Pietà

I was on the bus this morning, approaching work. The bus stopped at the corner of Bronx and Gross Point, waiting for a break in traffic, when suddenly there was a loud cry of surprise. A man dressed all in white was bending over to pick up his fluffy white dog; what I'd just missed seeing was the car that had hit it.

"Did you see that?" There was a loud guy on the bus, the kind of guy who talks to anyone, and narrates anything happening around him. So it was from him that I learned what happened: the dog was running off, the man chasing after it; Gross Point is a busy street. Did the driver even know what had happened? How does he feel?

The man picked up the dog, cradled him in his arms, and carried him to the sidewalk. The dog had a tear of blood on its face; the man had blood on his white pants. He crossed Bronx behind the bus (still waiting for a break in traffic, or perhaps the driver was thinking what I was thinking, what can I do?), and reaching the corner of Bronx and Davis, right behind us, just stopped. He kneeled, still holding the dog. The numbness of shock was fading, and grief was coming in its place.

What could I do? Call 911? Where's my phone? My Blackberry has a phone... I put my hand on the Blackberry on my belt.. what what would 911 do? If it were a child, we'd know how to respond, but what do you do in a pet emergency? I thought about getting off the bus, but what would I do? What could I do? I had no car to help take the dog to the hospital; in any event, maybe he'd stopped because he realized there was nothing to do, and the dog was already gone.

Later I realized what I could have done. I could have used the phone to find an animal hospital; I could have called the office and asked Julio to come get us to take us there. I could have been there with him so he wasn't all alone.

But instead I sat on the bus watching him, cradling his dog in his arms like a pietà, his face contorted in grief.

Labels: journal

posted by Tony at 10:21 AM