Author: allen0997

At the Rise of the Hill ~ A Short Story

At the Rise of the Hill
~ A Short Story by Allen Kopp ~

(This short story has been published in The Literary Hatchet.)

Freddy Chickwell’s mother called him at seven o’clock on Sunday morning, before he was even out of bed.

“I need you to come over right away!” she said.

“I can’t, mother!” Freddy said. “It’s too early. I don’t even have my eyes open yet.”

“You’re going to want to see this.”

“What is it?”

“I can’t tell you on the phone. You have to see for yourself.”

“I’m going back to bed, mother. Please don’t call me until the sun is all the way up.”

“I never ask you for anything,” she said pitifully. “I’m asking you this one thing politely.”

“I’ll come, but only if there’s bacon and French toast.”

“How can you think of food at a time like this?” she asked.

“A time like what?”

He lay back on the bed and groaned. He had planned on going back to sleep but now that he was wide awake, he got up and dressed himself. He hated jumping out of bed and driving someplace first thing in the morning, but it appeared he had no other choice.

As he drove the six miles to his mother’s house, he thought of the different things that might have elicited such a call at an early hour: a large rat (spider) in the basement (bathtub); a bill that came in the mail for a large sum that she says she doesn’t owe and has no intention of paying; Aunt Jeanette has a tumor on her gallbladder; a large crack has appeared overnight in the foundation.

He pulled into the driveway and his mother came out the front door and down the steps, toward his car in a pink terrycloth bathrobe and fuzzy slippers; her hair was sticking out in spikes.

“Prepare yourself!” she said.

“For what?” he asked.

“He’s come back!”

“Who has?”

“Need you ask?”

Freddy walked into the house behind her and there, sitting in the living room in the middle of the couch, was his father, who had been dead for a year. Freddy looked at his father and his father looked at him. There were no words.

His mother motioned Freddy into the kitchen. “What do you suppose is going on?” she asked.

“Who is that?” Freddy asked.

“Who do you think it is?”

“Well, I know who it looks like!”

“He’s been raising all kinds of Cain with me ever since he came back.”

“Why?”

“He says I went off and left him.”

“Left him where?”

“I told him I would never do that.”

“Mother, something’s not right here,” Freddy said. “People don’t just come back from the dead after a year.”

“Apparently some of them do!”

“Is he a ghost?”

“I don’t think so. He ate a big breakfast and then had to go to the bathroom. I don’t think ghosts do that.”

“If he’s not a ghost,” Freddy said, “it must mean he was never dead in the first place. How do you account for it?”

“I don’t account for it! I saw him go into his grave.”

“The only other explanation I can think of is that he’s a zombie come back to eat our flesh.”

“Oh, I don’t think he would ever do that!”

“I’m calling the police,” Freddy said.

“And what could they do?” mother asked. “They’d never believe he was dead in the first place. They’d just think we were a bunch of lunatics.”

“Then call his doctor.”

“He died, too. Right after your father.”

“Maybe he’s a hallucination that we’re both having,” Freddy said. “We were both so poisoned by the man all the years he was alive that we’re being affected by him from beyond the grave.”

“I just don’t know,” mother said. She sat down at the table with her cup of tea, lit a Pall Mall cigarette, and sniffled back tears. “I cared for your father while he was alive—truly I did—and I missed him after he was gone, but now that I’ve become used to having my freedom, I just don’t think I can go back to the way things were before.”

“I’m hungry,” Freddy said. “I haven’t had any breakfast.”

He ate quickly, pushed the plate back when he was finished eating, and fanned away his mother’s cigarette smoke. “Now that I’ve had a little time to think about this dispassionately,” he said, “I’ve decided on a plan of action.”

“What is it?” she asked anxiously.

“We’ll kill him. It’s as simple as that.”

“Oh, Freddy! Your own father?”

“Well, he’s already dead, isn’t he? If you kill somebody who’s already dead, it’s not really wrong, is it? Not really a crime?”

“I’m not sure how the law would look at it,” mother said. “Killing is killing, whether the person you kill is already dead or not.”

“I don’t expect you to do any killing. I’ll do it.”

“But how? I don’t want a mess in the house that I’ll have trouble explaining later.”

“Remember Echo Hill?”

“That old place? I haven’t been there for years.”

“I haven’t, either. If it’s like it was when I was in high school, it would be the perfect place to kill a person that’s already dead.”

“Oh, Freddy, I just don’t know about this.”

“Remember how they used to tell us kids how dangerous it was to go up there because of the air holes?”

“What are air holes?”

“It’s places where you can fall through the earth down into the old mine if you’re not careful. There are probably some new ones that have formed since.”

“That sounds dangerous!”

“Yes, but it’s the perfect place to hide a body. If a body falls down an air hole, it would never be found. The old mine is as big as the whole town and there’s deep water in places.”

“It sounds very forbidding.”

“We can take him for a Sunday drive up to Echo Hill. We’ll get him out of the car and walking around, and—boom!—he’s gone down an air hole. Just like that.”

“And what if somebody sees us?”

“They won’t, and if they do they won’t know what they’re seeing.”

“While I’m getting dressed,” she said, “you go in and visit with your father.”

Freddy went into the living room and sat down in the chair facing the couch. “How have you been doing?” he asked father.

“There’s some weeds growing along the back fence,” the old man said. “Somebody needs to get out there and pull them up, and I guess that somebody is going to be me.”

“I wouldn’t worry about any weeds, if I were you,” Freddy said.

“The whole place is goin’ to hell!”

“So, tell me. What have you been doing this past year?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you’ve been…away, haven’t you? I just wondered what things were like where you were.”

The old man looked at Freddy with something like contempt. “What things?” he asked. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Mother came down from upstairs wearing a yellow pantsuit and matching wig that made her look like Doris Day. “Well!” she said brightly. “How are we getting along?”

“About like always,” Freddy said. “Not much in the way of communication.”

She bent over toward the old man and said very loud, as if being dead for a year might have made him partially deaf, “We thought it would be lovely to go for a little drive! It’s such a beautiful day!”

“Huh?” the old man said.

“Remember Echo Hill? We used to go up there for picnics with Betty and Waldo when we were young.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the old man said. “I never did.”

“Wouldn’t you like to get out of the house? Go for a little drive?”

The two of them together helped the old man off the couch, out the door and into the car. With him installed in the back seat, mother got into the front seat with Freddy.

“I just don’t know about this,” she said as Freddy started the car.

“It’ll be all right,” he said. “I think I know what I’m doing.”

He drove out to the edge of town, past the bowling alley, the abandoned funeral home, the roller rink, a used car lot, a couple of taverns, and into farm country, where there were barns, silos, cows and young horses grazing in fields.

“Not much traffic today,” Freddy said.

He looked in the rearview mirror and saw that the old man was asleep in the back seat, his head lolled to the side.

“Isn’t this fun?” mother said. “I just love going for a drive in the country on a pretty day!”

Freddy came to the turnoff to go to Echo Hill, and it was exactly as he remembered it. “Won’t be long now!” he said.

He took a couple of turns onto old country roads that became narrower and more tree-encroached. Finally, he came to the end of the blacktop and turned onto a dirt road. There was a gate across the road, long-since fallen into disuse.

“Just like pioneering days!” mother said. “This reminds me of my childhood!”

At the big hill, the road was very rough; Freddy slowed to ten miles an hour to prevent any damage to the tires.

Mother rolled down the window. “Just smell that country air!” she said. A bumble bee flew in and she screamed.

After what seemed a very long, slow climb, Freddy came to the top of the hill from which one could see into the next state. The dirt road ended there, so he pulled the car onto a little rise off to the right that seemed dry and firm and didn’t have a lot of weeds growing on it. It was a place where he could easily turn around when the time came.

“How about if we get out here and scout around a bit?” Freddy said, giving mother a wink.

He started to open the door but was arrested by a sound that he didn’t identify, a sound of dirt sifting. Then the front end of the car lurched forward significantly.

“What on earth!” mother said.

Freddy wanted to see what was happening to the front end but, as he put his hand out to open the door, the ground gave way and the car slid downward, front end first, into a hole just big enough to admit one mid-sized car.

Down, down, down went the car, into darkness complete. Mother gasped and grabbed onto the dashboard as if she could arrest the car in its flight. The old man in the back didn’t make a sound. Freddy had a few seconds before the car hit the water in which it all became clear, all the pieces of the puzzle fit into place. Everything that had ever happened—his whole life—had been preparing him for this moment when it would all come to end.

Copyright © 2023 by Allen Kopp

by allen0997

Sanctuary ~ A Capsule Book Review

Sanctuary book cover

Sanctuary
~ A Capsule Book Review by Allen Kopp ~

William Faulkner (1897-1962) was the supreme American literary stylist of the twentieth century. Some of his books are notoriously difficult to read. His 1930 novel, Sanctuary, is one of his more accessible books, but still not always easy to read.

Temple Drake is an affluent college girl around 1929. She loves to remind people that her father is a powerful judge. She has a date with Gowan Stevens to go to a dance. Gowan is a high-powered lush. When he stops off with Temple to buy some bootleg hooch, that’s when Temple’s problems begin.

Gowan’s bootlegger operates out of the shattered remnants of a Civil War-era mansion.  (Southern Gothic to the hilt.) Inside the bootlegging operation are several unsavory characters that Temple would have been better off not to meet. Chief among them is Popeye, one of Faulkner’s most memorable villains. Popeye is malformed (his mother had syphilis before he was born) and he’s impotent (can’t perform sexually). While Temple’s escort, Gowan Stevens, lies in a drunken stupor, Popeye overpowers Temple Drake and rapes her with a corncob.

A kind black man named Tommy (said to be a halfwit) tries to protect Temple from Popeye. Popeye kills Tommy and blames it on the bootlegger, Lee Goodwin. Lee Goodwin’s long-suffering common-law wife, Ruby Lamar, is also in residence in the broken-down mansion. She apparently loves Lee Goodwin and will stand by him in the face of a false murder accusation. She has an ailing baby, who doesn’t seem long for this world.

Popeye takes innocent, young Temple Drake to Memphis, and sets her up in a whore house, run by a fat whoremeister known as Miss Reba. Miss Reba provides lots of comic relief at this point in the dark story. She loves her beer and her two yapping little dogs.

Since Popeye is unable to perform sexually, he brings in a “stud,” a man of his acquaintance named Red. He forces Temple to have sex with Red while he watches. Finally he becomes jealous of Red and murders him.

In the meantime, Lee Goodwin has been put in jail for the murder of Tommy the halfwit (which he didn’t do). Horace Benbow has been hired as Lee Goodwin’s lawyer. Lawyer Benbow has problems of his own including an unhappy marriage. He knows that Lee Goodwin won’t be able to pay him, but he takes the case anyway. He and Ruby Lamar discuss the possibility that she will pay him by having sex with him.

Lee Goodwin is tried for the murder of Tommy the halfwit. Public sentiment in the town is decidedly against him when people learn that he raped Temple Drake with a corncob. (He didn’t do it, of course; Popeye did it.) Lee Goodwin refuses to defend himself. This is not going to end well for him.

This is a dark story with dark elements: rape, abduction, prostitution, plenty of sex, a sensational murder trial. Only the brilliant Southern writer William Faulkner could have written such a story in 193o and make it artful instead of tawdry.

Copyright © 2023 by Allen Kopp

by allen0997

Things I Must Have ~ A Short Story

Things I Must Have
~ A Short Story by Allen Kopp ~

Mrs. Koenig lay near death. Her four grown children had taken it upon themselves to gather in her house to discuss the disposition of her personal belongings.

“I want the Tiffany lamp,” Gwendolyn said.

“I already said the Tiffany lamp is mine!” Cupcake said.

“I’ve loved that lamp since I was a baby!”

“So? It’s still mine!”

“I want the dining room table and chairs,” Kent said. “Mother said I could have them.”

“Not so fast!” Gwendolyn said. “She said I could have them.”

“When did she say that?”

“I don’t know. Last Christmas, I think.”

“Well, she just told me last month that I could have them, so I guess that cancels you out.”

“I get the antique bed and dresser that were grandma’s,” Cupcake said. “Mother told me when I was fifteen that she wanted me to have them.”

“Well, isn’t that funny, Miss Cupcake!” Gwendolyn said. “I always thought I would get the antique bed and dresser.”

“I want the complete set of Dickens and the set of Britannica,” Kent said.

“You can have them!” Gwendolyn said. “Nobody cares about books.”

“I care. The Dickens set is over a hundred years old. It’s valuable. I’m going to sell it and buy a car I’ve been wanting.”

“Why don’t you keep the Dickens books and pass them on to your children, chowderhead?”

“I don’t have any children. Remember?”

“Oh, that’s right! There’s something funny about you, isn’t there?”

“There’s something even funnier about you!”

“I get the set of antique china,” Cupcake said, “and I’m not going to sell it, either.”

“What are you going to do with it, dear?” Gwendolyn asked.

“I’m going to keep it. What do you think? I also want the china cabinet. What good is the china without the cabinet?”

“I want the rolltop desk,” Cupcake said. “Mother told me in high school when I made the honor roll that I could have it.”

“I think the rolltop desk should go to me!” Kent said.

“And why is that?” Cupcake asked.

“It’s a man’s desk. I’m a man. Remember?”

“Oh, yes, darling! I keep forgetting!”

“I get the piano,” Gwendolyn said. “I’m the only one who plays.”

“You haven’t played since you were twelve years old,” Kent said, “and you were horrible! You used to cry when mother made you practice, and then she cried when she heard how bad your playing was.”

“Well, maybe I’ll take it up again. I always feel there’s something lacking in my life. Maybe it’s the piano.”

“Maybe it’s good judgment and common sense!” Cupcake said.

“Oh, and I also get the antique vase from China,” Gwendolyn said. “Mother’s piano wouldn’t be mother’s piano without the vase sitting on it.”

“Wait a minute!” Cupcake said. “I’m the only one here who knows antiques. I think I should get the antique vase from China.”

“I want mother’s photo albums and the big picture in the attic of grandma and grandpa,” Kent said. “Also the hall tree, the antique sideboard, the library table and the brocade sofa.”

“You can have them!” Gwendolyn said. “I never liked them, anyway.”

“Excuse me!” Cupcake said. “The library table is mine! I’ve already decided where I’m going to put it!”

“I’ll tell you where you can put it!” Kent said.

“I must have mother’s silver that she only used for special occasions,” Cupcake said. “The china is nothing without the silver to go with it.”

“I’m going to take the grandfather clock,” Kent said. “I’ve had my eye on it for  a long time. I’m sure mother wanted me to have it.”

“Then why didn’t she say so when she was in her right mind?”

“She did! She said it to me!”

“Don’t you think it’s funny she never told any of the rest of us?”

Dickie was the fourth and youngest child. He had not spoken until now. “You should hear yourselves!” he said. “Squabbling like a bunch of old hens over things! Mother’s not even dead yet! She may recover! She may come home from the hospital! She may live many more years!”

“We’re just trying to be prepared for when the time comes,” Kent said.

“These are the things we grew up with,” Gwendolyn said. “They’re meaningful to us. We want to make sure they end up in the right hands.”

“Meaning your hands,” Dickie said.

“Don’t you want to stake your claim to the things you want to keep” Cupcake asked. “To remember mother by?”

“No, I don’t want any of this stuff!”

“Why not?” Gwendolyn said.

“This stuff isn’t your stuff and it’s not my stuff!”

“What are you talking about?” Kent asked. “Of course it’s our stuff! Who else would it belong to?”

“I am in possession of some information that the rest of you sons-of-bitches don’t know!”

“What are you talking about?” Gwendolyn asked.

“Have you lost your mind?” Cupcake asked.

“No, I haven’t lost my mind. Mother’s lawyer called me yesterday. On the phone. Mother knew you would be fighting over her things, so she made a last-minute provision to her will. She wants everything in the house sold at auction and the money—all of it!—to go to charity.”

“What?” Cupcake said.

“I don’t think mother would do that!” Gwendolyn said.

“I don’t believe it!” Kent said. “You’re making this up out of spite!”

“And that’s not all!” Dickie said. “She donated the house to the church.”

“Church?” Cupcake said. “What church?”

“People from the church talked to her many times about giving them the house when she died. They finally broke her down and got her to sign an agreement.”

“This isn’t right!” Gwendolyn said. “Mother wasn’t right in the head! We can contest it! We can file a lawsuit! We can hold it up for years in the courts!”

“I don’t think so,” Dickie said. “It’s all legal and valid. If you don’t believe me, call mother’s lawyer. His name is Kenneth Ormiston.”

“Mother disinherited us!” Kent said, as if in a daze. “We don’t get anything!”

“Mother wouldn’t do that!” Cupcake said. “Not to me! I was always her favorite!”

“She won’t get away with this!” Gwendolyn said. “I’m going to have her buried face-down!”

“I don’t think it’ll make any difference to her,” Dickie said, “one way or another.”

“I don’t think I can walk!” Cupcake said, sobbing. “I need somebody to take me home!”

“Dickie, you bastard!” Gwendolyn said. “Look what you did to your sister! I’m going to kill you!”

Copyright © 2023 by Allen Kopp

by allen0997

Porch Light ~ A Short Story

Summer Evening by Edward Hopper

Porch Light  
~ A Short Story by Allen Kopp ~ 

(This short story has been published in Dew on the Kudzu: A Journal of Southern Writing.)

Nola was reading a book sitting beside an open window in the quiet house when she heard a soft knock on the door. It was eleven o’clock at night and she wasn’t wearing very much, but she went to the door and opened it anyway. She was feeling lonely, and a little blue, and was glad for the chance to talk to someone.

“Oh, hello,” she said, when she saw Roy standing there. She was neither happy nor unhappy to see him.

“Is she asleep?” he asked.

“For hours.”

“Why don’t you come out and talk to me. I’m not in any hurry to get home just yet.”

“Oh, all right. I suppose I could for a little while.”

She turned on the porch light and stepped out the door.

“What is that you’re wearing?” he asked. “Is that what you sleep in?”

“Of course not! After I took off my uniform, I put this on to try to keep cool. I wasn’t expecting any callers.”

“It looks like your brassiere and your step-ins. And pink, at that!”

“Well, you shouldn’t be looking. If your delicate sensibilities are offended, I’ll go put on a robe.”

“No, no, no, I don’t care what you have on. It’s your porch and you’re a grown-up person and it’s too hot to wear a robe.”

“It was over a hundred degrees today and will be again tomorrow.”

“It’s hotter here than the Sahara Desert in Africa. Did you know?”

“We’ve still got two more months of summer,” she said. “I don’t know if I’m going to last. I just wish it would rain.”

He looked up at the clear, star-laden sky and held out his hand. “Not a chance,” he said.  He sat on the porch railing and she leaned her backside against it beside him. A moth fluttered crazily around the light.

“Do you want a cigarette?” he asked.

“I’ll just take a puff or two off yours.”

He lit up and handed the burning cigarette to her.

“I might call Nellie in the morning,” she said, “and tell her I’m sick and can’t make it in. It won’t be too much of a lie.”

“I thought you were going to quit that job.”

“I can’t quit until I have another job lined up.”

“Let’s go to the park,” he said. “It’s too hot to go home. We can spend the night under the stars.”

“I can’t. I have to get up in about six hours and go to work.”

“I thought you were going to call in sick.”

“Well, I haven’t definitely made up my mind about that yet.”

“I’ll have you back in time to go to work.”

“I can’t stay awake all night and work all day.”

“You won’t sleep anyway in this heat.”

“I’m usually able to forget how hot it is and go to sleep about two o’clock.”

“And then you have to get up at five.”

“And the whole rotten routine starts over again. What a life.”

“Let’s run away together.”

She laughed and blew out a spluttering stream of smoke. “Where to?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” he said. “We could hop a freight train somewhere.”

“Oh, sure! That sounds worse than what I have now. As lousy as my life is, I at least have a bed to sleep in and food to eat.”

“If you ran away, you’d be free of everything here. You could start over somewhere else.”

“What would I do about my mother?”

“Send her a postcard.”

“You’re not being very practical.”

“That doesn’t get you anywhere.”

A police car drove past, slowed almost to a stop, sped away again.

“Must be looking for somebody,” she said.

“I didn’t do anything,” he said.

“Are you still looking for a job?”

“Off and on. I could maybe go to work for my uncle if I wanted to, but I don’t want to.”

“Doing what?”

“Moving furniture.”

“That doesn’t sound very promising.”

“I applied for a job as an usher at a movie theatre downtown, but I probably won’t get it.”

“Why not?”

“Don’t want it.”

She watched the fireflies in the yard and didn’t say anything for a while. “Can you see us going on this way for the next forty or fifty years?” she asked. “Until we die?”

“I don’t think about it much,” he said.

“I think there has to be more to life.”

“Maybe tomorrow will be better. That’s what you have to hope for.”

“I might get married to somebody someday,” she said, “but it’s going to have to be to somebody who can take me away from all this.”

“You wouldn’t marry me?” he asked. She knew he was joking.

“No,” she said. “You’re a bum like everybody else I know.”

“Well, that can always change. I haven’t completely given up on life.”

“Go to school and become a doctor or a lawyer,” she said. “Then I’ll consider marrying you.”

“I’m lacking some necessary ingredients for that,” he said. “Namely, money and ambition.”

“You can’t be a bum all your life.”

“Who says? My father has been a bum all his life and his father before him.”

“Maybe you’re better than that.”

“My mother wants me to join the army. She’s threatened to throw me out of the house if I don’t do something.”

“Maybe that’s what you need.”

“If she tosses me out, can I come and live with you?”

“No. You and my mother wouldn’t get along.”

“You see how it is? If it’s not my mother giving me grief, it’s somebody else’s.”

“What a life,” she said.

“Are you sure you won’t go to the park with me?”

“It’s late. I need to try to go to sleep so I can get up and go to work in the morning.”

“What a life,” he said. “My room is so hot I can’t stand to lie on the bed. I put a quilt on the floor underneath the window and sleep on it naked until the sun comes up.”

“I really should be going in now.”

“Will you go to the park with me tomorrow night?”

“Maybe.”

“Something good is going to happen tomorrow,” he said. “I just know it. Maybe a thunderstorm.”

“Good night,” she said.

“Good night.”

She knew he would leave whenever she told him to. He wouldn’t try to kiss her or touch her, the way some would. He never did that; he wasn’t that kind of a boy. She had known him so long. He was more like the brother she never had.

She went back inside and turned off the porch light, locked the door. She went to the door of her mother’s room to make sure she was still sleeping and then she walked through the dark house she knew so well and got into her bed. Far off in the distance she heard the low rumble of thunder that could only mean one thing. If she stayed awake long enough, she might see lightning and hear some rain on the roof.   

Copyright © 2023 by Allen Kopp 

by allen0997

The Only Red Dog in the Neighborhood

The Only Red Dog in the Neighborhood
The Only Red Dog in the Neighborhood
~ A Short Story by Allen Kopp ~

(This short story has been published in The Literary Hatchet.)

Grandma lived in the city so we only saw her every two or three years. She had an apartment high up in a city building on a busy street and she worked as a manager in retail. She went to nightclubs and the theatre and wore a fox fur with little glass eyes. She had been married six times but, to be fair, she was married to one of her husbands twice, so she only had five husbands.

She always smoked a lot of Philip Morris cigarettes, ever since she was young. When she was in her sixties, she got what they call emphysema of the lungs. Doctors didn’t know yet if it would kill he or if she’d get over it. She kept on smoking, even though she might die from it, but she began using a six-inch cigarette holder. She believed the holder would make the cigarettes less harmful to her lungs.

Since her health was in decline and she was finished, finally, with marriage (she was separated from her most recent husband and then he conveniently died), she moved to the small town of Echo Bend where we lived, to be near, she said, her only living child (my mother) and her two grandchildren (my brother and me). She bought a house near the school, within convenient walking distance of our house. She never drove a car and was not about to learn in old age, so she walked every place she went or took taxi cabs.

A lot of Echo Bend people didn’t know what to make of grandma; some of them were openly contemptuous of her, refusing to speak to when they met her on the street. They knew about her many marriages and considered her a woman of loose morals. (Some of the ladies believed that grandma would make a play for their husbands if given the chance.)

When she dressed casually, she wore men’s dungarees and loose shirts from the army surplus store and sandals with socks. (Who wears sandals with socks?) At church on Sunday she always wore bright colors—orange, red, yellow, or green—while the other ladies wore their somber Puritan hues. She also favored hats with feathers or some other kind of ornamentation such as a bird in flight or realistic-looking cherries that hung down and jiggled when she moved her head. And, of course, there was always the cigarette holder, which most thought a Hollywood-inspired affectation. (Who does she think she is anyway? Gloria Swanson?)

Grandma wasn’t used to living alone and she didn’t like to cook, so two or three nights a week she walked up to our house for dinner. After the meal was over and the dishes washed and put away, mother and grandma would sit at the kitchen table and gab and smoke cigarettes. Then when grandma was ready to go, mother would take her home in the car.

One Saturday afternoon grandma arrived at our house for dinner crying, limping and gasping for breath.

“What happened?” we asked.

“A big red dog bit me.”

“That would be Red Rover,” I said. “He belongs to the Tutwilers.”

“Bit you where?” mother asked.

“On the leg.”

Grandma pulled up the leg of her dungarees. On her calf was the perfect imprint of a dog’s mouth. It was bleeding a little bit and beginning to swell.

“We have to get you to the doctor,” mother said.

“No, no, no! I’m not going to any doctor!” grandma whined.

“You might have rabies.”

Grandma groaned. Her face was pale and she looked as if she might faint.

“Did you do anything to provoke the dog?” mother asked.

“Of course not! I was just walking past. He came from around the house and barked at me a couple of times. I thought it was because he didn’t know me. I talked to him and I thought I could get him to calm down if he saw I wasn’t going to hurt him. He wagged his tail and when I reached down and started to pat him on the head, he snapped at my hand. I turned around and tried to get away from him and that’s when he bit me on the leg.”

“Did you run from him? That’s the worst thing you can do.”

“When a dog comes at you baring his teeth, wouldn’t you run from him?” grandma asked.

Mother got a pan of hot water and a washcloth and bathed the place on grandma’s leg the best she could and then poured alcohol over it. Grandma gripped the back of the couch and gritted her teeth as if a bullet was being pulled from her flesh.

“I’m going to call the doctor,” mother said.

Dr. Overman wasn’t in his office because it was Saturday, but she left a message and he called back a few minutes later. I was listening in on the extension.

“Keep her calm and cleanse the wound,” Dr. Overton said.

“I already did that,” mother said.

“Bring her down to my office first thing Monday morning. I’ll take a look at the bite and give her a tetanus shot, but the most important thing right now is to observe the dog and make sure it doesn’t show any signs of sickness. Do you know who the dog belongs to?”

“His name is Red Rover. He’s a neighborhood dog.”

“Good. Go to the owner and tell him what happened and that the dog must be absolutely confined for a few days and observed for any signs of sickness. If the owner won’t cooperate, called the sheriff.”

“My dog?” Tut Tutwiler asked when mother told him. “Are you sure it was my dog?”

“It had to be Red Rover,” I said. “He’s the only red dog in the neighborhood.”

“Who did he bite?”

“He bit my mother,” mother said. “She’s an old lady and she just moved here from the city. She isn’t very well anyway. This could be serious.”

“He never bit anybody before. What did she do to him?”

“She didn’t do anything. She was just walking past.”

“I’m sure he didn’t mean anything by it. He’s a gentle dog.”

“Yes, he’s so gentle that he goes around biting people!”

“All right, now. Calm down.”

“The doctor says to keep the dog confined for a few days and watch him to make sure he isn’t sick.”

“I guess I could do that.”

“It’s not a request, Mr. Tutwiler. I don’t think you want a lawsuit on your hands, do you?”

“Okay, I’ll keep him in the garage for a few days, but I’m not going to let you destroy him. He’s the kids’ pet. They love him.”

“Nobody said anything about destroying him, Mr. Tutwiler. Just keep him locked up and keep an eye on him for now.”

After dinner grandma had regained her composure, but she was still spooked and didn’t want to go home by herself, so mother installed her in the back bedroom to keep an eye on her and make sure she took care of herself.

Grandma’s leg swelled up and she laid in bed and complained about how much it hurt and how worried she was that she would never walk again.

“It’s not that bad,” mother said. “I think you’ll live.”

If grandma wanted a lemon, a root beer, a bowl of Rice Krispies, or some scrambled eggs, one of us had to take it to her. She enjoyed being waited on, I could tell, although she never let any of us forget how uncomfortable she was. She loved having somebody sit and listen to her talk as she recounted every dog-bite story from her long life, going all the way back to when she was three years old. (Most of the stories had a tragic ending.) When she wanted to smoke, one of us had to sit with her and breathe her smoke and make sure she snuffed the cigarette out in the ashtray and didn’t set the bed on fire.

On Monday morning mother got grandma out of bed early and took her downtown to see Dr. Overman. They were gone all morning and when they came back home, grandma wanted to go to “her” room to rest.

“What did the doctor say?” I asked.

“She has an erratic heartbeat.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means she isn’t well.”

“She’s a drama queen.”

“You should have known her mother.”

“What about the dog bite?”

“It’s not going to kill her. The doctor told us to keep it clean, as if we didn’t already know that. He gave her a shot.”

“I’ll bet she screamed, didn’t she?”

Five days after the dog bite, grandma said she felt well enough to go back home the next day. She thanked us for taking care of her but said it was time to go back home and take care of herself. She didn’t like leaving her piano, antiques, books, and glass figurines unattended. House breakers were probably already having a field day with her things.

“Thank goodness!” mother said.

We checked with Tut Tutwiler every day to see how Red Rover was getting along. He showed no signs of sickness, other than disgust at being locked up. He would escape with his life this time, but with a warning. If he bit anybody else, intentionally or not, it was probably going to be the end of him. Mr. Tutwiler promised to keep him in the yard or chained to a post if he didn’t behave himself.

On the morning of the day that grandma said she was going back home, she didn’t get up in time for breakfast. Mother went in about nine o’clock to wake her up. Grandma was, as the saying goes, “unresponsive.” Mother called an ambulance and they came and took grandma away to the hospital.

The doctor who examined grandma said she died of a heart attack in her sleep. She didn’t know anything. She didn’t feel anything. It was a blessing to go that way.

People in the neighborhood began saying that Red Rover killed grandma. They would drive by and see him in the yard and say, “That’s the killer dog that killed that old woman. They say he ripped her to shreds.” People will believe what they want to believe as long as it makes them happy.

Copyright © 2023 by Allen Kopp

by allen0997