Walking the Dog (19 page)

A MEETING IS PLANNED

I got back to the halfway house after walking ten dogs, and Elisheva stood several feet away on the sidewalk. She had on very high heels and a black, clinging dress that went to her calves. Her silver necklaces made of mezuzahs, Jewish stars, tchotchkes, miniature scrolls of scripture, and rabbinic circles added to an exotic presence that reminded me of photographs of Moroccan Berber women I'd seen in coffee-table books in Rizzoli's. I'd gone there one day because I wanted to feel real books in my hands, books about art history, books about painters, outsider artists. But when I reached the bookstore that held all those colorful, thick, oversized, shimmery books, I couldn't touch them. I couldn't read the names or take in the covers, which almost always displayed the artists' most famous works. A hypermantra circled in my groggy inner ears: “I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.” And for the first time, I experienced a remote ache having something to do with the colors, textures, and what might have been the soul I'd betrayed.

I pushed myself to the photography section and bent my head over all the African and Indian display books. “I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.” The photography soothed me slightly because it was of all kinds of people who perhaps had faults too: chiefs, warriors, shamans, wives, grandmothers, farmers,
workers. An array of human beings, and some must've ruined their lives as well. It was there that I saw the cover of a book about Middle Eastern jewelry and, on the cover, there was a Berber woman weighted down with silver, amber, and beads. Her eyes were lined with kohl. The picture was old so it was in black and white, but this made the woman's face more stark and mysterious. I also thought of the Russian poetess, Anna Akhmatova, who had the same strong, self-possessed profile.

Akhmatova had survived Stalin's purge after having lost her husband and son and had all her work censored, if not burned. When I was allowed to order books from the library at Clayton, I read her poems until I could paint the words. Ancient swirls, murderous storms, red hands of blood, and many, many profiles of strong women who had met with disaster but survived. And as I remembered Akhmatova, I thought to myself that Elisheva had the beauty, guts, and madness to rescue a generation. It was an exaggeration, but I felt moved when I looked at her half-mystic, half-tortured, bright young-woman presence. I wondered what it would be like to grow up in a world that was potentially good when my world had been measured by what could be stolen and who could get away.

I called out to Elisheva. She stopped and I noticed that, for a brief moment, she had trouble looking me in the eye. I could hardly blame her given what she'd read about me. Her smile was nervous, but genuine.

“Looking good, Carleen,” she said. “You have a mountain climber's tan.”

“And you look like a princess from the Sahara,” I said.

Elisheva's grin grew, but I could tell she was still uncomfortable.

“Shall we walk?” I asked.

“Absolutely.” Her voice had a false bravado.

“Or find somewhere to sit by the river?”

She sighed.

“A bench would restore my faith in God.”

We flopped down as soon as we were in a slightly better neighborhood.

“Why do you wear those shoes?” I asked. “You're a tall woman as is.”

Elisheva shrugged. “It's what's chic.”

She did a phony French-model gesture with her arms. I think they call it
voguing
. “I have to convince my clients' rich parents that, not only do I know Torah, but I can also dress up to their Saks Fifth Avenue standards.”

“You look like a French spy,” I said. This pleased her.

We remained silent for quite a while.

“I had to edit the shit out of it,” Elisheva finally said.

“I know, I got carried away,” I replied.

“Maybe it was good to . . . write . . . all that down.” My poised scholar couldn't find her usual glib phrases.

“No, it wasn't,” I informed her. “I've had to write it down time after time for official psychiatrists. Talk it into tape recorders. Fill out forms. I didn't need journaling.”

“I'm sorry,” Elisheva looked down, “to have made you do it again.”

“No, no,” I said. “I'm just curious if anything comes of it.”

Elisheva sat with her long white hands on her knees and bit her lip.

“Well, you know,” she started, “translating even the minor crimes into Hebrew was a bitch. I tried to keep it simple without commentary. A list—just like she wanted. She wasn't so interested in the shoplifting, which I was afraid of her emulating. She wanted to know more about the “minyan” of the Terrartists. She couldn't understand, thank the dear Lord, why
you chose Miko over Leonard. We had a lengthy discussion over whether, in fact, you were a murderer. What constituted killing someone and how responsible you might have been for the death of the policemen. I left out everything about Powell and your own physical torture. She'll learn enough about violence soon enough. She asked if you had a motorcycle now, and I told her you weren't allowed to drive. She asked if you still painted. I didn't know. I don't know. Do you?”

“I'm trying to regain flexibility in my fingers,” I lied. I'd never stopped painting. It just took on different forms.

Elisheva remained stiff, somewhat afraid.

“She said you sounded like a very mixed-up person, and not very nice,” Elisheva confessed quietly.

“She's not wrong,” I admitted. “I'm a real criminal. But there are limits and I shocked myself. I'm attracted to destructive mischief. But truly I would kill myself a hundred times over rather than have those cops die, because I really didn't want those guns that day.”

Elisheva listened intently.

“Here's the weird thing,” I said. “I have rarely wished evil on anyone, but I've never wished anyone well.”

Was that true?

Elisheva stared down at her nails. “If only I had a quote from the Talmud or a Yiddish joke.” She tried her best.

“And you shouldn't talk to me anymore,” I said firmly. “I don't want the responsibility of you getting in trouble and the blame landing on my back.”

Elisheva grinned. “It's cool,” she replied. “I think it's a mitzvah because Batya Shulamit wants another communication from you.”

I felt an annoying lift in my spirits. It was a lift the size of a mosquito and I had to acknowledge it.

“She has two requests,” Elisheva continued.

“I feel like I'm on some mythological quest,” I said with a sigh. “You must cut off the head of the raptor, steal the belt of Hera, or buy Park Avenue.”

“Like Monopoly,” Elisheva joked. “My new boyfriend and his brothers play it all the time and I always win. I might go to business school because I'm really good at organizing, knowing when to save and then”—
skraa!
(she made the sounds and gestures of a tiger)—“knowing when to leap. He's such a bad sport. I don't think I can get serious with a man who won't speak to me because I beat him at Monopoly.”

“Doesn't sound very feminist on his part,” I said, trying to shift into her gear.

“Don't ask what's happened to feminism. It's been sucked up by a bog like in
Peer Gynt
, never to be seen again.”

“Elisheva,” I was anxious, “I'm sorry—but can we get started?”

She blushed. “No, I'm sorry. You're just the most adult person I've ever met. There's no child in you.”

I didn't want to pursue it.

“The first thing is that Batya Shulamit wants to know everything that you stole. With specificity. Especially when you were young. And the second is she wants to make a date where you can sit on opposite benches somewhere and just look at each other from a safe distance without talking. Just for ten minutes or so. Nothing weird. I think she just wants to take more of you in without the obligation of conversing.”

This was some strange girl, Pony Batya Shulamit. I shouldn't let her play games with me. I was wrong to let it go too far.

“Look,” I said to Elisheva. “I hate this thing of you being Tiresias the messenger, and I'm ending it after this. So here goes: No—I will not tell her what I stole, and please explain why. They were my secrets. They were impulses. They have no
meaning now, and, most importantly, my brain does tricks on me and I don't remember most of the cities or states I went to, much less the trinkets I pocketed. And if there's even one chance that she is getting intrigued by this little past hobby of mine, you tell her father. She can't take one step down my path. It's a sickness, you understand?”

Elisheva's face went white.

“Why are you so afraid of me?” I'd become frustrated and impatient.

“You're a convicted murderer for Christ's sake,” Elisheva shot back. “I've never even known a jaywalker before.”

She was smart. She had attitude. She could handle me.

“Now listen. I'll agree to this bizarre Shakespearian face-off at the OK Corral, but that's it. After this, I'm going to put in another petition to visit her, and if she and her father turn me down that's the end of it all.”

“Look, it's not me,” Elisheva was practically in tears. “Aliza Lavie's book of prayer says that a daughter and mother should cleave together like a flower, and as the petals of the elder dry up and fly away, the young one stands in her place with all the color of their joined roots.”

“Are you like that with your mother?”

“Hell no,” Elisheva snapped back. She reconsidered. “Really? At the bottom of things, yes. There's just a lot that gets in the way. A lot of missed signals. And we are two freight trains in opposite directions. We crash in the day-to-day shit. So that makes us totally drive each other insane.”

She paused again.

“But only sometimes. You should see her,” she said proudly. “She looks younger than you!”

I closed my eyes and tried to remember what I looked like at thirty, or even forty. I couldn't hold a picture in my brain.

Elisheva blushed. “But you look like genuine downtown.”

“How are we going to pull off this staring contest?” I asked. “Are we going up to the Empire State Building like in some movie she saw?”

“Starbucks,” Elisheva said. “She's allowed to drink coffee there and to study on her computer.”

“She's eleven!” I shouted indignantly.

“It's right near her house. She's picked the one on Broadway near Bleecker and Great Jones Street.”

“And I'm just supposed to sit there?”

“No, you can read or even sketch. Just find a seat and stay awhile.”

“What if it's too crowded?” I found myself buying into their preteen
Law & Order
spy game.

“We'd like to do this Sunday afternoon. It's not so crowded, and sometimes if Leonard's screaming at some football game, we go there to study.”

“Leonard watches sports?” I almost laughed.

“He loves football. He says it's modern dance.”

“I'm glad he sees that much in it,” I said. “He probably just likes football and is embarrassed by his middle-class distraction.” I paused. We were both uncomfortable. “What time is my viewing to take place?” I asked.

“If you don't mind, at 3:00 p.m. Batya Shulamit has Hebrew school up until then.”

“She has Hebrew school
and
you?” I asked. This was a bit too much Jewishness for me.

“I'm preparing her for bat mitzvah and teaching her the stories and meanings of the Talmud,” Elisheva said proudly. “She wants a truly meaningful bat mitzvah. Not just a huge party and teen dancing.”

I didn't see what was wrong with a party and dancing, but I kept my vow of silence when it came to Judaics.

“Are you going to be at Starbucks?”

“She's not allowed to go alone.”

“So you're going to watch the two of us stare each other down. Should we bring binoculars?”

“You're not taking this seriously enough.” I could sense Elisheva felt interrogated. She was nervous. “She has very deep instincts. She wants to get a sense of your aura.”

“In Starbucks?” I laughed. I tried to understand. But who was I to judge an eleven-year-old girl born in a maximum security prison and brought up in a conservative upper-middleclass home, who wanted to respect her ancient roots as Batya, the Egyptian princess and sex goddess who saved babies from the Nile?

“It's a date,” I said.

TAKING ON CHARLIE TIMMS

I got my second permission slip to leave Manhattan with the new ankle apparatus on. I decided to go back to Charlie Timms's rehab. I would be accompanied by Snuzzles the Wonder Dog. We'd breezed through the training for him to become an assistance dog, and this would be his first gig. He had his usual spiky spaniel Muppet appearance, only this time I had to wiggle him into a coat that was yellow and had the appropriate patches that verified he was a dog who could go anywhere under any circumstances, even the Condé Nast lunchroom, which Tina said had the best buffet in town. I knew Timms would curse and carry on when he saw Snuzzles, but I'd specifically trained the dog for hyper schizophrenics, angry homeless people, and wild kids. He'd fake a mellow, subservient mode and once the person calmed down he'd go into his ridiculous tricks. If things got too hot, we had signals. Either retreat or attack. Attack was against Snuzzles's philosophy, but we played a game where I'd hold a mirror in front of his face and teach him to snarl. My snarl was worse than his, but it would work to chill a hostile, aggressive creep.

I checked in at the desk at the VA facility, and they verified all Snuzzles's and my credentials. The woman at the reception rubbed him and took kisses and went through the
ooh
and
ahh
repertoire.

“He's so ugly,” one woman said. “He's like a bunch of pillows and plants stuck together.”

“I think he's beautiful,” said another. She was heavyset and had a huge cross around her neck. “He's a little mixed up on the outside, but Jesus is in him.”

I gave a signal and Snuzzles jumped up on his back legs and put his front paws together in a position of prayer.

“He's making fun of me.” The woman sounded hurt. Snuzzles jumped into her lap, despite his fifty pounds, put his front legs around her neck, and licked her on the lips.

“That's the most action I've got in ages,” she sighed.

My heart sped up when I went into the rec room. They said they'd call Charlie and see if he'd come out. I waited about twenty minutes and then, before I could focus, a wheelchair nearly ran me over. Snuzzles, to my surprise, snarled out of instinct, a regular threatened dog.

Charlie Timms appeared somewhat thinner than the first time we'd met. He still had strong muscles, but there were circles under his eyes and a yellowish tinge to his skin. He looked past me at Snuzzles.

“What is this?” he snarled. “The Salvation Army? Puppies for paraplegics? You really had the balls to come back here again? I told you, you'd have to suck my dick.”

“And I told you I'd do it,” I said.

“So what's with that deranged mutt?” Charlie asked.

“He's gonna film it,” I replied.

“Come over here,” he said to Snuzzles.

Snuzzles went into his not-too-perky-but-obedient mode.

Charlie used his good arm to mess up Snuzzles's fur.

“You sure are ugly,” he said to the dog. Then he looked up at me. “But then so are you.”

“Modeling has never been one of my ambitions,” I remarked.

Charlie's whole body dove into a thick, heavy cough. It
went on for so long I thought I'd have to get the nurse. Then he stopped, and wheezed as if his lungs were pulling on a defective motor.

“Is it the dog?” I asked.

“Asshole,” he hissed. “You nearly had me killed, but you get all soft about allergies. It's not allergies. I been sick. Pneumonia and shit. When the body don't have all its parts working you don't got the immune system. So you get a cold and then right away pneumonia or TB.”

“Can I do anything?”

“You did it all already, sister. You can lick my ass.”

Charlie seemed too tired to keep up with his discharge of curses. This troubled me. I needed his venom. I needed to fight against all that hate.

“Does this mutt do anything?” he asked. “Or just sit around looking like a giant mosquito. Otherwise I want you to get the fuck out of here and stop coming for your perverse NA ‘I'm sorrys.'”

“He does tricks,” I answered.

“Guys!” he shouted.

A bunch of young, old, beat-up, dying, healing vets trickled into the rec room. The wheelchairs and transfusion racks, the stumps, prostheses, scars, and blind eyes crowded around. Most of the guys sneered. I stood straight, but inside I blacked out.

“Hey bitch,” I heard Charlie's voice. “Get your act on. Guys, this is the cunt who got Georgey and Luke killed, did what she did to me, and brought a dog to do some tricks to make it all go away.” There was a chorus of “fuck yous” and “get outs,” the usual.

Snuzzles lay down and put his paws over his ears.

“Hey, look,” a voice said, “the mutt don't like our language.”

“I got an idea,” Charlie said. “Why don't you fuck the dog here and we'll watch.”

There were lots of cheers.

Snuzzles got up, slunk over to me, sniffed my body, including my butt and between my legs, shook his head no, and walked away.

The vets cheered.

“There's a dog who knows a real hag-whore when he meets her,” Charlie smirked.

There was a pause.

With minimal signals I took Snuzzles through a routine we'd planned for the guys. It included new flips and circles, and we'd added in some semblance of belly dancing and humping. The guys liked it, but Charlie started coughing again and it silenced the hilarity. Snuzzles went up to Charlie and lay his head on his lap. Charlie smacked him on the top of the head and said, “Get the fuck away.” It took every lesson I'd learned in all my years of anger management not to run over and tip him out of his wheelchair and kick him in his broken back. Snuzzles lifted his paw as if to do a high five. The group began gently laughing again.

“Shut up!” Charlie yelled at the group.

“Listen, Carleen Kepper,” he said. “This has been a very therapeutic visit and all, but what the fuck do you want from me?”

“I don't want anything,” I said. “I just wanted to visit you.”

“Hey, look at her ankle,” someone said. “Get a screwdriver and get it off. Security will call the cops.”

“Let the bitch go back to jail,” a voice came from the dispersing crowd.

Charlie appeared tired, but in a different way. His rage had softened. That's what Snuzzles did.

“I'll go now,” I said, and Snuzzles walked quickly to my side.

I was halfway out when Charlie pulled up behind me.

“Look. Don't be coming here for forgiveness. There is no such thing. I don't forgive myself for living when the other guys had to die. I don't think their parents forgive me, either. My parents don't forgive me for becoming a cop instead of going to technical college. I don't forgive my wife 'cause she left me 'cause I wouldn't give her babies. If there's forgiveness from the grave, it's all a story you make up. There's no forgiveness. Did Adam forgive Eve? You bet your ass not. So stop thinking I'm going to forgive you because of dog tricks and shit.”

He looked away from me. The speech had taken up valuable breaths. He was wheezing.

“I never came here expecting you to forgive me,” I said.

“Then why the fuck did you come?” Charlie asked.

“I told you, I came to visit you,” I said. And Snuzzles and I pushed our way out the heavy glass door to the waiting car.