by Iain Levison
“Why do your idiot friends have to come over here?” Linda asked as she slumped back into the pillows, almost whining. “I don’t want them here. You spend enough time with them in that rat hole they call an apartment.”
“It’s just Doug,” Kevin said, measured and patient, holding the bedroom door open. He was suddenly overcome by the urge to be nice. He wanted to go walk dogs today feeling positive and pleasant, not worn down, with the residue of yet another Linda argument circling around in his brain. “He’s only coming over for a minute.”
“Why don’t you just move in with them?” Linda said, now fully awake, eyes blazing with anger, directed straight up at the ceiling. “You could all live together like a bunch of animals and smoke pot all day long. That way your daughter wouldn’t be asking me where you were all the time—”
SLAM. There might have been more but Kevin didn’t get a chance to hear it.
So much for having a positive and pleasant day.
“I DON’T WANT to be married to Kevin anymore,” said Linda, as if she were mentioning that she was thinking about changing her brand of fabric softener. Nice weather we’re having. I have to take the car in for an oil change. I think I’ll get rid of my husband.
She was rooting around through her junk drawer for a pack of AA batteries, which Kevin had promised Doug he could have if he came over. Doug had come late, and Kevin had already gone to walk dogs. Linda had answered the door and let Doug in, gone to get the batteries, and then offhandedly mentioned that she was thinking about divorcing his friend.
This was the last thing that Doug wanted to hear. He had just smoked a fattie and was really enjoying his day off from the restaurant. He had just come over to get the batteries so he could fire up his remote control and spend the day baked on his couch. Though he had known Linda for years, he thought of her as sketchy and moody and hadn’t been pleased when she had answered the door.
He said nothing, which Linda took as a signal to continue. “We just don’t communicate anymore.”
Doug knew that they didn’t communicate but wasn’t sure that they ever had. Linda didn’t usually communicate with him either, which was why it was a surprise that she was suddenly trying to. He had been around Kevin and Linda for four years and didn’t recall ever seeing them have a conversation which didn’t escalate into hostility within a few seconds, though he had noticed that lately the yelling had stopped and the conversations had gotten shorter, the endings now quiet snorts of disgust. He had never seen them kiss or touch each other or say anything nice, and he occasionally wondered to himself how Ellie, their daughter, had ever gotten made. He had just assumed that things were different when he wasn’t around.
“That sucks,” said Doug.
“Why does it suck?” asked Linda, lighting a cigarette, staring at him.
He wasn’t anticipating a question, and Linda seemed almost confrontational when she asked it. She also appeared to have stopped looking for the batteries, which was a bad sign. The exit was being cut off.
“Because . . . you and Kevin . . . are good people.” He had the feeling he was being tested, and while not actually acing the test, he wasn’t failing disastrously either. He didn’t really know if Linda was a good person. Often when he came over to get high with Kevin, he was glad if she wasn’t around, because it meant you could dump the bong water into the potted plants and put your feet up on stuff without having someone stare at you reproachfully. He thought of her as a neat freak and a nag and was fairly sure that this was Kevin’s opinion too.
“I think I make him unhappy,” she said. “He’s just unhappy all the time.”
“Oh, no,” said Doug. “He’d be unhappy anyway.” The comment slipped out. It wasn’t the supportive, wrap-everything-up kind of sentence he was looking for, but it was true. Ever since they had met four years ago, when Kevin had been a waiter at the restaurant where Doug was a cook, Doug had thought of him as a grouch. It was only because Doug had shown an interest in selling off the weed that Kevin was growing that they had even struck up a conversation. Kevin, though an excellent grower, lacked the social skills and contacts for dealing and had managed to stockpile about four pounds of high-grade White Widow in his basement. During a typical after-work half-drunk conversation, they had hammered out a deal, and a friendship was forged.
Since then, the frequency of their get-togethers had resulted in a bond forming, a familiarity which had expanded into all kinds of other activities, like drinking and playing pool and painting Kevin’s house and helping each other move. Linda, though usually around, had never really become a part of these activities.
“Why is he so unhappy?” Linda asked. She looked around and threw up her hands. “We’ve got a nice house, a beautiful daughter. Money’s tight always, but we get by. I mean, why? It has to be me.”
Doug shook his head. “Some people are just unhappy,” he said.
“Oh, bullshit,” she said, going behind the kitchen counter and running water into the kettle. “Do you want some coffee or tea?”
Decision time. If he said yes, the conversation could eat up half the day. Women could talk forever. He knew that much from hearing the waiters at the restaurant complain. Put two of them at a table with two cups of warm liquid in front of them, and that table was shot for the shift. But the novelty of this situation was enough to keep it interesting. In four years, Linda had never wanted to talk to him before about anything, and who knew? Maybe she wasn’t so bad.
“I’m not forcing you,” she said, forcing him.
“Uhhh, coffee. No, tea. Tea. I’d definitely like a cup of tea.”
“Have a seat.” Linda went back and forth behind the counter, putting the kettle on the stove and opening and closing cabinets. It suddenly occurred to Doug that the prospect of going home and watching TV all afternoon was familiar, but had not really been exciting him, and this might not be such a bad idea after all. Hell, he thought, it might be fun to sit and shoot the shit with Linda.
“I think he changed after he got out of jail,” she said. “It’s like he’s been depressed. That was, what, two years ago now? I’ve been putting up with his moods for two years.” She put an ashtray out and carefully placed her cigarette in it, then said, almost conspiratorially, “You know, he still thinks you had something to do with that.”
“I know he does,” said Doug. “No matter how many times I deny it. I mean, if you’re accused of something you didn’t do and you can’t really prove you didn’t do it . . .”
He trailed off, hurt just thinking about it. About two and a half years ago, when Kevin had been growing a field of marijuana plants in his basement and Doug had been selling the harvest for him, it had all ended suddenly. One day, cops had come in and seized the whole lot, thousands of dollars worth of lights and fans and fertilizer, and thrown Kevin in jail for ninety days. Kevin’s theory was that Doug had been busted for possession and had told the cops who was growing the plants as a condition for immunity. Doug had, in fact, never been busted, and the whole thing was a hurtful and miserable episode he was always hoping was behind them but which never actually seemed to be. Kevin would often claim it was over, that he believed him, and then the next time they were out drinking, after a shot of tequila or two, Kevin would put his arm around him and say something like, “Really, man. I won’t get mad. Just tell me what happened.”
Linda was looking at Doug, studying him, and for a paranoid second he thought that Kevin had put Linda up to this—have him over, make him tea, and see if he confesses. Then he decided that the paranoia was probably just the joint he had fired up on his way over. He doubted Kevin and Linda ever spoke to each other long enough to hatch a plan. But just to make sure, he added, “I didn’t do it. I never got busted.”
“I know, sweetie,” Linda said. “I never thought you did.”
Her voice was warm and friendly, revealing a side of her Doug had never noticed before, and she suddenly struck him as a person, a woman, a different entity from Kevin, with
whom Doug had always associated her. It was always Kevin and Linda. For four years, he had seen her come and go and occasionally spoken to her, but she hadn’t existed for him except as Kevin’s accessory, much like his car or his sunglasses. He liked being called sweetie too.
“Why does he think I did it? I mean, after all this time, I’d admit it if it had ever happened. Does he really think I’d turn him in? Dude, you know what they do to you for dealing? It’s like a slap on the wrist. I wouldn’t ruin his life for a slap on the wrist, you know.”
Linda looked at him thoughtfully. “You know, honestly, I always thought of you as a waste case,” she said. “You’re really a nice guy. I can see why Kevin likes you.”
“I always thought of you as a nag.”
There was a moment of silence, and then they both laughed. Linda leaned across the table and said with a conspiratorial grin, “Hey, you don’t have any smoke with you, do you?”
“Yeah, I do,” Doug said. “Do you have any . . . like, uh . . . fuckin’ double-A batteries?”
KEVIN WAS WALKING a pit bull in the rain. The pit bull was named Jeffrey, and he belonged to a shifty doctor who lived alone in a million-dollar house in Westlake. Kevin figured the dog had not been bought for companionship, but because the doctor was too cheap to install a security system. Or maybe not too cheap. Maybe he liked the idea that, instead of hearing an impotent alarm go off, a burglar should be torn to shreds. Having been banished to the yard, even during the harsh winters, Jeffrey was usually in a state of physical neglect and starved of human contact, and was always so happy to see Kevin on his daily half-hour visits that it was often difficult to get his leash on for all the joyful bouncing around. Eyeing the sores on the poor dog’s back as the rain grew heavier, Kevin wondered if the alarm system wouldn’t have been a better decision for all involved.
Kevin had started his dog-walking business two years ago, purely by chance. Fresh from a ninety-day stint in jail and convinced that no one would ever hire him, he had been moping around the house when Linda had mentioned that if he wasn’t going to do anything all day, he could at least walk Nicky Taylor’s dog around lunchtime. Nicky Taylor was a rich divorcée who owned the dress shop where Linda worked, and she was constantly leaving Linda alone in the busy store so she could drive home and let her golden retriever out. He had done it one day, just to shut Linda up, and then the next day, then the next. Then within a week he found himself actually looking forward to it. The dog-walking provided an anchor to days which had become aimless and empty, and he found himself getting attached to the dog. Max, the retriever, was marvelously uncomplicated, had no needs that couldn’t be easily met, and expressed nothing but the most sincere appreciation. After seven years of a deteriorating marriage, this was exactly the type of relationship Kevin was looking for.
Nicky had then, without asking, compiled a list of all her wealthy friends who also needed their dogs walked, and had come up with a pay scale and a schedule for him. At first, Kevin had been annoyed, picturing the two women sitting around the dress shop planning every detail of his life.
Linda couldn’t just leave him alone, give him time to get things figured out, get his life back together. But then he realized that the work entailed no boss and noticed that the pay scale Nicky had arranged was well in excess of anything he himself would have asked for, and he couldn’t believe that he could earn a hundred dollars a day just for showing up at five or six houses and taking a dog out to shit. It kept Linda quiet and got him out of the house, and it brought money in. Soon he found the postprison depression had lifted, and he was printing up business cards and actively pursuing clients.
The rain was turning into a downpour, which Kevin liked. He was getting drenched and it gave him a feeling of working, of earning money by battling the elements. Anyone could walk dogs in the sunshine. When the sound of the water hitting the immaculate sidewalks of Westlake became a dull roar, Jeffrey turned around and looked at him, as if he expected the walk to be cut short. Kevin nodded at him to keep moving. The dog responded with a jump of enthusiasm. Rain, shit. It wasn’t so bad. They both knew it was better than going home.
When the rain let up, his worn jacket and pants soaked through, Kevin’s mind wandered back to football. Specifically, he was trying to pinpoint the moment in his own football career when his life had completely changed tracks without him being aware of it. Perhaps it was the day he had started pretending that a slight bruise on his right knee was a crippling injury, or the week he had blown off football practice three times with a doctor’s note so he could go over to Linda’s house while her parents were out of town.
After having spent most of his childhood and early adult years imagining a superstar NFL career, and having been encouraged in this by every coach and player he had met in the high school system, it had taken only a year of playing at Western College to realize that he was, in fact, headed for the scrap heap of broken bones and also-rans. After less than a semester, the joy had gone out of it, and he had begun to notice that he was more likely to wind up as the limping assistant coach at some coal-town high school than as the guy doing shoe commercials and holding up the Vince Lombardi trophy on national television.
All the guys at Western thought they were going to the big time. They were all ex–high school stars. After practice one day, he had been looking at them, listening to their endless chatter of self-promoting shit, and he had thought of them as deluded. Then, in a moment of painful self-awareness, he had seen that he fit right in. He wasn’t going to the pros, no matter what. Western College athletes wound up as gym teachers. Ohio State sent guys to the pros, and they had never called him back.
After this epiphany, things went downhill quickly. He developed a thousand-yard stare during the pregame prayer and was often daydreaming when the coach called him off the sidelines for a play. Despite his versatility as a player (he could play tight end or cornerback equally well), he found his name called less and less frequently. Finally, during a midseason practice, after being slow to respond to an order to get on the field, he heard one of the coaches say to another, “Never mind. He doesn’t care.” Then they quickly called a different play which didn’t include him.
At the next game, when he showed up to strap on pads and tape and cleats and rub his hands with Stickum, he realized he didn’t care that much if Western College won or lost. He also didn’t care if he watched from the sidelines or played. The rah-rah sessions before the games, which featured offensive linemen screaming “WESTEEEEEEERN!” with a red-faced mania as they banged their helmets against lockers, and the episodes on the team bus, when assistant coaches would try to get the players fired up with primal screams, made Kevin feel less like he had accepted a college scholarship and more like he had joined a cult. After the games, when all the players would go to the Easytown Buffet to load up on platefuls of fried chicken and celebrate a victory or reflect on a loss, Kevin would grab a book and head down to the local diner and eat by himself.
Which was where he met Linda. And then he dropped out of college and worked at a quarry so he could spend more time with her. And now here he was, twenty-eight years old, walking dogs in the rain. Why had that happened? Why couldn’t he care about winning some football games for a college that had given him a scholarship? Why did he have to be an individual all the time? Maybe it was because he had been lonely at college, and Linda had been the cure for it. Maybe that was how everyone made decisions that affected the rest of their lives, by trying to solve the problem right in front of them. And before you knew it, life was slipping away and you were obsessing with all your immediate problems and . . .
Stop it. Stop thinking so much. The rain had left a fresh, crisp scent in the air which gave Kevin some energy. He turned Jeffrey around to go back home, and the dog looked at him with understanding. Jeffrey seemed to understand everything, and bore it all with a grace Kevin knew he lacked. Back to sit in the doghouse, a literal doghouse, not the metaphorical one to which Kevin felt consigne
d. It was one of the things he liked about walking dogs, that it put everything into perspective. He got to spend time with creatures more fucked than him.
2
CHAPTER
MITCH WAS STARING at a case of auto air fresheners. Really staring at them. He was having some deep thoughts, wondering who came up with the idea of freshening the interior of a car. Mitch’s own car smelled like gas and pot smoke and mold, which was fair enough, because the roof leaked and the carpet was always damp, and he hotboxed a joint out there every day during his lunch break, and the car ran on gas. That was what an old car should smell like. He knew if he put an air freshener in it, it would smell like gas and pot smoke and mold and a chemical approximation of a pine tree, which wouldn’t really be better, just different.
He and Charles had gone out at lunch and fired up a joint and Charles had told him that he had nine brothers and sisters back in Lagos, Nigeria, and two of them had been killed by the secret police. Mitch hadn’t known what to say. In a way he envied Charles for having had a life so shitty that working at Accu-mart was a slice of heaven. He wished he had stories about having come from somewhere merciless and tragic. Instead, he had stories about living with a distant father while attending public school in Queens, and by comparison those stories shrieked of insignificance. Even he found them dull, and because of this, working at Accu-mart was even duller, a mind-numbing slow torture that was turning his brain into lifeless putty. Work, cable TV, smoke a bowl, sleep. Try to hide from suffering in all its many forms and wind up envying people whose families were getting killed by the secret police.
“Are you memorizing the bar codes?” It was Bob Sutherland, again. He must have crept up behind him while he was staring at the case of air fresheners. “Because when I started, I used to do that. Memorize the stock numbers.”
