In my teens and early twenties my family lived in a house that adjoined a parking lot. It was a lot for moving vans and catering trucks. Busy during the day, but at night was like a graveyard. We never saw anyone in there after work hours.
Dogs adapt to their environments. We had a black Labrador retriever, his name was Sonny, and it didn’t take him long to learn the habits and the hours of the company that operated next to our home. He knew during the day that people worked in the lot. A few, but not many, of the workers would call out to him, and he’d occasionally wag his tail while they were working. Sometimes they’d insert their fingers through the fence, and he’d sniff while they’d playfully talk to him. Sonny knew the daylight activities of the van company. The workers were strangers, not part of his family, but he knew that during the day people worked there. So long as they stayed on their side of the fence, he wasn’t threatened.
But one night something out of the ordinary occurred. Dogs know when something is amiss. Sonny was no exception. He knew well before anyone in the family did.
It was a crisp, cool late October night, one of the first chilly nights of the season. Just a few days before Halloween. It got dark early, the sun had set, and no one was supposed to be in the lot.
At perhaps eight o’clock or so, Sonny went to my bedroom and was barking at the window facing the lot. Bark, bark, bark. The kind of bark he made when danger was lurking. We tried silencing him, but to no avail. He barked, and he put his paws up on the sill of the window facing the lot. Bark and bark and bark. No matter how we tried to calm him, he wasn’t having any of it.
By this time the family got concerned. Sonny wasn’t about to go away from the window and sit under the table. He was barking steadily.
My father felt the best thing was for the menfolk in the house to go into the yard and investigate.
It was too late in the day for delivery personnel, meter readers, or garbage pickup. The van company installed a bright light in the parking lot, specifically so intruders could be seen. Looking out all the windows facing the lot, we couldn’t see a soul.
Our first thought is that it may have been a stray dog, a group of neighborhood cats, or local teenagers hanging out at the far end of the lot.
Just in case there was a meter reader, my father, brother, and I decided to go into the yard without Sonny. He didn’t take kindly to strangers, and we didn’t want him attacking anyone, even if trespassing.
So out we went, with flashlights and bats, just in case someone was on our property. We searched high and low. In the back yard, and the front yard. Up and down the driveway, along the window frames. No one. We went into the garage in case some trespasser went there to hide. Empty. One of us shone the flashlight up the tree along the side of the house, and behind the big bushes of chrysanthemums, the last flowers of the season to bloom. Nope, not a soul.
From outdoors we could still hear Sonny barking steadily. Well, my Dad determined, obviously he senses something we do not. Dad told my Mom to let the dog out and perhaps he’d lead us to whatever he was barking at.
The door was openned and he flew out like a jet plane. Sonny dashed to the driveway side of the house and aimed his bark at one specific van. Now it seemed like the crime scene had narrowed down a bit.
Barking incessantly, we knew immediately someone was lurking. There were no voices of teenagers, and cats would have been frightened.
Softly, quietly, we heard movement inside the van. My father, brother, and I bristled at the thought that there might be a burglar or criminal inside the van, possibly armed. Dad was about to go inside to get his gun, when a murky, unintelligible voice began to speak.
“Who is in there? Come on out,” my father ordered. As we humans took over, Sonny ceased barking. His warning had been heeded, he knew that we were aware of a stranger in our midst, in a lot where at night there was no activity.
Again my father yelled, “Come on out, who is in there? Come out or I’ll call the police.”
Some hollow sounds of footsteps, a slight shake of the van, and a human figure emerges.
Immediately, my brother recognized him. In the darkness, the unshaven face, soiled clothes, and messy hair gave him away. It was Charlie, a local drunk. As harmless as the night sky.
Charlie begged to stay, asked us not to call police, and promised he meant no harm. He just had no place to go, had too much to drink, and crawled into the van to escape the cold.
Our fears relieved, one of us told him that he better just leave the lot and find another place to sleep it off. But Charlie persisted, promised to be out within a few hours. Our sense of compassion took over. He went back into the van, and by morning was gone. When the van company’s employees reported to work bright and early the next morning, they had no idea a visitor had spent a few hours in the cargo area of one of their vans.
We never knew much about Charlie except that he lived somewhere in town, had no full time job, wasn’t married but somehow had money to buy booze and beers, and was seen sleeping on park benches. And as the winter approached, found shelter in moving vans. We never saw him again, at least he never returned to the parking lot. We never asked, and in the months that followed, when telling the story of his sojourn one night in the moving van lot, no one had any idea what happened to him. He was gone, his ultimate fate remained a mystery.
Although I never knew him well, my brother was slightly acquainted with him, and my family kind of felt sorry for him. Whether or not Charlie had a family, passed away, or found a new town to bum around in will forever be a mystery.
As for Sonny, out dear Lab, he, too, has crossed the rainbow bridge. He did what dogs are skilled at, knowing when a stranger is skulking nearby, and warned us in an effort to protect and defend his territory. Dogs are pretty smart creatures, and we humans can learn a lot from them.
William “Bill” Aiello is retired United States Postal Service employee. Since retirement his published works comprise two books, with a third on the way, also a short story, and numerous poems. He is also a ventriloquist, part-time actor and appears monthly at an open mic event. Bill is co-Executive Director of the Miss Five Boroughs and Miss Queens Scholarship programs, two preliminaries to the Miss New York and Miss America competitions. The little spare time he has left is devoted to bicycling, amateur photography, watching horse races and philately. These are activities with no relation to each other, but he believes dabbling in various fields keeps the mind active and gives him ideas for his written works.