A Piedmont Lantern Story

Jimmy Matthew first noticed the dog outside CL Morgan’s Grocery store, which was unusual only because Jimmy Matthew tried to notice very little.

The dog was medium-sized, brown where it remembered to be, gray where it didn’t. One ear stood up like it had a point to make, and the other looked like it had lost interest years ago. It sat proper on Morgan’s little back porch, nose between his front paws, watching Jimmy with the steady attention usually reserved for preachers and judges.

“Don’t start with me,” Jimmy muttered, because experience had taught him that eye contact was an invitation.

The dog stood up.

Jimmy walked off.

So did the dog.

All the way down past the post office. Past Mrs. Landry’s house. Past the place where Jimmy had once sworn he’d never go back to after an unfortunate incident that involved a slingshot and a bible.

“You can’t come with me,” Jimmy told the dog, stopping short. “I ain’t got nothin’.”

The dog sat again, patient as forgiveness.

By lunchtime, folks had noticed.

“That your dog?” Mr. Dobbs asked, suspicious as ever.

“No, sir,” Jimmy said. “I believe it might be… considerin’ me.”

The dog wagged its tail like that settled it.

By mid-afternoon, Jimmy Matthew was worried.

Not because of the dog, exactly. But because of the feeling creeping in behind his ribs, the one that suggested meaning. Jimmy didn’t care one whit for meaning. Meaning led to responsibility, and responsibility led to lectures.

“You got the wrong boy,” Jimmy said as they sat under the chinaberry tree. “I ain’t kind. I ain’t brave. I ain’t even all that honest, if you want to know the truth about it.”

The dog yawned and laid its head on Jimmy’s shoe.

Jimmy felt something tighten.

“What if you think I’m somebody else?” he asked.

The dog looked up, eyes dark and steady, and for a moment Jimmy had the unsettling thought that the dog knew exactly who he was.

They walked the rest of the afternoon together. The dog followed him to the creek, where Jimmy skipped rocks badly. It followed him to the old fence line, where Jimmy apologized out loud to a place he hadn’t meant to think about. It followed him home.

At the front steps, Jimmy stopped.

“You can’t come in,” he said softly. “Mama’ll have a conniption. You don’t want to be on the receivin’ end of one of her fits.”

The dog stood, wagged once, then sat. Waiting.

Jimmy felt his throat close up.

“You sure?” he whispered. “’Cause I mess things up.”

The dog leaned forward and licked his hand, quick and matter-of-fact, like it had a schedule to keep.

Jimmy laughed, sudden and surprised. “Well. I reckon that makes two of us.”

When Jimmy finally stood and went inside, the dog stayed on the step, just close enough to be there, just far enough not to ask.

By morning, the dog was gone.

Jimmy felt the absence like a missing tooth.

He never told anyone about the way it had looked at him, or the way it had stayed. But from that day on, when Jimmy Matthew thought about himself, he did so with a little more care.

Because sometimes, the choosin’ ain’t about deservin’.

Sometimes it’s just about being seen.