Nop's Trials by Donald Mccaig

Author:Donald Mccaig
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781497619951
Publisher: Open Road Media

TEN

Strays

“What kind of a man is that? What kind of a man? Oh, this noise, this shouting.” She pressed her hands to her ears. Nop cocked his head, curiously.

She looked and smelled like an old woman. Her sorrowful feet burst through the sides of her tennis shoes and her red hair lay flat and wispy against her skull.

“Such a man. Such a terrible man. To bring a doggy here, to my resting place; my place by the warm grate from Holman’s Bakery and raise the club high up and smash the garbage. Crazy world.” She rocked and moaned.

Nop lay where Hack had pushed him down, belly flat on the cobblestones. The leash was wrapped around the dumpster leg, and scattered, flattened garbage lay where Hack had killed it with crushing blows. Nop was panting. He knew the blows had been meant for him.

She looked like a pile of rags. Like she was no more than one of her own flopping, bulging shopping bags. Her eyes were green and shot with redness and tired.

“Doggy, what am I to do? Perhaps the crazy will come back? With crazies, you never can tell.” She shook an admonitory finger at Nop, who responded with a weak wag of his tail. She was rattling on—rudely awakened and terrified by the senseless attack on the privacy she’d reserved for herself among the overflowing garbage cans and trash. “Doggy. Doggy. I had a nice doggy once. I called … I can’t remember what I called the doggy. Jack hated the doggy.” She leaned close to confide, “Jack was the one took my doggy up on the roof and threw him off, though he always claimed it was an accident that my doggy just wandered too close to the edge.” She paused. “You have the same eyes my doggy had. Kind and sweet.”

She rolled onto her hands and knees and pushed, arthritically, to her feet. “I ain’t stayin’ here,” she said, shaking her head vigorously. “No siree. This was a place once: safe and warm, and I haven’t been attacked in this neighborhood but it’s ruined now.” She rubbed the place off her hands. “Ruined,” she said, passing final judgment.

She hooked the twine handles of her bags on her arms—she adjusted herself.

“What day is it?” she asked Nop. “If it’s Thursday, I’ll have my SSI check at the Belvedere, but if it’s Wednesday, I’ll make the trip for nothing and I hate that. Well, I won’t name names, but that Negro behind the desk, he’s as bad as my husband Jack. Worse!”

Nop didn’t know what day it was but he wagged again, vigorously, to show his concern. She paid him no mind, just walked on past, tottering on the uneven cobblestones.

Though Nop whined, she didn’t turn around. When she turned out of the alley, he barked. He jerked on his lead, jerked again. He dug at the leash with his claws and the hurried knot fell apart. Nop raced after the woman he’d chosen, his metal leash bouncing and jangling behind him.

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