Pretty Girl

I suppose it was the right thing to do. The wind coming from the gulf promised a night fit for neither man nor beast. So, finding one of each on the front porch of my weather-beaten shack, I invited them inside.

The man, fully as tall as me, took on a sinister character in the dim light of the single bulb dangling from the ceiling in the middle of the room. I watched him with growing discomfort as his eyes darted from corner to corner. He had deeper concerns than the weather. These were difficult times for his kind. I regretted my impulsiveness.

The dog, on the other hand, more than made up for the caution of his owner. Although his days of puppyhood were long past, he had the bearing of having once been a force to be reckoned with. The way he paced from one to the other as though trying to herd us together made me think there may have been some Shepherd in him. Finally I knelt and welcomed him.  

It’s funny. I had nearly forgotten the simple pleasure of scratching behind a dog’s ears and watching him look into my eyes as though he understood me when I spoke. His appreciation put me at ease – a little; and perhaps my chatter helped the man relax as well.   

“His name’s Brute,” he volunteered.

“Brute,” I chuckled and stroked the dog’s wet back. “And I’ll bet you were one in your day, weren’t you?”

The man peered out the shack’s solitary window. “There are people who’re sorry they thought he was too old to fight.”

“Yep,” I nodded and lifted Brute’s chin. “I bet there are.”

Out of the corner of my eye I saw the man look toward the curtain-covered doorway in the back of the room.

“It’s out there,” I said. “There’s another curtain. My cot’s on the left. The bathroom, such as it is you’ll find on the right.”

If he tried to look casual in his departure he failed.

A long time ago I learned that when I wanted to talk a lot, I should talk less. I may have picked that up from Aunt Sybill who never learned it at all. Having benefited from her failure served me well that evening.  The less I spoke, the more my guest grew comfortable with his surroundings and I became less wary of his presence. What little I did say, I directed mostly to Brute who made himself my constant companion as I prepared soup and a sandwich.

Any stranger, even a quiet one, can be tolerated if he works at feeling at home, even if nobody tells him outright to do it. But he’s got to know the limits. I was glad to see him study the American junk décor I had collected under the principle of it-might-be-useful-someday. I didn’t mind when he picked things up and inspected them more closely. If he had asked me I could have told him stories. However, he crossed a line when he lifted a picture frame from among the confusion on the shelf above the sink. My lips tightened. My teeth clenched. He had no business making himself THAT much at home. Just because the girl had black hair and dark colored skin like his didn’t give him the right to get familiar with her as though she was some…. some...

“Pretty girl,” he sighed with a heavy accent, interrupting my thought and blocking my rage. He traced his fingers over her face. “Your daughter?”

I unclenched my teeth enough to say, “Wife. At least she was for three days. Before that stupid…”

No! My teeth clenched again. He was not the person I wanted to tell about the mall.

Determined to say nothing more, I slathered peanut butter across the vulnerable slices of bread until I ran out of spaces to put it. When I set aside the knife I sensed a different kind of quiet in the room. It lured me to look at my now unwelcome guest again.

With the light of the lonely bulb shining full in his face, I saw not a man but a youth – a young man scarcely in his twenties.  Just a boy! I thought. A boy whose appearance bore the testimony of premature manhood in a dangerous world; yet, a boy whose eyes still clung to life.

Without another word he watched me balance some jelly on the mound of peanut butter on one slice of bread and trap it beneath the other thickly spread slice. As I set both the soup and the thick sandwich on the table, he sat and placed the picture beside them. When I reached for it he pulled it away.

“Please, may I look at it some more,” he said as much with his look as with his words. “I have a pretty girl, and she reminds me of her before the…”

Now it was my turn to wait in an awkward silence. Finally I said, “Before the…?”

“Nothing,” he shrugged. “But I miss her.”

I nodded at the photo. “She was from Haiti,” I volunteered. “Where’s yours from?”

“My mother’s country.”

I went to the sink and studied him from a distance. I wanted to think I saw something good in his young face, but my memories were still raw.

When he offered Brute a piece of his sandwich I stepped between them. He yanked his hand back as though he had touched a live wire. It took me a moment to recover from the fear which widened his eyes. After a deep breath I told him, “I’ve got some good food for your dog. I should’ve thought of it before now. Been a long time since I’ve had one visit me.”

He set the sandwich on his plate. I rummaged in the refrigerator for some meat that had been meat a long time. “Thank you,” he said. “I’m glad you like him. He likes you.”

As Brute gobbled his supper from a platter by the stove, I piled words together, much like Aunt Sybill would have, “I figured you could use the rest of that sandwich yourself. I’ll make up another one; and I’ve got more soup. You eat until you’re satisfied. You got that?”

I want to think I saw the faintest hint of a fleeting smile when he sat back, nodded, and took a respectful bite from what he tried to offer Brute. As it turned out satisfaction meant two more bowls of soup and three more sandwiches, not quite as thick, before he waved a hand and said, “Please. Thank you so much. That’s enough.”

Then silence returned. I tidied up the kitchen for the first time in days, and he simply sat at the table staring at the picture. Although I still felt the chasm between his kind and me, I observed that a full stomach had the same power over his body as it did over mine.

“You can use my cot,” I said after we both yawned together. “I’ve got blankets enough to make the floor soft enough for me out here.”

He nodded, stood, took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and handed me the picture. His eyes glistened. I guess that surprised me, but what surprised me more was feeling my hand hold the picture toward him and hearing my voice (or something that sounded like my voice) say, “I’m not too fond of the idea of another man sleeping with my wife. But I guess she won’t let you do anything you shouldn’t.”

He hesitated. “Go ahead,” I insisted. “Does your… pretty girl have a picture of you?”

He shook his head.

I looked away. “I’m sorry.”

“Yeah,” he sighed. “Me, too.”

Later, in the darkness, while the wind rattled the shack, I stretched out on a blanket on the floor and wondered why I had never gotten another dog after Maximus and my pretty girl died in the explosion.  

“Pretty girl,” I whispered to Brute and stroked his side. “I like that.”  

I will always believe the dog was the reason both the boy and I slept well. The chasm between us was not so wide that we could not worry that one or the other would launch an attack of bad intentions across it. But Brute seemed to have linked himself to both of us in a way that meant he who could protect the boy from other dangers, could protect both the boy and the man from each other if protecting needed to happen.

After a quiet breakfast, the boy’s awkwardness told me he was ready to close this part of his journey; but he seemed preoccupied. Finally, at the door he nudged Brute toward me.

“I want you to have him,” he said and swallowed. Brute paused to look back at him. “You’re the only person other than me he’s been so friendly to. I worry about him now. You’re right. He’s old; and he’s probably not up to how much farther I must go.”

Forgetting Aunt Sybill’s lesson, I blurted out, “How far are you going? I could take you there. I’ve got a truck out back. It ain’t much but it runs. It’s not good to be wandering around the country like this nowadays, especially for your… uh… As for Brute, he could ride…”

He shook his head. “Nobody knows I’m coming. I don’t know what I’ll find. It’s been a long time. I’ll be okay.”

I stared at the dog.

“Okay,” I agreed and nudged Brute back to him. “But there’s no way I’m sending you alone. This dog of yours still has what it takes to surprise punks who think he doesn’t. You need him and… he needs you. Me, I’ve got along fine ever since…ever since…”

The boy didn’t wait. He turned abruptly and went outside. I think it had to do with something in his eye. He was so intent in rubbing it out he never bothered to look back. As always, though, Brute made up for his lack of courtesy – this time by looking back every few paces until they took a path to the right beyond another shack.

When they were out of sight I shrugged and went inside and returned the picture to the shelf. For the first time in years, I felt a lump in my throat. “He never told me his name,” I told her. “Did he tell you?”

Now, I had always been one of those who could block things out of his mind. I had to, and I did a fair job of it until that stormy night those two stood on my porch. After that I couldn’t shake ‘em; and it made me a little touchy I guess. I bumped a guy off the dock at work one day. I didn’t say a word, and he laughed it off, but he never said anything about “their kind” again when I was around, and neither did I. 

I guess somebody can hear something and not think about it for a long time and then remember it.  Aunt Sybill told us kids a story about a man who helped a stranger in trouble when others wouldn’t. I wish I could remember it better. It seemed to fit in with everything somehow. Maybe I should try to find somebody who knows it.

I couldn't forget my Pretty Girl like I had either. Or, tried to. No, I started thinking about her on purpose and kind of different. For one thing, I took up reading. She would have liked that. But it was embarrassing to remember the times I laughed at her, especially when she took a couple books with her on our honeymoon. I read those first - probably because she never got the chance to read them at all. It was rough going. Romantic stuff isn’t my thing. But I imagined her voice reading them to me, and that made a lot of difference. I had to stop a lot, though. The print would get blurry and I’m too stingy to buy glasses. 

Late one afternoon a messenger interrupted my latest book, to deliver a small, anonymous envelope. Then he sat down beside me without so much as a word. That didn’t really surprise me, though. I knew him; and a word from him would have been the last thing I would have expected. It did frustrate me, though, that he couldn’t supply the missing return address.

Inside the envelope was a photograph of a family. All but one, the oldest man in the group, were dark-skinned. Only two of the people smiled. One was a boy.

I leaned forward and held the photo closer. No, it wasn’t just a boy. The smile fooled me at first. Once I got past that, I recognized him, and I understood the reason for his happiness. So, I smiled back.

The other visibly happy person was the girl standing next to him. An arrow was drawn from her to the margin of the picture where he had scrawled, “My Pretty Girl.”

I looked at her again.

Memories smashed through walls I had built – memories of when I recovered enough from my injuries to be taken to identify the mangled body of my…Pretty Girl. Like hers, this girl’s face was badly disfigured. Clearly one eye was blind. Part of her mouth didn’t cooperate well. What little of her body could be seen was enough to reveal she had no right arm.

Attached to the photo was a folded piece of paper. I wanted to hope for a report of how things had fared for the boy since that stormy night. Maybe there would be a better introduction to his Pretty Girl. But the size of the paper and the memory of his silences promised it would be brief.

“Thank you,” it said. That was all. That was it.

I smiled at the messenger who brought the envelope. He rested his chin on my knee. I scratched behind his ears.  

Somewhere down the path an engine came to life and a car drove away.

“So, Brute, old friend,” I said. “Are you here to stay?”

He wagged his tail and laid down at my feet.

Yes, all in all I suppose I did the right thing. At least I hope I did. I think maybe Aunt Sybill would have been proud. The darkening silhouettes of boats beyond the docks, and the sunset’s oranges and yellows, oozed together like water colors on a wet window pane. Something got in my eye, like it did once before – at my Pretty Girl’s funeral.

©Harold H Comings 2016