Two Tales Fom The Past
Will de Kypia

📆

.THE DRIVING LESSON

.This happened a long time ago,
.back in the days when most cars
.didn't have seat belts and airbags.

.A foggy morning and the boy is going a
.bit too fast for a learner. Suddenly there's
.a semi looming ahead, stopped in the road.

.The boy hits the brakes, hard but too late.
.His old man's riding shotgun. No chance
.to brace so he hits the windshield, hard.

.Squinting through blood, the father pulls
.his dazed son over to the passenger side
.behind the crazed and gory windshield.

.He staggers out of the car, clambers around
.to the driver’s seat, then lays his broken pate
.on the wheel, never minding the horn’s blare.

When the cops arrive they see a bloody driver
.with a scared kid asking him again and again
___“Dad, what am I supposed to do now?”

_______*_____*_____*

PLAYING GAMES
IN THE BASEMENT

When we were kids my
three siblings and I wanted
to have a puppy to play with.

We constantly nagged our parents
to let us get one. They finally caved
in, and we went to the animal shelter.

There were just oodles of dogs there
but we noticed a cute little female.
Mixed breed, nearly half-grown.

Cute, yet she was so forlorn.
We were curious about her, and
Dad queried the shelter staff.

“Abused”, they informed him.

“She was found on the streets,
scared, injured, and starving.

It will take time to heal her.
Time and also lots of love.”

And they warned us she had
a tendency to be “snappish”.

A mongrel, no longer a puppy,
snappish. Nobody's first choice.

The family felt sorry for her,
and we agreed that helping her
heal was the right thing to do.

She would be a pet and a project.

We decided to name her Lorna,
the name of the title character of
a novel Mom read in high school.

Small but stocky, tan spots above
the eyes, she looked like she might
have a touch of Rottweiler in her.

Lorna was trouble from the start.

She had a nasty trick of extending her
muzzle toward some friendly stranger’s
outstretched hand as if about to sniff it.

Then she'd lunge at the hand, trying to
chomp on the stranger's friendly fingers.

We kids asked our parents what
could have made Lorna so mean.

They said we would never know and
she would never forget whatever bad
things had happened in her past life.

All we could do was try to make
her new life better. Which we did.

Although our house had a big
fenced yard, we kept her inside
where she slept on a quilt in a
far corner of the basement.

Lorna often whimpered while
she slept, perhaps remembering
those demons of that prior life.

A voracious eater, she gobbled
the food you brought before you
got halfway back up the stairs.

She did enjoy playing games.
Tug-of-war was her favorite.

Lorna's powerful jaws gripped
a thick strip of leather or a hank
of stout rope held by one of us.

Her bite was so strong we would
drag her along the floor, lift her up,
and swing her around in a circle.

We'd keep playing until Lorna
got bored and suddenly stopped.

She'd drop what she had in her
mouth, stand tall on her hind legs
and totter across the basement floor.

Fall down, crawl a few feet, roll over
and play dead for a moment or two.

Lorna finished with an actual
bow, lowering her chest to the
floor as she raised her rump.

She'd trot to her corner,
curl up on her quilt, and
everyone went to bed.

But…but…but…but who—

Who taught her how to perform?
Was she owned by a dog trainer?
Maybe an old-time vaudevillian?

We inquired and we learned that
the folks at the shelter were not
aware of her performing skills.

They'd kept her in a cage so she
had no chance to display them.

We realized that a mystery
was living in our basement,
a mystery we'd never solve.

The whole family loved Lorna,
especially us kids who were quite
proud of her unusual behavior.

We showed her off to our friends
like a sliding bookcase hiding the
entrance to a secret passageway.

After cautioning them not to get
too close. She was still snappish.

Our treasured canine companion
lived mostly contentedly in her
corner for almost seven years.

No ordinary dog, a survivor.
She wore out several quilts.

The last time I saw Lorna was
when I was in college, back
at home on spring break.

I went straight to her corner.

“Hey girl, how are you doing today?”
Eyes clouded by cataracts, she stared.
Raised a grayed muzzle, teeth bared.

Until she caught my familiar scent.
And relaxed, letting me run my fingers
over her bony body. She was dying.

Her blind eyes watched__._..
me as I slowly stood up._.._..

“Guess what, Lorna? Me and my buddies
are going to hitchhike down to Florida.
You be a good girl while I'm gone.”

Before I returned she was dead.

Our parents left the quilt in Lorna's
corner. After they died we kids cut
it up and each of us took a piece.

On the day we sold the house we all
made one last trip to the basement.

I looked at the empty corner and
said “Goodbye, Lorna. I hope you
are happy now, wherever you are.”

We did the right thing, tried to heal her
wounds, but Lorna always bore scars.


________