Because of Shoe and Other Dog Stories

by Margarita Engle

  Then they were on him.

  All seven of them.

  Gabe held his arms back as David shoved his face, smacked him in the side of the head, in the ribs. Somebody kicked out Chico’s legs, sent him sprawling to the ground. The pack’s weight crushing down on him. Tweaking his neck. Making it impossible to breathe.

  Under the pile, in the darkness, Chico secretly begged for more.

  He knew something these rich kids didn’t.

  He deserved this beatdown.

  For losing his dog. For coming to this private school in the first place.

  Go on! he screamed inside his head. Hit me, punk! Do it!

  But the barrage of flying fists had already stopped. The weight had lifted. He could breathe again.

  Chico leapt to his feet, ready for more. But instead of locking eyes with Gabe and David Winters and everybody he was fighting, he found two male teachers grabbing arms and pushing people away.

  “All right,” the one with the clipboard said. “Somebody’s gonna tell me what happened. Otherwise I march every single one of you to Principal Van Buren’s office.”

  “What’s it gonna be?” the whistle teacher said. “Who started it?”

  “We need answers, gentlemen.”

  Without thinking, Chico stepped forward. Said it was him.

  What did he care?

  Maybe they’d do everybody a favor and kick him out of school. Send him back where he belonged, the public junior high down the street from the greenhouses.

  With his friends.

  With people like him.

  The Inheritance

  When Chico’s grandmother, on his mom’s side, passed she left him two things:

  A bond for his education.

  And her dog, Peanut.

  She left the bond because she believed a kid with grades like Chico’s should be able to attend the best school around. From her hospital bed she arranged for him to take the pre SAT, hoping he might score high enough to be admitted to the private school on the hill.

  Not only did Chico score high enough to get in, his score was so freakishly high they offered him a full scholarship through high school.

  “What if I don’t wanna go?” Chico asked his old man on the bus ride home from his grandma’s cremation.

  “Oh, you’re going,” his dad answered in Spanish.

  All their conversations went like this. Chico spoke English, and his old man would answer in Spanish. They could both speak the other’s first language, but they were embarrassed by clumsy accents.

  “What about my friends?” Chico said.

  “Make new ones.”

  “What about the money, then?”

  “We’ll save it for your college.”

  Chico rolled his eyes. He was pissed.

  But he was something else, too. Something he couldn’t put his finger on.

  Minutes passed. The bus lurched forward and stopped, lurched forward and stopped.

  Finally his old man cleared his throat, said, “I made a promise to that woman, Chico. I ain’t going back on it just ’cause I got a kid who’s un miedica.”

  “I ain’t scared,” Chico shot back.

  His dad looked at him, grinning.

  Chico shook his head and turned to look out the window. The poor side of the freeway flashing past. Boarded storefronts and tagged windows, old Mexican men pushing carts overflowing with bottles and cans and dirty blankets.

  He glanced at his dad on the sly. Guy never made it passed sixth grade, but he was right. That was the exact feeling Chico couldn’t name.

  He was scared.

  A month later, as Chico walked onto campus for the first time, he would remember the name his old man had called him on the bus that day. Scaredy cat. Because even though he was now an official student at the school on the hill, he still felt like an imposter. Like at any second security would come barreling around the corner in their golf carts, tackling him onto the wet lawn, pulling their canisters of mace.

  Peanut

  Nothing really changed when Chico’s grandma left him her old dog. Peanut had already been living with them for two years, since his grandma first found out she was sick.

  Chico’s dad wasn’t too excited with the arrangement. Peanut dug holes in their tiny backyard. And dog food, even the generic kind, he constantly reminded Chico, cost money. They could barely afford to feed themselves.

  And it’s not like Peanut was the cute and cuddly type. Nah, according to everybody in the neighborhood, including Chico, Peanut was the craziest-looking animal they’d ever laid eyes on.

  First off, he took the term “mutt” to a whole other level. He was a mix of ten, maybe fifteen, different breeds. Everything from pit bull to poodle. He was knee-high, with long, spindly legs, an oversized head, and teeth so buck and crooked he could hardly close his mouth. Chico’s friend Marco swore Peanut was too ugly to be a hundred percent dog.

  “Is it me,” he once asked with a serious face, “or does that mutt got some kind of reptile thing going on?”

  “It’s them bulging eyes, bro,” Danny Muñoz agreed. “Look how far apart they are. Like a lizard.”

  “At the same time,” Marco said, “he sort of got this wolf thing happening, too. Don’t he look like a wolf, D?”

  “His dad was probably a wolf,” Danny said. “And his moms was an alligator. He invented a new breed, man. A wolfigator.”

  He and Danny Muñoz touched fists, and everybody laughed and laughed and laughed. Except Peanut, who stared up at the three of them with his tongue going, oblivious to the bad-mouthing, happy to just be hanging out.

  Peanut was old, too.

  Chico assumed he had arthritis ’cause every morning it took him almost a full minute to get to his feet. Chico’s grandma swore he’d once had a nice, shiny brown coat. But now Peanut was a poofy purple-gray, like old-lady hair. Except on the top of his head, where he was balding like a man.

  And Peanut had a terrible problem with gas. He’d sound off all through the night.

  But it wasn’t the sound that killed Chico. It was the toxic smell. Some mornings, he’d wake up literally suffocating.

  Chico’s old man tried tying a small air freshener to Peanut’s collar, but the gas smell was too powerful. Chico had to hold his breath whenever he sat down to pet his dog. And even then his eyes would still burn.

  None of it mattered, though.

  To Chico, Peanut was the greatest dog a kid could ever ask for. In fact, Peanut was more than just a dog. He was family.

  That’s why Chico swore he’d never stop looking.

  He’d tape a handwritten sign to every lamppost in America if that’s what it took.

  Peanut Situation Goes from Bad to Worse

  Soon as Chico got home from school, on the day of the fight, he tossed his bag on the couch and canvassed the neighborhood again, calling Peanut’s name, knocking on doors, taping his flyers to any flat surface he saw.

  But still.

  There was no sign of his dog.

  When he finally made his way back home, he found his old man in his usual spot. In front of the TV, dirty work boots kicked up on the coffee table, watching his favorite show, Cops, and drinking a beer.

  “Yo, Pop,” Chico said, “you got any idea what happened to Peanut? I looked everywhere.”

  His old man shrugged, continued working a toothpick in his teeth.

  “It’s been two whole days,” Chico said. “I don’t know what I should do.”

  His old man just sat there, never took his eyes off the drunk trucker getting patted down on TV. When he finally spoke, he told Chico in Spanish, “Your school called.”

  Chico froze.

  “Said you got in some trouble. That right?”

  It was Chico’s turn to shrug.

  He’d been hoping his old man would avoid this call, like he avoided just about every call from outsiders, by pretending he didn’t understand English.

  “A fight, Chico?” His dad stood up, snatched Chico
by the chin, and looked over the scrapes and bruises on his face. He shook his head. “They told me next time you’re gonna be suspended. That happens, you know what I’m gonna do, right, Chico?”

  “What?”

  “Kick your skinny butt myself. Then send you back to Tijuana to live with your Auntie Mariposa. How’s that sound, Muhammad Ali?”

  Chico didn’t say anything.

  When his old man turned back to the TV, shaking his head, Chico went to his tiny room and threw himself onto the futon bed.

  He pulled down the two pictures he had pinned to his corkboard. The first was him and his mom. Weeks before she passed. Chico was little, barely a kid yet. His mom had a tiny smile on her face, but her eyes were made out of pain. The mini version of Chico in the picture was oblivious to this pain. He was caught in the camera’s flash laughing. Like a clown.

  The second picture was him and Peanut. Taken a few months ago by Marco, outside the greenhouses. Chico’s hand on his dog’s balding head. Bucktoothed Peanut gazing up at Chico like he was the greatest.

  Like Chico would always protect him.

  Except he hadn’t.

  Chico thought back to the day the picture was taken, how after Marco went home, Chico sang the national anthem in Peanut’s ear. It was their silly ritual. He didn’t even remember how it started. Whenever Chico went after the high notes, Peanut would howl at the moon, like he was singing, too. Both of them so off-key Chico imagined windows shattering all around the neighborhood.

  Chico lay there on his futon bed, staring at these two photos, one after the other, thinking of his mom and his grandma and his howling dog and the fight at school and his greenhouse friends and his old man’s boots on the coffee table. He felt so confused it was like he was lifting out of his own body. Like he was floating up toward his bedroom ceiling, looking down at himself. Who was this lonely kid lying on this unmade futon bed? Holding these worn photos in his greasy fingers?

  He snapped back to reality when he realized his old man was standing at his door, watching him.

  Chico sat up.

  His dad took a swig from his can of beer, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Listen, boy,” he said.

  Chico was listening.

  “Nobody walked that dog.”

  “What?”

  “Nobody fed that dog. Nobody filled them holes that got dug up.”

  Chico looked at his old man, standing in his doorway, gripping a can of beer.

  Then it hit him, what his old man was saying.

  He choked on his own breath.

  His dad took another swig, walked away shaking his head.

  The next morning, Chico worked up the courage to ask directly. Just before his old man got to the front door, he said, “Yo, Pop.”

  His dad looked over his shoulder.

  “You took Peanut somewhere?”

  “Had to,” he said.

  Like a punch in Chico’s gut. “Where? The pound?”

  His old man shook his head, switched his lunch box from one hand to the other.

  “Where, then?”

  “A ranch in Fallbrook, about fifty miles from here. He’ll be better off, Chico. He’s with a bunch of other dogs just like him.”

  “But he liked it here.”

  His dad shrugged. “Now he can dig all the holes he wants.”

  After his old man went out the front door, Chico sat on the couch and looked at his feet. He couldn’t move. He imagined arthritic Peanut trying to stand on a ranch somewhere in Fallbrook, sniffing for someone familiar, someone who might sing the national anthem in his ear.

  David Winters’s Girlfriend

  Days later, Chico was at his desk during lunch.

  He’d stopped going out on the lawn with everybody ’cause it was awkward sitting alone. Plus, he could just as easily eat in the classroom. His teacher didn’t care. And this way he didn’t have to fight the glare from the sun reflecting off whatever page he was reading in his book.

  Today, though, Chico wasn’t reading.

  He was staring at one of the flyers he’d made for his lost dog. Before he knew his dog wasn’t actually lost but given away.

  “Excuse me,” he heard a girl voice say behind him. “You’re Chico, right?”

  Chico spun around.

  Meagan Marshall, David Winters’s girlfriend. She was wearing a black sweatshirt with the school emblem and a short denim skirt. Her long blond hair was so shiny and pretty up close it didn’t seem real.

  “Listen,” she told him, “I’m sorry about what happened with you and David the other day. How he called you ‘compadre’ and all that.” She smiled, added, “Even though technically you did throw the first punch.”

  Chico looked at Meagan. He couldn’t think of anything to say, so he nodded.

  “Anyways,” she said. Then she looked down at his lost-dog flyer, asked, “Is Peanut your dog or something?”

  Chico covered the flyer with his notebook.

  “You lost him?”

  “Sort of.”

  She frowned. “How do you sort of lose your dog?”

  “My old man,” Chico said. “He gave him away to a ranch.”

  “Why?”

  “So he could dig all the holes he wants.”

  Meagan cringed.

  Even with her face scrunched up, Chico thought, Meagan was still prettier than ninety percent of the girls at school.

  “Do you have a picture?”

  “A picture?” he said.

  “Of your dog, Peanut.”

  “I think so.”

  “You’re not very definitive with your answers, are you?”

  Chico shrugged. He decided the pre SAT was ten times easier than talking to a pretty girl like Meagan.

  “Bring one tomorrow,” she said. “I wanna see what a dog named Peanut looks like.”

  Chico watched her gather her hair in a ponytail, wrap her black band around it, and pull it through.

  “Anyways,” she said again. “I just came in here to apologize on David’s behalf. Even though technically you started it.”

  “Okay,” Chico heard himself say.

  Meagan smiled and walked out of the classroom.

  A Peanutless Existence

  Over the next couple weeks, Chico kept seeing dogs.

  Everywhere he went.

  Boxers and terriers and pugs and golden retrievers and plain old mutts like Peanut. They were running wild near the greenhouses, stalking through the parking lot at the mall, they were on billboards advertising life insurance, on leashes at the park, they were sticking their heads out of passing trucks, chasing squirrels over fences and birds into trees.

  Chico would sit and watch them and think of Peanut.

  Once he tried humming the national anthem to himself, but he didn’t even get to the high part. It wasn’t the same.

  Chico boycotted his old man for a while. Whenever the guy came home from work, Chico would get up and go to his room. Even when he didn’t have any homework.

  But the dad ban only lasted a few days.

  One night he came into Chico’s room while Chico was studying.

  “What’s going down?” he said in Spanish.

  Chico lifted his chemistry textbook without turning around.

  “Need help?” his old man asked.

  Chico shook him off, but the dude sat down anyway, took the book out of Chico’s hands, and started flipping through pages, nodding.

  “It’s about chemicals,” he said.

  Chico shrugged.

  “Even water’s made of chemicals,” he said. “You know that, right, boy? It’s called molecules. They all get attracted together with magnetism, and that’s what makes the tap water you drink.”

  Chico stared at his old man.

  The guy had no idea what he was talking about.

  “Most people don’t know that,” his dad added, running a finger over the periodic table.

  Chico studied him: sitting on the edge of his son’s futon bed, fl
ipping through the pages of a chemistry textbook he couldn’t read, fingernails caked in dirt, shirt sweat-stained and worn thin from hard work.

  An odd thought struck Chico.

  Maybe his old man was lonely, too.

  Chico cleared his throat, said, “Even tap water, Pop?”

  “That’s right, boy,” his dad said, looking up. “Plants and animals, too. Everything in the world. It’s all made up of things people can’t even see.”

  Chico nodded.

  His dad smiled, said, “See, boy? Your old man maybe works with flowers all day, but he gots a little knowledge, too.”

  “I know it, Pop.”

  He tossed the textbook back onto Chico’s lap and stood up. Pointed at the book, then tapped his temple. “You remind me of your mom, Chico. She always liked to learn about stuff, too.”

  “She did?”

  His old man nodded. “It’s a good way to be.”

  Chico watched him walk out of his tiny room, knowing he could no longer be mad.

  The Picture

  Chico continued dining in at school. Table for one. Sometimes Meagan would pop her head in and ask if he brought the picture of Peanut. And even though it’d be burning a hole in his back pocket, Chico would tell her he forgot.

  Two weeks after their initial meeting, though, Meagan walked all the way into Chico’s classroom while he was studying and sat in the chair next to him.

  She looked at him, said, “Well?”

  “What?” he said.

  “You bring the picture?”

  Chico looked at his desk.

  “Lemme guess,” she said. “You forgot. Again.”

  Without really thinking about it, Chico pulled the picture of Peanut from his back pocket and laid it on the desk.

  Meagan picked it up.

  She covered her mouth and said, “Oh. My. God.”

  “I know,” Chico said. “He looks kind of weird.”

  Meagan looked up at Chico and laughed. Then apologized.

  She studied the photo again, said, “Is it me, or…?”

  “What?”

  “Or does he sort of look like a wolf?”

  Chico couldn’t help himself. He cracked a smile.

  “Right?”

  “My friends say that he’s part wolf and part alligator.”