Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Transcript of the Suspect's Statement

1995; University of Chicago Press; Volume: 41; Issue: 2/3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.2307/25305949

2327-5804

Reginald Gibbons,

Canadian Policy and Governance

If you'll just let me tell you, without any more of your ignorant questions, I will explain. I have nothing to hide from the likes of you. To answer the first question you asked me: we were journeying here. To our goal here in the city, through countryside - having planned this for a very long time, with every thought and understanding of what it was we were undertaking, I can assure you. And when we stopped at the house of friends whom we were expecting to come with us, it turned out they had already left. Jumped out ahead of us, perhaps thinking they could accomplish the goal without us. I suppose we were later than expected, my friend Bruce and I. We were walking - traveling by foot, I mean to say. Which is the best way to prepare for a great undertaking, in my opinion. These people had also left their dog - an enormous dog, a great Dane or something like that - for us to bring with us, I don't recall why. But the dog smelled just terrible, it was covered with a rotten-smelling suppuration, especially its left front leg, and really you could hardly bear to be around it, on top of the fact that even leashed it was so large and after all it didn't know us well (although it had indeed let us approach, and hadn't barked at us or attacked us, so it must have been quite smart already, knowing us to be the expected people and not strangers) and it was plain frightening to have it around. You just didn't know what it might be capable of. It would take your forearm in its jaws in play - you couldn't stop it, you couldn't say no to it - and you would realize that even if it never bit down hard enough to hurt you with its teeth, and it never did, it could snap your arm in two with a toss of its head. But it never did that, either. So we brought the dog with us, as we came, but kept looking for a place to ditch it, and finally when we reached the park woods just outside the city on the west side, I felt we had to leave it behind us. I had been debating whether to leave it tied or loose; but a tied dog will often defend the place it has been tied to, especially if, as I was planning to do, its master has told it to stay, and I was afraid that if I tied it, it would absolutely kill the first unsuspecting person who came near it, and I certainly didn't want that to happen. You don't believe me, of course, but I am a very upright person. Anyway, I couldn't solve this problem cleanly. I didn't want to leave the dog free because it would follow us, so I left it - and I even did so with a little regret for its friendly protectiveness toward us, although I was still frightened of it and I really could not stand its stench any more - somewhat loosely tied at a bench that could be seen readily in advance by anyone coming along the path in the deep woods where we were traveling, not that far from the open road, really. And we came on, Bruce and I. Well, the dog was soon free, but rather than following us, as things turned out, it ran back toward the country, perhaps in despair for its masters (who now seem to me a little hard-hearted, given what has happened since) and suffering more than we could have known from the stinking abscess of its hidden wound. It arrived eventually to far fields where a shepherd kept large flocks, and this shepherd saw in it right away what a great creature it was, and took it in, gave it something to eat and drink, and with some country remedies and herbal medicines he cured the stinking, oily wound. (It took me days to get the smell of that dog off of myself. And I learnt of this shepherd later, by what means you shall see.) Now, this dog was very loyal, and still longing for its master, but in gratitude to the shepherd it took up its assigned post to guard his flocks. One very black night of no moon a blood-drinking angel came down to attack some of the sheep (which it did so as to keep itself from drinking the blood of persons). The huge dog - if you haven't seen such a dog you don't realize how big it is - scented the angel and rose from its sleep, stalking with perfect and vicious silence that I can readily imagine toward the winged monster, and then sprang on it and closed its huge jaws on the angel's shoulder. …