SQN - Sine Qua Non - Issue 1 - Journal - Page 88
and either Mr. or Mrs. would come down and open the basement door for me. They’d even
put some blankets down there, like a bed I guess you could say. And later, an old mattress.
This went on for a couple years. So, as I said, for a street urchin, I was pretty darned lucky.
And by the way, scavenging for food wasn’t quite as dog-eat-dog as you might imagine, either.
In other words, I really had no complaints.
So a typical day would involve hitting either or both of the parks, morning and late
afternoon, where friendly folks would be walking with their dogs, among other things; then,
checking out the back alley of restaurant row about closing time; after that, the deli basement,
particularly if it was cold or windy or felt like it might rain or snow that night. The rest of the
time I’d be strolling the streets with friends or hanging out in one of the woodsier areas of the
parks (where we could nap safely under thick patches of bushes), or filling up my day with,
well, whatever adventure a day might bring. None of which, as I said, was really important.
***
Then one morning I saw him. Walking with his dog. Walking and running. What I
thought was his dog. Then they opened the gate to play in the off-leash dog run. The fence
around the dog run was not solid, so passersby would often stop and look in. That’s what I did
that day, a day when there happened to be only one guy and one dog in there. Them. Playing.
Of course I didn’t know the guy’s name yet. Or the dog’s. But it was Jimmy.
Oh, the way he doted on that dog. It was beautiful. And so he was beautiful. Tall,
energetic, cheerful, you get the idea. What really struck me was that he was so nice, so kind,
so loving to that dog of his! He had no qualms about getting on his back and letting the dog
run circles around him or figure eights over him. And whether playing stick or ball, or dishing
out some water, he was just about always smiling and in a good mood. That dog could do no
wrong, as far as Jimmy was concerned. What was not to love? Answer: nothing.
He called the dog “Pal.” I didn’t know English that well, so I didn’t know if this was the
dog’s name. But after a while I figured out that it wasn’t the dog’s real name—it was Jimmy’s
name for the dog. A “nick name.”
Nicknames, I would later learn, mean more than names. A nickname is your special
name for someone. Which makes that someone special to you, and you special to them. You
see? So what was not to love? Answer: nothing.
Anyway, I figured out how to time my morning junkets in the park to coincide with
his dog-walking schedule. And as I watched from afar over the next few days—maybe weeks,
maybe more—I suppose you could say I was falling in . . . . Well, no, that’s ridiculous, I hadn’t
even met the guy. But let’s call it falling in like—yes, that’s better. (It goes to show that you
really know a language, idioms and all, when you can coin a new term in it. Right? So I guess
I’m not doing so badly, am I?)
Now, Jimmy still hadn’t so much as raised his eyes to look in my direction. Not once.
But why would he? He was always engrossed in whatever he was doing, whomever he was
with, and that focus seemed to fill him with gusto. That’s part of what made him so attractive:
call it light-hearted intensity. But it is also what made me invisible to him.
After a while, though, I noticed how dog walkers frequently talked to each other, and to
each other’s dogs, and the thought came to me that the way to meet Jimmy might be through
his dog. Who was, I won’t deny it, pretty adorable. But how could I manage it? I would look
pretty funny going into the dog run alone, just me, right? They might even kick me out.
Fortunately, one day I saw the two of them outside the dog run, strolling along the riverbank.
So over to Pal I sauntered. And what do you know, that dog was all over me.
65