Dwight and Gabby

I often don’t see everything. I had nearly walked past the kiddie merry-go-round by the Antique Mall. Dwight – I think that’s his first name - was sitting on the sidewalk, his back against the concrete planter wall, legs splayed out, a usual spot for him. The leash for Gabby, his service dog according to the hand lettered cardboard sign beside him, was stretched across the way to where the dog lay in the shade.

Gabby is a sleek, black, short-haired dog of medium build who looks to be in the prime of her life. Dwight appears past his.

A very young boy, his hair sticking out in the back the way mine often does after a nap, sat on a stationery plastic pony, his mother standing next to him. I wasn’t really paying that much attention. I planned to walk on by as I usually did, but then Dwight scrambled to his feet, stepped over a few yards of sidewalk, and offered the woman a coin or two.

I missed most of the exchange – I imagine that she might had have time to refuse – but I just don’t know what happened. It would have been impolite of me to have stopped in my tracks or to have asked any questions later, but as I walked, I heard the music start behind me, and I then I finally turned at the barber pole, stationery against the wall as usual, to look back.

The merry-go-round was going around. The little boy was standing on the sidewalk, patting at the ponies as they trotted by. Then the mother was rummaging in her purse. In a few more short moments - life is momentary after all - mother and child walked over to where Dwight had regained his seat.

I couldn’t see him directly around the corner of the Ernst Hardware Store building, but I saw Gabby nose out, friendly. Maybe it was the words, ‘not this time,’ the mother said as she approached, laughing. The boy, a little cautious, kept his hands to his sides, almost eye to eye with that sleek black dog. After some small discussion, which I could not hear, the mother and her boy turned the other way and walked down the sidewalk.

I too, turned and continued on.

Dwight and Gabby stayed in that breezeway soaking in the sun. None of us, I suppose, ever sees everything.

***

Postscript: A little over a month after I wrote down this story, a friend of Dwight’s, a fellow veteran of the streets, informed me that Dwight’s body had been found in the Kaw near where he often camped. He presumed that a seizure had thrown Dwight into the river, but the newspaper only reported that no foul play was evident.

Dwight’s son will take Gabby home to Colorado. His mother claimed his ashes. Except for his dog, Dwight Sexton was alone when he died. He was 49.