We Meet Someone On The Way

 

It’s Two Miles To Milltown

Once, years ago, Milltown was a fishing village and a lumber town.  There was a tribe of Natives just outside the city limits.  Years went by and the place changed and grew.  It never lost that western waterfront feeling though.  Salt water and trees and a college. That’s what I have heard.  I wasn’t born until 2010.

Lou emerged into the kitchen in her current fave outfit.  She looked a little like a scarecrow.  Extremely distressed jeans, no hem just shreds. One of dad’s hoodies with some kind of hoohah printed on it about a tractor company, over a plaid man’s shirt and all covered in one of Mom’s weird fleece jackets.  Shoes were Keds.  OK.  She had jammed her curls into a scrunchie hair thing, had on some vintage shades and was ready to go.  I don’t scare easy, so I was fine with it.

I had on my battle uniform.  Jeans, no holes.  A big grey sweatshirt and over that a pea coat, old white trainers.  Hair up in a ponytail. I stuffed four of those pink boiled eggs in my pockets. Ready to roll.

I locked the back door, pulled the kitchen curtains closed. I glanced around. Home.  Hm. Home is where the heart was.  My sister and I passed out the front door.  I turned and locked the door.  I felt like something was changing. I was not sure why. Just shutting the door felt almost final.

It was still early in the day, like ten AM.  Grey clouds covered the sky. It had been raining during the night.  No surprises there. Our lawn was a shaggy mess.  No one bothers with lawns anymore.  Down the walk.  Past the mailbox.  We almost never get any mail, but I looked just to make sure. Nothing.

Just as we walked out onto the narrow two lane asphalt the sun broke through the clouds, brilliantly, like it does sometimes when you are used to the dim light of morning around here.  The whole road shone golden.  Surely a good sign. Down the shining road we must travel. “Turn your face to the sun.”

Two miles is not very far to walk. We passed by our old neighbor’s houses. I recited each name as we came across their places.  Erickson’s white house.  No one lives there now.  Steele’s red house.  One old lady is still living there.  She stays home.  People bring her supplies. A few more places where we didn’t remember who had lived there. Overgrown lawns. Huge bushes near the houses and unpruned rose bushes surrounded the houses where once people had lived and worked.  We passed the Gustafson's two story brick house. The fruit trees had not been tended to for several years.  Did I know that it was a gloomy scene?  Maybe not really.  It was the new normal.

Lou piped up, “Jen, there is a dog following us.”  Glancing back, I saw that she was correct!  There was quite a big dog on the road behind us.  He stopped about twenty feet away when we stopped.  He appeared to be a German Shepherd mix, mixed with some other really big kind of dog.  He had a black muzzle and tan body and one ear up and one ear down.  We used to call those Indian dogs because you would see them around the Reservation.

The dog sat on the pavement watching me.  They sense who is the boss, right? I squatted down on one knee and called to him. “Hey, Buddy, come here…”  I noticed that his sides were sunken in, and his fur looked a rough. “Want an egg, Buddy?” I coaxed.  I pulled one out of my pocket and started to peel it for him.  That got his attention in a big way.  He stood and approached slowly, tail waving.  This was a big dog.  He was taller than a regular German Shepherd. The pink eggshell bits lay scattered on the wet asphalt. The bright light of the sun was shining into his very aware looking brown eyes. I was not fearful of this big dog at all. 

He came to me then and took the egg.  He didn’t mind the shell that I hadn’t peeled off yet.  He put it on the road surface, looked up at me, then carefully ate it.  I peeled another egg for him then.  I guessed that his name was Buddy now.  I guessed we had a friend for now.

Lou walked over and stood with us and patted his head.  I did too. He seemed to like the attention. “OK, Buddy”, I said. “We have to keep going.”  Lou smiled then, like I had not seen her smile in quite a long time.

Two girls and a big mutt dog, we walked together down the morning road to town.

(the dog photo is not just right, but it's very hard to find a Shepherd/Mastiff photo just like I wanted!)