by Jim Kraus
It is a mile or two . . . maybe even more to the historic district.
He sat and considered his options.
Lewis could do it easy. I could do one way, easy. I’m not sure about the return trip.
George offered a half smile.
Just like real life. Halfway is easy. All the way back is hard.
The pair of them were taking their morning constitutional; Lewis after all, did not have the luxury of indoor facilities. A few streets down, rounding the corner in the RV park, came a blue and white, battered, noisy, small bus tilting a few degrees to the left. The destination lamp on the bus simply read “Town.”
Other than the driver, it was empty.
George flagged him down.
“You do mean Towanda, right?” he asked.
The driver, probably ten years older than George, nodded. His camouflaged baseball hat was tilted to the right side, most likely unintentional and not meant as a fashion statement.
“It’s a service we offer. Town and back. Five times a day. You tell me when to pick you up. I’ll be there. Not many people here today. Early in the season. Come summer, this bus will be full. And we’ll hold to a schedule.”
“Can I get my sketchbook back at the RV?”
“I’ll take you there.”
As they boarded the bus, Lewis looked askance at the rickety door and steps and climbed in with some deserved hesitation. The bus driver looked over and laughed, “The dog has to pay full fare. He’s a big one, ain’t he?”
George was halfway to reaching for his wallet until he realized the driver was simply making a joke—at Lewis’s expense. Lewis responded with a wuff and let the driver pet his head before making his way to the second seat.
“Good looking pup, there. He like to travel?”
“Seems to,” George replied. “We’ve only been on the road for a few days. Maybe it’ll change.”
The bus started with a lurch and a rattle.
“Oh, I don’t know, people are the way they are. I ’spect animals be the same way. Back when I was working—working for real, and not driving this bus—my boss would go to meetings all the time. Training, he said. Seminars and the like. Said they were for making him a better boss. You know what? He never changed. He stayed exactly the same. Scatterbrained, sloppy, and disorganized. Always wanted to tell my boss’s boss somebody was wasting their money. But it weren’t my place to tell the truth ’bout things.”
The bus groaned as it leaned into a sharp turn.
“You’re in the black one, right? Snazzy. I like the way your unit looks. Not the usual boring colors.”
George hurried inside to gather his things, including a small folding stool with a shoulder strap. He had already organized his sketchpad and pens in an artist’s shoulder bag, each pen in its own small holder.
Need the stool. Have to sit down to draw.
Lewis stood in the aisle of the bus waiting for George to return.
I would swear he had a nervous look in his eyes.
“Lewis, I would never leave you. Never.”
Lewis was about to respond with a wuff but then stopped himself and stared hard at George as he sat down.
“You don’t believe me?”
Lewis hesitated, then responded.
Wuff.
* * *
Towanda proved to be a worthy stop, chock-full of all sorts of old buildings, most of them meticulously maintained and still in use. The two of them, George and Lewis, walked along the streets in the historic district for a while, and George took mental notes of the buildings he wanted to sketch.
He found a spot in the shade of an old bank building, erected in 1895, and unfolded his stool and sat down. It gave him a perfect view of the building across the street.
Lewis watched him carefully, then sat down as well, grinning slightly, just a foot or two away.
“You enjoying this, Lewis?”
Wuff.
“Good. My daughter, Tess, you met her . . .”
Wuff. Wuff.
“She said I should just take pictures. She said it would be so much easier. And they would be in color. She said I could use a digital camera or something. I could even use the tablet thing they bought me.”
George opened his sketchbook to the first page.
“I don’t know, Lewis. Anyone can take a picture. Drawing something makes you see what you’re looking at—in detail. You have to pay attention. Pictures would be too easy. And if I were taking pictures, we would be done now, and then what would we do?”
Wuff.
“Like I said, I don’t want to start trying to decide on which early-bird special I want to have. Not just yet anyhow.”
Wuff.
The pair of them sat opposite of the Keystone Theater, formerly Hale’s Opera House. George took out a black Copic Multinier SP pen, expressly designed for rendering and detailing sketches. George had researched the market before buying the pen, as he did with virtually all new purchases. The pens came in various colors and point sizes, all would produce a fine line, with no bleeding. All boasted waterproof pigment in the ink.
George liked precision. He liked control.
George uncapped a black ink pen. Lewis sat just in the sunshine, his head titled back, his eyes closed, and a slight canine smile on his face, his body radiating contentment. His nose quivered a little as he sniffed, obviously enjoying the scents of this town.
George drew a precise straight vertical line, marking one side of the building, then another horizontal line for the foundation. He looked back up at his subject and then drew again. In the span of only a few minutes and a few dozen pen strokes, he had the building framed in, roofline to sidewalk, windows positioned, even the newer theatrical marquee over the entrance was drafted in with elegant clarity. He leaned closer to the paper as he drew the individual bulbs framing the marquee—a feature no doubt added when the building was transformed from an opera house to a movie house in the 1930s.
He straightened up and looked down, then back at the building.
“Not bad, so far.”
Lewis opened his eyes and looked over. George tilted the pad to him. Lewis wuffed softly, appreciatively.
George returned to drawing, adding in more and more detail, hints of the brickwork. He drew a small patch of individual bricks in the bottom corner. It would take too long to draw all the bricks, so this was a reference point. He drew in the windows, the sills, the cornices. He added the keystone bearing the date of construction: 1888.
He stopped, stretched his back, and smiled.
A voice from behind startled both George and Lewis.
“Man, this is cool. Are you like an artist or something?”
George and Lewis both turned at the same time to see a young man, a tad scruffy, a few day’s growth of whiskers, or more depending on his ability to produce whiskers, wearing a dark zippered hooded sweatshirt and frayed jeans. Underneath his sweatshirt was a white shirt, both collar buttons unbuttoned.
It could stand to be ironed, George thought, but I guess it’s the way young people wear them these days.
The young man was smiling broadly.
“No. Not an artist. This is sort of a . . .”
What is it? Something to leave behind so I can let my daughter know where I’ve been and what I thought was important? A promise I made to . . .
“. . . it’s sort of a hobby. Drawing old buildings.”
“Wow. You get paid for this, or what? You should. It’s cool . . . I mean good. Like something you would buy in some fancy store or something.”
George nodded in appreciation.
“Well, thank you. But it’s just a hobby.”
The young man apparently just noticed Lewis, hidden in plain sight.
“Wow, it’s some dog you got. Is he, like, for protection?”
Puzzled, George replied, “Protection? From what?”
“I dunno. Like maybe it keeps people from stealing your stuff. Like your drawings or something? I wouldn’t ste
al anything with him around, for sure.”
“No, no protection. Although I admit his size can be intimidating. But Lewis is just along for the ride. He likes to get out and meet people.”
George glanced over to Lewis, who appeared to be smiling with a beatific sort of serene smile.
So this is how it is going to be with you around? George thought to himself.
George thought he noticed Lewis nod, nearly imperceptibly. Maybe not, but there it was.
The young man hesitated a minute, looking deeply at Lewis who was staring back at him.
“Is he friendly?”
“Extremely.”
The young man slowly went to one knee and waited for Lewis to take a step toward him. Then he carefully patted him on the head and scratched at the fur on his neck.
“Used to have a dog. Then my parents split up, and they said the dog went to live on some farm. I think they dumped him, actually.”
Lewis wuffed and snorted at the same time, a sort of almost angry snorf.
“Yeah, it was a rotten thing to do. And I was just a little kid back then.”
George wondered if he should keep on drawing.
Have a plan. Stick to the schedule.
He pivoted back and continued to add details to the drawing, framing in the doors on the street level, shading the glass nearly black.
“You like an architect or something? It’s good—what you’re drawing, I mean.”
George kept on working.
“No. I was an engineer.”
“Like an engineer who builds buildings?”
George offered a slight laugh. “No. I designed pumps for plastic sheet extrusion machines—they’re for making plastic trays for food. No buildings. But I always wanted to design a building. Something big.”
“You, like, made the trays for Oreo cookies?”
“I don’t think Nabisco used our machines, but we did make equipment to make products like that.”
“Well, it’s still pretty cool,” the young man replied. “And your dog is pretty cool. What’s his name again?”
“Lewis.”
“It’s a cool name. Lewis. Like the explorer, right?”
George was about to tell him the story of Alex and allergies and how he reluctantly became the dog’s traveling companion and all the rest but knew it would be too long and complicated.
“Yes, like the explorer.”
“Cool. I like history and other old stuff, too.”
The young man watched a moment more as George added another layer of detail to his drawing.
“By the way, I’m Parker. I guess the name’s not after anyone. Well, maybe it is. Parker Stevenson, my mom told me once, but I’m not even sure who he was. Nobody famous like Lewis, for sure. My girlfriend said he was on some TV show. The Parker guy, I mean.”
“And I’m George. And you have met Lewis.”
The sketch was nearing completion. Somewhere George read knowing where to stop was as critical as knowing where to begin. He pulled the pen back and looked at the building again, then back to the drawing. He added a few curved lines above the building to suggest clouds—but just a few.
Enough.
He capped the pen and put it back in the sleeve in the bag.
“You done? You’re good. And fast.”
“Thank you, Parker. You were a good audience.”
Parker nodded.
“Hey, George, you have lunch yet?”
George turned in his chair.
What an odd question from a stranger.
“I mean . . . well, why I’m asking is I’m sort of a waiter. Not sort of. I am a waiter. At least for the time being. So I get a free lunch before my shift starts. I could split it with you and all. Maybe you might want to draw the place where I work.”
Again . . . odd.
“Parker, it’s kind of you . . . but I have Lewis with me. Most restaurants probably would not believe he was a Seeing Eye dog.”
Parker’s face showed a flash of incredulity, as if he thought, if only for a second, George was actually blind and needed a Seeing Eye dog. Then his face brightened, realizing George was not being literal.
“Oh, yeah, well, taking Lewis would be okay. We can eat outside on the back deck. People bring dogs there all the time.”
24
Five minutes later, the three of them were sitting at a picnic table behind the Firehouse Restaurant and Bar, housed in, of all places, a former firehouse with two brick turrets framing the front of the structure and the two doors once used to house the fire trucks. As they walked there, Parker talked more with Lewis than George, explaining to the dog he’s a waiter, he dropped out of the local community college, and he’s not sure what to do with his life in general.
Lewis kept up his end of the conversation by wuffing and snorting at what seemed to be the most appropriate moments.
“I usually get a burger and fries. They’re tasty, but maybe you want something else . . .?”
“Parker, please get your free meal. I’ll get my own burger . . . or whatever,” he said, and then whispered, “Lewis will probably want to taste mine and he’s got a big appetite. So we don’t have to share, okay?”
“It’s okay by me, George.”
When the hamburgers were served, Lewis stood, sniffing deeply. The waiter, another scruffy young man in a white shirt, looking much like Parker, brought out a separate plastic basket with a fully cooked hamburger patty in it.
“The cook dropped it on the floor. I thought it was clean enough to serve, but the cook is all worried about the health department and stuff. So, he was going to throw it out. I thought Lewis might like it.”
Parker had introduced the new waiter to Lewis and George.
Lewis visibly smiled, or at least George thought he did.
George divided the dropped burger into sixths and fed Lewis a section every few minutes. Lewis would have wolfed down the entire burger in under three seconds if George had let him. George imagined eating slowly would be healthier and better for the digestion, and inhaling food was purely an instinctual remnant from the eons dogs had spent in the wild, chowing down on moose or mastodon, or whatever, making sure they had eaten enough before an even bigger dog came along and took the carcass away from them.
Lewis was grinning his St. Bernard grin, content, satisfied, aware, happy, at peace.
It was then, as he looked at the calm face of Lewis, George felt a sudden jolt of awareness—an awareness . . . no, a need, a need to ask Parker questions.
Just questions for now. He wants to talk. He wants to have a father.
George looked over at Lewis whose tongue was busy making sure all the good hamburger grease was off his whiskers and face.
So where did the thought come from? A father? Lewis—was it you? Or maybe it was Hazel nudging me . . .
George did not like to think about Hazel—not when it was simply a passing thought, a glancing image. To George, the brevity felt disrespectful of her memory. And George was not the sort of man who could believe in spirits and nudges from the great beyond. And he also did not believe in nudges from a large, furry, contented, and full St. Bernard.
Even more ridiculous. But it’s sort of what it felt like. A little nudge.
He watched Parker watch him. There was an air of hopefulness in his eyes, of wanting something he did not know he wanted.
Regardless of who it was . . . I heard it. Or felt it.
George took a deep breath.
And I might as well go along with it. After all, I’m babysitting a St. Bernard. How much more ridiculous can my life and this journey get?
“So, what did you study in college . . . when you were going?” George asked, trying not to stammer.
I’m not used to asking questions and pretending to be interested in people.
“Nothing much in particular. Just the intro courses everybody has to take. Intro to writing. Some stupid humanities course no one liked or understood. A math thing as well. And other stuff.”
“But where were you going with it? Is there anything you wanted to do?”
I don’t like this, George thought to himself as he asked the young man questions. Hazel would have loved it. She would have known his favorite color by now and his grandmother’s maiden name. I’m just not good at it. Being empathetic isn’t in my genes, I guess.
Parker shrugged and dragged a thicket of French fries through a puddle of ketchup in his basket. He chewed, looking thoughtful, then shrugged again.
“Don’t know. Like . . . why did you become an engineer and all?”
George used to have a practiced answer to the question, though it had not been asked of him for decades now.
“I was good at math. I liked precision. Engineering is a steady job. And I wanted to get married and have a family.”
It’s what I used to say—and meant it. Now, I’m not so sure. The way it worked out, the way my life wound up—well, it isn’t what I had signed up for at the beginning.
“See,” Parker said, gesturing with another thicket of fries, “it’s why you guys back then had it easy. You knew what you wanted. You knew how to get there. I don’t know any of this stuff. Back then, everyone knew stuff. Everyone knew where to go.”
George gave another section of the burger to Lewis, who made it disappear almost without bothering to chew it.
“You said you had a girlfriend. What about her?” George asked, and he tried to hide the fact that he really did not care about Parker’s girlfriend, but it seemed like the right question to ask.
Lewis wuffed in response and looked over to George and offered him a slightly greasy, hamburger-pattified smile.
“It may be the problem. I dunno. Like she just decided she wants to go to some beautician school over in Erie. It’s like two hundred miles away. She says it’s only for a year. She says she wants to open her own place when she’s done. Already has a name for it: Carol’s Cute Cut, Color, and Dye. I said it was stupid because color and dye are sort of the same thing. She says I’m being stupid and it’s a cute name.”
George took a napkin and wiped at his hands.
“You don’t want her to go?”