Short Story - Bitten

It was that same old question, “Is your dog friendly?” It was my standard query when meeting a new dog. Since an impressive German Shepherd had just left its owner’s side and was ambling toward me, I asked him. I’d been around dogs all my life and knew what was considered protocol when meeting a new one. I was also aware not to put too much faith in an owner’s reply, since most owners swear their dogs are friendly, since they are…to them. Sure enough, this owner called across the five-yard gap between us, “Yeah, he’s friendly. He doesn’t bite.” So, I lifted my hand slightly to invite the dog to sniff it, to feel comfortable with me. For no apparent reason, the dog cleared the remaining few feet between us with a powerful lunge and sank his teeth deep into my palm and the back of my hand. The crush of his teeth sinking into my flesh was so searing, it felt like my hand had just been set ablaze. In response, I folded up like an old army cot, right in the middle, head at my knees. There was no fighting the dog, no pulling my hand away. The pain held me there immobile and limp. Time later, I realized that saved me from graver injury. Without a struggling victim, the dog took one more chomp and then walked off as if nothing had happened.

A young man stepped out of the small group of people milling around that end of the park, came to my side and squatted beside me as I clung to the wrist of my bitten hand, trying not to faint or throw up. Both he and I could see the drops of blood hitting the concrete sidewalk and spreading into jagged-edged circles. He asked quietly, “Can I help you to sit down?” His firm arm around my shoulder made it possible to straighten up a bit, and I crept over to the nearest park bench. Only then did the dog’s owner cease his conversation and look to see what was going on.

“What’s the matter with you?” He literally flung the words at me. My solicitous aide answered. “Your dog just bit the hell out of her hand.”

Still he directed his comments to me. “What did you do to my dog that had him do that?” That was far too much to answer, especially with my teeth clenched against both the pain and nausea.

“Your dog attacked her for no obvious reason,” my new friend said. Get that dog under control. I’m calling the cops.”

“Wait a minute. My dog’s never bitten anyone in its life. That lady did something. It’s her fault.” The dog was now sitting at the man’s side displaying the epitome of good behavior.

I wanted to defend myself. I had spent too much of my life capitulating to those who bullied me. But what I wanted more was not to throw-up in public, so I remained silent staring at the ground.

The park was patrolled by mounted police and as a small crowd assembled in response to the shouting, one came trotting across the green. From his high perch, he could see the man and the dog with his small crowd, and me crumpled up on the bench with my sole supporter.

He dismounted and came to me first. As he walked toward me, he clipped his phone back on his belt. The blood had now pooled into a conspicuous blotch on the sidewalk. He squatted in front of me and gently locked my long brown hair behind one ear, so he could see my face. He spoke quietly. “I’ve got an ambulance on the way. How are you doing?”

I couldn’t answer. Not wanting to open my mouth, I just shrugged. My hand was beginning to swell. The pain’s intensity caused me to groan in rhythm with the throb. My one thought was a plea that the owner had a rabies tag on that creature. Much beyond that I was a study in just hanging on.

The only person who seemed to see what happened was the young man who helped me. He made a point to tell the cop what he saw. I didn’t know why he was being so kind, if kindness was his motivation. The incident had peeled a layer of innocence off me like skin after a sunburn. Nothing made sense and that rattled me.

The cop rose, then walked over to the dog owner who was still insisting I was responsible for getting bitten. I heard him say yet again, “Toby here, he’s never bitten anyone. I think she was teasing him.”

“Teasing him how,” the officer countered.

“I was talking and didn’t really see what was going on, but she reached her hand out toward him. Maybe she’s nasty and he sensed it.”

The cop’s mouth curved in a crooked smile as he raised his hand to stop any further conjecture on the dog owner’s part. Then he asked, “Does the dog have a current rabies tag?”

“Yeah, I just don’t have it on this harness.”

“You’ve got 2 hours to produce it down at the station. If you don’t show with it in in that time frame, we’ll impound the dog and put him down. Up to you.”

After taking down the information he needed from the owner, the officer came back over to me. In my dazed state, he found me staring at his horse which stood unattended yet statuesque - not eating the grass or stomping impatiently. I asked him how long it took to train him to be so dependable? We both knew it was my attempt to distance myself from the pain and confusion of the moment. 

“He learned quickly,” the officer answered. Then he winked and added, “And he doesn’t bite.” He continued in a quiet voice, “You need to get that looked after right away that’s why I called an ambulance, otherwise you might sit for hours in emergency; and you need a tetanus shot pronto and probably a few stitches.”

As he turned to leave, I said through clenched teeth, “Officer, I didn’t tease that dog. I asked the guy if the dog was friendly, and he assured me he was. I just stretched out my hand in case he wanted to sniff it, and for whatever reason, he lunged at me and grabbed my hand.”

“We’ll check him out.” The officer’s voice was reassuring. “One of our dog handlers will test him. But regardless, we can’t have dogs biting people in public parks.”

Before the ambulance arrived, I got the name and phone number of the young man who helped me, and thanked him. He asked me to call in a day or two and let him know how I was. I made no promises; my sense of trust still shaken.

At the hospital, they put in a few stiches, just enough to encourage the gap to close. With dog bites, which they called “dirty bites;” the nurse explained how they like to be able to dress the wound daily to insure healing from the inside out. By week’s end, the swelling was down but a yellow-purple hue remained. I was antsy by then and felt like going out. I decided to call the young man, since he’d asked me to, and see if I could treat him to supper as a thank you.

It was funny how I kept calling him that young man as if I were old enough to be his mother. I’m thirty-three. I suspect he’s mid-twenties or so. Not that much difference. Maybe it would be fun.

I punched in the numbers he’d given me and listened to the ring.

The voice of a young woman answered. I asked, hesitantly, “Is Josh there?”

“Josh who?” the voice replied. I thought that question strange. I didn’t know if the house was full of Josh’s or she was taunting.

“Josh Maynard,” I replied.

“Oh, wait a sec.” I could hear her call to him, “Josh, a woman for you,” she shouted somewhat mockingly. I felt uneasy. What had I stepped into?

“Hello?”

It was his voice. “Josh, this is Maggie, the gal the dog ate.” I heard him chuckle. “Thought you might like to know I lived through it.”

“Glad to hear it. How does it look now?”

“More like a hand now than a paw and down to yellow in the rainbow of colors healing utilizes. I don’t know if I’m out of bounds here, but I’d like to take you for a drink or some supper as a thank you.”

“It isn’t necessary, but I’d like to look at that hand and see if I approve of their work.”

I laughed, half quizzical, half halting. “If you’re the spontaneous sort, we could meet someplace within the hour. If you need to plan, tell me when.”

“I’ll meet you at Maxi’s in an hour. That work for you, Miss Maggie?”

I could hardly believe what I’d done, still speculating on what he meant by approve of their work? But heh, a little mystery is better than a time-worn plot.

Maxi’s, the local pub, was busy that evening, so I picked a table in the quietest corner. I wasn’t much of a drinker, but I knew folks there and often stopped in for supper. The bar had a tradition of putting up photos of its regulars on the wall of the pub, an interesting way to make a family out of its customers, most of whom, if they had a family, wouldn’t be there. I had never seen Josh there before, but then I wasn’t on the prowl for men when I went to Maxi’s, but rather the plentiful camaraderie.

Just then, the door opened letting in the soft peach of twilight, and I saw Josh. He wasn’t as young as I imagined him to be in the park. I was glad about that. I preferred men with more maturity than the capriciousness of twenty-something-year old’s. I waved with my bitten hand, and he noticed. He smiled and nodded the way a coach might acknowledge a good play on the field.

 I saw the barkeeps check him out as he headed to my table. Like older brothers, they kept an eye out for the single ladies in their establishment. They’d even been known to stop by an apartment to check on someone who hadn’t been in for a while. When he saw them looking, he nodded like he knew them too.

He pulled out the chair opposite me as his eyes went immediately to my hand.

“Well, I guess you’re going to tell me if their work is any good.”

He picked up my hand and inspected it, not like he was curious, but like he knew what to look for. “What’s with your little finger?”

I wasn’t sure how he even noticed it as the finger only misbehaved when I went to make a fist; not wanting to close with the rest of my fingers. 

“The doctor said I have a bit of nerve damage there. He said it will probably mend itself. Well, what do you think?”

“He did a good enough job, utilitarian. But then the docs in trauma medicine get like that. Hazard of the business.”

“What would you have done differently?” That question seemed innocent to me but ended the conversation abruptly. He mumbled, “It’ll be fine. Functionality is what’s primary.”

The waiter came then, and Josh ordered a draft of LaBatts. I had an ale in front of me already, so we sat in the gap of silence that remained as the waiter turned to leave.

“The gal who answered the phone, who is she?” It was not the next best question especially asked into the tension that had followed my last one, but I was struggling.

“Oh, her, she’s my sister. I’m bunking in with her and her husband for the time.”

Again, an awkward silence prevailed.

“Josh, I’m not about to pry, but you do need to understand I’m a writer and my mind with or without my permission just wrote a backstory to the few sentences you’ve shared.”

A smile appeared on his face, tinged with a sense of relief I realized had been missing since we first met. 

“Sometimes I’m not immediately privy to what the author part of me picks up, especially when I’ve just pulled my hand out of a dog’s mouth. But like setting a table, each piece of needed information, like the knives, forks and spoons, gets laid down in a recognizable pattern.”

“Well Sherlock, what do you see where I’m concerned?”

“You are obviously some sort of medical professional – doctor or paramedic. You have an interest in things medical that exceeds the average attention of a friend. You are not presently working in that capacity, because you currently act like an outsider and because you are at your sister’s. Something has happened that has removed you from that environment, precipitated by either you or the establishment. How’d I do?”

“Do you write detective stories?”

“No, but I do read that genre a good bit.”

The light-heartedness of but a few moments prior disappeared from Josh’s face as he now gazed over my head, seemingly in indecision. “I take it it’s my turn now?” he said more to himself than me.

“I do believe,” I replied.

He sighed audibly. Then he swallowed hard as if the whole troubling affair, whatever it was, still taunted him. “It’s easier, I suppose, now that you’ve laid out the story’s bones, for it’s the hardest thing I’ve ever had to own. My sister’s been after me to tell someone, anyone, so that I can get back to a starting point. But until now, I haven’t been able. He dropped his head and stared at the table, garnering nerve. He shuttered, then closed his eyes and took a couple of deeper breathes. Still not looking at me, he said, “I don’t like to lay this on you, but it feels like if I don’t do this soon, I’ll not get past it, ever. And for some reason, it feels a bit easier with someone new to me. Do you mind?” He lifted his head, raising his line-of-sight from the table-top he’d been speaking to to look into my eyes, braving whatever torment still lived within him.

“Not a bit.” I said.

He hesitated. “This won’t end up in one of your stories, will it?” An innocent smile flashed across his otherwise taut face.

“You have my word.”

He had no idea how ironic that question was and the degree of guilt it sent slithering through me anytime I was asked it. I had a past at least as ugly as his. No one could have known better what it took in that moment to ask for my ear.

“Fair enough.” He gathered himself up one more time. “Maybe it’s better that this happened to me early in my career. I am a trauma doctor doing my residency at Jordan Medical Center, and I broke the cardinal rule. I was full of myself, coupled with the fatigue residents live in, and I got lax. It’s only easy to confuse an ensuing diabetic coma with drunkenness, if you aren’t paying attention at the level that job requires. And I wasn’t. In fact, the less fortunate of the trauma world—the drunks, the street-weary schizophrenics, the druggies and the basic homeless—I had already begun to treat them as a nuisance, always there, always soon back. So, I dismissed a case as just more drunkenness, argued with the nurse even, argued meanly, arrogantly.” He was stopped momentarily by a deep sigh as the memory caught up with him. “Later that night, she reported to me that drunk had entered a diabetic coma and almost died.” His eyes now anchored themselves in a safer harbor than my face, as he stared once again at the tabletop, his expression still in the iron grip of remorse.

He took a sip of his beer, not the sip of a drinker or one trying to avoid the truth. He sipped reflectively, his face pinched with pain.

I put my dog-bite hand on the one of his not wrapped around his glass. “We can come back from these things.”

He lifted his eyes, tinged with skepticism, as he weighed my words. His stare was intense, but somewhat softened by what I could describe only as longing; that perhaps I knew what I was talking about.

I began, “I’m not talking as a philosopher, therapist or ministerial type. I’m talking from experience.” His brow furrowed; his eyes now felt like they were boring a hole through me.

“You’re likely thinking what can a writer possibly do that could approach taking a life? There are many ways to take a life, and one is very much within our purview. I broke an inviolable vow— that no one would know whose story it was, having been given to me in strictest confidence. I allowed myself to be seduced by the knowledge that I held a potential block buster in my possession. Urged by my editor to make the character’s identity a little less obscure than I’d originally written it, I succumbed. I still can’t believe I did that, but I did. Maybe old Toby there in the park did know who I was - at the core anyway. Maybe he just let me know, lady, no one should count on you. I stopped writing, talking to people, dating, almost living, I was so ashamed of what I’d done, particularly because of why I’d done it. And worse, it couldn’t be undone.

“She never forgave me. Why should she? I all but killed her. How can you forgive that? Nor am I sure I could allow exoneration. So, unlike all those life coaches who say, ‘you can’t more forward until you’ve forgiven yourself,’ I had to take a different road. I drove myself to face and dismantle that inner narcissism which justifies us holding others in such careless disregard.” Josh’s eyes narrowed as he considered such an anomalous notion. “I’m far from done, but it’s a start. That’s why I know we can come back.”

I saw the tears well up, then spill freely down his face, so unfettered they drop off his chin onto the table like rain. I gave him time to sit in what I knew could be a starting place. His gutsiness and honesty marked him, in my mind, as a good man. Seemingly, to give himself a bit of space, he asked what had happened to Toby. I told him that his owner didn’t want him after that episode, and since the animal shelter thought him unsafe to offer to the public, I took him and found the perfect owner for him. Reports on his improved temperament are already encouraging.

Neither of us was hungry after that. Not because we felt ravaged, but quite contrarily, we’d been heartened by this shared understanding, and a hint we could possibly back up; even emerge as worthy of redemption. For there is great doubt in a soul that has violated itself.

As the warm swells of jazz ebbed through the bar, an occasional regular casually stopped by our table, clapped Josh warmly on the shoulder, winked at me and moved on. Josh took my recovering hand in his and held it ever so gently, staring at it, reflective.

“Do you ever wonder what it might be that places a person in the crush of life’s defining moments?” he asked.

My reply was almost immediate, for I’d spent hours contemplating that same question.

 “These events, yours and mine, have the uncanny feel of a summons, to me. As if someone or something was beckoned to take the fall for us. To help us face some imperiling weakness, which appeared beyond our power to overcome. Whether it was a Toby, a street drunk or a trusting friend, they ultimately gave us a chance to move beyond what was about to unwittingly take us down. That’s how I see it anyway.”

“Do you think that’s fair to them? It doesn’t seem like it.” His face was pensive, dark with doubt.

“Who holds a large enough vision to know?” I answered. “I’m not sure we can. Perhaps the best we can do is ensure their unselfishness wasn’t wasted on us.”

“Is that enough?”

“It’s hard to believe it is, but I don’t know anything else. And I think the most disrespectful act would be to go down for the count.”

We sat, each in our own private reveries. Josh with his head back staring at the ceiling and me engrossed in the table-top, two specks of human consciousness struggling with the enormity of what being human beings sometimes asks of us.

“There is one thing perhaps that might even things up,” I said. Josh stared as me intently. “Were you or I called on by some universal dictate to be the fall guy for some other struggling soul, we accept unquestioningly.”

“Do you think it’s easier from the other side?”

“I doubt it. But I for one don’t know any other way to return such magnanimity. I didn’t know I wanted another chance until Toby bit me. But I did, and he gave it to me, the chance to realize I’m not a complete write-off. What can I say? This human gig is a tough go. Yet, we are unarguably all in it together.”

The musicians returned from their break. The room filled once again with the soft, offbeat harmonies of jazz, and for two tendering converts, a new deal had been struck. This time with Life itself. They had accepted the give and take of life. Not from a glib sense of happenstance or a morbid reckoning, but rather comprehending the parity which exists no matter which end of life’s scale you’re standing on. Who’s to say who suffers more greatly or who benefits the most. All they could grasp so far was that they had an option to redeem themselves and the awareness that if it ever became their turn, they’d take the fall. No questions asked.