Unintended Consequences

Part 1: Something Didn't Smell Right

I'm guessing it was early fall, and a school night because I was surprised when I asked after dinner if I could go see my friends and my mom answered "yes." This was new and different--the usual after dinner routine was to stay in to do homework--whether we had any or not. I don't why this suddenly had changed. Maybe I had worn her down. Maybe she’d lowered her standards or given up. Maybe it was because Liza (my twin sister) already had been allowed out with friends or to go to the next door neighbors' who doted on her (a little too much, it occurred to her years later-e-considering the behavior of the father). But I wasn't going to question the change. Before the light faded further and Mom could invoke the danger of darkness, I figured I'd better make hay as the sun set before she changed her mind.

So I let the storm door bang closed behind me and headed down the drive. We lived on Southwest Highway, the fading glory of old Route 7, which cut a swath from south Chicago diagonally down through industrial lands and the older suburbs to the far-flung rural village we lived in (I attribute my poor sense of direction to that diagonal disorientation). Since there were no sidewalks in Palos, I has to walk along the gravel shoulder along the highway. And I had about a quarter mile to hoof it over to Arleigh's house, where something reportedly was going on that night (according to legend, nearly always something was going on at Arleigh's, where my friends spent many poorly-supervised evenings just hanging out).

I got down to the road after dusk had descended, leaving visibility less than ideal. Traffic was rarely heavy on our stretch of Southwest Highway, but neither was it empty. I knew the traffic on that road pretty well--I’d lived four years there, spent boring afternoons each fall watching from the upper limbs of an ash tree in the lot next door for new model cars to drive by. I knew how to gauge the 45 mph speed of traffic, whether on foot or bicycle.  

To the right I noted a car approaching with its lights on, and I started to cross with time to spare. I was in no particular hurry--the car was not about to clip me, unless I decide to look for change on the road or something stupid like that. Then across the street I hear barking and scrambling--more like baying--and look over to see a rather crazed-looking hound-of-a-dog come surging out of the ditch, charging along the other side of the road by the car and then emerge into the headlights, its crazed eyes focused on me. Everything suddenly goes slow and fast at the same time. I know it's just one of those memory things, but I can't quite recreate a timeframe that dances to a normal beat in my memory--it just cuts off into stop-action slow-mo in my recollection. (Kiss my ass if you don't believe me--I don't recall you there with a stopwatch, anyway.)

 So it must have been only about five seconds total and I'm realizing that the hell-bent dog has not only overtaken the southbound vehicle (southwest-bound, technically), when--as only a frothing, crazed hound can do--it cuts right over in front and gets quite thoroughly whack-smacked by the car--WHUMPH--and knocked back onto its own side of the road.

I stop.

The car slows and pulls over somewhere a bit down the road. The dog howls OWRRRR OWRRR ORRRR ORRRR off into the thicket of brambles and sumac that grows along the embankment beyond the ditch.

And suddenly it gets really, really quiet, except for that eerie sort of electric hum in the ears.

A car door slams. I must have been holding my breath because finally I exhale and take a deep, slow inhalation, still trying to figure out what to do. And with that inhale I realize...that smell. Like I need to wipe something off my shoe.

Something didn't smell right--and how. The dog had definitely gotten the shit quite literally knocked out of it.

So what now? I hear gravel crunch off to my left and some guy-- the driver of the car-- comes up and says "Did you see that?  I'm really sorry--was that your dog? I couldn't stop--it was all so sudden. I don't know how I could have avoided that."