The Good Boy (25 page)

“A place called York. I think it’s an alternative school?”

“I know it,” Pete says. He’s been to Consuella B. York, and it’s definitely alternative. It’s inside the Cook County Jail.

The elevator doors open, the car empty.

“I don’t know if that helps Zack,” Colleen says.

“I don’t know, either.” Pete steps inside and the doors close behind him.

16

Joel and Butchie hightail it back through Welles Park, the map heavy in his backpack. The boys playing football now are older and much bigger than Joel: they are the senior league, the toughest of the middle-school kids. Their uniforms are custom-made, names bold-lettered on the back. Their parents are fewer in number, but no less interested in the games.

After the few tense blocks traveling two-way streets from the coffeehouse back past the library, Joel takes Oakley Avenue—on the left side of the street, of course. Oakley runs one-way north, so all potential obstacles should be ahead of them. This way, he won’t have to keep checking over his shoulder, another behavior that rouses suspicion.

Walking against traffic works out pretty well; Joel can see cars approaching in enough time to get out of sight and, if need be, act like he’s picking up after Butchie. Butchie doesn’t mind stopping so often; it gives him more time to nose around. It is a nice street, and certainly worth sniffing: tall trees tent the sidewalks, sunlight sneaks in where the breeze catches the leaves. The homes—yes, homes more than houses—stand alongside one another, full and friendly, neighbors.

And the squirrels are everywhere: scaling treetops and power lines, scampering toward an acorn or away from Butchie. It’s a good thing he’s trained to ignore the little guys, or Joel would have a whole new species of problems.

Up ahead, an old man rakes a scant covering of leaves from his yard onto a sheet. Joel remembers last year—their old yard, when he woke up one day to autumn’s version of a blizzard: a storm came through, swept all the leaves off the trees in one fell swoop. That was the day his mom let him skip morning class to help rake the leaves, which wasn’t as fun as it sounded. That was also the day Ms. Watt, the teacher’s aide, taught him the term isn’t
fall
swoop, no matter how much sense it makes.

Joel steers Butchie street-side, a wide berth around the man, who hasn’t seemed to notice them, and Joel would like to keep it that way.

A few blocks down, a huge building that looks like a museum or a hospital turns out to be a place called St. Vincent de Paul. The sign says
CATHOLIC CHARITIES’ AFFORDABLE LIVING FOR SENIORS
, so Joel figures it’s a museum
and
a hospital. Butchie stops, nose up at the breeze; from this angle, Joel notices a bunch of faded tufts of fur on the backs of his thighs.

“You need a furmination,” he says, pulling out a white wisp of fur; Butchie always sheds right after a wash. The dog turns around, ears down. He likes getting a wash; he doesn’t mind getting brushed, either. What he only tolerates is when Joel plays groomer without the tools. “Sorry, Hairy Butt,” he says. “I’ll leave you be.”

Ahead, Irving Park is a busy, multilane road with a stoplight. Joel pulls Butchie over along the sidewalk that borders Chicago Joe’s restaurant, where the outdoor seating is not yet ready for lunchtime: the tables are empty, chairs tipped, Corona umbrellas tied down.

Joel checks his watch: it’s nearly ten. In weekend hours at home, that means No More Cartoons. He wonders if his mom or Mike turned on the TV this morning; if he made the news like his dad and Butchie.

Joel eases the dog past the restaurant where its painted wall announces shrimp, clams, ribs, and
cheeseborgers.
Joel hates seafood, but the other ads make him drool like Pavlov’s dog. He imagines piles of fries and pickles, hot grease and warm bread. Joel’s never eaten here, but if he had to go by the pictures in the windows he’d definitely order a
borger.
Then again, at this point, he’d suck down a bottle of ketchup if he could get his hands on one.

A sound system piped out from the inside starts to play one of his dad’s favorite songs. Joel doesn’t know the name, but he knows how the chorus goes. He sings along—or tries to; his voice can’t go that low: “Yeah, runnin’ down a dream.”

“Workin’ on a mystery.”
The singer sounds wiped out, disinterested even, but the song’s beat is like energy to Joel’s heart. “Goin’ wherever it leads,” he sings, and he feels a part of something; like he isn’t the only one. Like they’re on a mission. He feels himself smile.

“Yeah, Butch,” he sings, “we’re runnin’ down a dream.”

The light runs long in favor of the traffic on Irving Park but Joel isn’t waiting on the walk signal, all the drivers watching as he and Butchie cross a million lanes right in front of them. Instead, they wait for the Don’t Walk and they skip between cars.

Once across, they pass a sign welcoming them to the North Center neighborhood, which feels like a big step, except the sidewalk is blocked by a less-welcoming sign—this one reading
CLOSED USE OTHER SIDE.

But on this side, the stretch of sidewalk is brand-new, three consecutive concrete slabs a darker gray—brown, even—compared to the rest. Brand-new, but not untouched: Joel sees that
CEEMORE THE GREAT
has made his mark, the name inscribed right there in the last slab, proud capital letters.

Joel knows it’s illegal to write in wet concrete—another lesson he learned by hanging around with Kink—but seeing the still-pliant slabs, clean slates just waiting—he understands the urge.

Butchie sniffs around the freshly overturned dirt beside the walk, looks up at Joel like he’s asking permission to dig.

“Forget it, pal,” Joel says, pulling the dog to the curb, “you’d be leaving evidence.”

They cross the street and Joel discovers Alexander Bell Elementary, and no kidding, that’s where Molly went to school before she moved in with her grandma and started at Hayt. He wonders what her life was like when she went here, both her parents at home; he wonders what his life would be like if she hadn’t transferred and become his next-best friend, after Butchie.

On the other side of Addison, a large-waisted woman and her baby-blue-collared French bulldog puppy turn in front of them. The woman moves like a snail, and pretty soon Joel decides the left-side-of-the-street rule doesn’t work when you aren’t getting anywhere.

The bulldog is the first to notice them and he lunges forward, enough leeway from his extendo-leash to get him within snipping distance. The woman acts terrified as she reels the dog back and hoists him in her arms, moving off to the side so Joel and Butchie can go ahead.

Joel says a bland “thanks” and isn’t at all worried the woman will remember him because she never takes her eyes off Butchie.

In three more blocks, Joel stops Butchie to pretend-poop for two cars and a postal truck, though they don’t stop for a lady pushing a double stroller, or a woman blah-blahing on her phone, or a jogger plugged into his portable digital music player. That’s because distracted grown-ups are terrible witnesses. Grown-ups in general aren’t so good with details, being stuck under their imaginary ceilings and all; when they’re distracted, though, the ceilings come down around them, like bubbles, and they can’t see outside
me
range. Add to that a baby or an electronic device, and they won’t see past their own noses.

Unfortunately, the type of person who is not distracted and always sees everything is right around the corner on Melrose: there’s a cop car parked in the middle of the street, facing the wrong way on a one-way. Joel pivots, to backtrack—or not, because there’s the woman and her bulldog again, the puppy happily bounding toward them on his long leash.

Joel half turns, the cop car behind them, but then what’s in front of them is a whole parking lot full of cop cars. A hundred of them. Just a block away.

Pieces of the route they’ve run fit together to form a mental map that proves Joel has been just as distracted as any grown-up, because he’s led them directly to the police station known as Area Three, the whole north side’s detective’s bureau.

What’s left of adrenaline gives it another go and Joel races Butchie past the cop car, across Belmont, and over a blur of blocks. Traffic runs with them, one car and then another coming up from behind, but Joel never looks back; he just keeps on until the street dead-ends, a fenced property and gated drive preventing them from traveling any farther south.

A tree hangs over part of the gate, its branches drooping enough so that Joel can tuck in with Butchie there, the dog’s ears up, radars going.

Joel watches through the branches as a car approaches, slows, and turns off before the dead end. A few minutes later, another car follows the same path. And then another. After a while, he’s mostly sure the squad won’t be coming along. He was lucky. That song still buzzes way inside his ears:
Runnin’ down a dream.
They are. And he can’t get cute; he can’t get them caught.

He gets up on his knees and hugs Butchie. The dog squirms; he’s in guard mode and wants all his wits about him. Still: “I’m sorry, Mr. O’Hare.”

On the other side of the gate, boats on wheeled frames and trucks on blocks flank a drive that runs parallel to a squat, brown-brick building. More trees border the lot to the west and south; against those, stacked-up auto-body parts and broken-down semi trailers look like they’ve been sitting a long time. A band of red, yellow, and bright blue kayaks sits along the tree line; Joel would guess the place abandoned if not for those distant surprises of color.

And, if there are kayaks: “Water.” Joel takes up Butchie’s leash. There’s got to be a way to it.

They round the building, which seems to house some kind of industrial operation that isn’t currently in operation. Same with the business across the street: it’s unmarked and unmanned, windows covered.

Past there, another chain-link fence stands in front of an empty lot. A black tarp caught on a few barbs of wire blows in the wind. This fence is not well made; then again, it’s protecting a field of weeds.

A real estate sign tacked to the fence declares the property
AVAILABLE
. Next to the sign a rusted, padlocked chain hangs loose at the gate. The chain offers a lot of give, so Joel only has to give a little, and in one push he and Butchie are able to slip through.

When Butchie discovers the river it takes all Joel’s strength, heels dug into the mud, to keep the dog up on the steep bank. Mostly. He does manage to get his front paws immersed. While he laps water, Joel closes his eyes, feels the sun on his face. Wishes they could swim.

Until he smells something foul and opens his eyes and sees a fish floating belly-up, drifting on a slow current toward the shoreline. “No, Butch!” He pulls back on the leash, loses his footing over a mess of washed-up garbage they missed on the way down, and falls backward, on smashed glass.

“Dammit!” he cries, his brief daydream—and his pants—ruined. He sits where he landed and picks the green-bottle glass out of the heels of his hands, mad, mostly, and tired.

On the other side of the river, an old factory stands over the water; next door, a
RIVER PARK LOFTS
banner stretches across the top floor of a balconied building. Between the two, Joel can see in too many windows; he hopes nobody’s looking out.

“Let’s not get caught here, boy,” he says, and gets up, leading the dog downstream through rough patches of bush, trash, and trees.

Soon, they reach another fence, this one covered in weeds, natural camouflage—a good place to stop, since the tree branches hang thick, providing cover from the opposite bank. Joel picks a spot near an old muddy tire full of crushed aluminum cans and other junk. He uses his jacket for a picnic blanket and sits; it’s no picnic at all, but from here he can see the Diversey Bridge stretching over the river, the street’s sign posted below the bridge railing.

So he knows where they are; now he has to figure out where they’re going.

He dislodges the backpack that’s near-glued itself to his shoulders, retrieves the map, and settles in.

After a little while Butchie gets the picture and lies down; for him, a nap is obvious when offered.

As for Joel, he’s just about got the map figured out when sleep makes him an offer, too, and he can’t refuse.

17

It seems like four days have passed when Pete emerges from the hospital. The hushed, early gray has been burned off by a bright, busy morning; the sunlight feels warm, as warm as it’s been in weeks. On campus, visiting hours have begun and families arrive, the women composed and quick to smile as they unpack bouquets and relatives from backseats, all the while working mental worry beads. The men appear preoccupied. They always do.

Pete’s phone chimes, voice mail, now that he’s got service again. He gets into the squad and starts the engine; when he opens the windows he notices an Hispanic couple out the passenger side on the small patch of grass next to the main entrance ramp. There’s an outdoor waiting area right behind them, benches and a landscaped walkway, but apparently the grass is as far as they made it. There, the young woman has broken down, her face tear streaked. The man holds her in his arms, but he is no consolation. Because there is no consolation.

Pete fastens his seat belt and adjusts the chest strap, then finds his heart to feel it beating. It isn’t the life lost that gets him; it’s those that are left, and lost just the same.
Just like that,
he thinks.

God, he hates hospitals.

He drives a few blocks and turns north for a quick stop home to check in, see what the girls have come up with. And to see if McKenna knows anything about the boys from York. On the way he keys the voice-mail code on his phone and listens to the first message, from Sarah.

“Where are you? It’s after eight and I thought you’d have called, at least. I tried you earlier … I didn’t want to leave this on voice mail, but … I called 911, Pete. They’re sending someone over. McKenna is asleep, and I’m going out of my mind waiting. But I called everyone I could think of and I can’t think of anything else but Joel … I don’t think he is okay.” The silence after that is long enough for Pete to wonder if she hung up without a goodbye but then she says, “I hope you’re coming home.” And then she hangs up.