Seven Car Lengths
You need four car lengths between you and the car in front of you to brake safely going 40 mph. Seven going 70.
While driving to work on the highway going 70 mph, I saw a puppy pacing near my exit.
It was sad: "was the poor creature lost? had he run away?
It was maddening: "did the owners know he was missing? are they nearby? did he even have a home?"
I was sorry for the puppy.
I was sorry perhaps he didn't know how much better it could be anywhere but here, in another context, in another world, in another lifetime, with a more stable family and a little more practical love and concern for his well-being. I couldn't tell if he had tags.
I've been teaching at a school a few miles off the highway. Once a proud town, once an "all white" high school, times have since changed. The hundred-year old school became a hand-me-down to the growing black population. At first, it was a decent school and a decent town. But then industries moved out, generation gaps grew smaller, school staff and administration turn-over went up, motivation and disciplined ambition went down. In the fall of 2008, three 14 yr-old local boys assaulted and shot a man at a gas station. The man was from out of town, on his way with his wife to see their grandson play in the football game. The man died. The three boys made it to the front page and then to prison. Sadness, stigma, and suspicion have owned the town ever since.
The same questions I wondered about the puppy, I wonder about my students. When the people aren't well cared for, puppies don't stand a chance.
In my fantasy, I take them home, give 'em a hot bath and a hot meal, snuggle them silly so they wouldn't dare venture off to such precarious places. I find them a good home, ready to love and keep them safe; ready to give them a sheltered place to romp about, explore the world little bites at a time. Lost puppies. Deprived students. It's a fantasy and blind to all the other baggage I might also be inviting into my home.
I can tell you all about this puppy, caught between highway and wilderness, but if there's no room to pull over and no room to brake, then let's face it: no matter how cute from a distance, we'll whiz on by with our "Tsk, tsks," and "That's a real shame's."
God forbid, you hit the hapless creature on the highway going 70 mph, you'd have to shake it off. It wasn't your fault. What's a puppy doing by the highway??!!
Wild-spirited, un-neutered, untamed, or "dropped off." Maybe the puppy will make it. Maybe he'll adapt and adjust to his new habitat. Maybe he'll get rabid and mean. Domesticated dogs were wild once. Maybe he will live to sniff explore another day. Will he find food? Will he have a run-in with a cotton mouth or an alligator? How long before the buzzards start circling?
Surviving is a tier below thriving. But chances are, this is probably not the only loose puppy in these parts. Nature finds away to persist. Puppies will have more puppies. No control, no regulation. Existence is maintained. Quality of life is subjective.
Do they know? Do they dream about how much better it could be anywhere but here, between the highway and a hard place.
My classroom is full of puppies too close to the highway. Innocent fall-out of unfortunate circumstances.
And we bystanders to possible puppy carrion drive by, telling ourselves, "That's too bad." Shallow consolations. No lasting comfort to the deep-seeded nausea that this should not be happening. This is not what we meant, this is not what we meant at all.*
With enough time and alcohol, we can forget that we ever saw this puppy by the highway, until we cross paths with another puppy. The memory becomes part of our carrion baggage, and whether we pay or not, we carry it with us.
In the meantime, I'll attempt to keep
seven car lengths.
I'll have a bumper sticker made that reads, "If you can see this, you're following too closely, because I brake for puppies on the highway."
