To Dance With the White Dog Read online

  Late in the afternoon the rain thinned to a mist, and he called Neal Lewis to ask about Hattie’s funeral.

  “We went ahead with it, Sam,” Neal said. “Never saw such a rain. Never in my life. I couldn’t even look down in the hole. I knew it was half-full.”

  “Sorry I couldn’t make it over,” he said. “Nobody was here to drive me out.”

  “It was best you didn’t,” Neal told him. “Old people like us, we don’t need to be out in such a rain. But I’m coming over to see you before long, like I said I was.”

  “I want you to do that, Neal,” he said. “Come over for the day.”

  “You come to see me, too, Sam.”

  “Maybe I will one of these days,” he said.

  Kate called before sundown and, minutes later, Carrie called. Both wanted to know if he would have dinner with them. He refused both offers, telling them he was not hungry, but he was, and he decided he would bake fresh biscuits and have biscuits and molasses.

  It would not be hard to bake biscuits, he thought. He had sat at the kitchen table hundreds of times and watched her at the cabinet, her hands flashing over the dough, and it did not seem a hard thing to do. He knew the ingredients she used.

  He stood at the cabinet and took the wood mixing bowl and scooped three cups of flour from the flour bin, and then he measured out two teaspoons of baking powder and a teaspoon of baking soda and a teaspoon of salt and he mixed it together with his hands. Then he took up a palmful of shortening from the can and dropped it into the middle of the flour mixture, but it did not seem enough and he added another palmful and he began to knead the shortening and flour mixture together, but it was greasy and stuck to his hands.

  The dog watched him from the doorway leading into the middle room. “Don’t think I know what I’m doing, do you?” he said to the dog. “Think I forgot about the buttermilk, don’t you?” He had forgotten, and talking to the dog reminded him. He pulled across the room on his walker and took the buttermilk from the refrigerator and returned to the cabinet and began to pour the milk over the wad of dough. “Ought to be enough,” he judged aloud. “Can’t be that hard to make biscuits.” He kneaded the buttermilk into the shortening-and-flour mixture and the dough became like glue, sticking to his fingers. “Need some more flour,” he said profoundly to the dog. The dog tilted her head curiously.

  He worked for another thirty minutes with the dough, adding flour and buttermilk and shortening until it caked on his fingers, and then he decided the dough was firm enough and he rolled it out on waxed paper and cut it with the cutter. He had fifty-two biscuits. “Great God,” he said in amazement. “I just wanted two or three.”

  The biscuits were not eatable. They were flat and hard and were colored a murky yellow. He put one in front of the dog and the dog sniffed and looked up at him sadly and trotted away. “Don’t know what’s good, do you?” he said. He wiped butter across the top of two of the biscuits and poured molasses over them and cut one with his knife and tasted it. He spit the biscuit from his mouth and sat at the table and laughed silently.

  She would be laughing, too, he thought. Or scowling. Thinking him an old fool for trying to do something that she had done with ease. Got to get one of the girls to show me how to cook biscuits, he decided. Can’t be that hard.

  He disposed of the biscuits and cooked an egg with sausage for his supper and an egg for the dog, and was washing the dishes he had used when he saw the light beams from a car striking at the window above the sink. He struggled hurriedly on his walker to the middle room where the dog lay sleeping.

  “Come on,” he said to the dog. “Go get under the bed.” He opened the door to his bedroom and waved, and the dog seemed to understand what he wanted and she trotted quickly to his bed and slipped beneath it. He heard the door to the back porch open.

  “Daddy?”

  It was Kate.

  “In here,” he answered.

  She came into the middle room, holding a tray of food. “Got you some black-eyed peas and tomato gravy,” she said. “Noah said I should bring it out to you.”

  “You can put it in the stove,” he said. “I had some eggs.”

  She looked at him suspiciously. “You all right?” she asked.

  “Don’t I look all right?” he said.

  “You look fine. But why are you standing there?”

  “I was about to go to bed,” he said quickly.

  “This early? You tired?”

  “Thought I’d rest awhile and then watch the TV,” he replied.

  “Oh,” she said. “I’ll put this up.” She turned to the kitchen and then looked back at him. “Smells like biscuits in here,” she said. “Were you cooking biscuits?”

  “No. I heated up some you left out here yesterday. They burned a little bit.”

  “I can bring out some more in the morning.”

  “Guess maybe it’s time I learned how to do it myself. You can come out here and make some and show me how.”

  “You don’t have to cook biscuits, Daddy, or anything. I’m right out the road, and Carrie, too.”

  “Rather do it myself,” he said stiffly.

  “Fine,” Kate said. “I’ll show you how in the morning.” She went into the kitchen, and he followed her.

  “Didn’t see my dog anywhere out there, did you?” he asked.

  She tried not to look at him. “No, I didn’t,” she said.

  “Maybe she drowned,” he said easily. “Maybe the rain just washed her away.”

  “How do you know it’s a she?” Kate asked.

  “She is,” he replied. “She’s been with me. Props her paws up here on the brace and walks with me. We go dancing. She’s a she. I can tell.”

  “Daddy.” There was exasperation in Kate’s voice.

  He wrote in his journal:

  It rained hard all day, except in the afternoon. I missed Hattie Lewis’s funeral, but it was too wet to go and nobody was here to drive me. But I enjoyed the day, being alone most of it. White Dog came in the house and stayed with me. She’s got good sense for a stray dog. Wouldn’t touch the biscuits I cooked. I missed Cora today, maybe more than any day since she died. I used to like being with her when it rained. When we were first married and living in Tampa, we would sleep close on days and nights when it rained. I loved her deeply.

  That night he dreamed of Hattie Lewis, a seventy-year leap across his memory. It was summer, a green day, the sun clear as ice. He was standing alone watching a game of tag in the church yard. The church was almost new. His father had built it.

  “Are you playing?” Hattie asked. She had blonde hair with sharp blue eyes that laughed with their own voices.

  “No,” he said.

  “Why not?”

  “Just not, that’s all.”

  “Did your daddy build this church? Somebody said he did.”

  He nodded proudly.

  “My daddy said your daddy was dead. Said he died last year. And your mama. She’s dead, too, my daddy said.”

  He nodded again.

  “What’s it like, your mama and daddy being dead?”

  “I—I don’t know.”

  “I wouldn’t like it. I’d be sad,” she said.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Did you help your daddy build the church?” she asked.

  “I picked up nails.”

  “Come on and play.” She ran off, stopped and looked back at him. “Come on.”

  “I will in a minute,” he said. He looked up at the church his father had built. It was the largest building he had ever seen. It looked cool. He thought he could see his father on a scaffolding, nailing boards. He heard Hattie laugh, saw her dodge the swiping hand of Oscar Beatenbo, saw her hair floating in the green day.

  The dream jumped. Another day. Autumn. Colored leaves. Red, gold, brown. Colored leaves ankle deep in the schoolyard. He handed Hattie the comb he had bought for her. She blushed, smiled, her eyes glittering. He could hear Oscar’s voice, “Where’d you get that comb, H
attie? Where’d you get it?”

  9

  On the Monday following the rain and Hattie Lewis’s funeral, he slept late, and when he awoke he discovered Kate in the kitchen drinking coffee and reading from his Sunday newspaper.

  “You ready to learn how to make biscuits?” she asked.

  “Can’t be that hard,” he said.

  “Come on and have some coffee and I’ll show you,” Kate said.

  He watched Kate make the biscuits and had her write down in sequence what she had done, and when she left he repeated the sequence and the biscuits were good. He was pleased. Not at all hard to do. He mixed a bowl of milk and fresh biscuits and put it on the steps of the porch for White Dog.

  The day was cooler, and he went outside in the late morning and took his hoe from his truck and began to cut away weeds from the nandinas growing at the foundation of his house. He felt rested and strong. The heat of the work surged through his muscles and in his mind he was again young.

  He was resting in the shade of a pecan tree when Carrie crossed the lawn from her house.

  “Daddy, it’s going to get hot out here,” Carrie warned. “You know how it gets after it rains and the sun’s out. You better not stay out here too long.”

  “I’m fine. Still cool out.”

  “It is right now, but you know how it gets when the sun’s out,” Carrie repeated.

  “I don’t plan to take root out here,” he said. “Just wanted to get rid of some of those weeds while the ground was soft.”

  Carrie nodded an understanding. She looked sadly at the nandinas. “Mama loved those nandinas,” she said softly. “I remember breaking one when I was little. She made me bring one of the limbs to her, and she whipped me with it.”

  He did not answer.

  “Kate said she showed you how to make biscuits,” Carrie said.

  “I could of done it,” he replied. “I thought if one of you didn’t show me how, you’d think I was killing myself. Nothing to making biscuits. I used to do it all the time.”

  “Well, you’ll only need a few a day,” Carrie said.

  “I got my dog to feed,” he told her.

  “I thought that dog had run off, Daddy.”

  He looked at Carrie. She had a puzzled, pitying expression on her face. “Run off?” he said. He looked across the yard to the pasture fence. “She’s right over yonder, by the fence.”

  Carrie looked quickly toward his nodding face. She could not see anything. “Daddy, there’s no dog over there.”

  “Well, one of us is blind, and it’s not me,” he said. He called for the dog. “Come on, girl. Come on.”

  “Daddy, I don’t see nothing.”

  “My Lord, Carrie, there she comes, plain as day,” he exclaimed. He leaned forward over his walker and clapped his hands playfully and pretended that a dog was running toward him. He laughed easily. “Look at that,” he said. “Got her paws up on the walker.” He rubbed the air at the top brace and cupped an imaginary head in his hands. “That’s a good girl. Come on, now, take a step. That’s it. That’s it.” He moved the walker backward and then forward. “You’re dancing.” He looked at Carrie and beamed. “You ever see a dog dance?”

  Carrie’s face was ashen. Her mouth tightened at the lips. She stared fearfully at her father. “I—I got to go, Daddy,” she whispered.

  “You ever see a dog that white, Carrie?”

  “I—I got to go.”

  Carrie turned and walked away rapidly, hugging herself, her head down. He knew what she was thinking: He’s crazy. And he knew she would rush to the telephone and call Kate, and the two would weep woefully because their father thought he saw a white dog that could dance with him. And he knew that Carrie and Kate would call their sisters and brothers and say, “We’ve got to do something. He’s getting worse.”

  He imagined the conversations.

  “He’s missing Mama and he’s making up things.”

  “Old people get that way.”

  “He won’t go to a doctor. You know he won’t.”

  “I can’t stand to see him that way.”

  The next day, as he worked again outside with his hoe, Kate and Carrie told him they could see White Dog.

  “You’re right, Daddy, that’s the whitest dog I ever saw.”

  “Can I touch her, Daddy? You think she’d let me touch her?”

  “What’s the matter with the two of you?” he said. “I don’t see no dog.”

  “Why, right over there, Daddy, down by the barn,” Kate said hesitantly.

  He knew they had agreed among themselves to humor him, to say they could see the dog. “Guess you must be seeing things,” he said. “My dog’s in the house, sleeping under my bed.” It was the truth, but he knew they would not believe him.

  “Well, I—I thought I saw something white,” Kate stammered.

  “Wadn’t my dog,” he said firmly, covering a smile. “Might of been a bear. I saw a white bear one time in a circus. Polar bear. They had him sitting in a tub of ice.”

  Kate stared at her father, then turned her eyes to Carrie, signaling despair.

  “How you feeling today, Daddy?” asked Carrie.

  “I’m all right,” he said.

  “You’re not lightheaded or anything, are you?” asked Kate.

  “Lightheaded?”

  “Well, you know what I mean, Daddy,” Kate said quickly. “I get that way in this kind of weather.”

  “Not me,” he said. “You get lightheaded, you better go see a doctor.”

  “Maybe I will,” Kate replied. She glanced knowingly at Carrie, then looked away. “As a matter of fact, Daddy, why don’t you go in for a checkup with me? It’s been a long time since you had one. I can take you tomorrow.”

  He looked from Kate to Carrie but did not reply.

  “There’s a new doctor over in Athens, Daddy, and I hear he’s really good,” Carrie said tentatively. “Mostly he just talks to people. They say he can find out more about a person’s health by talking than by poking around over the body.”

  “Sounds like a head doctor to me,” he said.

  “He …” Kate began, then stopped. She looked at Carrie.

  “You think I need a head doctor?” he asked bluntly.

  “No, Daddy, that’s not it,” Carrie whined. “We just thought if you needed to talk to somebody …”

  “I don’t.” He could see confusion and fear in the faces of his daughters.

  “We just thought we’d ask about a checkup,” Kate said quietly.

  “I’ll think about it,” he said.

  Carrie looked beyond him, toward the barn. She blurted suddenly, “Daddy, I’ve got some dog food out at the house. Why don’t I bring it out for your dog?”

  He could see tears in her eyes. His daughters did not know it was a harmless game that he was playing with them. Someday he would tell them that he had only been pretending, playing with them. Someday they would see White Dog.

  In the heat of the late afternoon, he wrote in his journal:

  When they were small, I could not play games with my children. There was always work to do. I did not throw baseballs to my sons as other men did. I did not build doll houses for my daughters. There was never enough time. It was sunup-to-sundown work. My children did not know that I had once played games myself. One year I won a contest at the Crimson Clover Festival, climbing the greased flagpole. I was 15, I think (that would have made it 1907). The same year I won a footrace at the county fair. I remember that race because nobody thought I had a chance to win and one of my older brothers (Carl) tried to get me to back out of it. The only person to give me any real competition that day was Horace Brown and I beat him by two steps. He told me later that he had never been beaten in a footrace and we became friends until his death. I did not run another footrace after that, even with Horace urging me to do so. He said I should try for the Olympics and I used to dream about that. Sometimes when I see the Olympics on the TV, I wonder if I could have made it if I had tried. Tha
t would have been something to remember forever. I liked playing baseball in the cow pastures when I was a child. We used dried-up cow droppings to mark off the bases. I was not very good at baseball, however, because I had bad eyes even then. One time I met Ty Cobb and I remember his eyes. They were clear and sharp and I knew that he had been blessed with good vision, which was why he was such a good hitter. But I never wanted to be like Ty Cobb. He turned out mean. The few games that I played, I enjoyed, as all children enjoy play. But I was not a child for long. I had to grow up fast after my father died. Being passed along from house to house of older brothers and other kin, I knew I had to get out on my own. I am now playing a game with my children—especially Kate and Carrie—though I suspect they are not enjoying it. They cannot see White Dog and they think I am making her up. I am at times. Someday, they’ll see her and they’ll know it was all a game and I can tell them the truth and we’ll laugh about it.

  10

  It was now an obsession with the sisters and they talked constantly to one another over the telephone about their father.

  Kate: “You know what’s going to happen, don’t you? Somebody’s going to stop in to pay him a visit, to pay their respects because of Mama—somebody like the preacher—and Daddy’s going to start bragging about some white dog that’s not even there, and it’ll get out that he’s crazy like old man Bobo Ward. You wait. Every time we go somewhere there’ll be people looking at us pitiful-like, like the whole lot of us have lost our senses.”

  Carrie: “I know it. I keep thinking the same thing. Poor old man Bobo Ward. Last time I saw him he was walking down the road in his long-handle underwear with the bottom unbuttoned and his butt showing. I told you about that. Poor old man. I saw that daughter of his later, up in town. She was in the drugstore buying him some medicine, and I couldn’t even look at her, I felt so sorry. When she left, they were saying it took the sheriff to get old man Bobo home. Said he was about to drive everybody in the family up the walls. They just don’t know what to do with him.”

  Kate: “That’s what they’re going to be saying about us.”

  Carrie: “At least Daddy’s not walking around in his long handles with his butt-flap down.”