The McGillicuddy Book of Personal Records (14 page)

Santiago chose that exact moment to come bounding toward Lee, all slobbery and happy as a nutcase. She sprang her paws up on Lee's thighs and gave a friendly yelp. Lee snapped. “
Santi
,” he yelled, “get
off me
! Jeez, can't you see I'm in
trouble
here?”

Santiago lowered her head and dropped her tail. She took a few steps away from Lee, then stopped and looked back at him over her shoulder. She'd known Lee to ignore her before, and even be impatient with her, but he'd never used that hostile, cutting tone before. If there'd been a rhubarb patch around, Santiago would have slunk under it and stayed there forever. Lee instantly felt bad, but he couldn't think about that now. His mind was racing, trying to figure out what to do next. He lifted one foot from the ground and placed it on the rim of the well. He thought maybe if he pushed hard with his foot,
just like this
, and leaned back with all his weight on the rope,
like that
… Big mistake.
Bam!
The pressure of Lee's foot broke through the old bricks and sent them flying. As one foot shot through the wall, his other skidded through the grass like a son-of-a-gun. Next thing he knew, he was flat on his back, looking up at the drifting clouds and wondering how the heck he'd managed to keep hold of that rope. Lee wasn't sure if he believed in angels, but as he looked up at the clouds, he felt fairly certain that someone up there was looking out for him.

But he also knew he needed the help of an earthly mortal or two—no doubt about that. He turned his head toward the distant road, where the whizzing cars looked smaller than ants. He called out. “Help!
Help
!” but he knew there wasn't a hot chance he'd be heard, or even seen, for that matter. He looked back into the sky.

Clouds. As far as the eye could see. One that looked like a five-legged dog. Another that bore a striking resemblance to Mr. Wood's fat head. No, this wouldn't do. Lee needed to find a better position. Slowly, painstakingly, making some impossibly tight maneuvers, Lee twisted and shimmied under the weight of the rope until he was sitting upright with his back against the well. The rope cut into his shoulder this way, but it was bearable.

Lee took a minute to catch his breath, then looked around for Santi. “Santiago,” he called. “Where are you?”

Santiago didn't budge from her nest in the tall grass. “Santi,” called Lee, with a lump in his throat. “Where are you, my girl?”

Santiago lifted her nose. She
wanted
to trust Lee.

“Come on, baby.”

Santiago got to her feet and looked across the field at Lee, her tail still drooping as if it had a lead weight tied to the end of it. But that tail started to twitch, then wag, then it pretty much jet-propelled her across the field, all the way to Lee.

Lee wished he could put his arms around his dog. “I'm sorry, Santi,” he whispered, offering his face for Santiago to lick. “I'm sorry for yelling at you, and I'm sorry for ignoring you lately …” Santiago happened to be excellent at accepting apologies. Before the sentence was over, she'd already forgiven him. By the time she was finished with Lee's face, she'd nearly licked his freckles off.

“Santi, Rhonda's down that well and she's either knocked out cold, or she's …” Lee couldn't finish the sentence. He called Rhonda's name again, good and loud this time.
“Rhonda! Wake up, Rhonda!!”

Was it his imagination, or did he hear a sound? “Rhonda?!”

Her words echoed out of the well, weak but distinct. “How many times I gotta tell ya?! That's not my name, Bozo.”

“Rhonda??”

“My name's Ron. Get that through your thick skull.”

In that second, Lee was glad that good-old-pain-in-the-butt Rhonda Ronaldson was exactly who she was. He could have hugged her, and he just about told her so (boy, wouldn't that have ticked her off!). “Ron, are you okay? Can you stand up? Can you reach the bucket, Ron? Can you carry it down? Are you okay, Ron?”

Santiago got caught up in the excitement and yelped a few greetings of her own down the well. “
Hey, Rhonda
,” she barked, “
Lee's freckles taste extra sweet today. Lick him! Go on, lick him and see for yourself! Howoooooooooo
!”

Then they heard Rhonda cry out in pain. “Ahhhhh, my leg!!” Even Santiago was startled by the panic in her voice. “Ouch. Oh.
Owwwwww!
I can't stand up, Daddy … I think … I think it's
broken
.” It sounded like she was trying to strangle a sob creeping up her throat. “Can't you reach down and
help
me?” she called.

“I can't, Ron,” he said. “I'm holding onto the rope … so the bucket won't fall. I can't move an inch.”

“Just pull the stupid thing up and get me the heck
out
of here!!” she screeched.

Talk about feeling like a failure. Lee suddenly desperately wished he'd taken up weight lifting instead of wasting all those years breaking stupid, idiotic records. “I can't move, Ron. It's taking all my strength … just to hang on to this rope.” He thought he could hear her crying.

“Are there spiders down here?” she whimpered.

Get
outta
here! Lee wouldn't have guessed in a million years that Rhonda Tough-As-Toenails Ronaldson would be afraid of a spider!

“No,” he answered.

“How do you know?” Her voice was trembling now.

“Because,” he fibbed, “spiders stop breathing in elevations lower than ground level.” Lee squeezed his eyes shut, hoping she'd buy something that lame. “We learned that in science last year.”

Rhonda was quiet for a minute, then: “Daddy?”

“What?”

“My head hurts.”

“You've probably got a concussion,” called Lee. “You were out cold for a few minutes there.” He could hear her sobbing now, and he knew she was going to be furious with herself for blubbering in front of him.

“Don't worry, Ron, we're going to get help. I promise.”

Lee called Santiago to his side. “Santi,” he said, “do you think you can do something for me, girl?” Lee dipped his head and knocked his baseball cap off with his knee. “
Get
it, girl,” he said in his “go fetch!” tone of voice. Santiago understood. She picked up the hat in her mouth and brought it back to Lee. Lee lifted one of his feet and gently pushed Santiago away. “Take it to Mom or Agnes, Santi.
Mom
or
Agnes
. Give them the hat and bring them back here. You can do it, girl. Take it to
Mom
or
Agnes
.”

Mom. Agnes. The Ladies of the Kitchen. Their very names brought a swift picture into Santiago's mind of a full dish of water and an overflowing bowl of food. Santi was thirsty. She was hungry. Okay! She'd take the cap to Mom, and check out the bowls while she was at it. Santiago took off across the field.

“Good girl, Santi, good girl!! Bring Mom back!”

Lee tried to relax the rock-tense muscles in his shoulders and wondered what he'd done to deserve this. “Comedy, tragedy, cliff-hanger,” he mumbled. “When's this movie gonna make up its mind what it wants to be?”

“What'd you say?” called Rhonda.

“Ever imagine your life's an ongoing movie?” he said.

“Huh?”

“Frig, I dunno … do you ever think you hear a director's voice shouting inside your head?”

“Do I
look
like a weirdo-loser to you?”

Lee thought about the exclusive “weirdo-loser club” he belonged to and wondered if he minded being its only member. He sighed and watched Santi until she was nothing more than a speck on the horizon. No, he didn't think he minded.

“… to be nobody but yourself, in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else …”

– e . e. cummings

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

To err is human, to forgive, canine.

Anon

You think dogs will not be in heaven?

I tell you, they will be there long before any of us.

Robert Louis Stevenson

READY TO SHOOT THE “BOY / DOG” SEQUENCE

CAMERA THREE, A CLOSE-UP ON LEE'S STRAINING MUSCLES

CAMERA FOUR, LOTS OF LOW-TO-THE-GROUND CAMERA WORK

FOR A DOG'S-EYE VIEW OF THE WORLD READY? AND … ROLL

Lee's words echoed in Santiago's head—
bring Mom back, bring Mom back
. She stopped just long enough to smell something interesting near the side of the road—big mistake. Cat pee. Very nasty. Santiago trotted on—
bring Mom back, bring Mom back
— she caught sight of the offending cat up a tree, but didn't bother to stop and bark; she had more important things to do—
bring Mom back, bring Mom back
…

AND … CUT TO BOY

A table, a chair, a bowl of fruit, and a violin; what else does a man need to be happy?

–
Albert Einstein

An hour had passed now, and Lee's back and arms were starting to cramp. Rhonda had stopped crying, but Lee worried about her silence.

“Talk to me, Ron,” he said. “Is the pain really bad?”

“I don't feel like yakkin',” she said. “I'm tired. I just want to go to slee …” He could hear her voice trailing off into dreamland.
Dreamland?!

“Rhonda!” he shouted. “Don't go to sleep!”

“Cheez … don't have a hairy fit,” she grumbled. “I'll keep you company when I wake up.”

“You don't get it,” said Lee. “You've got a con
cussion
! You're not supposed to sleep with a concussion!”

“Just for a few minutes, Lee …”

“
No
, Rhonda!”

“My name's not
Rhonda
,” she hissed. Lee scrunched his eyes and shook his head. What was that he was thinking a while back? Something about liking Rhonda exactly the way she was? Must have been a brain fart.

“Rhonda … I mean, Ron. You can slip into a coma if you fall asleep with a concussion. Haven't you ever watched
Rescue Rangers
?”

“Yeah, yeah, okay,” she said irritably. “Keep me awake, then. Tell me about something.
Ouch!
”

“What do you want me to tell you?”

“How the heck am
I
supposed to know? I'm the one with the con
cussion
, 'member?”

Lee sighed. He wracked his brain for something to talk about. He wasn't a great conversationalist at the best of times, but with
Rhonda
, of all people?

“Did you know that Albert Einstein played the violin?” he said, finally.

“Yeah?” Lee thought he detected a spark of interest in Rhonda's voice.

“Yeah. He said that if he wasn't a physicist, he would have liked to be a musician.”

“You making that up?”

“Nope.” Lee shifted his back to stop the rope from cutting into his shoulder. As he did, the rope scraped the rim of the well and sent a rock down on Rhonda.

“Hey,
watch
it!”

“Sorry,” said Lee. Then: “Ron, why didn't you ever tell me you play the violin?”

“Shut up,” she said. “Tell me something else.”

“What?”

“How the heck am I supposed to know? I'm the one with the concuss—”

“Yeah, yeah,” interrupted Lee, and he tried to pick his brain for something else that might interest her, but it was as if they spoke a different language half the time.

“Parlay-vous Frances?” he asked.

“Huh?”

CUT TO MUTT

Did you ever walk into a room and forget why you walked in?

I think that is how dogs spend their lives.

– Sue Murphy

Santiago dropped Lee's baseball cap on the ground in order to snap up a Chicken Gui Ku ball on the ground outside of the Wong Numba Café. Ten minutes later, a kid with nothing better to do than pop wheelies in the parking lot got off his bike, picked up the cap, and popped it on his head. By then Santiago was a block away, trying to remember what it was she was supposed to tell Mom …

AND BACK TO BOY …

In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on.

– Robert Frost

Three hours now, and Lee was beginning to wonder if this day would ever end. His butt was sound asleep and snoring, even if Rhonda wasn't. And a numb bum was the least of his worries. The rope was still cutting a rut into his aching shoulder and cramping his hand. And even
that
wasn't the worst of it. He was running out of topics to entertain Rhonda. Lee was grateful when she came up with a question of her own.

“Why'd you give Santiago that stupid name, anyway?”

“I told you, my dad named her after the old man in
The Old Man and the Sea
.”

“So what was so great about this guy that he had to go naming your girl dog after him?”

Lee thought about it. “Do you know the story?” he asked. “As
if
. You think I go around reading Hemingway?
Ouch!
My leg!!” Lee grimaced with Rhonda's pain. He knew she needed distracting.

“It's about an old man,” he began.

“Duh, no kidding,” said Rhonda.

Lee ignored her. “He's an old fisherman in Cuba who's gone eighty-four days in a row without catching a single fish. And he lives in a shack, and his wife is dead, and he uses newspaper to cover the bedsprings because he doesn't have money for a mattress.”

“I don't know if I want to hear this story,” said Rhonda.

“And here's the kicker, Ron; he's got just about nothing, but he's happy. And hopeful. Every day he goes out in his boat and thinks, today's the day I'm gonna catch a fish.”