Scarecrow Gods (37 page)

Instead of dejection, the coon hound revelled in the chase. The rabbit was small enough where three or four great gulps would end its existence. Certainly not an equitable payoff for such an expenditure of energy. No, it was the thrill and the experience of turbo-charged life and death that made it all worthwhile. Even if the rabbit escaped, the hound would lope away in search of some cool water, its mind not on what it had lost, but on what was to come.

Such were the ways of the animals. Retribution, jealousy and revenge were emotions not of the animal kingdom. And for the dog especially, it seemed that fun was the watchword, for if the chase wasn’t fun, the dog wouldn’t even consider it. This was what made the pairing of Danny and the hound so perfect. Perpetual children, dogs lived for the moment, never considering the eventuality of defeat or the probability of danger.

Danny watched through the bright eyes of the hound as the rabbit dodged down a steep embankment, disappearing into the underbrush. The dog slowed, but Danny insinuated the need for speed. Contrary to its natural inclinations, the dog propelled itself down the perilous embankment. Each blind leap was a practice in faith as the thick, tangled vines that lay along the ground could easily camouflage a hole, broken glass, jutting rock or predator.

The coon hound made it safely to the bottom, more the result of luck than any skill possessed by Danny. There was no sign of the quarry—nary a weed moved. Except for the wind, the mating calls of grasshoppers and the mechanical growls of far-off traffic, the only sound was the steadily slowing beat of the dog’s own heart as it realized the chase was over. Somehow the rabbit had escaped. Forlornly, the dog stared back up the hill.

Danny could feel it deciding whether or not to sniff out the missing animal’s trail, or to give in to the growing need for some cool water to drink and dappled shadow to rest within. The hound lifted its nose, then bolted in an apparently random direction.

But it wasn’t random—Danny knew water lay in that direction. But he wasn’t ready to quit playing. He wanted to find something else to chase. He tried to exert control over the animal, but for the first time felt resistance. Danny fought his urge to dominate the dog. It was time to leave and allow the animal its freedom. With a thought he found himself once again in
The Land of Inside-Out
, soaring in his two-dimensional form.

Maxom’s vision of the world was one that Danny only partially shared. Through practice and necessity, Danny had been able to merge a more permanent template of the waking world upon the background of
The Land
. This combination created a land of lighted life upon the ghostly images of the real earthy landscape.

Maxom had laughed at first. Danny could tell the man had been ready to make fun of him. But then a change had taken place, something Danny had been seeing more often. Where before, Danny had been treated as a servant or at best a child, now, he was being treated as an equal—a partner even.

So instead of making fun of Danny’s adjustment to
The Land’s
vision, the man merely said, “Each of us has to find our own way. What’s important, I suppose, is that we know what’s available to us. That way we can pick and choose what’s best.”

That had made a great deal of sense to Danny. He remembered just that spring when he’d first learned that lesson. He’d asked for a raise in his allowance and an amazing thing had happened. His mother had said that his allowance had been cancelled. She’d said he was old enough to earn his own money. Afraid for the future of his comic book collection and his weekends at the movie theater, Danny had gone to his father. But instead of showing his mother
the light
his dad had detailed to Danny how to earn money.

Mowing lawns.

Danny remembered sitting in the cool air-conditioned comfort of their car, staring out the window and watching kids mow lawns in the heat of summer. They seemed so miserable, dirty and sweaty—slogging through ankle and sometimes knee high grass, the mower becoming clogged and constantly shutting off, panting and exhausted as they tried for the twentieth time in a row to restart the engine.

It had been a nightmare vision.

It had been an omen.

Danny became one of those kids. Kicking and screaming, he’d been introduced to the ins-and-outs of lawn mowing. It seemed as if every grown up had their own ideas about how to manicure a lawn.

Mow in the morning before the sun’s all the way up. Mow in the evening after the sun goes down. Mow in straight lines so the lawn is textured. Mow in a square sectioning off pieces of lawn to make the time pass more quickly. Mow this way. Mow that way.

Everyone was an expert. There was no way Danny could listen and obey everyone. Even though they were grown-ups, he realized what they were saying were only recommendations. They never expected him to follow blindly. They, like Maxom, expected Danny to take what he liked best and find his own way. Whether or not the grass was cut in squares, circles or triangles, it truly didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was that at the end of the day the grass was cut and Danny got paid.

Now, Danny searched
The Land
for Maxom. Most times, he could spot him, the slight blue quality of the man’s brightness separating him. Other times, he couldn’t tell any of the almost identical life pads apart. It was just so difficult. Maxom compared their differences to those of a roomful of bulbs all with slightly differing wattages.

Danny thought of searching over in Chattanooga proper, but that was off limits—Maxom had made Danny promise never to go there alone. The one time he’d hovered high enough to see the town, the illumination had almost blinded him. The town’s center was a great glowing circle. Firing off in several directions were lines of equally bright light. Like spokes of a great wheel, these disappeared over the horizon. It was a
nexus
Maxom had later told him, a place where the rivers of light joined, taking away the dead and rejuvenating the living.

Danny didn’t see Maxom, but he did spot another dog moving swiftly upon the community dock that was his favorite hangout. A pang of longing swept through him as he thought of all the hours of Marco Polo he was missing.

The dog was not alone. Two other lifepads were nearby, both human. Danny brightened. Maybe it was Tony or Doug or Clyde or Eddie. If it was one of his friends, Danny had some particular mischief in mind. Not only didn’t they know of his newfound ability, he doubted if they’d even considered the possibility.

Danny soared to the spot where the brightness of the dog’s life intersected
The Land
. He centered himself and merged into the duality, allowing himself a backseat to this canine ride. His vision immediately shifted to the three-dimensional black and white vision specific to the dog. There was some color in the dog’s vision, but the color represented no object. Rather, the swirls and tendril-like threads were the scents that tinted the world, an infinite maelstrom of chaotic color that allowed the canine a greater understanding of his environment. It’d taken Danny awhile to get used to it. The trick was to focus upon a single object, keeping others safely within his peripheral vision.

This time, like the other times when he first merged with a canine life pad, he struggled with the sensory overload. Sighting in on the dock beneath his feet, he concentrated. It took a moment, but he adjusted and soon, he was functioning fully as a four-legged, golden-haired Cocker Spaniel.

Danny felt a huge, round hairy object in his mouth. His feet were having trouble gripping the slick worn wood of the dock as he bolted the entire length towards a girl who was squatting with outstretched arms, beckoning him to hurry.

Danny felt a twinge of anxiety as his mind reacted to the very healthy, bikini-clad figure kneeling in front of him with outstretched arms, sun-tanned and beautiful. He’d seen her somewhere before, but couldn’t place her. Something about her voice…

Her long red hair lay against her skin, wet from a recent swim. Danny dropped the ball in her outstretched hand. She giggled. The dog wagged its tail. Danny added his own pleasure to the wag until the demonstrated happiness was nearly doubled. She called his name:
Goldie.
A silly, girl’s name for a dog, but he didn’t even mind it much. In fact, whenever she called the dog’s name, Danny felt a wave of pleasure course through his body.

He was having a great time. Just when he thought it couldn’t get any better she stood and hurled the ball back onto the shore. Reaching levels of elation he’d never dreamed possible the dog leapt into the air and shot back down the long dock. Within seconds, the ball was once again firmly gripped in his mouth. He held his head high and proud as he trotted across the wood. His mouth ached from the stretching. His paws were abused from the wood. But there was nothing that could stop him from playing with his master—there was nothing that could stop Danny from pleasing this girl.

Nothing except—

“Kimmie, come on and get back in the water,” came a voice Danny immediately recognized. The dog did as well and seemed to have the same feelings about Ernie as Danny did. The dog growled around the ball, the sound deeper and more guttural than the smallish dog should be able to make.

The girl ignored the boy’s call and again stretched out her arms, calling, “Goldie, Goldie. Come here boy.”

“Come on, sugar. Come in the water and join me. I got something for you.”

“I’ll bet you do,” muttered the girl, loud enough for only her and the dog to hear. She scrunched up her nose and scratched the dog behind the ear. She didn’t remove the ball though. Instead, she grabbed a bottle of lotion and began applying it to her chest and arms.

It was that motion that shocked Danny enough so the Dog dropped the ball. He remembered her now. In truth, he’d no idea how he’d forgotten her. How could he forget the magnificence of her single pink nipple poking through the wood of the dock.

“Kimmie!”

“I’ll be there in a minute,” she said over her shoulder. Finishing with her lotion, she grabbed a brush and began running it through her hair. “I don’t know why he’s so impatient, Goldie,” she said to the dog. “He’s just like a kid sometimes.”

No he isn’t. I’m a kid and I’d never treat you like that
, Danny thought to himself hard enough to make the dog bark.

Kimmie laughed. “You agree, don’t you? You think he’s as childish as I do.”

He did agree with that, and this time, the dog barked at Danny’s directive.

“Well, you and me need to stick together, then. Okay?”

Danny felt a surge of warmth flow through the dog’s system that could only be pure love. The dog leapt into her arms and began licking her face and neck. Kimmie giggled. She protested, but did nothing to push the dog away from her. Instead she hugged the animal closer.

If this is what it’s like to be a dog
, thought Danny,
then I don’t want to be a boy
.

The love was a purer sort than he’d ever felt before. Unfettered by his own emotions and ideas of what could or should be, the love was real and all for him.

“Jesus, Kimmie. I called and called. What the hell are you doing?” Ernie’s crew cut, brown-haired head appeared above the edge of the dock as he climbed the steel ladder. Next came his shoulders, linebacker broad, and covered with red acne.

His intrusion affected Kimmie like a switch. She let go of the dog and grabbed her hairbrush again. She became an automaton bringing it down through her hair repetitive and blank-staring, pretending not to have heard what was impossible for her not to hear.

Both Danny and the dog felt the loss of her attention. No sooner was the emotion stolen from them, however, then another replaced it. Where Kimmie’s love was an ethereal dream of kisses and heavy-breasted scents, this emotion promised to be a concrete nightmare of beatings and bites.

A dog’s remembrance of the day it was removed from its litter: four brothers, two sisters, they frolicked around each other as if all were different limbs of one creature. A special time where satisfaction could be found in the soft sustenance of his mother’s nipple, a place where he lay sucking until asleep. Then strange voices had intruded upon his family. Rough hands had pushed and prodded. His rear right leg was pulled as he was dragged away from his mother’s nipple.

A boy’s remembrance of his best friend Bergen in the hospital: Pallid skin covering the features of a comatose boy. Tubes and needles intruding into a body undeserving of the torture. Bergen’s mother and father weeping. Maxom’s tale of his bird’s-eye view of Greg and Ernie kicking and kicking and kicking the defenseless boy. The sounds of screams punctuated by laughter.

Danny and the dog felt each other’s emotions exponentially. Revenge and retribution, foreign ideas for the Cocker Spaniel were primed by Danny’s mind. Although the dog’s urge ended at the growl, that’s where Danny’s began. He allowed the dog to growl and added a portion of his own fury to it, making the sound loud and full of enough venom to make even Ernie pause in his ascension of the ladder.

Danny wanted to feel teeth in skin. He wanted to know what it was like to have the sharp canines pierce and seek blood—to cause pain. He felt the dog shuddering away from the idea, thousands of years of evolutionary training that man is best friend. Danny ignored the protestations and clamped down on the dog’s control. With a last bark, he launched the Cocker Spaniel at the young man.