Stardust

Chapter 35

I HAD my ticket. I was packed: clean shirt, extra I blackjack. And I was having breakfast with Hawk and Susan, in the public atrium of the Charles Square complex in Cambridge.

“Jewish American Princesses,” Susan was saying, “particularly those with advanced academic degrees, do not baby-sit dogs.”

I looked at Hawk.

“That is even more true,” he said, “of African American Princes.”

The three mongrels, tethered by clothesline, sat in their pre-ordered circle, tongues lolling, eyes fixed on each morsel of croissant as it made its trip from paper plate to palate.

“Can you imagine them tearing around my place,” Susan said, “with all the geegaws and froufrous I have in there, getting hair, yuk, on my white rug?”

I was silent, drinking my coffee carefully from the large paper cup, holding it in both hands. Hawk broke off a piece of croissant, divided it into three morsels and gave one each to the dogs. They took it delicately, in each case, from his fingers and stayed in place, eyes alert, after a quick swallow, and a fast muzzle lick, tongues once again lolling.

“Put ‘em in a kennel,” Hawk said. “Till my friend in Bridgewater gets back.”

I looked at the three dogs. They gazed back at us, their eyes hazel with big dark pupils and full of more meaning than there probably was. They wern’t young dogs, and there was a stillness in them, perhaps of change and strangeness, that had been in place since I got them.

“I don’t think they should go in a kennel,” Susan said. “They’ve had some pretty bad disruptions in the last few days already.”

Hawk shrugged. He looked at the dogs again. “Huey, Dewey, and Louie,” he said.

We all sat in silence, drinking coffee, eating our croissants. A blond woman wearing exercise clothes under a fur coat passed us, carrying a tray with two muffins on it. The dogs all craned their heads over nearly backwards sniffing the muffins as they went by, and when the scent moved out of range they returned their stare to us.

“Well,” Susan said, “I could come over to your place and stay with them at night. But during the day, I have patients.”

I nodded. We both looked at Hawk. Hawk looked at the dogs.

They stared back at him.

“What happens during the day?” Hawk said.

“They need to be walked.”

“How often?”

“Three, four times,” I said.

“Every day?”

“Yuh.”

Hawk looked at me. He looked at Susan and then back at the dogs.

“Shit,” he said.

“That’s a part of it,” I said.

“I meant shit, as in oh shit!” Hawk said.

“You and Susan can work it out in detail between you,” I said. “My plane leaves in an hour.”

Hawk was looking at me with a gaze that one less optimistic than I might interpret as hatred. I patted the dogs. Susan stood and we hugged and I kissed her. Hawk was still gazing at me. I put my hand out, palm up. He slapped it lightly.

“Thanks, bro,” I said.

“Honkies suck,” he said.

I took a cab to the airport. The plane took off on time, and I flew high above the fruited plain for six hours, cheered by the image of Hawk walking the three dogs.