OF DOGS AND CONSEQUENCES

(from “The Chronicles of Stewart Lambert”)

Stephen M. Larson

In a way, Stewart Lambert’s friendship with Curtis Washington began almost a quarter century before they met.

Stewart was still in high school, and still going by “Stew”, when he, Matt Lippman, and Jim Salowitz decided to spend a September Saturday walking the Illinois Prairie Path from Glen Ellyn to Aurora, a distance of some 20 miles. It would take most of the day.

They met on the crushed limestone trail at six-thirty on a cool, clear morning. The sun was just rising, tinting a couple of stray clouds in an otherwise pale pearl blue sky with careless brushstrokes of pink and orange. They started out at a brisk pace down the former Chicago, Aurora and Elgin Railroad right-of-way with their lunches in their backpacks and their canteens on their belts, the sun at their backs and a breeze in their faces.

Chicago’s urban landscapes had not yet overrun the suburbs in 1968, so once they had crossed the Wheaton city limits, the three friends soon found themselves in unincorporated areas with plenty of fields, meadows, woods and streams. Southwest of Warrenville, they even encountered open farmland. And here is where it happened.

Stew never really knew where the dog came from. He would joke later that it was probably a farm dog that had become bored playing solitaire and smoking cigarettes behind the shed. So when three teenaged boys, singing Steppenwolf’s “Born To Be Wild”, appeared at the far end of the soybean field, the dog decided this threat needed to be met swiftly and decisively. Thus, just as Stew, Matt and Jim were bellowing, “Like a true nature’s child, we were born, born to be wild!” a dirty yellow blur burst from the beans.

They were too startled to run; too startled even to look at each other. For one stuttering heartbeat, each imagined teeth at his throat. Then, more from fear than from anything else, Stew opened his mouth – and roared. A rich, full-throated, stentorophonic blast of anger and terror, it was possibly the only thing that could take his friends’ minds off their own imminent disembowelment. It was also the only thing the dog hadn’t expected. Faced with this sudden development, he tried desperately to backpedal. Instead, his paws slid out from under him as he hit the limestone chips at the edge of the path, and he tumbled and rolled and cartwheeled clear across the trail and into a patch of burrs on the other side. With a yelp, he regained his footing. Shying away from these strange creatures, his hide stinging from a dozen scrapes and scratches and mottled with burrs, he limped as quickly as he could back across the trail and into the safety of his soybeans.

The rest of the hike was anticlimactic. Matt and Jim hailed Stew as a hero, and Stew nursed a sore throat for the next three days. And, until they graduated and went their separate collegiate ways, the three joked about the day Stew saved them from the Attack of the Barnyard Dog.

Some 24 years and 2100 miles later, Stewart Lambert was enjoying the soft air of another September morning, this one in Berkeley, California. A long way from his high school buddies and his high school dreams, Stewart was married with a son and a daughter in high school themselves and a small, successful business. Lately, however, his surfer-blond hair was beginning to show hints of silver in certain lights, and his wiry, athletic frame to pick up a little excess flesh around the middle, so he had added a morning jog to his routine.

On this particular morning, Stewart was taking advantage of his new habit to explore one of the older Berkeley neighborhoods. The sun was coloring the upper floors of the tall brownstones and filtering through the dense leaves of the old oaks and maples as he turned up an alley and found himself on a single lane of worn pavement through which the original paving bricks peeped at intervals, jogging between two lines of wooden fences encasing small, neat yards.

As he slowed to a walk, using this break from the traffic to take a bit of a breather, the street noise faded behind him; and he could hear snatches of birdsong. He was listening intently to the gentle cooing of a mourning dove when a cacophony of barks, growls and snarls erupted almost at his elbow.

A few deep breaths restored his heart to its proper pace, and Stewart cautiously peeped over the saw-toothed top of the quivering old fence. A pit bull was dashing itself against the rotting boards, trying his best to get at the juicy leg it just knew was waiting on the other side. Stewart smiled and “woofed” quietly. The dog looked up, startled, and then decided to try to launch itself over the fence. At this point, Stewart decided that not only was discretion the better part of valor, but retreat was the better part of survival. He quickly backed away and continued walking down the alley, leaving the dog to its own schemes.

About three houses further along, the vocalizations of the pit bull were joined by another, more terrifying sound: the splintering of wood. He glanced back. The dog had found a weak spot in the fence and was forcing its way through. Stewart looked around, suddenly anxious. The end of the alley was still far away, and the lines of fences on the sides seemed unbroken. He wondered if he could outrun a pit bull, but before he could even turn, the last splinter of fence gave way and the dog shot out.

Stewart stared as madness on four paws bulleted toward him. Something about the situation seemed naggingly familiar. Instinctively, he opened his mouth, took a deep breath and roared.

It worked. For one brief moment, it actually worked. The dog skidded to a halt some twenty feet away and stared at him. Then it showed its teeth and rumbled deep in its chest, and Stewart knew he was dead.

There was no time to plan, only to act. Stewart whirled and grabbed the top of the wooden fence behind him. He swung his legs up in a move he had no idea he could execute. He thought he could feel hot, moist breath on his lower ankle. Then he was over the fence and sprawling on a small, newborn compost heap.

He was on his feet almost without pause, feeling deep satisfaction at having bested so formidable an opponent. The dog raged at him from the alley as Stewart strutted back and forth along the other side of the barrier, chanting, “Who da man? Who da man?”

“I assume ‘you da man’?”

Stewart stopped in mid-strut and slowly turned. The voice was soft, yet powerful enough to carry over the frantic ravening of the pit bull, and bore such an imprint of culture and dignity that he was totally unprepared for a tall black man with silver hair and a football player’s build, dressed in boxers and undershirt, and carrying a plastic garbage bag.

Stewart was aware of a sudden silence as the dog stopped barking. He stared at the homeowner, and images of Rodney King and last spring’s race riots in Los Angeles leapt to his mind. He licked suddenly dry lips and searched for his voice. He found a pale imitation of it somewhere, and stammered, “I—I’m sorry. I didn’t—I mean, I—I…” he gestured at the fence. “I’ll just—uh—“ he looked wildly about for a gate that would allow him access to the front of the house. There was none.

The man guessed correctly what Stewart was seeking. “I’m afraid the only gate is the one at your elbow,” he said gravely, “and I don’t think Little Caesar will permit you to leave that way. You’ll have to come through the house.”

“Oh, I couldn’t!” Stewart blurted.

“Well, I suppose I could try to convince Little Caesar to leave you alone.” The man placed the bag in a bin next to his door. “However, even he won’t listen to me. Come,” he added as Stewart still hesitated. “Unlike Caesar, I won’t bite.”

“All right.” Stewart paused to brush grass clippings and bits of orange peel from his clothing. Then he straightened and walked to where the other man waited for him. As he approached, he suddenly thrust out his hand. “My name’s Stewart Lambert,” he said.

The man had a powerful grip. “Washington. Curtis Washington.” They gazed at one another for a long moment. Then, simultaneously, they both burst out laughing. “Come,” Curtis chuckled, “have a cup of coffee with me before you leave.”

“I couldn’t,” Stewart protested again.

“Please. It wouldn’t be any imposition. Unless, of course, you have to be at work soon?”

“Well, actually,” Stewart explained, “I run my own business, and my staff – all two of them – probably wouldn’t miss me for an hour or so.”

“Excellent!” Curtis led him into the kitchen, where a pot of coffee was already steaming. “So, what do you do?”

“I design web sites.” Stewart described his business as he sat at the kitchen table. Then Curtis explained that he was professor emeritus of English Literature and Creative Writing at the Berkeley campus of the University of California, and that he had been retired now for two years.

They were still talking an hour later when Dina Washington, Curtis’s wife, came into the kitchen to make breakfast. She seemed to find nothing at all unusual about her husband sitting in his underwear expressing his frustrations with the grammatical irregularities of professional web sites to a stranger in a jogging outfit. In fact, she reassured Stewart as she cracked eggs and buttered bread with the deft assurance of a short-order cook, she had long since grown accustomed to coming downstairs at all hours to find any number of young writers and poets in deep discussion with her husband. And, she added, she had fixed her share of impromptu breakfasts.

Stewart left much later than he’d planned, after sharing lunch with both Dr. and Mrs. Washington. From then on, he made a point of jogging past the Washington house for coffee with Curtis at least once a week. He even went out of his way to make up with Little Caesar, and soon he and the dog (and Little Caesar’s owners) were also good friends.

The Washingtons became frequent guests in the Lambert home as well. Dr. Washington became unofficial tutor to both Greg Lambert (who would eventually become an English teacher himself) and Chris Lambert (who would ultimately become a journalist). Stewart invited Curtis to become a consultant with Lambert Net Designs. As a result, Stewart’s web sites became models of literacy as well as creativity, and were soon winning awards and attracting new business.

Grateful though he was for the Washingtons’ friendship, Stewart often wondered why Dr. Curtis Washington spent so much time with someone like him. But it wasn’t until last year, after Curtis died in his sleep, that he finally asked Dina about it.

“Oh, Stewart,” she replied in her soft, low voice. “I thought you knew.” She led him to a pair of upholstered armchairs in a quiet corner of the funeral home. They sat in silence while she gathered her thoughts, and Stewart leaned forward and took her hand. She looked up at him and smiled, covering his hand with her other one.

“When Curtis first retired,” she began, “a number of his students came by regularly to visit with him and pick his brains. He so looked forward to those times. After he’d been away from the university for about a year, the visits tapered off – most of them had been seniors, and they graduated, and the others – well, I guess they decided they were too busy to keep an old man company. He didn’t say much, but I could tell how much he missed them. And I think he started slowly dying. He’d had a heart condition for years. You knew that, didn’t you?” Stewart nodded. “Well,” Dina continued, “he’d fought that condition with everything in him, because he so loved teaching his students. But when they stopped coming around, he stopped fighting.

“Then you showed up, a younger man willing to spend some time with him. And I saw the light come back into his eyes for the first time in a year. Then you invited him to help you with your business, and your kids – do you have any idea how much he loved helping them? Oh, he’d seen many of his students go on to become writers and teachers, but I think seeing his influence on your kids meant more to him than all of them put together.”

Dina gripped Stewart’s hand in both of hers, and her eyes and her smile both shimmered. “Stewart, honey, you kept my husband alive. I would’ve lost him ten years ago if it hadn’t been for you. You want to know what he got out of your friendship? He got life, honey. He got love. He got a reason to keep going.”

Stewart was dumbfounded. He’d never known any of this, never even dreamed it. When Dina got up to visit with a cousin from Atlanta, Stewart stayed where he was, feeling both proud and humble.

In the months since Dr. Curtis Washington passed away, Stewart and his wife have continued to visit Dina on a regular basis, and she’s remained a vital part of their family. And whenever Stewart visits the old brownstone, he makes a point of stopping in the alley to greet a crippled, arthritic old pit bull named Little Caesar.

THE END