Arnold and Theo

 

At the corner of Roosevelt and 30^th street, I see her bending over to gather up plastic bags of something inside the backseat of her car. When she backs out, she smiles at me. I wave, “Como esta Theo?”

            I’ve talked to her before and know that Spanish is her native language.

            She doesn’t answer me in Spanish, however. “Theo he is very big!”

            She’s inside her front yard now, dumping the plastic bags on the black tarp covering what must have been, at one point, a lawn or dirt. Wiping her brow, her grin expands. Theo is the golden lab puppy that I’ve been seeing for the last few months. Bouncing and floppy, but now, he’s big!

            He’s nowhere in sight. But this doesn’t stop her from enthusiastic description.

            I nod now, hanging over her front fence that it about chest level on me. “I bet he’s grown a lot!”

            “Yes, grown a lot!”

            “And, I bet he has a lot of energy!”

            “Yes! A lot of energy.” I notice how she repeats my sentences. To improve her English? Or give herself time to think and then speak in English? I wish that she would speak Spanish to me. I’m curious how much I’d be able to communicate. But this doesn’t occur to me till after our exchange.

            She continues, kicking a worn soccer ball that wobbles on the black tarp briefly, rolling to a stop. “He likes to play with this.” She laughs, joyous. “And when we are home, we let him out here in the front. But when we are not here, he is in the yard. I do not want him to….” She pauses, searching.

            “….to jump over the fence?” I offer.

            “Yes! I do not want him to jump over the fence.” She pauses again, then shakes her head.  Sad all of a sudden. “You remember Arnold?”

            “Of course,” I say. Arnold was a big lion of a dog. He would lie around on the black tarp in the warm sun, then rouse himself to wander around the block. The first time I saw him, he was out on the sidewalk, lumbering slowly up and down Roosevelt. He was huge! Some sort of Shepard/Wolf mix?

            I was leery of walking near him and so crossed the street. He paid no attention to me, but wandered back into his yard, and plopped down on the tarp. I found out his name from his young master who informed me one day while skateboarding aimlessly on the sidewalk that the dog’s name was Arnold.

            Such a funny name for a dog. But is suited him somehow.

            Today, when the woman mentions Arnold, I can see that she misses him. “He got the cancer. In his mouth. He lose his….” Again, she searches for the word, “…teeth…. And so, we give him the soft food. Then we take him to the doctor and he says the cancer it is aggressive.”

            I shake my head, remembering my old white cat who lost all his teeth and couldn’t eat. It hadn’t been cancer that caused the tooth loss. At least as far as I could recall. But the fact that he couldn’t eat, soft food included, meant that I had to put him to sleep.

            It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.

            So today, when this woman pauses, thinking of Arnold and his aggressive cancer, I know she is thinking of the sadness of losing him.

            “How old was Arnold?” I ask now.

            “He was 13.”

            “That’s a long time! Especially for a big dog.”

            “Yes, it is a long time,” she agrees.

            She stares at me for a moment, then smiles slowly. I wave, “Well, now you have Theo!”

            “Yes!” She laughs.

            “Have a good day,” I call out, starting to walk down Roosevelt.

            “Yes, have a good day,” she repeats.

            I hear a dog barking as I head up the block. Was it Theo? Happy to have mom home?
            Or was it Arnold, a bark from the great beyond, sending me on my way home for another busy Friday.