By Henry Simpson

I went to the beach that day to collect Jack, my father, who had befriended a homeless man name Moses. I found them sitting at a picnic table, drinking booze while girls in bikinis played volleyball on a nearby court. “We gotta go,” I said.

“Whoop de do,” Moses said. He brought to mind a feral cat that showed up at my back door one night last winter in the middle of a downpour. Half starved and shivering, its mangy coat soaked to the skin, it begged me in its way for food, warmth, and shelter. I ignored it but it kept returning and, on another morning, I found it by my back door dead.

“What about Moses?” Jack said.

I gave Moses a nod. He said nothing, but his watery, bloodshot eyes spoke gratitude. I walked toward the pickup. They shuffled along behind me in silence. We all got into Jack’s decrepit Dodge pickup, with Moses beside me and Jack riding shotgun. The rotten smell inside the cab made me feel queasy. I rolled my window down all the way. So did Jack. I wished for once that someone would light up a cigarette. I headed back up the boulevard, onto State Street, and right on Haley, into the east side through a barrio of old storefronts, cheap rentals, and apartment houses. I stopped for a red light on Milpas.

“Your blinkers are on,” Jack said.

“I know,” I said. “Got to see a man about a dog.”

“What dog? I thought we were going home.”

“We will, as soon as I finish a short detour. Have patience.”

“I like dogs,” Moses said. “Especially their loyal temperaments. Golden Retriever’s my favorite breed. They got sweet smiles, and soft coats like some beautiful blonde babe.”

“Soft coats?” Jack said.

A horn sounded from behind and I looked up. The traffic light was green. I pulled the gearshift back and popped the clutch. The transmission made a terrible grinding sound, the pickup lurched, and its flathead six died. I restarted, shoved in the clutch, then released it gently. The pickup accelerated into the intersection in a wide left arc, missing a parked car by a few feet. I parked in front of the “Emergency Veterinary” storefront and went inside. Its plain little front office, with fluorescent lights, animal posters, and devoted animal attendants, echoed with the barks, howls, yaps, and whimpers of dogs suffering in pain, loneliness, or hopeless abandonment. The odor was a combination of disinfectant and shit. I gave a volunteer my name. She wrote it down on a sheet, gave me a compassionate glance, and led us between two rows of pens to an animal pen with a card in a metal frame that read: “NAME: unknown” and “OWNER: Max Gentry (deceased).”

The attendant shook her head. “This is sad. They should prosecute whatever sick person did this to her.”

I squatted down to look at Max’s dog, shivering on a blanket in the back corner. Her back was shaved and covered by a large bandage from stem to stern. The rest of her coat was matted but clean. She eyed at me blankly for a while, then raised her muzzle and barked. She rose and struggled on wobbly legs over to our side of her pen. It was like one of those pitiful scenes in a lost family pet movie scripted to evoke sympathy and tears. When she came close to me, I put my fingers between the chain links. She sniffed them, and then licked them.

“If that ain’t the sorriest looking sonofabitch I’ve ever seen,” Jack said.

“You should have seen her when they brought her in last night,” said the attendant.

“What breed of dog is that?” Jack said.

The attendant scrutinized her. “I think, Australian Cattle Dog? She’s got that short brown coat, compact body, and prick ears.”

A man in his mid-thirties with a white smock and little name badge that said “Dr. Artlo” joined us. He checked my trio and settled his eyes on me. “She’s doing quite well, despite the long line of stitches up her back. I patched her up late last night when a police officer brought her in. She had a long gash, but fortunately no puncture wounds. She lost a lot of blood, almost didn’t make it. And you would be?”

“I’m Terry Slay,” I said. “Mr. Gentry’s friend and lawyer.”

“So, you’re responsible for the bill?”

“I guess I am.”

“In cases like this, considering the advanced age and the expense of care, I sometimes advise people to euthanize. This old girl has lived a long life. She’s thirteen if she’s a day. Not too many sunrises left on that horizon.”

“What’re the charges?”

“We had to open her up and clean her out. Operating room. Blood transfusion. Saline drip. Massive antibiotics. Plus a weekend surcharge. Twelve-hundred dollars so far. If you choose to take her home, figure several hundred more for future office visits.”

Wherever Max was, he was smiling at me sardonically.

“Tell me about euthanizing,” I said.

“If you so choose, we simply give her an injection, an anesthetic overdose. She would go to sleep and then quickly expire. It’s completely painless. Considering the circumstances. I wouldn’t charge anything additional if you . . .”

“Wait,” I said. I took my muddled thoughts in a slow walk back down the wet concrete aisle between the cages of pitiful canine victims, all with sad stories to tell if they could tell them. Once out on the sidewalk, the smell was fresh air and the sounds were traffic, rustling palms, and the voices of people talking as they strolled along the sidewalk. Across the street, two cholos in chinos with headbands were mock fighting outside a mini-mart. I felt dizzy, as if I’d lost my orientation during a marathon. I leaned against a telephone pole and kept telling myself, she’s old and over the hill and would be nothing if not in the way.

I sensed a scent of Moses.

“She could be a man’s best friend,” he said from behind me.

I turned to face him. “What?”

“Even a rock like you.”

He waited for me to speak.

“If I had money I’d . . .”

“Sure you would, man. I bet you’d trade her life for a pint of rotgut.”

Moses looked offended. “You lack soul, junior.”

Jack came out the hospital door. “I had a heart to heart with the doc. He says he’ll give you a twenty percent discount if you take the dog.”

“Why would he do that?”

“Maybe the clinic’s crowded. He wants to do a good deed? He’s a nice guy, a genuine Christian? Why ask? Cut the man some slack, Joey.”

“Yeah,” Moses said. “Parole the bitch.”

I put the bill on my credit card. What I had bought was a clear conscience and a geriatric invalid who had once belonged to my murdered best friend.

Moses carried the dog out to the pickup and gently set her on the floor of the cab. We drove along Milpas. I made an illegal U-turn across four lanes of traffic and headed back toward my little house on Garden Street. “What’s her name?” Jack said as we pulled into the driveway.

“I don’t know,” I said.

“Delia’s a good name,” Moses said. “Let’s call her that.”