Joe sat in his kitchen, carefully filling the numbered squares with his traditional fine point mechanical pencil. On a good day he could intuitively float five clues simultaneously, his penchant for the dailies was pronounced; four of this week’s newsprint Art Sections lay very neatly atop one another to the left of his spotted left hand. A Marlboro half pulled dangled feather-like from a purple spot on his lower lip, frayed deep cut lines shadowed his eyes, heavy dark bags magnified by large black rimmed bifocals the thickness of a car windshield. He leaned over the round oak table given to them 47 years ago as a wedding gift, now worn as if sanded with a light grit kitchen towel for decades. Faded in spots, but exceedingly strong atop a fat spindle of well-carved bulky oak that splayed like a tree to balance the tabletop. On the linoleum yellowing/gold-worn-etched plastic floor, it’s back against his chair leg, lay a sleepy overripe white and chocolate patched hound whose only function, beside keeping Joe’s foot warm, was to prod him from time to time to shake the crossword long enough to open the screen door that led to the garage and out, which took a bit as the dog painstakingly hopped down one step, hanging heavily on his shaking front legs, then another step, then more and out into the garage like a slow salmon drifting across a lazy stream.

            Joe’s (thick) glasses and slicked back jet-oil hair made him look ten years older. He had suffered cancer and diabetes for a long time, and the frequent hospital visits provided purple and dark gray splotches on both forearms and the back of his hands, and these made the younger grandchildren cringe, but he took it as just another blessed day, and each day he thanked God that he got another day to do just what he was doing. Being a terrible patient, he’d always demand early release from the hospital, and convalesced right in that oak chair, starting each day with toast, then a Schaefer beer, and he would drink several throughout the day.

            Afternoons the cheap front screen door was always unlocked and a carnival of sons, grandsons, nephews and friends fell onto the table to call court. Though the grandsons were mid-teens he’d always treat them to a beer, pay them to run across the street for Italian poppy rolls or subs, and invite them around him to hear their itching stories of youthful brash intent. Joe loved it all. What man, he said to God at night, could ever want more, and since his pilot grew dim he knew it could only change with death.

            One December day, three days before Christmas Eve, the hound didn’t return to the back door to be let in. No scratching at the aluminum frame, no clip-clop from his long nails on the short steps. Joe looked out the back window. He saw a dark, still lump covered in the fallen snow. He had been in the great war, and knew an organism’s demise. Since the dog was elderly and frail, he knew that even if it had any breath in it, it wouldn’t survive long, so he sat by the window, looking closely for next to an hour to discern movement, then to mourn his ancient companion. When one of his sons shuffled into the house, he asked Joe why he stared out the window. The small Italian aged man lifted his hand and tapped a finger to the glass. In a raspy whisper he said, The dog out there.

            His son ran into the yard, brushed the snow from the animal and stood over it, staring down. At the same time Joe called the vet, asked if there was a service to pick up dead animals. There was not. When the son came in old Joe informed him that he needed to bundle the dog in a blanket, then would he please drive the dog to the vet so it could be disposed of properly. When he spoke to the veterinarian, Joe told him to send the bill, that he didn’t need the ashes nor any funeral, because dead is dead.

            His son, the eldest, called a brother to come and help. When he arrived they trampled the pure snow in the yard to reach the dark form, rolled it in an old blanket. Joe made his way out into the snow to see that his friend was handled delicately, and watched the boys carry the blanket with the dog down the driveway, into the trunk, and they slowly drove away. He stood, in his white stained terrycloth shirt with two of three buttons unhooked, hands in pockets, snow wetting his squinting eyes and jet hair. He felt like bawling but had been through too much in his life to suffer nature. He dragged his soft suede slippers through the snow slowly, wetting the plastic stained gold/brown floor as he came through the cheap door, pulled a beer from the refrigerator, and lowering himself gingerly, sat and lit another cigarette. Looking at the crossword before him, he thought it blasphemous to concentrate on anything but his friend, until about an hour on the boys returned and sat with him at the table for a while.

            It was growing dark, and his sons asked if he needed anything in that old worn large house he’d raised five sons in, where his wife died last year upstairs. No, he replied, gravelly. Gravely. I got all I need here. Come round tomorrow if you can. His son hugged his hunched shoulders and kicked out into the snow.

             Joe looked down to his puzzle, cigarette in mouth, glasses fogging a bit, his right foot instinctively feeling for the warmth of the dog.