Imaginary Men (24 page)

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Authors: Enid Shomer

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Page 150

completely unmagical, his possessions ordinarysagging topsiders, a beat-up Ford Escort.

"I don't regret marrying Lola," Fred said. "That's the funny part. I don't think I've learned a single thing from twelve years of marriage."

I caught sight of a blue heron lifting off from a cypress tree. The river was warming up, getting ready for another day. I picked up the shawl and bunched it in my arms. We started back to the car. Cypress knees stuck up on either side of the boardwalk in their usual ragged fashion, competing for space. Like seedlings, with no one to thin them. Though it wasn't yet dawn, I could feel the light just below the horizon like a humming in my bones.

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Fred dropped me off at 5 A.M. I was relieved that Dory's truck wasn't in the driveway, but he had left a note on the kitchen table: "I'm SORRY. Love you so much. Taking BJ to the trials. See you tonight. XXXX" I drew a hot bubble bath and soaked. Gray light turning to pale pink filtered into the room through the rippled glass of the small east window. I added more hot water, and the room filled with steam. Dory's face floated in the mist, along with a squalling infant and a sad-faced woman holding a phone to her ear. It was bad enough trying to decide whether to marry Dory when I was just worried about the age difference. If I could have ten good years, just ten, I had thought, it would be worth it. I'd keep on working, keep parts of my life to myself, like a cash reserve in the bank, something to fall back on when he finally left.

I decided not to go to bed at all. It was a Saturday morning, a fine Saturday morning in June. The oak tree overhanging the dog pen was tipped with tender, waxy new leaves. I dragged a webbed lounge chair from the carport into the backyard to nap instead. Dory had left the gates of the dog runs ajar and hadn't picked up the food pans from the night before. The kennel looked peculiarly sad and mysterious without BJ or Frypan in it, like the scene of a kidnapping.

I remembered that Dory hadn't planned to take BJ out until Sunday, the second day of the hunt being held east of Horseshoe Beach, in the Waccasassa swamp. Maybe he was just afraid to face me. I was

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glad he wasn't around now. I got enraged just thinking about the begging tone he'd have in his voice when he asked me to forgive him.

My neighbor's daughter came into her yard and waved hello. Emmy was fifteen and dressed crazily. She wore iridescent exercise tights, a long T-shirt, and a black leather belt cinched around her hips to school. Other times she dressed in dashing plaid pants and blouses, with men's white shoelaces braided through her hair. I didn't know what clothes meant anymore. All the fashions seemed designed to confuse you about a person's values and financial status. When I was growing up, I was taught that clothes told the world what you thought of yourself.

"Your dogs was crying all night long," Emmy called out to me. "My dad was fit to be tied."

"I was out all night."

"That's what Daddy said."

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On Saturday, the judges spotted BJ first behind the fox three times. But at the end of the day, when the pack gathered, their tongues hanging out like sodden rags, she was missing. Dory had remained until after dark, calling, honking the horn, playing the radio full blast.

We spent Sunday searching for her. We set aside our differences like parents do when a child is in danger. Dory wore his Wellingtons, and I drove the truck from point to point. People don't realize this end of the Suwannee, being so close to the Gulf, has tides. The water was high in the swamps and in the river basin. By nightfall, we were both hoarse from calling. Uncle Jones was waiting by my trailer when we got back. "It's in her blood," he said, without getting out of his truck. "She's more wild than domestic."

Dory said he didn't think it was wildness, because the feral dogs he'd seen always looked scared, as if they'd trade their terrain in a minute for a feed bowl and a warm place to sleep. BJ was another story. BJ had a job to dochase all the foxes and deer in the world, though she would likely never have been able to bring one down on her own. "I guess you were right about her. It was real bad that she got along so fine that time she was gone for three weeks," Dory said.

"Yeah," Uncle adjusted his cap. "She'd have been better off if she'd

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broken her leg or got cut up real bad, instead of finding that carcass to eat.''

We went looking for her every day that week after work. Once Dory thought he saw a spotted red-and-white dog slip through a patch of shadow not far from the road, but he was never sure.

A week later, Uncle phoned to say BJ had shown up in his backyard but that she was doing poorly. He suggested Dory come over to see her. It was hours before Dory returned to the trailer. His face looked hard. "She ran herself to death. Busted her heart. She came back to die, was all."

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Sometimes, when I'm lying here alone at night and can't sleep, I think of what it must have been like for her out there, among the trees and stars and all the animals of the kingdom. I imagine that on nights when the deer and foxes stayed hidden, she chased ripples on the water, birds, finally, maybe, even the moon. I know what it would feel like to run that hard, the pulse in your head so loud that it drowns out any name you might once have answered to.

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Other Iowa Short Fiction Award and John Simmons Short Fiction Award Winners

1991
The Ant Generator
, Elizabeth Harris
Judge: Marilynne Robinson

1991
Traps
, Sondra Spatt Olsen
Judge: Marilynne Robinson

1990
A Hole in the Language
, Marly Swick
Judge: Jayne Anne Phillips

1989
Lent: The Slow Fast
, Starkey Flythe, Jr.
Judge: Gail Godwin

1989
Line of Fall
, Miles Wilson
Judge: Gail Godwin

1988
The Long White
, Sharon Dilworth
Judge: Robert Stone

1988
The Venus Tree
, Michael Pritchett
Judge: Robert Stone

1987
Fruit of the Month
, Abby Frucht
Judge: Alison Lurie

1987
Star Game
, Lucia Nevai
Judge: Alison Lurie

1986
Eminent Domain
, Dan O'Brien
Judge: Iowa Writers' Workshop