Good Boy
“I was having a nice afternoon sitting on my front porch a few months back. I’m a country boy at heart. The nearest neighbors are more than a mile away. It was just my dog and I, seeing squirrels darting over the dirt path. A man visits my yard from the road around mid-afternoon and requests to get inside. I give him a wave. He seems like a pretty good guy. My dog moved to block him as he got closer to the stairs. The dog’s hair was standing on his back and he was snarling low. This was not like usual.
When would he bite, the man questioned. “He’s meaner than h—,” I replied. He has never bit someone and is not cruel. But that wasn’t necessary for this guy to know. Before leaving, we spoke for a short while and he asked me some questions about the neighborhood. After the guy left, my dog felt tense for twenty minutes. Later that evening, as I watched the news, I noticed a police sketch of a man who bore a striking resemblance to the man who had earlier been named as a suspect in an abduction case that occurred just three miles from my house.”
