“Doris was an odd duck, obviously, since she was mid-50’s and staying in hostels.  She was traveling around, told us where and when but we somehow never understood the why or how.” – travel journal entry about our roommate at a Galveston Island hostel – Day 8

Things That Need Names

I was hanging up posters about Nacho when I saw her.  Nacho had been missing for three days, but Doris had been lost all her life.

We don’t know her name, but we call her Doris because it seems to suit her, and because she answers to it.  She’d appeared here one day from somewhere up north, kicking and screaming in the streets, a hurricane in corduroy and fury, taking on the warm gulf air to fuel her ferocity.

Everyone knew when she’d gotten here and from where, but no one understood the why or the how.  Same goes for Nacho.

On the day I was looking for Nacho, I was trying to keep from punching a dog-hating man when I came outside and saw Doris.  Inside, I’d said: “My dog is missing.  Do you mind if I hang up this sign in your window?”

“I am not in business of finding dog,” the owner said.  He talked like someone who didn’t know where exactly he’d come from or where he belonged and so had ended up selling sandwiches in Galveston, Texas and hating dogs, another one who’d blown in like a storm, this one with imported cold cuts and fancy olives.  “I sell sandwiches.”

“I just want to put it in the window,” I said.  “It won’t interfere with your sandwiches.”

“Menu in window,” he said, “Look.”

“I’ll hang it next to the menu,” I said, but I wanted to say, “Don’t people know what kind of sandwiches there are?” because this was not a place with any sort of spectacular sandwiches, even though there were the fancy olives.

“People see menu, they see lost dog, they take off looking for lost dog, not come in for sandwich,” he said, summarily.  “People love dogs too much.  I need them to love sandwich, not dog.  What kind of dog, anyway,” he said, looking at the poster.  “Hah,” he said, “just mutt, why so important.”

I wished he would say all the words in a sentence and I wished he would stop asking me questions-not-questions.  It was my kid’s dog for Pete’s sake, named after his favorite food.

“The dog is named Pastrami,” I said.

“Says Nacho,” he said, shaking his head.  “Why you lie, my friend.”

He did not mean the friend part.

“Listen,” I said, “I know this is one of those dogs that you’d see as a stray on the streets of Thailand or Mexico, but here she is part of the family,” I said, wondering for the first time if both the man and Nacho might be from the streets of Thailand or Mexico.  “This is a dog with pajamas and a Christmas stocking,” I said.

“No wonder dog run away,” he said, and he laughed the acidic garbled laugh of someone choking on a dollop of stone-ground mustard.

When I left, Doris was green and shaking and slumped over on a bench outside.  She was somebody’s mother, once, but now she slumps on benches and is the wrong color.  The deli owner saw her at the same time I did.  He was about to go over and shoo her off the bench, away from his menu in the window, but then he noticed the ambulance with its lights flashing and the two EMT’s conferring a few feet away, and he turned to go back inside.

“She over-corrected, I guess,” the young one said, “Thought she could go cold-turkey.  It’s been a few days since she’s had a drink.”

“Let’s take her to detox,” said the older one.  “And do it again next week, probably.”  He was sarcastic and it made me want to choke him, on mustard.

“She just needs some food in her,” said the young one.  “Probably hasn’t eaten, which isn’t helping.  Doris, let’s get you something to eat here,” he said, starting into the deli. “Do you like ham?”

“Nacho,” she said.  She was pointing, and I thought she had seen my dog.

“Samosa.  Weiner schnitzel.  Egg foo young!”  She screamed and kicked.

The deli owner came into the doorway with a broom raised over his head.  “Get outta here! Sit outside deli, yelling egg foo young!”

It was the young one who radioed the cops when he swung.

Nacho came home about a week after this happened, and so did Doris.  I saw her yelling out the names of countries outside the halfway house where she stays.

Samosa, Weiner Schnitzel, and Egg Foo Young are what we called the puppies, identical coloring to the Yorkie down the street.

With Nacho and the puppies, and with Doris, we know the whens and from wheres of their reappearance, but the hows and whys we still don’t understand.  We don’t  ask questions because it’s the job of people who know their whys and hows to take care of those who don’t, to take them in and love them and feed them and clothe them, even when they get matted and smelly and snippy.

These are things that may be somebody’s mother.  These are things that need names.