Hannah Pittard - Listen to Me

“Who needs help?” asked the man. “You need help? You got extra food lying around? Water? You want to give me something? Maybe you want to give my wife something?” The man spit. The thwack against the pavement was indisputable. “We’re not that sort of people.”

The man stepped forward. Mark stepped back.

“You want to fuck with my family?”

Gerome growled, but the man now didn’t retreat.

Mark was shaking his head while backing away. It was a second or two before he realized a verbal response was in order. He thought he might puke.

“No,” he said. “No. Just walking the dog. I’m sorry.”

He held up the leash, stupidly. He couldn’t yet make out the face of the man across from him. He didn’t want to. He was thankful for shadows.

The light inside the truck clicked off. The passenger door opened. The woman stepped down. It appeared that the baby was still attached, still suckling. “You some sort of perv?” The woman was talking to Mark. The question was outrageous.

Now the woman joined her husband, a unified front. “He some sort of perv?” she said to the man. She let the word linger too long in her mouth— prrrrrrv —giving it more space, more time, more cadence than it deserved; giving it time to latch on as a possibly accurate descriptor.

“You want me to wake the others?” She was talking to her husband, whispering in fact, but Mark heard her plain and clear. Others.

“Sure,” she said, no response one way or another from the man she stood beside, the man who seemed nearly statuesque in his determination and surveillance of Mark.

“Sure,” said the woman. “Sure, sure. I’m waking them.” The baby still latched to her chest, she moved toward the sedan.

“It’s nothing,” said Mark. He shrugged his shoulders, a lame attempt to look meek, repentant. He turned again toward the hotel. He tested taking one, then another, step away.

The man said, “Hey.”

Mark kept walking.

He heard what sounded like a knock on a window. A car door opened, maybe two car doors.

Again the man said, “Hey.”

But Mark didn’t stop; wouldn’t stop. His heartbeat raced violently.

Behind him, there was more whispering. Mark couldn’t make out the words — he was too far now or the words were too low — but as he continued his escape, he believed he could detect different tones, various octaves. How many people were back there? How many women? How many babies? Oh god, he wondered, how many men?

Mark was halfway across the parking lot — an even distance between himself, the hotel, the bank of trees, and the offending automobiles — when he and Gerome were suddenly awash in a bath of headlights. He turned. Both the truck and the sedan beside it had turned on their high beams.

An engine revved. Gerome bolted.

Mark faltered, tripping over his own foot with the other. He tried to recover but lost his grip on the leash. Gerome sprinted toward the tree line. Mark called his name, but the dog continued his flight.

The sedan and the truck pulled forward in unison. Mark watched the dog’s outline. He ran first for the woods then halted midcourse. Mark called his name again: “Gerome!” The dog turned, paused, then made a beeline not toward Mark but toward the hotel.

He ran in and out of the headlights of the sedan. His brilliant brown coat was lit up momentarily.

The sedan swerved toward the rear exit of the parking lot, and Gerome swerved too. He went dark, but only for a second. Mark could hear his collar ringing, heading again for the forest.

Gerome appeared once more, now in the headlights of the truck, which was moving too fast around the far side of the hotel. He was midair, all four feet aloft in a magnificent leap toward the grass. A single bound separated him from asphalt and the trees.

The truck, unlike the sedan, didn’t swerve, and the sound — the terrible whump followed by his dog’s pitiful cry — sent Mark running.

The truck didn’t stop, and in the distance he was aware of the drowning sound of two cars speeding haphazardly away.

Gerome had landed with his body on the pavement and his head, resting almost gingerly, on the concrete lip of the parking lot.

Mark tried to get him to stand, but he wouldn’t obey. He would only moan.

Then Mark tried to pick him up, but each attempt, every maneuver, seemed to increase the dog’s pain.

“Gerome, Gerome,” he kept saying, as if in repetition a solution might be found. “Gerome, Gerome.”

The sun in the east inched up from the earth.

The only answer was to bring Maggie outside, which meant leaving Gerome alone.

Mark looked around. Objects — trees, streetlamps, the hotel itself — had outlines, but none of the outlines was a person. There was no one to help him, no one to go for help for him.

“Stay here,” he whispered to Gerome. “Stay here.”

The dog groaned.

There was just enough light, just enough morning sun for Mark to see into the dog’s eyes. He did something Maggie was always telling him to do, something he’d never before dignified by trying, but that now made perfect sense. He visualized the image of himself— The Grown Man Inside! The Man Already a Man! It all had a purpose; everything had a purpose! How had he never made the connection before? — running toward the hotel, waking Maggie, bringing her back to Gerome’s side. He visualized the three of them together, happy, healthy, sound. He gave the image to Gerome. Through ether, through embers and fibers and neurons, through elements and atoms and strands, through filaments and particles and the universe itself, he sent the image from his brain to Gerome’s.

“Do you understand?” he said. “Can you see it?”

Before the dog could answer, Mark, the man, was running.

It took her a minute before she remembered where they were, why they were there. Mark was yelling at her, but she didn’t know why. He’d forced her into a seated position on the bed. He’d manipulated her legs so that her feet were touching the floor.

“Where’s Gerome?” she said. Her mouth was sour. Her lower back was sore.

“That’s what I’m telling you,” he said. “He’s been hit. Get up. Get out of bed.”

Mark was handing her things, pieces of clothing. He was trying to force a damp shirt over her head. She pushed him away.

“What are you doing?” she said. “Get off. What are you doing?”

“Get out of bed,” he said. “Get up. Come outside.”

“Why is Gerome outside?” she asked. She pulled on her T-shirt and stood. Her knees cracked.

Before she could look for them, Mark had placed her shorts in her hands. They too were damp, and she pulled them on slowly. Her legs were wobbly, as though maybe they were still asleep. “You left him outside alone?” she said. It didn’t make sense. “Is he in the car? Did you leave the a/c running?”

“Please,” said Mark. He was pulling her. He had taken her by the wrist, and now he was pulling her.

“My shoes,” she said. “Do you have my shoes?” Her shorts weren’t yet buttoned. She couldn’t see where she was going. She took a step forward and ran into something hard with her toe. “Fuck,” she said.

“I have your shoes,” he said. “But please, Maggie. I need you to wake up. I need you to concentrate.”

She was trying to take her shoes from his hands. He seemed unwilling to give them to her. Her toe was in exquisite agony. She sat back down on the bed.

“Maggie,” he said.

She closed her eyes. It felt so good to close her eyes. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d slept so soundly, so peacefully.

Mark slapped her.