Turtleface and Beyond

by Arthur Bradford

  “Good,” she said. And then she took off her coat.

  “Wait,” said Jim. “You’re not Lena.”

  “Yes, I am,” she said.

  “But the picture…”

  “That’s me.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes, I’m sure. What kind of question is that? Am I going to have to get Tyrone up here to sort this out?”

  “Tyrone?”

  “You want to have a good time or not?”

  Lena was practically yelling now and Jim said, “Please, Lena. Would you care for some scotch?”

  “Sure. Thank you,” she replied.

  I picked up Boots’s leash and as soon as the big dog saw that, she bounded toward me and jumped up and down with excitement.

  “I’ll see you later,” I said.

  And with that I left Jim sitting ashen-faced on the couch, staring helplessly at Lena as she guzzled down the scotch he had just handed her.

  * * *

  It was light outside now, though just barely. Boots was overjoyed to be free from the confines of that fancy hotel room and she pulled me along the sidewalk at a rapid pace. The sight of her giant galloping figure frightened an old lady and caused a group of school-bound children to scatter to the other side of the street. At a Fifth Avenue street corner Boots squatted down and released the most enormous heap of poop I’d ever seen. I would have needed a snow shovel and a garbage bag to scoop it up. I didn’t have anything like that with me though, so I sheepishly left it there for the morning commuters to marvel at, and together Boots and I ran across the street to Central Park.

  Once there I removed Boots’s leash and she dashed about the open fields with glee. It was nice to see her so happy and joyful, even if she was a goofy, slow-witted dog. The other dog owners in the park admired her size and zeal, though I believe they felt sorry for me as well. A dog of that size must be a lot of work, they remarked.

  “She’s not my dog,” I told them. “She belongs to a friend.”

  When I said that I wondered if I really could count Jim Tewilliger as my friend. We’d spent enough time together to qualify as something like that, and he had certainly confided in me. He’d even asked a few questions about my life during our conversations. But I imagined that Jim saw me as more of an acquaintance, someone who gave him access to a world different from his own. Perhaps he sought me out and confided in me precisely because I was not his friend, because I was so far outside his social realm that it didn’t matter what I knew or thought about him.

  I pictured him now, naked and groping at the flabby body of a stranger in that hotel room. I hoped that it was going okay, that something about his five-hundred-dollar hour with Lena was providing him what he needed.

  I should have been keeping a better eye on Boots though, because at some point she ran off into the nearby woods and disappeared. I called out for her and followed directions from a group of startled bird-watchers who saw her galloping down a nearby hill. When I found her she was splashing about the shoreline of a scum-covered pond, surrounded by a flock of angry ducks, and covered with mud. I did my best to clean her off, but the staff back in the lobby of the Carlyle Hotel weren’t too glad to see us upon our return.

  “A Mr. Wiktor is upstairs,” said the doorman, giving me a curious look.

  I had forgotten about Wiktor. Boots and I had been gone for quite a while. We hurried upstairs, tracking mud liberally along the carpet in the hall. Back in the room I found Wiktor and Lena pacing about angrily. The drawers of the bureau had been pulled out and Jim’s clothing was scattered on the floor.

  “Where’s Jim?” I asked them.

  “Your friend left,” said Wiktor, throwing his hands in the air. “He snort, snort…” Wiktor made loud sniffing noises through his nose, indicating the use of cocaine. “And then he say he needs to go to bank machine. For money. He’s gone now for half an hour.”

  Lena said, “I didn’t get paid yet. He left and didn’t even pay me!”

  “I’m sure he’ll be back,” I said.

  “Do you have money?” said Wiktor.

  I pulled out my wallet. It had $40 in it. Wiktor and Lena agreed to split that if Jim didn’t return. It was nice, at least, to see them cooperate like that. In addition, they’d found several dollars in a pair of Jim’s pants which was also to be divided evenly.

  We waited for close to an hour and Jim never showed up. A hotel maid stuck her head in the room and stared in disbelief at the three of us watching television in that disheveled room. Boots barked at her and she disappeared.

  “We will leave now,” said Wiktor.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’ll find Jim and get the money to both of you.”

  Lena shook her head and we gathered up our belongings. Wiktor ripped up a pair of Jim’s pants and poured the rest of the expensive scotch on the television set. It fizzled and then something inside popped with a plume of smoke. I filled two bowls with food and water for Boots and she whined as we shut the door behind us.

  * * *

  I found Jim back at work that evening. He’d left several messages for me at the library desk and as soon as I could I went down to his office to see what was going on.

  When I showed up Roberta said to me, “Are you the one he’s waiting for? He hasn’t let me in his office all week. Is he all right?”

  “I don’t think so,” I said.

  I walked in the office and it smelled like a locker room. The shades were pulled down and Jim was napping on the couch.

  “George!” said Jim, jumping up to greet me. “Where the hell have you been?”

  “Boots ran off in the park,” I said. “By the time I found her and got back, you were gone.”

  “I had to get out of there,” he said. “I had no other recourse. Lena and I had no chemistry. None whatsoever. She tried to give me a back rub, but I was too tense. Then your Polish friend showed up and things got very uncomfortable.”

  “They said you left without paying.”

  “I fully intend to compensate them both. They’ll be fully compensated, I assure you.”

  “You’d better. Wiktor lives on my block…”

  “I wanted to ask you about that,” said Jim. “I need to ask you a favor.” He paused and looked at me with a now-familiar look of desperation.

  “A favor?”

  “I’ve been … I’ve been asked to vacate my room at the Carlyle. Someone complained about Boots. They said the room is in bad shape too. I’m taking care of the damages, of course. But I need a place for Boots. She’s not cut out for hotel living. That place of yours in Brooklyn, you mentioned it had a backyard?”

  “It’s small,” I said. “She wouldn’t be happy there. Don’t you have some friends back in Connecticut? Or a kennel? What about taking her home?”

  “Not an option,” said Jim. “None of it. Look, I just need a temporary shelter until this blows over. I’m making some changes, George, and I’d prefer not to have to explain things to my colleagues right now.”

  “What kind of changes?” I asked him.

  “You know, loosening up. I need to break out of this grind. Look at this place!”

  “It seems like a pretty good place to me,” I said.

  “You don’t understand,” said Jim. “You really don’t. Look, will you please take Boots? Just until I get things back in order. I’ll pay the expenses, of course.”

  And so I agreed to take Boots, just for a few days. Jim showed up in a taxicab that night, with the dog and, to my surprise, two large suitcases of his own.

  “I’d like to stay here as well, if that’s okay,” he announced. “I’m not sure I can be away from Boots right now.”

  I led them down to my little basement apartment and Jim looked around quizzically while Boots bumped into things and knocked books off the shelves with her wagging tail.

  “So this is it?” said Jim.

  “Right,” I said. “This is where I live.”

  I showed him the backyard and Jim said
, “Hmm…”

  “You might be happier somewhere else,” I suggested.

  “Oh no,” said Jim. “Of course not. Why wouldn’t we be happy here?”

  We ate a pizza for dinner and later on Wiktor came by to collect his money. Jim apologized and handed Wiktor $200.

  “You’re lucky I don’t break your legs, asshole,” said Wiktor.

  “I know, I know,” said Jim.

  “You leave me with your hooker friend. What am I supposed to do?”

  “Well, you didn’t have to tear up my clothing…”

  “Yes, I did have to do that.”

  “It was very rude.”

  “Rude?” Wiktor stepped forward and slapped Jim on top of his head. It wasn’t an especially hard slap. He just smacked him across the top so that his hair flipped forward and left him disoriented. Boots jumped up and barked and Jim said, “Hey!”

  “Don’t be stupid,” said Wiktor, pointing a finger at Jim. “Georgie, your friend is stupid. He is the one who is rude.”

  “I know,” I said. “You’re right.”

  I held on to Boots as Wiktor turned and left.

  On his way out Wiktor said, “That dog looks like a horse.”

  * * *

  We barely fit into my place, Jim, Boots, and me. Even sitting down we were all on top of one another.

  “Do you think I’m rude, George?” asked Jim.

  I thought about this for a moment and then said, “Yes, Jim, I’d say you sometimes are.”

  Jim was glum after I said this. He fell asleep on the couch and was gone before I got up in the morning. His clothes and dog were still there, but he was gone.

  That day in the cafeteria, Jim’s secretary, Roberta, committed an unusual breach of lunchroom etiquette. She walked up to me at the corner table, where I was eating with the other library staff, and she said, “Can I speak with you for a moment?”

  I said sure and got up and we went out to the hallway, inviting stares from the various factions at the firm.

  “Jim has not shown up for work today,” she said. “His office is a disaster. It smells in there. Would you mind telling me what you know about this?”

  “Jim’s making some changes,” I said.

  “I see,” said Roberta.

  “I’m not sure if I should go into it,” I said.

  “I’ve known Mr. Tewilliger for almost twenty years,” said Roberta. “He’s a very steady worker. His wife called today. She hasn’t seen him in a week. The other partners are beginning to wonder.”

  “I can understand that,” I said.

  “I’m not so sure you’re a good influence on him, young man,” said Roberta. “This all began with you.”

  “Me?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “I have nothing to do with this,” I said. But even as I said it, I knew that in some way, in fact I did.

  “If you happen to see Mr. Tewilliger,” said Roberta, “please tell him that folks here are concerned.”

  “I’ll tell him,” I said. “If I see him.”

  “Thank you.”

  Back upstairs, in the clean, quiet din of the firm library, I pondered this conversation and Roberta’s damning accusation. I phoned my home number and called out for Jim when the answering machine picked up. Boots was probably listening to me, lying confused amid a heap of my overturned furniture. Feeling uneasy, I looked up Jim’s number in Connecticut and called it later that afternoon. A woman answered.

  “Is Jim there?” I asked.

  “No,” she said. “He’s not.”

  “Is this Sara?”

  “Who is this?”

  “My name is Georgie. I’m a friend of Jim’s from work.”

  “Georgie?”

  “Well, we’re not really friends…”

  “Jim hasn’t been home for a while,” said Sara.

  “I know, that’s why I called…”

  I explained to Sara that Jim had been forced to leave his room at the Carlyle because of Boots and now he and Boots were staying with me in Brooklyn. Or Boots was, at least. I wasn’t sure about Jim.

  “I’m afraid I’m not a very good influence on your husband,” I said.

  “Really?”

  “That’s what Roberta said.”

  “Roberta said that?”

  “Yes, and I was wondering if you might be able to help.”

  “How could I do that?”

  I gave her my address and asked if she would come take Boots off my hands, at least.

  “I hate that dog,” she said.

  “Well, Jim seems attached to her.”

  “I’m aware of that.”

  We talked a while longer and Sara said, “I’ll see what I can do,” and hung up the phone. I felt a little better.

  That night, when I arrived back at my place, I found things surprisingly in order. The apartment had been cleaned up and Jim was sitting in the kitchen with Lena and a small boy. There was food cooking on the stove and Lena was rubbing ointment on the red patch under Jim’s eye. He had taken a shower and was wearing blue jeans.

  “George!” said Jim. “You remember Lena? And this is Emanuel, her son.”

  Emanuel nodded at me. He was feeding bits of bread to Boots, who was happily munching them underneath the table.

  “I called Lena to pay her back for the other night,” said Jim. “And she came over and helped me clean up. Do you know that you have tomatoes in your backyard?”

  “I knew that.”

  “Boots dug them up.”

  “Oh.”

  The food smelled good and we all ate a big meal sitting crowded in my tiny kitchen. Emanuel fell asleep on the floor with his head resting on Boots’s furry side and Lena remarked how funny that looked.

  “Boots is like a lion,” she said.

  “That’s right, Lena,” said Jim. “She is like a lion.”

  Lena turned to me and said, “My name is not Lena. It’s Maribell.”

  “But I still call her Lena,” said Jim. “It’s a small joke between us.”

  There was a knock on the door and Boots jumped up, spilling little Emanuel to the floor in the process. I went out to answer the door and was greeted by a taller, stretched-out version of young Wendell from the photographs in Jim’s office. He looked at me nervously and said, “Is, um, Jim Tewilliger here?”

  Before I could answer, Boots bounded by me and began licking Wendell on the face. She was very excited to see him.

  “Good girl, Boots,” said Wendell. They stood there getting reacquainted for a while.

  Finally Wendell said, “Is my dad here?”

  “Come on inside,” I told him, and I led him down the stairs, through my little living room/bedroom, and into the kitchen. There was no one there. The dirty dishes from dinner were stacked neatly in the sink. I opened up the back door to the yard and peered out into the darkness. Jim, Maribell, and Emanuel were gone.

  “They’re not here,” I told Wendell.

  “Who’s ‘they’?” he asked me.

  “Well, he’s not here.”

  “But he was.”

  “Right,” I said, “he was just here.”

  Wendell looked down at the floor and scratched Boots’s enormous head. He had grown taller than her now, at least.

  “How did you get here?” I asked him.

  “I drove,” he said. “I came down from school and my mother let me take the car. I only have a learner’s permit.”

  I stuck my head back outside and gazed around the yard some more to see if maybe Jim was out there hiding. But he wasn’t. They must have hopped the fence, all three of them.

  “I don’t know what to tell you,” I said.

  “That’s okay,” said Wendell. “I’ll take Boots home anyway.”

  We walked out to the street and I helped him load Boots into the back of his mother’s fancy little car. It was one of those low-riding sportsters where the backseat is just an afterthought and Boots looked like a big rug stuffed back there. I told Wendell I
’d ask Jim to give him a call right away.

  “Sure, thanks,” said Wendell, and then he left.

  I watched Boots’s huge dumb face press against the curved glass of the rear windshield as they drove away.

  * * *

  Jim never did return to my home. He left his two suitcases full of thousand-dollar suits and shiny shoes behind, and months later a man in a van came by to haul the stuff away. He said he was shipping it all down to Mexico. Back at the firm the word was Jim Tewilliger had gone nuts. He’d checked out and left the country. Apparently this sort of thing happened at law firms from time to time. Roberta stayed on and shot me accusatory looks when we crossed paths in the cafeteria.

  Several months after Jim’s departure I received a worn-out letter, addressed to me at the law firm library. It was from Jim. It said:

  Hola Georgie!

  Greetings from San Miguel! Lena was crazy after all. But Emanuel is a nice boy and I took him home to see his father. I have holed up here for now. I miss my dog terribly and am hoping you can help me in this regard. Would you be so kind as to bring Boots down here to stay with me? I will cover all expenses, naturally, and more than compensate you for your time.

  Your Friend,

  Jim T.

  I did not take him up on this offer.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thank you:

  Sean MacDonald, Kassie Evashevski, Taylor Sperry, Peter Rock, Creston Lea, Denis Johnson, Kerry Glamsch, Dave Eggers, Eli Horowitz, Jesse Pearson, Rocco Castoro, Hana Tint, Chad Urmston, Adam Ogilvie, Jon Raymond, Lance Cleland, Matt Stone, Trey Parker, Sarah Law.

  Taxidermy Writers: Frayn Masters, Kevin Sampsell, Matt Brown, Cheston Knapp, Pauls Toutonghi, Peyton Marshall, Emily Kendall Frey, Erin Ergenbright, and Sarah Bartlett.

  Laura Bradford, Emily Bradford, Anna Friedman, Elsie and Theo, Peter and Susan Bradford, Katherine Bradford and Jane O’Wyatt.

  Matt Sheehy, who wrote the song “Cold Feet,” which inspired the story of the same title, and Courtenay Hameister, who made that happen.

  And the MacDowell Colony.

  ALSO BY ARTHUR BRADFORD

  Dogwalker

  Benny’s Brigade

  A Note About the Author

  Arthur Bradford is an O. Henry Prize–winning writer and Emmy-nominated filmmaker. He is the author of Dogwalker, and his writing has appeared in Esquire, McSweeney’s, Vice, and Men’s Journal. He lives in Portland, Oregon, and works at a juvenile detention center.