CHAPTER TEN

 

 

CATHY HAD GONE WITH A GIRLFRIEND to Weaverville to purchase a variety of necessities, Amy had gone with them, and this left Shanan sitting alone in the trailer, attempting to convert an ornery transistor radio (infected with an opinion glitch) into a metal detector, which he did finally accomplish.

 

     At three in the afternoon in Big Bar, the three-quarter-size, yellow school bus stopped and deposited the last of its children at the edge of Route Two ninety-nine. Shanan was rising from his table when a loud rap rattled the trailer door. Upon opening it, he discovered the seven-year-old daughter of a neighbor, sobbing worriedly, and this rather troubled Shanan.

 

     “Oh, why so sad, honey?” he queried sympathetically.

 

     “Shan,” she whimpered fretfully. “my dog’s dying, Please come help. Oh, please….” A storm of sorts was steadily drenching her pixie-like cheeks.

 

     She lived in a trailer east of his, but on an adjacent property. During the week, her father was on the road, driving truck, and her sister, a nine-year-old and the only other child in the household, to within a reasonable degree babysat and helped take care of their home. On rare occasion, their father would invite Shanan or Cathy to care for his children and always threw in a hot supper. Thus, they were on amiable terms, often dependent on one another.

 

     Shanan and the crying little girl hurried to her trailer. Lying atop the wooden stoop was her dog: unconscious; and now, both girls were wailing their little eye-fountains, and crystal pools of anguish were dressing their precious, little cheeks.

 

     For these two children, doggy company was not only a delight but also a necessary comfort. Their mother had recently run off with a U.S. postal worker, and her actions had broken sensitive hearts.

 

     Upon closer examination, Shanan discovered that the dog was truly dead—lips curled tightly inward, exposing teeth and gums; and its eyes were now rolled back into its skull. She was at mid puppy-hood, possibly three playful months old at tops. They had three dogs in their incomplete family: the “Mommy doggy,” belonging to their father, and a puppy for each child.

 

     “We think she choked on a chicken bone when we were in school,” the oldest sniffled, her little fingers curled tightly into her little palms, rubbing her little eyes. “We gave her a piece of chicken this morni—Oh, plea—”

 

     “Please, Shanan,” the youngest begged, her Lilliputian fingers as her sister’s, “could you p,please take her to the doctor?” This seven-year-old was falling absolutely to pieces. This—or do we have to say—was her puppy, and she loved her, “…oh, more than anything you ever could know, Mister Shanan…”

 

     He was perplexed and told them reviving their puppy was probably hopeless. “The nearest vet, honey,” he explained sadly, trying to avoid the truth, “is twenty-four miles into Weaverville.”

 

     More streams of tears now ran unchecked from the children’s sad eyes; and a sense of their whole internal picture of grief began to swell inside Shanan, when a strange but forceful affection entered him. Was it the voice? Who can tell? His eyebrows perked above his nose, a frown appeared beneath his nose, and he bent over and lifted the puppy gently into his arms. She was dead indeed, rigor mortis had set in, and the pup was stiffening more by the second. Mentally, Shanan theorized she must have died at least an hour or two before the children arrived from school. He turned and began walking away, unconscious of his motives.

 

     “Where you going with my doggy?” the seven-year-old wept.

 

     “I’m not sure, honey. You wait here.” She heard not a word but tagged along behind, pouring her little heart into to the breeze, with tears, sniffles, and confusion….

 

     Shanan wandered upon their drive leading toward the highway, but after ten or so steps turned abruptly and headed back to his trailer. As he was about to enter, she inquired again. “You going to make her better?”

 

     Shanan sighed. “I’m not certain, honey. I don’t know. You wait here, though. I’ll be right back.” Taking a final look at her weeping eyes, he closed the door gently with the heel of his foot, allowing the door to lock automatically.

 

     Shanan was in a cloud, a cloud filled with raining tears and grieving sorrow. Five feet inside the trailer, he knelt solemnly, placed the puppy quietly onto the floor and, after bending to both his knees, hovered over her, lowering his chest to her lifeless body. Upon folding slender fingers into joining hands, Shanan began to lament a powerful supplication.

 

     “Oh, God!” he began, “These little kids don’t have anything. They don’t even have a mother!” he agonized. “Oh, dear Lord and dear God, these kids don’t have anything but their little puppies! Please, God, please don’t lay anymore grief on these kids….”

 

     He raised himself to his knees, lifted his hands high above his head, and beckoned all the harder to the Lord. “Can you hear me, Good God? Are you listening, Lord?…!” His eyes became two soft, glistening fountains filled with a confused distress for the children. “Please, Dear Lord!” and he dropped his trembling body back over the dog and covered it with his chest and arms. Now, he wept more passionately.

 

     He raised himself again, joining his hands together tightly.

 

     “Why did you let this doggy die?” he moaned. “Why did you let this happen? These kids’ll be lost without their little puppies! God, can’t you see?” and he lowered himself again upon the dead pooch, crying ever so pitifully.

 

     As his upper torso was shaking and rising again, he folded his hands and, pressing them deep into his lap, raised his wet face as though pushing it through the doorway to Heaven itself.

 

     “You can save this puppy, Lord. Oh, my God, dry them tears in these little kids’ eyes! Please, Father, they’re so sad. Please, God,” he wept bitterly. “IF THE NAME OF Jesus Christ MEANS ANYTHING, GOD! YOU CAN SAVE HER! I know you can!”

 

     As if he were an hysterical lunatic, Shanan sprang suddenly to his feet and began running frantically from the front end of his trailer to the back end of his trailer, from the tiny parlor area, to his tiny bedroom, torrents of tears flying from his face. “JESUS! GOD!” he erupted, scrambling up the tiny hallway and down the tiny hallway. “FATHER!” he yelled again, stumbling through the tiny kitchen—“Have mercy, O Lord! Dear, God! Jesus, God!” he cried; and, after scurrying wildly about for a solid three turbulent minutes, he finally grabbed hold of the fleeing puppy. Shanan had again witnessed the Hand of God and, now having no further need to execute prayer, was completely and breathlessly exhausted, with an entirely new kind of memory.

 

HE PULLED THE DOOR OPEN SLOWLY, breathing robustly, and within Shanan’s gentle arms, the puppy lay squirming: a miniature earthquake caught between two slender but sinewy continents. A pair of big, black eyes peering from the wriggling puppy met two big, blue eyes peering anxiously from the waiting child, no tears lingering upon her glowing cheeks. The child’s tears had wholly disappeared during the moments she was standing alone on the staircase, so filled with hope, so utterly filled with hope, her blurry-eyed sister hugging the other puppy lovingly by their trailer.

 

     “Here, honey,” Shanan smiled, handing her the dog.

 

     “How’d you make my puppy well?…!” she rejoiced ecstatically.

 

     Shanan leaned languidly against the door casing, paused, wiped a brow, and combed his past for a standard old verse of Scripture he may have heard in Sunday school: Don’t let your hand know how hard the other one is applauding for yourself? For him, this was close enough.

 

     “I don’t know if I should say this, honey, but I…prayed to Jesus God.” Those were his only words.

 

 

FROM THE DAY of Shanan’s miraculous prayer onward, those children lost their puppy doggy no less than twenty angst-ridden times, little girls crying all over the place, little feet scampering behind everything. Moreover, nary a night fell upon the town in which the puppy did not find her way home on its own. Or was it on her own?

 

     “Bad doggy!” “You bad, bad doggy! You should be ashamed of yourself,” scolding out from two little, puckered mouths…two little fingers wagging in between two little, floppy ears; and, one little tail wagging at the speed of sound at the other end of the bad, bad doggy.

 

     Now the end-line is this: Regarding Shanan’s prayer, aside from the tears he shed, he had not once raised his voice even a decibel higher than a muffled but extremely sincere whimper. Amen!

 

 

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