Russell Banks - A Permanent Member of the Family

“I was looking to buy a car. I guess they forgot I was here, the people who own the cars, and they locked the gate and went home. I tried calling…”

“And this dog,” Autumn says, interrupting her, “this vicious dog has kept you from climbing over the fence and getting out? Is that correct?” she says and signals for the cameraman to start filming the dog, who on cue promptly lunges snarling against the fence.

“Yes, that’s correct.”

“You have a cell phone, I understand. Did you call 911?”

From behind her Reynaldo says, “I the one called 911. She didn’t want me to.”

Autumn shakes her head with irritation. “I’ll get to you in a minute,” she says. Then, to Ventana, “Can you tell our viewers what happened when you called 911?”

“They said it must be a break-in so it wasn’t their problem. It was something for the police,” Ventana says, adding that she left a message on the used-car dealer’s answering machine, but that didn’t do any good, either. “They must not be checking their messages. I hope they watch the TV news tonight, so they can come leash up this dog and unlock the gate.”

“Otherwise?”

“Otherwise I’ll be staying up here till tomorrow morning when they come in to work.”

Autumn turns to the camera. “There you have it. A woman alone, forced to sleep outside in the cold damp night like a homeless person, terrorized by a vicious guard dog, locked inside a cage like an animal. And when she calls 911 for help, she’s turned away.” She signals for the cameraman and lighting and soundman to focus on Reynaldo. “You were the one who called 911 for her, is that correct?” she asks him.

“Yes, ma’am. That is correct. My name is Reynaldo Rodriquez. From Miami Gardens.”

Autumn turns away from him and faces the camera again. “Thank you, Reynaldo. A good Samaritan, a young man who heard something and then said something. Remember, folks, if you hear something, say something. Call us at 305-591-5555 or e-mail us at hearandsay at cbsmiami dot com. This is Autumn Fowler in Miami Shores.”

She plucks the mike off her blouse and tells the cameraman she’s done.

Reynaldo says, “Don’t you want to ask me or the lady there some more questions? Maybe you could call 911 yourself, do it with the camera running. That’d be awesome TV!”

“Sorry, kid. This is sort of a cat stuck in a tree story. Not as big and exciting as you think.” She hands him the release to sign. He scrawls his name and gives the form back to her. She calls up to Ventana, “Don’t worry about signing the release, hon, since we never used your name.” She steps into her car and starts the engine. While the cameraman and his two assistants collect their equipment and cables and stash them in the van, she slowly parts the gathered crowd with her car and drives off. A minute later the crew and their van have departed from the scene.

With the lights, camera and famous television reporter gone, the crowd of bystanders quickly loses interest. They’re not worried about Ventana: now that she’s been filmed for TV broadcast she’s entered a different and higher level of reality and power than theirs. They drift back to their homes and apartments, where they’ll wait to watch the late news on Channel 5, hoping to catch a glimpse of themselves in the background, their neighborhood, the used-car dealership they walk past every day of their lives, all of it made more radiant, color-soaked and multidimensional on high-definition TV than it could ever be in real life. The teenage son of their neighbor Esmeralda Rodriquez will be remembered mainly for standing in the way of a clear view of the reporter. The woman trapped behind the fence by the guard dog, their neighbor Ventana Robertson, her face and plight lost in the bright light of television and the presence right here in the neighborhood of the beautiful, charismatic reporter, will be all but forgotten. It’s as if an angel unexpectedly landed on Northwest Seventh Avenue and Ninety-seventh Street, and afterward, when the angel flies back to her kingdom in the sky, no one tries to remember the occasion for her visit. They remember only that an angel was briefly here on earth, proving that a higher order of being truly does exist.

“You okay?” Reynaldo says.

“Of course not! I’m still up here, aren’t I? That dog’s still down there.”

Reynaldo is silent for a moment. “Maybe when they show it on the eleven o’clock news…”

“You poor child! Not gonna happen. You heard her, this just a cat up a tree story to her and her TV people. You g’wan home to your daddy’s house now. Takes a while to get across town to Miami Gardens by bus, and you prob’ly got a curfew.”

He scrapes the toe of his left sneaker against the pavement. Then the right. “You gonna be all right?”

“Yes! Now git!” She’s not angry at him, and in fact she’s grateful for his kindness, but nonetheless is shouting angrily at him, “G’wan, now git!”

“Okay, okay, chill. I’m going.” He takes a few steps toward Seventh, then turns and says, “Hope it don’t rain on you.”

“I said git!” she yells, and Reynaldo runs.

VENTANA IS ALONE NOW. Except for the dog. He seems calmer since everyone’s left. And he’s no longer growling. He’s curled up like a thick gray knot of muscle at the front of the Honda van parked beside her SUV and seems to be sleeping. Ventana wishes she knew his name. If she knew his name she could talk to him, maybe reassure him as to her good intentions. He must know already that she means no harm to him and his owner. For over four hours she’s been his prisoner and has done nothing to threaten him. In the beginning when she ran from him and climbed up on the roof of the Taurus that she wanted to test-drive and maybe buy and then hopped from roof to roof until ending here on top of the silver Ford Escape, he must have reasoned, assuming guard dogs in some way reason, that she was guilty of a crime or was about to commit one. She probably shouldn’t have run like that, should have stood her ground instead, but he terrified her.

But that was a long while ago, and since then she’s been his only companion here behind the fence, while on the other side of the fence, people have come and gone, they’ve stared at him and been scared of him, and have aimed lights and cameras at him for a TV audience. The whole neighborhood has come by and looked at him and her, too, as if they were animals in a zoo. By now he must be used to Ventana’s presence, as if they are cage mates, not enemies.

Slowly she hitches her way to the edge of the roof and, more open-minded than before, carefully, calmly, almost objectively, examines the dog. She’s still frightened, but the sight of him no longer panics her. He’s large for a pit bull, maybe fifty or sixty pounds — she’s seen many examples of the breed in the neighborhood walking with that characteristic bowlegged, chesty strut, in the company of young men wearing baggy pants halfway down their underwear, tight muscle shirts and baseball caps on backward, boys who are barely men and resemble their dogs the way people say dogs and their owners and husbands and wives come to resemble each other. She knows some of those young men personally, has known them since they were little boys. Inside they’re not hard and dangerous; they’re soft and scared. That’s why they need to walk the streets with a hard, dangerous-looking dog yanking on a chain-link leash.

She notices that the dog has been watching her with his yellow eyes half opened. He still hasn’t moved, except for the rise and fall of his barrel-hooped chest — he’s breathing through his nose, with his lipless mouth closed over his teeth like a giant python. A good sign, she thinks. She lets her legs dangle over the windshield of the vehicle, her feet almost touching the hood. The dog doesn’t stir.