She carried the shovel into the alley through the south gate. Crashing sounds came from inside almost at once. It was the dirtiest and messiest part of the yard, with decaying leaves, plastic bags blown in on the wind, and cat droppings. The sound of splashing water emerged; the level of standing water in the yard was lowering, and the drainage ditches were spiriting water away. But your wife remained inside, where the sounds of a shovel on bricks and tiles, as well as on the surface of water, came on the air. Her smell permeated the area; she was a hardworking, resilient woman.
Finally, she came out through the drainage ditch. The plastic rain cape was still tied around her neck, but she was soaked to the skin. Streaks of lightning made her face show up whiter than ever, her calves thinner. She was dragging the shovel behind her and walking hunched over, looking a bit like the way female demons are described in stories. She wore a contented look. She picked up her straw hat and shook it several times, but instead of putting it on her head, she hung it from a nail on the side room wall. Then she propped up a Chinese rosebush, apparently pricking her finger in the process. She stuck her finger in her mouth, and as the rain lessened a bit, she looked up into the sky and let the rain hit her squarely in the face. Harder, harder, come down harder! She untied the rain cape to expose her rail-thin body to the rain and stumbled toward the toilet in the southeast corner of the yard, where she removed a cement cover.
Your son came running out with an umbrella and held it over her head.
“Come inside, Mama, you’re wet from head to toe.” He was crying.
“What are you so worried about? You should be happy it’s raining hard.” She pushed the umbrella over your son’s head. “We haven’t had rain like this for a long time, not once since we moved into town. It’s wonderful. Our yard has never been this clean. And not just ours, but every family’s. If not for this rain, the town would stink.”
I barked twice to approve her attitude.
“Hear that?” she said. “I’m not the only one who’s happy with this rain. So is he.”
But eventually she did go inside, where, my nose told me, she dried her hair and body. Then I heard her open her wardrobe, and I got a strong whiff of dry, mothballed clothes. I breathed a sigh of relief. “Crawl into bed, Mistress. Get a good night’s sleep.”
Not long after the clock struck midnight, a familiar smell came on the air from Limin Avenue, followed by the smell of a Jeep that was losing oil, accompanied by the roar of the engine. Both the smell and the sound were coming my way. It pulled to a stop in front of your gate. My gate, too, of course.
I started barking ferociously before whoever it was even knocked at the gate, and raced over there, my paws barely touching the ground, sending the dozen or so bats living in the gateway arch flying into the blackness of night. Yours was the only one of the several odors I knew. The pounding at the gate created hollow, scary sounds.
The light beneath the eaves came on, and your wife, a coat over her shoulders, walked out into the yard. “Who is it?” she shouted. The response was more pounding. Resting my front paws on the gate, I stood up and barked at the people on the other side. Your smell was strong, but what made me bark anxiously were the evil smells that surrounded you, like a pack of wolves with a captive sheep. Your wife buttoned up her coat and stepped into the gateway, where she switched on the electric light. A bunch of fat geckos were resting on the gateway wall; bats that hadn’t flown away were hanging from the overhead. “Who is it?” she asked a second time. “Open the door,” came a muffled voice from the other side. “You’ll know who it is when you open up.” “How am I supposed to know who comes knocking at my door in the middle of the night?” Speaking softly, the person on the other side said, “Deputy County Chief has been beaten up. We’ve brought him home.” After a moment’s hesitation, your wife unlocked the gate and opened it a crack. Your face, hideously disfigured, and matted hair appeared in front of her. With a scream, your wife opened the gate wide. Two men flung you like a dead pig into the yard, where you knocked her to the ground and wound up crushing her beneath you. They jumped down off the steps, and I ran, lightning quick, after one of them. I dug my claws into his back. All three men were wearing black rubber raincoats and dark glasses. The two made for a waiting Jeep, where the third man was sitting in the driver’s seat. Since he’d left it idling, the smells of gasoline and oil came crashing at me through the rain. The raincoat was so slick the man slipped out of my grasp as he jumped into the middle of the street and ran up to the Jeep, leaving me in the rain, a predator without his prey. The water, which was up to my belly, slowed me down, but I pushed myself to go after the other man, who was climbing into the car. Since his raincoat protected his rear end, I sank my teeth into his calf. He screeched as he shut the door, catching the hem of his raincoat; my nose banged into the shut door. Meanwhile, the first man jumped in on the other side and the Jeep lurched forward, spraying water behind it. I took out after it, but was stopped by all the filthy water splashing in my face.
When I made it back through the dirty water, I saw your wife with her head under your left armpit, your left arm draped loosely over her chest like an old gourd. Her right arm was around your waist, and your head was leaning against hers. She struggled to move you forward. You were wobbly, but you could still move, which not only told her you were alive but that your mind was relatively clear.
After helping her close the gate I walked around the yard to get my emotions under control. Your son came running outside dressed only in his underwear. “Papa!” he shouted, starting to sob. He ran up to your other side to help your mother support you, and the three of you walked the remaining thirty or so paces from the yard to your wife’s bed. The tortuous trek seemed to take an eternity.
I forgot that I was a mud-streaked dog and felt that my fate was tied up with yours. I followed behind you, whining sadly, all the way up to your wife’s bed. You were covered with mud and blood and your clothes were ripped; you looked like a man who’d been whipped. The smell of urine in your pants was strong; obviously you’d peed your pants when they were beating you. Even though your wife valued cleanliness above almost everything, she didn’t hesitate to lay you down on her bed, a sign of affection.
Not only didn’t she care how dirty you were when she laid you down on the bed, she even let me, dirty as I was, stay in the room with you. Your son knelt by the bed, crying.
“What happened, Papa? Who did this to you?”
You opened your eyes, reached out, and rubbed his head. There were tears in your eyes.
Your wife brought in a basin of hot water and laid it on the bedside table. My nose told me she’d added some salt. After tossing a towel into the water, she began taking off your clothes. You fought to sit up. “No,” you sputtered, but she pushed your arms back, knelt beside the bed, and unbuttoned your shirt. It was obvious you didn’t want your wife’s help, but you were too weak to resist. Your son helped her take off your shirt, and so you lay there, naked from the waist up, on your wife’s bed as she wiped your body down with the salty water, some of her tears, also salty, dripping onto your chest. Your son’s eyes were wet, and so were yours, tears slipping out and down the sides of your face.