written

this is the first in a [long, long] while and thus fairly short

built with his hands

James stood watching the short trees shake small drops from their boughs. It was night and dim but clear and he brought his right hand up and he took a pull from his lit cigarette. He flicked the end into the damp grass and watched it go out.

The dog quietly sidled up to him and pushed his head into his palm and put his ears back. James patted his head and pulled his palm back along his neck and the run of his spine. The night was quiet bar their breathing and the occasional noise of the man’s hand patting the dog’s bare ribs.

They walked through the grass back to the house, the dog occasionally pricking his ears to a distant noise, a squirrel or a bird or just some acorns falling in the woods loosed by the wind. The back door was still cracked open as they’d left it and the small house was dark and quiet.

James entered the main room first and put some small bits of wood on top of the still-hot embers in the fireplace and stood seeing if they’d catch and they did. The dog stretched low to the ground and lay in front of the flame and James sat in the wooden rocker and thought of her and her face and her strong sharp features and how sometimes a woman is so pretty it makes you go cold inside. He picked up his glass of warm whiskey lying on the floor beside him and took a sip and took out another cigarette but didn’t light it and just held it between his index and middle digits.

He heard the phone ring and got up while the dog stayed stiff and still. “Hello?”
It was his mother and given the time of day he was confused only a second until he realized from her tone that it was something bad and his father was in the hospital again and it seemed okay but maybe he should come by and would he be able to make it tomorrow?

He finished the whiskey and had a cigarette and prepared to sleep while the dog shifted to the foot of his low bed and he slept without dreaming and woke with the air cold and the dog making noise and looking like he was running in his dreams. When he’d risen from the bed he called for a taxi and drank fresh coffee and called the dog outside and stood in the fresh sun and breathed and smoked and exhaled.

The taxi arrived shortly after he’d finished dressing and idled in front of his home while he spoke softly to the dog and locked the doors for the hours he’d be gone. He paid the cab fare at the train station and bought a ticket and stood smoking quietly on the platform trying to discern the smoke coming out of his lungs from the fog of his breath in the cold air.

He boarded the train and found a seat and left the ticket out for the passing conductor. He sat back and closed his eyes and thought of times when his father was a strong man and built with his hands and had a heart that worked.