The Dog in the Freezer

by Harry Mazer

  “I never touched you.”

  “You or your dog. If I get an infection, you’re going to pay. Where’s my ring?”

  “You know where it is.”

  “Yeah. So where’s the dog?”

  I didn’t say anything. I wasn’t going to tell him, but just then Michael barked.

  George tried to pull the garage door up, but I had locked it from inside. Then he really got mad, so mad his eyes turned black. He ran at me, and he was on me before I could get away. He got my foot and dragged me off the steps and halfway down to the street, just as Jerry pulled into the driveway.

  “Hey!” Jerry came charging out of his car and grabbed George around the neck. “Let go,” he yelled. “Let go of the boy!”

  “You let go of me first,” George said, but he quieted down fast. He was as big as Jerry, but he was lard to Jerry’s muscle.

  Then it was a three-ring circus—George demanding his ring, me trying to tell Jerry what had happened, and Jerry telling George to get away from me and stay cool.

  “Give me back my ring!”

  “Okay, George,” Jerry said. “You’re going to get your ring back. This is a problem we can solve, George. Just be patient.”

  “I don’t feel like being patient! It’s my ring and your dog ate it, and I want it now.”

  “I know how you feel, George.” Jerry was suddenly George’s best friend. “You’ll get your ring, but these things take time. Sometimes in life we have to wait. My girlfriend, Kiki, says it’s good to wait for things. And in a situation like this, where there’s nothing to worry about—”

  “Yeah,” I said, “wait. Because everything is going to come out in the end.” I started to laugh.

  Then Jerry laughed. “I’m sorry, George, I know you don’t think it’s funny. But sometimes in life it’s good to take a deep breath and see the humor in a situation.”

  MICHAEL COMES THROUGH

  Michael stayed in the garage the next few days. She did her business on paper. I kept the stools lined up and in order on a piece of cardboard. The last one had the ring sticking out of it.

  I called Glori, and she called George. She was there when George arrived. We were all there, including Kiki.

  Jerry offered George the water hose, but he just poked the ring out with a stick and dropped it in a plastic bag.

  “Are you going to tell Esther where you got the ring from?” Glori said.

  George didn’t answer. He didn’t speak to any of us. He just got in the truck and drove away.

  “I was hurting before,” Glori said to Kiki, “but I feel good now. Seeing him pick up that ring was worth everything.”

  Kiki and Jerry went off running, and I let Michael out of the garage. She ran from Glori to me. She was so happy to be out, she was running in circles.

  “Well, this was great,” Glori said. “The only thing I regret now is that I didn’t have my camera with me when George recovered his ring.”

  “I did,” I said, and held up my camera.

  “Lucas! Did you get his picture?”

  I nodded.

  “You doll!” Glori kissed Michael. “Isn’t he a doll, Michael? And this dog,” she said to me. “She’s so smart. I’m going to really miss her.”

  It was the perfect time for me to ask if she’d keep Michael for me until I came back. She kept nodding as I explained everything. She was listening really carefully. I thought it meant yes.

  And then she said no.

  “I would, Lucas, but I’m going back to college. I can’t ask my mother to take care of another dog.”

  “Okay,” I said. What else could I say?

  “What are we going to do, Lucas? We have to do something about Michael. Jerry definitely won’t take her?”

  I shook my head.

  “That’s crazy. He has to.”

  “He won’t.”

  “Michael can’t go to the pound.” She got really upset. “There’s got to be some way.”

  “There isn’t,” I said. I thought of the way I used to wish for my father, thinking if I wished hard enough he’d come home. But he never did.

  “Let me think of the people I know,” Glori said. She started ticking them off on her fingers.

  For a moment I thought, Yes! She’s going to figure it out.

  She shook her head. “It’s not going to work. I can’t think of anyone. I’m just going to cry,” she said. “I better leave.” She rushed off, her head down. Then she came back. “I almost forgot. Lucas, I brought you a good-bye present.” She reached into her bag and gave me a photo of herself and Belle.

  “Thanks,” I said. I wanted to say something else. I wanted to tell her that meeting her had been the best thing that had ever happened in my life. Instead, I studied the photo. I said I’d frame it when I got home and keep it on my bureau.

  “I could send you a snapshot of myself. If you want it?”

  “Of course I want it,” she said. “Aren’t you my special friend?”

  I put the picture of her and Belle in my jeans pocket. Then I took it out. I didn’t want her to think I’d sit on it. I put it in my shirt pocket and kept my hand over it.

  JERRY COMES THROUGH, TOO

  The morning I left, Kiki called up to say good-bye. “Lucas, Jerry and I are going to try to find a good home for Michael. I don’t want you to worry.”

  Leaving Michael was the hardest thing I ever had to do in my whole life. I sat with her on the steps, talking to her. Jerry came out, and I said good-bye and put her in the garage. I didn’t want her to come to the airport with me.

  On the way there, Jerry didn’t say much. Nothing about Michael. Maybe he thought I was still mad at him. I wasn’t. It wasn’t his fault. He didn’t know that I was going to feel like this.

  “You can drop me by the ticket counter,” I said when we got to the terminal. I put out my hand. “I had a great summer, Jerry. Thanks for everything.”

  “Wait a minute, not so fast. You’re not getting rid of me yet.” He parked the car and came in all the way with me, through the security check, down the corridors to the gate, where they were already boarding my plane.

  He held my hand, then gave me a hug. “It was an incredible summer, Lucas. I want you to come back. Are you coming back?”

  “I guess so.”

  “You’re coming back. You have to come back.” He held my arm. “You know why? Because Michael will be here when you do.”

  “Excuse me?” I said.

  “I’m going to keep her, Lucas. Kiki and I have been talking. She’ll run Michael in the morning, and I’ll run her at night. And when I’m working, Michael can guard the house.”

  I kept watching his face for the joke. Why had he waited all this time to tell me? Was it true?

  “So how does that strike you?” he asked. “Is that brilliant or is it brilliant?”

  “Brilliant,” I said. “Do you mean it?”

  “I do.”

  “You mean it? You really mean it?”

  “I do!”

  “Why didn’t you tell me before this? It was like torture.” I was crying. “You’re so stupid sometimes.”

  “Hey, hey, come on, guy. Awww.” He started patting my back. “I’m sorry, guy. I would have told you, but I didn’t know. Not until this moment. Kiki’s been after me, but you know, I was kind of resisting.”

  I butted him. I didn’t know what to say. So I did it again. I kept butting him. Then the final call came, and I threw my arms around his neck, and he landed a kiss on my head. I looked back one last time after they took the ticket. Jerry was still there, watching me. For a moment—it was like a hallucination—I thought it was my father standing there, waving like a maniac.

  THE DOG IN THE FREEZER

  Hey, Pop, how are you doing? I mean, where are you? I haven’t heard from you since before you went down south to play winter ball. Are you back now? Are you in Arizona? I tried to call you at training camp, but they said you hadn’t reported in yet.

  Mom said you�
�d be calling me any day now. She said if I had anything to say to you, I should write it down and then put it in an envelope and mail it to you. But where am I going to send it? I’ve been watching the papers, but they don’t say anything about Dave Estabrook, or any Cougar games either.

  The newspapers should be reporting the minor leagues better. Are you playing, Pop? Are you in the regular rotation? How’s the arm? Are you eating right? What about the Royals? Are they going to call you up?

  You don’t have to answer all these questions, Pop. Just remember, junk food affects your performance. Stay away from those tortilla corn chips.

  Lots of love from your son,

  Jake Estabrook

  • ONE •

  The Route

  Jake hated to tell guys he played the violin. “You play the violin?” Howie Silva said, like Jake had just dipped his hands in the toilet bowl.

  “I like all kinds of music,” Jake said. Why did he have to say anything? He didn’t have to defend the fact that he loved music. And something else he hated to talk about, to Howie or anyone else, was that his father didn’t live with them anymore. His parents were breaking up—at least that’s what his mother said. He didn’t believe it. His father was a professional ballplayer. Baseball was his father’s life, so he was away a lot because ballplayers had to go where their teams sent them.

  His father hadn’t been home since last Thanksgiving. He called, but it had been so long since he’d seen his father that lately Jake had been having weird thoughts. That voice on the phone: It sounded like his father—but was it really his father? It could be a recording, or a clever computer program that made all the right sounds. His father could be a prisoner in some South American country where he went to play ball every winter, and Jake wouldn’t know it.

  He would lie on his bed with these thoughts, his face in the pillow and his fists jammed in his stomach. It gave him a bellyache thinking about it. If it was really just his mother and him, were they even a family anymore?

  His friend Howie Silva lived six blocks away and went to a private school. He also had a paper route in Jake’s building that Jake was interested in. Howie said that when his family moved to Staten Island, Jake could have the route. Mornings when Howie was late delivering the papers he’d bang on Jake’s door and hand him a bunch of papers. “You get the bottom ten floors. I’ll get the top.”

  Jake liked being up early in the morning. It made him feel close to his father. When his father lived home he would get up early and run before the traffic and the fumes got so heavy you could die just from breathing.

  Howie’s family moved over spring vacation. Jake expected his friend to just hand him the route book. He knew the route cold. But Howie had to make a speech. He said he was offering Jake something valuable that he had built up from zilch through his own hard work and effort and blah, blah, blah. Bottom line: He wasn’t giving it away for nothing. He wanted money for his route.

  Jake was taken aback. Howie knew he didn’t have money. That’s why he wanted the route, so he could have money of his own. Besides, they were friends. Had he ever asked Howie for money all the times he’d helped him? Not once. If the route had been his and he was moving, he would have given it to Howie in a second.

  “Hand over the book,” he said. He was ready to grab the route book out of Howie’s hands. “As soon as the customers pay me, I’ll pay you.” Howie would have to be satisfied with that.

  • TWO •

  Raoul

  It was dark when Jake went out to pick up the papers. He had an old shopping cart Howie had left him. The streets were empty and quiet. Cars moved by silently. The cart creaked. Jake felt the reassuring bulk of the route book in his back pocket. It was still dark in Arizona, but he made believe his father was up now, too, and coming along with him to pick up the papers.

  A skinny man stood by a white panel truck on the corner of Twenty-third Street and Lexington, just where Howie had said he’d be. It was the first time Jake was picking up the papers. He didn’t know the man. “I’m here to get the papers,” Jake said.

  “Who are you?” The man was no taller than Jake. He wore a sweat suit with red piping and sneakers with a red stripe.

  “I’m taking over Howie Silva’s route.”

  “Says who?”

  “I bought it from him.”

  “Whaddaya mean you bought it from him?” The man’s hair was pasted down flat, and there were dark circles around his eyes. “I’m in charge.” The man thumped himself on the chest. “Raoul makes the decisions. Nobody else! Raoul’s the boss.”

  “Howie said I could have the route if I paid him.”

  “You’re dumber than he is. You don’t pay somebody for a route. If you pay, you pay me. How much did you pay?”

  “Not much.” The lie caught in his throat. Did the man know he hadn’t paid Howie anything yet? “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Doesn’t matter?” Raoul said. “Money doesn’t matter? Is that what you said? What are you here for then?”

  “I didn’t mean it that way.”

  “Give me the book,” Raoul said.

  Jake’s heart sank as he handed it over. There went his paper route.

  Raoul opened the book, turned a page, thumbed through it. “How many papers do you take?” he said. “How many dailies?” It was like a quiz. “How many Sundays? How many papers on the seventh floor? How many on the fourth?”

  Jake answered all the questions correctly.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Jacob.”

  “Jacob?”

  “It’s from the Bible.”

  Raoul gnawed at his fingernail. “You don’t have to tell me. That’s an old-time name.”

  “My parents picked it out,” Jake said.

  “No doubt,” Raoul said.

  • THREE •

  Red-Hot Salsa

  Jake waited in the lobby downstairs for his mother to come home from work. He kept going outside and looking. Fridays, she always worked late. Finally, there she was coming around the corner, hurrying, her knapsack hooked over one shoulder. “Sorry,” she said, giving him a hug. “Are you starved?”

  “Not exactly.” He linked arms with her and they crossed the street to the market.

  “Let’s not spend a lot of time,” she said, taking a shopping cart. “I’ll get the veggies. You get the tomato sauce, and get us something for dessert.”

  He went speeding off.

  “If it’s ice cream, one pint’s enough,” she called after him. “Do you hear me, Jake? And no candy bars in the ice cream.”

  When he returned, his mother was talking to a man in a faded leather jacket. The baseball cap on his head made Jake’s heart leap. For a moment, he thought it was his father. Then the man turned, and it was just a man his mother was talking to.

  “This is fennel,” she was explaining. She held up a fat green vegetable. “You can eat it raw.”

  Jake didn’t like his mother talking to other men. He took her hand. “Let’s go, Mom.”

  She glanced at the cart. “You forgot dessert, Jake.”

  “There’s your chance, Jake,” the man said, giving him a wink.

  Jake had an impulse to run the cart over the man’s feet. “I don’t want dessert. Let’s go, Mom.”

  At the checkout line, his mother sorted through the purchases. “What’s this?” she said, holding up a jar. “Red-Hot Salsa? Who’s that for?”

  “Me,” he said.

  “It’s too hot for you. Put it back.”

  “It’s Pop’s favorite.”

  “Maybe it is, but he’s not here, is he?”

  “For when he comes home.” He kneed the cart forward.

  “Jake,” his mother said. “You have to get real. Your father will come to see you, but we’re not living together anymore. Things have changed.”

  Jake heard her, but as far as he could see, things were just about the way they’d always been. His father went away and his mother got mad, but then he came
back, and things went back to the way they’d been. When his father came home, his parents would talk and then they got happy, and they all went to the ocean together. His mother liked to collect shells, and he and his father liked to smash into the big waves.

  Jake stacked their purchases by the cash register. He put the jar of Red-Hot Salsa in front so his mother could see it. She didn’t say anything. That proved he was right. His father was coming home.

  In the house, his mother made supper while he practiced the violin. When the spaghetti was ready, Jake put the violin down in its velvet case on the chair next to him, where he could look at it. There were times when music made him so happy he couldn’t hold still. It made him want to dance and do somersaults and run down the middle of Third Avenue.

  “Jake.” His mother brought the pot to the table and sat down. “Are you still upset? You know, I’ve talked about this. Your father and I haven’t been getting along for a long time. Remember when we followed him, Jake? Remember the buses and living in motels? You always got sick on those buses. It was no life.”

  “Once he goes to the Royals, we can live in Kansas City.”

  “Jake, you’re dreaming. It’s not going to happen, honey.”

  “You just don’t want to live in Kansas City. Maybe he’ll go to the Yankees, and we’ll stay right here. You’ll like that. Once he makes it to the majors—”

  “Jake! Jake, cut it out.”

  He wiped his hands and picked his violin up. He blew on the wood, then polished it with the napkin. Playing in the majors was like playing in an orchestra with all the best players in the world. That’s where his father belonged. The majors. Everyone would know him then. His name and his picture would be in the paper and on TV all the time. And then he would live in one place, and his mother would change her mind, and he and she would go live with his father.

  Hey, Pop, remember last Thanksgiving when you were home? Just before you left for the winter leagues? Remember how you and Mom couldn’t agree? Remember how you wanted turkey and Mom said she wasn’t going to eat anything live? Or cook it? Remember the Chinese restaurant? It was like a red dragon inside, down in the basement of that old building. You didn’t want to go in, but it was good. We had turkey chow mein and Mom had tofu and vegetables.