Gary Braunbeck - Keepers

I approached one of the officers and handed him the bowler. “He was chasing this,” I said, as if it explained everything in excruciating detail.

“Hey, we were wondering what happened to that thing,” she said, taking the bowler and dropping it into a large, clear plastic bag that contained what appeared to be the contents of the old man’s impeccably tailored pockets.

“Who was he?” I asked.

The officer didn’t even make eye contact: “We can’t release that information until we’ve contacted the next of kin.”

“But I was with him when he…” My voice trailed off as I watched two men load the black-bagged body into the coroner’s wagon. “He grabbed my shirt and looked at me. He tried… tried to speak to me. I’ve got his blood on my clothes. I was the last thing he saw before he died, and you won’t even tell me his name? ”

The officer shrugged. “Policy. Sorry, sir.”

And left me there.

Cheryl didn’t speak until we pulled up in front of her house.

“I’ve never seen anyone get killed before.”

“Are you going to be okay? You want me to wait with you until Larry gets home?”

She tried to smile, couldn’t, and so just shook her head. “That’s all right. I’ll go in and just call the kitties. They always know when something’s wrong, and they always come to snuggle and make me feel better.” She looked down at the binocular case. “Larry’ll be home soon enough. Besides, aren’t you supposed to pick up Carson?”

I looked at the time. “I might make it if I hurry.”

She shook her head. “Sorry, bud-but not in those clothes, you won’t.”

I looked down at my blood-smeared shirt. “Jesus, Cheryl…”

She reached over and placed a warm hand against my cheek. “I know.”

We looked at each other, then both of us started crying again at the same time, and she put her arms around me and I put mine around her and for a few minutes we stayed like that, crying into each other’s necks, and it must have looked pitiful to any passersby, these two people blubbering against each other, but I didn’t care, I just needed to get it out of me, Cheryl needed to get it out of her, and if you can’t lose it in front of a friend in a parked car on a typical middle-class street then what good is it even having friends?

“That poor old man,” Cheryl spluttered.

“I know.”

“To die like that…”

“I know…”

“What did he say to you? It looked like… like he tried to say something.”

The Keepers are coming.

“Nothing, really. It didn’t make a lot of sense. I don’t remember. All of the above.”

Then our splutterfest continued.

Eventually we pulled apart, Cheryl digging some tissues from her purse, handing some to me, both of us trying to make ourselves presentable again and failing miserably.

“Well,” she said, “that was… just so special I can’t tell you.”

“I think the word you’re trying to avoid is ‘embarrassing.’ ”

She looked at me, flush-cheeked, eyes glistening. “This may sound corny, Gil, but when you went over to him, when you offered his hat to him, I was proud to know you. I’m still proud to know you. Most people wouldn’t’ve done that.”

“Please, don’t-”

“Oh, shut the hell up and take a compliment for once in your life, will you? What you did took nerve, Gil, it took compassion and courage, whether you want to cop to it or not. God, I’ve worked with you for five years, you’ve come to the house for dinner, gone to movies with Larry and me, and today, today for the first time, I feel like I’ve gotten my first glimpse of the real Gil Stewart. And I admire him.”

“Gilbert James Stewart,” I said, offering my hand. “Named after half of Gilbert and Sullivan, my mother being the opera fan; my middle name after James Stewart, the actor, my dad being the movie fan.”

Cheryl took hold of my hand and shook it. “Pleased to know you. At last.”

I leaned forward and kissed her cheek. “Thanks for saying that.”

“I rarely speak anything but the truth. And I’m fixing you up with my friend Laura on Saturday night, so don’t make other plans. Ah-ah-I won’t hear any arguments, understand?” She opened the door and began getting out. “You’ll double with me and Larry.” A grin. “You’re a good man, Gil. So why is it that I have the impression you don’t see it yourself?”

I didn’t have the heart at that moment to remind her that Carson was staying with me this weekend. She’d remember soon enough.

I watched her until she was safely inside her house, then pictured her calling for the kitties and their snuggling together on the sofa until Larry got home. It was a nice image. A safe image. An image that did not bring with it any echoes of something way back there that was trying to make me remember.

Then I thought of my nephew’s missing cat, and the feeling passed.

I drove to the end of her street, waited at the stop sign, and out of habit glanced in the rearview mirror.

A dark, hunched four-legged figure disappeared behind a bush a few yards behind me.

Staring, I thought: No. It couldn’t be.

I opened my door and got out of the car, looking at the bush.

The branches rustled.

Softly.

The street was oddly silent; no birds singing, no dogs barking, no cats yowling.

The branches of the bush rustled again.

Then silence.

I waited a few seconds more, then decided that I didn’t want to know. It was probably just the stress and shock wearing off.

I got back in the car and drove toward home. I needed to change my clothes and take a quick shower. I’d call the group home and tell them why I was going to be late. They’d understand. Gil Stewart was never late, not when it came to his nephew, so it must be something drastic.

Everything was okay.

I was fine. I was fine. I was fine.

Still, I kept glancing in the rearview mirror all the way home, looking for black shapes.

The dismal bitch lay on her side in the dry gray October twilight in my front yard, her black wrinkled teats lumped beside her like a cancer growth far too large and malformed for her body to hold inside. Her sides shivered as she labored to pull in air, and the sound of her breathing-wet, thick, ripped-raw painful-was too close to another sound I’d already heard once today and did not want to hear again.

I climbed out of my car and slowly approached her, all the while looking over my shoulder, halfexpecting to see the black mastiffs from the highway.

It appeared this was my day to deal with dogs.

Her coat was patchy with mange, her eyes bloodshot and mad; when I came closer, they narrowed into slits and a low growl came from her throat. I could smell her from ten feet away, a ripe, sick, sweetrotten smell. Underscoring the smell was a moist kneading sound, soft but persistent; as I reached out toward her she jerked to the side and a flap of flesh held in place by the thinnest thread of tissue fell back. Beneath it, maggots teemed in an open wound whose too-bright blood seeped outward into her fur like the ever-expanding strands of a spider’s web, some of it dribbling onto the lawn and trickling toward my feet, forming rivulets in the grass.

I couldn’t help but think of the old man on the highway, and it almost cut me in half.

“It’s okay, girl,” I said in what I hoped was a tender voice. “It’s okay, shhhh, there, there, just let me take a look so we can make it all better, okay?” I continued on like this for what seemed like an hour but was probably less than a minute. Once I thought she might let me touch her long enough to see if there was a tag on her collar but she made a snap for my hand at the last moment, startling both of us.