Run, Frankie, Run!!
I first sent this story as a special secret preview to everyone who sent in a Beauty Dish paypal donation in early October. Some time in January or February I am doing something else special for these same folks and for everyone who has ever contributed to Beauty Dish - they will receive a bound copy of six stories never published anywhere else! I am so grateful to everyone who has been a friend and who has supported me in all the ways that have made a difference in my life -whether it's been through a financial contribution, or through love and fellowship. Thanks, everyone.
Run, Frankie, Run!
I follow the same simple ritual each time I cruise my neighborhood for new Avon customers. Backpack. Check. Brochures. Check. Extra skin care samples for bed-ridden Mrs. Gallegos. Check. Turn off the lights, fill my water bottle, one last pee. Check. Check. Check. The last item is the most simple, the one thing I never forget, the one thing my boys never forget, at least never until this morning. Lock the door.
My two boys ran ahead, left me carting fifty Avon brochures, a hundred samples, and three bottles of tap water. I must have been watching the boys chase half-frozen grasshoppers, the sway of my proud catalpa tree in the morning wind, the weaving swagger of the old cowhand with torn Levi's and a carefully brushed ten gallon hat. I didn't notice the unlocked door, the way it must have latched just shy of secure. I hoisted my pack against my sweatshirt-covered back, let it flap, flap in time to my uneven gait. The boys hustled ahead, grasshoppers in their grip. They didn't try to avoid the sidewalk cracks, didn't stop to admire Mrs. Lopez's gentle tabby, didn't skip, didn't slide and arc in the girlish ways my sisters and I echoed at their age. They raised closed fists over head, let captive insects greet the sun. Tobacco wings spread and flew, and for a moment it was summer, it was splintered sunlight through translucent wings, through the swung arms of young boys, it was the four-winged army of summer tossed overhead, tossed into a wind strong enough to blow it back to the past, to September, August. I stopped, zipped the warm navy cloth around me.
The boys stopped, too. They bent low, faces at their knees, eyes on some invisible fortune. I heard the slam of canine against brush as a flock of feral dogs flew behind me, cornered a sturdy hedge of holly and headed down an alley. I turned, but only caught the fading glimpse of four mangy tails on the run. Stray dogs love my town. They own the alleys, the dumpster sites behind Wal-Mart and Sonic. Animal Control doesn't bother to round them up. They'd fill a hundred kennels with one fell swoop. Better to save those cages for abandoned puppies, for pitbulls with an appetite for human flesh. My own neighborhood feeds ten strays, leaves scraps of roast beef and carne adovada in open used plastic sour cream containers after dark. I do this too, leave what little we have left over for the dogs who run like shadows.
My older son, 11, waited for me at the corner. He rested against a chain link fence, his eyes on a man kneeling by a motorcycle. My younger son, 9, leaned against his brother, his eyes closed to the wind. A scuttle of rolling leaves rolled past us, rolled brown and crisp and sure into the street.
"Mom. Gimme a brochure."
11 didn't wait for an answer. He grabbed my arm and twirled me like a rotating display rack, unzipped my pack and grabbed the top book. He knew where to find the samples, and fingered two from the side pouch.
"Hi! Hi! I like your bike! Can I give you an Avon brochure?"
Bike Man saw 11 approach him, a reflection in his shiny motor metal.
"Huh. Avon? What are you, an Avon Boy?"
The man's smooth voice richocheted off the bike. A limp gray ponytail hung beneath his gunpowder helmet. He didn't turn to meet us eye to eye. His hands pressed against the back wheel as if he were feeling for a heartbeat. The bike looked old, looked vintage, looked loved, small, impossibly shiny, perfect. 11 tried to hand the book to the man but he still didn't turn. His eyes shone from the bike's midsection - alive, vivid green. I looked tiny behind his mirrored face, an Avon Lady with stick legs and an oversized hoodie.
"You can just put that on the ground next to my girl." Bike Man nodded his head and 11 dropped the goods. "I'll bring it to work, I think one of the girls in the office might like that. No offense, you understand. I just don't use any Avon. I'm not that kind of man."
Bike Man said 'that kind of man' as if men like 'that' were no men at all. 11 stared at the biker and I saw a flash of anger travel from one eye to the other, land in his mouth.
"Avon is for everyone. Even men like you. Don't you use soap? And shampoo?"
9 stuck little hands on hip and added his two cents.
"Yeah. Don't you use soap? My mom's not a sissy. She has a past."
Bike Man and I both flinched with surprise! A past? What the hell was he talking about? 11 giggled but 9 kept red nylon-jacketed arms akimbo, dropped one more vocal bomb.
"No offense, you understand. But I can smell you from here."
"Apologize this instant!" I moved to man-handle 9 and 11 as far away as possible from the Bike Man with ancient attitudes, but he dropped his hand from the wheel and stood to face me. His nose rose one length above mine, and I noticed from its curve and span it must have been broken once or twice in the past.
"Really, I should be the one to apologize. I didn't mean it to come out that way. Besides, I like a woman with a past." He raised a thin gray eyebrow and it briefly disappeared under his helmet. I shook his hand, then shook my head.
"No problem, sir. But if I might offer a small suggestion? You sure have dry hands and I have some Avon that can help."
I started to shake off my backpack when they rounded the corner once more, the wild pack of stray canine fury. They shot across the street, from one alley to the next. My backpack fell to the ground with a thud. I didn't look at the running dogs. Bike Man's mouth fell open, and in the shine of his bike's flank I saw it. Saw him. Frankie! My pot-bellied pig! Running with the wild dogs!
11 and 9 saw him at the same time.
"Frankie! Frankie! Mom! That's Frankie"
11 tore down the alley, hot on the heels of seven dogs and one pig. 9 look at me, at Bike Man, at the bike.
"Well don't just stand there! Help my mom! Get on the bike and help catch Frankie!"
Bike Man grinned, clipped the loose helmet clasp under his chin as 9 and I ran after 11 running after the beasts. We heard him rev his engine, and as we hit the curb on the other side of the street he shot past us, into the alley, a blur of dirt and exhaust behind him.
The dogs and pig kept ahead of us. They shifted down one alley, then the next, past the free range chickens studding the side of Baca Road, into the square holes in an old adobe wall, across one yard, then two, three, four, five, twenty yards, twenty minutes, a flash of black and white and brown brindled fur, a patch of pink and black hide. Frankie ran with the dogs as if he were one of them, and them with him as if he belonged in that pack of fire and flea-bitten joy.
Bike Man passed us several times as I ran with 9 to catch Frankie. I lost sight of 11, then lost visual hold of the animals all together. I could hear them in the distance, a rumble of feet against brick walkway, a coarse yip and howl mixed with one lone porcine grunt. I stopped to catch my breath and realized my backpack felt lighter. Sure enough, all the Avon brochures and samples spilled through the alleys behind us, a trail of beauty crumbs no sane person would follow. I left them to wait, looked at 9, and started to run in the direction of noise.
The grunts and yowls grew closer, stronger, and behind them I heard the Bike Man's engine. A new sound added to the mix, a structured sound of wood against snare - the High School marching band practicing on the football field. 9 and I ran past the bleachers as the drums rolled a special cadence. I saw the students lift horn to mouth just as my elusive charges roared past, roared under the bleachers, on to the field! The band began to play "Louie, Louie" in formation. The dogs tore past the musicians, ran under the bleachers on the other side of the field. I ran to the field edge, and saw 11 approach the field from the other side. Bike Man zoomed behind us, I heard the idle of his engine as he sat and watched. The dogs disappeared, hell bent for Santa Fe, I figured. I could feel a tear breach my eye as I worried we'd never see Frankie again. But 9 pulled on the hem of my sweatshirt, pointed a trembling finger at the field and croaked one word.
"Look!"
The band continued to march. The front row split into two, then the second row, as if Moses himself were parting a musical sea. The next row followed, then another. The first row came back together as the students Louie Louie'd down the field. Something was in their way! Something lumpy and pink and black and white... Frankie!
Frankie sat in the center of the field, his snout turned toward the musicians in rapture. He let them march around him, didn't move until the music ended.
"Frankie! Fraaaaaaaaankie!"
Our pig trotted toward me, and 9 grabbed his collar. 11 ran across the field and held Frankie's studded collar, too. Bike Man waved and roared toward Macho Man heaven in a blaze of parking lot dust. We meandered home, picking up torn and dirty brochures. We didn't say much, all of us out of breath and exhausted, including our crazy pet. I did ask one question, though, as we stuffed another three broken books into my backpack.
"So what did you mean that I have a past?"
9 shrugged his shoulders, a true man of the world.
"C'mon Mom. You know as well as I do. In these situations you have to speak the language of the other person."
Frankie grunted as if to bark Hell Yeah.
The most recent issue of Birdie's Secret Bird Calls has just been sent! This issue contains a list of stories you may have missed, Three Tips to Bring Beauty Into Your Life, and an interview. 
"You wanna smell like a Yankee?"
I chaperoned the 4th grade on a physical education field trip to Santa Fe yesterday. This poor swollen broken pinky is my reward. Makes it hard to type, oh yeah. I didn't break it cavorting in the Chavez Center's pools, didn't crack it during my multiple corkscrew slips down the monster water slide, didn't smash it when I held the hand of wobble-ankled skaters as we carefully glided across the ice rink. I showed off, too, skated backward and demonstrated my patented double twirl with a leap "Birdie Lutz." Nope. I jammed it carrying equipment off the bus at the end of the day. 
