FRESH YARN PRESENTS:

Stay
By Katheryn Krotzer Laborde

PAGE TWO:
Weeks later, we'd find the carcasses of such dogs on the curb, in the debris, not knowing how this dog or that one met its end, and not really wanting to think about it. Nick and I had pets, had lived childhoods made richer by animals. Neither one of us could imagine leaving our pets behind. Neither one of us had ever been forced to, either, and had read sobering accounts of people who drowned because they had stayed behind to be with their animals. That, we could imagine, though didn't want to.

After a Red Cross lunch we moved from Mid-City to another map of houses, this time in the middle class, brick ranch neighborhoods of New Orleans East. Moving slowly past a gutting crew, we rounded the block and parked. On the curb there was a mound of ruined drywall, some orphaned branches, a pile of black trash bags and a plastic dog carrier marked with a spray painted "RIP." I could see that part of the carrier was missing. I mentioned the container to Nick. He nodded vaguely.

"I'm going down the street," he said, reaching for a legal pad. "We'll get more done if you stay here and enter this," he said, tossing the other pad, busy with numbers and notes, my way.

"I know," I said, removing the seatbelt and loosening my scarf to settle more comfortably in my seat. I put the computer in my lap, opened it, logged on, and then typed. The windows were open, and when the wind blew, that distinctive smell wafted -- decaying flesh, the calling card of the dead. I looked over to the dirty plastic carrier. Yes, there must be a dead dog in there.

"3927," I typed, "One story, one unit, two feet of water in home." The wind blew. "Forty on the roof. Blue roof people have already been by. Ten on the exterior." Check it over. Submit. "3933..."

And then I stopped. I put the computer down, looked around. No sign of Nick. No sign of anyone. Getting out of the truck, I walked to the carrier until I was facing the Sharpie-scribbled RIP. Tentatively, I walked around the carrier , wanting to see what was inside but at the same time, afraid to know. It became evident that the little door had been ripped away, as had much of the front of the carrier. Still edging myself around, I caught a glimpse through a crack in the molded plastic: a canine mouth, teeth bared. Yes, there was a dead dog in there.

I hurried back to the truck and picked up where I had left off. "3933. One story, one unit," I typed, my eyes dashing from the notepad to the computer screen.

The wind picked up. "Water level: two feet." I stopped.

I put the computer down again. I got out of the truck. I looked once more for Nick. (Oh, I could just HEAR his WHAT are you doing? WHY are you getting up to look at a dead dog?) He was nowhere around. I approached the carrier and, taking a breath, walked straight to the gaping opening.

And there the dog was. His face was gone -- all that was left was his skull, long nose pointed chestward, teeth bared in a grimace. Beyond the face the body was curled, still covered with flesh and fur that was melting away from the bone. My God -- what had happened? Had he been left behind by the owners? A family of four who left their dog thinking they'd be back in three days, no problem, no use putting him through what he'd been through during the needless Ivan evac -- the long drive, the cramped hours in the carrying case, the infrequent walks around the Red Roof Inn parking lot?

Or was he somehow just found, in the street? Drowned, perhaps. If some people had found him dead how could they have gotten the dog into the carrying case? And why was the carrier in such bad shape? More questions streamed into my mind as I stood there. I walked back to the truck, my eyes cast downward, my hands wrapping the scarf around my throat against the chill.

I was entering info in the computer when Nick opened the truck door and slid back to his place behind the wheel. He took off his hat, placed the pad of scribbles in the space between us. I kept my eyes on the screen as I typed, as I told him that there was, indeed, a dead dog in the carrier.

I could feel him twisting to look at me. "You got up and looked?" A dusty truck glided past, swerving to avoid a nearby pot hole.

"Yes."

His eyes burned through me. "You mean to tell me that you actually got out of the truck to go look at a dead dog?"

"Yes." I continued typing about a house that a tree had fallen on; with ninety on the roof, a house in such bad shape that it could never be a home again.

"And you stayed here? You didn't move the truck? Even though you could smell it and you knew what it was?"

I told him yes.

He twisted the key in the ignition. "There's something wrong with you. There's something very, very wrong with you."

Later, Nick told me that he was quoting a line from a movie, that he had meant the line as a joke, kind of, and thought I would get the joke…but that he did find my actions a little strange. Whether he meant it was strange that I did not leave once I knew there was a carcass there, or strange that I had gotten up to look at a dead animal in the first place, I didn't ask. I didn't want to talk about it. I found that I actually couldn't talk about much of anything as we headed toward operation headquarters to turn in our computer and sign out for the day. What I didn't say then, and I suppose am saying now, is: I couldn't leave the dog. He had been left before, like so many others, canine and otherwise, to face the Storm of the Century alone. Whether he had drowned, or starved, or been killed by another frightened survivor was beyond my knowledge, and beyond my comprehension. But what I do know was that, in death, he was curled up quietly. And on that day, with a cold wind blowing and the sun edging toward a battered horizon, I just couldn't bring myself to leave that innocent dog.

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