We went back into her house and started on our project. We waited
until her parents went to sleep and went back to the shed. “I think
I'm going to name him Eric,” she said.
“Why Eric?” I asked.
“I don't know. He just looks like an Eric.” She pushed open the
door and the first thing we saw was that the bowl of water was empty
but all of the chicken was still there. It hadn't been touched. And
Eric was nowhere to be seen. Presley stepped into the shed and
started to look around.
“Eric,” she whispered as though the dog already knew his name
even though she had just thought of it. She overturned boxes and
looked through bins like he could have somehow crawled inside one.
All I did was turn to my right and I found him. He was curled up on
the seat of her dad's riding lawnmower and I couldn't for the life of
me figure out how he had gotten up there.
“Presley,” I said. “He isn't breathing.”
Presley rushed over to him and put her hand on his back just to make
sure. He wasn't. Eric was dead. She didn't say anything. I wasn't
sure what to do. I didn't know what the appropriate level of emotion
was for the situation. We hadn't known Eric long enough for him to
make an impact on our lives. But he had lived a sad and unloved life
and that was tragedy enough. I walked over to Presley and stood next
to her.
She had her chin resting against her chest and tears were running
down her face. “He just needed someone to care about him,” she
said. “Just for one day he wanted to feel loved. Then he could die
in peace.”
“Well, it's a good thing he chose you,” I said. Presley wiped
her face.
“We need to give him a proper burial,” she said. So we did. We
dug a hole behind her shed and buried Eric in it and she made a
headstone with a permanent marker and a large rock we found. It read
Eric ?-2003 he finally found love. I don't think her parents
ever found out it was there. It's probably still there. Presley would
periodically begin to cry over the next two weeks about Eric. She
would ask me why I thought he didn't eat the chicken or why he felt
the need to die on her dad's lawnmower. She told me that every time
her dad mowed the lawn she felt nervous because now it had the curse
of death on it and she really was scared that there would be a freak
accident and her dad would die and wasn't that a terrible way to die?
In a freak riding lawnmower accident?
