Ash Wednesday Tryptich

Church was the middle of the day
I received ashes, and thought about what Fr. Keith said, how Lent is not the giving up of something, but more like the defragging of a harddrive, where all of the things that are so scattered and left behind all over the place in life, are reshuffled and put back to where they belong...
I collected my church directory, the one with the new picture of me, looking sort of like a canadian mountie, or perhaps somebody who once was in the State Troopers, but now was a librarian, and drove back home.

The speakers in my truck were awful, so I decided to replace them with the ones that were so much better from my other truck.

While doing this the charming family that lives across the street who get into these massive 4 way fights (older male, younger male, older woman, young woman,) -usually after the male comes home stoned, or angry or drunk, or the younger woman practically gets boffed there in the drivway by her boyfriend, (oh yes, they were rounding third the last time she dragged him up the stairs to their house,) proceeded to have a charming afternoon matinee display of what to expect in an hour or two...
There will be yelling and screaming, and carrying on, the police will be called, and they will quiet down just before the police show up,
The police will leave and there will be yelling and screaming and carrying on, and the police will be called, and they will quiet down just before the police show up... again.
(repeat 3x's more for the record...)
And they'll threaten to beat each other sensless, and yell out loud of 'get your fuckin' hands off me, niggah,' -but nobody ever really hits anyone... it's all just good clean fun.
Out Loud.
Hollering.
Carrying on.
At Two in the morning.

I was putting my speakers in and they were watching and watching, the older man especially... just peering over the fence across the street while sitting on the stairs.
The girl may be twelve or thirteen... may be ten or sixteen.
She has the body of a 24 year old.
She has the sense of a six year old
Her Mother?? the sense of a two year old...
She has the mouth of a sewer...
(Her boyfriends, and this older guy, (who hits on her too,) are real charmers as well.

But they're not my no nevermind.

So I go to leave to get some work done

And come across a lady on the corner at the end of our block,
Standing over a massive Golden Retriever, who is lying too still and in a strange posture.
At first I thought she was just brushing him, because there was fur on the ground in clumps.
I smile and leave, she smiles back.
Then I realize that there is something wrong.
So I go back.

The dog is Fifteen
The dog has collapsed
The woman who I saw walking away when I first pulled up is the dogs owner
The dog had collapsed
She went to go around the corner to the veterinarian.
The dog is Fifteen
The dog feels like he weighs a hundred pounds.

We put the dog on a blanket, and put him in the back of my truck
I drive the lady and the dog around the corner to the veterinarian

We bring the dog in to be weighed.
We bring the dog into the little room to await the vet.
I wait outside.
I do not know the woman, the dog, nor either of their names.
I play with a cat, (who lives there, one of four,) with coffee stirrers and tissues.
A crazy Dog Lady, (actually much like a crazy cat lady, but with more remarks about how the police chief had a fourteen year old girlfriend once upon a time.
-and the Billy Graham Crusade
-and how they shorted her on meds
-and how... jeeze I forget whatother stuff she was mixing in...
she babbles on and on
and she's mad
mad as hell and not going to take it anymore.
Her dog comes out.
Her dog is stoned as hell and is not going to take it anymore either.
Her dog is a huge old German Shepherd.

The crazy lady, after a while, (after being talked with by the doctor and the reception staff,)
Eventually leaves, (after they haul the dog (who is still stoned as hell,) up into the back of her Camary, (which is that gunmetal grey green color, -well, aside from the bowl of water she has on the roof...)
She has dirty hair, and used to work at the DMV.
And apparently the Police Chief used to have a fourteen year old girlfriend.
(I don't think the police chief went out with the girl from across the street... -but she seems to be going out with plenty of other people...)

It gets late
I watch Oprah
I play with the cat.
They give me a gift card for free Starbucks coffee...
I decline.. (though I say thanks and that it was a sweet offer..)
The lady comes out.
'They want me to put him to sleep.'
-...well, he is fifteen
...he's in pain, and he'd feel better if he was put to sleep.
(What the hell kind of statement is that... 'yeah, if he were dead he'd feel just great, in fact he'd probably want to just skip out here and pee on the leg of the crazy dog lady...)
She is going to put the dog down.

I wait longer.
I am not sure why I am waiting...
I mean, everybody is thanking me for waiting, (which is nice,) but I figure, I can't just leave some poor lady to have to put her dog down, who she's had for fifteen years, who weighs a ton, who looked up at me, just exhausted looking when I was petting him...
You don't leave a lady like that to have to leave a buliding like that alone, minus her dog, to walk home by herself...

Me and the cat play more.

She comes out, in tears, but not sobbing...
'How are you doing? I ask.'
'Um, I don't know exactly how to answer that right now... '
'I'm sorry... come on I'll walk you home..'

She called her daughter, but her daughter couldn't come
She called her friend but her friend couldn't come.
She was sort of half crying, and I explained, as guys do, (as if it helps...)

Well, he was fifteen, and that's a really long time for big breeds,
And He was obviously well loved, and that's what every dog wants, you know.
And he was Fifteen, which is like, two hundred in human years, which means, he probably has seen it all...
And he passed away in the spring, while the weather is still okay, because it gets so hot out here, and a big hairy dog like that, they get miserable in the heat...

Yeah... he hated the heat.
-Me too,
-Yeah, I hate the heat too...
-So we all agree... the dog escaped the heat...

I walk her to the corner,,,
I explain that I'm her neighbor, (try to explain where I live,) but it's all awkward
'Here I have my card,'
-and I write my phone number.
--it's upstate NY, but I live here now, right down there...

She thanks me, and walks to her place, I walk back to my truck around the buildings around the vet, and say goodbye to the cat who I played with in the window.

I go to buy gas

I drive home

I stop on the way,
at the corner
and pick up the clumps of dog fur
from on the ground
where the dog last lay

I figured, she's been through enough
Why make her come outside and have to see that.

I still don't know her name.