Dogs

by Allan Stratton

  “How do you know?”

  “This isn’t the city. Everybody knows about everybody. And everybody knows Mrs. Murphy drove her car into the Presbyterian church. Well, not into the church, but into the front steps. That’s when she lost her license, two years ago. Mom says it was about time—Mrs. Murphy had been parking her car in the middle of the highway and walking off, totally lost.”

  “No kidding.”

  “Wait, it gets better. Last year she tried to burn the house down.”

  “What?”

  “Okay, so maybe she didn’t try. But Cody’s grandparents woke up from an afternoon nap and there was a huge fire in the kitchen. His great-grandma had decided to fry something and then wandered out to the barn. There were fire trucks and everything. That’s when she got put in the nursing home. She’s down the hall from my grandpa. I see her every Sunday and after school on Wednesdays when my folks take me to visit him.”

  “What’s any of this got to do with a murder on my farm?”

  “Oh. Yeah. The murder thing.” Benjie’s so thick they should use his head to stuff pillows. “Okay. So everything I told you about Cody’s great-grandma? Kids laughed about it. Cody got into a lot of fights. See, she’s the only one in his family who can stand him.”

  “I get the picture, Benjie. Focus.”

  “Okay. So anyway, just as Cody’s grandparents were getting her into the home, she went mental. Like, swinging-her-cane mental. She screamed they all wanted to lock her up because she knew too much about this murder. Mom told me that, back in the sixties, Mrs. Murphy had accused the man who owned your farm of killing some people.”

  “You mean the crazy guy who bought the dogs?”

  “Right. Only the police investigated and it turned out that nobody killed anybody. It was all in her head. She went quiet for years. Only now she’s old and demento, so nothing stops her from saying anything.”

  “She still talks about the murder?”

  “Who knows? I steer clear. I’ve seen her in the social room sometimes. Her lips move a lot.”

  My mind whirs: The police investigated. Nobody killed anybody. Repeat that. Believe it. But I need to know one last thing. “Benjie, do you remember who she thought the crazy guy murdered?”

  “Let’s see. His wife and her friend, I think.”

  “Anyone else?”

  “Oh. Yeah,” Benjie says. “His son.”

  17

  How do I fall asleep after that?

  When I finally drift off, it’s into a world of nightmares. Jacky’s father stuffs people into Mr. Sinclair’s grinder. Then he’s got a dog’s body and chases me through the cornfields. Then I’m hiding in one of the cow stalls as Dad prowls around with a chain saw, shouting, “Hey, Buddy. You can’t run from me forever.”

  “Jacky,” I whisper as Dad comes up the aisle, “help me.”

  “Why? You want me to go away.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “You don’t even believe in me. You’re mean.”

  Dad’s standing over me. “I got you now, Buddy.” He revs the chain saw.

  “Jacky! I believe in you! Help!”

  The alarm goes off. I’m in my room, heart beating so fast it practically bursts out of my chest. I shower, brush my teeth, get dressed, and go downstairs.

  Mom’s calmer this morning, but I keep my mouth shut all through breakfast. “Be good,” she says as she leaves for work.

  Normally I’d say, “Always am.” Today I settle for, “You bet.”

  I play Zombie Attack and channel surf, then go back to my room and look at Jacky’s drawings. I run my fingers over the pages. Half a century ago, Jacky touched the paper I’m touching. He drew what I’m seeing.

  What if Cody’s great-grandmother is right? If his father murdered him, did Jacky know it was happening or was it in his sleep? I wonder if Dad ever thought about killing Mom and me. What would he do if he knew Mom was working for C.B.?

  Stop thinking like that.

  I stare out the window at the hole in the barn wall. It’d actually be kind of cool if there is a ghost here. At least I’d have someone to talk to. And Jacky, or whatever I’ve been talking to, has always seemed pretty nice. Weird maybe, but who wouldn’t be weird, growing up in the middle of nowhere with a crazy dad and all those dogs? What’s wrong with weird anyway? Lots of people think I’m weird. Jacky’s just lonely. We have a lot in common.

  I think for a minute, then whisper, “Jacky? Are you there?” I’m half fooling, but also half hoping, like the time in sixth grade when my buddies and I played with a Ouija board. Part of me was glad nothing spooky happened; the other part was disappointed.

  “Jacky?” I whisper again. “Jacky?”

  Silence. Oh well, what did I expect? It’s not like I believe in ghosts. Even if I did, it’s daytime.

  “Cameron?” Jacky’s voice is coming from the doorway. “You sure you want me here? Because I can go away. I don’t want to scare you. I just want a friend.”

  I try to act normal. “I’m fine, Jacky. Really. I’m glad you’re here. I’m sorry for what I said.”

  Jacky smiles. “Good.”

  I turn around slowly. There’s nothing in the doorway, but when I close my eyes I see him, all shy and awkward. It seems totally real, like something in a dream, only I’m wide awake. It’s the weirdest, most amazing thing that’s happened to me since, like, forever.

  “So, do you want to do something?” Jacky asks.

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know. Go play in the barn? It’s fun out there.”

  “Sure.”

  “Come on then.”

  I open my eyes and hear Jacky calling me from the kitchen. “What’s keeping you?” I go downstairs, put on my jacket, and step outside.

  I picture Jacky skipping into the barn. I follow him inside. I imagine him in the shadows, sitting on the side of a cow stall.

  “I gave the cows names,” Jacky says. “Pepper was in here. She was white with black splotches. Salt was black with white ones. Other cows I named after characters in my comic books. Every fall, Father brought some of them over to Arty’s, and his father butchered them for us to eat or sell in town. I cried when he took Pepper, but he slapped the back of my head and told me not to be a baby. Mother said I shouldn’t think of them as pets.”

  “That’s rough. Did you ever have a real pet?”

  “Not really.” Jacky sighs. “We had barn cats, but I couldn’t bring them into the house. Anyway, if you went to pet them, they’d hiss and run away. That’s why I liked the cows. They let you stroke their sides. You couldn’t ride them though. I tried to climb onto Pepper once, but she didn’t like it. I nearly got stomped.”

  “What about the dogs?”

  “Are you kidding?” Jacky looks around as if somebody might be listening. “I was scared of the dogs. They did things. Awful things.”

  “Like?”

  “Like with the rabbits. I saw out my window.” Jacky’s eyes widen in terror. He sticks his fingers in his ears and sings, “La-la-la-la-la-la!” like I used to do when Mom and Dad fought.

  “Jacky! It’s not happening now!”

  But he’s gone; I’m talking to the air. I’m about to go back to the house when I hear him in the hayloft. I go up the stairs. When I enter the loft, birds fly down from the rafters. I look up and picture Jacky swinging his legs from a crossbeam.

  “This is my favorite place,” he says like everything’s fine. “Before the dogs, me and Arty played here all the time. The hay was all piled. We’d climb it and slide down. It made us real itchy, but that didn’t stop us.”

  “Sounds like you and Mr. Sinclair—Arty—were good friends.”

  “Best friends. He gave me this cap.” Jacky strokes the raccoon tail.

  “That was just before you left with your mom, right?”


  “Huh? Who says I left with Mother?”

  “Arty.”

  Jacky shakes his head. “Mother left without me. Arty knows that.”

  “How does he know?”

  “It’s a secret.”

  “Why?”

  “Because.” He vanishes.

  “Jacky?”

  “Over here.”

  I turn and see him crouching by the hole in the barn wall.

  “Father used to pile all the cow pies under here,” Jacky says. “In the summer the sun dried the outside of them all crusty so they didn’t smell. One day, when we were little, Arty and I got tired of sliding down the hay. We crawled through the opening here and slid down the cow pies instead. Arty’s folks thought it was funny, but Father gave me the belt.”

  “The belt?”

  “You know, when your father takes his belt and whips you.”

  “Your father whipped you?”

  “Only when I deserved it. He didn’t want to. It was just so I’d be good. ‘This hurts me more than it does you.’ That’s what he’d tell Mother and me when we were bad. If Mother had been good, she wouldn’t have run away. Then Father wouldn’t have gotten the dogs and everything would be okay.” Jacky shudders.

  “Are you all right?”

  “I can’t talk now. I hear things. I see things.” He disappears into the air for good, but his words keep repeating: “I hear things. I see things.” Only he’s not the one talking; I am.

  I stop and the barn goes so quiet I’m afraid to breathe. It’s like I’m in another world: now and not now, all at once.

  What did Jacky see? What did he hear?

  My eyes see double, triple. As things blur, I picture hay sloping up to the back rafters. I imagine the squishy feel of it and the smell. The smell of the cows too—a damp, funky smell—and the sound of them shuffling and snorting in their stalls below. Jacky and Arty scramble up the heap, the hay giving way under their feet. They roll down, laughing.

  One blink and my vision clears. Cool. Next I crouch where Jacky crouched and look at the house. I imagine it from Mr. Sinclair’s photographs, with fresh paint and a band of petunias on either side of the back shed door. The McTavishes’ car is in the drive, a fifties Chevy, green with fins.

  In my head I hear a radio playing and Jacky’s mother singing along. All of a sudden there’s a man’s voice and a fight. Jacky’s mom screams, “You want to hit me? Hit me where the bruise will show, coward.”

  Wait. That’s Mom’s voice. My heart skips and I’m back in the here and now. Did Mom ever say that? Did I ever hear it?

  I need some air.

  18

  Mom’s back at five. She calls me to the kitchen table. I sit like a prisoner waiting to be executed. Will it be the “I’m disappointed” speech or the “I love you” speech? I know she loves me. I know she’s disappointed. Why does she have to say it?

  Mom reaches across the table and puts her hand on mine. “Cameron,” she says softly, “I want to apologize.”

  What? I stare down at our hands. Mom still wears her wedding ring. She says it’s to keep men away, but it reminds me of Dad. I wonder if it reminds her.

  “I should never have said what I said yesterday about a fight being the beginning,” Mom says. “You are not your father. You are you. And who you are is a good, kind, bright young man who cares about people.”

  My insides quiver. I’m not good. I’m not kind. I think mean thoughts about people. I go behind your back. I lie. I make things up. I’m a horrible person. I’m…

  “Cameron?”

  I wipe the corner of my eye. “It’s okay.”

  Mom hands me a Kleenex. Somehow she always has a Kleenex. “I want you to know that what’s been happening with you these past few weeks, what you’ve been going through, isn’t your fault.”

  Is this about me being picked on at school? Eating lunch alone in a bathroom stall? Did I say Jacky’s name in my sleep?

  “I don’t know exactly what’s going on in your head”—what a relief—“but I see the signs. The nightmares. The talking to yourself.”

  I want to crawl in a hole.

  “It’s all right, Cameron. I understand.” You don’t. “It’s been like this ever since you were a child. Whenever you have a problem, you go off into your own world. I can be talking to you, others can, but it’s like you don’t hear us. Since this last move it’s gotten worse.”

  I’m afraid to ask, but I have to. “What about my lips?”

  Mom squeezes my hand. “I know you try hard to keep them from moving. And when that doesn’t work, you try to cover your mouth. You’re so good about that. But yes, they’ve been moving. Not always, but sometimes.”

  “Am I loud?”

  “No, no. Very quiet, sometimes no sound at all.”

  Am I like that at school? Who else has seen me?

  “I don’t know who you’re talking to, but it can be pretty intense.”

  “Myself. I’m just talking to myself. Lots of people do.”

  “I know. But lately…lately I watch you, and you don’t even notice me watching. It’s a worry.”

  “Why?” As if I don’t know the answer.

  “Because it’s not normal, Cameron. It’s not just the talking to yourself either. You frown all the time. You don’t communicate. Sometimes you hit yourself.”

  “When?”

  “Different times. Not often. It doesn’t matter.”

  “It matters to me. If I was hitting myself, I think I’d know about it.”

  “I’d hope so,” Mom says carefully. “And then there are the nightmares. You wake up drenched in sweat, and even though you know I’m there, it’s like you’re in another world.”

  I swallow hard. “You think I’m crazy.”

  “No. But I think you have problems. You’re troubled.”

  I go to say something, but there’s nothing to say.

  “Cameron, it’s nothing to be ashamed of. You’ve gone through such terrible things. But you’re not alone. I want to help.”

  You can’t.

  “Please let me.”

  How?

  Mom takes a breath. “I was talking to Ken.”

  Cowboy Boots? “You talked about me to him?”

  “I didn’t say much.”

  “He’s a jerk. A phony.”

  “Cameron, he’s a nice man who’s given me work—work that puts a roof over our heads and food on the table.”

  “That gives him a right to hear about my private life?”

  “No. All I said is, you’re at an age when you might want a man to talk to. Most boys have a father.”

  My stomach churns. “So do I. Only you won’t let me see him.”

  “That isn’t fair.”

  “What, that I have a father I can’t see? No, it isn’t fair.” I pull my hand away.

  Mom tries not to look upset. “You don’t have to talk to Ken if you don’t want to, but he’d be happy to talk to you.”

  I look her in the eye. “Are you going out with him?”

  “What?”

  “Is this your way of introducing ‘the kid’?”

  “Cameron, that’s out of line.”

  “So I’m right.”

  “No. You’re wrong.”

  “Because no way will that jerk ever be my father. I have a father. And if I ever need to talk to a man who isn’t my father, I’ll talk to Mr. Sinclair.”

  “Fine.”

  “So can I go now?”

  “You can go.”

  I push my chair back, get up, and head up the stairs.

  “Cameron,” she calls after me, “I love you.”

  “Right.” I don’t turn back. No way she’s going to see me cry.

  19

  All night I worry about Mo
m thinking I’m crazy. She thinks Dad’s crazy too. Is she right? Are we both nuts? I also stress about Jacky. Mr. Sinclair says he left with his mom. Jacky says he didn’t, that Mr. Sinclair saw him after she was gone. Who’s telling the truth? Why would either of them lie?

  How can anyone know anything about anyone? How can anyone be sure even about themselves?

  Only one thing’s certain: Jacky’s a secret I can’t tell anybody.

  Mom’s gone by the time I get up. I make myself toast and jam, take a tub of ice cream to the kitchen window, and look out at the woods behind the corn. The sun is bright, the sky is clear—what a perfect day to explore. If I hadn’t been suspended, I’d be on the bus right now, taunted by Cody’s gang, smelling Benjie’s breath, and worried about today’s science test. I should get suspended more often.

  I bundle up and head out to the field. My view of the woods is blocked by the corn—it’s way taller than I am—but if I walk straight forward I can’t help but bump into it. After the first few rows it gets hard to see anything, what with the leaves. It’s tougher to move than I figured too. The worst part is the cobs hitting my face and the tassels going up my nose. On the plus side, there’s the smell of the corn, so sweet and fresh I can taste it.

  I wade forward, but it takes, like, forever. It’s got to be fifteen minutes since I started. Shouldn’t I at least be seeing the treetops over the stalks? Maybe I should head back.

  No, that’s dumb. For all I know, I’m almost there. Besides, quitting’s for losers.

  I keep going. Still no sign of the woods. Am I heading in the right direction? Have I gotten turned around?

  An engine revs over at Mr. Sinclair’s. I’m so busy keeping tassels out of my eyes that it takes me a while to realize the sound is getting louder. Make that closer. Why would an engine be getting closer?

  Oh my God, it’s not any old engine. It’s Mr. Sinclair’s combine. He’s harvesting the field. And I’m in the middle of it.

  I picture blades slicing through stalks—and me! I have to get out of here. But where to? Where am I? Which way do I go?

  Don’t panic. Figure out where Mr. Sinclair’s headed and go someplace else.