The Wounded Dog
*
In the days when I wrote this, I strongly felt the presence of God. And God was punishing me, punishing me with a mood of dense disconsolation. I asked God why, but God never replied. That was part of the punishment, I guess.
*
Whenever I drive towards or from the village, I go very slowly, even if that means the cars behind me beep furiously, pressing up against me with angry haste.
Do you know that road? You pass first through a stretch of mangy forest, straggled pines. Then the filling station- one of few places open round here after 5 pm- and then the road curls downwards through futile farmland, passing a couple of tiny houses before meeting the low village itself.
It was not completely my fault: Angela, too, played a part.
I was at the Jefferson’s for drinks. There was a downpour as I drove, and even the few paces from my car to my friends’ porch left me with sodden shoes. They leaked on the doorstep.
Angela said, “You’d better take off your things.”
I stood in the hall, peeling off wet coat and sodden shoes.
“Fuck off! Fuck off! Fuck off!”
Jack’s voice, booming from a room to the side. Jack was a huge man, easily over six foot three, and his voice echoed through the place.
I glanced at Angela, who was waiting for my coat. She raised her eyebrows with apologetic nonchalance. “He gets like this when he’s working on his paintings now. He discovered Expressionism.” To which she added, in a low voice, as she ushered me into the soft calm of a candlelit veranda, “unfortunately”.
Angela had some whiskey. Jack stayed in his studio. “Jack probably won’t join us. He says he needs to get it out.”
“Oh. It sounds like a recalcitrant turd.”
Angela laughed, “It’s Art, darling. And you needn't worry your pretty head about it. Anyway, the Laphroig is all ours.” She winked. “Ice?” She poured two large tumblers. We sat in low wicker chairs, the damp night air soft. She stretched out her legs. Long smooth legs. An eyeflicker of sex- or was that just my tipsy imagination?
We drank through the hush of the rain, the dark wet green leaves of the trees around the veranda sighing, soothing.
We chatted: Colossal Jack's voice only occasionally interrupted with cries of “Ahhh” and “No! No! No!” or “Whaaaat!” bellowing across from the studio. But after a particularly loud hollering, on catching my expression, Angela smiled, “it’s called self-portrait at the base of the crucifixion.”
“That’s one hell of a nasty crucifixion.”
“Really,” laughed Angela, “and it’s been going on for three days straight!”
Well, Art is a demanding taskmaster, but surely it was a discourtesy on Jack’s part not to join us? I felt somewhat awkward sitting alone there, and when I’d reached a respectable time to leave, I went, raindrops freshening my face until I was back in the Rover. The leather seat hugged my legs, and I felt reassured by the sturdy dashboard, how my feet rested just right on the pedals, and with the rain falling, impassive, on the windscreen.
Drunk but not too drunk for a quiet road. I turned on the radio: a tranquil song, a song about the folly of love.
I attempt from love's sickness to fly in vain
Since I am myself, my own fever
Since I am myself, my own fever and pain
No more now, no more now
Fond heart, with pride no more swell
Thou canst not raise forces
Thou canst not raise forces enough to rebel
I attempt from love's sickness to fly in vain
Since I am myself, my own fever
Since I am myself, my own fever and pain
For love has more power and less mercy than fate
To make us seek ruin
To make us seek ruin and love those that hate
Back through the village, past the hopeless unlit houses, up the rise, the wet road shining from headlights, and the hiss of tyres. Past the filling station, silhouette in the cabin, the empty forecourt, on through the skittish woodland.
A thud: something came off the front of the car. Something larger than a rabbit by the sound.
I stopped, crouched down to inspect the bumper, too dark to see, I ran my fingers along it: wet. Rainwater? I held my fingers in the car light: dark stains.
I turned round: a dark shape, a dog, there in my headlights, three legs, one crooked up. I went to it. “Here”: it backed away. I said “here” again but it backed off awkwardly, so I went further. But it scuttled unevenly to the far side of the road. I advanced: it retreated into bushes. I followed into the wet black shrubbery, my clothes sticking to my legs, my feet sinking into mud. I heard a whining through the rain-sound. “Come here”, I called: there was a rustle in reply, then fainter sounds as the dog retreated further, lost in black forest.
Hopeless, dripping: I returned to my car.
I drove back to the garage. Just one man there at the counter with a book of croswords.
What can I do for you?” he asked.”
“I hit a dog.”
He looked at me blankly. “A dog, just up there”. “It isn’t ours,” he said. I saw his eyes and they were not quite right.
I drove back along the road. There was no sign of the dog. But now, whenever I drive there, I look out for it.
*
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