Imperial Beach

Driving down route 75, the bay off to the right there as the sun is going down. Hot. All the windows open, air blowing through the car, blowing my hair all over, but still it is hot. I pull off the road into a parking lot looking out over the bay. The sun is a golden sheet across the windshield. My eyes behind my sunglasses are burnt from their sockets. I close my eyes and the light is still as bright, but redder. I lean my head back against the seat, sliding down a little. Fold my arms across my chest. Rest my knee against the dashboard. Frank Sinatra in the tape deck, way low, just a hint of "Lilly Belle" with that old recording sound, That sound kind of muffled like it was recorded through a few sheets of cloth. Like they put up three layers of felt between the band and Frank and the other singers and the microphone. Frank's standing there in his gray suit with the bow tie, skinny neck sticking out of his collar, skinny wrists sticking out of his cuffs one hand fingers snapping on the back beat, ears sticking out. Singing. The trumpet player stands up and points his trumpet up in the air, blowing those high notes. They do the song and then the recording engineer comes out from behind the sheets of felt.

"Hey, Frank," the recording engineer says, "We gotta record it again."

"Aw, Joe," Frank says, "Whaddya mean? That was perfect, right boys?

"Right!" all the boys in the band say all together, each one saluting that salute where you put your hand up to your head like a regular salute, but then you bring it out and forward about six or seven inches and hold your hand out there those six or seven inches from your head. The boys in the band all do that together.

"What about you chicks?" Frank says to the backup singers. All the backup singers are wearing silver sequined dresses and silver high heels and all their hair is cut like Lauren Bacall's in Casablanca.

"Right, Frankie!" The backup singers all say in unison.

"There you go, Joe," Frank says to the recording engineer, "It sounded great to all of us."

"Oh but Frank," the recording engineer says, but he doesn't get to finish what he's saying because Frank gives him the same salute that the boys in the band just gave him and then Frank turns and goes out the door. Just turns around and goes right out the door with a backup singer on each arm and the other carrying his hat and the boys in the band are all packing up their instruments and smoking reefers and drinking lime rickeys.

So Joe, the recording engineer takes down his three layers of felt and goes back into his booth and rewinds the tape, but he knows, he just knows it's gonna be too clear, not anywhere near muffled enough to pass. Joe puts his head in his hands and thinks about his wife. His beautiful wife Roxanne who loves to buy diamonds and pearls and hates not having any money. That last diamond she bought was huge. It was way too big. It must have cost a thousand bucks. Man, what he could do with a thousand bucks. He could probably put up a whole bunch more sheets of felt, for the next time Frank came in.

Joe gets up and turns all the equipment off. He turns all the lights out. He walks in darkness to the door and lets himself out. Locks the door behind him. He walks down an empty street where the street lights make perfect little circles of yellow on the gray sidewalks. Papers blow around his legs, a section of the New York Times wraps itself around his calf and he stops to try to get it off. He leans over. He tugs at the paper. His hat blows off and goes rolling down the street. Joe's hand goes up to catch the hat but too late. The paper is saying something about judgment day. The headline says "Judgment Day to be" but the corner is folded over the paper and I can't read the rest. I'm leaning down trying to peel the paper off of my calf, trying to read the rest of the headline about Judgment day but my fingers won't grab the paper. My fingers won't grab the paper because they are inside big furry gloves. I want to put the gloves in my pocket but they are glued onto my fingers and besides there is that injunction about it. An injunction handed down by the high court forbidding the reading of papers while the gloves are on, forbidding the removal of gloves for the purpose of reading the paper. I straighten up but then one leg is shorter than the other and I have to limp down the street. If I can find an open door I can go outside and get out of the wind. I try all the doors on the street but they are locked but while I am trying them the wind stops because I am inside. Inside a big building a federal building a courthouse looking for the courtroom where the judges are so they can hear my appeal on their injunction. I find the court and they are all inside. I can see the judges all inside there, sitting arguing about something but the door is locked and I can't work the key with my paws. I try to work the key but my paws are just not flexible enough and I start scratching at the door. I am scratching the door and barking because I know I have to get out. I have to go outside to pee. Someone will hear me scratching and barking and let me out to pee if I keep it up but it just gets louder and louder and I can't let him out. The poor dog has to go out but I don't have a key, can't open the door, The door is right next to me and the dog is right on the other side but I can't let him in because I am in my car and it is dark and why would a stupid dog want to get in my car anyway?

I look out the window. The dog is a big hairy dog. Light colored hair, with a big tongue that smears dog saliva all over my window. There is no one else out there. Sit up in my car, my back all stiff and my leg feeling like a dead thing attached to my knee. It thumps to the floor and then that pain. The pain of blood finding its way back to all the cut off nerves and the nerve endings screaming for the blood, screaming now that the blood is on its way and it is so close, so close I want blood NOW!

The dog drops out of sight. I put my head close to the window, looking down. He is standing there with his head twisted around to one side, looking back away from the bay. His tongue is hanging out of the side of his mouth and his chest is pumping, like a balloon when you squeeze it around the middle. Doggie breath coming out in puffs, little clouds of white doggie breath coming out and hanging around his head. I roll down the window.

He hears me roll down the window. His head comes up, tongue flapping around, drool flying.

"What do you want?" I say.

"Ooff." the dog says. Just a little ooff like he is being very reasonable.

"You hungry?" I say.

"Ooff." the dog says. He turns his head, looking back behind the car. I lean my head out the window to look where he's looking.

There's a car back there, no a van. A mini van parked at an angle to me. The sliding side door is open and the head lights are on, but dim, very dim. No one is around. It's night, now. Just a car now and then on highway 75 back there behind the dune separating the parking lot from the road. Just two parking lot lights on. One on either end of the lot. I'm parked in the middle. The light I'm seeing by is the moonlight and the star light and the leftover light from those parking lot lights.

A big wet tongue comes up my face, from below my jaw to my hairline. I pull my head back inside the car. The dog's head comes in the window with his front paws. His head is so huge, I'm leaning way over into the passenger seat, the dog is looking around in my car and drooling on my hip. I can feel the drool through my pants. The dog whines. That metallic sounding whimper they do when they're worried or uncomfortable. He shifts his paws, moving them around on the window frame like he wants to come in but he's not sure how.

"Hey, buddy, get down." I say.

He whimpers some more, sharp sounds like wounded metal. I hear a scratching on the outside of the door. He's trying to climb through the window.

I put my hand under his jaw on his neck and push. God, he weighs a ton. Plus he doesn't want to go. I give up trying to push him out and pull the door handle. I put my foot on the door and push, the dog walks backward with the door. His head swinging around and front legs shifting, like he's not sure what's happening but somehow the nice safe box he was trying to get into is gone and he's looking out on the big cold cruel world again, so it's not worth climbing through. He pulls himself out of the window.

"Huff!" the dog says.

"Okay," I say. I get out of the car and stretch, looking over at the mini-van. An elephant bangs against the back of my knees and my legs collapse, I sit down on the dog's butt, but he's still moving. He just humps a little and keeps walking and I fall off him. I'm reaching up one hand trying to catch the door, but I hit the ground first. The door comes to rest against my back and it rubs down and then up against my back.

The dog is in my car. In the driver's seat. His huge feet are all bunched together on the seat and his tail is trying to cover them, but it's too short. His bony back is to me, but he's got his head turned and he's looking at me out from under the edge of the roof of the car. His eyes are big brown, don't leave me here please I'll be good I promise I'll always be faithful, can't you see I'm a good little dog, don't eat that much, I'm so pathetic I promise I'll stay out of the way, can't you see I'm starving and cold and lonely and nobody loves me but I could love you if you give me a chance eyes.

I get up and brush the sand and gravel off my butt. Look at that mini-van again. The lights are almost out, no they're out all the way, now. The dog makes that wounded metal sound behind me. I put my feet one in front of the other until I'm over there.

Nothing in the front, but there's something in the back. The sliding side door is open. There's a guy laying on the seat. He's really still. Don't think he's breathing. Don't want this to be a dead guy on this seat.

"Hey!" I say. But my throat is dry so the H doesn't happen, just a kind of tiny crack and the ey part comes out.

"Hey!" I say. This time louder, and I get all the parts out. He's not moving.

He's lying on his side there on the bench seat. head at the other end of the seat, facing forward, eyes closed. He's got one arm underneath him somewhere, can't see it, and the other is resting there on the seat just below his chin. Just resting there like he's asleep. One of his feet is up on the seat, his knee pulled up, he's wearing tan pants with cuffs and white crew socks and there's flies walking in the hairs on his legs. Brown hair, white skin. He's bigger than me but not real big. The other leg hanging off the end of the seat, foot in midair, Keds sneakers, tied in neat little double knots.

I push his foot with my hand. Just reach out my right hand there, gonna wake this guy up and say hey, buddy, wake up and get your dog out of my car. Open my mouth, but nothing comes out because when I push his foot, push his foot with my hand it just slides off the seat and down onto the floor. Slides right down there onto the floor and it's gotta be really uncomfortable, that leg all twisted over and down and the rest of him up on the seat. And down there on the floor is that bottle. The prescription bottle, pretty big one too and it's empty but there's one or two pills on the floor and a bottle of water. A goddamn 32 ounce bottle of Evian spring water, almost empty is what he took those pills with.

I should get out of here. I don't want to be involved in this. What about the dog? The fucking dog in my car. Maybe he's still alive. If he's still alive and just way out of it and I leave him he'll die and maybe I could save him. I don't know where the hospital is. Don't want to get stuck here answering a lot of questions. Maybe he's not dead, I should check.

I touch his leg above his sock. Reach out a finger and try to hold it steady while I touch the skin and it is cold. My hand comes back so fast it almost flies off the end of my arm and I want to wash my hand. Wash that finger. I don't want to put that finger in my pocket, or touch anything. I hold my hand, that pointer finger still pointing, off to the side.

He is so dead.

I go back to my car. The dog is looking those lost dog eyes at me. He whimpers that tortured metal sound at me. I point my pointer finger at him. The one that touched the dead guy.

"You did this to me." I say.

The dog licks my finger. The one that touched the dead guy. I let him, because I don't have anything else to wash my hands with and it's better to have live dog slobber than dead guy memory on your finger anytime.

"Let's go." I say, "Come on out."

The dog looks at me.

"I'll go find a phone and call the cops." I say. "You stay here and stand guard."

-Uh uh, the dog says, -No way I'm stayin' here with that dead guy.

"Come on, man," I say, "Somebody's got to do it. You can't drive my car."

-Nuh uh, says the dog, -No need for me to stay, he's not going anywhere.

"What if somebody comes by," I say, "They might rob him, or steal the van."

I reach in to grab the dog's collar.

-No way I'm getting out of this car, man! the dog says, only it sounds more like "Grrrrrrrr!"
He shows me his big teeth and his eyes aren't poor me eyes anymore. His eyes are you may be the alpha male but I've still got lots of teeth and I ain't going without a fight eyes.

"Okay, okay," I say. I've still got my hand on his collar, because I've heard that sudden moves are not a good idea in these situations. Talk soothingly.

"Okay, big fella," I say, "Okay, you can stay in the car, It's gonna be just fine. Every thing will be all right.

-Don't patronize me, the dog says, -you've still got your hand on my collar. Only it sounds more like "Grrrrrr!"

"Is this your license, pal?" I say. There's two shiny metal tags on the dog's collar. One of them says BARNEY on one side and has an address in Imperial Beach and a phone number on the other side.

-What’s it to ya? the dog says, -I can fit your whole head inside my mouth you wanna see?

"Barney?" I say, "Is that you, Barney boy?"

I move my hand from his collar to behind his ear, scratching. Barney closes his eyes and makes that wounded metal whimper.

"Hey, Barney," I say, "you sure you don't wanna stay here..."

"No!" Barney says. He says it right in my face. Doggie breath and saliva like a warm wet towel that was used to soak up beef juice and then left behind the radiator for six months. Barney found this towel and wrapped it around my face for a second.

"Okay, Barney, okay," I say, "you're the boss. But you've gotta move over so I can drive."

I push Barney with my shoulder in his chest. He gets up and steps over to the passenger seat. Barney walks around in a little circle three or four times, his feet moving maybe two inches at a time, his head all hung over trying to see where he can put his feet. There isn't much room on the seat. He finds a good place for all his feet and sits down.

"You comfy, now?" I say.

I was waiting for him to get settled, because while he was turning around his head hung out over the dashboard the driver's seat the back seat and out the passenger door window. I get in. Start her up. Put the car in gear and back up. The gravel crunching under the wheels. The waves are rolling in the background. Barney is panting in my ear.

Pull out on the highway, headed back toward the town of Imperial Beach, looking for a pay phone. Find a twentyfour hour gas station, phone on a pole.

Call 911.

"There's a suicide in a mini-van parked at the beach south of town." I say.

"Please stay on the line, sir." the 911 operator says, and puts me on hold.

I hang up. Go back to the car. Barney is gone. No sign of him. Just a puddle of drool on the front seat.

I get in and turn back onto the highway south. It's two a.m. I'm wide awake. I'm going to Tijuana.
I pass the beach where the mini-van is. In my rear view mirror, I see flashing police lights and hear the siren, faint on the wind. The lights turn off the road behind me and I drive south beneath a dark sky and a three quarter moon.