by Jack Gantos
“I told you,” he said, and winked at me. “I’m wired backward.”
He took a drag off his cigarette, and I could see his fingers shaking.
“Are you sad?” I asked.
He took another shaky drag, then tried to laugh, but it wasn’t a laugh. He was sad, and the laugh was like crying in reverse. “I just need a drink is all,” he replied. “Pity I can’t be happy with my own sadness. But the bottle has got me trapped inside it like one of those little ships you can’t even shake out and the only way you can get it out is to break the whole thing.” He looked up at me. “You’ve got your med patch to keep you steady,” he said. “Well, I need a Fran patch to keep me steady. I need your help getting her back,” he said, finally getting to the point.
I didn’t know what to say to that.
“You sure you don’t want a cigarette?” Dad asked, lighting a fresh one off the old one.
I almost said yes because I was so relieved to change the subject. But I said, “No.” Suddenly I heard a loud cow snort. “I thought this place was empty,” I remarked.
“Not entirely,” he said. “There’s still some meat-on-feet.” He pointed out at the stockyard. “Mostly old good-for-nothing bulls,” he said. “We’re living the loser life together. Next week they’ll be chopped meat, and I’ll be chopped liver.”
“It’s getting late, Dad,” I said. “Can I see the dogs?”
“Sure.” He opened the door, and they all came running out like a miniature stampede of cattle.
“Pablo!” I shouted, and dropped down to my knees. He ran into my arms.
“Rat-dogs is what they are,” Dad remarked, and scooped up a handful of dirt and threw it at them. They began barking like a string of firecrackers. “A real man would have a dog like a Doberman, or a German shepherd or a pit bull—not some girlie dog that fits in a purse.”
“He’s not a sissy dog,” I said. “He’s not afraid of anything. Me, or you, or even that old bull.” I stood up and went over to the shadowy pen with the bull.
“Sic ’em, killer,” I ordered, and set Pablo on the ground. Pablo ran straight at him, yapping all the way. The bull couldn’t have cared less. It stood looking at me with eyes as dark and shiny as eight balls while Pablo snipped and snapped at its hoof trying to get the bull to do something. Finally Pablo leaped up and bit the bull on a clump of matted fur and mud. He hung on there, growling. The bull looked away and took a deep breath.
“Okay,” Dad agreed, “Pablo is no sissy dog. But who is man enough to pull Pablo off the bull?”
“I’ll do it,” I said.
I snapped my fingers. Pablo opened his jaws and fell to the ground. He popped up onto his feet and ran toward me.
“You win,” Dad said. “He’s a real killer. And you are his master. Now, come on,” he said. “I’ll put these dogs in a sack, and I’ll give you a ride home.”
“First we have to stop by the hospital,” I said. “They have some medicine waiting for you.”
“Oh yeah, that’s right,” he said, remembering as he rubbed his side with his hand. “I’ll do that later. Let me get you home first.” He went inside the shack and came out with a feed sack. I picked up the dogs one by one and set them in. They wriggled around like cats about to be drowned.
He put the sack in his saddlebag and lifted me onto the backseat. “Hang on to my shoulders,” he said. “It’s a bumpy ride getting out of here.”
He started the motorcycle, and we took off, and I grabbed him around the neck. He knew his way through the maze of pens, and before long we were roaring down Plum Street past the grocery store and under the railroad bridge, and then he veered off and instead of going to the front of our house, he turned down Maple Avenue and slowed down and pulled in to St. Mary’s Cemetery. After he picked up a little speed, he cut off the engine, and we glided down the narrow asphalt path and pulled up at the back of our house.
“You know,” Dad said. “I’ve been thinkin’ just now. I see how well you are doing, and I want to be well too. I think you gave me some help tonight.”
“Thanks,” I said, feeling so proud of myself for what he said.
“I’ll try harder with Fran,” he said. “By the way, do you know where she’s hiding out?”
“Dad, don’t be scary,” I replied.
“I’ll try,” he said.
“I hope so,” I said. “Because if you were nice, it wouldn’t be so bad to have you around here.”
“You mean that, son?” he asked.
“I do,” I replied.
“Hey, those two words are what people say when they get married. I do. I remember them well. Does she ever talk about the good times we had together?”
“Dad,” I said, “I’ve got to go now. I have a lot of dogs to take care of and your mom too.”
“Goodnight,” he said, and reached around and gave me a hug, and I hugged him back.
“One question,” I asked. “What happened to your last girlfriend? She was nice.”
“The same thing that happened to you,” he replied. “She got to know me too well.” He grinned, then started the motorcycle, and whatever else he had to say was silenced behind the sound of that engine.
And there I was, standing with a sack full of growling Chihuahuas, in a cemetery, thinking that now I was Mom’s helper, and Mrs. Lapp’s helper, and Olivia’s helper, and Grandma’s helper, and Dad’s helper, and Pablo’s helper, and the helper for a sackful of unhappy dogs. I didn’t know if that was a good thing or a bad thing. I knew Grandma would say I should just help myself and let the others figure it out for themselves, but I couldn’t let them down. So I lifted the sack up over the cemetery fence and into my backyard. It was time to get them sorted out and ready for bed. I figured I’d return them in the morning.
8
DAY BY DAY
I had left the dogs in the bathroom all night. In the morning I got a piece of clothesline rope and one by one tied them all to me, and when I was finished they looked like a Chihuahua charm bracelet that had fallen off a giant lady. They were yapping and straining in all different directions with their hard nails scratching at the wooden floor while Pablo ran a circle around us and snipped and snapped at them and stirred up trouble. I looked at him and shook my finger back and forth. Pablo had only been with Dad for a short while, but he was already acting just like him—sinking to his level.
“Pablo Pigza!” I shouted above all the noise. “You better straighten up, or you are headed for a timeout.”
He took off through the house barking and yapping as if he were on a tiny circus motorcycle driving crazily between the furniture.
“I’ll deal with you later, young man,” I shouted as he scrambled around a chair. “Right now I’ve got a job to do.” I looped my end of the rope around a doorknob and went into the bathroom. It was a swampy mess. I backed out and went to the kitchen, where I got a roll of paper towels, then returned and wiped everything up. Since we didn’t have air freshener, I sprayed some old cologne around. It was brownish and smelled like rotting leaves, which was perfect since Thanksgiving was just around the corner.
“I’ll be back in a little bit,” I hollered to Grandma. “Anything I can get you while I’m out?” I knew she was still alive because I could see smoke rising above her curtain, and I could hear the dry sound of paper being folded.
“A friend,” she croaked.
“Can I get back to you on that?” I hollered, and I opened our front door and all the Chihuahuas went insane and scrambled through and across the porch. I slammed the door, and we went spinning around like the Mad Hatter’s teacups with all of them tipping over and falling down the stairs and me behind them. Once we hit the sidewalk, I took off running, and they took off after me. I sang out, “Rolling, rolling, rolling! Keep them doggies rolling, rawww-hide!” And they rolled along—tripping, tumbling, yapping like a band of scuffed-up mariachis.
When I arrived at the Lapps’ house I rang the doorbell.
Mrs. Lapp answered. �
��W.W.J.D.?” she chimed as always. Then she looked down at all the dogs and took a step back as if I had a gang of rabid rats with me. “Oh, my!” she exclaimed, and her eyes got very big.
“I have to return these lost dogs to their proper homes,” I replied as quickly as I could. “My dad stole them by mistake, and I’m helping him out.”
“Good idea,” she said, relieved. “Because you can’t bring them all in here.”
“What’s going on?” Olivia shouted from the living room as she marched across the carpet.
“My dad had all the Chihuahuas, and after I found him, he gave them to me, and now I have to return them,” I shouted, as if she were deaf too.
Mrs. Lapp cupped her hands around her mouth and leaned forward. “Invite her along,” she whispered into my ear. “She needs to get out some. She’s been a little terror this morning already.”
I didn’t want to. But I didn’t have a choice.
“Do you want to come with me on a really long, dangerous, stinky, awful chore?” I droned, like a dying bagpipe.
“The nastier the better,” Olivia replied. I looked down at her leg. She had her pant leg rolled up and a big seeping bandage below her knee.
“When you return, we’ll do a Bible lesson on all of this,” Mrs. Lapp offered.
“Jesus and the Chihuahuas?” I asked. I had never heard of that before.
“No, lost lambs,” she said, and patted me on the head as if I were a lost Joey.
I had already looked at all the dog tags and made up a route for returning them. “This one is from Lime Street,” I said when Olivia was suited up with her walking gear. “Let’s go.”
“You be careful,” Mrs. Lapp advised, and pointed to Olivia’s leg.
“Don’t worry,” I replied. “I’ve got a posse of Chihuahuas to protect us.”
“And I’m the baddest blind girl in town,” Olivia said, slashing the air with her cane so wildly that I had to duck.
We were a weird team. She tapped and the dogs yapped and we zigzagged our way down the street like the drunks stumbling around the bus station.
When we arrived at the red brick house on Lime Street, a little old man wearing a plaid golf cap and stained T-shirt answered the door. “Yes?” he asked.
“I think my dad stole your dog,” I said. “Baxter?”
He smiled and covered his heart with his hands. “Where? Where?” he cried joyously, before suddenly staring down at the five Chihuahuas and trying to figure out which was his. “Baxter! Baxter!”
Baxter jumped into his lowered arms, and I untied the leash from my wrist and backed out of the doorway. Olivia and I and the other four Chihuahuas continued to scratch, tap, and yap our way down the sidewalk.
“He didn’t even give you a reward,” Olivia said.
“I don’t want a reward,” I replied. “My dad stole the dogs, and I’m doing this because it’s the right thing to do.”
“You are such a sucker,” she said.
“Am not,” I snapped back. “I’m just trying to help.”
“Sucker,” she insisted.
“Am not,” I muttered.
“Are too,” she whispered.
Am not, I said to myself with my lips barely buzzing.
The next owner was on the shady side of King Street. An old lady in a house dress came to the Dutch door. I gave little Charro back to her. She held her dog up to her face and kissed her right on the lips. “I knew if I made ice cream you’d come home,” she said in a baby voice, and squeezed Charro’s skinny belly. “So that’s just what I was doing.”
I grinned.
“And what is your name, young man?”
“You can just call me Mr. Helpful,” I said, and blushed. “And you can call her the Mistress of All Evil.”
Once Olivia heard that, she snapped to attention. She tucked her chin into her chest and glowered at the woman with her large cloudy eyes. It was frightening.
The lady held Charro to her chest. “Okay, Mr. Helpful,” she said, smiling at me, “and Mistress Evil,” she said hesitantly. “I’ll make you a batch of ice cream. Can I bring some to you?”
I gave her my address. “We’re having a family gettogether on Thanksgiving,” I said. “Stop by because we include anyone nice in our family.”
“I won’t be there,” Olivia growled.
The lady looked at me. I held my finger to my lips and shrugged. There really was no explanation for Olivia’s bad attitude.
I looked at the next dog tag. The address was on Prince Street.
As we walked in front of the Fulton Opera House, there were big signs advertising Godspell, and overhead “Day by Day” was playing on a tinny speaker.
“That’s Godspell!” Olivia said suddenly, turning her ear toward the speakers. “Are we at the opera house?”
“Yes,” I said, though I had never been inside it before.
“I heard on the radio that Godspell is playing, and I have to go,” she announced.
“Then go,” I said.
“My mom doesn’t approve of it. She thinks Bible musicals are bad because they turn religion into entertainment.”
I didn’t know what to say to that because mostly my mind was still thinking about what she had just said—that she’d like to go. I think it was the first positive thing she had ever said she wanted to do. I don’t remember her saying that she even wanted to have eyesight.
Suddenly all that talk about having to “go” made me have to go. I began hopping back and forth as if I were dodging bullets. I tried to open the opera house door, but it was locked. “I’ll be right back,” I said. “I gotta go to the bathroom. But watch out,” I warned her. “My dad is still around and he’s insane, and I told him you were mean to me, and if he catches you with the dogs, there’s no telling what he’ll do.”
“Don’t worry about me,” she replied, and raked her cane across the sidewalk hard enough to make sparks. “I can handle him.”
I put all the leashes around her wrist and ran across the street. Then I stopped and checked on her. She stood there singing “Day by Day” out loud, twisting back and forth and bobbing up and down like a lost ship on the ocean. She kept all her happiness to herself, I thought, and never shared it with me.
After I did what I needed to do behind a bush, I got an idea. I thought I’d give her a taste of her own medicine and scare her inside out and see just how much she liked it when someone was mean to her. I took off running and at the end of the block turned left and after that another left and another left until I had circled back to her, and then when I was a block away, I stopped and began to tiptoe forward so that soon I was standing in her shadow, which was right behind her, as if I were a ghoul hiding in the forest, and then before the dogs even noticed me, I leaped forward and yelled, “BOO!” and grabbed her shoulders. She shrieked out loud as if I had stabbed her. She dropped her cane, and it clattered across the brick sidewalk. Her legs buckled, and she crumpled down in a heap, and the dogs began barking.
I didn’t know what to do. “Olivia!” I said desperately as I dropped to my knees. “Are you okay?”
She moaned.
“Olivia?”
Her cloudy eyes rolled toward mine. “You are in so much trouble,” she said angrily. “I almost had a heart attack. I almost died.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, panting because I was so scared. “It was kind of a joke, but I guess it wasn’t funny.”
“You guessed right,” she snapped.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “Really sorry.” I tried to help her up, but she pushed me aside and got up on her own. She bent down and ran her hands across the bricks until she located her cane. And as we started up the street, I pranced around her and said about a million times, “Sorry, soooooo sorry.” And I was so nervous because I had really done something wrong. I snuck up and scared a blind girl. What was I thinking? The only person in the world who would think this was a good idea was Dad. Now I was following in his footsteps.
Olivia didn’t say
anything no matter how many times I said sorry, so we continued up Prince Street until we came to a small wooden house where one of the dogs lived. I knocked on a door. No one answered. But there was a little rubber doggy door flap, and as I stood there, the dog went right in, and I knew it was his home. I wished it was my home because at that moment I wanted to crawl through a doggy door and curl up in a corner and hide. But I couldn’t fit. I untied his leash from around my wrist and figured his owners would find a happy surprise when they got home.
“If you were really sorry for being so awful to me,” she said as I planned how to return the next pet, “you would sneak me out of my house and take me to Godspell.”
“I can’t do that,” I said. “Your mom would kill me.”
“Well, what if I kill you first?” she said bitterly, then sneered at where she thought I was standing but missed me.
“Help yourself,” I replied.
“You could help me,” she said. “I’d unplug the little door monitor, and then you could sneak me out.”
“And how would I get tickets?” I asked, remembering a sign in the ticket booth window. “They are forty-five dollars each.”
“W.W.J.D.?” she replied. “Where there’s a will, there’s a way.”
“I’m not stealing money,” I said.
“Get it from your dad,” she suggested.
“He’s broke,” I said.
“Your mom?”
“She’s broke too.”
“Your grandma?”
“That’s her lung money,” I replied. “We can’t use that.”
“Well, if you helped me, I might be willing to help you do something,” she offered.
“Are you trying to make a deal?” I asked.
“Perhaps,” she said.
I thought for a moment. “Would you visit my grandma?”
She didn’t say anything, which was almost like saying yes.
“Really, it would be a good thing to do,” I said. “Because then she could die in peace knowing I had a friend.”
“That sounds crazy to me.”
“No, really, that’s what she told me. That she ‘can’t die in peace’ until she is certain I can make a friend, because I’ve never had one.”
