Dear Lord

Lloyd was not one to pray. That's what made the child's sudden prayer all the more terrifying. It came while Lloyd was working the heavy bag. Fists up, he whirled to face the sound's source, but there was only the voice, a little white girl's by the sound of it:

"Dear Lord, please tell Rufus to stay out of my room. He can't be in my room because he's dirty. And please make me pretty like Mom, and if you could, have Beth Marie invite me to her birthday. World peace is good, too. Thank you, I love you."

Now, one gloved hand paused in front of the punching bag's duck-taped middle, Lloyd shook his head to clear it.

The girl's voice had been like a buzzing behind his left ear—the same spot where that animal Adamek had hit him in round 7, a back of the head blow that the ref had been too blind to call. Was that what he'd just heard, echoes of a knockout blow?

When Lloyd was done pummeling the bag, the air was positively balmy despite winter's chill beyond the garage door.

The little girl's prayer struck again around the same time the next night. Lloyd nearly tripped over his jump rope, then set it down to give the kid a listen:

"Dear Lord, tell Grandma hi. And… Rufus! Get out of my room!"

Lloyd cocked his head. The little girl's voice had cut out, but he could still hear her breathing about as hard as he was. A giggle brushed against his left eardrum, and he realized she was trying not to laugh.

"Sorry Lord, and if you could, please make me better at math. And let there be world peace. Thank you, I love you."

Lloyd shrugged—everyone knew that getting hit in the head could do strange things to a man. He went back to training, but his timing was off because he kept waiting for some little chirping voice to interrupt.

Later that night, instead of sleeping like a rock, he lay awake wondering.

Was there really some little girl out there praying? And who was this Rufus? Her baby brother?

And why him? Wasn't God supposed to be the one hearing all that, then answering back in some mysterious way?

Maybe there had been some kind of cosmic mix-up.

Yeah, the girl had trouble pronouncing some of her r's. They sounded more like w's: Lord, Lowd. Lloyd?

Was that it?

Then why didn't guys named Jesús get flooded with unanswered prayers? Maybe they did, and they just kept their mouths shut about it, like Lloyd did as the weeks passed and the prayers kept coming.

They came around 9:00 each night. Not a bad bedtime for a kid—if she existed and even lived in the same time zone as he did.

She was a smart kid, despite her trouble with math, and Lloyd liked how she always tried to soften God up with the mention of world peace at the end.

Soon, the one-sided prayers became part of his training routine.

And when her "Thank you, I love you" hit, that was when Lloyd went into overdrive.

His hands moved like they'd never moved before, and he saw that his previous routine had been small-minded. Somewhere, at the center of it, had been this desire to get back at Adamek for what he'd done to Lloyd in round 7. But, somehow, that didn't matter much anymore. There'd be plenty of Adameks and ones even worse, but now it was about the flow and reaching beyond himself.

Then came the fateful prayer:

"Dear Lord, please tell Rufus to come home … Tell him he can even play in my room… And world peace. Thank you, I love you."

Instead of going into overdrive, Lloyd dropped his hands and winced at the tear-choked words.

Damn, what was going on with Rufus? Sure, the little girl always complained about him, but Rufus was in every one of her prayers, and it was obvious the kid was crazy about him—it was the kind of annoyed yet unconditional love that only an older sister could give. And now Rufus was gone?

The prayers came in a flurry throughout the night, the next day, and all through the week.

Find Rufus. Keep him safe. Tell him to come home. Rufus. Rufus. Rufus.

Lloyd tried to talk back, but their connection was apparently one-way.

He searched his phone daily for missing child alerts, then after finding nothing, went on long runs down cold streets, convinced that he'd somehow bump into Rufus and be able to recognize him from the girl's prayers alone.

But an all-powerful God wasn't listening and Lloyd, who was all ears, was powerless in every way that mattered as the little girl's prayers turned to pleas then demands then nothing.

Silence descended upon Lloyd.

Sure, he kept training, but now habit, not purpose, drove him. His movements became textbook, the outdated kind.

Then, one night, he threw off his gloves in disgust and grabbed the dusty metal detector from a forgotten corner of the garage.

He walked until the streets gave out and there was only frozen beach. He searched, though he had no idea for what or why he searched.

The metal detector's black ring hovered over irregular clumps of sand-flecked snow that glistened like discarded teeth in the moonlight.

Beep beep. Beeeeep.

Wary of forgotten needles, Lloyd nudged the sand with a sneaker, then bent down and started using his hands.

He felt his chest leap at the gleam of metal. He forced himself to keep digging no matter what he might find.

Then, his heart settled back into its regular rhythm as he recognized the object for what it was: A dog ID tag shaped like a bone.

The tag was still attached to a collar that looked like it'd been sliced open. Lloyd thought about feeding the collar and tag to the sluggish ocean, then thought twice.

Under a streetlight, he examined the tag.

One side had an address, a street only a few miles from his own.

On the other side of the bronze tag was a single name.

Rufus.

Lloyd chuckled. So, the little girl had been going on about her dog this whole time.

His laugh stopped short. Rufus was a big dog judging by the collar, and big dogs that went missing around here usually ended up in the same place.

Caught in the streetlight's halo, Lloyd thought about what do. Dropping the collar off at the address would be worse than throwing it in the ocean. And waiting was the same as doing nothing. He had found the collar with its tag now, and there might not be a later for Rufus. He knew what they made the dogs do there. There really was only one thing that could be done.

Lloyd's hands trembled like they would before a big match. He exhaled words, a rush of steam in the winter night. It wasn't a prayer, but it went something like this:

"Dear little girl, I'm going to get Rufus back. And world peace and all that."

Still carrying his metal detector and the broken dog collar, he set out for a part of town that was once in the business of making things but was now too busy tearing itself apart.

The right warehouse wasn't hard to find. It was the only one that still had a lock and chain. Lloyd was wondering if he could use the metal detector as a crow bar when a pair of headlights crept around the building's corner.

Lloyd dove to the side, flattening himself against the ground and trying to become one with the night. The headlights zeroed in on the warehouse door where he'd just been standing, then went dead. Lloyd risked raising his head a few inches off the ground and saw a small pickup truck.

One side of the truck lifted as a big man left the driver's side—the truck's other side did the same as a slightly less big man threw open the passenger door. While the first man rattled the warehouse's chains, the second walked back to the truck's bed and hefted a big bag onto his shoulder.

Light spilled out beyond the door as the pair entered the warehouse, then barks sounded from within until one of the men shouted something.

Lloyd pulled his hoodie tight around his face until only his eyes remained visible. He rose from the ground and got his hand on the door just as one of the men was closing it.

"What the hell—"

"Hey, you all seen a dog around here?" Lloyd brushed past the man and made it inside.

He turned slowly, making sure to keep both men in his line of sight while taking in the surroundings: Five cages, one empty, four occupied. The man with the bag was filling a row of battered bowls with dry food while the one by the door was still swearing up a storm.

"Rufus!"

Three of the dogs stared at Lloyd with dead eyes and tails held high, but the fourth dog—a massive brown pit bull, ugly as sin—wagged his butt.

"Yeah, Rufus!"

The cage rattled as Rufus, ecstatic that this man knew his name, tried to wag his butt off.

"Hey, are you stupid or just deaf?" said the man by the door.

"You found my dog," Lloyd said, going for stupid.

"You think you can rob us?" The man closed the door.

"Why would I? I'm pretty sure that's my dog." Lloyd shifted his weight to his back left foot, while keeping an eye on the other man by the cages.

"Then what's with the hoodie? Show me your face."

"Look, I have his collar. It must have fallen off." Rufus's bronze tag shone under the single overhead light.

The two men exchanged glances, then the one by the cages, who hadn't said a word, continued to fill the dog's bowls.

"Listen, it's probably just a misunderstanding," said the man who had closed the door. He moved toward Lloyd, his hands spread wide. "Can I see that collar?" he asked as the man by the cages moved out of Lloyd's line of sight.

Lloyd knew their game. The talker and the walker. He nodded and let the talker keep on talking.

When the talker smiled, Lloyd pivoted off his left foot and hit the walker coming up from behind. The man hit the warehouse floor like a bag of wet cement.

The talker's smile was still plastered across his face when Lloyd turned and did something to the man that wouldn't have been allowed inside a boxing ring.

Lloyd kept moving, before his adrenaline plunged. As the caged dogs began barking, he threw open the warehouse door, searched the men's pockets for the pickup truck's keys, then threw those keys as far as he could outside. As soon as Rufus was out of his cage, the other three dogs went berserk, so Lloyd had to leave them.

At the last minute, he remembered to scoop up his metal detector from where he'd left it outside the warehouse. Rufus, who thought it was all a game, locked his jaws around the detector's shaft while Lloyd held on to the other end.

Man and dog walked in tug-of-war fashion all the way to the address printed on the tag. At the sight of his yard, Rufus released the crumpled metal detector and somehow managed to squeeze his bulk through the house's doggy door.

Back in Lloyd's garage, the heavy bag swayed.

He bobbed and weaved before it, a grin on his face, his hands a flurry of motion as the next one came:

"Dear Lord…"