Off the Chain

by Candice Dow

  Her hand gestured for me to stop. Mid-sentence, my mouth hung open. She smirked. “London.”

  That was the way she said my name when she accused me of stretching the truth. I said, “Honestly, he put his tongue down my throat.”

  Her big eyes bulged from her chubby brown face, demanding that I shut up. Her wide nostrils spread and she pursed her full lips. She didn’t speak. She just kept looking through me. Her reaction made me wish I could eat my words. She took a long, deep breath and put her book back on her lap like she was done with the nonsense I was talking. Her non-response left me shattered. Even Snuggles whined a little. I shook my head and headed to my room. I sat on my bed and muffled my cries with my pillow. Snuggles lay beside me, licking me, trying to make the wound all better. Without words, Snuggles expressed her love to me and my mother couldn’t even say anything to make me feel safe. I hated her and a part of me thought she hated me too.

  That was the summer before my senior year of high school and I was accepted to Georgetown that December. When she packed me up the next May to live on campus, it felt like she was relieved. She’d committed to raising me and I’d gone as far as getting into a prestigious college. Her job was done and she acted like it. While my other friends’ parents called frequently, she called about once a month.

  As my college graduation approached and my mother discovered that I didn’t have any plans for the future, she was livid. She wanted me to find a corporate job, but I didn’t think that was for me. She made an offer for me to come and stay with her, but I decided I’d starve to death first. She explained to me that if I didn’t follow her advice, she would not be able to help me. I guess the threat was supposed to make me listen, but I didn’t. Finally she told me that it was time I made my own way. I guess she’d spent enough money on a child she didn’t love. She told me that she was proud of me, but in the same breath she said she would not be my crutch. A woman can never have it all. Something suffers. That was her motto. She really thought that women were put here to suffer. She would always tell me that a woman’s life is hard. We carry the burden of the world. It was my turn.

  2

  Many of my college friends were moving out of DC after graduation and on to graduate school or jobs. I was glad when my close friend Kari decided to accept a position as a DC city schoolteacher. Kari was tall, somewhat awkward, and pale, with ear-length curly hair. I didn’t understand her strong desire to be in a classroom towering over the little kids, but her parents were filthy rich and Kari wanted to give back.

  When Kari was young her family lived in Saudi Arabia for six years because her father was an executive at an oil company. By the time they came back Kari was thirteen and her family was financially set for generations to come because of her father’s choice to work in a war zone. If it had been my choice my entire family would be broke, because we wouldn’t have been over there. But from what Kari tells me, their life there was pretty plush, with drivers, cooks, and nannies. So to say the least she was pretty much a privileged, sheltered girl. I think that’s what I liked most about Kari, though: She was untainted. And despite her upbringing and wealth, she was really down to earth and in touch with her sista side, unlike many of the other black chicks at Georgetown, who suffered from an identity crisis.

  Kari offered to let me move in with her until I could figure out what I was doing with my life. Her parents were footing the bill for a one-bedroom luxury condo in Dupont Circle on N and Twenty-first streets. She said there’d be more than enough room for both of us to stay. She had her parents buy a pullout couch for the living room. It was a nice brown rustic leather sofa from Jennifer Convertibles. She upgraded the mattress so that her good friend would have a comfy place to sleep. I never understood how I’d hooked up with this sweet, charitable girl with so much compassion for people. I would never be labeled the most compassionate chick on the block, because I feel like people have enough sense to make their own way. I have compassion for dogs, though, because they don’t have logic. They can’t rationalize why they do or don’t love you. Either they do or they don’t. They don’t overanalyze what they feel and they don’t feel obligated to do anything they don’t want to do. People, on the other hand, can never be trusted, because you never know what their motives are.

  Aside from Kari, I was extremely careful about who I let into my inner circle. I partied with the best of them, but there were only a few people who knew the real me. I was always able to determine how far a friendship or relationship would go almost instantaneously after meeting someone. I tried to approach people with the same sense of awareness as a dog. I’d be lying if I said that it always worked for me, but when I ignored my first impression of someone, it almost always came back to bite me. Every living thing naturally emits energy, but humans are the only beings who try to rationalize an uncomfortable feeling. We tell ourselves whatever we need to say to make people out to be what we want them to be. Not only do I not trust people, I don’t fully trust myself when it comes to analyzing someone’s character.

  Kari kept encouraging me to apply to DC schools and I just couldn’t do it. Teaching just wasn’t in my nature and I was completely convinced of that. I wanted to make a living for myself but I wasn’t willing to sacrifice my happiness in the process. The only thing that I loved more than partying was dog sitting. Since my little Snuggles had moved to San Francisco with my mother, I was always eager to keep someone else’s dog. I really wanted one of my own, but being that my life was in limbo, I couldn’t afford or commit to one.

  Kari and I had been living together for nearly a month. She was funding pretty much everything, aside from the charitable one hundred dollars my mother would deposit in my account from time to time. It wasn’t consistent, though. Kari never complained: When she ate, I ate. When she hung out, I was with her.

  One evening Kari came into the apartment after her summer teaching workshop. She looked tired and drained. I was chilling on the couch, eating a caramel sundae from McDonald’s. It was a rare expression, but she looked at me almost as if I was irritating her. I smiled. “What’s up?”

  “So, how much longer you planning to act like we’re still in college?”

  My neck snapped back, not so much that I was offended, but more because the comment had come out of left field. We had just been out drinking and partying the night before, and she had told me that she had me until I figured things out.

  “London, basically what I’m saying is that you need to really start thinking about what you want to do. You don’t even talk about plans. It’s like you’re content living off of me.”

  “Well, Kari, you know I’m going to reapply to vet school.”

  “But that’s in the fall. What are your plans for right now?”

  She was agitating me as she began to sound like my mother. I was figuring things out and she had offered to help. Yet she was standing there treating me like I wanted to be a loser. I said, “Kari, do you want me to get a job?”

  “I want you to try and do something. I don’t like coming home from a long day and you’re asleep on the couch.”

  “You think I’m just chilling.”

  “London, you are just chilling.”

  I didn’t like her busting me out like that but I guess technically I was. “I’m going to look for a job tomorrow,” I said, with very little excitement.

  Kari said, “Actually, I was thinking you could be a dog walker. I saw a girl earlier with five dogs walking down N Street. And when she noticed me looking at her like she was crazy, she said, ‘I’m a dog walker.’ ”

  I asked, “Well, how much does something like that pay?”

  “She said they usually pay for a thirty-minute walk, two times a week for one dog, it’s about twenty bucks and she gives a discount for multiple dogs in the same house.”

  I began to smile and it made Kari smile too as she continued: “And I thought, dang, my girl could do that.”

  I hugged Kari. “That’s a great idea.”

  “I
thought so,” she said as she wriggled out of my bear hug.

  “So, what? You gonna help me get started?”

  “How am I supposed to help you?” She rolled her eyes. “I’m helping you enough as it is.”

  I could tell by the frown on her face that she had no intention of walking one dog. I laughed. “Silly, I mean you’re creative. Help me make some flyers to put into people’s mailboxes and all.”

  “Yeah. I can do that because I can’t afford to keep taking care of you.”

  She said it jokingly, but I could tell that she’d reached her threshold. Kari was extremely mild-mannered and sweet as pie. So for her to say that, she really had to be feeling it. I gave her another hug. “Don’t worry. One day I’ll make enough money to take care of you.”

  Kari was in what I called a teachers’ boot camp for the summer. I thought they did all kinds of teacher activities to prepare them for the next year, but when she got home the next day she had a stack of flyers printed out on neon green paper. She plopped the stack on the table. “All right, get your shoes on. We have to go pass out flyers.”

  My neck snapped back. There was no question about my drive; I just needed to find something that I wanted to do. I had no plans for just turning my wheels, just for the sake of doing something. Maybe it was a pipe dream, but I had always imagined loving my job. I shook off my irritation, because she had been supporting me and maybe enough was enough.

  We left the house at around three in the afternoon. We went into every high-rise apartment building in the neighborhood, posting flyers. We handed them out to people we saw walking dogs. It was a hot, steamy August day and I remember looking at Kari. There were red patches on her face and her acne looked more irritated than usual. Sweat beaded on her forehead and nose, but she was passing out flyers like her life depended on it. I thought, That’s my girl.

  When we were out of the one thousand flyers that she’d risked her job to print, she said, “Let’s get a drink.”

  We rolled up into a neighborhood bar, sweaty and probably stank. There was an after-work crowd there and we stuck out like a bad breast lift. We didn’t care, though, because we’d just worked our asses off too. I hoped it would pay off. We sat down, ordered a pitcher of draft beer, and chatted about the next step for me.

  When we headed home I pulled out my cell phone and was happy to find about three strange numbers on the call log. We were both slightly intoxicated as we pinned our heads together to listen to the first message: “Hello. I’m calling to get information about your dog walking service.”

  I didn’t even hear the end of the message, because we both screamed simultaneously. We jumped up and down in the middle of Dupont Circle as we listened to the subsequent messages. All were inquiries about the service. I decided to return the calls in the morning, when I was sober.

  The first thing I did when I woke up was get my rate sheet together. I decided on ten dollars per half hour and five dollars extra for any additional dogs in the same household. Clients interested in daily service would get a weekly ten-dollar discount. I called Kari to see what she thought; she agreed. The next call was to my first potential client. She asked to meet me and if I would mind getting a background check. I frowned at the phone. A background check? She went on to say, “You will have access to my home and my last walker was a referral.”

  Not that I had anything on my record, but that was a possibility we hadn’t considered. I was happy this woman was willing to go as far as getting one done, because if this was a referral-type business it was probably going to be a slow start. My lips were poked out far enough to hit the television across the room as I sat Indian-style with my hand cupping my chin.

  “Well sure, I’m totally open for a background check. What do you need?”

  “I’ll just need your name and license number. I have a form that you’ll need to fill out. We can do that when we meet.”

  “Sounds good. When would you like to meet?”

  “Can you meet on New Hampshire and Twentieth?”

  “Certainly, what time?”

  “Around five o’clock this evening? I’ll be wearing a floral skirt and white shirt.”

  I felt pressure to say what I would be wearing too. But the truth was I had no clue, because I was in the house on my butt. Luckily she gave me an out. “Oh yeah, I’ll have two Labradors with me, one chocolate and the other yellow.” She chuckled as she spoke of her dogs. “They’re adorable.”

  “I’m sure they are. I’ll see you at five.”

  She added, “This is my cell phone number if you need to reschedule.”

  I didn’t have anything else to do, so that wouldn’t be happening. I said, “Okay, thanks.”

  Shortly after, I decided to return my mother’s phone call from a few days prior. It was close to eight West Coast time, so, I figured she’d just be getting in to work. That usually meant she was too busy to talk, but at least there would be a record that I had returned the call, which was really all that mattered. She wanted to talk to her deadbeat daughter as much as I wanted to talk to my overachieving mother. The phone rang three times. As I waited for the voice mail I heard some fumbling and finally she said, “Hello?”

  “What’s up, Mom?”

  “I think I ate something I shouldn’t have eaten. I’m feeling a little sick.”

  “Are you at work?”

  “No, I’m taking the day off.”

  Shit. I had to at least try to make small talk. “Oh yeah, you should.”

  “How’s the job search?”

  Damn, I thought. I had figured that at least we could beat around the bush for a minute before discussing that, but I guess not. I took a deep breath. “Okay.”

  “London, you’re going to have to pay back your loans starting in December.”

  “And it’s August,” I snapped.

  “You shouldn’t wait for things to pile up on you. You have to be proactive.”

  “I’m being proactive. I’ve decided to start a dog-walking service.”

  She laughed. “Honey, how many times do I have to tell you? You can’t make a living off of hanging out with dogs.”

  “Just trying to make extra change, Mom.”

  “Are you really only interested in making change? You have a hundred-thousand-dollar education and you want to walk dogs.” She made me angry as she went on, “If you’re not getting into vet school, you need to come up with something else.”

  “I told you that I’m going to apply again next year.”

  “And what are you going to do in the meantime?”

  I shouted, “Walk dogs!”

  “Dogs are pets, London. Not a profession.”

  “Mom, let’s talk about something else.”

  “London, you have expensive taste and I just don’t know how you plan to make a living walking dogs.”

  “Mom,” I said, more agitated.

  “And what’s the plan if you don’t get into school, again? What’s your backup plan? It seems like you don’t have one and you’re not interested in trying to find one either.”

  “Why would you say that?”

  “You get defensive every time I say something to you. Do you think I want you to have a real career for your own good or mine?

  I took a deep breath. It was as if no one understood my quest to find myself before plunging into some backup career only to wake up miserable ten years down the line. Contrary to what she believed, I was smarter than that. Sure she made a good living, but I can count how many times we’d shared a good laugh. I didn’t want to be like her, making a living just to be making a living because it was something I was supposed to do. I wanted to live! Didn’t all these unhappy people realize that the American dream was an empty one? I was searching for the thing that would bring me ultimate happiness. I didn’t understand why no one respected that. Maybe misery loves company.

  As I wandered off into visualizing the life I desired, she snapped, “That wasn’t a rhetorical question. Do you think I want you to g
et a job for you or for me?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “London, you can’t survive without income. Sometimes you have to do things that may not be ideal in order to eat.”

  “Mother, I am eating and I haven’t asked you for anything.”

  “That doesn’t make me proud. If you need something, I’ll give it to you, but I want to see some effort on your part.”

  “Like what?”

  I thought she’d shout back, but she didn’t. She spoke calmly. “London, I still have a lot of contacts in DC. If you want a job that will support your champagne taste just until you can get into vet school, I can help you.”

  “I’m okay, honestly.”

  “Don’t be stubborn. Let me help you.”

  I took a deep breath. “What do you have in mind?”

  “I’ll call a few people to see if they can get you an admin assistant job somewhere. That shouldn’t be too much of a hard job.”

  It irritated me that she thought I really didn’t want to work hard. I just didn’t want to get stuck in a job I didn’t like. A free-spirited person like me would feel suffocated, but she was so structured that she could never understand. I agreed to let her help me and accepted that because everyone else thought it was a good idea maybe I should just conform and get a dumb job.

  Later that evening I headed out to meet my potential dog-walking client. As I walked up Twentieth Street I noticed people in their work clothes walking their dogs. I calculated in my mind what I could earn if only half those people needed my service. Finally I noticed a thirtysomething white lady with red hair standing on the corner with ebony and ivory Labradors on a leash. I smiled anxiously as I approached.

  Reaching out my hand, I said, “Hello, I’m London.”

  It appeared that she was shocked to see me. Maybe it surprised her that I was a black girl, but it took her a second. Finally, she said, “Nice to meet you, London. I’m Lynn.” Looking down at the well-behaved dogs that were nicely sniffing me, she continued. “These are my boys, Peter and Paul.”