Maybe I’ll make tiny clay sculptures of all the people in the veterinarian’s office, and line the walls of a shoe box with them. A stainless-steel operating table (so big it dwarfs everyone in the box) could stand in the middle, and its legs push through the bottom so it wobbles, like a crippled dog, instead of standing up right. On the outside of the box, I’ll glue all the wishbones I’ve been saving.
Except for a few barks and a lot of whining from the kennel, the vet’s office is eventually quiet. It’s 6:10 p.m. and everyone has gone, except for the fidgety receptionist in her raincoat, who stands in the doorway of the well-lit lab, keeping an eye on me.
“Hello?” Mom finally calls from the other room. “Anyone here?” She blushes when she finds us. “I’m so sorry! I was painting and . . . I thought Lily was with our neighbors all this time . . . You put down their poodle this afternoon?”
She stops to look at me. I know: Fifi is dead.
“Thank you for watching my daughter.” Mom puts her hand on my shoulder and heads me toward the door, but the bottoms of my shoes are sticky with sacred stuff and it’s hard to lift my feet.
One.
Two.
“Lily?” Mom blushes again. “Can we move a little faster?”
Three times.
The receptionist jiggles her keys. “It’s my wedding anniversary. We have reservations. He’s waiting for me.”
“Of course, of course.” Mom tightens her grip on my arm. “Lily’s been sick this week.”
“Well, something is certainly wrong,” the woman says, switching off the light. “The front door’s locked, just give it a firm pull when you leave.”
Lauren’s in the backseat of the car, doing her homework.
When Mom stops at the store to get more wine, Lauren asks, “What’d you do this time?” and I show her my fist.
When Johnny Mathis sings “Chances Are” on the radio, Lauren says, “He’s got a girly voice,” so I slug her as hard as I can.
When I get home I’m sent to my room, but I don’t mind. I like my room. I’m in there all the time.
Soon after we’ve returned home, Frieda calls.
Mom picks up. “Yes, Lily’s better . . . Yes, she loves the card you sent . . . What else? Well, you already know that the three of us had a little slumber party outside, right? . . . No, it was a lovely night.” Mom lights a cigarette. “A little fresh air never hurt . . . No, no, I don’t believe that moonlight . . .” She isn’t going to mention the vet’s. “No, Paul’s still at the office . . . Yes, of course I’ll tell him you . . . Listen, I need to go, Frieda.” Mom said too much. Now Frieda will call Dad saying she picked a fight.
While our family watches TV that night, I paint a shoe box in pink and white stripes, and glue a small toothpick Eiffel Tower to the top of it.
In the morning I paint white cotton balls black (to look like Fifi) then glue the puffy poodles inside and outside the box and give it to Judy, telling her she can put Fifi’s stuff in it if she wants, but she doesn’t and hands it back. I “embarrassed her” at the vet’s office, she says, but “I guess you can come in. For a while.”
“It’s okay if we’re not friends anymore,” I say, wiping each one of my shoes on her welcome mat three times. “I mean, you’re older and . . .” Judy walks away. “Maybe you’ll want the box later?”
She leaves the door open, and after thirty seconds I follow her in.
We eat sandwiches and drink Coke, and sit together at the coffee table, where we take off our shoes and stick our toes in the thick loopy rug underneath it, just like we used to when Judy still liked me. Not just sometimes, like now, but almost all the time. She sighs when she takes down two old coloring books and the same old crayon box.
“We don’t have to color,” I say, but Judy answers, “Yes we do. Connie said to be nice to you.” I wish I’d never made her a shoe box. “It’s fine, Lily. Just don’t tell Karla I’m coloring, okay?”
Yes. No. Maybe.
I trace the outline of my circus bear, and then steadily, carefully fill it in with even swipes of burnt sienna. I haven’t colored in a long time and I miss the smell of the warm waxy crayons in my sweaty hand.
“Too red,” she says, poking my page with her periwinkle crayon.
“Some bears are red.”
“Not like that.” She pauses. “You’re still weird, aren’t you?”
“No.”
“Aren’t you taking pills and seeing a shrink?”
“I am taking pills. And I still go to Dr. Giraffe—I mean—Dr. Madsen—sometimes.”
“Dr. Giraffe? Jesus, Lily, you talk like a baby. I think you should leave.”
“Why?”
“Just go home, Lily.”
“Go to hell,” I say, swallowing my tears. I put my head down and color, adding another layer of burnt sienna to my circus bear.
Suddenly Judy jumps to her feet. “Jesus, Lily, didn’t you hear? Somebody poisoned her! The vet said somebody poisoned Fifi.”
“Poisoned?”
“He wondered if we’d seen a stranger in the neighborhood, or if we knew someone who might be cruel to animals.”
Who would want to hurt Fifi?
The neighborhood boys like the big dogs more—Kaiser, Winston, Caesar, and Uncle Miltie—but they’d never hurt Rusty’s dog. And when we were younger and played King and Queen, Fifi was the royal lap dog. She liked to play School too, where she was a nervous but attentive student.
Maybe Judy’s dad killed Fifi; he never liked her. Or the Savage Boy—maybe the Savage Boy killed Mrs. Wiggins. And it wasn’t me. Or cancer.
“My stepdad said that mentally disturbed people sometimes torture and kill small animals.”
“So you think the Savage Boy—”
“I’m not talking about him,” Judy says. “You’re seeing a shrink, remember? You even said you killed Mrs. Wiggins. Remember?”
“You think I . . . You think I would hurt Fifi?” My heart aches. She thinks I’d kill her dog?
Jesus stands in the kitchen, making a cuckoo sign next to His ear.
“I didn’t say you meant to.” Judy’s eyes dart all around nervously. “I don’t know, it’s just, you jumped in the car when you weren’t invited and you made the shoe box for me and I thought . . .”
I hate the stupid pink-and-white–striped shoe box with the Eiffel Tower and cotton-ball poodles. I throw it in the fireplace.
And run out.
My best friend thinks I killed her dog.
Heading back home, I walk five steps ahead of Jesus; I know He’s there because I hear His bare feet slapping the sidewalk behind me.
For a while I kept a chart of days Jesus wore His sandals and days He didn’t, but He borrowed it to “show someone,” and lost it.
* * *
Two days later, a box of tall neatly labeled jars appears on our welcome mat.
“Connie’s sharing her bounty again,” Dad says, the morning paper tucked under his arm. He places the box on the kitchen counter. “For a city girl, she sure loves to can.”
“When I grow up, I’m never going to can,” Lauren says. “I’m going to be rich and live in the city and have maids. They can can stuff if they want to.” She balances a book on her head while eating the three-minute egg and lightly buttered rye toast she asked Mom to make her every morning that week.
“I thought you wanted to be a teacher. Like Miss Marcus,” I say.
“Lily,” Mom warns. “How about some canned fruit? Anybody?”
Dad holds up a tall golden jar. “Only wish Connie canned meat too. I used to love Frieda’s stew meat.”
“Meat in a jar?” Lauren makes a sour face.
“Aren’t they beautiful?” Mom smiles, placing the jars of pears, tomatoes, and corn in the kitchen window. “Look at the color!”
I watch her, wondering if she’ll mention last year’s dirt-filled jars from Mrs. Marks, on the shelf above the new ones. Two planted with doll parts. An old Barbie head makes a strange bulb, pe
eking through the dirt at Mom when she puts on her reading glasses for a closer look. A doll leg sprouts from the top of another. But the jar I’m keeping an eye on is the one planted with Mrs. Wiggins’s hair.
Mr. Alsup once said, “The totality of life can be found in a single cell.” I guess, if that means all life, then the nucleus of Mrs. Wiggins is in that jar, and if she can be brought back to life, then everything bad that’s happened since Peace Lake could change. Aunt Jamie would still be alive, Mom and Dad would stop fighting, and I wouldn’t be growing up half-kid, half-dog, all weirdo. It’s a long shot, but hey.
Mom catches me looking at her. “I see them,” she says. Behind her, the morning sun splashes the shelves. The fleshy pear halves are lit through like one of the jars of murdered “remains” found in the well-lit basement refrigerator shown in Sherman’s Police Gazette.
“We all see your silly jars,” Lauren says. “You’re the Queen of Dumb Jars.”
“That’s enough, girls,” Dad mumbles.
“Wait till I tell Simone about your stupid shelf.”
“The famous high-fashion model Simone?” Dad laughs. “Isn’t she engaged to the Prince of Persia?”
Lauren grumps.
“Lily’s shelf is a unique expression of her imagination,” Mom says, refilling her coffee cup. “She’s an artist.”
“It’s still stupid,” Lauren says, stomping off.
She’s in the other room when Mom asks, “Anyone remember their dreams last night?” Her last dream was about a closet of long yellow aprons, and supportive footwear with a blue plastic shoetree nested in each one.
“Dream, Paul?”
“Not this morning, hon.” Dad always says that. Mom likes to analyze dreams but Dad says they are just our minds relaxing at the end of the day, and there’s no way to interpret them. After a moment he puts down his paper. “Je-sus,” he moans, “this goddamn war.”
“Don’t read about it,” Mom says, but he does read about it, swearing under his breath, and soon she’s reading out loud over his shoulder. “PFC Albert Sanchez, 19 years old, Santa Fe, New Mexico . . . PFC Theodore ‘Teddy’ Jackson, 21 years old. Gainesville, Florida . . . My God, Paul they’re babies!”
“I know,” Dad says.
“They’re sending them home in pieces! Did I tell you that Mavis’s son came back from Vietnam with a human ear? An ear, Paul! He cut it off a dead Vietcong himself. He said GIs take them as souvenirs. Can you believe it? They hang them off their belts, like scalps or something. It’s like our soldiers are possessed!” She stomps to the kitchen sink and drinks a tall glass of water. “Babies! They’re just babies!”
“Kit?” Dad says, nodding at me.
Ruben. Two-yr.-old Chihuahua.
Pokie. 5-yr.-old Collie.
Frank. 7-yr.-old Lab mix.
Princess Grace. 8-yr.-old St. Bernard.
Mom ignores him. “Murderers,” she says. “Butchers.”
“They’re only boys, Kit. Don’t judge them too harshly. Boys living a nightmare.”
Slugs and snails and puppy dogs tails, that’s what little boys are made of.
“And I’m a mother. A concerned citizen who wants to bring them home.”
“Let’s not talk about the war, Kit. Lily doesn’t need to hear it, and you and I both have better things to do with our time than worry about what our government is or isn’t doing. Your work, for one thing, and . . .” Dad looks at me. “And what are you doing today, Hi-Lily, Hi-Lo?”
Hi-Lily, Hi-Lily, Hi-Lo.
The Savage Boy’s face pops up in my cereal bowl. I mash him into the soggy lagoon with the back of my spoon, but he doesn’t stay down.
Mom lights a cigarette. “Don’t be condescending, Paul. We can talk about Vietnam in front of Lily. She’s older now, and she’s a thoughtful, compassionate person.”
“Come on, Kit.”
“You started it, Paul! I wasn’t going to read the paper today. Besides, why shouldn’t every breakfast table across America be discussing Vietnam? How do we stop this madness if we don’t even talk about it with our kids? For God’s sake, they’re the ones who’ll fight the wars. Not us!”
“Kit . . . did you take your pill this morning?”
On the shelf over the sink behind her are jars of canned ears. Scalps. Fetuses. Dog hearts laced with worms. There are pieces of bodies everywhere: on shelves in a veterinarian’s office, over kitchen sinks, in refrigerator basements, and hanging from soldiers’ belts.
Judy said the average American family has 2.3 children. Is our .3 in Mom’s belly . . . or one of the new jars?
“Kit, honey . . .”
But Mom’s already been to the family room and back, returning with a small stack of Life magazines; she doesn’t want to listen to him. When she throws the magazines on the kitchen table, a tidal wave hits my cereal bowl.
Dog-eared, coffee-stained, and smelling of cigarettes, some of the pages are loose and slide out.
“Have you looked at Larry Burrows’s photographs lately?” Mom asks. “Our government is making our children into murderers, Paul. Our tax dollars are paying for them to be trained to kill people. It’s lunacy! It’s right to be angry about this war, Paul. I won’t apologize.”
“Kit!” Dad barks, and Mom marches across the kitchen to the spice cupboard where she takes down her prescription bottle and shakes a pill into her hand. On the shelf above the kitchen sink, the jar with the doll leg sticking out of the top is sprouting green leaves.
I think of Mrs. Wiggins and Jamie. I think about Gramma Frieda’s Get well card. I will never leave you nor forsake you. Hebrews 13:5.
Lauren appears in the doorway. “Are you guys arguing again?” she asks with disgust.
“Just the free exchange of ideas,” Mom says, filling a glass with tap water. “While it’s still America in this house.”
Dad quickly folds his newspaper and grabs his suit jacket off the back of the chair. He’s leaving, but he didn’t even finish his breakfast.
“It is America in this house, isn’t it, Paul?”
“Jesus Christ,” Dad says, heading out the front door.
* * *
Beyond the driveway . . . two strange dogs, on jingling leashes, walk down Aiken Street.
Male dogs . . . (sniff), definitely male dogs (sniff) . . . tall dogs (sniff-sniff); each stream of hot, sour-smelling piddle is aimed halfway up our mailbox post . . . hairy dogs (other smells cling to their coats).
Other dogs bark too.
Alvin, the Pomeranian at the corner, barks his fool head off.
Edith, the dachshund, tries to bark but her voice box has been removed, and she coughs instead.
My throat itches. Saliva floods my mouth. Dogs should, at least, be able to bark, shouldn’t they? They give up their freedom to live in human houses, to warn their owners when someone’s breaking in, to protect babies and toddlers who pull their tails. It’s not fair.
Strange dogs are in the neighborhood. Dogs that don’t belong here.
Strange people too.
There are lots of strangers in Vietnam. I bet dogs bark all the time over there.
Fifi didn’t bark much. Maybe she was used to people acting strangely: walking around in the dark, going in and out of rooms they weren’t supposed to.
* * *
It’s Sunday and my family watches Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom on TV. Lauren leans against Mom who curls up to Dad on the couch.
I sit on the floor away from all of them, hugging my knees.
We each sit this way until animals are run down by predators or start mating, then Dad goes to the kitchen for a beer, Mom giggles, and Lauren covers her eyes but peeks through her fingers.
I just watch, pretending it isn’t about me. Pretending I’m not growing a tail or biting my tongue so I don’t bark when I hear a siren or a dog howl. Pretending that, if I don’t learn to adapt like we learned in science, I won’t survive.
I reach for the bucket of cold chicken and give it a shake. The b
ones knock against the cardboard walls and Mom asks, “Still hungry, sweetheart? There’s ambrosia for dessert. Can you wait another half hour?”
I love ambrosia.
Maybe my parents should have left me to die. Some mother animals recognize a weak or diseased pup and leave it alone in the woods to starve to death so it doesn’t infect the group or make the family vulnerable to predators. Jim Fowler, Marlon Perkins’s assistant, just said so.
I hold my breath until I’m as smooth and cold as the inside of one of Connie’s jars.
Chapter 16
Sleeping in What Is Small
Over Dad’s punching bag in the garage are two shelves, dusty and stained with the rings of oil and paint cans. They hold his old college textbooks.
I like the small green illustrated book best. German I, the binding reads. Inside, the lettering is ornate—dark and pointed like the tiny plastic swords in Mom’s cocktails.
I don’t recognize anything except for Dad’s penmanship in the book margins and how he made the tall loops of his lowercase hs, ts, and ls into ship sails, and traced over and over them. Maybe he was bored. Maybe he wished he was sailing, or had taken a different language.
Like French. Dad says French women are sexy. “Ooo la la,” he jokes.
“The illustrations are woodcuts,” Mom explains. I love it when she talks art to me. “Pastoral scenes. Spa towns. The Bürgermeister and his Frau.” She flips the pages, occasionally leaning in for a closer look. “Too coarse for my taste,” she says.
Mom says Hitler went to art school. I imagine him sitting beside her in class. He can’t take his eyes off her boobs.
It’s spooky the way the picture oozes into the wood grain and small black clots of ink rush in. I stare for a long time at a tiny door on a tiny cottage until it creaks open, inviting me inside. I look away but the illustration goes with me, imprinting a faint version of itself on the garage wall. The doughy face of the German mayor on the next page scowls from Dad’s leather punching bag.
Dad studied poetry too. Mom tells me to look on his shelf for a book by some guy with a funny name, Rain-something; Maria’s his middle name. When I find The Book of Hours, and take it down, it falls open to “I Find You, Lord, in All Things and in All.” The first stanza reads:
The Shark Curtain Page 20
