“So here comes Larry on the sidewalk. He can’t see Miss Jasmine because she fell between the porch and the bushes. Then this little black puppy jumps out of the bushes, runs to Larry, and barks. The dog runs into the bushes and barks until Larry comes over to look and, lo and behold, Miss Jasmine is passed out behind the bushes. The little dog is snuggled up next to her, shaking from the cold.
“Larry knows he has to call an ambulance, but he doesn’t have a cell phone. He doesn’t see anybody around, but he sees the front door is ajar. He looks at the house number, goes in, finds the phone, and calls 911. He gives them the address and tells them that an old lady is knocked out cold in the cold, and they are asking for his personal information. Larry tells them, ‘I’m just a fool walking down the street and I found an old lady knocked out in the bushes. So, I broke into her house to call 911, and I’m a black man!’
People in the restaurant are in stitches. Someone says, “You know the po-lice are going be over there now. It’s a black man broke into her house.”
“A police car shows up, then an ambulance. They both have their sirens on. Or maybe not but sirens make the story more dramatic. Histrionic. That little dog got agitated by the sirens, sticks its nose up in the air, and starts howling. I show up with the groceries and see Aunt Jasmine on a stretcher being put into the ambulance. That little dog is still howling, until Larry bends over and picks her up. Then the dog gets quiet and just looks at Larry. She looks like a bat but Larry says she is a Pomeranian and can’t be more than a month old. She has a gimp rear leg and fits in his big hand.
“The police want to know if anybody is a relative and I tell them I’m her nephew. It’s Officer Downs. Officer Downs says, ‘Let’s go. We can take you to the hospital to be with her.’
“Officer Downs jumped up and said, “You see ya’ll! He mentioned me! I’m in the story!’”
Whale barked at Officer Downs a few times until he sat down, then Kenneth continued.
“I ask Larry if he can take the groceries into the house and put them in the fridge, and then Officer Downs asks me, ‘Do you know this man?’
“I said no, but he called 911, probably saved my aunt’s life.”
“And then Larry said, ‘Her little dog saved her life. I just called 911.’
“I said, ‘That ain’t her dog. She ain’t got no dog.’
“So, Larry asks what to do with the dog—it saved her life. Can’t just leave her out in the cold to die.
“I told Larry, ‘Maybe you can take care of the dog, and if you want to stay in the house and eat my aunt’s groceries, I’ll be at the hospital with my aunt.’
“Officer Downs says, ‘You trust this stranger in your house?’
“And I said, ‘The man saved her life! The dog saved her life. We ain’t got nothing to steal except groceries and a library of Portuguese books.’
“Officer Downs said, ‘Well, that’s for you to decide. C’mon, let’s go. Do you want to sit in the front or in the back?’
“I just grinned and said, ‘Thank you, Officer. I like to ride in the back. It’s ironic.’
“Officer Downs had a quizzical look and said, ‘Whatever. Let’s go, but we don’t do irony in the police department.’”
Officer Downs jumped up again and said to everybody, “You see, ya’ll? Did you hear? I saved her life!”
“You didn’t save her life—you just put her nephew in the back of the police car!” somebody said.
“We followed the ambulance in the police car with me in the back. I was waving to people, ironically. Larry went into the house with the dog and called the library.
“‘Boss,’ he said, “I can’t come in today because…’
“Larry heard from the other end, ‘Always reading the books instead of cleaning the toilets. And now you call in with some excuse? That’s it, you already had your last warning. You’re fired!’
“Miss Jasmine stayed at the hospital that first night. That evening when I got home Larry was still there with the dog. Now this is nineteen years ago. I’m thinking this stranger in our house must be about twenty years old, so I ask him, ‘What are you still doing here? How old are you anyway? What is your name, and do you got a job?’
“Larry says, ‘Well, I was going to work when I found your aunt and called 911. I stayed here because somebody needed to take care of this dog. I’m twenty-one years old; I’ve worked at the library since high school, but they just fired me ’cause I didn’t go in today. My name is Larry. And I need a place to stay. I’ve been sleeping on the street for a few weeks already.’
“The next day they released Miss Jasmine from the hospital. Some nice soul getting off work at the hospital brings us home. Miss Jasmine still doesn’t remember much, just that she fell off the porch. I had already filled her in about how Larry and the dog saved her, and that Larry was still at the house.
“We go inside and find Larry at the table eating a sandwich. ‘I made sandwiches,’ said Larry. Anybody hungry?’ and kept eating.
“‘Well, well, well,” said Miss Jasmine, “it looks like I got me another welfare project. Just how long do you intend to stay here, young man? And don’t you know to stand up when a lady enters the room?”
Larry stood up.
“‘I’m sorry ma’am. I ain’t hardly eaten in weeks. Miss Jasmine, right? It is truly my honor. I’m not from here, but they say you are a public institution. I’ve been sleeping on the street, and I don’t intend to stay here forever, but it’s cold out, and if you could let me stay on the couch one more night, that would be awful kind of you. I just wanted to help out with your dog. Kenneth here don’t seem to know nothing about no dogs,’ said Larry. ‘Pardon the triple negative. I like to code switch.’
“‘Now, young man, we don’t use no double negatives in this house, but we don’t got no rule about no triple negatives. And I don’t got no dog. I don’t know whose dog that is.’
“The dog ran out from the back of the house barking. She ran up to Miss Jasmine and sat down at her feet and looked up at her. Miss Jasmine was still standing, and the dog was barely eight inches tall sitting down. She barked once, apparently looking for some affection.
“‘I’d say she’s your dog, Miss Jasmine,’ said Larry. ‘Are you going to throw her out when you throw me out? She saved your life, you know.’
“‘She’s so cute!’ said Miss Jasmine as she squatted to pick her up. ‘And so tiny. She looks like a little bat. What’s her name?’
“‘We’ve just been calling her Miss Dog. Maybe you could give her a proper name.’
“Miss Jasmine thought about that for a minute and then said, ‘Her name is Whale. We’ll call her Whale.’
“‘You mean like that dog’s name in those notebooks over in the drawer? That was a fine story by the way. I never read no handwritten story until yesterday. Poor people struggling against nature and the man, and a dog named Whale—poor thing.’
“‘You mean to tell me you’ve been mooching my food, running up my utility bill, and reading my personal notebooks?’
“‘That’s right, ma’am. I would have read some of your other books—I’m a librarian, you know. Was a librarian. But all of your books except Lord of the Flies and Green Eggs and Ham are in Portuguese. I already read those two and also read your civil rights book when I worked at the library. So I read your notebooks.’
“‘Then Miss Jasmine gave Larry a hug and said, ‘You’re the first person to ever read my story besides my husband. I’m touched. You can stay a while. Maybe a week.’”
Kenneth paused, then continued.
“Now this is what Aunt Jasmine told us after she started to remember how she fell.
“’Kenneth had gone to the grocery store. It was cold. I heard a dog barking, not loud, but a constant yapping. I went outside and could see a puppy between the bushes and the sidewalk. It was shivering. It had fur, of course, but tiny and probably outside all night—who knows?
“I knew the dog was too tiny to come up the steps, so I started down to fetch it. That’s all I remember until I woke up in the hospital.”
“And that’s how Larry and Whale came to stay with us,” said Kenneth. “The end!”
Everybody in the restaurant stood up and clapped for Kenneth’s story. When they finally stopped clapping Miss Jasmine stood up and said, “I got something else to say, if you don’t mind.”
She walked to the PA.
“I want to thank everybody for honoring my daughter today and indulging my silly idea of eating green eggs and ham. Or Spam. Like I told ya’ll already, February 10 is Little Roberta’s birthday, Mr. Jackson Jackson’s birthday, and Roberta Flack’s birthday, and it’s the day I fell off the porch and was rescued by Larry and Whale. February 10 is my birthday too! I fell on my eighty-first birthday and was rescued by Larry and Whale. Oh, and of course by Officer Downs.”
“She mentioned you,” said Miss Beverly to Officer Downs, both smiling.
“So today is my birthday. Even though I already ate my birthday pancakes two days early.”