“I don’t know,” Dolly said. “I don’t think so. His vitals are strong.
You’d have to get his bones set as well as possible and then keep him immobile for a couple of weeks. All that and he’d live. But he’d have to crawl.”
“Anything’s better than prison or death.”
“You pick that up in the jail?” Dolly asked.
Socrates realized that he was scratching again.
“My dad used to get that all the time,” she said. “He was a political activist down San Diego in the sixties. I remember they’d bust up his protests and beat him until he had black blood coming out. But the only thing he ever complained about was getting crabs in jail. He used to say that they could at least keep it clean in there.” She smiled a very plain smile and said, “I got some soap’ll clear that up in two days.”
Bruno whimpered in his cage.
“I’ma be in a cage if they put me down for assault,” he said.
“But I gave your lawyer Mrs. Galesky’s number. I’m sure she’ll straighten it out.”
“You are, huh?”
“Yeah.” Dolly’s homely smile was growing on him. “I got a house right in back here,” she said. “You could stay in the guest bed.”
5
Dolly heated apple cider spiced with cinnamon sticks. Then she made sandwiches out of alfalfa sprouts, grilled chicken, Gruyere cheese, and avocado. Socrates had four sandwiches and over a quart of cider.
Who knew when he’d be eating again?
Dolly had fed, petted, and talked to each patient and then led Socrates out of the back door of the clinic. There was a yard in back and a large flowering tree that was dark and sweet-smelling. Past the tree was a wooden fence. The gate in the fence opened to a beautiful little house.
“Nobody can ever see my house if I don’t invite them,” Dolly said to Socrates as she fumbled around for her keys. “I like that.”
“Where’s your father?” Socrates asked after supper. It was late, past midnight, and Dolly was folding out the bed in the living room.
“He died,” she said. “He was always big and strong but then he just got old one year and passed away.”
“Didn’t he ever tell you about people like me?”
“He never knew anybody like you, Mr. Fortiow.”
“How the hell you know what I’m like?” Socrates said belligerently. “Didn’t you hear what they said about me in that courtroom?” Dolly looked up.
With a stern gaze she said, “I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking why would she take a man, a convicted murderer, and take him back here in her house? A man like that could rob me, rape me, kill me.” Then her serious face turned into a smile. “But I don’t have a choice so I can’t be worried about it.”
“What you mean you ain’t got no choice?”
“Because my father died when I was only twelve and my mother just left,” she said. “Because the only one who ever loved me was my dog, Buster. And the only thing I ever knew was how to love him and to take care of him. If I see anyone who cares about animals they’re okay with me. I treat them like human beings.”
“So you mean that anybody bring a hurt animal to you can sit at your table and sleep in your guest bed?”
“No,” Dolly said. She was hurt.
“Then what do you mean?”
“I mean that a dog is a living being just like you’n me. It doesn’t matter if there is a God or not. Life is what’s important. You’re not like one of those rich bitches that shave a dog like he was some kind of fuckin’ hedge and then bring him to me so I could castrate him.
“You knocked a man down and then carried that big dog over a mile. You went to jail because that dog has a right. How can I look at that and not do all I can do for you?”
6
Socrates was up late in his foldout bed. It was an old couch and the bed was more comfortable than his own. There was no sound coming through the walls in the house. There was a sweet odor. For a long time Socrates let his mind wander trying to figure out the smell. It was familiar but he couldn’t place it.
Finally he realized that the scent was from the tree outside. A window must have been open. It was the thought of an open window that got Socrates to giggle uncontrollably. He hadn’t slept next to an open window in over forty years.
7
Over the next three weeks Socrates dropped by Dolly’s every day after work. He talked to Bruno and accepted meals in the back house.
“If Bruno live an’ I don’t go to jail,” he promised Dolly, “I’ll take him home wit’ me and keep’im for my pet.”
The trial came four weeks after that declaration.
8
“You’re with the Public Defender’s Office?” the judge, Katherine Hemp, asked Brenda Marsh.
“Yes, your honor,” Brenda replied. “I’ve just been with them three months now.”
“And how does your client plead, Ms. Marsh?” asked Judge Hemp, an older woman with gray hair and sad eyes.
“Not guilty, your honor.”
“I don’t want to drag this thing out, counselor. I have a full caseload and all we want to know here is if your client assaulted, um,” the judge looked down at her notes, “Benheim Lunge.”
“I appreciate the court’s time, Judge Hemp. I have only three witnesses and each of them has less than forty-five minutes of testimony.” Brenda Marsh spoke in her own fashion, as usual, pronouncing each word separately as if it had come in its own individual wrapper. Socrates wondered if Brenda thought that she sounded like a white woman talking like that.
“Benheim Lunge,” said the tall young man in the witness seat. He might have been handsome if it wasn’t for the sour twist of his lips.
“…and were you then assaulted by this man?” asked Conrad MacAlister, the pudgy cafe-au-lait prosecutor.
“Yes sir. He hit me. I’m in good shape but he must’ve been boxing in that prison or something.”
Socrates’ eyes wandered over to the jurors’ box. They were mostly women and he could see that they were appalled by Lunge’s description of his broken nose and whiplash from just one swipe of the ex-convict’s fist.
“Thank you, Mr. Lunge.” MacAlister smiled at Brenda Marsh. “Your witness.”
Brenda Marsh got up purposefully and stalked over to Lunge. “Did you, Mr. Lunge, go up to where the dog lay with a brick in your hand?”
“No.”
“I see. Tell me, Mr. Lunge, what is your profession?”
“I sell sporting goods. My father owns a store on Rodeo Drive and I run it.”
“So,” asked Brenda. “Then you don’t have a medical background?”
“No.”
“But didn’t you tell Mr. Fortlow that the dog was done for and that he should be put out of his suffering? And don’t you think it was likely that the defendant thought that you intended to kill the dog with the brick you held?”
“Objection,” said Prosecutor MacAlister. “Mr. Lunge has already stated that he didn’t have a brick in his hand.”
“A stone then?” asked Ms. Marsh. “Did you have a stone, Mr. Lunge?”
“No.”
“Did you have anything in your hands when you approached the wounded dog and Mr. Fortlow on Olympic Boulevard?”
“Urn, well, I don’t remember. I, uh, I might have grabbed a, a, a, you know, a thing, a ten-pound weight I keep in the backseat.”
“A ten-pound weight? What was this weight made from?”