Sharing The Warmth

A short fiction by HrryNrmn.

The leaves were crunching underfoot as Shale walked through the deserted streets. A soft white mist was oozing up from the ground: a foggy miasma that sank into Shale’s short coat, simultaneously wetting and chilling him. The brisk wind had long since blown out the candles in even the hardiest of the jack-o-lanterns on the front porches of the houses along the street. It was only sometime after 10 P.M. but to Shale, it could have been the middle of the night, since the chilly, damp weather had driven all the trick-or-treaters off the streets over an hour ago. The streets were as empty as the mountains of the moon and Shale felt as though he were likely the last living thing on the face of the earth. The moon poked coldly between thick scuds of clouds, shining brightly down through the bare limbs that seemed to claw at the sky. He crossed the street, stopping briefly in the middle of the road to determine where it was he should go.

Lights like the eyes of some great beast of prey zoomed up out of the darkness, piercing through the mist. Shale’s heart gave a lurch and he shot out of the way and under a hedge. The howling of teenage voices blared from the car and Shale caught snatches of songs being played at least three levels too loud. The car barely slowed as it careened around a corner. Shale, shivering with fear and cold, peered out from under the bushes. When he was sure it was safe, he slunk forward, his belly brushing the ground. The branches of the evergreen bush held water on its needles, and, in climbing out, Shale managed to both soak his back and head while getting both dirt and pine needles on himself. He shook himself, and most of the needles fell off onto the ground. Shale, feeling utterly miserable now and shivering so that he could hardly stand, continued on down the road without any real destination in mind. All he knew what that he had to find some way to get out of the cold. By now, a slow and chilling rain was falling, creating small puddles on the sidewalk. Shale made sure to sidestep them, trying to keep his paws as dry as possible.

He continued walking until he came to a bridge that crossed a deep culvert. At one time there had been a river in the bottom, but now it was mostly weeds and garbage. There was flickering light coming from underneath the bridge, and Shale could hear a warbling song floating up to his ears.

“In Dublin’s fair city

Where the girls are so pretty,

I first set me eyes on sweet Molly Malone

As she pushed her wheelbarrow

Through streets broad and narrow,

Crying ‘cockles and muscles, alive, alive-o’”

The song was frequently punctuated with muffled hiccups. As the singer sang the second verse, the lyrics seemed to escape him, and he simply mumbled along until he got back to the refrain. Shale crept quietly down the embankment, picking his way among various beer cans and old newspaper advertising circulars, and peered through some tall grass to investigate. The flickering turned out to be a small bonfire and the singer was a tall, thin, and exceedingly filthy man, dressed in rags and seated on the ground. Shale felt a sudden tickle in his nose, and before he could help himself, he sneezed!

“Here, now!” the man said, wheeling unsteadily towards the sound. “Come on outta there. Jacob knows you’re in there, he does.” With the obstinate pride of a veteran of the lower class he continued, “It’s not respectable to be spyin’ on a man when he’s alone, you know. Even the likes of me knows that!”

Shale, forever cautious, decided to scope out the scene from in the bushes for a few more moments before exposing himself. He peered out of the weeds, fancying himself camouflaged very well. The hobo, for this is precisely what the man was, was setting Indian style next to a small fire, which had he built primarily using a combination of old charcoal briquettes, a variety of trash, and some small branches he’d found under the bridge. He was holding a bottle in one hand and taking liberal sips from it every thirty seconds or so. His shirt was a tattered affair that read “Havenwood Bobcats” on it. It was obviously a hand-me-down. His pants were a pair of filthy corduroys that were held up with a piece of baling twine. His shoes were Vans, held together with electrical tape. On his head was an amorphous, gray blob that at one time had probably been a hat. His face was a pockmarked affair, with the telltale broken veins of a veteran alcoholic. His eyes had a yellow-ish cast to them, and in them you could see incipient liver damage. Even though the man appeared very rough, Shale couldn’t think of any earthly reason why he shouldn’t approach the man. Gradually, he exited his hiding spot and, with infinite caution, went over by the fire.

“Here, now!” said the man, using what would turn out to be his favorite phrase, “what’s a fine lookin’ dog like you doin’ out on a night like this’n’?” He stuck one grimy hand out for Shale to sniff. Shale, although he could think of probably one hundred things he’d rather sniff, took a cursory whiff of the hand offered to him. Then, much to his dismay, the bum began to stroke him, from the top of his head all the way down his back, nearly to his tail. “Why, yer’ as cold as a stone!” He thought for several seconds. “Here, now! I’ve got something what will warm ya’ up proper!”

He produced a filthy cup from within the inner reaches of a coat he had laying nearby. He took the bottle, which showed a picture of an old fashioned train on its red label, and poured a generous helping of the liquid into the cup. It was red and smelled a little like cough syrup. He put the cup down in front of Shale, saying, “Don’t ya’ be spillin’ it now…that cost me good.” With that, he plopped over on his side, nearly crashing into Shale.

Shale sniffed the liquid. It didn’t smell all that bad. He stuck out his tongue and gave it an exploratory lick. He wrinkled his nose at the taste; however, the bum had been right about one thing. It did add some warmth to the night. He took a bigger swallow, ignoring the awful fruity taste. The warmth cascaded down his throat, hit his stomach and seemed to spread out through his icy limbs. A smile came to his lips.

“So ya’ like that, do ya’?” the bum asked. He lowered his voice to a conspiratorial level. “Ya’ know, I do too. I drink it all da’ time!” He took a long swig off the bottle, and then poured more into the cup Shale was drinking from. Shale, not wanting to be rude, happily lapped it up. Of course, at this point, he was thinking less of rudeness and more that the strange liquid was actually pretty good. He felt warm and toasty, as though he were indoors. The rain had stopped, although it was still mostly overcast. Had he been capable, he could have snapped his fingers at the cold, the rain, or anything else Mother Nature decided to throw at him. It suddenly seemed much less important to him, in his current mindset.

Several drinks later, Shale looked blearily over at his companion. He had some degree of difficulty keeping his head steady to look at him, but he squinted, shook his head, and looked closely, which seemed to help. The hobo was now laying flat on his back in the grass, singing in melancholy tones to the clouds overhead.

“She died of a fever

And no one could save her

And that was the end of sweet Molly Malone.

And her ghost wheels her barrow

Through streets broad and narrow

Crying ‘Cockles and muscles, alive alive-o’”

He began to cry softly, in the easy way that drunks are good at. Shale, now quite alarmed by his erratic behavior, finished his cup off and leapt to his feet. At least, he tried to leap. By this point his coordination was a bit off, his leap caused him to stagger bluntly, and he ended up draped partially across the hobo’s lap.

“‘Ere…now,” said the hobo, hiccupping. He grabbed Shale by the face and drew him close, hugging him. Shale, who was no great fan of close contact on any occasion, suddenly found himself nearly smothered in the filthy hobo’s arms. He struggled vaguely, but he couldn’t seem to get his footing. To add a final indignity, the hobo planted an extremely wet kiss directly on top of Shale’s head. Shale managed to twist himself free and got approximately two yards before the world gave a shake and caused him to plop down awkwardly on his haunches.

The bum gathered himself with effort to a sitting position. He looked at Shale and slurred, “Yer s’good listner…I loves ya’.” He put the mostly empty bottle to his lips and tilted his head back, collapsing back as he did so into a prone position. The bottle rolled from his loose fingers and rolled away, landing near several other bottles of the same type.

Shale felt vaguely that he ought to be alarmed, but he was far more concerned with figuring out why the moon was making circles in the sky as it peeped out from the low scuds of clouds. By the time he realized what was going on, the bum was snoring noisily. Shale walked unsteadily over to him and nudged him with his nose. The bum let out an exclamation so incoherent it didn’t even have a vowel in it and gently pushed Shale’s nose away. Shale, who felt as though he needed some more of whatever liquid he’d been drinking that evening, found his way over to the bottles and nosed through them. All the bottles said the same thing; “Night Train” and none of them had anything in them.

By now the fire had died down considerably and since Shale had no idea how to get it stoked again, he decided he’d taken enough of the hobo’s hospitality. He decided it would be a good idea to climb the culvert. He got halfway up, tried to bite at weed for no particular reason and lost his balance. He slipped sideways and half-slid, half-rolled back to the bottom of the culvert. He was unhurt, in fact, he was laughing, as much as a dog is able to laugh. He decided that perhaps the culvert slope was a little more than he wanted to tackle just now and decided that walking along the bank of what used to be a river would suit him better.

As he walked, he began to cast his mind back, thinking about events in his life in no particular order. He seemed to remember a female he’d known, and hadn’t thought about in a long time. She’d been a wolfhound and to Shale she’d been just about the sweetest thing God ever put on the earth. She’d had a mate though, a big, dumb, slavering Great Dane named Tor. She’d been too good for Tor, that much was sure. But Shale, as was his custom around large dogs, had been too afraid to make any type of move. As he walked, he found himself getting more and more angry with Tor, and more and more sure that the female (whose name Shale couldn’t even remember) had probably loved Shaleinstead of that dopey Dane. “Why, if he were here right now,” Shale thought to himself, “I’d give him what-for. I’d knock him right on his backside!” Shale punctuated this thought with a growl and a snap of his jaws at an imaginary dog located somewhere to his right. This wasn’t the best idea, since it caused him to overbalance and he nearly fell off the retaining wall he was now walking on into the river that was coursing along happily next to him.

Over the past several yards, the embankment Shale was walking on had sloped up precipitously, as the river next to him had widened from near nonexistence, to a trickle, to a creek, and finally the rather wide river that it was now. As a consequence, bridges were needed to cross the river at this juncture. Shale was approaching just such a place; a mostly deserted road that had wound its way out from Havenwood to the countryside. There were a few scattered houses nearby, however the tall old-growth trees that populated much of the suburban area of Havenwood were gone. The river flowed under this country road and from hence its final destination Shale could not say.

He was jerked roughly from his revere by a series of loud shouts from the bridge, which was now no more than twenty yards away. Normally any sort of shouting nearby would have caused Shale to look for a place to hide, however, on this night he felt content to stand where he was. When he thought about it later, he was never entirely sure if he could have moved quickly into hiding without crashing into something. The shouts from the bridge came indistinctly to his ears, and although Shale was no genius at decoding human behavior, it certainly seemed to him as though a fight might be in the offing.

A car was stopped on the bridge and four teenagers had gotten out of it. In fact, it was exactly the same car that had nearly run Shale down earlier that evening. Judging by the demeanors of all involved, it was clear they weren’t admiring the view. A large teenager was holding a bottle in one hand and using the other hand to threateningly poke a smaller boy in the chest. Two other teenagers, obviously the hangers-on associated with the larger one stood by, grinning impishly.

“You wanted to go ridin’ with us,” the older boy shouted. “And now you ain’t even going to have a drink? What’s the matter with ya’? You trying to act too good for us now?” The younger boy, obviously intimidated, mumbled something noncommittal in reply. “The you better have a drink,” the older boy said ominously. “Unless you want this bottle shoved in a place that it was never intended to go. If you drink enough of it to make me think you’re not some kind of punk, I might not make you walk home.” With that, he held the bottle out, clenched in a fist that looked to be roughly the size of a canned ham.

The boy on one side started to chuckle. “Yeah, Tony, you tell ‘em!”

Tony swung his arm without even looking, clipping the one who had spoken with an open hand. The blow hit him in the shoulder, but nonetheless served to knock him nearly off his feet. “When I need your help, I’ll ask for it. ‘Til then, shut yer’ mouth!” he growled.

The younger boy nervously took the bottle from Tony’s massive hand. His nervousness caused his hands to shake. Suddenly, he lost his grip on the bottle and it clattered to the pavement. Fortunately it didn’t break, although some amber liquid spilled from the inside. In his haste to pick it back up, the smaller boy accidentally kicked it, knocking it under the guardrail and into the river. He looked back up at Tony, his face a mask of horror.

Tony flew into a rage. “Why, you little snot-nose punk! Do you know how much that bottle cost me? I’m gonna’ make you pay for that one!”

One of his cronies registered a warning. “Hey, c’mon Tony. The kid didn’t mean it. Don’t do anything stupid now.”

Tony swiveled his head to look at who had spoken, glowered at him with a look that would have melted a brass eagle, then put both hands out in front of him. With a shove, he pushed the younger boy squarely in the chest. The younger boy flew like a rag doll, crashed into the guardrail, and then tipped head over heels off the bridge and into the river. Tony leaned his head over the rail, yelling, “And don’t you dare get out of there until you got my bottle back!”

“Holy crow, Tony!” the one that had spoken earlier exclaimed. “What are you trying to do, kill him?” As if to punctuate this statement, the boy bobbed to the surface, splashing and yelling.

“Help me!” he screamed! “I can’t swim!”

With an exasperated growl that would have seemed more at home coming from someone stuck in traffic than one who was watching another person drown, Tony yelled out, “Just let the current carry you to shore, ya’ stupid baby! I swear, if you wreck this night any more for me, I’m gonna’ send ya’ home with ruptures!” Naturally, Tony made no move at all to rescue the floundering boy.

Seeing the boy’s plight threw Shale into action. He prepared himself to do something that he’d never dreamed of doing before. With nary a second though, he launched himself off the retaining wall and into the water below. The cold water hit him like a roundhouse slap in the face, sobering him up considerably. He spluttered as water went into his mouth and down his throat unexpectedly. He bobbed to the top like a cork and paddled his way in a circle, trying to get his bearings. The water was frigid, but he was able to make his way over to the struggling boy. The boy let out a strangled noise and flung himself at Shale, nearly dragging him underwater. Shale’s legs were beginning to go numb, and he knew he’d have to get out of the water quickly, lest he drown himself. With the boy clutching him in a death grip, Shale managed to drag himself through the water, using the current to move closer to shore. His legs felt like lead weights and a strange grayness was beginning to close in on the edges of his vision. He had just reached the bank when he sank beneath the water.

Now it was the gasping boy’s turn to play rescuer. Coughing and spluttering, he grabbed Shale haphazardly around his middle and dragged him up onto the embankment. Shale was barely conscious, and hardly knew whether he was on land or at sea. As he descended down into something like sleep, he thought to himself, “Good lord, I should probably be dead by now…” With that thought, he fell in a heap on the bank.

By now, Tony and the others were stumbling their way down to where Shale and the boy were. “What’s the matter with you!” Tony bawled. “You tryin’ to give me a heart attack or somethin’?” He jerked the boy to his feet, thumping him on the back. “I swear, if you wasn’t my brother, I’d knock yer’ face in. Now when we get home, you’re gonna’ tell ma you fell in a puddle. At least, you will if ya’ know what’s good for ya’.”

He gestured to his two friends. “Rocky, Weezy, pick that dog up and put him in the car. He can ride in the back with you guys. He’s decently put together…who knows, there might be a reward for ‘im somewheres.”

Shale heard all this in only the most vague sense. He felt himself get lifted off the ground, and his leg was being twisted in a most uncomfortable way. However, he felt as though he was made totally of ice and, try as he might, he found his limbs were refusing his brain’s orders. As the boys loaded him up in the backseat of the automobile, Shale closed his eyes and remembered nothing else.

To Be Continued…