Mad Dogs

by James Grady

  Standing between the memorial table and the ring of chairs, Russell listened to Jules say: “… should technically pull the drapes, but he loved this view. The vastness of the city. The sense of the whole universe just beyond a thin pane.”

  Russell stared at the circle of chairs. “Hey! I know how this works!”

  “Really?”

  “Oh yeah, I do this all the time.”

  I said: “Russell!”

  Jules frowned: “All the time?”

  “Two, three times a week,” said Russell. “Depending on how things are going.”

  “My God!” said Jules. “Two or three… A week! You poor man!”

  Russell led the way into the circle of chairs as Jules told him: “All that… death, and you so young.”

  “Oh man,” said Russell: “Don’t get me started. All I see behind me are bodies.”

  Night turned the wall of windows into a translucent mirror that reflected the circle of metal folding chairs. The silver-haired woman chose a chair, her therapist’s license snug in her purse as she zeroed me with her gaze and patted the seat beside her.

  Somehow I summoned the strength to hold up my pleading hand: Wait.

  I pulled Russell close: “That old woman is a shrink!”

  He shook off my feeble grasp. “Of course she is.”

  Gravity pulled me into the seat beside Dr. Yarrow Clark.

  “So much easier not to sit alone,” she purred. “Or beside a total stranger.”

  “Who’s not a stranger.” SHUT UP! DON’T TALK TO HER!

  She blinked. “What… an interesting perspective.”

  Two teachers sat beside Zane. Two chairs away sat Eric. Jules politely waited in the center of the circle. Beside Jules stood his new buddy Russell.

  “Perspective is key,” said Yarrow as Jules’s colleagues and friends filled the chairs. “I’m observing a clinic that treats immigrants who can’t be related to from an American medical perspective. It’s com-mon for Hispanics to have ataque de nervios that makes them fall on the floor, scream and cry and beat their chest. Malaysians—”

  “Won’t talk about that.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  My lips pressed shut. My head shook no.

  She shrugged. “Anyway, Malaysians have a psychosis called Latah that compels them to mimic other people. Chinese patients often fear the wind. They call that pa-fay.”

  “Pa-feng,” shot the correction from my lips.

  Dr. Yarrow Clark blinked. “Do you speak Chinese?”

  “Yes. No. Not here. Not now.”

  “Everyone!” Jules swept his arms and gaze around the circle. Russell mimicked his stance, his spread wide arms, his shushing glare.

  No Latah! I telephated a plea to Russell.

  Who told the group: “Time to start—right, Jules?”

  Russell gestured for our host to sit in a chair with his back to the wall of windows. Russell took a seat facing that wall of night with reflections trapped in its panes.

  “Thank you all for coming,” said Jules. “This isn’t how it’s normally done—”

  Russell interrupted with a wave of his hand. “Sure it is. We here, circle city, a shrink sitting over there by my man Vic—how you doin’, Doc—ready to rock.”

  “Leon…” said his father, then he swallowed. Struggled.

  “Dr. F was cool,” said Russell. “He did Group OK.”

  Zane loudly, pointedly cleared his throat.

  Russell didn’t blink.

  Our shrink’s father sighed: “Leon dying… This isn’t how it was supposed to be.”

  “Man,” Russell sighed, “what the fuck is ever like it’s supposed be?”

  The word fuck turned most of the people in the circle to stone.

  “Now,” said Russell, “where was I?”

  “Where are you?” I said. I cupped my hand over my heart and tucked my thumb out of sight. My wiggling fingers semaphored life’s four magic words: Shut the fuck up!

  “I’m here, man,” said Russell. “So are you. Everybody’s right here.”

  Hailey tried: “Except for poor Dr. Friedman.”

  “Yeah,” said Russell. “He was good. Though he kept missing what I was saying. The bathroom: Dr. F totally missed the point.”

  “Young man,” said the therapist sitting beside me. “Are you all right?”

  “You think anybody anywhere is all right? What kind of shrink are you?”

  “I’m sorry if—”

  But a wave of Russell’s hand interrupted Dr. Yarrow Clark: “No, I’m sorry.

  “Oh man, Vic!” said Russell. “I am so sorry for that bathroom. I froze. Her standing there in her bra and panties in the… the bathroom and I… I couldn’t drop her.”

  Dr. Yarrow frowned but said: “Good for you.”

  “No! What kind of world do you live in? You kick in the door, she’s standing there half naked, BOOM! Drop her hard or die stupid.”

  “What’s going on?” said one of the women teachers.

  I said: “Russ, can I see you in the kitchen?”

  “You can see me everywhere.” He pointed at the wall of windows. “Look!”

  Every eye in that living room obeyed. Saw the windows. Our reflections. The glowing skyscrapers. The dark night.

  “You can see out there and back in here, both together because it’s all trapped in the glass,” said Russell. “Like there is no time. Or place. Out there where we’re going and where we been, in here where we are, so what we see is…”

  With that view reflecting in his glasses, Eric said: “Beautiful.”

  “That’s right, man! You got it. You know. Beautiful. Right?”

  Of course Eric nodded yes.

  “White pills and red wine,” whispered Zane about Russell.

  But I shook my head. “He knows how to be stoned.”

  The oldest of Jules’s high school teacher colleagues said: “This is—”

  “You’re not the boss of IS!” boomed Russell. “I’m talking here!”

  Not an inhale. Not a fidget. We sat trapped on a circle of steel.

  “You don’t interrupt somebody when they’re talking in Group! Where you people been? Don’t you know anything? I’m trying—I’m apologizing here, so don’t interrupt me. I’m sorry, and… I’m sorry Vic, I should have whacked her.”

  “It’s OK, Russ,” I said. “It worked out.”

  Doc Call-Me-Yarrow had the courage of her therapist’s scars to say: “It’s good that you didn’t… It’s good that she didn’t… get whacked.”

  “Oh, Zane dropped her,” said Russell. “Dead accurate, she did herself. But the point is not who killed her. She’s just another body. Lots of those to go around.”

  That news brought zero comfort to the faces in our circle.

  “The point is,” continued Russell, “you can’t leave it up to somebody else to do what has to be done. Sorry about that. Things work out, but if you’re there, you’re responsible. You’re part of it. You’ve got to do something, and I didn’t, and I’m sorry.”

  “Russ,” I said, “it’s OK. And you’re—”

  “Bathroom.” His stared at the reflections in the window of who was and wasn’t there. “It was the bathroom again. That bathroom and I didn’t stop her. I couldn’t.”

  A whisper went from him to the window. “I didn’t kill that Colonel either.”

  What I saw was Russell’s expression of surprise and awe, his face of discovery.

  What I saw was motion in my peripheral vision.

  What I saw was Dr. Yarrow Clark drop her hand to her side, ease it down toward the purse under her chair, the purse that no doubt had a 911 cell phone.

  What she felt was my steel hand wrap her wrist in the Tiger’s Mouth of my thumb and forefinger so now it was he
r in the grip of power.

  One of the teacher guests at this shiva of mourning whispered: “What colonel?”

  “Colonel Herzgl, that fat fuck. I… I didn’t kill him. Should have whacked his ass before he burned the schoolhouse. You ever hear little kids burning alive? Stand there on a nice day outside the schoolhouse while they pour the gas? The smoke makes you gag. But it’s the sound that gets you. Later it’s the stench, burned flesh, but the sound… Roar of flames, you pray that the screams stop. You’re there, can’t do anything but fake a damn smile so you won’t blow your cover. Get killed. And I didn’t kill him, couldn’t rig the wire grenade booby trap and the bathroom…”

  A sobbing rasp tore through Russell. He trembled. His hands contorted in a wide grasp that found nothing to grip.

  “We’re with you,” whispered Hailey.

  “We’re here,” said Zane.

  Eric gave Russell the thumbs-up.

  Our shrink’s father flushed blood red.

  Russell saw me nod. We were way past stopping. Or caring about low profile. This moment was true and true is priceless. Russell’s moment, years coming. Dr. F would have called it a breakthrough.

  Russell slumped on his chair. Words fell from him like rain.

  “Herzgl took her from that school. She was a teacher. She had long blonde hair.

  “Herzgl grabbed her. Beat her. Little kids crying, kicked into a group. Tied her hands. Leashed her like a dog to his belt. We went outside, they poured the gas…

  “He kept her for himself for two days. Two nights. Like a toy. Like she wasn’t a person. We came to that town. Rubble crunching under our boots. Cut ropes dangling from the lampposts. The café—”

  “Victor, I don’t know about the café anymore! It was there, I was there, but…”

  “It’s OK,” I told him as Dr. Call-Me-Yarrow’s wrist twitched in my grip.

  The room’s Albert Einstein double went from red to pale. And he trembled.

  “Bathroom,” said Russell. “Herzgl takes her in there. Before he goes, he points at me, says: ‘Your turn next.’ And he drags that girl on the leash away. Into the bathroom. I know he left his music, Elvis singing that damn ‘Viva Las Vegas.’

  “Maybe half an hour crawls by. Waiting with those two torture-loving goons. Herzgl comes back. Points to me. Says: ‘Amerik, you next. Your turn now.’”

  Our host Jules began to hyperventilate.

  “What could I do?” said Russell. “I had to keep cover and be one of them. Walking away, I hear Hergzl choose which guy is next. Herzgl says we’re two hours march from a camp. He’ll give her to the camp troops until… Until forever.”

  A sigh escaped from Jules: “Oh!”

  “He strung her up from the crossbar of the bathroom stall. There’s a mirror. She can see herself. He cut her. His initials. Notches. She’s… naked. Looks at me. Brown eyes and… It’s just me and where the hell is God! It’s me and I’m responsible and I’m there and she’s… They… There’s going to be even more, even worse horror and she’ll be…

  “But it’s now. It’s then. Rolling down her cheek: one tear. All she’s got left is one tear. They’re coming in an endless line to rip that from her. I can let it happen and I can’t… can’t rescue her. Can’t stop them. And all she says is… is… ‘Help me.’”

  “I strangled her.”

  “Oh my God!” whispered a schoolteacher.

  “Her blonde hair was like lines of fire on my hands. Her skin burned like acid and she shook. Fought to die, not live and I… I couldn’t get her out of there so I strangled her to save her from more horror. In the bathroom, it was me.”

  Silence gripped the ordinary living room that had already been transformed into a mourners’ ceremony. Shock and confusion painted the faces of the civilians trapped in our circle. We sat there, welded to our chairs.

  Until Hailey stood. Walked to where Russell slouched, to where she, the raped murderer, gently cupped the face of the murderer of the raped.

  “You did the best you could,” she told Russell. “The best she could hope for. You did wrong for the right reason.”

  “Doesn’t help.”

  “But it’s true.”

  Zane said: “You escaped. That’s what matters now. You got away.”

  “No,” whispered Russell. “Not ever gone.”

  “No,” I said. “You’re right. Not ever all gone.”

  Zane pointed to the window of night. “But now it’s out there. And you’re here.”

  “Oh!” came the plaintive wail from Jules Friedman, schoolteacher, father.

  Tears burst from him and flowed down his cheeks.

  “Oh!” he cried, his ocean eyes swallowing us. “Now I know who you are!”

  26

  “Whoa! Look at the time!” I told the curve of stunned faces. I released Dr. Yarrow’s wrist—sensed she knew enough of what was what to keep cool—and bounced to my feet like a happy preacher on Easter Sunday.

  Nobody tore their eyes off me to obey my injunction about time.

  Except Eric, who checked his watch, saw Still Dark.

  Jules stared at us. Tears streamed down his cheeks to his smile.

  “Looks like now is when we say our good-byes!” I said.

  “I’m staying!” snapped Dr. Yarrow behind where I stood.

  “’Xactly,” said Zane. “Us, too. We have that thing to do. Of course, if everybody goes, who knows who else they’ll see. Or talk to.

  “Unless,” he continued, as with a signal for me, he put his hand on his shirt-covered waistband, “if we organize some kind of… new party here…”

  If we put all these strangers under our gun, made them stay put so they wouldn’t call the cops, they could become proximity casualties or Find Out Too Much. If we tied them up and tied them down, alive, they’d have a more urgent story to tell. And absolutely no way were we witness silencers.

  “Nope!” I gave the sane people in the room a grin. Got no smiles back. “Time to go home, thanks for coming, but it’s nearly pumpkin hour.”

  One teacher whispered: “What is that one talking about?”

  “Cinderella,” answered the teacher beside her. He looked at our host. “Jules?”

  Zane called out: “Everything’s OK here, right Jules?”

  “Better,” he said, tears streaming past his smile. “Better.”

  “There you go.” I swept my hand towards the door. “And there you go.”

  None of the innocents moved. To get out the door, they’d have to walk past where Russell slumped on his chair.

  “Eric,” I said, “show Russell the view while everybody gets their coats.”

  Everyone moved. Teachers clustered around Jules. He nodded to whispers of concern. Wept and smiled. Eventually is defined by intensity: that night’s eventually took no more than three minutes before his rescuers realized he didn’t want their help. Five minutes after they stood, they were hustling out the door. Eric and Hailey stood beside Russell as he leaned his forehead on the cool glass of the night window. If the guests worried about Zane bringing up their rear like a cowboy riding drag, they were too smart or scared to complain. The apartment door closed behind their moved-out herd.

  Dr. Yarrow Clark said: “I’m not leaving Jules alone.”

  “You mean: with us,” I said, turning to where she clutched her purse.

  “I mean whatever.” She laid her hand on Jules’s arm.

  “You two kids stay put.” I joined my friends at the window.

  “Russell,” I said to the man leaning his forehead against the night mirror. Only a pane of glass held him back from the long fall. “Are you OK?”

  “I can see my reflection,” he muttered.

  “How’s it look?”

  “Wasted.”

  “We don’t have time for that. Pull yourself to
gether.”

  “OK,” he said. But he didn’t lean away from the glass.

  Rage blasted from Dr. Yarrow Clark’s eyes. “Who are you?”

  Jules patted her hand. “Don’t worry, Yarrow. I know who they are.”

  “Sure,” I said, ready to lie and support delusions he had that protected our cover.

  “You’re my son’s patients.”

  “Well, technically…”

  Dr. Clark clung to our smiling host. “If any of these people are Leon’s clients—”

  “All of us.” Russell, swaying on his feet but standing right beside me.

  “Great timing,” I told him. “I thought you were through confessing.”

  “Thank you so much for coming!” Jules clasped my hand. Let go of mine to shake Russell’s. Let go of Russell, shook with Hailey, Eric. “This means so much to me!”

  Yarrow said: “Means we should call somebody.”

  “No!” I chorused with Russell.

  “No,” said Jules. “I don’t want to share this with anybody.”

  Even he felt her flinch. Locked in an apartment with babbling maniacs and her first flinch came when Jules’s words pushed her away.

  “Except you,” Jules told her as he took her hand. “You’re here. You should stay. Don’t you see?” he told her. “These people are my gift.”

  Her face said she’d listen to anything as long as he held her hand.

  “When someone dies, you realize how little you had of him. Leon couldn’t tell me about his work and work is a huge part of who we are. You get a person from his stories. With us… There had to be even more walls than regular fathers and sons build.”

  Jules smiled at us as again he wept: “You people are pieces of my boy’s life. Thank you so much for coming. You’ve brought me parts of my son I never had.”

  “Hey,” said Russell, “we’d have brought you more, but we left him taped to a chain link fence.”

  The apartment door swung open—and with it, Jules’s eyes. Yarrow’s jaw fell.

  Zane walked towards us, saying: “Nobody cell phoning while I watched, but in the taxis or walking home… Somebody somewhere soon will call the cavalry.”