The Crippled Saint

Once, there was a man who had two sons and a dog and no wife. He liked the dog and his sons hated him. One day, after lunch, the sons decided to run away. They rode a taxi to the harbor and got in a merchant boat, which was later attacked by pirates. They fell into the ocean and were about to drown, but their lives were saved when a submarine scooped them up and dove with them to the bottom of the sea. The captain asked them where they wanted to go. Anywhere but where we came from, they said. Where’s that? asked the captain. They told him the name of their town. Ten days later, the sons landed ashore in a different part of the world. They weren’t heard from since.

The man, meanwhile, had his dog, so he was happy and he never thought about his missing sons. Even when his neighbors rushed to his house with the horrific news that his sons had been kidnapped by pirates, he was only mildly interested and quickly forgot about the whole ordeal. Then, one day, the man drank a good deal and began to act as though he were raving mad. He beat the dog with a frying pan, and the dog ran from the house, thinking the man would kill him. An hour later, after waking from a hazy sleep, the man saw the frying pan embedded in the wooden floor and realized what he had done. He was pathetically and stupidly distressed, and went around town wailing, asking every passerby if they’d seen his dog.

People though he had gone crazy, and locked him up in his house. The man threw himself against the door often, so they boarded it up along with all the windows. They decided he would not attempt to climb up the chimney, it wouldn’t fit him anyway. But the man was persistent, because his dog was everything to him and he needed to go find it. What if it had been abducted by pirates, or drowned in a river, or run over by a careless taxi driver? These things terrified him enough that he had trouble falling asleep at night.

Then the Crippled Saint came into town. Unlike normal saints, he didn’t wear white robes and he didn’t have a halo around his head. He looked like a normal man. He unboarded the man’s window and climbed through. Who are you? screamed the man, thinking it was a phantom, or a robber. The Crippled Saint said he would help the man locate his missing dog.

They took a taxi to the harbor and got in a merchant boat. It took them to another part of the world. The man realized he was alone, and he panicked again. Anger stewed inside him, because the Crippled Saint had broken his word and abandoned him. I have not, said the Crippled Saint, and he appeared. I will only come when you need me, and you do not need me now. And, just as he’d come, he vanished.

The man wandered many towns, but his efforts were fruitless and he did not see his dog anywhere. At night, he mulled over what he would say to his dog when he turned up at last. He would apologize most sincerely and beg the dog to come home. I will never harm you again and I will give you the best meat from my table. That’s what he would say to the poor beast, and maybe the dog would forgive him.

He continued to wander, however, and at night he did not dream of anything. Then the next morning, as though in a dream, the man saw his dog. He was trotting down the street beside someone the man recognized as one of his runaway sons. The man extended his arms. My dog! he cried. My poor, lonely, lost little beast. It did not occur to him that his son had supposedly been enslaved by pirates, and was standing before him free and intact, and that to any sane man it should have been a cause for wild celebration. I am so sorry to have beat you and made you run away. Come home with me, and we will feast on wild hare and the best wine in my cupboard. (There was no meat and no wine back home.) I’m sorry! Come now, don’t be afraid! But the dog did not approach him, and the man could see that the animal was wary of his scent.

He pointed a finger furiously at his son. You did this to me, he wailed. How dare you turn my dog against me? How do you expect me to live? I have come so far to find what I have lost, and I have found it in the hands of . . . And he broke down sobbing.

The son stared at the pathetic man without pity. He wasn’t angry, however. He was perhaps a bit sad. He stroked the dog’s muzzle and told it to go back to its owner. After much coaxing, the dog obeyed and the man was dumbstruck. He fell on his knees before his son and felt remorse churning inside him like soup being stirred. He apologized to his son much like he had to the dog, only something had changed and the dog, when the man looked at it again, was merely what it was.

The son was reluctant. He explained that he had been separated from his brother at a train station and had been trying to find him, but had been tracked down by the dog instead.

They told me you had been abducted by pirates.

Strange of you to remember, thought the son. We were saved by a submarine, he said. And he looked down at the mutt. You found your dog, he continued. I should be going now, and so should you.

But his father did not want him to leave, and begged him to stay. He then realized that he had nowhere to stay, so the son took him to his own home, and the man was happy.

Two days later, the son was struck and killed by a careless taxi driver.

The man was distraught. He glared down at the dog and wasn’t angry with it because he had started of in search of it and had found his son instead, his son who hadn’t been kidnapped after all. But he was lost, and because he was lost the man felt the urgent need to head off and find something. The Crippled Saint was nowhere to be seen. Two days later, still grieving, the man set off in a random direction and soon found himself everywhere. The dog was his only company.

He, the man decided, would do everything he could to find his remaining son and reconcile with him, if that were even possible. He knew his son hated him, but his partial loneliness made him unusually optimistic.

One midnight, the man was sleepless and walking in a daze. They came to a brightly-lit bridge with floodlights dotting the lattice of the structure and glistening off the windshields of cars. There was a man standing on the railings of the bridge. It was the remaining son, and his unzipped wind breaker flapped in the air. The wind and the water were about to break him, but in truth the death of his brother had already broken him. His brother had appeared as a statistic on late-night television. The news channel was cruel, and the remaining son was alone. He did not know his father was looking for him, but even if he did it would have meant nothing. He hated the man and he was going to jump off hating the man.

Just as he was leaning forward, a dog crashed into his right shoulder and knocked him backwards onto the bridge. The man ran up to his son, who laughed. It was raining dogs and fathers that night. He still hated the man. I hate your dog, he said.

I found your brother because I found the dog, said the man.

I was looking for him to, said the son. He saw that the man was grieving, and he knew for some inexplicable reason that it was because his other son was dead. He was disgusted and confused. The younger boy in him still believed crocodiles could not cry.

Then the Crippled Saint appeared.

Where is the dog? asked the man. He swept the length of the bridge with his eyes but could not find it. He turned on the Crippled Saint. What have you done to my dog?

He was dead a long time ago, said the Crippled Saint. But your son is not, because I saved him. You do not need your dog. What you have here is your son.

Then the Crippled Saint who used to be the dog turned into a moth and vanished, leaving the man and the son alone on the bridge with many thoughts and no words.

Will you stay? asked the man.

No, said the son. You do not need your dog. He turned from the man to the floodlights and walked away.