The Good Dog

        In an effort to overcome her extreme impatience and frustration with the completely stopped traffic, Emilia was reading a sign out email about the patients she would be responsible for over the next week, provided she didn’t miss her flight home. She had been in this Central American country, her father’s homeland, for six days. Most of her time here had been spent meeting with local physicians and nonprofit board members to discuss the next steps in formalizing a partnership between their organization and The Brigham, the prestigious hospital in Boston where she was in her third year of practice as an infectious disease doctor, but she had found time for a hike and relaxing at her hotel pool. If she could just get to the airport in time for her flight, it would have been a very worthwhile trip. 

              A sharp rap on the back driver’s side window right next to her head snapped her out of her email and back to the highway. Looking up from her phone, she gasped at seeing a pistol pointed directly in her face. The short man holding the pistol was casually perched on a motorbike, wearing a black helmet but no face covering. His expression was impassive as he rapped again, twice this time. Emilia made eye contact with the driver in the rearview mirror, who looked side to side, reminding her that the car was trapped on the left by other stopped cars, and on the right by a steep embankment. The gunman rapped three times, now looking irritated, and pointed to her phone. She held it up dumbly, and he motioned to her to roll the window down, a universally understood gesture. Looking up at the review mirror again, she saw Francisco the driver nodding enthusiastically, so she rolled the window down.

              “Dámelo,” the gunman said, reaching for her phone with the pistol trained on her face. Ridiculously, Emilia worried about the patient information that was visible in her email for a moment before handing him the phone through the open window with a shaking hand.

              “Y la bolsa,” he said calmly, gesturing to her silver mirrored Issey Miyake handbag on the seat next to her which contained her wallet and passport. He shook the gun, seeming to imply that she was taking too long to hand it over. Thoughts of Francisco’s five- and seven-year-old daughters, who he had told her about with such pride thirty minutes earlier, flashed through her mind. Reluctantly, she passed the bag out the window. The gunman shoved her phone in his jeans pocket, the gun in his waistband, and shouldered her purse before zooming forward between the stopped cars. Emilia and Francisco exhaled in unison.

              “I so sorry Doctor Emilia,” Francisco said, as if he had robbed her himself.  Emilia spoke near fluent Spanish, but he had asked her to only speak English to him so that he could practice, and she admired his commitment to this in the immediate aftermath of their lives being threatened.

              “It’s ok Francisco, I’m just glad we’re ok. But I think we need to go to the embassy instead of the airport, my passport was in my bag,” she replied.

              “Yes yes of course, I go right there,” he answered

              As Emilia’s pulse started to slow, the traffic began to move forward at a crawling speed. Leaning back with a sigh, she realized at least now she knew with certainty she would miss her flight, and couldn’t even look at options for the next few days without her phone. She would have to figure out how to call work and explain that she was stuck and rebook a flight without her credit cards or cash. What a stupid American thing to do, having her phone visible in her hand and such a flashy purse just sitting on the car seat. She silently cursed herself for feeling safe and comfortable enough to be careless, just because of the hospitality and hope she had felt over the last week.

              As Emilia and Francisco’s car crept forward, José sped between the lanes of cars, wondering how women made keeping a purse on their shoulders look so effortless. He didn’t enjoy threatening and robbing people, but he had lost his construction job. The supervisor had assaulted a woman in the field next to the jobsite, and while all of the laborers were sickened by it, José was the only one who had said anything to him. Two years ago José’s sister was raped as she walked home from school and he felt that the supervisor should be happy José had used words and not the pistol his father had left for him to communicate his feelings on the situation. Righteous as he may have been, he was still out of a job, blacklisted as a “troublemaker” with the other construction crews in his part of the city, and responsible for supporting his ill mother and little sister. The white lady would just buy another phone and get new credit cards, he tried to reassure himself while selfishly hoping she had cash in the bag as well. 

              Approaching the intersection with the gas station, José cut in front of a bus to the right shoulder, preparing to turn but not seeing the loose gravel on the road. Before he realized it was happening, he skidded onto his side, him and the bike sliding past the gas station sign and into the adjacent vacant lot before coming to rest in the stiff brown grass.  Lying on his side, at first, he felt relief. He was conscious, nothing on his body was blaring pain and he could move everything, and unlike a real motorcycle, his motorbike was light enough to lift off his right leg. As he started to feel for the gun along his beltline, his heart dropped at hearing a growling behind him. Pushing the motorbike off of his leg and trying to stand up, he felt the purse being tugged off his shoulder and spun around to find a mangy light brown dog emitting a low growl.  

              José cursed under his breath. When he was a toddler, he had been bitten in the face by a neighbor’s supposedly friendly dog, and he had been terrified of them his whole life, a major impediment in a city like this with stray dogs roaming everywhere. There was no chance he was fighting with this mean looking dog for a purse that might not even have cash in it, and he stood his motorbike up and backed away slowly. After picking up the pistol and tucking it back in his waistband, he gingerly mounted the motorbike and started off down the road towards home. 

              The dog stood in the vacant lot and nosed his way into the purse in search of the half full bag of cheese-flavored chips, trotting off when he found his prize and leaving the purse in the dry grass.

              As Francisco prepared to turn at the gas station, Emilia glanced out the opposite window, trying to figure out the price of gas in gallons instead of liters. Looking at the neon numbers, a familiar reflection in a vacant lot next to the gas station caught her eye.

              “Francisco wait, can you stop?” she cried out.

              He flung the car into the gas station without asking why, shifting it into park and turning towards the backseat with a questioning look.

              “It looks like my bag!” she exclaimed, opening the door and hopping out, hope overcoming any residual fear she felt.

              She jogged over to the reflection and was astonished to find her purse. The zipper was torn, but it didn’t look empty. Common sense kicking in, she scooped it up and jogged back to the car before peering inside. The gold seal on her navy US passport shone up at her from the black lining, and her hands closed around her wallet.  Incredulous, she unzipped the inner pocket and found the wad of cash she planned to change back at the airport inside.

              “It’s all here!” she exclaimed in disbelief. “To the airport!”

              Francisco, dumbstuck as well, backed the car up and merged back onto the road towards the airport, traffic now moving briskly. As they pulled into a gap in the cars, Emilia caught of a glimpse of a thin dog, chewing on what looked like a piece of trash in the shade at the corner of the lot.