Dog-parks are great, but they're crowded and loud. So, occasionally, against the rules, I take her out to a local trail and let her and her sister, Coyote, run off-leash.
In an admittedly lame attempt at courtesy, I try to do this when it's unlikely there will be many other people on the trail. Generally, it's after dark (also against the rules) or when it's raining or extremely cold outside. On this particular day, there was a 6-inch layer of snow on the ground, and it was about 20 below zero -- a rarity for the part of Indiana in which I live -- and perfect for off-leash running.
The two dogs were having a great time, but I was starting to have a bit of a drop in my blood sugar, so I called them over to put their leashes back on so we could go home. I bent to snap the leash onto Sachi's collar when she plunked herself down on the ground and dug at her paw with her teeth. When she stood up, blood gushed from the paw. She'd apparently removed something from it -- a piece of glass from a beer bottle; a shard of ice from a puddle she'd broken through. Who knows. But the snow under her paw was quickly stained red.
Sachi weighs in at about 75 pounds, and we were better than a mile from home, so there was no way I could carry her. Worse still, I'd left my cell phone charging at home, and my blood sugar was rapidly becoming an issue. I tried tying my scarf around the paw, but it wouldn't stay on. I knew we wouldn't make it home without Sachi losing a lot of blood. I had to get help.
Which was unlikely, as I specifically chose that day to allow the dogs to run because there wouldn't be anyone at the park.
When I got to the parking area, there were two vehicles -- one empty and one, to my great relief, with someone sitting in the driver's seat. It was a conversion van with dark, tinted windows, and the man in it was talking on his cell. I approached as quickly as I could, with Sachi limping silently alongside me, her tension evident in every muscle.
As I got nearer to the van, I realized the man was arguing with whoever was on the other end of the line. Vehemently.
I decided not to bother him, and got just about 10 yards away when I realized that this was no time to be polite or to fail to ask for help (a problem I often have). My dog was in trouble, and I needed a ride home.
I strode up to the driver's side window and knocked -- authoritatively. The man inside glanced out of the corner of his eye, held the phone to his chest, and cracked the window.
"Yeah?"
Out of my mouth fell not a request but a demand.
"My dog is hurt, and I need you to drive us home. We won't make it walking. I live about a mile from here, over in that neighborhood." I pointed.
After a stunned pause, during which I never broke eye contact with him, the man told the person on the other end of his phone conversation that he'd call them back. He glanced down at the dogs, and I backed away a little from the van door to give him some room. Then he got out.
All six-foot-six, line-backer-build feet of him. Clad in black leather from head to toe and dripping gold chains from his neck and wrists. All he said was, "Get in."
Coyote, a white-shepherd-husky mix, sniffed a little at him as he passed us, then looked up at me as though I'd lost my mind.
Which, by the way, was split in two. The foremost part of it was saying to me, "What a nice man!" The part at the back was already on alert.
The man walked around to the back of the van and opened the cargo area doors for us. I half-lifted, half threw Sachi in and jumped up to join her. I called to Coyote. She looked at the man. The man looked back. She huffed her disapproval and jumped in. The man closed us in, and I tried desperately to prevent Sachi from bleeding all over the light grey carpeting.
Back in the driver's seat, the man made another call. He said something to the person on the other end about meeting him and told him where he was going. The front of my brain: "Oh, he was going to meet a friend here for lunch!"
The back of my brain: "Whoop! Whoop! Whoop! Danger, Will Robinson!"
I gave the linebacker directions, but we didn't move. I was feeling a bit impatient, but then a black car came down the drive. A big black car. Cadillac. Brand new. Darkly-tinted windows all around.
Back of brain: "Hello? Are you seeing this?"
The black Caddy pulled in behind us, and we made our way up the drive in a little procession.
Front of brain: "How nice! They'll drop me off, then go on out to lunch."
Back of brain: <cussing a blue streak>
As we got closer to my street, the driver told me the neighborhood was familiar. We turned onto the street, and I thought to myself, "My driveway's tricky, and he has this low-riding van; I should just have him drop me off on the street in front of the house so he doesn't bottom out."
Back of my brain: "Now you're talking! And he won't know precisely where you live!"
When our Good Samaratin pulled over (and the huge black Cadillac pulled in behind us), I turned around to open the cargo area door so we could all get out -- and discovered I couldn't open it from the inside.
<Back of brain coming unglued.>
As he opened the door, the driver asked me, "How long you lived here?"
I told him, as I picked up a handful of snow to try to clean up a few drops of blood that had found their way onto his carpeting.
"Yeah," he said. "I used to know the people who lived in that corner house."
My house.
Which, before the guy who sold it to me renovated it, had been the lair of a drug dealer.
All the pieces of the puzzle slammed into place:
Leather and chains.
I can't open the door from the inside of the van.
Big, black Cadillac waiting at the top of the drive.
He knew the former owners of my house.
I'd just hitched a ride home with a drug dealer. The invisible guy in the Cadillac wasn't his friend -- he was a bodyguard, and he'd been on watch at the top of the drive, in case the police made a pass through the park.
The linebacker told me I didn't need to get the blood out of the carpeting (back of brain: "He's probably had blood back there before!"), so I grabbed the dogs' leashes, thanked him profusely for the ride (like I'd given him a choice), waved cheerfully to the black car's driver (whom I couldn't see, even through the windshield), and trotted speedily up my driveway, dragging Sachi along behind me.
After telling the story to a friend of mine -- and finding enough distance from my potential peril to laugh about it -- she told me that of course a drug dealer would help me out; it was my karma.
Maybe my own karma is such that a criminal would find it in his heart to help me in an emergency. Certainly, that same criminal's karma is looking a whole lot better after doing so.
Even the worst of people can be dog lovers at heart.
ReplyDelete