Saturday Morning Breakfast Serial #4

 

    Shameless O'Houligan is a big boy.  He can keep up with me running without any trouble at all. Hell, truth told, he could easily outpace me.  But he doesn't.  When you have a big dog whose a bit of a handful, you need to train them properly or all kinds of bad things can happen.  And if they do, I don't consider it to be the dog's fault.  Dogs are dogs.  Humans are supposed to know better.  So he stays at heel on my left which is precisely where he was when we jogged past The Mourning Mother, a metal, marble and crystal creation that towers twenty feet high and looks nothing at all like a human, mother or no.  

    With the sun coming up the sculpture cast oddly shaped, deep shadows that blended into the darkness of the trees a few feet off of the running path.  Something moved, or, more accurately, someone moved, shifting their weight impatiently.  I heard the crunch of dead leaves underfoot, saw a face briefly, by the flickering flame of the lighter he brought to the tip of his cigarette.  An ordinary face, not especially handsome, male, heavily freckled.  His hands were rough, a laborer's hands, or maybe a fighter.  Not a boxer, a street brawler.  He was too well dressed to look homeless.

    All that, in the time it took him to light a cigarette.  

    I kept jogging.  The scent of tobacco lingered in the air as I turned along the path.  I crossed the bridge and he was out of sight.  I didn't think any more about him until the dog and I had finished our lap around the lake and we were headed back that direction.  I figured he would probably be gone having done whatever (possibly, hell probably nefarious) deed he'd been up to.

    I was wrong.  He was still there.  The sun was a little higher now, not much, it had been a quick lap.  But I could see his general shape and follow his movements as he ground the cigarette butt underfoot and prepared to light another.  I saw the movement behind him as well, and when he lit his next smoke I got a quick glimpse of a familiar face over his shoulder before I heard the soft cough of a suppressed gunshot, and the lighter flickered out. 

Saturday Morning Breakfast Serial #3

 

     I don't like to talk about my service.  I try not to think about it too much either.  That latter is harder, because the nightmares . . . well, PTSD is a bitch, let's leave it at that.  Shameless is not, technically, an assistance dog, but he serves in that duty anyway.  He wakes me from the dreams with a cold nose and wagging tail, runs with me when I have to burn off excess energy, and leans into me and lets me hold him when I'm shaky or a little paranoid.

     My current problems came as a result of a morning run after a night of shattered sleep.  It was early.  The first hints of pink and orange were barely tinting the edge of the clouds on the eastern horizon.  The moon was still bright and visible in the sky.  It was not quite full, but certainly enough to see by, particularly since Heroes' Park is well lit 24/7 -- to light the monuments, yes, but more in a (vain) attempt to inhibit crime.

      Heroes Park is a fairly new addition to Denver.  The put it in when they tore down an old school and abandoned hospital next to Sloan's Lake Park in 2025.  It was meant to honor veterans and patriots  who put down the 2021 uprising.  But it's close to Colfax Avenue, and the homeless (many of them veterans with "issues") like to sleep there.  Drug dealers do business in the shadows of the various statues in "off" hours when the park is supposedly closed, in between the police patrols which are supposed to be random, but really aren't.  Don't get me wrong, the cops do their best.  But its a game of numbers and they are frequently both outnumbered and outgunned.

     On the very borderline of night and oncoming day I didn't expect to find much going on.  The sleepers would be sleeping and most of the crooks weren't liable to bel up and about for a couple of hours yet--and those would be the early risers.  That's what I thought.

      Sometimes I can be remarkably short-sighted.

Saturday Morning Breakfast Serial #2

 

        My name is Erin Murphy.  I am thirty-six years old.  I am 5'5" Brown and Brown per my (Colorado) driver's license.  Until it exploded, I lived at 3135 N Julian St., Denver, a small brick bungalow that I was paying exorbitant rent to stay in and an even more exorbitant pet deposit--neither of which I could really afford on my military disability and Social Security, but were better than my current dilemma of homelessness.

        I served with distinction as a medic in various conflicts from the time I had enlisted bright and early on my eighteenth birthday until injured in the line of duty.  I am right handed-which is good, since it was my left arm that was damaged.  I have a prosthesis from the middle of my left forearm down.  It works well, but it will never be a "hand" to me.  It's a machine.  A useful tool.  It's not a part of me, and it sure as hell doesn't replace what I lost.

       And yes, now, that you mention it.  I do have just a teenie weenie bit of bitterness about that.  But only a little.  I could have died.  Hell, I probably *should* have.  I owe my life to a man from my unit who got me the hell out of that mess, and into the middle of this one.

Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal/Serial -- on Sunday because . . . well because

I wasn't home when the house exploded.  I was three blocks away, taking Shameless O'Houligan to the vet for his shots and stitches.  Shameless, according to Dr. Conner, is 110 pounds of Irish Wolfhound Scottish Terrier mix.  He is also, as his name would imply, a handful.

This morning he had caught wind of Norman, the squirrel who had been tormenting him for weeks by pelting him with acorns from my old oak, in time to actually do something about it.  One bound from the front step, a mighty leap, and he had a shocked and terrified gray squirrel by the tail, fighting for its life.

Squirrels have wicked claws, sharp teeth, and an attitude problem.  This one, however, had pitched its last acorn.  Scratched and bloodied Shameless may have been, but he was prancing around the yard with Norman's severed tail.  No dog, ever, had been prouder or more satisfied.

I loaded Shameless, and his prize, into my battered old VW and to Dr. Conner.

It saved my life.

They said it was an accident--a natural gas explosion.

But it wasn't.

I was left with my dog, my car, the clothes on my back a whopping $300.00 in my checking account, and a killer on my trail.

My name is Erin Murphy.

Welcome to my life.