Keepers (3 page)

I had called the dog a few more times with no results and started inside to shower and get a change of clothes when I remembered the crawlspace behind the trash cans at the back of the house. I hadn’t thought of that damn thing in ages.

I made my way around and, sure enough, two of the trash cans had been pushed apart. I squatted in front of the opening, tilting my head at a near-impossible angle to see if I could catch a glimpse of her. I couldn’t, so I put the blanket on top of the nearest can and crawled through the opening.

A few years ago I had a major plumping mishap that resulted in my having to move into a hotel for a week while a team of overpriced-and-worth-every-damn-cent “septic professionals” (that’s what they preferred to be called, don’t ask me, I just live here) tore out and replaced nearly half the pipes in my house. Part of that involved ripping up a small section of floor between the downstairs bathroom and guest bedroom in order to run a separate flow-line to the new emergency sump pump. Fun, fun, fun. To avoid ripping out any more flooring than necessary, they had asked for and received my permission to dig a tunnel beneath the entire length of my back porch, starting underneath the guest bedroom and emerging in the back beside the steps. I was entering at the exit point, crawling in from behind the trash cans, where the ground was fairly level; but I knew that about twelve feet away a sudden drop of about two feet could take you by surprise and even cause injury if you didn’t know it was there. I hoped the dog hadn’t made it that far; the idea of having to pull her ass-first out of that little pit in the dark, in the mud, and with little more than three feet of width in which to do it, was not what I’d had in mind to start the weekend.

I smelled her about six feet in. Digging into my pants pocket, I pulled out my cigarette lighter and struck up the flame.

She lay three feet ahead of me, on her side. She had somehow managed to get herself three-quarters of the way turned around (so as to face out) before she collapsed. I whispered to her, but she didn’t respond. Pulling forward with my elbows, I pushed the lighter up and out until I could see its flame reflected in her eyes.

Her gaze was unfocused and glassy. Her sides no longer heaved. No sounds at all came from her, save for the kneading of the maggots in her wound. If she wasn’t dead yet, she would be soon—minutes, possibly; definitely within the next hour or so.

I felt sick—not so much nausea as bile-flavored regret. If I hadn’t been so lost in the Seventies nostalgia craze-in-a-box I might have caught her at the front and prevented her from ending up here in the damp, dismal darkness. And if I’d ignored my boss and fixed that door right then and there—

“I’m so sorry, girl,” I whispered.

She grunted.

“Hello, you,” I said. “I didn’t think you were still with us.”

This time she actually blinked, then raised her head a little and issued a soft whine. I could see the blood clotting in one of her nostrils and a layer of something once moist but now desiccated and bruise-hued coating her lips.

Water.

I couldn’t do anything else for her while she died, but I could get her something to drink. There was no way I’d be able to wrestle her from under here without hurting her worse or her tearing and biting the hell out me; even if I could manage it, so much time would be lost that she’d die in the car on the way to the vet’s. No, let her die here, with a cool drink on her tongue and someone near to mark the moment of her sleep.

I began to reach toward her, thought better of it, then said: “I’ll be back in a few minutes, girl, okay? You just rest there, that’s right, rest. I’ll bring you something to drink.”

I had to crawl out backward, so it took a minute or so. The farther away from her I got, the softer her wining became; the strange thing is, the softer her whines, the more they became the only sounds I could—or wanted—to hear.

I found a large, clean mixing bowl and filled it to the rim with water and ice cubes, then scavenged some leftover steak from the refrigerator. Maybe she wanted a last meal, maybe not, but
goddammit
if she was going to die underneath my porch she was going to have a choice about it.

Back outside and crawling, this time with a flashlight to guide the way as I pushed the bowl of water and plate of food ahead inch by muddy inch.

She’d moved again, forward this time, about a foot and a half. The flashlight beam caught her eyes and turned them into a pair of small glowing embers. They moved left, right, then vanished for a few moments as she closed, then re-opened them.

“Here you go, girl. You hungry? Got’cha some water, nice and cold.”

She pulled forward, using only her front paws. Her back legs were splayed behind her, limp and useless. The fur surrounding her eyes was drenched in thick, mucus-like tears. Even in agony she recognized a treat, knew that this was Something Special. I pushed the bowl and plate closer. She looked at my hand and growled, so I let go and pulled away as she lifted her head over the water bowl and tested it with her tongue. She remained like that for a moment, head dangling over the bowl, some of the water dripping from her mouth, breathing heavily.

I remembered a scene from some movie long ago: a little girl running away from home encounters a dog whose owner beats it mercilessly, then ties it to a pole in the back yard during a rain storm. The girl waits for the owner to finish beating the dog and go back inside, and once she’s alone with the animal she unties the rope and tells it to go, but it won’t. It looks at her in utter confusion as she tries to get it to leave, pulling at it, pushing at it, pleading with it to go, to get away, but it only sits there, staring with longing in its eyes at the house where its owner lives. “You can’t love him,” she weeps. “You can’t, you just can’t!”

“Did you love them?” I whispered to the dog under my porch. “Did you sit in rain storms and cry for them to bring you inside? Did you love the belt they used on you? Did you lick their hands when they were done?”

Her ember eyes (brown with gold flecks, I saw for a moment), met mine and she started drinking the water in earnest. I moved the flashlight beam to see if I could make out what was etched on her collar tag but her head was too low.

“I’ll do what I can for you, if you’ll let me.” I reached toward her again; she lunged, snarling, jaws snapping. I jerked back and up and slammed my skull against one of the pipes. The world went supernova before my eyes, and by the time the pain had fully registered I was staggering to my feet behind the trash cans. Gripping my head, I dropped the flashlight and teetered against the largest can, knocking it over and falling on top of it. The supernova faded into the light of a single star rolling back and forth, back and forth, slowing as the universe imploded, slowing, then lay there glaring at me.

I got to my knees and grabbed the flashlight, turned off the starlight, and stumbled into the house. Maybe dogs preferred to die the same way as elephants: alone, in some private place, with darkness as their benign, final, best friend.

My chest hitched and my throat constricted. God knows I wanted to cry for both her and the old man, but I couldn’t. Dad:
Crying’s for girls, boy
. Mom:
Don’t let anyone see you like this, I’ll never hear the end of it from your father
.

Water.

Beating down as hard as possible.

Let her drink it, let it cleanse me.

* * *

Fifteen minutes later I stood in the kitchen, dressed in clean clothes. The water had been hot to the point of inflicting damage. I’d scrubbed at my hands, arms, and chest until the skin was raw but even now I could still feel the old man’s blood on me. My flesh was raw and pink and still held a sheen from the water. I’d never looked as clean, but the blood was still there, somewhere under the skin, becoming a part of me, linking me to his image, the absurdity of his last moments, and now his corpse which lay in some cold basement draining out into the corner holes of a silver table.

I pulled the folding step-stool out from the pantry and set it firmly in place, then climbed up and opened one of the highest cabinet doors, fishing around toward the back until I found the old and (for many years now) unused bottle of Johnny Walker Black. This was a masochistic little ritual I performed on those rare occasions when my nerves got the better of me despite my insisting otherwise: take out the temptation and stare it in the face and see if you’re still made of something. I am not one who believes that the best way to overcome temptation is to expunge its source from your universe. No, to me, temptation can only be overcome when it becomes boring, trivial, commonplace, and the best way to make it mundane is to always have it near and
remind
yourself that it’s near. Makes it easier to hold it in your grip and not caress it as you would the hand of a lover, take a good look at it and give it a good look at you, then smile to yourself because you’ve won and cache it away again until the next time your nerves don’t get the better of you.

Don’t let anyone tell you that recovering alcoholics live well and happily never wanting a taste again; you
never
don’t want a drink, and eventually that becomes easier to deal with—it’s when you begin to think that the drink wants
you
that it’s time to dust off that sponsor’s number and put your pride in check.

I looked at Johnny W., he looked at me, and pretty soon (despite the old man’s blood soaking deeper into my core) we decided we’d had enough of each other’s delightful company. He went his way, I went mine, and the folding step stool slipped back into its place wondering why in the hell I’d bothered it in the first place.

I opted for a cup of hot chocolate. Powdered instant. Domestically, I have grown slightly complacent in my middle age. And why not? We’re born into a nearly-ruined world, so the best we can do is make ourselves as comfortable as possible whenever we have the chance; the easier it is to do so, the better. Sometimes. Not always. Just sometimes. Let my epitaph read:
Here Lies
Gil Stewart
;
Don’t Look At Me
—
It Was Already Broke When I Got Here
.

I wandered into the living room, sipping happily away at my yummy Swiss Miss, and began to sit on the sofa when a pair of bright headlight beams drifted across my window, followed by an even brighter and more intensely-focused light. I pulled back the curtain to see a large grey vehicle shaped like an old bread-delivery truck crawl past my house, its driver sweeping the street with a hand-held searchlight. The truck stopped and the driver killed all lights. It took my vision a moment to adjust afterward—the light had shone directly in my face at one point—and by the time I could focus clearly the driver was out of the truck and looking in my yard. It was already dark so I wondered how he could see. Assuming it was Animal Control (who’d finally found someone to come over this way), I put down my mug and grabbed a coat from the hall tree so I could go out and talk to him. I was just releasing the deadbolt on the front door when I took another glance outside.

He adjusted a strap on something he’d put on his face, reached up, and hit a switch between his eyes. It wasn’t actually between his eyes, of course, but that’s how it looked. I caught a flash of a small green light glowing where the bridge of his nose should be and realized that he’d just donned and activated a pair of night-vision goggles. I wondered if they were Starlight technology like the scopes soldiers used in Vietnam. I wondered how expensive they were and how Cedar Hill Animal Control could afford such high-tech gear.

An SUV came around the corner, its headlights shining on high, enabling me to read the name on the side of the truck.

It wasn’t Animal Control, and it sure as hell wasn’t the pound.

But I recognized the name, nevertheless.

My legs began to buckle, my chest felt tight, and my heart once again tried to squirt through my ribs; my breath came up short, and I knocked over the mug of hot chocolate, burning the hell out of my foot as I pressed my back against the wall and slid to the floor, a hand over my mouth.

But there was nothing wrong, I knew this.

It had just been One of Those Days, that was all.

The old man, the dog, the package from Beth.

Just One of Those Days.

Had nothing to do with what was written on the side of the truck—though whatever was trying to find the light switch in my brain did let fly with a wary “
Huh
?”

Maybe it was the hot chocolate. Maybe the old stomach wasn’t up for that tonight—a practical joke courtesy of Johnny W.

It couldn’t have anything to do with the way the driver had acted, or his night-vision goggles, or anything at all with the way he’d been dressed: Steed from
The Avengers
, an enigmatic dapper fellow from a Magritte, or an old man dying on the highway. Suit, shoes, tie, right down to the derby.

I scratched behind my ear. My left shoulder began to throb—a thoughtful souvenir from an old mishap—so I rubbed it, my index finger lingering on the flat round knot of puckered scar tissue.

I held my breath, listening to his footsteps as Magritte-Man made his way up the walk to one side of the front porch before turning around and going back to his truck. I continued holding it until the sound of his engine faded into cricket-song and streetlight buzz. When I finally allowed myself to exhale, everything inside me became miasmal and dissipated into the twilight. My eyes closed of their own volition as my finger brushed the scar again, and I remember thinking that I should always remember to treasure this scar, because if it hadn’t been for this, I never would have met Beth....

The Words With Which To Name

“...
This is where they keep the dead people
.”

Two months before my tenth birthday, my aunt Amy, who was then eighteen, invited me to go with her to visit one of her friends who was away at college. Aunt Amy usually took me out at least once every two weeks—a movie and pizza, then shopping at the seemingly endless supply of record stores in Columbus (usually near or on the OSU campus). Even then, people twice my age were aware that when it came to contemporary music—be it rock, folk, progressive (“prog,” to those of us in the know), even crossover jazz like John McLaughlin and the Mahavishnu Orchestra, this little geek from Cedar Hill was The Kid to Ask. Whenever Amy was going to have a party and wanted the music to be perfect, she’d come to me to help her record tapes. The deejays at Stereo Rock 92 had nothing on me when it came to instant recall of who played in what band and on what label and when.