Keesha

I went to visit my friend "Rosie" on Saturday morning. She and her hubby had just bought a new house and she wanted me to see it. Rosie is a hysterically funny black woman, who traces her roots back to Thomas Jefferson. She's opinionated, mouthy, and "all that and a bag of chips". I was really looking forward to our morning.

I got to the front door, rang the doorbell, and then noticed a spider above the door. When Rosie answered the door, I said "Hey, you should take a look at this spider. I think it might be a brown widow. I've got them at my house and..."

Then Rosie let out a sudden squawk as a black dog barrelled around her and charged outdoors. "Keeeeesha!" screamed Rosie futilely, as the black dog continued out into the road, racing away from captivity.

Rosie took off running, yelling at me over her shoulder to "get in the house and shut the door!" I ignored that and (realizing she was worried about it locking behind us) I unlocked it and started to take after Keesha too. "NO!" hollered Rosie. "Get in the house and shut the door!"

She was a couple of yards behind Keesha at the street corner. Keesha stopped briefly, squatted down and emptied her bladder, and took off running again just as Rosie reached her. I could've sworn Keesha was laughing.

Now worried that the neighborhood was so dangerous that she didn't want a white girl on her doorstep, I hurried inside, shut the door, and sat down on an overstuffed sofa chair. A large black cat came up to me and started purring. Feeling welcomed by something, I settled back to watch a movie that was on with Denzel Washington in it.

Fifteen minutes later, sitting with the cat on the chair behind my shoulder, I heard Rosie approaching the house. Her voice grew distinctly louder as she neared the house. "Dammit, you nasty dog, I should kill you, how dare you run away like that, you will not run off like that again, you stupid b*tch..."

Rosie walked into the house, dragging Keesha by the collar. Keesha looked none the worse for wear, happily panting and hanging her tongue out at us all. "Go lay down," Rosie screeched. If Keesha had been human, she would've shrugged. Instead, she casually trotted off to the other room and then peered around the corner at Rosie. "Go lay DOWN," Rosie screeched again. Keesha seemed to sigh and disappeared for another moment while Rosie collected herself. Then she galloped back into the room as Rosie was telling me about her chase around the neighborhood.

Keesha came over to me and made nice, so I started petting her as Rosie ranted on about her. Periodically, Rosie would interrupt herself by yelling for Keesha to go lay down, and Keesha would laughingly disappear for a minute, and then return. This went on for about 15 minutes until Rosie had wound down.

"You know," Rosie finally said, "I got her chipped. It didn't hit me 'till later that if someone wanted to keep her, it wouldn't make any difference at all."

Keesha and I looked at each other. "I know," I said to Keesha, "I don't get it either. Who would want to keep you?" And at that moment, Keesha winked.