by Tim Lockette
“I . . . gee, I will.”
Reagan scooped up her books.
“Well, I don’t know what that’s about,” she said. “But it wasn’t about journalism and it wasn’t about meat. She thinks you’ve got your hooks in Mr. Czech Republic. She sees you as a threat.”
“But I told her,” I said. “I told both of them I’m no threat at all.”
“Welcome to high school,” Reagan said. “This is what it’s going to be like. A six-year battle for survival. See, they’re pitting us in death matches against each other already. The dystopian future.”
“So how was it?” Taleesa said when I got in the car.
“Weird,” I said, suddenly relieved to be back on home turf again. Taleesa with a pen behind her ear, checking her phone for calls from editors while driving. Martinez in the back with his video game open and a peaceful look on his face, like a baby who just got his bottle.
“Everybody called me ‘Colonel,’” I said. “I’m going to be in the student newspaper with a mouth full of ham sandwich. There are like three pages of written rules for how to do everything, and a lot more unwritten rules. It’s a case I can’t win.”
“Hm,” said Taleesa. “Make any new friends?”
“Just one,” I said. “A girl named after Ronald Reagan.”
Martinez laughed. “A girl named Ronald? Cool! I hope she has frizzy red hair and giant clown feet.”
“Any cute boys?” Taleesa asked, nudging me a little with her elbow and winking.
I shrugged. “Boys aren’t cute, really,” I said. “Not boys my age. Premsyl was there. He’s kinda cute, but if I talk to him at all, his current girlfriend will stab me.”
“Can we go to McDonald’s?” Martinez asked.
“This too shall pass,” Taleesa said. “Junior high is tough on everybody. It’ll be over before you know it.”
“Six more years,” I said. “I was doing fine before all this started. Can’t I just homeschool and work at the animal shelter?”
“You know I don’t have time for homeschooling and my work, too. I’ve already spent ninety minutes picking y’all up. Why on earth do they schedule the end of elementary school an hour before the end of high school? And yes, Martinez, we’ll go to McDonald’s before I drop you at the animal shelter.”
“I love it,” Martinez said. “The dogs love me when I smell like hamburger.”
Sigh. “I think I’ll just get one of those salads,” I said. “Taleesa, was seventh grade like this for you? Was it lonely?”
Taleesa laughed. “Oh, no,” she said. And then she got serious. “When I was in seventh grade, that was back before Old Martinez stopped drinking. He got arrested on some stupid charge, loitering and intoxication or something, and he lost his job. And his girlfriend at the time, she wasn’t mean to me, but she just seemed to hate having me around while her man was in jail. So I liked school in the seventh grade. There was a good lunch, and people would talk to me. I got on the school paper so I wouldn’t have to go home.”
Well, now I felt like a total wimp.
“I’m just telling it like it is,” Taleesa continued. “I know life in this town can be rough in other ways.”
And then I just blurted it out. The thing we don’t talk about. I couldn’t stop myself.
“This town—that school—they bullied my mom to death,” I said. “Didn’t they? This is where it started. This is where they branded her a weirdo and never let her live it down.”
Taleesa shook her head.
“I just don’t know,” she said. “I didn’t know your mom. I don’t know what she went through. I know it’s the right thing to try and walk a mile in the other person’s shoes, but sometimes you’ve just got to show some respect and say you’ll never ever know what those shoes feel like. . . . Look, is there something you need to tell me? Are you being bullied or something?”
“No,” I said. But as I said it, I thought of Princess P. I reached into the glove compartment for my phone. A whole day of messages.
Princess_P: Enjoy your first day at school, Colonel. Your powerful “friends” can’t save you from being ridiculed at school, fatso.
Princess_P: If I were as ugly as you, I’d kill myself rather than endure high school.
Princess_P: Ever notice how a dead gator looks like it’s sleeping peacefully? No, I haven’t either.
ShelterMegg: Atty, see me as soon as you can. Easy has escaped from his pen.
ShelterMegg: I’ve informed the judge that Easy’s escaped. You’ve got to help me find him.
ShelterMegg: We’ve got a court order from the judge. Meet us at the courthouse at 4 if you can.
“So much for McDonald’s,” I said. “We need to get to the courthouse right now.”
13
Judge Grover’s secretary, a woman I’d never met, looked up from her computer and smiled as if she knew me.
“Colonel Peale,” she said. “The judge is waiting for you.”
I stuck out my hand. “Miss Atticus Peale,” I said. “Good to meet you.”
She shook my hand, leaned in to whisper: “Go right in. He hates waiting for anybody.”
I pushed open the big wooden door. Most of the Strudwick County Courthouse looks like a public restroom, with green tiles on the walls. The judge’s chamber was altogether different: Big wooden bookcases, deep brown carpet, a giant oak desk and leather chairs. Judge Grover was leaning back behind the desk, looking actually kind of handsome in a three-piece suit instead of a robe. Miss Megg was there, in her shelter uniform, sitting with her hands folded in her lap like a kid being scolded by the principal.
“Good to see you, Colonel,” Grover said. “Where’s young Admiral Peale? Your brother’s a party in all this, isn’t he?”
“He couldn’t make it, Your Honor,” I said. Taleesa had dropped me off at the courthouse, then she and Martinez went to McDonald’s. He’d be bummed that he missed someone actually using his title. I turned to Megg.
“What happened? How did Easy get loose?”
Megg shook her head. “I couldn’t believe it. I went to the cage where I kept him, and he was gone. I guess he just dug and clawed, dug and clawed, until he pulled one of the boards at the corner loose. Once he got a little gap between the board and the chicken wire, he must have just squeezed through. There was blood and fur everywhere.”
“That’s a determined dog,” I said.
“That’s a dangerous dog,” said Judge Grover. “I know the danger of rabies has passed. But we still have a dog on the loose that may be willing to bite someone. You took on the responsibility of keeping him out of circulation. That didn’t work, so now I’m ordering that the dog, once found, will be destroyed.”
That evil word again, “destroyed.” I felt sick. Judge Grover pushed a paper across his desk at me.
“Here’s my order,” he said. “Atty, you’re not a county employee, and I can’t really order you to do anything. But I’m ordering Miz Megg to put forth a good-faith effort to find this dog so it can be destroyed. I want an honest search for this animal. When I walk the streets of Houmahatchee, I want to see signs that warn me about this dog and tell me who to call if I spot it. My order allows Miss Megg to delegate this work to a volunteer. I don’t think I have to tell you who that volunteer should be.”
I took the paper. “Understood, Your Honor,” I said.
“Report back to me on your progress every week until the dog is found,” Grover said. “That’s all.”
Megg rose to leave. I sat staring at the wood grain on Judge Grover’s desk. How could I have fallen so far behind in such a short time? School had already taken me away from the shelter for most of the day. Now I was going to spend my shelter time trying to kill my favorite dog. I sighed.
“Miss Peale, are you all right?” asked the judge.
I shook it off. “Sorry, Your Honor,”
I said. “Yes, we’ll get right on it.”
And we did. I drafted a flyer on my phone, e-mailed it and a photo of Easy to the judge’s secretary, and by the time we walked out of the courthouse, we had one hundred flyers in hand, fifty for me and fifty for Martinez. The court clerk loaned us two staple guns. We had thirty minutes to put up as many flyers as we could in downtown Houmahatchee before the courthouse closed and the staplers were due back. It was a start.
“I’m not doing it,” Martinez said. “You’ve got to be crazy. I’m not going to help people kill Easy.”
“It’s our responsibility,” I said. “We filed the suit, now we have to follow through.”
“He can put me in jail if he wants,” Martinez said. “Civil disobedience.”
“You know, he asked me where Admiral Peale was,” I said. “He respects your rank. You should respect his.”
“He can kiss my entire behind,” Martinez said.
Megg intervened. “Atty and I will handle this,” she said to Taleesa. “I’ll drop her off at your house when we’re done.”
So we wandered around the town square and the streets nearby, stapling up our new flyer next to the pink LOSE WEIGHT WITH TURNIP GREENS and PAYDAY LOANS EASY flyers. After the first, I stepped back to look at my work.
DANGEROUS DOG
KNOWN TO BITE
IF YOU SEE THIS ANIMAL
CONTACT STRUDWICK COUNTY
SHERIFF’S OFFICE
DO NOT FEED OR TOUCH!!
“One step forward, two steps back,” Megg said. “I know it’s a bummer, Atty. But I’ve been in this work for years. And before that, the Navy. A woman in the military. In all the work I’ve done, it’s always one step forward, two steps back. But over time, somehow, you look back and see that you really have moved forward.”
I didn’t know what to say. This stapler in my hand, it felt so heavy all of a sudden. Another sigh.
“Megg,” I said. “Promise me that when we find him, you’ll let me be there when you put him down. I owe him that.”
“I promise,” Megg said. “If it’s in my power to do it, I will. Though I think we have to brace ourselves for the idea that the deputies will shoot him on sight.”
If you don’t know anything else about the book Gulliver’s Travels, you know that one image. A guy in old-fashioned clothes, with lace sleeves and buckles on his shoes, lying on a beach, tied down with a hundred tiny ropes. Little men—Lilliputians—lashing Gulliver down even though he’s a giant compared to them.
That’s how I felt when the alarm clock went off the next morning. I felt like I’d grown into some big, ugly giant, too weak to move my own limbs. And a hundred tiny cords, weak as dental floss, were holding me down. Princess P held one cord. Judge Grover held another. Braces Girl held one. And I was also tied down by all the undone work I’d left at the shelter. My column for the paper was due this evening, and I hadn’t even started it.
I was too busy trying to kill my favorite dog.
Bing, went the cell phone. Bing. Bing. Princess P was at it again.
At the breakfast table, I felt like I was still half asleep. Martinez rambled on about how John Wednesday Addams was a former president of the United States. Dad responded in his usual too-nice way, like a teacher: “Are you sure about that? I’m not so sure that’s correct.” I think everybody—Dad serving breakfast, Martinez at the table, Taleesa rushing back and forth to get ready for an interview—were all expecting me to challenge Martinez. I just didn’t feel like it. I didn’t feel awake.
“Are you not hungry?” Dad said, looking at the bacon left on my plate.
“I’m not hungry for bacon,” I said. “I haven’t said anything until now, but I’m thinking of becoming a vegetarian.”
Martinez reached over and forked the bacon off my plate. “You gotta eat meat,” he said. “If you don’t, you’ll get mad cow disease.”
Normally I would have said you’ve got mad cow disease all wrong, dummy. For some reason, I could only roll my eyes and sigh.
“You won’t get mad cow disease,” Taleesa said, passing through. “I’ve been a vegetarian three times. Three. And I felt great. I’ve been on every diet in the world, tried every food fad. Vegetarian is the best.”
Martinez: “So why’d you quit, then?”
“There are things that go on between a woman and flatiron steak that sort of make everything else seem unimportant,” Taleesa said. Then she turned to me. “So this is a moral thing? Right? You think it’s not right to eat animals.”
I shrugged. “I don’t know,” I said. “I know that I don’t know whether it’s right or wrong. And until I figure it out, I feel like I shouldn’t eat any animals. And, you know, I feel like a hypocrite. I’ll defend an alligator but eat a chicken. So I’m quitting. Yes, yep, that’s it. I’m a vegetarian.”
“You won’t last,” Martinez teased. “Look at the bacon, yummy bacon. Mmmm bacon, don’t you want some?”
For the first time this morning I felt awake. I stood up and stared down my brother, bacon and all. “What I want to eat doesn’t matter. I’ve made a decision.”
“If that’s how you feel,” Taleesa said, “then I bet this will last a while. Looks like it’s tofu stir-fry for dinner tonight.”
Princess_P: Looks like your hunting down you’re dog and will kill it. Best of luck to you.
Princess_P: Yeah, I know I did your/you’re wrong. You hate that don’t you? Good.
Princess_P: Have you ever thought of killing yourself as well? That would be nice. After the dog is gone.
I put away the phone as we pulled up to the elementary school. A sudden idea flashed through my mind.
“Martinez,” I said. “If you’re the one who’s been texting me about Easy this morning, I’m gonna clean your clock.”
Martinez hoisted his backpack and opened the car door. “What are you even talking about? Why would I text you when you’re sitting right there? Bye, Dad. Bye, nutcase.”
So then it was just me and Dad on the way to the high school. Something felt creepy. Dad always gets singsong pleasant when he wants to talk about something difficult.
“Atty, is everything okay at school?” he asked.
“Dad,” I said. “They hold me captive there seven hours a day. One person gets to talk in the classroom, and everybody else has to raise their hands and ask permission to talk. Every minute I sit there filling in bubbles is a minute I’m not doing my real work. School itself is not okay.”
“But I mean, it is abnormally bad? Are you being bullied or anything?”
“Let’s see: one person gets to talk in the classroom, and everybody else has to raise their hands. Sounds like bullying to me. And all this useless stuff about x minus six equals whatever. When am I going to use that?”
“They just want you to be a well-rounded person,” Dad said.
“I don’t want to be well-rounded,” I said. “I want to get on with my work.”
“Fine,” Dad said. “I think you know where I’m going, Atty. You don’t seem like yourself. I’m worried, and I think you know why I worry. And I just want you to know that if you ever need to talk about something, you can call me anytime.”
“Except when you’re in court, because there aren’t cell phones in the courthouse,” I said.
“Promise me you’ll talk to somebody. If you ever feel really bad. Promise me you’ll talk to someone if you feel like hurting yourself,” he said.
“Dad.” I sounded aggravated at first. Then I thought a little bit, reached out to touch his free hand. “Dad, let me assure you, I’m not thinking about hurting myself. I’m just sad. I’m sad about my work, and I’m sad about your work. I’m going to have to help kill Easy. I didn’t save the Swamp Monster. And Jethro Gersham is going to go to prison for a murder he didn’t commit. I just feel like we’ve been spinning our wheels all this time.”
Silence from Dad.
So I went on: “This is where you’re supposed to tell me that we’re winning a moral victory. That it’s important to go on even when you know you’re going to lose. That we’re heroes even if we don’t save anybody, because we tried.”
Dad shook his head.
“I’m not going to say that,” he said. “Losing sucks. And it’s not about us and our feelings and the lessons we learn. It’s about Jethro and Easy and the alligator.”
He was quiet again for a very long time. Then: “When you’re doing what you’re meant to do in this world, it can take a long time to see a result. Maybe you never will. Some people decide they just can’t go on. I can’t judge them. But I know that it hurts people, it hurts the world when you decide you can’t go on. Promise me you won’t hurt the world, Atty.”
Great. We’re pulling up to the school, and suddenly I’m crying.
“I won’t hurt you Dad,” I said. “I promise.”
I wiped my eyes and got out of the car. And then I burst into laughter. Because there, standing in front of me, was Reagan Royall.
There was no pink streak, and her hair was dyed black. But that wasn’t all.
She was wearing a dress. A business-lady dress, and not one from this century. Shoulder pads that made her shoulders almost pointy. Thin white pinstripes on a charcoal-black jacket and matching skirt that went down to her ankles.
“If they’re going to make me dress like an old lady, I’m going all the way,” she said. “Voilà, Miss 1985. I’m going to knock the principal right in the chin with my severe shoulder pads. I’ve even brought some reading material.”
She handed me an old, dog-eared magazine, with lots of yellow and hot pink on the cover. Also, photos of guys with bouffant hair and sunglasses, in suit jackets in all kinds of bright colors, no ties.
“Tiger Beat, May 1984 issue,” she said. “It’s all the rockers that were hot back then. Look, here’s Simon Le Bon from Duran Duran, isn’t he dreamy? And Boy George. People say he’s gay, but he’s denying it.”
I laughed again. “What on earth are you doing with all this?”