Larry & the Dog People

by J. Paul Henderson

  Kevin and Wayne were as distraught as anyone by the outcome of their actions, but were reluctant to hand themselves in to the police and face what to them would have been unwarranted persecution. Their intentions had been well meaning, and it had only been Wayne’s execution of the task that had let them down. Unused to hanging upside down, and confused by Kevin’s description of backwards writing and mirrors, Wayne had wrongly assumed that he had to write the word back to front. Consequently he’d started with the E rather than the A, and losing the paintbrush before finishing the word had unknowingly written not CHRIST IS ALIVE but CHRIST IS EVIL.

  Wayne and Kevin were now bonded by a secret they could share with no one but themselves. They withdrew further into their own company and, forever fearing discovery, determined to leave Charles Town as soon after graduation as possible and seek their fortunes elsewhere. It was Kevin’s idea for the two of them to join the Marines, and the Marines’ idea for Wayne to remain a civilian; although they found Wayne a personable young man they judged his dyspraxia a greater danger to them than any enemy they might face. So Kevin left for boot camp alone and Wayne set off to live with his sister in Washington. They said their goodbyes at the bus depot: ‘See you round, buddy boy,’ Kevin said to Wayne. ‘See you squared,’ Wayne replied.

  It would be their first time apart and their last time together.

  Kevin died in Iraq. He was captured close to the city of Fallujah and killed by insurgents who tied his body to a pickup truck and hauled it to a large grassless playing field. There they played with it, dragged it in lines and circles and then dumped it. Residents in a nearby apartment block looked down on the spectacle and cheered, applauded the truck as it drove from the field. But then, as the dust settled and the writing appeared, a strange silence washed over them.

  The wheels of the truck and Kevin’s swirling body had left behind what appeared to be a message in the sandy soil. At first the words were indecipherable, and it was only after someone noticed that the Arabic writing was back to front and reading from left to right instead of right to left that the meaning became clear – or, at least, almost clear. The message read either Al Akhbar or Allahu Akbar.

  A local imam was called to the field and asked to make a judgement. Given the choice of interpreting the message as an advertisement for an Egyptian newspaper or a communiqué from God, the religious leader understandably chose the latter: God is great. Word spread through the city, throughout the country, across the world and eventually to the Glover Park neighbourhood of Washington.

  By then Wayne was already unhinged, his mind plagued by the lingering spirits of the southbound carriageway dead. He heard their voices and their accusations, and had long ago surrendered to their demands for board and lodging. He’d escaped Charles Town but not the burden of guilt that had caused his flight.

  The first hint of change came during his sleep, three weeks into his stay with Millie. That night, the consecutive nature of his dreams ended, and for the next month he dreamt only of cars crashing: the squeal of tyres, the blaring of horns, glass shattering and the crunch of metal. He woke in the mornings drenched in sweat and breathing heavily, the sounds of wreckage ringing in his ears and persisting into the day, sometimes intermittently and other times constant. And then, as suddenly as the visions had appeared they disappeared, and for two wonderful days he heard nothing but the sound of the television and Millie’s cooing voice. It appeared that life had returned to normal, that the storm had blown itself out. But it hadn’t. A force beyond his control was gathering, and on the morning of the third day he woke up to find nine people living in his head.

  There was Dolph Perkins, an ex-con closing in on fifty and of no fixed address, a man who snarled and ground his teeth and transported dead bodies in the trunk of his old Mustang. He’d careered into the back of a small family SUV he’d been tailgating for five miles and been too hopped up on pills to react when the vehicle suddenly braked. ‘Damn fuckers!’ were the last words he’d spoken.

  The SUV belonged to Scotty and Melanie Wadlington. They were in their mid-thirties, from Abilene, Texas, and had been touring Civil War battlefields with their two children, James-Fred and Josie. Melanie had already mentioned the close proximity of the Mustang, but Scotty was adamant that he had every right to drive in the fast lane at 65 mph. ‘People have to learn to be patient,’ he said. ‘What do people have to learn?’ he called out to James-Fred and Josie. ‘To be patient, daddy,’ the two children replied in unison. ‘Oh my God!’ Melanie gasped. ‘Have you seen what’s written on that bridge?’ Scotty braked hard to crane his neck and it was then that Dolph slammed into the back of him, flipping the SUV on to the hood of a Honda Hybrid travelling in the adjacent lane.

  The driver of the Honda was Booth Bailey, a local realtor whose girlfriend, Deneice, was telling him that their relationship was going nowhere and she wanted out. ‘Aw, c’mon, Deneice, don’t give me the it’s not you it’s me speech. I deserve better than that!’ Deneice looked at him. ‘I’m not giving you that speech, Booth. I’m saying it is you! If you ever bothered to listen to what I say you’d know that by now. And can’t you drive any faster?’ In the split second of consciousness that remained after the SUV landed on the hood of their car, it was clear to both of them that their relationship would be ending sooner than either of them had anticipated.

  Bob Snider was driving behind Booth and Deneice at the time, chatting to his wife on the phone. He was a ball bearing salesman out of Baltimore and was telling her about the deal of a lifetime he’d just made. Bob was old-fashioned, and, with the exception of mobile phones, suspicious of progress. He looked upon seatbelts as an infringement of his liberty and airbags as an attempt by the government to stifle opinion. Consequently, when he swerved to avoid the entanglement in front of him and crashed into a parked Cadillac, he was driving with one hand on the wheel, not wearing a seatbelt and in a car whose airbags had been disconnected.

  The owner of the Cadillac was Nita Baldwin, a woman in her late eighties whose driving licence had been confiscated ten years previously. Fifteen minutes before the excitement she’d pulled over on to the hard shoulder of the interstate to take a nap and was now pouring herself a cup of hot tea from a thermos. The collision didn’t kill her, but the shock of seeing Bob Snider’s torn body flying through the air did.

  For a while the motorists chatted amongst themselves and ignored Wayne. Scotty and Melanie talked about Abilene and its school districts, and James-Fred and Josie the Battle of Gettysburg. Booth talked about the housing market and Deneice of how difficult Booth had been of late. Bob talked about ball bearings and government conspiracies and Nita explained how to make the perfect cup of tea. Dolph ground his teeth.

  And then they talked about the unfairness of death and started to argue over who’d caused the accident. Scotty blamed Dolph and Dolph blamed Scotty. Booth blamed both Dolph and Scotty, and Bob blamed Nita for having illegally stopped on the hard shoulder. Nita claimed that she was blameless and had been her whole life. Dolph said he had a good mind to stick a knife in her until Scotty pointed out that he didn’t have a knife and that even if he did, what was he going to do with it – stick it into fresh air? ‘Stop this! Stop this!’ Melanie screamed. ‘If anyone is to blame it’s the person who wrote those awful words on the bridge.’

  ‘That would be Wayne Trout, then,’ Nita said. ‘It’s his head we’re in.’

  ‘Is that true, Wayne? Did you write those words?’ Scotty demanded.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Wayne replied, surprised to hear his name called. ‘Me and my friend wrote them, but we didn’t mean no offence. We meant to write something different.’

  ‘You do realise you killed us, don’t you?’ Bob Snider said.

  ‘Yes, sir, and I’m sorry about that. All I can say is that you’re welcome to stay in my head as long as you like.’

  ‘And how long is that going to be?’ Deneice asked.

&nb
sp; ‘I don’t know, Ma’am.’

  ‘I say we make his life as miserable as possible,’ Dolph said. ‘Make him die slowly and painfully.’

  ‘We’ll do no such thing!’ Nita Baldwin said. ‘Wayne needs to see a doctor. The sooner he sorts himself out the sooner we can be on our way.’

  And so Wayne went to see a doctor – as Millie had already suggested he do after repeatedly finding her brother talking to himself. At first, and out of loyalty to Kevin, Wayne had described only his symptoms to the doctor – the voices – but once Kevin was dead he confided the truth of their roles in the infamous I81 incident.

  The doctor listened patiently and carefully, and once satisfied that the voices in Wayne’s head were harmless and not inciting him to self-injury or violence towards others, prescribed drugs whose strengths and combinations he tweaked over time. Although the voices never entirely disappeared from Wayne’s head they did soften, and he contented himself with eavesdropping on his lodgers’ conversations rather than sharing in their company.

  And then Kevin appeared, and one by one the voices disappeared until only his remained. It was a voice – on Kevin’s instructions – that Wayne would never mention to the doctor on his six-monthly visits.

  Kevin died in March 2004 but only materialised in Wayne’s consciousness during the spring of 2014. Officially he was there to release the souls of the stranded motorists – whose lodgement, after all, was in part his responsibility – but off-the-record, and necessarily unspoken of at the time of him volunteering for the assignment, was his intention to mount a spectacular in Georgetown that would facilitate his escape from Purgatory. And to achieve this goal he needed the help of a friend he could trust – and one who knew a thing or two about explosives.

  Or such was Wayne’s understanding of the situation.

  Kevin surfaced the day Wayne had his ears syringed. Two weeks prior to this event Wayne had been playing in the waterfront fountain – not showering, as Alice had wrongly assumed the time she’d seen him there – and become deaf in both ears after an irregular jet had entered his aural canals and expanded the wax. The noises of the outside world immediately quietened while the voices inside his head – although now magnified – had to compete with a ringing noise that was more irritating than even Dolph’s high-pitched inflection. After four days of growing discomfort he made an appointment to see the doctor, and after putting drops in his ears for a further five days returned to the surgery for a nurse to wash the remaining wax from his ears with an electronic irrigator.

  He was on his way back from the surgery when he heard the voice: ‘You know the things I miss most about not living in your world, buddy boy?’

  ‘Mints?’ Wayne ventured, unsure if he was talking to Scotty or Booth.

  ‘No, pepperoni pizza and ice-cream,’ the voice said. ‘If I had my time again I’d eat them every day of the week.’

  The penny dropped as quickly – or as slowly – as the voice had enunciated the word pepperoni: pee-peroni. The only person to have pronounced pepperoni that way was Kevin. He’d made a joke of it: ‘I’m gonna get me a slice o’ that pee-peroni pizza.’

  ‘Kevin! What are you doing in my head?’

  ‘I’m here to round up the missing souls, buddy boy; send them on their way and bring some peace to your mind. And I’m hoping you’ll bring some peace to my mind, too. Help me get out of Purgatory and on my way to Heaven. It’s where I belong.’

  Although Kevin had died in a state of grace, his level of purity had fallen far short of that required for a direct entry into Heaven. Consequently he’d been sent to Purgatory – a sort of halfway house between Heaven and Hell – and instructed to spend his time there atoning for past sins. ‘No one remains here forever or goes to Hell, but they never tell you how long you’re going to stay, and it’s the not knowing that gets to you. There are people who arrived after me who have already gone to Heaven and this strikes me as unfair.’

  Purgatory wasn’t a particularly unpleasant place, Kevin said. No one was tortured or cleansed by fire as the church had led them to believe, and the worst that could be said of it was that there were too many group discussions and that the climate was a bit on the warm side. Apart from the whirring of the fans it was also quiet, and he missed the sounds of the wind and the rain and the cheeping of birds. The best days were those when the Patriarchs and Prophets of the Old Testament came to visit. Occasionally they’d give guest lectures, but most of the time they would just mingle and tell people to keep their chins up and think of the beatific vision that awaited them. ‘They talk from experience, too,’ Kevin said, ‘because until Jesus led them to Heaven they’d been living in Limbo for hundreds of years.’

  And you got to hear things, too. People like Abraham and Isaac had the ear of God and knew exactly what He was thinking – more so than any of the evangelists they’d watched on television – and they’d pass on this information. They knew what God liked and what He didn’t like, and from everything Kevin had heard there was a lot more in the world that God disliked than liked. And according to several of the Minor Prophets, who were prone to gossip, there were times when God got into such a stew about things that steam came out of His ears. It was this counsel, as well as other particulars he’d gleaned during his time in Purgatory, that had prompted Kevin to volunteer his services for the Lost Souls assignment.

  Occasionally souls went missing he told Wayne, and it could sometimes take years to track them down. ‘Usually I don’t bother myself with this kind of errand because they’re not worth the aggravation, but when I read the names of the souls involved in this case and the date they’d gone missing and that their last known location had been the southbound carriageway of the I81, I had an idea that you might be mixed up in all this.’

  Wayne’s location was another reason for Kevin applying for the position. Purgatory was serviced by vents – natural fissures that cooled its environment and smoothed the heavenward journey of purified souls – and the duct reputed to be closest to the earth’s surface was the one under Georgetown. ‘My guess is that it’s no more than twelve feet below street level,’ Kevin said. ‘A simple pick and shovel job.’

  ‘And no one will mind me digging you up?’ Wayne asked.

  ‘Not if we get the spectacular right,’ Kevin said. ‘Nahum and Habakkuk – they’re a couple of the Minor Prophets I was telling you about – think that the monitors will look the other way. They say that if God’s happy with what we do – and He will be – He’ll tell them to turn a blind eye and let me escape to Heaven without having to finish my sentence.’

  ‘But you won’t be in Heaven when you escape, Kevin, you’ll be in Georgetown and you won’t have any place to live. Rents are high here and the halfway house is full.’

  ‘I won’t be staying in Georgetown, buddy boy, I’ll be going to Heaven,’ Kevin laughed. ‘I’m gonna get me a slice o’ that bee-atific vision!’

  Wayne was pleased to have his old friend back in his life and wasn’t about to disappoint him. If Kevin wanted to be dug out of Purgatory then he’d dig him out of Purgatory, and if a spectacular was necessary for this to happen, he’d do whatever was necessary to ensure its success.

  Delivering Wayne from the voices of the dead was a relatively straightforward matter for Kevin, but there were reasons for him to move slowly. It would take time to locate the whereabouts of the duct in Georgetown, and to identify its position he needed to remain inside Wayne’s head; if it was empty of voices he would have a hard time justifying his continued presence. He was also having difficulty resolving the type of spectacular that would both draw God’s attention and prompt His blessing, and he needed time to think this through.

  Wayne, too, was in no rush for the voices to disappear and was happy to go along with Kevin’s agenda. Apart from Dolph, whose profanity and threats occasionally disconcerted him, he looked upon the deceased travellers as friends. There were occasi
ons when the Wadlingtons were a bit too good to be true and their children a tad on the precocious side, but Nita was kind and grandmotherly, and her advice on making a good cup of tea had been spot on the mark. Bob Snider was an oddball but interesting, and Wayne had been particularly intrigued by his theory that John F Kennedy had been assassinated by the two keepers from the National Zoo. He took most interest, though, in Booth’s relationship with Deneice. He’d never had a girlfriend and didn’t realise that love could be so complicated. He was hoping they’d reconcile and get married before Kevin sent them on their way, but in this he was to be disappointed. Booth Bailey and Deneice were the first to leave. There was no happy ending.

  They were quickly followed by Nita Baldwin and a few months later by the Wadlingtons and Bob Snider. The only voice remaining belonged to Dolph Perkins and Kevin was having a hard time tracking him down. Dolph was now on the move, changing location every two days and planting booby traps, determined to stay in Wayne’s head and delay his descent to Hell for as long as possible. Three weeks before Larry left for Israel, however – and at a time when both the location of the duct and the nature of the spectacular had been defined – Dolph’s luck ran out and he too was evicted. ‘Fuck you, Trout!’ were the last words he spoke to Wayne.

  Now only Kevin’s voice remained, louder and clearer than ever now that Wayne had stopped taking his medication.

  The position of the duct had been pinpointed by Kevin three months earlier. He’d had a feeling its location would be found somewhere in the East Village, and his hunch proved right the day Larry led Wayne down to his basement. Not only did his voice become stronger here, it also started to echo, and this was the tell-tale sign he’d been waiting for. ‘This is it, buddy boy! This is where you have to dig!’

  It seemed too good to be true, too good for the Divine not to have intervened for Wayne to have been asked to house-sit Moses while Larry was in Israel. Everything was falling into place and Kevin believed his redemption to be at hand. And in the weeks that followed – and again with Larry’s unwitting help – it became clear to Kevin that God wanted him to destroy the Church of Latter-Day Lutherans, a church that seemingly catered to everything but His Word and served as a nesting place for all He abhorred – drugs, homosexuality, animal worship and polluted Christianity.