Conversations with Saint Bernard

by Jim Kraus

  Christmas . . . I guess I did not take it into consideration.

  Lewis climbed off the couch, then climbed back on the couch opposite. He smooshed the seat a bit, then lay down and rolled to his side, his back to the back of the couch. He let his head fall to the cushion.

  He’s happy. I can see it in his eyes. Happy . . . and probably glad to see this long trip come to an end.

  Christmas . . .

  I guess no time is a better time than others. What will have to be will have to be.

  Fate . . . right?

  We’re all fated to follow what has been pre-ordained.

  47

  Irene closed in on New Orleans. The problem of driving an older van—a much older van, an actual antique vehicle in some states—was the lack of air-conditioning. Irene claimed she carried enough hippie-like genes to not require such a creature comfort, a soft necessity for the soft middle class. But driving into a maelstrom of heat and humidity, not altogether abnormal for fall along the Gulf of Mexico, Irene had both front windows wide open, and the resulting winds offered scant comfort. The road rumble and the growling of the trucks and the hypnotic whine of tires added up to make a long-distance trip almost completely uncomfortable.

  All these years of me traveling around the country, I don’t think I ever went more than a few hundred miles in a day, at most. Now I’m driving eight hours straight. I can see why people get bigger, faster, quieter, more comfortable vehicles.

  Irene actually considered pulling off the freeway somewhere around Pensacola and looking for the nearest used car lot and buying the biggest Hummer she could find. But while Irene’s retirement finances were not perilous, neither were they overly substantial. She had the freeway exit in view, the one she would take and search for a new, bigger,softer-riding car—but at the last quarter mile, she talked herself out of it.

  If I don’t find him . . . then I’ll have a huge car or bus or monster truck I don’t really want and can’t afford.

  She gritted her teeth and rolled past the exit, wiping at her forehead with a bandana she kept in the front shelf, since the van did not have a glove compartment—just an open shelf under the dashboard.

  “I’ll find him in this old van. Somehow. Somewhere. Hot or not.”

  * * *

  George slowed as he approached the Superdome.

  “There it is, Lewis. What do you think?”

  The humidity seemed to sap the dog’s attention. He simply lifted his head from the seat and glanced upwards.

  “The Mercedes-Benz Superdome, I should say. Doesn’t look German in the least.”

  Lewis laid his head back down and smooshed around on the seat a bit, in an effort to find a comfortable position. The hotter and more humid it became, the more readjustments Lewis made per hour. Even though the RV possessed an efficient air-conditioning system, the heat and humidity apparently seeped in through the cracks and joints in the vehicle, infiltrating the interior with its strength-sapping ability.

  George pulled into one of the access roads leading to one of the many parking lots surrounding the arena.

  “Looks like a mushroom, Lewis,” George said. “A giant mushroom, but a mushroom, nonetheless.”

  He pulled over to the curb. There appeared to be no activities or events inside the dome, so all the parking lots remained empty. He stepped out of the van and walked a few steps.

  “I don’t know. I can’t decide if I should draw this or not.”

  He turned back to the RV. Usually, if he left the van and left Lewis inside, Lewis was at the window, nose to glass, following his every move with unbridled interest.

  Today, not so much. Lewis’s head did not appear at all.

  “Well, Lewis isn’t interested, for sure.”

  George was outside for all of four minutes, and already he was wet through and through, the sweat from his body escaping, and humidity in the air invading.

  “I don’t know how people down here survive,” he said and climbed back into the cooler RV. “I know they said it was unseasonably warm today, but to me, it is simply hot. Regardless of the calendar.” Even though it was cooler inside the RV, by many degrees, George did not feel much more comfortable. It was as if a person carried the heat and humidity with them and remained surrounded by it, despite the interior temperature.

  George had left the scooter in the trailer.

  And he did not seek out an RV park in the city.

  “I could never run the air-conditioning at a high enough setting to stay comfortable all night.” Instead, he found an all-suites hotel a few miles out of the city center, in what looked to be on the cusp of a nice residential area.

  It was the first time George had to defend his assertion, his false assertion, Lewis was indeed a “service animal.”

  “Ummm . . . sir, I am sorry, but we do not allow pets in this hotel.”

  The young lady behind the chest-high counter at the Cajun All Suites Hotel and Convention Center peered over at Lewis, who sat placidly on the cool tile floor, panting softly. She looked uneasy, as if not accustomed to presenting unpleasant regulations to paying guests.

  George did a well-timed double take. He had not rehearsed the move, but it did look as if it had been preplanned.

  “Oh, him,” George replied, nodding toward Lewis.

  “Yes, sir. We don’t allow dogs in our guest rooms. I am so sorry.”

  “Oh. I see. But he’s not a pet, miss.”

  The young lady, no older than twenty, tightened her smile.

  “But he is a dog.”

  Lewis stared up at her, or at least stared up at the crown of her head. He offered her the most genial St. Bernard grin he could muster.

  “Oh, yes. He is,” George said, stammering a little, not sure of what he needed to say to explain his ruse.

  “He’s . . . he’s a service dog, miss.”

  The young lady, Chrissy according to her nametag, tilted her head slightly and looked back. “But you’re not blind, sir.”

  George nodded in agreement.

  “No. He is not a Seeing Eye dog. He is a service animal. A therapy animal, miss. He helps me . . . helps me avoid unpleasant outbursts.”

  A lie, but a small, inconsequential lie. Maybe.

  The young lady—Chrissy—appeared to give credence to the statement.

  “Ohhh . . . you mean like those dogs who know when their owners are getting . . . like a seizure or something? I’ve seen those on television.”

  “Yes, exactly. I have to keep him with me.”

  Chrissy seemed flustered and a bit embarrassed.

  “Oh, I am sorry. I did not realize. Of course, then. We have a room we set aside for people with service animals. It is a nice room on the ground floor.”

  She leaned closer to George, standing on tiptoe probably.

  “Some of our guests . . . have said service dogs don’t like using the elevator. It’s why the room is on the ground floor.”

  “Well, thank you,” George replied. “Lewis is okay on elevators. But the ground floor is fine.”

  Lewis wuffed softly as George took the key, sounding like a handful of marbles rolling down a cardboard tube.

  When they entered the room, George turned to Lewis.

  “You just keep quiet, Lewis. And don’t tell anyone, okay? It is our secret, right? And you need a cool environment. I do, too.”

  Lewis, happy to be in a room the temperature of a meat locker, nodded and grinned again.

  * * *

  George did not draw the Superdome.

  “It’s big. It’s impressive. But it just looks like a big mushroom. There’s no charm. And if I put it on paper, it will still look like a mushroom. Hard to get it into a human-sized perspective.”

  Instead, the following day, he and Lewis took the RV downtown and stopped at the Café Du Monde. George had read about their famous beignets and wanted to see what the fuss was all about. And the café, at least the one near the historic district, had tables outside. He tied Lewis to one
of them and told him to stay put.

  “I can see you from inside, Lewis,” he said. “So, no funny business while I pick these up.”

  George came back out with a coffee and a bag of six hot beignets, thick with powdered sugar.

  “I don’t think sugar is good for dogs,” he said as he dusted one of them off, getting most of it removed.

  Lewis was delighted, of course. And when he was delighted with food, he sometimes ate it quickly, which is what he did, and soon he was looking up, with pleading eyes for another.

  “Grease and the trace of sugar, right? Ambrosia, right?”

  George sipped at the coffee.

  “This is the second or third best cup of coffee I have ever had,” he said to Lewis, who kept his eyes focused on the white paper bag.

  George ate through two of them, dusted one more off for Lewis, and decided to keep the last two as a snack for later.

  “Won’t be as good as they are now—nice and hot and crispy—but this is all I can eat right now.”

  Lewis wuffed loudly.

  “I know you could eat more, Lewis. But not right now. Maybe later.”

  George took out his sketchpad and drew a quick rendering of the Café Du Monde. The building was not inspiring or significant in the least, but the green-and-white-striped awnings over the outdoor eating area were interesting, as well as the curious mix of people sitting there, chatting, eating, and drinking coffee.

  This day, while still warm, especially for the late fall—actually hot, if the truth be told—was less humid than the previous day. George was still sweating as he drew but less so than before. Lewis happily panted away, his fur coat in need of serious dethatching.

  George added a few people to his drawing: the woman with the huge flowering hat, the man with a tie-dyed T-shirt and feather boa, the young couple, entwined and in love, the older gentleman sporting a wild beehive sort of beard, wearing spats.

  He leaned over to Lewis.

  “A curious mix of people, Lewis.”

  Even Lewis, who normally drew a small crowd, was all but overlooked by the steady stream of locals and tourists who traveled past.

  After the beignets, Lewis and George drove into the Garden district, filled with wonderful old vintage homes: Victorians, Gothic, Neo-classical mansions, faux Southern plantation homes. All manner of architectural styles were represented.

  “It’s like Charleston—only thicker and more Southern and much more eclectic and diverse, Lewis,” George explained as they drove along slowly.

  He did not stop at any house. He slowed a number of times, however.

  “Maybe I’m done drawing old houses, Lewis. And maybe I’m too hot to care.”

  During one of his slowdowns, Lewis whined a bit and looked backward at his seat belt attachment.

  “You want to go out?”

  Lewis remained silent.

  “You want to lay down in the back?”

  At this, Lewis wuffed loudly.

  George unfastened him, and Lewis slowly clambered over the center console and into the back. George watched him circle three times and flop to his side, laying his head down and closing his eyes.

  I get it, Lewis. The heat makes me tired, too.

  And I am so tired. So very, very tired.

  And I want this to be over so very, very much.

  48

  Irene arrived at the city limits of New Orleans in the middle of the afternoon rush hour in a downpour of blood-warm rain. It meant she had to roll up the windows and rely on the VW’s anemic air circulation system to keep the windshield unfogged and the sweat on her forehead at bay.

  The system did neither task effectively.

  Irene used the already damp bandana to smear around the condensation on the windshield, the wipers trying to keep up with the dense rain.

  “I need to get off the road soon,” Irene said aloud, to herself. She had been driving all day, the trip from Tallahassee taking much longer than she anticipated. She did veer off for nearly several hours into Pensacola, driving through the historic Pensacola Village, filled with historic homes and churches and buildings, hoping to see a black RV or a scooter cruising by—but she did not.

  Pensacola was on his map. I’m sure of it.

  By the time she’d found her way back to the freeway, the sky had grown dark and she had grown tired, so she’d found a Super 8 Hotel for the night.

  And now, nearly a full day later, she was lost and tired and frustrated in the thickening outskirts of downtown New Orleans.

  “I am sure he would stop here. Draw the Superdome, at least. Wouldn’t he?”

  She found the exit pointing to the Superdome, scooted down the ramp, and circled the massive structure three times, searching for the black RV. She saw nothing coming close to resembling it.

  The rain had stopped, replaced by humidity, just as thick and oppressive as the rain, and in some ways, more intrusive.

  She stopped the van, hopped out, and stood, staring at the huge arena.

  “Nope. He would never draw this. Too symmetrical. Too uninteresting. And other than it being large and otherworldly, he would not find it interesting.”

  Maybe.

  She drove down into the Mardi Gras party district—Bourbon Street and the few streets around it.

  George would never come here. And while the architecture is interesting, he probably couldn’t see past the tawdry bars and tourists.

  Irene smiled to herself.

  And no one says tawdry anymore, do they?

  She drove past the St. Louis Cathedral at the far edge of Bourbon Street.

  “Wow. Looks like it was designed by the people who built Cinderella’s Castle in Disney World.”

  She looked for a parking place and did not find one.

  What would I do inside anyhow?

  She drove back toward the Superdome. On a side street a few blocks off the main tourist route, thinking it would be a quicker route to the Garden District, she came to a stop behind a moving truck that was trying to maneuver, backward, up a very narrow driveway, making turns and stops every few inches.

  “This will take forever,” she said to herself and put the van into reverse and found herself on Bourbon Street again.

  “This will take me forever.”

  She again was stopped by a construction crew digging up the street.

  I’m tired and thirsty and I want to get out of here.

  She pulled to the side, parked the van, and walked down the block to a coffee shop.

  Maybe a jolt of espresso will help.

  With coffee in hand, she felt a bit more at peace.

  I’ll find him. With luck, I’ll find him. It’s all I need—some good luck—for a change.

  As the thought came to mind, she slowly walked past a storefront painted entirely in black: Marie Laveau’s House of Voodoo.

  Now . . . this is different. Something you don’t see in Omaha, for sure.

  She stopped and peered into the window, filled with books and talismans and charms and masks and small, faceless cloth dolls and bottles of green and amber liquid and a scattering of rings and beads and candles and incense burners.

  A sign in the back of the window, white chalk on a small blackboard, read: “Spells Cast. People Found. Love Assured.”

  Underneath was a small skull, smiling, with hollow eyes.

  And just then, a young woman dressed in black, with a black smock and dark, smoldery eye shadow, stepped out of the store and nearly bowed to Irene.

  “I sense you are lost, friend.”

  Irene looked up, surprised.

  “Me?”

  “Yes, my friend,” the young woman said, her voice syrupy, slow. “Your aura. I sense confusion. You’re looking for someone.”

  Irene did not reply but stared at her, shocked.

  “I sense I am correct.”

  “Maybe,” Irene mumbled. “Sort of.”

  “You know, this is a place of peace and calm,” the young woman said. “And of knowledge. I
can help. The spirits can help. What is lost can be found.”

  Irene swayed on her feet, just an inch, as if she were being drawn in by some unseen, magnetic force.

  “The world is much more than we can see with our eyes. I can help you, friend. I can help find what was lost and restore what was damaged.”

  Irene was about to take a step closer. Then she opened her eyes wide, shook her head, just a little, like a person waking from a thirty-second catnap, and all she could see, all around the young woman dressed in black, was more black, like the humidity of the city had taken on a color, or absence of color, and the air and the clouds all slowly lost their natural hue and assumed the color of midnight. Irene blinked several times, and the black disappeared, in an instant, as if a veil had been wrenched away from her eyes.

  “Umm . . . thank you. But no. I have . . . I have . . . I have an appointment to keep. Yeah . . . an appointment.”

  The young woman stepped toward her.

  “Whoever, or whatever, can wait a moment or two. It is all it will take. Come in. Browse for just a moment. You will find what you desire inside. We have everything you might possibly want. Answers. Peace. And more, perhaps.”

  Irene shook her head again.

  “No . . . I don’t think . . . I mean . . . they won’t wait. The people I need to find. I have to be there.”

  And so saying, she turned and walked away, as quickly as she could, without resorting to running, step-step-step-step, faster and faster, until she reached her van, breathing deeply, her coffee all but forgotten.

  She fumbled for her keys, managed to get the door open and the engine started, and she drove away as fast as the speed limit allowed, not knowing where she was going, except knowing she was running from the blackness she saw.

  I have to find him. I have to find him.

  She turned away from the Superdome and headed north.

  He’s not here. He must have moved on. Away from the blackness.

  She tried to calm her jangled nerves by breathing deeply.

  At least, I hope so.

  Two miles later, another thought came to her.

  Maybe this is something I need to pray about.