by Jim Kraus
“Can we take it for a ride first?”
“Absolutely. I have a helmet for you, George, and I have this gnarly set of goggles to fit Lewis for sure.”
In a few minutes, the scooter and sidecar were out of the trailer, the engine started, helmet on, and dog goggles in position.
Lewis looked like he was wearing a Snoopy costume for Halloween, when Snoopy thought he was a World War I fighter pilot, attacking the Red Baron.
“This is as easy as riding a bike. Twist and go. No shifting. Brakes are here and here. Use the rear one first. No worries about balance, since you’ve got three wheels. Take corners slow at first.”
George felt it all come flooding back to him, all those times from so long ago, out in the open air. It was as if Hazel had found this young man at this one specific moment to talk with him at the bridge.
Lewis looked at the sidecar, a little hesitant at first, then climbed in, looking like a badger trying on a suit of armor.
He turned around and then let his backside drop onto the seat in the sidecar.
“See, there’s a lot of room in there, Lewis.”
The two of them, George and Lewis, looked over at Lucius. George grinned. And Lewis grinned even more broadly.
And then George puttered off down the driveway, braking to stop at the end, then with a mufflery rattle, turned left and scooted up the hill, Lewis wuffing loudly as they slipped out of view.
* * *
Ten minutes later, the pair came back to the drive and the old Victorian. Lucius had been sitting on the front steps. He stood and waved.
George turned off the engine. Lewis, almost laughing his dog laugh, climbed out of the sidecar, the fur on his head swept up like an Elvis pompadour.
“Lewis got such looks on this ride—people stared. I was afraid some of the other drivers were going to crash because of the distraction.”
George took off the helmet.
“How much?”
Lucius stroked his chin.
“Three thousand? For everything. Trailer, scooter, helmet, the works.”
George thought for a moment.
“How much do you need to get back to school this year? How short will you be after you sell the scooter?”
“I’m like . . . $3,500 would do it. I could work another month or two, and then . . . yeah, it would be enough. I could finish up by the end of the year. Then graduate. And do something I’ve always wanted to do. Finally.”
Lewis walked over and head-butted George again. He was still happily wearing his goggles.
“I know, Lewis. You don’t have to nag.”
George took out his checkbook.
“I’m paying you $3,500 for the scooter. No complaints, now. I’m not good at doing nice things for people. But you’ve brought back some dear memories to me—of when I was young and in love. And you’re going to be an engineer. If I don’t help, Lewis will not let me hear the end of it—right, Lewis?”
Lewis wuffed with gusto, nodding and smiling and obviously thinking he looked quite dapper in his new leather-trimmed goggles.
“And all you have to do, Lucius, is to promise to do the same someday—when you’re in a position to help someone. Okay?”
Lewis again wuffed in agreement.
* * *
Backing up an RV with a trailer can be a tricky proposition, but George was lucky. Early in his career, he’d helped with company deliveries—using a trailer. Turning the wheel to get the trailer in the right position wasn’t child’s play, but the memories of the proper procedure quickly came back.
And Lucius was a whiz at hooking up the wires for the brake lights.
“I had like a dozen cars I towed stuff with. After a while, you figure things out.”
“Like life, isn’t it?” George replied. “After you do something long enough, you get good at it, and then it turns out you don’t have to do it anymore.”
As he pulled out of the driveway and headed back to the RV park, listening to the new rattle of the trailer, he smiled.
“Well, Lewis, this should prove to everyone I’m not as sclerotic as people think I am.”
Lewis wuffed in agreement, though it was obvious that he did not understand the word sclerotic.
“Yes, I know, no one says sclerotic anymore. But they should. It means rigid and unadaptable, Lewis. I’m not really that way. Most of the time, anyhow.”
They turned into the RV park.
“And I wouldn’t think there are more than one or two people talking about me—if any. I don’t think I’m the topic of anyone’s conversation, Lewis. At least not often.”
31
The KDKA weatherman pronounced the day to be a perfect late spring day—bright and sunny, temperatures in the low seventies.
“Just the kind of weather for scooters, right, Lewis?”
Lewis appeared to agree, but George could tell the permanence of objects could be confusing to him. He seemed to love riding in the sidecar, but George thought once it was shut back up in the trailer and hidden, it sort of disappeared, at least a little bit, at least in dog consciousness.
Maybe after we’ve had it for a while . . .
He had mentioned the scooter several times this morning as they got ready for the day, and Lewis did not seem to register any undue excitement.
But when he pulled the goggles out of the drawer, and Lewis got a good look at them, then he did get excited and began his paws back-and-forth dance, up-and-down sort of steps. It wasn’t pretty, or particularly graceful, but it seemed to fit the noble Lewis well. He grinned as if he was sure of what was coming next.
George put the goggles on Lewis, and he wuffed happily.
When George unlocked the trailer and Lewis, saw the scooter and sidecar again, he began to wuff happily, a little louder than normal, but still kept his volume to polite early-morning levels. He climbed into the trailer with George, trying to wedge himself into the sidecar.
“Lewis, back off,” George said firmly.
Lewis looked up, his left front paw on the sidecar, surprised.
“Sorry, Lewis, but you have to wait. Now get back down and outside.”
Lewis appeared confused, obvious even behind the goggles. George had never had to speak firmly before. Lewis shrunk down and backed out of the trailer, looking guilty and sad.
George backed the scooter out and down the ramp.
Lewis sat down and put his head down.
George closed the trailer, locked it, and then returned to the scooter.
“Lewis, it’s okay. Now you can get in.”
Lewis shook his head.
“Seriously, Lewis. You just shouldn’t get in while it’s in the trailer. Makes it harder to push out.”
Lewis finally looked up, his eyes a bit distant behind the goggles. Then he slowly made his way to the sidecar and climbed in, slowly, as if her were waiting to be scolded again.
“Good dog,” George said when he sat down. At this, Lewis smiled. He wuffed once, politely.
George put on the helmet, put the key in the ignition, started the engine, and looked over at Lewis.
“You ready to go to Pittsburgh again?”
Lewis bobbed in his seat.
And smiling, George puttered off, slowly rounding the gravel road of the RV park and carefully entering the main road, south toward downtown.
* * *
During the next two days, George drew three more bridges and, taking a suggestion from Lucius, the old Allegheny County Courthouse and Jail, built by the famous Boston architect Henry Richardson.
George and Lewis immediately found a small parking spot for the scooter, right on the street, and walked around the block, just staring.
“See, Lewis, there’s Renaissance and Romanesque styles. The arches look Turkish, the tops of the towers are Byzantine, the windows are Gothic—and can you see it?—it all works together. Amazing—and just look at the massive stone work.”
George spent an entire afternoon there, setting up on opposite cor
ners in order to do two perspectives of the building. A steady stream of attorneys and defendants and policemen and jury members, and perhaps criminals, filed in and out, down the marble steps, all the while George was drawing.
It felt to George as if everyone stopped to talk to Lewis.
It took him twice as long to draw the building as he anticipated, such was the volume of interruptions. Lewis appeared to love every minute of it.
He refused to allow George to take off his goggles. He did let him slide them down so they rested around his neck. Lewis felt it was appropriate. And because of it, and the fact George carried the scooter helmet with him, even more passersby engaged them in conversation.
There was even a reporter who passed by, saying he was going to call a photographer from the newspaper to come and get a shot—mostly of the dog, and maybe George in the background.
Thankfully, George was finished before any flashbulbs went off.
They took the scooter across the Monongahela River to the south side of downtown and rode one of the two remaining incline railways to the top of Mt. Washington. George had checked the website the night before, and it said the transportation commission allowed for service animals to ride on all public means of transit.
“If anyone asks, Lewis, you’re a service dog today. Emotional support, okay? I go a little loony if you’re not with me, okay?”
And no one says loony anymore . . . except Canadians. And it’s about their dollar bills, I think.
Lewis grinned and nodded as if he understood.
Emotional support . . . got it. Therapy dog. Right.
George was pretty sure it was what Lewis was thinking.
No one stopped them, nor even questioned them, as they got on the Duquesne Incline. At first, when the car first lurched into its ascent, George saw Lewis become a bit apprehensive, but then, a young girl asked if she could pet him. George said yes, and the rest of the short ride was most pleasant, even though the young girl’s parents kept repeating, “But, honey, look at the view. Don’t you want to see the pretty city?”
Once on top, on the visitor’s platform, George sat on a bench, Lewis took up his position next to him, and George tried to do justice with a sketch of the city, spread out before him like a miniature train layout. The three rivers, the park at the confluence with the massive fountain of water, the new baseball stadium, the bridges—George tried to wrap it all up in a sketch. He knew he couldn’t do it justice, but he tried. It was like trying to envelop a life in a paragraph. It just couldn’t be done adequately.
The last night in Pittsburgh, George made hamburgers on the small charcoal grill he had brought with him. Lewis lounged in the grass as George fussed with the coals and aluminum foil. The RV park remained nearly empty, which suited George fine. And even Lewis looked relieved, such was the volume of strangers he had met over the last two days.
The scooter had already proved to be the perfect solution. George did not have to drive an unweildy RV into a congested city. Parking was a simple matter. The scooter, even with a sidecar, could fit in the tightest of spots, and even up onto the sidewalk, if the situation called for it.
And to Lewis, George could see riding in a sidecar seemed even better than riding in the RV. He was closer to outside, closer to people, freer.
George felt the same way. Memories of his first, and only, motorcycle came welling up as he drove. He tried not to dwell on those memories, since they all included Hazel, and it was a place where George did not want to go. But still—the effect, the wind, the openness of it all was a cleansing experience for George.
After the hamburgers, after the cleanup, after a long time, sitting as darkness fell, George felt, for the first time on this trip, if he was being totally honest, at peace.
Or at least, no longer anxious.
Things will work out.
Lewis looked up as if he had heard something.
Things will work out, right, Lewis?
Lewis did not nod, or smile, or wuff in the affirmative. Instead, he looked at George with a most curious look of apprehension and concern and maybe even fear.
Whatever the look was, soon passed, and Lewis stood and insisted on his evening constitutional around the RV park one last time.
Things will work out, Lewis. It is all going according to plan.
* * *
The next morning, George woke the dog up early.
“We need to beat the traffic, Lewis. Let’s get going.”
Reluctantly, the dog rose, stretched, then stretched again, yawning, blinking his eyes, and, even being shown the leash, showed no signs of enthusiasm.
It was as if he was complaining about the early wake-up call.
“Sorry, Lewis. We just have to get on the road. Don’t want to be stuck in Pittsburgh traffic. We’ll be through the city before you know it. And then, on to Falling Water.”
32
George looked up the directions to Falling Water on his tablet. The computer said it was an hour and half drive and gave him the choice of two routes.
He chose the one with more freeways and less small roads. And he doubled the time allotted.
“Those times are for fast drivers, Lewis. And I’m not a fast driver,” George explained as the groggy-looking Lewis settled into the passenger seat and leaned against the door, looking like he might nod off at any moment.
George carefully made his way through Pittsburgh and found the freeway heading west. Falling Water was east and south of Pittsburgh, and George was anxious to see it.
Hazel had often mentioned the house and had even bought a book about it once, with the money George had given her for Christmas.
“I don’t know what size she is,” he had explained when his daughter found out about his “impersonal” gift. “This way she can get exactly what she wants.”
George had never understood the problem involved with a gift of cash. But his daughter had continued to roll her eyes and sigh loudly whenever the subject of his gift selections came up.
“It was so long ago, Lewis. She did seem to enjoy the book. I might have kept it. It might still be in one of those boxes in storage. Might be.”
Lewis snorted, just a little, as he often did when he was drifting off to sleep.
The distance the computer gave was spot on, and George was spot on about his driving abilities and steady, not fast, pace. They arrived after just under three hours on the road.
George knew reservations were needed to tour the house. Those he had secured months earlier, and for the first tour in.
“It’s why we stick to the plan, stick to the schedule,” he informed Lewis as they headed into the sparsely filled parking lot.
Lewis still looked sleepy.
“I have to leave you here, Lewis. There are no pets allowed. Not even good dogs like yourself.”
If Lewis was hurt by this announcement, he did not show it. On the contrary, he looked grateful to be able to crawl in back and resume his nap.
“I’m parking in the shade. It’s only going up to 65 degrees today. And all the windows will be partially open. I know you’ll be fine.”
Lewis paid scant attention and had already climbed up on the couch and laid his head down on the cushion.
“But I’m going to lock the RV. It won’t keep anyone out, but it would slow them down. By then, you’d be on high alert, right, Lewis?”
Lewis only managed a weak wuff in response and did not even open his eyes to do so.
George gathered up his bag and left his chair in the RV.
They probably would not like me banging the chair into walls. And I’m not doing a full drawing—just a couple of quick sketches.
He turned the key in the lock, looked at Lewis, already asleep, and checked his watch.
“Ten minutes early,” he said and headed off for the start of the tour.
* * *
In less than two hours, George had returned.
There was now a small line at the beginning of the tour. The official tour
started on the far side of Bear Run, a smallish stream, about a quarter mile from the house.
I’m glad I picked the early tour. Hardly anyone there.
A few cars were now parked near the RV. He unlocked the door. Only then did Lewis wake up, stretch, yawn, and climb down from the couch to greet him and go outside.
“Over there, Lewis,” George whispered. “Out of view, okay?”
Lewis looked up, puzzled, but obediently shambled over to an area of small brush. He plowed his way into it, and whatever he was doing was well hidden from any prying eyes of rangers or dog police or whoever else may be lurking, looking for Falling Water violators.
“They seem to be a fussy group here, Lewis.”
If dogs could shrug, it’s what Lewis did. Lewis returned, looking for a treat, which George supplied.
“Well, the man was a great architect, I guess, but a lousy engineer. Even the guide admitted it. He said the house cost $155,000 to build—and get this, Lewis, more than $11 million to fix all the problems of leaning concrete.”
Lewis looked up at George and tilted his head.
“I know you don’t understand money, Lewis. But, boy, oh boy, what a mistake.”
From the car on the left side of the RV, George heard a woman’s shrill voice—not of pain or complaint, but of . . . maybe discouragement. Lewis perked up immediately and then began to trot around to investigate.
“Lewis,” George hissed quietly. “Don’t bother anyone.”
Lewis did not stop, and George felt obligated to follow him and make sure his appearance didn’t cause any panic in small children or large-dog-sensitive adults.
“I can’t believe I didn’t ask. I am so disappointed, Peter. I knew how much you wanted to see this.”
If Peter answered, George could not hear his words.
When he turned the corner of the RV, he saw the woman, standing beside an older model sedan, next to the open passenger door. She looked upset. George could not see anything else.
“I didn’t even think to check. And I always check. Now, I’ve ruined everything.”
Lewis wuffed loudly, as if calling for a time-out.
“Oh, goodness, is that a bear?”
The man mumbled something. It might have been followed by a laugh, but George could not make it out either.
