Reflections in a Clouded Eye

There was a young man who worked the night trick in the L&N's Choctaw Yard, a lonely place on the Mobile waterfront where he kept records of box cars awaiting their ship. The work took no more than a couple of hours, so for most of the night the young man found himself idle and alone.

But one night, just after he came to work, he saw a small black dog, apparently sick to its death, lying near the track-four switch stand. For the rest of the night, when his work brought him near the dying dog, he found reason to steer away. He knew a sick dog might be rabid or driven by pain to viciousness

Still, the thought of the dog troubled him. Thirty yards away death was creeping into the body of a living being. More than he feared the threat of a sick dog, the boy feared the lurking stranger, a feeling hardly accountable in one so young.

Near four in the morning, death finished its job. The froth on the dog’s mouth hardened into a dry caulk. Its blind eyes, like chalky marbles, reflected neither light nor life.

The boy might have forgotten the dog, but just as he was finishing his chores, just as the light of day reached the chocked-up caboose that served as an office, a man appeared at the door, propped a foot on the stoop, and called to the boy. "I have a sick animal here. Can you help? We may be able to do something for him."

The boy stepped outside. The man seemed okay, not just another hobo. He stood straight and looked straight into the boy's eyes. He wore neat khakis, a checkered Eisenhower jacket, and a peaked cap of the sort worn by baseball players. But the boy paid little attention to the man's clothes, for in his outstretched hands the man held the limp and lifeless body of the dead dog, its eyes frozen open, arid as sand and seeing nothing.

"I found him over by the rails," the man said. "He seems to have been there for some time. Did you see him earlier?"

The boy almost lied; he didn't want to confess he'd seen the dog and done nothing. “Yes, I saw him. I thought he was sick. I was afraid to go near him."

"I can understand that. It's better to play it safe around strange dogs with unknown illnesses."

"You don't seem to be afraid."

"Well, you see," holding the lifeless dog higher, "he's really harmless."

The man knelt and laid the dog's body across the ground, resting its head on a tuft of grass.

"I think the little fellow's going to be alright," he said.

"I don't know," the boy muttered, fearful of contradicting the man's quiet confidence. "He hasn't moved all night. He looks pretty bad to me."

Caressing the dog’s lifeless fur, the man stared upward into the boy's eyes. "Yes, I suppose you're right," he said. "He does look bad. But then you look fine to me and perhaps I look alright to you, but who knows what the next moment holds for either of us?"

The boy could not bring himself to take the question seriously. The man was kneeling beside a dead dog and treating it as if it were alive. Instead of answering he asked the man where he had come from. "I haven't seen you around here before."

"I spent the night in your rail yard, and the night before."

The boy knew every car in the yard was loaded and sealed. He had been writing the seal numbers in a report when the man arrived. The man's trousers were trimly creased. "You don't look like you spent the night in a box car."

The man reacted as if the question of his appearance were not worth considering. He looked up from the dog into the boy’s face, and with utter seriousness spoke words the boy would never forget.

"You think this animal is dead because he seems dead. You think yourself alive because you move about and do things only a person alive is able to do. But if the dog, though dead, is alive, if he is in fact healthy and robust, could it be that you, though alive, are dead?"

The effect would have been the same if the man had slapped the boy's face. No one had ever spoken such words to him. But the young man, feeling too much of everything to feel anything, lowered his eyes and leaned heavily against the caboose. The man tilted his head to one side and dropped his chin slightly to peer upward into the boy's face. The gentle firmness of the man’s eyes spoke of a mysterious understanding. He lifted a questioning hand palm-upward toward the boy. Seeing no response, he stroked the dog's fur in a final gesture, and rose from his kneeling place to lay a hand on the boy's shoulder. "Why don't you go in and call someone for the little guy. Perhaps that's all there is to do for him, cart him off."

For a moment the boy stared into the kindest and, yet, the most accusing eyes he had ever seen. All his knowledge left him. Before, he had been as certain of nearly everything as the brilliant and nineteen can be, but in that waking moment, as the man's eyes convicted him of sins for which names had not been invented, the boy knew that, all along, he had been ignorant of everything including his own ignorance. But he was enough awake to understand that the little guy the man was talking about was not the dog.

Afraid to ask the questions brewing inside, the boy lowered his eyes and answered: "I'll call Mister Watson, the humane officer. It's early, but he'll come." The boy went inside to call the number which was written on a card tacked to the wall. He dialed, but received no answer.

A moment later, when the boy walked again into the sunlight, the man had vanished, and the little black dog was leaping joyfully at my feet, licking my hand, healthy and robust.