MONO ISSUE 1 PDF FLIPBOOK - Flipbook - Page 73
WHEN YOU WALK A DOG, NO-ONE SEES YOU
by Christopher Fuller
HE HAD ALMOST reached 10,000 steps, the central component of his new fitness regimen, when
he saw someone lying on the ground. Homeless people liked to bed down in the park. Mostly
behind the concession stand. They smoked, laughed, argued. One time, when he was walking his
dog (now deceased) a woman with brown teeth told him that his dog was the most beautiful she’d
ever seen. And that was gratifying, even from a woman with brown teeth.
When you walk a dog, no one sees you, they just see the dog, especially a dog like Agnes: velvety,
chocolatey, always portrait ready. Now that she was gone, he felt exposed, not portrait ready,
embarrassed by his potato-shaped thorax and stick-figure limbs. But this person today, also a
woman, was not in that spot. This woman was lying under a tree, a few yards from the Rec Centre,
barefoot, on a clean blanket. There was a kid too. It was hard to tell from a distance but the kid, a
boy he thought, might have been around seven or eight, judging by size. The woman might have
been thirty and she had long brown hair, the type of brown produced by lightening black hair. And
the way their mouths hung open, they were not just dozing, taking a break––they were really
asleep. Homeless people in the park were nothing new, but a homeless person with a kid was a
different story. He decided to circle around and come back––casually––and hoped no one was
watching.
Were they homeless? Maybe the kid had a tennis class at the Rec Centre.
Wait. It was September. What about school?
He veered a little closer. They were Mediterranean or possibly Hispanic; and the woman looked
very pretty, lying there, with her rosy cheeks and full lips. Did she seem troubled? He squinted. She
just looked asleep. After he made another lap, a young couple approached, pushing a stroller. The
man was tall and cinematically Teutonic but slightly paunchy. Slightly paunchy was okay. A man,
even a man of a certain age, provided he had other qualities, could get away with that. The woman
had a mane of flaming red curls that lilted in the breeze. Their hoodies matched: some college he’d
never heard of. The baby in the stroller, husky and bald, gnawed on a toy Panda. Maybe he could
take them aside and ask what they thought about the situation. At least he could explain himself.
But they kept going, didn’t seem to notice the woman and the child.
Figures.
The boy turned over and snuggled closer to the woman. Were the shelters full? No, he’d heard
about the shelters. They weren’t safe. You definitely wouldn’t take a kid there. Weren’t there
special shelters for women though?
During the next lap he wondered again if they were homeless at all. The woman’s clothes––the
dark jeans, the grey sweater with short sleeves––were stylish. Cute. She was wearing a cute outfit.
If you see something, say something.
What would he say?
He came around again and considered the possibilities. Possibility one: They were waiting for
something, between errands. Which would be the best-case scenario and really, the most likely.
The woman and the boy were just living their lives and he, an embarassingly plain, generously
paunchy, late-middle-aged man with hairy wrists and a flushed face, not walking a dog, walking
past the sleepers repeatedly, observable by anyone with a good pair of binoculars. He had a good
pair of binoculars at home, the kind hunters used. He kept them by the little window in his attic
which not only afforded a comprehensive view of the neighbourhood but kept him out of sight. With
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