The Miracle

Nicky’s Christmas Miracle
The second installment in the Nicky’s Nine series

It was December 23rd, 2005. Java and Nicky had just finished running themselves silly at Nell’s Rock reservoir. Usually, I park, leash them, and walk on the trail into the woods. Once down the trail about 100 yards, I remove their leashes and “release the dogs!” Off they go in a mad dash to see who is going to chase who. They tear back and forth, barking and generally engaging in genuine, unbridled joy. Java is the more independent of the two. He is more of a sniffer than a player, keeping his nose to the ground because he must investigate, what I believe to be, every trace of animal life, wild or domesticated, that might lead to something he can chase. It’s like he is just a 90 lb nose on four legs. He will go wherever it leads him, most of the time running out of sight on the twisting, densely wooded trails. Nicky on the other hand, is much more attached to me, rarely being out of sight more than just briefly. At times, he will chase after Inspector Knows but always turns around and comes racing back down the trail to make sure I am still following him. After confirming the absence of my absence, he does another 180 and off he goes. Flash back: 9 months ago, when I drove Nicky home from the rescue shelter. He was so anxious, he peed, pooped and puked in the crate on the way. Java didn’t care, he had his head out of the window sniffing for wildebeest. When we got home, I let him out of the crate/car in the garage. He charged me, burying his head in my lap and was trembling so furiously I thought he was having a seizure. That’s when I made The Promise: that I would protect him from all threats, real or imagined and that he was finally home.

When we’re done and they’re plum tuckered out, we make our way back to the car. I’ve learned my lesson about keeping Java on leash because he will bolt if he sees a cat, a squirrel, a deer. That’s not Nicky’s MO, and he was off leash. 48 hours after the shortest day of the year, it was dead dark by five. The small gravel parking area is just off of a two lane road that can get busy around that time. 50 yards from the entrance, there is no shoulder on either side because it goes across the reservoir. With only guard rails between pavement and water, there is no room for discussion.

For some unknown reason, just as we were reaching the car, Nicky bolted out of character, across the lot and out into the street. I saw him run down the near shoulder in the direction of the water. Just at the point where the shoulder goes D. B. Cooper, I watched my black dog make a ninety degree turn and run directly across the road, and without signaling. I was able to see him, moments from being knocked from this life into the next, bathed in the headlights of the car that was traveling towards him, about to cross the water and hit my dog. The next thing I know I hear myself screaming uncontrollably in a paroxysm of pure panic, like a terrified ten year old sucking up the first 85 degree heartline roll during his first ride on the Ultra Twister at Astroworld (duct taped to the nose of the first car).

My view of Nicky was cut off by the car as it abruptly braked, the rear end moving in the direction of where all dogs go when they die, the front end compressing to the pavement as if genuflecting to Sir Isaac Newton. As the PVCs I started throwing were actually tripping over themselves trying to maintain a left ventricular ejection fraction compatible with life, or at least consciousness, out of nowhere, I remembered something about acceleration and force vectors and that every object in a state of uniform motion tends to remain in that state of motion unless an external force is applied to it. Nicky was about to have an external force applied to him: the dog I swore to protect on one side of the equation and a 3500 pound Buick on the other, as illustrated below:

(N)m2(gmV)3 = Ø(N)

Nicky’s mass squared times the velocity of a General Motors product cubed, yields, well, you don’t have to be a genius to follow that one. I remember I could feel Dread, a precursor to The Darkness, in descension. It's always darkest just before it goes pitch black.

When the car finally stopped bouncing on it’s Bilsteins, I was sprinting towards what I was sure was a fatal error. I couldn’t see Nicky. The sense of extreme apprehension I could feel crawling over me like high quality Window Pane bordered on the reverential. And then, what do I see? Squinting in the high beams, Nicky, fresh from a failed interview with God, comes trotting around the front of the car with that look on his face. We’ve all seen it. The “Oh, I meant to do that” look. Ho-ly She-it. I didn’t know whether to embrace him or mace him. I went with the former. Anyway, I’d used the last of my pepper spray the night before. To this day, I swear that dog and that car simultaneously occupied the same space, if only for the briefest of moments. But even a nanosecond gets to keep its dignity. It couldve been 1 billionth of a second and it could have been an eon. It might have been both, I don’t know. But time acts out in some mighty peculiar and mysterious ways when it has to accommodate a miracle.