I did my best to quiet the animal as I stumbled to shore.  Mitch ran up and embraced me as if I was returning from some long oversea war.  We laid the dog down, and I first noticed the blood on myself.  The sleeves of my sweater were dripping red.  Glancing down I could see how badly the dog was injured.  It was bad.  I knew that very soon I’d have to talk to my son and explain why things die. 

 

But maybe I could pass that buck on to the vet.  “Come on lets get this guy to the pet hospital.”  I removed my sweater and rapped the dog up.  When I lifted the animal it whimpered softly, and I looked at my son.  His freckled face was now peppered with concern and I could tell that on some lever he was already attached to the damn thing.

 

The smell of wet dog and blood assaulted my nose and even through the sweater I could feel broken leg bones and bent ribs.   I had a pretty good idea how the animal had came to this. 

 

Living in this town all my life I’d seen it a million times.  A narrow two-lane bridge spanned the water about a mile upstream, connecting our neighborhood to the rest of town.  Traffic was sparse but when an animal was confronted by an oncoming vehicle, the bridge was so narrow it had no where to run, the vehicle very little room to swerve.  Many pets had met their end on that overpass, some being struck so hard they flew over the railing and into the flowing water.

 

The stream was a hundred yards from our backyard and we soon were at my side gate.  Mitch moved ahead pushed it open and went around to the garage.  He held open the backseat door of my station wagon as I entered, and even had a clean towel ready to cover him.  I can’t remember a time when he and I ever worked together so closely, as if in tandem.  He was like the perfect sidekick and I was the hero desperately trying to save the day.

 

For just a few moments we were Batman and Robin.

 

We hopped into the Batmobile and sped to the pet hospital.  The receptionist rushed us past the waiting area and into an examining room.  Doctor Vargas, a man I’d gone to high school with, came in a few seconds later.  He pulled back the towel and my blood-soaked sweater.

 

Vargas shook his head, shinning a light into the dog’s pupils.  He clicked the pen light off and took a deep breath.  I could tell his assessment was over and his verdict was about to come down.  In that moment I knew I didn’t what this man, a stranger to Mitch, to explain why things died.  I knew it was my job.  I was his dad.  I was his hero.

 

“Just a minute,” I said holding up my hand.  I turned to my son. 

 

“Mitch will go check to see if the car is locked.”

 

“What?” he said.

 

“Just do it, son.”

 

Mitch turned around slowly and stepped out.

 

I turned to Vargus.  “How bad?”

 

“This your dog?” he said.

 

“No.”

 

“You hit it on the bridge?”

 

“No,” I said, beginning to get irritated.  “I jumped in and pulled it out of the water.” 

 

Vargus furrowed his brow.  “You?”

 

“Cut the crap, Vargus.”

 

“Hey.”  He pointed his finger at me. “It’s Doctor to you.”

 

I sighed.  “Fine.  How bad is it?”

 

He looked down at the animal, now beginning to lose consciousness. 

 

“It would have been better had you just been your usual self and let him drift by.  Can't believe you even showed up here.”

 

Its amazing the kind of things that can follow you in a small town.  Vargus' little showed up comment referred to a time back in school when I used to get challenge to fights.  I would accept the time and place, but never show up. 

 

I did my best to ignore his goading.  “There is nothing you can do?”

 

“Well yeah, couple of hours of surgery.  I have to reattach this leg.  Trim some intestine.  Dog might live.  Might not.  But the worst of it is the cost.”

 

His words felt like a weight.  “How much?”

 

He smacked his lips.  “I’d say 32 hundred for the surgery another seven or eight for medications and therapy afterwards.”

 

“Therapy?”

 

“Rehabilitation,” Vargus said, covering up the animal like a corpse ready for the morgue.  “Look, this isn’t even your dog.  No collar -- probably a stray.  Just say the word and let me put it down.” 

I started to nod my head when-

“Dad,” Mitch said, standing in the doorway.  “We’re gonna try aren’t we.”  He stepped in and put his hands on the dog.  “We have to, you saved him.”

Vargus met my eyes, holding up his hands.  “I’ll give you two a minute.”  He stepped out.

I put my hand on Mitch’s shoulder.  “This is gonna be a hard thing to hear, but I wanted it to come from me.”

He looked up, eyes glassy.

“Everything dies, son.”  I put my hand on the dogs broken body.  “And its this guys time.”

“How do you know?”  Mitch said.

“Know what?”

“That it’s his time?  How do you know that we aren’t suppose to save him?”

I shook my head.  “Mitch-“

“We weren’t even suppose to go fishing today, remember.   We were suppose to go yesterday, but your boss called you into work, and you went, even though it was Saturday.”

I went down on one knee and looked him in the eye.  “So what are you saying -- we were there to save the dog?  Come on, Mitch.  It’s just a coincidence that we were there.”

He just stared back at me a tear running down his cheek.

I closed my eyes and sighed.  What does a hero do in this situation?  I had no frame of reference.  I forced a smile to the surface and opened my eyes.  “Okay, buddy.  If we tell Var -- the Doctor, to go ahead, I need you to understand two things.”

He knobbed and brushed the tear away.

“One –- the doctor may not be able to save him.  It may die anyway.”

Mitch nodded again, a smile beginning to grow.

“And two –- its gonna cost a lot of money.  All our saving, including what your mother and I've put aside for Christmas.”

“That’s okay.  I don’t need any Christmas presents.  Really.”

I had to smile.  Wasn’t that just like a kid?  No past or future -- just completely in the moment and no place else.  “Okay, son, we’ll try.”

Mitch hugged me ferociously as if I’d just given him the year off of school.  If it were in my power I would have held onto that hug forever. 

I don’t know how much of Vargus’s heart was in the four-hour procedure, but to my surprise, the dog lived.  And two weeks later we were bringing it home.  Mitch threw himself into the dog’s care like nothing I’d ever seen before.  He changed the bandages, administered the medication and conducted the rehabilitation exercises as if he were born to do it.  I was so God damn proud of him. 

He didn’t even complain on Christmas morning, when we opened our scarce gifts, nothing costing more than an item found in the impulse section of a Walgreens.  The dog, Mitch dubbed Lucky (what else), chewed on the ribbons and rolled in the discarded wrapping paper.  It was the best Christmas ever. 

By the following spring, Lucky was almost fully recovered and could run, jump and wrestle with Mitch as well as any other dog.  That’s what they were doing that April afternoon when Mr. Hanson accidentally drove by.

I’d done it a dozen times myself.  All the streets in our neighborhood looked the same and if you didn’t pay attention you’d find yourself on the wrong block.  I don’t know what had distracted Hanson but he found himself on our street instead of his own two blocks over.  From the living room window I saw his car screech to a stop, the driver’s door swinging open. 

By the time I stepped outside Hanson was on my lawn, Lucky’s paws on his shoulders, licking the man’s face.

“Shasta, I’ve missed you too,” Hanson said.  “I’ve gotta remember to close that gate.”

I looked at Mitch and saw the life drain from his face.

Like a dutiful solider Mitch gathered up Lucky's toys and new leash and handed them over to Hanson, unfallen tears welling in his eyes.  

Just before Hanson drove away with his dog, I told him about the cost to save it.  He looked astonished for a moment, as if to say, who the hell spends that much on a dog.  Then he said he’d pay me back.  I knew he wouldn’t and he never did. 

For the next two weeks Mitch moped around the house, ate very little and spoke even less.  Baseball had always been his favorite sport so I encouraged him to play catch with me in the front yard.  He seemed to cheer up more and more as we toasted the ball back and forth.  After a few minutes there was almost a smile. 

Then suddenly his entire face lit up as he seemed to catch sight of something behind me.  I turned around and there on the other side of the street was that god damn dog.  Apparently forgetting to close his gate was something Hanson did on a regular basis.  The dog trotted toward us then turned sharply into the street, running out between two parked cars.  The driver of the SUV, our neighbor Ethel Carson, had very little time to react.

With one hand pressing a cell phone to her ear, the remaining hand was left to handle the jobs of steering and cradling her cigarette.  Ethel swerved the vehicle missing the dog by inches.  She skidded up over the curb and onto my lawn. 

I don’t think Mitch ever really saw the SUV until it was too late.

I’m not going to talk about what happened next other than to say that I held his hand until the paramedics pronounced him.  And then I held it some more.

# # #

A few months later Mr. Carson cornered me in the drug store.  He seemed compelled to tell me how sorry his wife was and that since that day she had crawled into a bottle and hasn’t yet emerged.  I didn’t really know what to say to the man, which probably kept him rambling.

“If she hadn’t of killed that dog,” Carson said.  “Maybe things would’ve been different.”

His words hit me like a slap in the face.  “She didn’t hit the dog,” I said.  “She missed him.”

“No, I mean the other dog.”  Carson rubbed a hand under his jaw.  “Last year, in the fall, she hit a dog on the bridge.  Knocked it clean over the rail into the water.  It shook her up something awful.  Swore she never hit anything again.”  Carson’s eyes were glassy.  “That’s why she swerved so hard when she saw that other dog.  Even said it looked like the one she killed.  Not that she got a good look at either.”

I left the store in a daze that I can only imagine was like a drug induced melancholy given to those suffering from violent insanity.  I spent the next six months in that daze, Carson’s words spinning a web around my grief.         

I can’t remember the exact moment the grief began to subside.  I know it was some time after my wife left, and it seemed that questions, ones spawned by my encounter with Carson, were all I had left.  I began relentlessly searching for answers, forgoing all else.  I discovered that there are a lot of them out there –- God’s will, the randomness of ciaos, Karma, the natural order of things, Death’s uncompromising plan.  Take your pick.  The answers, all conceived by man, are easy to understand.  It’s the questions that are incomprehensible.

 

In the end I kept coming back to Death's uncompromising plan and how, unlike myself, I had interfered.  I’ve heard it said that cowards die a thousand deaths but a hero never taste of death but once.  Well, I've been both and I can honestly say that Death loves a coward and punishes a hero.

 

© Copyright Kevin Anderson 2006

Kevin Anderson got a late start in fiction writing but in the last four years his work has been published more than fifty times in magazines (both online and in print) and in more than a dozen speculative fiction anthologies.  His creative style has been described as dark fantasy with a glint of humor. 

Anderson has been published alongside notable authors such as Ramsey Campbell, William F. Nolan, Tim Lebbon, F. Paul Wilson, Nancy Kilpatrick, Thomas Deja and Mort Castle.  In 2005 he earned an Honorable Mention in Ellen Datlow's The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror #18. His website can be found here.