Dangling Feet at the Big un-Bang: Volume 1, Chapter 8
Noreen asked Desiree if she’d seen her dog, and the pumpkin-haired man asked Noreen if she’d seen Desiree’s new high-heels.
“Show her! She and I have just been enraptured by these shoes. I’m sorry, was she supposed to be looking for your dog?”
“I don’t know who this man is, Noreen.”
“Did you take Daisy?” said Noreen to the pumpkin-haired man. “I’ve never seen you around here before. After Roger died last year, I’ve lived in this neighborhood longer than anyone. I’d remember hair like that.”
“I did not take your dog. I came to deliver the gift in that box.”
By the direction of the pumpkin-haired man’s hands, Noreen’s attention flowed to the shoes. Their star-shaped, obsidian depths, which seemed to shine with distant lights, sparkled in the awe of her eyes like a stargazer.
“Oh, Desiree, those really are something to look at.”
She ran the back of her wrinkled hand down the small, black and white chain which stiffly ran up the middle of the double-strapped heel.
“Very pretty. A little salacious but very pretty. I think I have a dress you can wear with them.” She put a finger under the feather-delicate chain to weigh it, but the chain was unmovable. “What material is this?” She poked a thin finger through a chain link of the shoe’s three-link/three-inch heel.
The pumpkin-haired man watched Noreen’s face as she examined them.
“What if I said they’re made out of dog? Their bones and their hearts and all their joys.”
Noreen drew her hand to her breast in offense.
“You’ve delivered your box; it’s past time for you to leave,” said Desiree.
“I’m only kidding. There’s no dog in those shoes. But—and this is the truth,” he leaned aside to Noreen, “when I was trying to deliver the box to her house, I saw a mound of dirt in her backyard. Freshly turned soil. A little plot, far too small for a flowerbed.”
“Desiree doesn’t garden. Neither does Leighann.”
“How big did you say the dog was?”
“My cat died two months ago,” said Desiree. “Noreen, you know this.”
“A natural death, I’m sure,” said the pumpkin-haired man.
“Kidney failure.”
“Or perhaps she slipped off the top of your neighbor’s fence and fell to the other side.”
“She was an indoor cat.”
“That makes me more certain she’d lose her balance outdoors. She slipped out the house, didn’t she? Got herself in trouble and today you took your quiet revenge. I said the hole was too small for a flowerbed but it might’ve been too big for a cat. And the dirt too fresh for two months. It may have been a plot for a poor, lonely daisy. How big was she? Your sweet girl?”
“I want to see the hole,” said Noreen.
“Noreen, I did not take Daisy.”
“I want to see how fresh this hole is.”
“Noreen, I’m not digging up my cat!”
“What would you do,” said the pumpkin-haired man, “if we dug up the hole and found your sweet little Daisy curled in the earth? Now what would you do?”
The elderly lady’s wrinkled face flared pink. She clenched her brittle bones with the strength to crush a paper cup.
“Why . . . I’d . . . I’d . . . I’d make a pair of shoes out of you!”
“What delicious irony, her bare feet walking around in you! Now I’d pay to see that,” and he winked at Noreen. “But no, that would be taking things too far. The conditions aren’t right for sacrilege. And you, Noreen, are no cobbler.”
“I can tie a shoe well enough! I’ll figure the rest of it out.”
“Enterprising woman!” said the pumpkin-haired man. “Learning new things will keep you young.”
“If there’s a dog in my backyard,” said Desiree, “it’s because he or someone else put her there.”
The pumpkin-haired man stood up for his innocence.
“Girls, I didn’t mean to start a neighborly feud. I was just bantering. Have we lost the art of banter? You went riffing in quite different directions. There are no mystery animals buried in Diotima’s backyard. Her new heels aren’t made out of dog. These are, though,” and he indicated his brown leather shoes, “I made them myself too—but they’re not made of Daisy; I can promise you that. As for her—that sweet, precious girl . . .” And seeming to reflect on all things lost, from the dog to the art of bantering, he turned solemn, and looked on Noreen with a serious face. “I’m sorry, Noreen, your dog is gone. Daisy is never coming back.” He touched her on the shoulder, and she slumped. “You feel the truth of what I’m telling you?”
Noreen clutched her stomach and nodded.
“I can speed your grief, if you like.”
“Please,” she cried.
“There’s a pawn shop across the highway, down the road. If you’ve lived here longer than Roger, you know it.”
She nodded again.
“There’s a statue there, just the very image of your Daisy. I want you to take ten dollars—do you have ten dollars?”
“I have ten dollars.”
“Better yet. Take this ruby ring. Trade it on my behalf. Get your statue of Daisy. Bathe the statue. Feed the statue one last time. Give her the good food. Let the statue sleep at the head of your bed. And tomorrow, give Daisy the burial and goodbye she deserves.”
Noreen took the ruby ring from his hand.
“Yes, I’ll get in the car and do that.”
“You’ll know the statue when you see it, it’ll be like being in the pet store all over again.”
Noreen left mumbling to herself, charting a course from pawn shop to funeral.
“Who says good deeds don’t make for good art?”
“You took her dog,” said Desiree.
“I am not interested in dogs,” said the pumpkin-haired man.
“You know what happened to Daisy.”
“I know that Daisy is a long way from here, taken by an embodiment of vanity. I don’t know the details, nor do details matter. Now, which direction is Washington?”
“D.C.?”
“Yes.”
Far away, at the end of the road, the returning leopard-printed Leighann shouted, “The police are on their way!” Having issued the threat, she came no further, not crossing the stop sign.
“Better hurry,” said the pumpkin-haired man.
“D.C. is over five hundred miles from here.”
“And it will be a much entertaining walk. Just point, please.”
Happy to see him go, Desiree pointed to the northeast.
“It has been so humbling to meet you, Diotima. The naked face above those dangling feet.”
He left by the point of her finger, burnt orange mane shrinking in the distance as the last oranges in the sundown sky faded away too.
Next week on Dangling Feet at the Big un-Bang, Desiree discovers a dog collar in her living room. How did it get there? And more alarmingly, where did the dog go? Find out September 28.
Zachary Ryan is just a guy who is excited to entertain you for a few short minutes.
