by Stein, Garth
But it was not my choice. I was not behind the wheel. No one cared a whit about me. Which is why they were all in such a state of panic when Zoë asked her grandparents if she could see me. You see, no one had accounted for my whereabouts. The Twins, not knowing where their elaborate fiction had placed me, immediately called Mark Fein, who immediately called Denny to outline the nature of our predicament.
“She believes it all,” I could hear Mark shout over the phone, even though the phone was pressed to Denny’s ear. “So where did you leave the fucking dog? You could have taken him with you, but there are quarantine rules! Does she know about quarantine?”
“Tell her of course she can see Enzo,” Denny said calmly. “Enzo is staying with Mike and Tony while I’m in Europe; Zoë likes them, and she’ll believe it. I’ll have Mike bring Enzo over on Saturday.”
And that’s what happened. In the early afternoon Mike picked me up and drove me over to Mercer Island, and I spent the afternoon playing with Zoë on the great lawn. Before dinnertime, Mike returned me to Denny.
“How did she look?” Denny asked Mike.
“She looked terrific,” Mike said. “She has her mother’s smile.”
“They had a good time together?”
“A fantastic time. They played all day.”
“Fetch?” Denny asked, thirsty for details. “Did she use the Chuckit? Or did they play chase? Eve never liked it when they played chase.”
“No, mostly fetch,” Mike said kindly.
“I never minded when they played chase because I know Enzo, but Eve was always…”
“You know,” Mike said, “sometimes they just flopped down on the grass and cuddled together. It was really sweet.”
Denny wiped his nose quickly.
“Thanks, Mike,” he said. “Really. Thanks a lot.”
“Anytime,” Mike said.
I appreciated Mike’s effort to appease Denny, even though he was avoiding the truth. Or maybe Mike didn’t see what I saw. Maybe he couldn’t hear what I heard. Zoë’s profound sadness. Her loneliness. Her whispered plans that she and I would somehow smuggle ourselves off to Europe and find her father.
That summer without Zoë was very painful for Denny. In addition to feeling isolated from his daughter, his career was derailed: though he was offered the opportunity to drive again for the racing team he was with the previous year, he was forced to decline, as the pending criminal case demanded that he remain in the state of Washington at all times or he would forfeit his bond. Further, he was not allowed to accept any of the lucrative teaching jobs and commercial work offers that came his way—after his spectacular experience at Thunderhill, he was highly recommended in the commercial industry and received offers over the phone fairly frequently. These jobs almost always took place in California, or sometimes in Nevada or Texas, and occasionally in Connecticut, and therefore were forbidden to him. He was a prisoner of the state.
And yet.
We are all afforded our physical existence so we can learn about ourselves. So I understand why Denny, on a deeper level, allowed this situation to befall him. I won’t say he created the situation, but he allowed it. Because he needed to test his mettle. He wanted to know how long he could keep his foot on the accelerator before lifting. He chose this life, and therefore he chose this battle.
And I realized, as the summer matured and I frequently visited Zoë without Denny, that I was a part of this, too. I was integral to the drama. Because on those late Saturday afternoons in July, after Mike reviewed the events of the day with Denny and then returned to his own world, Denny would sit with me on the back porch and quiz me. “Did you play fetch? Did you tug? Did you chase?” He would ask, “Did you cuddle?” He would ask, “How did she look? Is she eating enough fruit? Are they buying organic?”
I tried. I tried as hard as I could to form words for him, but they wouldn’t come. I tried to beam my thoughts into his head via telepathy. I tried to send him the pictures I saw in my mind. I twitched my ears. I cocked my head. I nodded. I pawed.
Until he smiled at me and stood.
“Thanks, Enzo,” he would say on those days. “You’re not too tired, are you?”
I would stand and wag. I’m never too tired.
“Let’s go, then.”
He would grab the Chuckit and the tennis ball and walk me down to the Blue Dog Park, and we would play fetch until the light grew thin and the mosquitoes came out of hiding, thirsty for their dinner.
39
There was an occasion that summer when Denny found a teaching engagement in Spokane and, via Mike, our faux-Intercontinental liaison, asked if the Twins could take me for the weekend; they agreed, as they had grown accustomed to my presence in their home, and I always handled myself with the utmost dignity when I was around them, never soiling their expensive rugs or carpets, never begging for food, and never drooling when I slept.
I would much rather have gone to racing school with Denny, but I understood that he depended on me to take care of Zoë, and also to act as some kind of a witness on his behalf. Though I could not relate to him the details of our visits, my presence, I think, reassured him in some way.
On a Friday afternoon, I was delivered by Mike into Zoë’s waiting embrace. She immediately ushered me into her room, and we played a game of dress-up together; to say that I was taking one for the team would be an understatement, considering the crazy outfits I was forced to wear. But that’s my ego speaking; I knew my role as jester in Zoë’s court, and I was happy to play the part.
That evening Maxwell took me outside earlier than usual, urging me to “get busy.” When I came back inside, I was led to Zoë’s room, which already had my bed in it. Apparently, she had requested I sleep with her rather than by the back door or, God forbid, in the garage. I curled into a ball and quickly dozed off.
A bit later, I woke. The lights were dim. Zoë was awake and active, encircling my bed with piles of her stuffed animals.
“They’ll keep you company,” she whispered to me as she surrounded me.
Seemingly hundreds of them. All shapes and sizes. I was being surrounded by teddy bears and giraffes, sharks and dogs, cats and birds and snakes. She worked steadily and I watched, until I was nothing more than a small atoll on the Pacific, and the animals were my coral reef. I found it somewhat amusing and touching that Zoë cared to share me with her animals in that way, and I drifted off to sleep feeling protected and safe.
I awoke later in the night and saw that the wall of animals around me was quite high. Still, I was able to shift my weight and change position to make myself more comfortable. But when I did, I was shocked by a frightening sight. One of the animals. The one on top. Staring straight at me. It was the zebra.
The replacement zebra. The one she had chosen to fill in for the demon that had dismantled itself before me so long ago. The horrifying zebra of my past.
The demon had returned. And, though it was dark in the room, I know I saw a glint of light it its eyes.
As you can imagine, my sleep that night was sparse. The last thing I wanted was to awaken amid animal carnage because the demon had returned. I forced myself to stay awake; yet I couldn’t help but drift off. Each time I opened my eyes, I found the zebra staring at me. Like a gargoyle, it stood on a cathedral of animals above me, watching. The other animals had no life; they were toys. The zebra alone knew.
I felt sluggish all day, but I did my best to keep up, and I tried to catch up on my sleep by napping quietly. To any observer, I’m sure I gave off the impression of being quite contented; however, I was anxious about nightfall, concerned that, once again, the zebra would torture me with its mocking eyes.
That afternoon, as the Twins took their alcohol on the deck as they tended to do and Zoë watched television in the TV room, I dozed outside in the sun. And I heard them.
“I know it’s for the best,” Trish said. “But still, I feel badly for him.”
“It’s for the best,” Maxwell said.
“I know. But still…”
“He forced himself on a teenage girl,” Maxwell said sternly. “What kind of a father preys on innocent young girls?”
I lifted my head from the warm wood of the deck and saw Trish cluck and shake her head.
“What?” Maxwell demanded.
“From what I hear, she’s not that innocent.”
“What you hear!” Maxwell blurted. “He forced himself on a young girl! That’s rape!”
“I know, I know. It’s just that the timing of her coming forward is…a big coincidence.”
“Are you suggesting that she made it up?”
“No,” Trish said. “But why did Pete wait to tell us about it until after you complained to him so bitterly that you were certain we wouldn’t get custody of Zoë?”
“I don’t care about any of that,” Maxwell said, waving her off. “He wasn’t good enough for Eve, and he’s not good enough for Zoë. And if he’s stupid enough to get caught with his pants down and his pecker in his fist, you’re going to be damn sure I’m going to seize the moment. Zoë will have a better childhood with us. She will have a better moral raising, a better financial raising, a better family life, and you know it, Trish. You know it!”
“I know, I know,” she said, and sipped her amber drink with the bright red cherry drowned at the bottom of the glass. “But he’s not a bad person.”
He poured his drink down his gullet and slapped the glass down on the teak table.
“It’s time to start dinner,” he said, and he went inside.
I was stunned. I, too, had noted the coincidence of events, and I had been suspicious since the beginning. But to hear the words, the coldness in Maxwell’s tone.
Imagine this. Imagine having your wife die suddenly of a brain cancer. Then imagine having her parents attack you mercilessly in order to gain custody of your daughter. Imagine that they exploit allegations of sexual molestation against you; they hire very expensive and clever lawyers because they have much more money than you have. Imagine that they prevent you from having any contact with your six-year-old daughter for months on end. And imagine they restrict your ability to earn money to support yourself and, of course, as you hope, your daughter. How long would you last before your will was broken?
They had no idea who they were dealing with. Denny would not kneel before them. He would never quit; he would never break.
With disgust, I followed them into the house. Trish began her preparations and Maxwell took his jar of peppers from the refrigerator; inside me, a darkness brewed. Contrivers. Manipulators. They were no longer people to me. They were now the Evil Twins. Evil, horrible, dastardly people who stuffed themselves with burning hot peppers in order to fuel the bile in their stomachs. When they laughed, flames shot out of their noses. They were not worthy of life, these people. They were disgusting creatures, nitrogen-based life forms that lived in the very darkest corners of the very deepest lakes where there is no light and the pressure crushes everything to sand; deep, dark places where oxygen would never dare venture.
My anger with the Evil Twins fed my thirst for revenge. And I was not above using the tools of my dogness to exact justice.
I presented myself to Maxwell as he stuffed another pepper into his mouth and pulverized it with the ceramic teeth he removed at night. I sat before him. I lifted a paw.
“Want a treat?” he asked me, clearly surprised by my gesture.
I barked.
“Here you go, boy.”
He extracted a pepper from the bottle and held it before my nose. It was a very large one, long and artificially green and smelling of sulfites and nitrates. The devil’s candy.
“I don’t think those are good for dogs,” Trish said.
“He likes them,” Maxwell countered.
My first thought was to take the pepperoncini and a couple of Maxwell’s fingers with it. But that would have caused real problems, and I likely would have been euthanized before Mike could return to save me, so I didn’t take his fingers. I did, however, take the pepper. I knew it was bad for me, that I would suffer immediate discomfort. But I knew my discomfort would pass, and I anticipated the unpleasant rebound effect, which is what I wanted. After all, I am just a stupid dog, unworthy of human scorn, without the brains to be responsible for my own bodily functions. A dumb dog.
I observed their dinner carefully because I wanted to see for myself. The Twins served Zoë some kind of chicken covered in a creamy sauce. They didn’t know that while Zoë loved chicken cutlets, she never ate them with sauce, and certainly never with cream; she disliked the consistency. When she didn’t eat the string beans they served, Trish asked if she would like a banana instead. Zoë replied affirmatively and Trish made some banana slices, which Zoë barely picked at because they were crudely sliced and speckled with brown spots, which she always avoided. (When Denny prepared her bananas for her, he took great care in slicing them in uniform thickness after removing any and all brown spots he could find.)
And these agents of evil—these supposed grandparents!—thought Zoë would be better off with them! Bah! They didn’t spend a moment thinking about her welfare; after dinner, they didn’t even ask why she hadn’t eaten the bananas. They allowed her to leave the table having eaten almost nothing. Denny never would have allowed that. He would have prepared for her something she liked and he would have required that she eat a sufficient dinner to continue to grow in a healthy way.
All the while I watched, I seethed. And in my stomach, a foul concoction steeped.
When it was time to take me out that night, Maxwell opened the French door to the back deck and began his idiotic chanting: “Get busy, boy. Get busy.”
I didn’t go outside. I looked up at him and I thought about what he was doing, how he was rending our family, pulling apart the fabric of our lives for his own smug, self-congratulatory purposes; I thought about how he and Trish were grossly inferior guardians for my Zoë. I crouched in my stance right there, inside the house, and I shat a massive, soupy, pungent pile of diarrhea on his beautiful, expensive, linen-colored Berber carpet.
“What the hell?” he shouted at me. “Bad dog!”
I turned and trotted cheerfully to Zoë’s room.
“Get busy, motherfucker,” I said as I left. But, of course, he couldn’t hear me.
As I settled into my lagoon of stuffed animals, I heard Maxwell exclaim loudly and call for Trish to clean up my mess. I looked at the zebra, still perched on his throne of lifeless animal carcasses, and I growled at it very softly but very ominously. And the demon knew. The demon knew not to mess with me that night.
Not that night, or ever again.
40
Oh, a breath of September!
The vacations were done. The lawyers were back at work. The courts were at full staff. The postponements were finished. The truth would be had!
He left that morning wearing the only suit he owned, a crumpled khaki two-piece from Banana Republic, and a dark tie. He looked very good.
“Mike will come by at lunch and take you for a walk,” he said to me. “I don’t know how long this will go.”
Mike came and walked me briefly through the neighborhood so I wouldn’t be lonely, and then he left again. Later that afternoon, Denny returned. He smiled down at me.
“Do I need to reintroduce you two?” he asked.
And behind him was Zoë!
I leapt in the air. I bounded. I knew it! I knew Denny would vanquish the Evil Twins! I felt like doing flips. Zoë had returned!
It was an amazing afternoon. We played in the yard. We ran and laughed. We hugged and cuddled. We made dinner together and sat at our table and ate. It felt so good to be together again! After dinner, they ate ice cream in the kitchen.
“Are you going back to Europe soon?” Zoë asked out of the blue.
Denny froze in place. The story had worked so well, Zoë still believed it. He sat down across from her.
“No, I’m not going back to Europe,” he said.
<
br /> Her face lit up.
“Yay!” she cheered. “I can have my room back!”
“Actually,” Denny said, “I’m afraid not yet.”
Her forehead crinkled and her lips pursed as she attempted to puzzle out his statement. I was puzzled, too.
“Why not?” she asked, finally, frustration in her voice. “I want to come home.”
“I know, honey, but the lawyers and judges have to make the decision on where you’ll live. It’s part of what happens when someone’s mommy dies.”
“Just tell them,” she demanded. “Just tell them that I’m coming home. I don’t want to live there anymore. I want to live with you and Enzo.”
“It’s a little more complicated than that,” Denny hemmed.
“Just tell them,” she repeated angrily. “Just tell them!”
“Zoë, someone has accused me of doing something very bad—”
“Just tell them.”
“Someone said I did something very bad. And even though I know I didn’t do it, now I have to go to court and prove to everyone that I didn’t do it.”
Zoë thought about it for a moment.
“Was it Grandma and Grandpa?” she asked.
I was very impressed with the laserlike accuracy of her inquiry.
“Not—” Denny started. “No. No, it wasn’t them. But…they know about it.”
“I made them love me too much,” Zoë said softly, looking into her bowl of melted ice cream. “I should have been bad. I should have made them not want to keep me.”
“No, honey, no,” Denny said, dismayed. “Don’t say that. You should shine with all of your light all the time. I’ll work this out. I promise I will.”
Zoë shook her head without meeting his eyes. Understanding that the conversation was over, Denny cleared her bowl and began to clean the dishes. I felt badly for them both, but more so for Zoë, who continued to face situations that were loaded with subtleties beyond her experience and fraught with the conflicting desires of those around her, fighting for supremacy like vines entangled on a trellis. Sadly, she went into her bedroom to play with the animals she had left behind.
