Cain had managed to sink his teeth into the flesh on the side of Dante’s neck, and he was not letting go. Dante was yelping and struggling, unable to get at Cain at all.
“He’ll bite me!”
“Paul! Get in there. You did this, now you fucking undo it!”
I’d never heard JJ swear before. Maybe that was why I just did what he said. I grabbed Dante’s lead and held it taut without pulling. JJ pointed the hose into Cain’s mouth with one hand, hauling back on his collar with the other. I thought that pit bull would drown before he’d let go, but finally he opened his jaws. I yanked on Dante’s lead, and JJ threw Cain onto his side. The dog was half overcome with water, and I’m positive that was a good thing for JJ.
Dante pulled me to the opposite end of his run and cowered there, which gave me a chance to assess the damage. He had lost part of an ear, and there was a bloody gap in the skin on his neck. He was whimpering.
I looked over to where JJ still had Cain on the ground and searched for any sign of damage. Couldn’t see a fucking thing. It didn’t look like Dante had done anything to that holy terror. JJ’s head was down, like he was trying to get himself under control at the same time he was subduing his dog.
I decided to speak first. “Dante’s hurt. We have to get him to—”
JJ’s head snapped up, and his voice cut through me like knives. “Of course he’s hurt, you stupid fool! What the hell were you thinking? That dog,” and he jerked his chin toward Dante, “is no match for a pit bull in a fight.”
I was mad now. “You’re the one who brought that monster here! You’re the one who wanted to socialize Dante with him! Don’t you call me a stupid fool, you faggot!”
JJ stood, his foot on Cain’s leash, and his eyes shot daggers at me. “If I were as much of a Neanderthal as you, I would sic my dog on you for that. You’d be cat food by the time he was done with you. And if you ever call me that name again, your father will know a lot more about you than he does now. None of it good. You’re no better than that poor excuse for a human being that brought Dante in here to begin with. Now you stay put, and wait here until I can find someone to take you and Dante to the vet.”
He tugged on Cain’s collar, and damn if that death machine didn’t get to his feet and trot after JJ. I stood there fuming, watching them go.
In the end, Dad drove Dante and me to get him patched up. Dante ended up with a big shaved area all around the gash Cain had taken out of him, several stitches holding him together. Dad didn’t speak to me except when he had to. I don’t know what JJ told him, but what I was wondering was what he could have told him. None of it good? What the hell did that mean? What did he know? And what if I told Dad a few things, too?
I stayed with Dante awhile in the stockroom while Dad and Carol went through the closing routine that evening. He was pretty groggy with something they’d given him, and he was drooling a little, lying on his side. I stroked his back from time to time and couldn’t help feeling as whipped as he must have. All I’d wanted to do was what JJ had said, to introduce the dogs. After all, they’d managed to coexist the last time Cain was here, at least once JJ had done the rollover to Dante. What had gone so wrong? And why did that make me like the tattooed guy?
JJ had said some pretty unpleasant things about that guy. Couldn’t lead the way out of his own backyard. He’d said the guy wanted to seem tough when he really wasn’t. And that he’d had this thing about having a tough dog, like that made him tough, too. Like that proved something.
So what did it prove that this tough dog, who was now mine, had been practically ripped to shreds by JJ’s? Did that make JJ tougher than me? Was he the man?
I’d been in there for some time when Carol opened the door. “Paul, your father and I are leaving. I see you’ve got your bike, so you can leave whenever you want. Just go out the stockroom door and make sure it’s locked.”
I nodded; didn’t speak. Just sat there on the floor next to Dante. Maybe five minutes went by, and my ears rang in the silence. Then there was a knock at the back door. It was already locked, so who was that? God, if it was Marty, I’d—
I barely heard it. “Paul? Open the door, please. It’s JJ.”
Marty would have been okay after all. What does that little…you-know-what want? But I got up and went to the door. I opened it but stood in the way. “What?”
“How’s Dante?”
“Like you give a shit.”
“Paul, knock it off. You know very well I would never willingly hurt an animal. Now, how is he doing?”
I turned and looked toward my dog. It’s a powerful feeling to call him that—my dog. JJ took advantage of the space I’d left and brushed past me, kneeling beside Dante.
“Poor fellow. I’m so sorry that had to happen. I know it’s painful and scary.” As he murmured, his fingers examined the shaved area, the stitches, the bandaged ear. Then he pressed gently all around the head.
“What are you doing?”
“The pit bull’s head is denser bone than the shepherd’s. Just making sure he’s not bruised someplace—” And just as he said that, his fingers over Dante’s left eye, the dog winced. “Thought so. I think you should avoid touching this spot. I’m sure he’ll be fine, but in the meantime it’s going to be very sore.”
“You’re touching it.” Sulky. I sounded positively sulky.
“And he’s medicated. Groggy. Once he’s not, he’ll react more sharply, don’t you think?” He gave Dante one more gentle pat on his shoulders and stood up again. “We need to talk about what happened. You need to understand—”
“No, wonder boy, you need to understand something. You threatened to talk to my father about me. Well, listen up. All I have to do is tell him one thing about you—and you know damn well what that is—and you’ll be out on your ear, dog messiah or no. He feels pretty strongly about what you are, and that feeling is not something you wanna deal with. Why d’you think my own brother swore me to secrecy, huh?” My voice had gotten loud, and Dante turned his head toward me, looking worried.
JJ seemed unfazed. “First, it might interest you to know that most men are much more sensitive about this issue when it’s their own son in question. Second, this isn’t about you or me. It’s about Dante. Now, will you listen to what I have to say?”
I plopped myself down beside my dog and rubbed his shoulders and down his sides. “Why should I listen to you?”
“Well, gee. Maybe because you wouldn’t even have this dog in your life if it weren’t for me. How’s that for a reason?” I didn’t reply, so he went on. “What you need to understand is that Dante’s a little like the lion in The Wizard of Oz. He makes a lot of noise so potential threats stay away. He’ll even charge, and he’s used to other creatures backing down when he does, so he’s not good at fighting. He’s had lots of practice making scary threats and not much practice living up to them.
“Now. The ideal way for them to have got close to each other would have been in a controlled way through something like a chain-link fence, like the one out past the trees on the side of the building. And one person would have been with one dog, while someone else was with the other one. What happened this afternoon was not only the wrong way to go about it, but also it may have set Dante back. He’ll be even more fearful now, and fear is the place his bravado was coming from. He may resort back into aggression and be harder to control again.”
He stopped, but I didn’t say anything. I just stared down at Dante’s fur and kept stroking.
“Paul, I’m telling you this for Dante’s sake. Are you hearing me?”
“Sure. Everything I do is wrong. D’you think you’re telling me something new?”
JJ moved toward me and sat down. “Where’s that coming from?”
I wasn’t about to spill my guts to him, so instead I said, “So how come your dog is so good at fighting, then? He didn’t look like much. How was I supposed to know he was an attack dog?”
JJ took a breath and let it out slowly. “All
right, I’ll tell you. But first I have to make sure you understand that it didn’t matter which other dog it was. Okay, with Cain Dante got ripped up a little, but that would have been the wrong way to introduce Dante to any dog. I was using Cain because I have him under such tight control that if it had been done right, nothing like this would have happened. So I want to make sure you won’t try it like this again with another dog. Okay?”
“Fine. So why is your dog so mean?”
“Cain isn’t mean. Cain is a pit bull. He’s warrior through and through. He’s not as big as Dante, but he’s much more powerful. His entire body is a dense mass of bone and muscle, and his temperament is the opposite of Dante’s. He doesn’t threaten. He doesn’t bother. He just kills. That’s the warrior in him. When he’s under the influence of his alpha, his pack leader, he’s much less likely to strike. And when he’s really in my control, that is when I have him on a lead, there’s almost no danger at all.”
“That doesn’t explain why you have a dog like that in the first place. Who’s trying to be the tough guy now?” I still sounded sulky, and I hated it. I wanted to sound calm, self-assured, confident. I wanted to sound like JJ.
“I didn’t go looking for a dog like Cain. His story is a very sad one, and I haven’t told very many people about this. I’d ask you to keep it confidential, but I know you’re carrying a lot of secrets already. So just use your judgment.
“He belonged to a neighbor who just didn’t get dogs. It was a mistake for them to get pit bulls, but they took two that were brothers, and they named them Plato and Aristotle. Then one of them…well, Plato killed the other one. The owners blamed the dog, but really it was their own fault. They didn’t do anything to provide the dogs with exercise, or leadership, or…But I don’t want to get onto my soapbox. They were going to have Plato killed, but I’d made friends with him. So they asked me to take him.”
“You have another killer dog named Plato?”
“Actually, no. My mom and I worked together to recover him, and even though we succeeded, she wanted to make sure I would never underestimate him. She renamed him. Now he’s called Cain.”
“Got it. Because he killed his brother. Would he really have killed Dante?”
“Once a dog has killed another dog, he never really gets rid of that. But now Cain’s allowed to be a dog in a way that keeps the warrior part of him below the surface. I don’t know what would have happened if he and Dante hadn’t been interrupted, but it would have been very, very ugly. And Dante would not have come out of it well. Most dogs challenge each other for dominance, and if they can get dominance without fighting, they do. They fight only when their dominance is challenged, and usually only as long as it takes for them to prove their point or lose it. But with a pit bull, the fight is for the fight, in a way. Once a pit bull gets his jaws sunk into a perceived enemy, he won’t let go. It’s like a steel trap has snapped shut, and there’s a very powerful, determined dog attached to it that believes it has nothing to lose.”
“Doesn’t answer my other question. Why do you want a dog like him, anyway? What are you trying to prove?”
JJ looked at me a minute. “What makes you think I’m trying to prove anything?”
“With a dog like that? You’re the one who was so sure the tattooed guy was trying to prove something. Why are you exempt?”
“I took Cain so he wouldn’t be killed, knowing my mother could help me learn what he needed. I keep him for the same reason. If I tried to give him away, I couldn’t in good conscience do that without revealing his history. I’m telling you, a dog that has killed another dog has to be handled by someone who really knows what they’re doing.” He let a few heartbeats go by. “I do.”
So fucking calm. So fucking self-confident. I felt pulled two ways. One was to beat the shit out of him. The other was to beg him to teach me how he did it. But at least I could challenge it. “You know what I don’t like about you, José Jesus?” I didn’t say his name very well, but I didn’t care. “I don’t like that you’re so full of yourself you don’t think you can make a mistake. I don’t like that you’re so calm all the time, like nothing can rattle you. I don’t like that you act like nobody can hurt you, nobody can touch you.”
“Calm works for me. If I responded to your anger, or anyone else’s, with my own? Let’s be real: how much of a threat can I make? And you’re wrong. I can be touched. I can be hurt. But not by someone who blusters and jumps around and is full of hate for reasons that have nothing to do with me. Not by someone who doesn’t have the guts to get to know me because his friends would make fun of him. I can be hurt by someone I love.”
He stood and looked down at me. “I came back hoping you were still here so we could talk about the dogs, so I could help you be as good a pack leader for Dante as possible. I still want that, and I’ll still help in any way I can. But not for you. For Dante. And Paul, learn a lesson from Dante. It did him no good to bark and growl and snap when he came up against a dog that didn’t bother with that.” Again, the heartbeats. Dramatic effect. “I won’t bother with that.” He turned, walked out, and shut the door behind him. Quietly.
I got up, ran to the door, and threw it open. “Wait! What do you know about me? What would you tell my dad?”
JJ half turned back toward me, a lopsided grin on his face. “Nothing. Scared you though, didn’t it?” He winked and walked away.
That night I had another dream about Chris. He and Mason were in the jungle, and all around them these booby traps kept going off. And after each explosion there was this high-pitched cackle that sounded just like Marty. At first the explosions frightened Chris and Mason when they went off, but when nothing ever happened except the noise and the cackling, the two soldiers smiled at each other and then hugged. And then they kissed.
Still half asleep, I sat up in bed. My head was churning. I had to do something to clear it, and the only thing I could think of was to go into Chris’s room.
Sitting on his bed, the room felt different somehow. Different from how it usually felt when I went in there. It was almost like whatever part of Chris had still been in here had been leaking out. Maybe Mom and I had used it up between us.
I hadn’t tried to stop him from going back. Oh, I’d thought about it. I’d yelled it in my head, begging him to go with me to Canada and become normal again. But I’d said nothing, just listened to him step down the stairs. And then I’d given him nothing but a fucking salute as he left. So maybe, like Cain, I had somehow killed my brother.
I fell sideways onto my dead brother’s bed and bawled like a stupid kid.
Chapter 14
Thursday JJ was back at work, talking to me the same as he always had. Which is to say not much, but like our little confrontation in the stockroom hadn’t happened. I was tempted to act pissed off, but I decided it wasn’t worth it. Plus, he kept going to check on Dante, make sure he was okay, and we kept meeting in there. So it was easier just to be ourselves.
Around eleven or so, I had reason to be glad I was playing well with others. I was just coming out of the stockroom when who should I see going into the office, undoubtedly for an appointment with JJ, but Laura Holmes. Remember Laura? The woman of my dreams? The one whose virtue I wouldn’t let Marty force me to violate? There she was, long blond hair falling in cascades down her back, white short-shorts stopping the view of her tanned legs at just the right (or wrong, depending on your point of view) spot, a peppermint-candy-striped and body-hugging top with sleeves that just capped her shoulders. There was a woman with her, probably her mother, who had a yappy miniature schnauzer in her arms. You’ll forgive me if I don’t describe the mother. I barely noticed the dog. Needless to say, I made my way toward the office.
Fuck that; I ran.
Dad had just finished introducing Laura and Mrs. Holmes (I’d been right) to JJ when I appeared in the doorway, doing my best not to let on how short of breath I was. Dad looked my way, irritated, and Laura and her mom turned toward me.
&nbs
p; Laura, bless her heart, spoke first. “Oh, Paul! I didn’t know you were here. Are you working in your dad’s store for the summer?”
JJ went next, and when he was done I could have kissed him. Sort of. He moved over to me and said, “Paul has been helping me recover a violent dog—a German shepherd—and he’s taken over the final stages. Perhaps he’d be interested in working with us on Truffles.” He turned toward me. “Would that interest you, Paul?”
I was smiling like an idiot and barely got out, “Sure.”
To Dad, JJ said, “Mr. Landon, I hope I haven’t spoken out of turn, but Paul has shown a real interest in this process. Is this arrangement all right with you?”
Dad just stared at me like he didn’t know who I was. Finally he said, “I suppose so.”
Meanwhile the schnauzer was squirming, and Mrs. Holmes put it down. Truffles was wearing a powder blue collar with a matching leash attached to it, and she immediately started nosing all around the office. As it happened I was the first unknown person she approached. I raised my eyes away from her and just let her sniff.
To Mrs. Holmes, JJ said, “You see how Paul is essentially ignoring the dog and just letting her find out who he is through smell? A dog’s most powerful sense is smell. Puppies can smell before they can hear or see, and they rely on that sense throughout life to provide critical information about their environments, including people. If Paul were to acknowledge her right away, it might lessen the position he hopes to attain as dominant over the dog.” Truffles moved on to JJ. “Paul, would you mind getting the type of collar we’ve been working with? Obviously, Truffles will need the small size.”
Suddenly I had no problem being JJ’s assistant. In one giant step, he’d made me sound like an expert, a valued colleague, to Laura. And, really, to my dad as well. On my way back to the office, nearly dancing in fact, I sent up a silent prayer that I could remember everything I’d seen JJ do, or heard him say—like not looking at the dog right away—so that I didn’t make an idiot of myself. Maybe I couldn’t ask Laura out this week, and maybe not next week, either, but when I could she’d sure remember me.
A Question of Manhood Page 27
