Walking the Dog (9 page)

THE ASSIGNMENT

The halfway house was a sorority of damaged women with hope. It was fascinating to watch who was crawling out of her individual hole and who couldn't summon the energy or will to do anything but get sent back. Seña found a permanent position at a Korean beauty salon and specialized in nail designs. She offered to get me a job, but my hands weren't made for such miniature, delicate work. I was bereft when she got her release.

I was sitting in my room trying to concentrate on a book about dog grooming. I figured if I was a fully equipped walker, one of those multitudes of new places that had sprung up might hire me. Doggy Day Care seemed to be a new enterprise that had come about because most families had both parents working: holding down two jobs in technology, fashion, design, architecture, law, publishing, medicine—with odd hours, no lunch break, and too much socializing for proper dog care. People were opening coffee shops and boutique clothing stores. Everyone was working hard. Holding on to the edge of the recession like a cliff. People were impelled to travel more. New York could only be the base from which they spread their products and expertise to smaller brand-name satellites. The economy had imposed a kind of vocational ADD.

But certain businesses flourished, and the Doggy Day Care grooming enterprise seemed to be one. I thought maybe I could get away from Hubb and land a position at Dogs' Love, Pet House, Best Pets, Puppy Palace, Darling Dogs, or some other disgustingly named enterprise. A steady paycheck might ease my anxiety and I could stop popping the pills I was downing like Tic Tacs.

I was reading about the undercoat of certain breeds when a scratchy voice called out, “Kepper—visitor.” I froze. I'd learned to expect the worst: A phony story about my conduct. A drug test. A trip to the lawyer's office. The news of a death. A false occupation. A wrongful identification in a major crime. I'd seen it all happen. Once you'd been an outsider from the day-to-day world, you were never safe—freedom had a chip attached to it.

But when I snuck into the visitors' area (check out the enemy before they gain sight of you), I saw a stunning princess in her late twenties. She was tall and thin. Her black hair hung straight and shiny to her waist. The color of her skin was white and clean like a model in a soap commercial. She wore a simple black dress that went to her calves and fit her, not too baggy, but not so tight that you could call her sexy. Her face was the most striking thing about her. She had a beak for a nose, but it was birdlike—stunning. Full lips with light, tasteful lipstick and large brown eyes, almost almond in shape, lined with kohl. She was wealthy and radiant and most definitely Jewish.

She had an easy confidence. If I were a girl in a halfway house being stared down by women resembling truck drivers and whores, I'd twitch or bite a nail. But she stood serene. I knew immediately that she was Pony's tutor, and the only thing that stopped me from going straight back to my room was that she was wearing cowboy boots. Shiny. Expensive.
But still cowboy boots. So she clearly wasn't a total rabbi's emissary. I was ashamed because I was wearing a long-sleeved T-shirt with two huge flannel shirts on top and baggy, ripped jeans and motorcycle boots. It was one of my dog walking outfits. My hair was still black with white and gray stripes. It was thick and long and hung all over my face to hide my scars and identity. I hated her. Nonetheless, I feigned disinterest and walked toward her.

“Hey,” I said.

She jumped a little, which relaxed me, but when her beautiful eyes inspected me, they immediately took everything in. I knew I came off like a hardened, bitchy, sarcastic con. I saw pain in her eyes, not pity.

“I'm Elisheva,” she said. “Batya Shulamit's tutor.”

“I figured that out,” I said.

“I thought we should meet.” She held out a long, smooth white hand. I realized how rough and arthritic my own hands were, particularly my right. I'd creamed them and repeated grueling exercise after grueling exercise to maintain a wounded painter's grace. Not the product of a spa, but I held out what I perceived was still a strong woman's hand anyway. The shake was short, but she didn't seem to be fearful of catching leprosy.

I led her to the back of the visitors' room. Luckily, no one was watching reruns of
Wheel of Fortune
or
American Idol
. The TV was on, but no sound came from it. Harriet, a small white imp with a bleached crew cut, was curled in one of the torn vinyl Salvation Army love seats. She'd been a crack addict and mule for her boyfriend, a bass player in what they'd called an “alternative rock” band. I liked the term but wasn't sure I recognized the style. One of my first purchases upon release had been an old-time clock radio to make sure I'd always be up and know what to wear for walking the dog. I didn't listen to
music. The young voices and their passion tore into me, and reminded me of the emotional fire that had been stomped out. I devoured the news. I always had. I needed to know who was who and what they believed, what the usual never-changing white men owned, and destroyed, in the name of what morals and dreams.

Harriet stayed in her chair a sufficient amount of time and then dashed out. We have unspoken rules for situations like these, and she knew I'd pay her back later with a candy bar or cigarettes. I was afraid for this immaculately groomed girl. Lice. Fleas. Bedbugs. But I led her to the donated leather couch and sat away from her. Now she seemed a bit more on edge, but covered it very well by feigning interest in the mossy, drab visitors' lounge.

“I don't know your purpose,” I said.

“I've been trying to figure out what to tell you.”

“Yeah”—I could've said yes—“I get it, Ms. Tutor. You could get fired.”

“Fired isn't half of it,” she spoke quickly now, more like a teenager. “If Leonard ever found out I came here, he wouldn't just fire me. He'd call B'nai Shalom, which is where I get most of these gigs, and tell them I was not to be trusted and shouldn't be allowed to tutor their kids anymore. And he'd spread the word down the jeweled JCC train track and all my recommendations would dry up.”

I was weary, barely curious as to why she'd come to meet me. She was not some uptight yeshiva girl with ugly hair and a floor-length knit skirt, but I didn't want to waste hope just because she didn't fit the stereotype.

“I know your name is that of a Jewess.”

“Well, Beth is what half the people in my life call me. Elisheva is the Jewish translation. I prefer to be called Elisheva.”

I sighed, “Elisheva.”

She looked down at her hands and breathed deeply as if she'd learned the exercise in drama class to gain equilibrium. I now knew a similar technique, but for me it just brought so much emptiness that I was filled with an ache.

Finally Elisheva spoke.

“Do you know what tikkun olam is?” she asked.

Now's the pitch, I thought. I was about to lean back on the musty couch, close my eyes, and wave her away when I caught a glimpse of her eyes. There was nothing preachy about them. She was asking me a question.

“Yeah,” I said, bored.

Elisheva sensed my wave of hostility. She moved away an inch. She became less of a teenager and transformed a little more into the ancient, serene woman I'd seen at the door.

“Look,” she said, “I'm not here to ‘Jew' you.” She flipped her mane to the side as if worried I might hit her. “I didn't talk to anybody,” she whispered. “I swear, no one. I'm totally on my own.”

“I believe you,” I said. She had the touch of the dramatic about her.

“But I must admit, in full disclosure, that I've read everything—absolutely everything—I could read about you.” Her confession was a bit noble.

“I didn't think after the arrest there'd be much to read.” I was beginning to feel a little paranoid. Stalked by a yeshiva student.

“Oh my God, you don't know? There's over a hundred listings on Google alone and page after page after page of blog entries. Not just on your art. But on the ethics of your prison term. And then there's that Powell jail where you almost got killed. Dozens of blog posts on the justice system. They may close down the women's facility.”

I closed my eyes. My arthritis was knotting up from sitting too long. My knees and wrists especially.

“Tikkun olam,” I reminded her.

“I'm sorry,” she said. “This is a very difficult trip for me.”

White girl problems, I thought. In the pen anything less than a double suicide is a white girl problem.

“I think Batya Shulamit needs to know you,” Elisheva said.

“She wants nothing to do with me. And she's guarded like Princess Diana,” I snapped.

Elisheva stood her ground. “She's eleven. She's brilliant. She's a deeply spiritual soul. But she doesn't know what the fuck she wants.”

I was beginning to like this Elisheva.

I stood up.

“Look,” I said. “I have dogs to walk. I can't ever be late. I have to take off in about five minutes. You can't walk with me because one of Leonard's secret agents might see you. But I appreciate your concern or whatever it is.”

She stood up quickly, stopping me from running off.

“There's a practicality to this,” she said. “She has a list of questions about your crimes she wants you to answer before she decides what to do next.”

“I thought she wanted to black me out,” I replied.

“Something changed. I don't know what,” Elisheva explained. “I'm not her shrink. I'm her Hebrew teacher. And I'm preparing her for her bat mitzvah. Once in a while, she lets down that proper lady pose and acts like an eleven-year-old. She's brilliant when she's not snubbing all mankind. She writes beautifully too. Fantasy. Science fiction. Her English teacher wants to enter one of her stories in a Scholastic writing contest, but she refused. She's not really a happy girl.”

Something like guilt poured over the plaster of paris carving
I lived in. I was a George Segal statue. I was white and hard. There was no sky above me. But a wisp of a cloud blew by, and an unrecognizable feeling rushed through me.

“She asked me to give you an assignment,” Elisheva said, looking away from me.

“She wants you to write down everything about your criminal life, from the start of the first crime to the last. She wants to know everything you did without any excuses or long explanations. She'd like you to number them. Make a list.”

I laughed for the first time in weeks.

“That's cold,” I answered.

“She needs to know your interpretation of events. All she knows is what's on the Internet and what Leonard explained to her. Leonard has encouraged her to forget you. In fact, he's pretty much ordered her to. He's a mensch, but weird when it comes to you.”

Elisheva suddenly became all business.

“Here's our plan. You write your list in English. I will translate your list into Hebrew, and she can read your answers from my translations. I will try to be as accurate as possible and then burn the English so no one ever knows.”

“Sounds like you've been watching a lot of CSI,” I said.

“This was entirely Batya Shulamit's idea. She said it would also help her modern Hebrew. She wants to go to Israel on that Birthright fellowship.”

I was suddenly back in Clayton again. Doing bizarre assignments to work through my brain damage and save my life. I hadn't blocked out the past, but I didn't want to visit it in alphabetical order.

“She asks that you tell the absolute truth.”

This irked me.

“Tell Batya Shoodoopbeedoo that I was savagely beaten—
no don't tell her that. Tell her that sometimes I can't remember facts exactly as they are. Not after twenty-five years. No one can.”

“She could. She has a photographic memory.”

“But she wasn't in New England twenty-five years ago, and she wasn't a witness.”

Tikkun olam.

“Let me think about it,” I hesitated.

Tears brimmed in Elisheva's perfectly lined eyes. I was shocked. I felt badly about messing up her makeup.

“This isn't going like you thought?” I asked.

She sniffed. Another breakdown of the Queen of Sheba's perfect face.

“I come from Jewish tradition, family is the core of life and motivation. I thought you'd jump at the idea to communicate with Batya Shulamit because she's your birth daughter and meeting her last time was so terrible. I thought a healing could begin. I risked my career for it.”

She paused.

“No, I'm sorry for mentioning my career. Good deeds should be done for the deeds themselves. The Talmud says the breaking of a word or a promise is acceptable if the outcome of the untruth brings true grace to all parties involved.”

I smiled at her. I didn't know what the fuck she was talking about.

“You're one beautiful, complicated young woman,” I said. “Do you have a boyfriend?”

She rolled her eyes.

“Too many. If you only knew. According to my parents, I should have finished rabbinical school by now and be married and on my way to a second son.”

“They sound as unrealistic as you and what's her name.”

Elisheva grinned. “You're teasing me. I haven't found the husband of my dreams. I've found sections lodged in separate guys, but that's about it.”

“It's good you're picky,” I said. “When you refer to Pony's unhappiness . . . what are you talking about?” I stopped myself. “No, never mind. No more. No more talk.” I closed the subject. I put my crone's hand over her smooth white one. “I'll think about it.”

“What do I tell her?” Elisheva seemed genuinely distressed. She slipped her hand from beneath mine and ran her manicured fingers through her perfectly shiny, brushed mane.

“Tell her you couldn't find me,” I said.

“I don't lie,” Elisheva said simply and unpretentiously.