1
HIS COLLEAGUE, GRACE, TELLS HIM TO KNEEL AND TO PUT OUT HIS hands to be smelled whenever he visits the dog, and he does just that. Each time Simon lays out the bag and the water and the snack, he kneels, opens his palms, and the dog nuzzles him. Still shy, but there, Simon thinks. Definitely there. “Good boy!” he says, because he has seen that on television.
Simon pours the food out. Lion hovers. He fills the water. He goes to his usual spot and the dog follows him. He touches the dog’s forehead and talks to him. He tells him his worries. He sits on the ground, and Lion sits too.
“Go, Lion,” he says. “Go, have your supper.” But the dog does not go to the food today. The dog waits with him. Rests a head between crossed paws. Doesn’t eat.
“What are you doing, Lion?” he asks. “Aren’t you going to eat?”
The dog sits as settled as he sat the first time Simon saw him—a statue on the side of the road then, a prone statue beside Simon now. His paws are huge. He sits and waits next to Simon, but Simon doesn’t know what the dog is waiting for. He wants to understand but does not.
“Okay, then,” he says, like an impatient governess. “I must go back to work. I have to leave. You eat. I want you to be well. You do not want to worry me.”
Simon stands to go, begins to walk back to his car. The dog walks too.
“No,” Simon says, pointing his finger at the dog. The dog gets low. “No. It is dangerous. Do not follow me onto the road,” he says.
He turns back to the highway shoulder again, back toward where his car is parked. He walks. The dog follows.
Simon sighs with exasperation. “No. Stay,” Simon says firmly.
Simon walks more quickly now. He hurries, clicks the remote, unlocks the door, and hops in. He starts the car. Looks in his sideview mirror and his rearview. He pulls into a line of traffic. He does not know what to do. He can see the dog in his rearview mirror. Sitting there, next to where the car was parked minutes before. Looking after him. He is too close to the road.
You have been left before, Simon thinks. He feels something hollow and dull in his chest. This is not any different.
“I will be back,” he says, but of course, the dog cannot hear.
AT THE NEXT EXIT, HE GETS OFF TO CIRCLE BACK. HE IS WORRIED. WHAT if someone runs over the dog? The light he sits at to reenter the freeway is slow. It goes on and on. He prays as he enters back onto the freeway. He can tell now that he needs the dog. The dog has come to him for a reason. Why? he wonders. Why did I not let him in? He beeps his horn at the driver in front of him. Traffic is so slow. It is unbearable. Relentless. He has such a short way to go. Maybe he should walk. “Go!” he screams inside the car’s interior. He has the awful idea that he will find the dog dead.
It takes him twenty minutes to enter onto the highway. It is like a parking lot. He keeps his eyes on the road ahead, and finally he can see the outline of the dog, sitting in exactly the place that Simon left him. A heavy breath of relief leaves his body. He says a small prayer. When he opens his eyes again, he notices a VW Beetle parked, a woman, blonde and fat, standing beside it. She is standing on the side of the road where Lion is. Simon can tell, even from this bit of distance, that she is trying to coax the dog into her car. She is six feet away from the dog at least. The door to the Beetle is open.
Simon panics. He tries to go faster, but the traffic, the fucking traffic. He beeps his horn, wanting to alert the lady. He waves his hand out of his window, shouts, but the man in the car in front of him misunderstands and lifts his middle finger.
He sits for a few more minutes, watching the woman waving at the dog, signaling for Lion to come to her. Finally, he decides to drive onto the shoulder.
“Do not go with her, Lion!” he shouts. A mantra, over and over.
He drives dangerously, passing two cars, then four cars, then ten cars, until he has finally arrived, one car behind the woman’s blue Volkswagen Beetle.
Simon puts the car in park, does not bother to turn it off, and leaps out of the car.
“He’s mine,” he says to the woman. “He’s mine.” He can hear the urgency in his own voice.
“Oh,” she says. Her voice is calm and slow. The polar opposite of his. There is the round cushion of something Southern in it. “Oh, my land. I’m so glad. He was not going to come with me, and well . . .” She looks at all the cars on the 10 freeway. “It’s so dangerous here.”
“Yes,” Simon says, smiling. “Yes.” He is out of breath. “I will get him.”
For a moment, he worries that the dog will not come to him, that the woman will see him for the liar that he is. He opens the car door. The BMW shines in the afternoon sun.
“Come on, Lion,” he says. “Let’s go home.”
The dog sidles over, covering half the space between them. He hesitates for just a moment. He looks behind him at the dilapidated greenhouse and then back at Simon cautiously, as if making a decision. He stays close to the ground, a bit fearful, but still agile as a predator. He makes his way to the open car door, stops.
“Are you sure he’s yours?” the woman asks, watching the dog’s tentative movements. Her brow is furrowed. “He seems a little scared. You aren’t one of those dog fighters, are you? I’ve heard about these dogs . . . what people do.”
“Get in,” he says to the dog. Desperation is hot and obvious in his voice.
Lion hops in.
The Good Samaritan smiles. The dog is willing. She sees that. He waves goodbye to the woman and gets into the driver’s side. The stink of the dog is surprising. It is like Fritos and old garbage. He feels alive as he slams the car door. All that is him is pulsing. He looks down at his forearm, which seems transparent. It is as if the blood that keeps him alive can be seen through his skin. He has done something—enacted change. He has gotten the dog. He has saved him. A life finally. One life saved.