Strays (12 page)

“So it’s finally Saturday and the service is at ten, but I’m there two hours early because the zoo isn’t open. I’m walking around, right? Trying not to think too much, and I kind of get toward the back of the place and I can hear these two guys talking behind a door and one of them says, ‘I’m not kidding. Twenty-four miles to the gallon.’ And all of a sudden I was okay. Or at least a whole lot better.”

Russ shakes his head. “I don’t get it.”

“They were just doing their job, see? My parents weren’t my parents to those funeral guys. They were just things to work on. So your grandma is fine. I mean, she’s probably in heaven or someplace nice. All you’re going to see is her body. All you have to do is take care of business. You can do that.”

“Teddy!”

I look over at Astin. I nod and stand up. Russ reaches across the table, puts his arms around me, and pounds on me hard.

“Thanks, man. I mean it.”

I make my way over to Astin, who grabs my arm and pulls me into an empty chair. “See that girl in the three-hundred-dollar jeans, the one with the bulldog?”

I look down the block. “Yeah.”

“She wants to talk to me. Next time she comes by, call that dog, okay?”

“Will you relax.”

“What’s up with Russ?”

“His grandma died.”

“I thought he didn’t like you.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“Yeah, he thinks you’re a poser because you don’t have your own bike. But a minute ago he was all over you.”

“I just gave him some advice.”

He nudges me. “Here she comes. Oh, man, she is haughty all over.”

“Aren’t you going by Megan’s in about twenty minutes?”

“I just want to talk to her.”

So I say to the dog, “Hey, come over here, okay?”

Bulldogs really do resemble Winston Churchill. This one just looks at me like he’s about to address the nation.

I say, “Please. My friend here wants to talk to your owner.”

He drags her a step or two in my direction, and that’s enough for Astin to start laying out his charms like things at a yard sale.

I put out one hand, but the dog doesn’t move. “Are you okay?” I ask. “Does she treat you all right?”

“So you’re . . . one.”

“I’m one what?”

“One we . . . an tlk to.”

“You’re breaking up on me here. It’s like we’re on cheap cell phones.” His eyes get a little brighter. He comes closer, close enough to put his paws on my knees. I reach out and rub at the loose skin around his neck. I say, “What’s going on, anyway?”

“Teddy,” he says, “what . . . ou . . . xpect. You’re running with . . . other pack now.” Then he drops onto all fours and walks away.

Another pack?

Just then, Wanda pulls up in front of the bookstore, puts her flashers on, gets out, and walks around to the passenger side. She’s wearing cutoffs and a red tank top.

“Wanda!” somebody yells. “Dump this kid and ride with me. I need somebody to keep my back warm.”

She shakes her head. “You’re too old, Scotty. I like ’em very, very young.”

Astin hails me. “Cover for me with the Rafters, okay? I might never come home.”

I get behind the wheel. Wanda’s truck is a lot cleaner because I’ve been washing it lately. “Thanks for coming up.”

“I was tired of packing, anyway. Not that there’s all that much. I just talked to my mom on the phone. She’s a little mad that the house is going to be empty.” She shakes her head. “I’m not having kids.” She glances over at me. “Do you want kids ever?”

“God, I don’t know.”

One hand comes across and rubs my neck. “You okay, Teddy?”

“I guess. I was talking to this guy a few minutes ago and his grandma just passed away, and that made me think of my folks, and then this girl came by with her bulldog, and my mom loved bulldogs, so . . . you know.”

“Do you just want to go home?”

“I think so. Is that okay?”

“Sure. We’ll do something tomorrow night. I should study, anyway. I’ve got one more test, the last one I’ll ever take in my life. How weird is that?”

That thing about my parents isn’t the real reason I don’t feel like doing anything tonight. The real reason is I could barely hear that bulldog. The only thing that came through loud and clear was that I’m running with another pack. How can I explain that to Wanda when I don’t know what it means myself?

When we get to the Rafters’, C.W. is on the porch talking to Barbara and Bob. Standing beside him is a real mutt — wiry-haired, skinny, and seriously in need of a bath.

Wanda parks the truck and we walk up together. We can hear Barbara from the sidewalk,

“It’s a dog, Bob. Not a baby. Nobody wants you to adopt a baby. And it won’t cost you a penny, so don’t worry about your precious certificates of deposit.”

C.W. says, “I’ll do everything — feed him, wash him, pick up after him. All you got to say is he can stay in the backyard. He’ll be a great watchdog, especially when Barbara’s all by herself.”

I glance down at the mutt and try to picture him going for some felon’s jugular. I say to him, “Can you hear me at all?”

He just pants a little and leans against C.W.

Barbara says, “He needs a bath.”

Wanda says, “He is kind of cute.”

C.W. appeals to me. “We can give him a bath, can’t we, Teddy?”

“If there’s anything I know how to do, it’s give a dog a bath.”

Mr. Rafter looks like one of those guys on Mount Rushmore.

“Why don’t you take the dog for a walk or something,” says Barbara. “I’ve got a few things to say to Bob in private.”

“Sure,” C.W. says. “Absolutely. Just remember: nothing out of pocket for you guys. I’ll take care of that. All I need is a backyard for him to live in.”

As we go down the walk toward the street, I say, “He needs a leash.”

C.W. shakes his head. “You don’t need no leash, do you, boy? You’ll stay right beside me.”

And he does. I know that he’s just scared; his tail is down and kind of tucked under his belly. He probably won’t run away.

Wanda puts one arm around me, kisses my cheek, then does the same to C.W. “I’m going to leave you two to deal with this. Call me before you go to sleep, Teddy, okay?”

We watch until she drives away.

“She’s nice,” C.W. says.

“Yeah.”

“But you guys don’t do nothin’.”

“Not like you mean.”

“’Cause she’s goin’ away and all.”

“Sure.” But I don’t exactly know why we don’t. We just don’t. And I’m okay with that.

We walk up Wayne Street, past the same houses I saw that first day from Ms. Ervin’s van. Except now I know who lives in them. Mr. and Mrs. Spires, Mr. Patterson, Wyatt and Maggie Nelson, Ellen Watson and her little boy, Forrest.

The Rafters wonder how people like Wyatt and Maggie, and Ellen, too, I guess, can afford to buy with real estate prices the way they are. I just guess they saved up or it’s worth it to scrimp and cut some corners to live on a pretty street with real trees that’ve been here forever.

I tell C.W., “Dogs aren’t cheap. He needs shots, and if he’s not fixed, he needs to get fixed, and he’s already big enough to eat like two dollars’ worth of food a day.”

“I don’t care, man. I’ll get a job. Listen to this — I’m playin’ ball by myself and he just trots up, okay? Watches me shoot. One bangs off the rim and he goes and like gets it. Pushes it with his nose and shit. Almost brings it back to me. What am I supposed to do after all that, leave him there?”

I say to the dog, “You picked yourself a good one, didn’t you?”

Nothing. He glances at me, but he takes C.W.’s hand in his mouth and tugs on it.

“Do you believe that, Teddy? He loves me. What kind do you think he is?”

“Just a mix, but that’s good. He’s for sure not overbred.”

“No way Bob says no, does he?”

I shake my head. “I’ve seen this a hundred times. He’s going to be all hard-nosed about him. Lots of rules and what the dog can’t do and when he can’t do it. Then in about three weeks he’ll go to PetSmart and buy him a two-hundred-dollar bed so he can sleep in the same room with him and Barbara. And she’ll want to take him whenever she goes anywhere because he’s so cute with his head out the car window. No, my friend, your problem is not can he stay. Your problem is going to be visitation rights.”

We’re walking back when Mr. and Mrs. Spires (he’s a physicist and she’s married to a physicist, if you get my meaning) stop us. They’ve got their granddaughter, Kim, in one of those pricey carriages, and the dog puts his paws on the side and looks in.

Mrs. Spires laughs. “What a charming animal,” she says. “What’s his name?”

I say to the dog, “This is your last chance. Tell me, or who knows what it’ll be.”

He just leans into C.W.

When I get in bed that night, I’m totally alone. Totally. The lions are gone, the giraffe is gone, and C.W.’s dog won’t talk to me. The dark seems darker, the noises louder. Then I remember how Russ told me about his grandmother. How Wanda came and got me, Astin paid for my coffee, and C.W. asked for advice about the pooch.

Is this the new pack I’m running with?

No way am I going to sleep with all that bouncing around in my head, so I just get up and start working out. Which is something I’ve been doing for a few weeks now. Not much weight, lots of repetitions. I do what Astin says, which is to concentrate on the muscle that’s working, because that fills up my mind.

I don’t look all that different. Well, maybe I do. A little, anyway. I only check when I’m by myself.

I’m right in the middle of my third set of twenty-five when I hear Astin on the stairs.
Clomp, clomp, clomp.
And then —
boom!
He’s right in the room. Tripping over one of the dumbbells. His dumbbells.

“Goddamn it, Teddy.”

I carry the weights back where they belong, even though I know it’s too late. “I thought you weren’t coming home.”

“What the fuck is my stuff doing all over the floor?”

“I’m working out. I was going to put everything away at the same time.”

“I told you not to mess around with my stuff.”

“You said to ask. And I asked you a long time ago. And you said okay.”

“Put this shit away now and keep your goddamn hands off of it, okay?”

“Sure, fine. If you’d give me the sixty dollars you owe me, I could buy some weights of my own.”

For some reason Astin zips up his jacket. I don’t know why, but it makes me feel cold all over. I put on my pants and tuck my cell phone in one pocket while he asks, “What fucking sixty dollars?”

I can’t back down now. “The sixty I loaned you that day we went over to Megan’s.”

He digs in his jeans, fumbles with a wad of bills, counts some out, and shoves them at me. “Here, now shut up.”

I look at them. “This is thirty-five.”

He gets hold of my T-shirt and pulls me right into him. “Will you stop busting my balls?”

I try to get a finger or two between my shirt and my neck, but I can’t. “Cut it out. That hurts.”

All he does is say it back all high and whiny: “‘Cut it out. That hurts.’ You little weenie.”

“Don’t call me names. I hate it when people call me names.”

“Oh, yeah? What are you gonna do about it?”

That’s when I hit him. And it’s a pretty good shot, because I hear him grunt, but the next thing I know, I’m looking at my hand, which I’ve just had to my nose, and there’s blood all over. It takes a few seconds for my face to start to hurt.

“Now get out of here,” he says.

“Go to hell. It’s my room, too.”

He grabs me by the scruff of the neck, walks me to the door, and shoves. A few seconds later the door opens again and my sneaks fly out.

When I get up, I look at myself in the bathroom mirror. My nose and my lip are bleeding, but some cold water and a lot of toilet paper stop that.

Downstairs, Bob is watching TV. He doesn’t even look up when I tell him I’m going out, he just grunts. Barbara and C.W. are still on the back porch with Tupac, the dog. I slip out the front door and start walking. All the people I know on the street are in bed or getting ready for bed. There’s a light on every so often where maybe somebody is reading or taking an Alka-Seltzer. Not everybody is young or still has a partner. Mrs. Morgan is by herself, and so is Mr. Finch.

The closer I get to Wanda’s, the fewer people I know or even know about. It feels chillier. I’m the only one out, so I’m glad when I see Wanda’s light on.

I knock but I say, “Wanda! It’s me.” So she won’t get scared.

When she opens the door, she’s got a book in one hand and a pencil between her teeth.

“Teddy? What’s wrong?”

“I got into it with Astin.” I point to my face.

She opens the door wider, and I step inside. She says, “I just got off the phone with Megan. They broke up.”

“So that’s it.”

“Yeah, get used to it. They like to break up. Then they get back together and say, ‘Oh, baby, I’m so sorry. It was all my fault.’ ‘No, no, sweetheart, it was my fault.’ And I think you know what happens after that.” She points to the couch. “Sit down. I’m either going to finish
Leaves of Grass
or get the lawn mower and run over it.”

The couch has flat cushions with corners and spindly legs with brass tips. Her TV is on, and a black woman is crying while a white woman in a spangly dress tells her everything will be all right.

“What are you watching?”

Wanda yells from the kitchen, “That’s
Imitation of Life,
the original. Claudette Colbert and Louise Beavers. Louise Beavers’s daughter, Peola, wants to pass for white and Claudette Colbert’s daughter wants her mom’s boyfriend.”

“Jeez. And I thought I had problems.”

“What’s cool is in the middle of all that, Claudette Colbert changes clothes about every ten minutes. The costumes are great. I’m almost done here. Get some ice out of the fridge and hold it against your lip. It’ll keep the swelling down.”

I do what she says, then wander back to the nearest bathroom and look at myself. I could even have a black eye. How cool would that be?

I’ve been at Wanda’s before, but not for long. Usually she picks me up and we do something like go to the movies, where all she looks at is the sets. Walking out, she always wants to know who shot who and what were all those zombies doing in the mall?