Brad Watson: Last Days of the Dog-Men

One day they were standing on the beach and birds started to fall out of the sky.

“Oh,” one of the birders cried, “it’s a tanager fallout.” A momentary alarm shook Agnes, naturally associating the word with its nuclear meaning. But then she caught on, birds plopping to the white sand all around them. Bright red birds with black wings and black tails, and dull yellow birds amongst them.

They’d stood still, as had all the others for some minutes, and then people began to get down on their hands and knees and take close-up pictures of the birds, who were too exhausted to move another feather. People picked them up and stroked them and set them back down. Before they could stop him, Bob — who’d cautiously sniffed at one bird — began taking them into his jaws and dropping them at her and Pops’s feet like gifts. Some of the birders got upset and started hollering like fools until Pops got Bob back on the leash and kept him from retrieving any more tanagers.

“He ain’t a retriever,” Pops said later. “He’s built for killing small animals. He knows we like the birds, I guess.”

That day, Agnes had stood there, the startling scarlet birds falling around her, and listened to the surf bashing at the sand, and she could see the churning tidal struggle down at the point, at the mouth of the bay. She looked out over the Gulf and thought about the birds having crossed all that water without even a rest, and she thought about the fishes and other creatures that traveled beneath those waters, strong and free as they pleased, roaming without the boundaries of continents or countries or cities and towns or jobs or houses or yards, and the idea of the freedom of such a journey stirred in her something like joy and something like frustration. She didn’t know what to do with it, this feeling, and she felt so strange standing amidst these people struck wild with wonder over the tanager fallout while all she could feel was the most curious detachment from it all.

SHE DECIDED SHE NEEDED TO GO TO THE POOL AND ON A whim thought it’d be nice to drive Lura over there with her. If Lura liked so much to go, then she’d give her somewhere to go to . She knew Lura wouldn’t swim, but it might be nice for her to sit in the shade and watch the others. Agnes put her swimsuit on and slipped a slightly faded sundress over it, got into her sandals and sunglasses, and went over to fetch Lura.

Lura was sitting in her automatic chair and she fumbled for the button, pushed it, and the chair began to rise slowly until it slid Lura out onto the floor on her feet and then sat there like a sproinged jack-in-the-box while Lura went into the kitchen to get Agnes a bowl of homemade ice cream.

“I don’t want any ice cream,” Agnes said. “Let’s get in my car and go over to the swimming pool.”

“I made this cream last week and it’s still good, but I can’t eat it all,” Lura said.

“I thought,” Agnes said loudly then, thinking maybe Lura didn’t have her hearing aid in, “that I would give you some place to go , instead of just wandering. And you wouldn’t have to drive.”

“Well, I like to drive,” Lura said, fiddling in her silverware drawer. “I can drive just fine.”

“I didn’t say you couldn’t drive, Lura. I just thought you might like to go someplace with me .”

“Well, I can drive us to the pool,” Lura said, like someone who’d been insulted.

Agnes felt her stomach knot up just thinking about riding with Lura, but she could see what this was turning into and went on out and got into Lura’s car and rolled down her window. After what must have been a quarter of an hour, Lura finally came down her back-porch steps wearing a light cotton dress with a floral print and carrying a wide, floppy garden hat that looked like a collapsed sombrero. She put the hat onto the seat between them and got in behind the giant steering wheel of the Impala. She looked like a child driving a city bus, Agnes thought.

Then Lura began her driving ritual. She pulled on her white cotton gloves and fished her keys out of her purse, chose the proper key, and inserted it into the ignition. She pumped the accelerator pedal one time with the toe of her sandal, then turned the key. The old engine turned over once, coughed, then died with a hydraulic sigh. Lura pumped again, turned the key, the engine wheezed once, caught, and Lura held her foot down until the car roared like a dump truck. She let it die back, and gently pulled the gear stick down into Reverse. The transmission made its familiar clanking noise, Agnes felt the bump of the car into gear, and Lura placed both gloved hands on the wheel and peered into the rearview mirror as she began her journey out of her driveway. Obliquely, and true to her lights, she leaned the Impala’s right fender into her pink azaleas, and the thin and agonized atonal chorus of stems against paint and metal began.

“Oh, Lord,” Agnes muttered. “Here we go.”

Clank clank, into Drive, Lura pulled forward. Clank clank, into Reverse.

“Lura,” Agnes said. “Lura.” Lura pressed on the brake pedal and looked at her.

“Why don’t you use the side mirror,” Agnes said.

Lura looked at her blankly.

“If you just keep your left fender close to the bushes on that side, you’ll be all right,” Agnes said.

Lura said, “I couldn’t see the rest of the car if I did that.”

“You don’t have to see the whole car,” Agnes said. “Can you see the whole car when you’re moving ahead? If you keep it close to the bushes on your side, the other side will take care of itself.”

“I do all right,” Lura said. “Well, I can’t use the side mirror, I never have.”

“Lura, it’s just easier,” Agnes started to say, but Lura’s toe had strayed from the brake pedal and the car’s high idle propelled them backwards. Agnes, looking into the mirror on her side, thought for a moment that they would make it clear out of the driveway and into the street by accident, but then Lura realized what was happening and yanked the wheel, and the car jumped the curb and plowed into the bank of azaleas with a paint-rending screech. Lura kept one hand on the gearshift, pulled the stick clank clank into Drive, and the car shot forward into the driveway and jerked to a stop.

“Look at that,” Lura said, disgusted. “Agnes, will you just let me drive?”

In the end, Agnes got out and waited on the sidewalk until Lura had gotten the car into the street. Then she got in and they drove at Lura’s steady fifteen-miles-per-hour pace to the pool.

Lura took a couple of spaces near the gate, put the broad straw garden hat back onto her head, and they walked on in.

“Well, here we are,” Lura said. “You go on in. I’ll just find somewhere to sit down.”

“I’m going to get some sun before I swim,” Agnes said. “Why don’t you sit over there under that awning and get yourself some ice tea? I’ll take one of those loungers over there and stretch out.”

“Well, that sounds good,” Lura said. “I don’t see how you can stand that sun. I’m glad I wore my hat. Whew.” She adjusted the hat and began working her fingers out of the white cotton gloves as she made her way over to the refreshment area.

Agnes walked down to the deck behind the diving boards, spread her Panama City Beach beach towel onto one of the cedar chaise longues, and eased herself down. This was the last time she’d ever go anywhere with Lura. Lord, what an old biddy. She decided not to fool with the suntan lotion. She hoped Lura wouldn’t wander off and strand her, or worse yet totter off and fall into the pool and drown. She decided to alert the lifeguard to that possibility. He was a strong-looking boy and very capable, she was sure. She looked at him, sitting up in his high chair, twirling his silver whistle.