The Accidental Tourist

She showed him the command: two taps of the foot. Her boot made a crisp sound. When Edward didn't respond, she bent and pulled his forepaws out from under him. Then she let him up and went through it again, several times over. Edward made no progress. When she tapped her foot, he panted and looked elsewhere. "Stubborn," Muriel told him. "You're just as stubborn as they come." She said to Macon, "A lot of dogs will act like this. They hate to lie down; I don't know why. Now you."

Macon tapped his foot. Edward seemed fascinated by something off to his left.

"Grab his paws," Muriel said.

"On crutches?"

"Sure."

Macon sighed and propped his crutches in the corner. He lowered himself to the floor with his cast in front of him, took Edward's paws and forced him down. Edward rumbled threateningly, but in the end he submitted. To get up again, Macon had to hold onto the lamp table. "This is really very difficult," he said, but Muriel said, "Listen, I've taught a man with no legs at all."

"You have?" Macon said. He pictured a legless man dragging along the sidewalk with some vicious breed of dog, Muriel standing by unconcerned and checking her manicure. "I don't suppose you ever broke a leg," he accused her. "Getting around is harder than it looks."

"I broke an arm once," Muriel said.

"An arm is no comparison."

"I did it training dogs, in fact. Got knocked off a porch by a Doberman pinscher."

"A Doberman!"

"Came to to find him standing over me, showing all his teeth. Well, I thought of what they said at Doggie, Do: Only one of you can be boss. So I tell him, 'Absolutely not.' Those were the first words that came to mewhat my mother used to say when she wasn't going to let me get away with something. 'Absolutely not!' I tell him, and my right arm is broken so I hold out my left, hold out my palm and stare into his eyes-they can't stand for you to meet their eyes-and get to my feet real slow. And durned if that dog doesn't settle right back on his haunches."

"Good Lord," Macon said.

"I've had a cocker spaniel fly directly at my throat. Meanest thing you ever saw. Had a German shepherd take my ankle in his teeth. Then he let it go."

She lifted a foot and rotated it. Her ankle was about the thickness of a pencil.

"Have you ever met with a failure?" Macon asked her. "Some dog you just gave up on?"

"Not a one," she said. "And Edward's not about to be the first."

But Edward seemed to think otherwise. Muriel worked with him another half hour, and although he would stay once he was down, he flatly refused to lie down on his own. Each time, he had to be forced. "Never mind," Muriel said. "This is the way most of them do. I bet tomorrow he'll be just as stubborn, so I'm going to skip a day. You keep practicing, and I'll be back this same time Saturday."

Then she told Edward to stay, and she accepted her money and slipped out the door. Observing Edward's erect, resisting posture, Macon felt discouraged. Why hire a trainer at all, if she left him to do the training? "Oh, I don't know, I don't know," he said. Edward gave a sigh and walked off, although he hadn't been released.

All that afternoon and evening, Edward refused to lie down. Macon wheedled, threatened, cajoled; Edward muttered ominously and stood firm.

Rose and the boys edged around the two of them, politely averting their eyes as if they'd stumbled on some private quarrel.

Then the next morning, Edward charged the mailman. Macon managed to grab the leash, but it raised some doubts in his mind. What did all this sitting and heeling have to do with Edward's real problem? "I should just ship you off to the pound," he told Edward. He tapped his foot twice.

Edward did not lie down.

In the afternoon, Macon called the Meow-Bow. "May I speak to Muriel, please?" he asked. He couldn't think of her last name.

"Muriel's not working today," a girl told him.

"Oh, I see."

"Her little boy is sick."

He hadn't known she had a little boy. He felt some inner click of adjustment; she was a slightly different person from the one he'd imagined. "Well," he said, "this is Macon Leary. I guess I'll talk to her tomorrow."

"Oh, Mr. Leary. You want to call her at home?"

"No, that's all right."

"I can give you her number if you want to call her at home." "I'll just talk to her tomorrow. Thank you."

Rose had an errand downtown, so she agreed to drop him off at the Businessman's Press. He wanted to deliver the rest of his guidebook.

Stretched across the backseat with his crutches, he gazed at the passing scenery: antique office buildings, tasteful restaurants, health food stores and florists' shops, all peculiarly hard-edged and vivid in the light of a brilliant October afternoon. Rose perched behind the wheel and drove at a steady, slow pace that was almost hypnotic. She wore a little round basin-shaped hat with ribbons down the back. It made her look prim and Sunday schoolish.