Scott Spencer

by Man in the Woods (v5)

  “I have a good-luck thing,” Ruby says, capturing no one’s attention.

  “So where’s this dog of yours?” Annabelle says, fixing her eyes on Paul.

  “On my foot!” Ruby proclaims.

  “He’s under the table,” says Paul.

  “It’s his happy hunting ground,” Kate says.

  “Hey, I’ve got a good-luck thing,” Ruby says. “I’ll give it to you.”

  “You’ve really come a long way, Paul,” Annabelle says. She gestures with her fork. “This house. A family. The cooking. And now a dog? I think it’s great.”

  Bernard has lifted the tablecloth and peers beneath the table, with a look of grave concern. “There is a dog,” he says. He resumes his upright position.

  “His name is Shep,” says Ruby. “We found him.”

  “Do you remember our dog?” Annabelle asks Paul.

  “It’s probably better not to even talk about it,” says Paul.

  “I wasn’t going to talk about him, about King,” says Annabelle. “I was just asking.”

  “Who’s King?” Ruby directs the question to her mother.

  Bernard has lifted the tablecloth again, and asks, “Does he want food?”

  “King Richard was a puppy,” Annabelle says to Ruby. “A Christmas dog. He was really, really cute. He used to suck on my fingertips like he was trying to get milk out of his mother’s breast.”

  Kate looks over at Paul.

  “I’m going to come over in the next couple days and see about fixing up those porch steps,” Paul says to Annabelle. “We’ll get that squared away.”

  “The landlord is completely irresponsible,” says Bernard. “My foot almost went through.” He continues to grip the edge of the tablecloth but refrains from taking another look at Shep.

  “I think we should get Shep out from under the table,” says Kate. “Paul?”

  “So where did you find the dog?” Annabelle asks Paul.

  “Coming back from the city,” says Paul. He hears a deadness in his own voice, clears his throat. “Come on, Shep,” he says, getting up. “Let’s find a better spot for you.”

  Shep slinks out from his spot, though there is a certain hopefulness in his expression. He might be keeping open the possibility he has been called because he is about to be given some chicken.

  “He’s got some of King’s color in him,” says Annabelle. “He was a Christmas present from my mother,” Annabelle says, turning toward Ruby. “My mother got him from some lousy pet shop and there was something wrong with him.”

  “What?” Ruby asks.

  “I don’t know. I don’t know what you call dog diseases. All I know is King Richard was dead in four days.” She delivers this last statement in a somewhat melodramatic tone, and raises four fingers of her hand, to further impress Ruby with the small amount of time the little dog lived.

  Kate is relieved to see that Ruby is showing no particular reaction to Annabelle’s story. Annabelle seems to have noted this as well, and turns to Paul for reinforcement. “Do you remember how you cried?”

  “Of course,” Paul says, furrowing his brow. “It’s only natural.”

  “You were always so…” Annabelle searches for the word. “I think I was more upset about seeing you cry than I was about poor little King.”

  “Well he was your brother and you knew him a lot more,” says Ruby.

  Kate feels a rush of love for Ruby. You are the most wonderful girl. The insubordination of Ruby’s remark doesn’t escape Annabelle, but rather than pushing forward, she heaves a sigh.

  “My family had a dog, a Great Pyrenees,” Bernard says. “I begged for his life when my father announced we were going to eat him.”

  “Oh, Bernard, please,” says Annabelle. “No war stories.”

  “What was its name?” Ruby asks Bernard, and when he indicates with a raised eyebrow that he doesn’t know what she is asking, she adds, “The dog you ate.”

  “We called him Roger,” Bernard says. “Handsome, clever Roger. And we did not eat him. My father said yes, but he was overruled. There was fighting in the streets. And there was no place in the city that was safe. We were trapped in our house, eleven of us, all ages. Nothing to eat. My father loved the dog, but he had responsibility for all of our being well. Life is a struggle for protein. Protein, and the right to reproduce your genes. You understand? To make a family?”

  Ruby nods gravely.

  “Of course you do,” says Bernard. He gestures toward the food on his plate. “Getting enough to eat, the meaning of life, for plants, and the animals, and for little girls and grown-ups, as well.”

  “I think Jesus,” says Ruby.

  “Jesus!” cries Annabelle, as if this was a name all of them had promised not to invoke.

  “She means God,” says Kate, hoping to protect her child from Annabelle and Bernard, who, she now believes, either have no idea how to speak to a child, or are in some other way deranged.

  “What do you think they were fighting about in Bernard’s city?” Annabelle says. “All the killing? It was for God. Someone says the wrong prayer—good-bye. Someone eats the wrong food—adios. Spring comes and this one says Happy Ramadan, and this one says Happy Passover, and this one says Happy Easter, and then they pick up their swords and try to cut each other’s head off.”

  Ruby’s hands are behind her neck until finally she unclasps the chain and little crucifix Kate had given her a couple of weeks ago. She pools it in the palm of her hand, looks at it for a moment, and offers it to Annabelle. “Here is something that will make you safe in your mail car,” she says. “You’re supposed to hang it from the mirror thing in the front and it keeps you safe.”

  Oh no no no, this is not going to end well, Kate thinks.

  For a moment, it seems that Annabelle is overcome with the kindness of Ruby’s gesture, but she quickly recovers herself. “I’ll put it on my rearview mirror and we’ll see what happens,” Annabelle says. “But let’s not forget that all over the world people are hurting each other over this thing called religion, which to me is like fighting over fairy tales. Do you understand, Ruby? It’s like people going to war because one side believes in Cinderella and the other side believes in the Little Mermaid.”

  “The Little Mermaid blows,” says Ruby.

  Paul sits on the edge of the tub and watches as Ruby brushes her teeth with fanatical thoroughness. At last she spits the foam of toothpaste into the sink; after, she rinses her mouth, raising up a golf ball on one cheek and then the other. Annabelle and Bernard have left, and Paul is grateful for the forbearance Kate has shown throughout the course of the evening, and to thank her he says he will put Ruby to bed, and will also clean the kitchen, leaving Kate to relax and watch a show on PBS about the looming threat of Y2K. Putting Ruby to bed is no easy matter; it involves supervising her various hygienic tasks, and taking her into the bedroom, reading to her for at least twenty minutes, singing several soothing songs, and patting her on the back in the dark until she falls asleep.

  “See you in the morning,” she says to her reflection in the medicine chest. She takes Paul’s hand and they walk into her bedroom, which is painted tan and blue, with stars on the ceiling. On the walls are pictures Ruby herself took in an after-school photography class, portraits of other children in her grade, all of whom look cross and unsmiling, mimicking the existential pout of runway models. Even Señorita Spotnose, the black-and-white cat that lives in the cellar of Windsor Day, seems to have gone over to the dark side—her ears lie flat on her head and her eyes have turned blood-red from the camera’s flash.

  Paul reads to Ruby while she moves her fingers up and down on her blanket’s satin border, pretending to type the words as he says them. After the reading comes the singing, and at last Paul turns off the bedside lamp and kisses Ruby on the forehead. As he pulls away from her, Ruby catches his shoulders, holds him fast.

  “Not yet,” she says.

  Her breath smells of toothpaste and body heat, like candy out of
the oven. From a distance comes the sound of a car. It is heading toward the house; its headlights plunge into Ruby’s room, swelling the shadows of the furniture and teddy bears so that they rush up the walls and halfway across the ceiling. Shep, who has followed Paul up the steps and has been curled waiting for him outside of Ruby’s room, scrambles to his feet and rushes down to the first floor, barking his deep baritone warning. Paul, still held by Ruby’s beseeching hands, feels a whirl of anxiety going through him. Who could be coming here at this hour?

  “You get a great night’s sleep,” he says to Ruby, in as relaxed a voice as possible. He peels her grip loose, and Ruby falls back flat onto the bed. She seems a good distance from sleep; this whole ritual has been wasted.

  “Don’t leave until I fall asleep,” she says. “With pats.”

  By now, Shep’s barking has taken on a tinge of mania. “I better see what’s going on down there,” Paul says, standing up. The blood rushes from his head; consciousness ripples like a flag in the wind.

  Downstairs, a driver from a courier service is sitting at the kitchen counter. He has taken off his fur cap and his thinning dark hair is wet with perspiration; he mops his brow with the back of his hand. A bulky package clearly marked urgent is on the counter. Kate, placing a coffee cup in front of the driver, takes the package with her as she resumes her post next to the stove, where she is waiting for the water to boil.

  “Hi Paul,” she says, over her shoulder, as Paul walks slowly into the kitchen. “This is Casper, he got lost somewhere between LaGuardia and here.”

  “I’m not overly accustomed to the roads up this way,” Casper says. He has a whiskey voice, lurching and apologetic. Kate has found a box cutter in a drawer, with which to cut the envelope open. The teakettle begins to whistle but Kate is absorbed by the envelope’s contents—a letter, a few audiotapes, several brochures. Paul turns the burner off, picks up the kettle to see if there’s enough water for an extra cup, and glances at the letter in Kate’s hands. On the top of the page is an old-fashioned drawing of a radio tower, with concentric ever-expanding circles of broadcasting power emanating from its peak.

  “It’s from Heartland Radio,” Kate says, her eyes moving, her chin sinking, as she scans the page.

  “Who’s that?” Paul asks.

  Kate presses the letter to her breast, takes a deep breath. “We can talk about this,” she says. “Casper has to go all the way back to New York.”

  “Tarrytown,” Casper says. He rakes his fingernails through his hair, as if to comb it. He has the ways of a man who no longer spends his time in the company of others.

  “They called you in Tarrytown to pick this up at LaGuardia?” Kate asks. “And then to drive it out here?”

  “That’s okay with me,” Casper says. “Tarrytown’s right in the middle of everything, and I’m happy for the work.”

  Paul struggles to maintain a placid composure. This guy’s got nothing to do with it. Sometimes a coincidence is just a coincidence. But fear and illogic have entered him at the end of a very long day when his defenses are down.

  Kate hands Casper his coffee. “Oh that’s good, that’s good,” he says, taking a sip.

  “It’s so late to be making deliveries,” Kate says.

  “I picked your thing up at the airport a little past six,” Casper says. “I don’t mean to be barging in.”

  “No, no,” Kate says. “It’s fine.”

  “You never know what it is,” Casper says. “I’ve been in the courier business since 1979 and I’ve had some pretty strange things. I picked up a human heart once, locked up in a metal box, sent from Chicago.” He takes another sip of coffee and exhales, turning his shoulders, lifting his chin, and for a moment his younger self, handsome and dramatic, shows through. “I swear to God I could hear it beating.”

  “No life-saving organs for me,” Kate says. “Just fame and fortune.”

  “So I bring glad tidings,” Casper says, placing the cup onto the counter and dismounting the stool as if from a horse. “What’s the best way back to Tarrytown from here?” he asks.

  “Tarrytown,” Paul says. “I don’t know. I never go there.” He looks out the window over the sink to see what the weather is but the hard, moonless night turns the glass into a mirror. His own face is the last thing in the world he wants to see right now.

  Casper gives Paul a lingering, questioning look, but then says, “Just point me in the right direction.”

  “I’ll get you to the parkway,” Paul says, opening the door.

  Paul gives the courier directions to the Taconic Parkway and walks him to the door to the black, icy night. Casper has left the engine of his Honda running; chalk-white exhaust rushes out of the tailpipe, and the headlights illuminate dashes and dots of slanting snow.

  “Just a second,” Paul says, and reaches into his pocket, pulls out what feels like the newest and cleanest of the bills. It’s a fifty and it’s just as well. He hands it to Casper, who seems surprised, and uncertain about accepting it. He glances down, sees Grant’s melancholy, drink-blasted face.

  “Much appreciated,” he murmurs.

  As the taillights of Casper’s car swerve slowly up the driveway and out of sight, Paul continues to stand there, taking some comfort in the steady darkness of the cold, cold night. When he walks back to the kitchen, the light seems garishly bright and the sudden heat makes him feel as if he has been submerged in water.

  Kate is trying to divert Shep’s attention while the dog, emitting a series of whines and warbles, his rump in the air, his tail twirling, claws frantically at the cabinet doors beneath the kitchen sink. “Stop it, Shep,” Kate is saying. “You’re wrecking the paint.”

  “Shep,” Paul commands, clapping his hands, but the dog continues to worry the cabinet doors and now is lying flat on his underside and plucking at the doors with his claws, hoping to open them.

  “Why’s he doing this?” Kate asks. “Is something in there?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t think he’s just goofing around.” Paul crouches next to the dog and crooks his finger through the metal circle that tightens the choke collar—the one artifact from the dog’s former life. The moment Shep feels the collar tightening, he turns his teeth toward Paul’s hand with stunning speed. There is no measurement of time that can describe how sudden this move is, and all that saves Paul from being bitten is Shep’s stopping himself.

  “Oh my God,” Kate says. “Are you all right?” She has backed farther and farther away from the sink.

  “What are you doing, buddy?” Paul croons to the dog. “You going a little nuts there?”

  Shep is panting, eyes flashing, his avidity masked as merriment. He seems reconciled to Paul’s grip on his collar, but when Paul pushes down on his rump and tells him to sit it is as if the dog’s skeleton is constructed in such a way as to make that position an impossibility. When Paul pushes harder, Shep’s front legs begin to slide on the kitchen floor and a low growl rumbles in the depths of him.

  “Paul,” Kate says, her voice rising, “that dog’s going to bite you.”

  To demonstrate how much he does not fear this, to show Kate, the dog, and himself, Paul cups his hand over Shep’s muzzle. The dog’s excited breath is warm and moist against his palm, and Shep’s normally peaceful brown eyes show a disquieting amount of white. Though the dog is not going to bite Paul, he is not going to be deterred from rooting out whatever is inside the cabinet beneath the sink, and as soon as Paul relaxes his grip, Shep scrambles to the doors again and begins scratching at them and whimpering.

  “What’s in there?” Kate asks.

  “I don’t know. Something. A mouse, a squirrel, maybe a snake.”

  “A snake?” For Kate, this is the worst-case scenario, far more disturbing than Y2K.

  “There are no poisonous snakes around here,” Paul says.

  “All snakes are poisonous. They poison your mind. You experience such uncontrollable, piercing terror that the fear chemicals released in your brain tur
n you into a drooling idiot.”

  “Here,” Paul says, “you take Shep and I’ll deal with whatever’s in there.” He leads Shep by the collar, though the dog is unwilling and Paul must virtually drag him across the kitchen to Kate. Just as the transfer is being made, Shep wriggles free and lopes across the room, back to the cabinets, and this time he has instantaneous success in plucking the doors open.

  “Oh no!” Kate cries. Her hands fly up to her face.

  It’s a rat snake, dull muddy gray and eight feet long. It has been enjoying the warmth of the hot water pipe, which the back half of it has been wrapped around. It drops to the floor and slithers slowly toward them. Its flat, rather small head is white on its underside; the black holes of its eyes are ringed in gray several shades lighter than the chain mail covering the rest of it.

  Kate is virtually paralyzed with fear. As much as she wants to put distance between her and the rat snake, she is equally afraid to be alone. “What’s that bulge?” she manages to say.

  “I guess he just ate a mouse,” Paul says.

  “Oh fuck,” whispers Kate, as if there simply could not be worse news. She covers her mouth and nose. “It smells like a horrible cucumber.”

  Shep, seeing now the bewildering nature of the noise from beneath the sink, has decided the best place for him is at Paul’s side. He leans against Paul’s leg and watches as the snake slowly makes its way across the kitchen.

  “What are you doing?” cries Kate. “You’re just standing there!”

  “Don’t worry,” Paul says. “I’m going to get it out of here.”

  Whatever the snake has swallowed seems still to be alive. It pulsates in the snake’s digestive tract, as the nutrients are slowly and inexorably juiced out of it. As it is replenished, the snake is moving toward the kitchen table, and Paul quickly puts himself in its path, and stamps his foot to redirect it. The snake stops, lifts its head, surveys the terrain. With increasing speed, it winds its way toward the door to the cellar, where there is, in fact, a space between the door and the floor that is large enough for the snake to squeeze through and make its way to the bowels of the house, where it may have been wintering all along.