1
THE DOG IS THERE WHEN HE RETURNS FROM CAMBRIDGE. SIMON SITS cross-legged beside the bush, not hiding anymore. He has named the dog, Lion. He watches the dog eat. The dog allows it now. If Simon stands, Lion growls. Simon tells the dog about his daughter. He says, “I have found my daughter. I am afraid. You have lost your master. You are afraid.”
Beneath the dirt and the muck and the grease of its life in the streets, Simon can see that Lion must have been a golden brown at one time. There are dingy white spots around its muzzle, and a puddle-shaped white patch on its chest. When the dog drinks water there is the pink of its lolling tongue. The dog eats and Simon watches. It does not fill out, not even a bit. A parasite, maybe. He remembers his brother’s diaper when he was just a child. A night’s sleep, the heavy warmth of it. He remembers opening it and finding a tapeworm as long as his forearm inside.
“That is how it was when I was a child,” he says to Lion. “I had many brothers and two sisters. I had a best friend . . .” He cannot finish.
At three o’clock, he stands up, dusts the dirt off his tailored pants. He admonishes himself for staying so long. He hears the crack of his knees.
“Goodbye, Lion. I have to go, so I can beat traffic,” he says, and the dog looks at him. It doesn’t take a single step toward him. It just stares and growls.
“You are welcome,” Simon says, as if the dog has thanked him. As if the dog were his friend.