by Jim Kraus
I won’t, but if I were to give up the lease . . . there are people who might worry about it.
He didn’t think they would, but George did not like to take chances.
Maybe Tess would find out. I don’t want her to worry. I have made up my mind. It will be better this way. Whatever is left here, can all go to charity.
George even sold his car.
I’ve got the RV now. It will get me to where I’m going.
* * *
George pulled into the Burdens’ driveway to collect his passenger.
I’m not sold on this whole take-the-dog-along thing. But if it doesn’t work out, I can ship Lewis back. Mrs. Burden said, “If you have to, you have to.” While I know he will be sort of a problem, it will also be sort of nice to have someone to talk to while I’m driving. And he does seem to enjoy riding in cars. Or RVs.
He put the emergency brake on and stepped out. Trudy and Lyle were already outside. They both looked apprehensive. Nervous. And a little sad.
“All we all set?”
Trudy wiped at her eyes, which were red from either crying or allergies.
“We are. Alex is packing Lewis’s bag.”
George walked closer to them and lowered his voice.
“Is Alex okay? I mean, it is his dog and all. He’s okay with him leaving like this?”
Trudy shrugged.
“I don’t know, Mr. Gibson . . . George. He says he is. But he loves the dog. He hasn’t cried at all. I don’t know what to believe. He’s the one who should be all emotional about this—and instead, it’s me.”
George was just about to tell Trudy he understood, it was the same way with his wife. When she passed he hardly felt anything, and the people who were farthest from the pain and suffering were the ones who cried and wailed the most. George wanted to tell her, but he did not.
It’s not my place.
The door opened, and Alex and Lewis walked out. They did not seem upset or angry or sad.
Lewis grinned at George as if he was greeting an old friend.
Alex extended his hand.
“Hello, Mr. Gibson,” Alex said as George shook his small hand.
“Hello, Alex.”
Alex looked up at him.
“We talked it over, Mr. Gibson.”
George tilted his head and looked over at Trudy.
“No, me and Lewis . . . we talked it over.”
“Oh. Okay.”
“And Lewis wants to go with you.”
George tried not to appear surprised.
“Did he tell you so?” George asked.
“Sort of. I said it out loud,” Alex explained. “If it was a lie, Lewis would have known and he would have let me know. He knows he’s going away for a while. But it’s okay.”
Alex wiped at his nose with his sleeve. If he was trying not to cry, he was doing an excellent job of it. His eyes were just a bit watery, but they were the same way the last time George visited.
“It’s the allergies,” Alex said. “And the shots will make it better.”
But today, Alex motioned George closer.
George leaned over and then sort of went to one knee.
“I have to tell you a secret,” Alex said.
“What sort of secret?” George asked.
“I’m not sure if my mom knows this. But you can’t lie to Lewis. He doesn’t like it.”
George nodded as if this quality were standard issue in dogs.
“Will he bite me if I lie?”
Alex almost laughed, but it sounded like a stifled giggle.
“No. Lewis does not bite. Ever,” Alex declared. “Never ever. It’s just he will . . . well, he will just be . . . disappointed. You’ll know.”
“I will?”
“Yes. Lewis can tell when someone lies, and you’ll know right away when Lewis is disappointed. You will see it in his eyes. Maybe his whole face.”
“Really?” George asked.
From the corner of his eye, he could see Lewis watching, and George could have sworn he was nodding the whole time Alex explained about Lewis and the truth.
“I don’t know why Lewis is this way, but it’s the truth.”
“Okay,” George said. “I won’t lie.”
Alex looked over at his dog. “Maybe it is just me. But I think it’s Lewis.”
George nodded, then felt nearly compelled to put his hand on Alex’s shoulder.
“Will you be sad we are leaving? Are you sad?”
Alex nodded this time.
“I am. But just a little. Lewis will have a good time.”
Alex leaned in closer to George.
“Here’s the real secret, Mr. Gibson. I think Lewis is supposed to go on this trip. We talked about it last night, and I am pretty sure Lewis thinks he has to go with you. Like there’s a reason for it. I don’t know what it is. I don’t think Lewis knows either. But . . . you know, we’re okay with him going.”
George did not have a reply.
Alex brightened a little. “And he’ll be back. It’s kind of like Lewis is going to summer camp . . . and it lasts a year. He’ll be back. And I’ll be here. And he’ll have a good time.”
* * *
As the two of them talked, as Alex shared his secret, Lewis bounded off, back into the house. In a moment, he came back outside, dragging a ragged satchel.
“He’s got his toys in there, Mr. Gibson. We packed it last night. He’s got his squirrel and his porcupine and a bag of crunchies and a big chew bone.”
George stood.
“Good. And I bought him a bowl for his food and water made just for an RV—it doesn’t slide around on the floor or spill. And I got Lewis a seat belt adapter. So he’ll be safer.”
It took a few minutes to put the harness around Lewis. He pranced around proudly once it was secure. Alex gave the interior of the RV a last-minute inspection.
Trudy watched her son and tried to keep her fears at bay, her fear this will be the last time Alex would see Lewis.
Alex bent down to Lewis and hugged him tightly.
“He needs someone to talk to, Lewis. You keep him company. You make him tell the truth, okay?”
Lewis answered with a series of heartfelt wuffs, and then he climbed into the passenger seat and allowed George to attach his harness to the seat belt.
“Well, time to go. I will call you tonight. And Alex, thanks for helping me figure out how to do the Skype stuff.”
“Bye, Mr. Gibson. And Lewis, take good care of Mr. Gibson.”
As George pulled out of the driveway, the three Burdens stood in a tight group, waving, and Alex called out, “Don’t forget me, Lewis. And behave.”
As the RV gathered speed and the Burdens disappeared in the background, George had an odd feeling, a feeling things would change.
“I don’t know what will change, Lewis. I’m too old for too much change, you know.”
Lewis wuffed in reply.
After a few minutes on the road, George glanced over at Lewis who was staring at him, not in an anxious way, nor angry, nor sad, but in a just curious manner, as if he was trying to decipher just who this person was who sat next to him and was piloting the RV.
“Lewis, what are you staring at?”
Lewis did not speak.
“Do I have something in my teeth?”
No response.
“Do you not want to leave Alex? Are you sad?”
No response.
George thought, just for a second, mentioning the name of Alex might cause a reaction. But it did not. Lewis remained implacable.
Then he wuffed once, and then once again, and then looked straight out the front window.
“I know it will be a long trip, Lewis. I know.”
Wuff.
“We’ll take it slow. And I know I like routine . . . but I can get used to driving and staying in different places. I can. Yes. I can.”
Wuff.
“Lewis,” George said and stretched out the sound of his name. “I said I was go
ing to do this, and I am, Lewis. I am.”
This is something I have to do. I promised her.
Wuff.
“Well, I can’t say more now. Not now. Maybe not ever.”
PART TWO
22
George had laid out his itinerary with military precision.
“This is the way things should be planned—so you know where you’ll be and when you’ll be. It’s important. Have a plan. Stay on schedule. Work your plan.”
If I knew how to needlepoint, I would needlepoint it—“STAY ON SCHEDULE.”
From Gloucester, George headed west. Rolled up in a cardboard tube, in a cabinet above the sink, was his “master map”—a four-by-three-foot map of the United States—with his intended route outlined in yellow highlighter. Many months prior, he had purchased two copies of the map. His first plotting, his initial stab at the best and most efficient cross-country route, had included a number of stops he no longer wanted to make and a series of stops he had added. “Too many dead ends.” This led to a hodgepodge of different routes on the first copy, with different colored markers and a plethora of confusing notes concerning stops and no-longer stops. The price of the second copy of the map was insignificant when compared to the neatness and precision of the final version.
When unrolled, George could follow the yellow line as he left the East Coast and moved westward. He could mark his stops with a red marker and chart his progress as he headed toward the Pacific.
He knew what lay in store. It offered him cold comfort—yet it was part of the plan, and staying on the plan was part of who George was.
“Stay on schedule. Have a plan.”
Since he and his wife had spent so much of their lives in or near Gloucester, they had also seen or visited most of the region’s highlights. Everything George wanted to see within a three-hundred-mile radius of Gloucester had already been seen. Some, many times.
“How often can you walk Boston’s Freedom Trail? When you were little, we must have gone to Boston a dozen times. You loved it.” George remarked to his daughter as he’d planned his trip. “I need to travel a ways until I run into something I haven’t seen before.”
It’s why his first real stop was Towanda, Pennsylvania.
He measured out the distance on his road map using a ruler.
“Right around four hundred miles. And in the RV, I can average fifty miles an hour, so the trip would take all day. Probably be too much for the first leg of a long trip.”
On the second day of the journey, having spent the previous night in an RV park right off the freeway, George was on a two-lane road coming up on the town from the south.
“You see, Lewis,” George explained as he made the turn the GPS system had recommended, “Towanda is an old city with lots of old buildings. I told you I was an engineer, didn’t I?”
Lewis glanced over at George and offered a polite wuff.
“The guidebooks said they have over four hundred buildings in their historic district—you know, in the Greek Revival and Queen Anne styles: banks and churches and even an opera house.”
Lewis looked over. George thought he offered a bored, semi-amused look, but then again, George thought he might be projecting too much human response onto his traveling companion.
“It’s why we’re going to stop here for a few days. I want to explore a bit. Maybe draw some of the buildings. Always wanted to have a sketchbook filled with interesting things. It would be something I could leave to my daughter. So she would know what was important to me. I don’t think I talked much about it when she was growing up. It was Hazel’s department. You know, what life was all about. How to live. What’s important. Those things. Things a parent teaches a child. I guess I didn’t do as much of it as she did. Hazel . . . she was the teacher.”
George stared ahead and concentrated on the road. When his wife’s name was mentioned, or even brought to mind—even now—he felt a coldness, an emptiness in his heart. He wondered if that emptiness would ever leave him, would ever be filled with something warm again.
“Did you know Towanda means ‘burial ground’ in the Algonquian language, Lewis? They were Indians . . . I guess, Native Americans is the more correct term.”
Lewis tilted his head at the words “burial ground,” almost as if he knew what the words meant and was a bit disturbed by them.
Of course, he doesn’t know what it means, George thought. And if I’m not careful, I’m going to start believing he understands what I’m saying. Instead of becoming one of those crazy cat ladies with fifty cats, I’ll become a crazy dog man, who insists that his precious dog understands every word spoken to him.
But the truth of the matter was, Lewis did appear to grasp certain words, or thoughts, or perhaps emotions. He nodded at the correct times, he wuffed at the right times, as if he was holding up his end of the conversation.
“Right, Lewis. Native Americans. They lived all around here.”
Lewis shook his head with great vigor, his jowls making small, wet, slapping sounds as he did. He then snorted twice and stared hard at George. He whimpered, just a note above silence, as if the dog wanted something but did not want anyone else to know about it.
“You need to stop?”
Wuff.
It was a soft, quiet wuff, sort of a sandpapery wuff, like the sound of fine grit sandpaper drawn against a flat wood surface.
“Okay. I’ll find a place.”
George realized, from the outset, that he needed to respect any request from Lewis for a break. Lewis, after all, was a large dog, and George’s RV was not.
George piloted the RV to a small, flat patch of grass and gravel on the side of the road. He unbuckled himself, then Lewis, and clambered over the center console and opened the side door. Lewis carefully stepped down.
George had the leash in hand, but Lewis looked back over his shoulder, with an expression clearly meaning, “Don’t bother. I’ll be quick.”
George shrugged.
“Well, if you say so. But stay on the grass, okay?”
Lewis was ready to come back in just a short moment.
Buckled back in, George said, “Okay, on to Towanda.”
Wuff.
This was louder and more comfortable, as if to say, “I’m ready now.”
* * *
Riverside Acres RV Park lived up to the implied promise of the name. George’s space was a stone’s throw from the Susquehanna River.
Lewis did not appear to like the river.
Upon descending from the RV, Lewis stared hard at the glistering waters, lit by the afternoon sun—hissing, burbling, rushing south—and barked at it, loudly, at least a dozen times. Then he looked back to George as if he were expecting some sort of explanation for this curious phenomenon.
“It’s a river, Lewis. It’s just water. A lot of water, but still . . .”
Lewis looked back at the river, then to George, then to the river, barked twice more, to be sure, to let this “river” know Lewis was on guard, then thoroughly sniffed his way around the RV and back to George who was sitting in the open side door, stretching his legs. Lewis sat down as well, positioning himself so he could see both George and the threatening waters at the same time, without having to move his head.
“Alex trained you well, didn’t he, Lewis?”
Wuff.
His wuff at Alex’s name always seemed happy and confident.
Lewis seldom walked more than a few feet away from George and never took off at a gallop, chasing some real or imagined prey. Lewis appeared to be a most civilized animal, and one who understood the dangers lurking out there when he walked with George, away from the RV. When they walked, George would attach a retractable leash, but Lewis never strayed more than an arm’s length or two away.
George looked up at the sun and yawned. He knew it was too early for dinner.
“Lewis, you want to know why old people eat early?” George asked as the pair of them walked along the paved road in the RV park. “It’s becaus
e ‘seniors’ don’t have anything else to do. We’ve run out of things to occupy ourselves by three in the afternoon, so we start looking for early-bird specials. We’ve gone through the mail—all three pieces of it—read the newspaper, done the crossword puzzle and the Jumble, read the want ads, if the paper still has want ads, and then the obituaries, although some of us get to those first, and then we putter about looking for something broken or something to break. It’s sad, isn’t it, Lewis?”
Lewis looked over at George and appeared to grin slightly.
“If I get that way, please bite me,” George said, sounding serious.
Lewis pulled up and stopped as if he were shocked by George’s suggestion. Lewis shook his head rapidly and snorted loudly.
“I was kidding, Lewis,” George replied when it appeared the poor dog had taken him at his word. “I don’t want you to bite me. Or anyone. Unless you have to, okay? For something serious. Or dangerous.”
Lewis turned his head, with a quizzical look on his face.
“I don’t know what it would be. It would have to be dangerous, right, Lewis? I can’t say what it might be at the moment.”
But I do know. I could say, but I don’t want to lie to the poor animal.
“You’ll know if you have to do something like bite someone when the time comes. You’re a smart dog, right?”
Wuff.
Lewis had not turned his head back to vertical.
“You’ll know. But don’t worry about it now. We’ve got a walk to accomplish this afternoon.”
Lewis started back up, always leaving a good bit of slack in the leash.
“And we’ve got to kill some time before dinner. It’s only half past three, and we have at least a few hours before we can eat, right?”
Wuff.
“Eat like normal people.”
Wuff.
And not like an old person who doesn’t know what to do with his freedom.
23
The following morning promised a delightful day: sunny, cool, and perfect for walking and drawing.
George considered walking downtown. It was only a few miles, but he thought about the return walk, when he would be a bit more tired. He knew the distance would not bother Lewis in the least, and the weather wouldn’t wear him out.
