I give all glory to God for saving me and my dog. I was living in a small room in San Francisco and I was sick and needed medicine but I didn’t have no money and couldn’t afford to go see no doctor.
Well, right outside my apartment on the sidewalk a bunch of people used to gather. They are called low-life types mostly but God he saw the good in them even if nobody else could. There were druggies and whores and pimps and pushers but most of them was nice and just regular folk like you and me.
Well, I had to walk my little dog and they would greet me and let me pass and never disturbed me or nothing. Sometimes there were a couple cool cats playing music like a sax or a guitar and occasionally a trombone or tuba.
Well, one of these cool cats was blowing his ax one day and my little dog took notice and stood up on its hind legs like I had taught it to do and it started dancing. Passers-by started dropping quarters and dollar bills into the jazz-man’s hat he had put on the ground for tips.
I stayed awhile until he had blowed himself out and was getting ready to leave when he called me back and said “Here man, this is for you!” and he takes out a fistful of coins and bills and thrusts it at me.
“I says “What for man? I ain’t done nothin’ for you, has I?”
He says “You sure has or rather your cute little dog there sure has. Didn’t you see, man? I usually end up with $3 or $4 in my hat and today there’s $20! That’s ‘cos of you and your dog, man! Here, take half, you done earned it!”
I was so grateful and humbled by this kind gesture I broke down in tears. I went to shake his hand and then we hugged each other. “I’ve been having a hard time, son” I told him. “I’ve been sick and need to go see a doctor but can’t even afford bus fare to get to County General and it’s too damn far for an old man like me to walk.”
When jazz-man heard that he called out to a friend and told him “I want you to take this man to the hospital!” Well, one thing led to another and his friend dropped me off and I went in but they had a big ol’ sign that read “no dogs allowed” so I tied little Freddie to a pole and told him to wait and I’d be back.
I went in to see the doctor who examined me and ordered me up some cough syrup and pills and other stuff and when I got back little Freddie was gone!
I guess I hadn’t tied his leash up tight enough so he got loose and took off looking for me and now he was gone. I was sad and sat down on the curb and cried a good long time when a taxi-cab man came over and asked me what the matter was.
I told him all about little Freddie and how I had rescued him from the animal shelter and he was all I had and he says “Man, get in and we’ll look for your dog (praise the Lord!) and if we can’t find him I’ll take you home and maybe he’ll find his was back on his own. If you got a picture you gonna make some posters and put them up around the neighborhood, somebody be sure to spot him and give you a call.”
I thanked him but told him I didn’t have hardly any money and he says “Don’t you worry, I’ll come over when my shift is over tomorrow at 3:00 and I’ll help you make the posters and then we’ll put them up all over your street and the next couple of blocks, all right?”
That is what God can do for you, put people on your side when you’re down on your luck and your prospects are mighty low. Even when bad things happen there’s going to come a day of reckoning and balancing. It doesn’t always work out that way but usually it does.
On the day we was to put up the flyers we got word that somebody had seen Freddie so the taxi-man and me we hustled over there but when we got there I was told the little dog they thought might be Freddie done got run over by an ambulance and the animal control people had come and taken his little body away already.
That made me very sad and I cried a good long when the taxi-man he said “I’m gonna come by tomorrow and we’ll go over to the animal shelter and you can pick out a new little dog for yourself, how’s that?” I was still sniffling and snuffling ‘cos I didn’t have the words to tell him how much little Freddie meant to me so I just shook my head like it would be okay if he wanted to do that for me.
Well, he came by the next day and we was on the way to the shelter when a drunk driver ran a red light and smashed into our taxi pretty damn good. Both taxi-man and me we was thrown about quite a bit and taxi-man hit his head on the roof and started bleeding.
I got out and yelled and waved my arms for help (praise be the lord!) and a couple of guys rushed right over and I hollered “call 911!” and they said “Sure old-timer!” but then they walked over to taxi-man who was half out of his cab lying on the sidewalk.
They checked his pockets and took his money and his watch and were walking off but then one of them stops because he had a change of heart.
He came walking back a little ways looking at me and gets out his cell phone and calls 911 and says “There’s been an accident you better hurry!” He looks at me and says “Okay, pops, we square now?” I just nodded and off he ran with his companion before the cops got there.
The Lord sure does work in mysterious ways! In a few minutes the ambulance came to get taxi-man and a police-man named Sam offered to give me a ride home which was mighty nice of him but on the way to my apartment there’s a high speed chase going on. All of a sudden this car come whizzing by super-fast and then a police car came whizzing by chasing it and the officer-man looks at me and says “Hold on, man! I’m going to give that officer support!”
He turns on his siren and his tires squeal and we take off like a bat out of hell in hot pursuit of the first officer-man and the car he’s chasing which ends up crashing and plowing through the front window of an animal shelter before it comes to a complete stop: the very animal shelter the taxi-man was trying to take me to before the drunk driver and the taxi cab accident and the robbery and the high speed chase!
Everybody and all the animals in the shelter was pretty shook up but nobody was hurt too badly. The two officers done arrested the car thief and slapped handcuffs on his wrists and put him in the first officer’s car and then Sam came over to me and said “I’m gonna take you home now!” and I’m about to get into the back seat when just then I hear barking and there’s a commotion in the crowd and all of a sudden right between their legs a dog escapes and comes running toward me like mad and it’s my little Freddie!
He jumps up on my lap and licks my face a couple of dozen times and we laugh and cry and the crowd clapped and cheered with the officer-man grinning from ear to ear so that was how my day done gone (praise be!) which proves to me Someone is watching out for Freddie and me and there ain’t no problem so big you can’t overcome it.
I rescued little Freddie from that very same dog shelter last year and now he has come back to rescue me. Me and Freddie, we going somewhere special this Sunday for sure!
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