“Tonight we can give him a bath and some food. Tomorrowwe can take him by the vet and get him scanned for a microchip.”
“Come on, Arthur. Let’s get you something to drink.”
“Arthur?”
“Yeah, after the hurricane.” She smiles at her own cleverness, and I have to admit, I’m basking in it too. I eye Arthur, who looks perfectly content being carried around in Nash’s arms. Lucky bastard. Like he knows we won’t take him to the pound. What do they call it when you just find an animal and they decide they’re yours?The animal distribution system. I think it’s mostly cats, but dogs aren’t unheard of.
I put my hand on her lower back to guide her back in the direction we came. I’m surprised to find how far we’ve walked. It hits me just a little ways back how nice it is. To be out for a walk with Nash and a puppy. Maybe it won’t be this puppy if he belongs to someone else, but in the future, it could be a different dog. Maybe during the two months we both have off we could walk down the street to the coffee shop by my house on Sunday mornings to get a latte and a pastry. Us holding hands and taking turns walking the dog.
I don’t have any problem being a big man walking a little dog, if that’s what she wants.
Chapter Sixty-Four
NASH
It’s close enough to dusk that most people have left for the day. We take a second to pour some water out of a bottle for Arthur to lap at before we head home. We’re about to put him in the back seat and climb into Wyatt’s truck when a lady in an SUV pulls up beside us. “Excuse me, but do you guys have food to eat?” Wyatt and I must have had confused looks on our faces because she explains. “I’m looking for people who haven’t eaten dinner.” She holds up a fast-food bag full of what I assume are chicken sandwiches. There’s probably twenty of them in there. I guess the flooding was worse than the damage done to the power lines since they already have some power on the main road where the grocery stores, gas stations, and restaurants are.
Wyatt answers her, “Yes, ma’am. We do have plans for dinner this evening, but we just came from that direction,” he points down the road we just walked, “and they had some people outside still, so you might ask them.”
“Thank y’all. Have a good one.”
“You too,” we say as she rolls up her window and rolls away.
I get into Wyatt’s passenger seat and point all the air vents directly at my face. Every year I forget how truly hot it gets in the summer, and every year I’m violently reminded.
“Is it always like that here?” Wyatt asks as he turns the key in the ignition.
“Like what?”
“Likethat. A random person out looking to feed people?” He puts the truck in drive and pulls away from the curb.
It’s never struck me that it could be considered weird or different. I’ve lived here two thirds of my life, so I’m just used to the Texan friendliness. I think back to my earliest hurricane memories. “When I was a kid, we had a hurricane that knocked the power out for two weeks. We went outside the morning after, like you and I did today, and there was a tree leaning on the little canopy over our front door. In just a few hours, my dad and some of the men from our street had the whole thing off the house and cut into pieces. To thank them, my dad cooked whatever meat we had in the fridge on a camping stove and fed everyone. It wasn’t going to last long without power anyway, so we just cooked everything and fed people.”
“Just like that?”
I nod. “Just like that.”
“Wow.”
“Another year, a different hurricane knocked tons of trees into the streets of our neighborhood. My dad filled his chainsaw up with gas, took the four-wheeler around and helped clear the roads. After hurricanes it’s like anyone and everyone who owns a chainsaw is out helping.” I laugh at the memories of being akid and being able to just do whatever because our parents didn’t want to entertain us at home. “I think that was the same storm that I was old enough to just hang out with friends after. No power, no school, and nothing to do at home. I would call my friends who lived in the neighborhood on the landline, can you believe it? And we would meet up near the bike path and just ride around for hours until it would get close to dark.”
“What did you do?”
“I don’t know. All sorts of stuff. Watch turtles swim in the creek, poke at a dead snake with a stick. Maybe we would walk someone’s dog. Just killin’ time.”
“That doesn’t sound like a bad childhood.”
“It’s not like that growing up in Wisconsin?” There’s basically no traffic, so it’s not long before we are close to Wyatt’s house so we can shower, change, and grab some stuff to stay over at Colin’s.
“It is to an extent. The town is so small you can’t get away with anything, like you saw. Imagine everyone knowing you got a speeding ticket before you even show up to the function, but like a thousand times worse. They knew when you snuck out, when you were partying, who you were going out with. There was no privacy. A high school class of two-hundred kids means there’s nowhere to run.”
“But it also means the town takes care of you.”
He nods. “It does, but look at Houston. Two-million people in the city limits and everyone is out and about helping. It’s like the small-town kindness with the big-city benefits.”
I never thought I would hear Mr. Wisco himself talking about Houston like that. It kind of warms my heart. Makes me feel like maybe he’s not going to hate my guts in ten years for giving up on Wisconsin to be with me. Maybe he can appreciate this city for what it is. I don’t think my Texaslessons had as much of an impact on him as this experience. There’s part of being a Texan that you can’t teach. The media makes us out to be a bunch of dumb hicks who ride horses to school, but when push comes to shove, my big blue dot in a sea of small-town red is accepting, welcoming, and caring. People wonder why young women like me with big careers and big dreams haven’t fled Texas in the wake of the horrible politicking going on here, but this is why. When I was a kid, we had Go Texan Day, and I always felt so proud to live here. As I got older and started paying attention to politics, I lost that pride, but that’s what they want. When you realize how diverse and beautiful this city is, you appreciate the Texan state of mind even more. It was built on the ‘come and take it’ attitude, and that’s the same mantra I use for staying and fighting.
I put my hand on Wyatt’s arm. “That’s a really nice way to say it.”