walk

the little boy is talking to me before i can really hear him, so when he looks at me with a round, questioning face i just smile. we are walking, guthrie and i, up twelfth street and the air is warm enough that people are finally giving up on hats. the air is warm enough to smell. so the boy smiles right back at me and he is about nine or ten. probably ten. with a lilt to his voice that says his parents speak spanish at home but he swims in and out of all the languages at his school. and he falls in step beside us, right next to me. guthrie trots on a little ahead but is very much aware of this child. he glances over his left shoulder once, then again, but does not change his pace at all.

"is that a dachshund?" he brings his words out slowly like he's looking at each one, noticing for the first time how pretty they are as he sets them out there. when i tell him yes he nods, then cocks his head and watches guthrie as we walk. he is a small child, not up to my shoulder, but there is none of the franticness i see in most children his age. "is that a girl?" he says very softly and when i say no, that he's a boy, he nods again. he chews his lips a bit when he thinks and after a stretch of quiet walking he says, "he looks..." and here he pauses, rolling several words around in his head, searching for the one he likes best. "he looks very young." i tell him lots of folks say this but that guthrie is eight. i say guthrie is a grown dog, the same age as me in dog years. the little boy laughs. "dog years," he says looking up at me. he smiles and puts his hands in his pockets. we walk a bit more and guthrie looks back over his shoulder again, up at the boy. the boy smiles but does not do what other children do. he does not leap or grab or lunge or squeal. he just smiles.

he offers to walk guthrie the next block and although the child would be fine and guthrie would be fine, i am a nervous person about my dog and i would not be fine. so i thank this boy and tell him guthrie is a bit anxious and the boy says he understands. there is a pretty good chance he does. he tells me he has six dogs and enjoys walking them because they are quite well trained. and these are his words. exactly his. when we get to the intersection at seventh avenue, we stop to wait for the light. he squats down and puts a hand out to guthrie, who noses around him a little, giving him more attention than i've ever seen a child on the sidewalk get. the child stands up as the light changes and says, "well, i'll see you later." he waves and turns around. as i cross the street with guthrie i yell over my shoulder that i'll see him later. like i've known him all his life.