Biloxi

by Mary Miller

  “Louis McDonald, Jr.,” I said. I was sweating profusely. I probably smelled bad, too. It had been a few days since I’d showered—how many?

  “You related to Myrtle?” he asked.

  I hope Myrtle keels over and dies right this second, I thought. I chuckled. “That’s exactly what Harry asked when we met—no, no relation. I hear she makes a mean carrot cake, though.”

  “That’s right—she sure does. It’s Ellery’s favorite. Ellery’s her husband, of course.” He seemed pleased about this, and about me, now that I had sufficiently checked out. Myrtle and her damned carrot cake. “All of her cakes are good, though,” he went on. “I’m partial to her red velvet. Got one for Little Kevin’s birthday a couple weeks ago. If you ever need a cake, she’s started her own business—German chocolate, Italian cream, the whole lot.”

  We nodded at each other for a bit.

  “I feel you might be more of a pie man,” he said, as he peered in at Layla. I waited for her to growl or bare her teeth but she didn’t; her contempt was reserved solely for Frank. “Doesn’t look like Harry’s home right now, but Sasha should be there. Harry works till six most days.”

  “I am a pie man,” I said. “You’ve got me figured.”

  “I hope to see you on Sunday.” He knocked on the hood twice as if to send me off and I told him I’d be there. And after the service I’d be sipping iced tea with one hand and balancing a too-full plate of casserole with the other, scanning the long tables for a place to sit, my plastic fork clattering to the floor. It didn’t sound too bad. Not too bad at all. Cake and pie and cookies for dessert, a whole spread. A couple of nice fat church ladies making eyes at me as I made my selection.

  For this to happen, I’d need a fresh pair of slacks, a starched button-down, and a good shave. I’d also need a haircut. Ellen had taken my clothes to the dry cleaners. She’d cut my hair because I hadn’t liked for my head to be touched by strangers—a peculiarity I’d had since I was a boy. Ellen had also bought the special dandruff shampoo I liked, and I was out. I wasn’t even sure where she’d gotten it. I’d looked for it at Rouses and Winn-Dixie but she must’ve ordered it online. It seemed Ellen had done more than I’d given her credit for, but anybody could drop off some shirts and order stuff online, push a few buttons. I’d take my clothes to the dry cleaners in the morning, locate an empty bottle of my special shampoo and look it up on my iPad. I didn’t need Ellen to do those things for me.

  “Sasha,” I said. “What a beautiful name—a lot like Layla with that nice ‘a’ sound on the end.”

  We crawled by her house and looked at the windows, which were still dark. What was she doing in there closed up like that all the time? Was she in bed? Was she sad? Did she have migraines? Would she be willing to iron my shirts? Probably she was fine, happy enough, just watching TV or reading a magazine, painting her toenails, but I liked to imagine I could save her. Sasha in a closet, bound and gagged, Sasha tending to the bruises under her PINK shirt, furtively smoking cigarettes in the backyard while plotting her escape.

  CHAPTER 6

  THAT EVENING WE planned a return trip to the dog park, hoping we might make inroads, become a part of something simply by showing up.

  Layla enjoyed being outside and smelling new things, pissing on them, but I hoped she’d learn to like other animals. Seeing her watch the other dogs chase and play had bothered me, reminded me of the time when Maxine had come home from school crying saying she didn’t have any friends. And then she’d pretended to be sick for a few days and we’d babied her even though we probably shouldn’t have. But she did have friends, she’d always had a handful of close friends, and they’d just had a fight was all and the next week everything was fine again. I can still remember how hurt I’d been, imagining her eating lunch by herself, hiding in a bathroom stall. I knew what that felt like. Even if you were the type who was happy alone, even if you preferred it, there are very few people who would choose that kind of life for themselves.

  Layla was still young and now that she had a good home she would adapt to her chicken-wing-and-dog-park lifestyle. She hadn’t gagged in about six hours—and before that it might have been as many as twelve—but just as I was thinking we could put that awfulness behind us, I heard her swallow hard. Shift around nervously in her seat. Incredible! What a world!

  “You don’t do this in the car, remember? I thought we had an agreement. I thought this had been agreed upon.” She looked at me with eyes that betrayed the humiliation of her bodily weakness.

  - - -

  When I opened the door, she barreled out on my side, panicked and in search of leaves. There were more cars and people this time, lots of dogs—a whole pack at the double gate to greet us. No Beth. I had been hoping to see her, our ambassador. There were a number of large dogs with their large owners. I’d figured that dog-park people would be fit, but it was just a place where folks could go and sit, same as they’d do at home.

  I was intimidated by the large group so we walked across the field to the least crowded bench where a regular-sized man and an enormous woman were hanging out with their Great Dane. The dog immediately took an interest in Layla.

  “Oh wow,” the woman said. “He really likes her.”

  “He doesn’t usually do this?”

  “No, never, he doesn’t even know he’s a dog.”

  “I know how that is—more like a person than a dog, complex emotions and all that.” And the nervous gagging. The pitifully low level of self-confidence.

  “Oh! He really likes her! What’s her name?”

  “Layla.”

  “She’s mighty pretty,” the woman said.

  “Thank you.”

  Layla greeted the man and then the woman, allowing each of them to pet her, as we discussed shedding and drooling. Their dog had a problem with drooling in particular, and the man had a handkerchief for wiping its mouth every so often. The drool was getting all over Layla’s nice white coat, and I was going to say something about it when I noticed a lizard on the woman’s leg.

  “Is that one of those dragons?” I asked.

  “Yes, a bearded dragon.”

  “Does he like it out here?”

  “Not really,” the woman said, “but I like to have him with me. I take him to the grocery store and the bank, wherever I go.”

  “He’s your—what do they call it?—a comfort animal.”

  “My emotional support reptile,” she said, and she laughed, her whole body convulsing. Neither her husband nor I laughed but I smiled and nodded, which she noticed and seemed to appreciate.

  We watched the Great Dane tower over Layla, slobber cascading from its mouth. The dog was mesmerizing in its size, like a horse. I wanted to say it very badly—he’s like a horse—but figured they heard that a lot and the dog wasn’t like a horse. It was nothing like a horse, really, it just wasn’t much like a dog. It was more like a dog than a horse but more like a horse than any other dog, except perhaps other Great Danes but I didn’t see Great Danes that often. I couldn’t stop my mind from going round and round. I wondered what we looked like sitting on that bench: an enormous lady with a bearded dragon on her leg, a Great Dane drooling all over my pretty white Layla, and a couple of nondescript white men.

  For some reason I decided to tell them about my oriole problem.

  The woman suggested I print out pictures of birds and plaster them all over my windows. “It works like a scarecrow,” she said. “And be sure to use colored pictures, not black and white.”

  “That’s the stupidest thing I ever heard,” the man said, wiping the dog’s mouth again. “They make tape for that—shiny ribbons that rustle in the wind and scare them away—among other products. Though printing out pictures of birds could work, too,” he said, as an apology to his wife. “What the hell do I know?”

  “Yeah, what the hell do you know?” she said.

  Layla wandered over to the fence and I followed her. The smells seemed to be strongest around the perimeter and she mad
e her way slowly. I looked at the people in their loose circles and all of the dogs chasing balls and ropes and occasionally raring up into tussles. We weren’t going to be a part of that. If I took her out there every day for a month, we’d still find ourselves walking the fence line.

  “You think we should be vacuum salesmen, knife salesmen, or Jehovah’s Witnesses?” I asked her. “I’m leaning toward Jehovah. I’ll get one of those white short-sleeve button-ups and a tie and some black pants and get my old bike out of the attic. And I’ll need to find some pamphlets. We’ll have to go to their church, wherever that is, and get some. Or maybe we could just be regular ole Baptists or Methodists. Did you know that Dr. Livingstone only saved one person in his entire life and that man lapsed? I’m not sure where I heard that. Livingstone wasn’t a Jehovah’s Witness, but something else, I forget. Most people don’t know this, but he was trying to find the source of the Nile—that was his true mission—and if he managed to save a soul or two along the way all the better. Except he was shit at it.”

  Layla did her business and I picked it up. She watched me tie it off in a grocery bag that had a hole in it. I bunched it up before anything fell out and walked it over to the can, still telling her about Livingstone, though I’d about reached the limitations of my knowledge. My favorite part was that his heart was buried under a tree in Africa while the rest of him went somewhere else.

  As we started toward the gate, Layla navigated over to an old man to be petted. The man didn’t pet her but bent down to look at her more closely. “Her ears are off balance,” he said.

  “One’s black and one’s white,” I said. “It throws the eyes off.”

  “No,” he said, “they’re lopsided. This black one is much larger.” He tugged on her black ear.

  “Where’s your dog? Go get your dog so I can insult her.”

  He kept walking. Maybe he didn’t even have a dog but came around to rile people up. He was old, anyway, so I let it go.

  On the way home, we stopped at the first church we passed and I went inside. There were dozens of pamphlets, most of them about tithing because Baptists were greedy sonsabitches: Give cheerfully and gratefully and from the heart because you can’t take it with you. I liked one called Baptism: Sprinkle? Pour? Immerse? I might have to read that one. There was a donation box with a recommended two dollars per pamphlet, which was outrageous, but I put a twenty in and took enough to make me look legitimate. I put in five more dollars, which was the last of my cash, and cleaned them out. I needed a bag, looked around to see if there might be a bag. I could tell Sasha I was training to go to Africa like Dr. Livingstone and this was where I was beginning, door to door, getting my feet wet in my own backyard. Maybe she’d say something like she’d always wanted to go to Africa and then we’d go there and be missionaries together, what a strange thing that would be, but I’d be willing so long as we could take Layla with us. And surely I could save more people than the good doctor, beat his pitiful record. The more I thought about it the more I liked the idea. There was a lot missing in my life and perhaps what was missing was God, and Africa. I could build churches and orphanages, get my hands dirty. My hands dirty and my feet wet! I felt relief at the thought there might be an answer yet, and didn’t care if pretending was involved. If you pretend something long enough, it becomes real. That had been one of my mother’s favorite sayings, God rest her soul.

  I was feeling like a convert already. I shoved the pamphlets into my pants and shirt and carried the rest out in my arms, waddled back to my car and emptied them onto the back seat. A few had shimmied down my legs. Layla watched calmly, unquestioningly. I wondered what I might do to surprise her.

  I got back in the car and drove.

  “What an adventure this is,” I said. “All sorts of stuff happening now.” I petted her and wished I had a bone to give her. I was excited—it seemed life held more than I’d ever imagined and all because of a dog. What might the two of us get into next? I decided we should eat again so I pulled into the Burger King drive-thru and bought a couple of Whoppers and a large fry. The dog could have her own burger and I’d share the fries with her, but I’d have to feed them to her one at a time. We drove and ate and it was getting dark so there was nothing to do but go home, which was disappointing. Once you started having fun it was hard to stop, to give up. It used to be that way when I drank liquor. I’d have one and then another and everything was going so well I thought I’d have just one more. But the turn was always right around the corner, closing in fast.

  I opened a beer and resumed my seat in front of the TV. We’d missed the local news so I turned it to Fox to see what was happening in the world. Tomorrow I’d knock on Sasha’s door, say I was in the neighborhood inviting people to worship with us on Sunday at whatever the name of that church was, or I could make one up, it might be better to make one up, and then hand her some pamphlets. All I had to do was ask if she’d been saved, simple as that: “Have you been saved, Sasha? Will we spend eternity together in the Kingdom of Heaven?” And God would take it from there.

  CHAPTER 7

  IN THE MORNING while I was having my coffee, the bird banging into the window at five-second intervals, Maxine called. I thought about not answering but couldn’t stop myself on the fourth ring—I’d never been very good at ignoring the phone—and what if something was wrong, if she needed me?

  After the hellos and how are yous, I told her I’d gotten a dog.

  “I heard. I didn’t think you liked dogs.”

  “I like certain types,” I said, and described some of Layla’s more attractive features: the black and white ears and feet, the soft white coat, how docile and kind she is to strangers.

  “You never let me have a dog. I must’ve asked a hundred times and you always said maybe and I’d get my hopes up, but the answer was always no.”

  “I’m sorry about that. I just hated to disappoint you. You’d like her, I think. Her name’s Layla.”

  “Like the song?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I named her after the song. It’s a great song, a classic.”

  “Well, you’re full of surprises these days.”

  “She’s good company, too. We take long drives and eat hamburgers. It’s a lot like when you were little—we ride around and look at things, talk about the world, the places we might go.”

  “That’s nice,” she said. “We got a new cat a while back. Now we have two—Penny and Ginger. Ginger is the new one. We’re trying to fatten her up because she’s so skinny.”

  “Is Craig a cat person?”

  “Yeah, that’s weird, huh? He doesn’t seem like a cat person—he’s so masculine—but he’s made me into one, too. There’s something really great about cats. And Laurel just loves them. She pulls their tails and carries them around the house and they’re so sweet to her. Ginger’s been waking us up at six o’clock in the morning to eat, though. I hope that ends soon.”

  “Since when is Craig manly?”

  “I said masculine.”

  “What’s the difference?”

  “Stop, Dad.”

  “I’m pulling your leg, Maxi.” She sighed a long one and I wanted to hang up but didn’t.

  “Are you going to hunt any this year?” she asked.

  “Probably not.” I didn’t belong to a camp anymore. She knew that. It had been three or four years since the owner had sold the land and I’d been on the outs with them long before that, anyhow. Ellen said we were worse than a bunch of little girls with our gossiping and infighting, somebody always mad at somebody else. “That place hadn’t been very good, at least not for deer hunting. I’d have to shoot a doe to have meat and I didn’t like doing that.” Once I’d shot a doe before seeing her two fawns nearby and I’d never forgiven myself for it and never would. I could cry just thinking about it. Goddammit.

  “Dad? Are you still there?”

  “I’m here.”

  “I have to come to Biloxi tomorrow and thought we’d stop by after I get my hair done.”


  “You and Laurel?”

  “Yes. Laurel and I.”

  “That’d be fine, but let me know in advance so I’ll be here.”

  “It’ll be about three o’clock.”

  “We have some things to do tomorrow. Why don’t you call first to make sure we’re here?”

  “Okay,” she said, “but I’m telling you it’ll be about three o’clock,” and then I said okay and we said goodbye and hung up and I thought Maxine didn’t want me to be happy—no one wanted me to be happy, not really, which was all the more reason to find a life in which I could be, but it also seemed like a reason to give up. Life was confusing that way. Ellen and Maxine and Frank, they wanted me to be the Louis they needed to check in on and visit and feel sorry for because it made them feel competent and responsible, like they were in perfect control of their own lives.

  I picked up Layla and held her in my arms, legs splayed, stiff. She didn’t try to get away even though she didn’t like it. She wanted to be petted but not held. I’d heard most dogs were that way, that if you put your arms around them they felt trapped.

  “I can change my damn phone number if I need to,” I said, placing her back on her bed at my feet. She licked my ankle once and began to gag. The bird banged. I stomped over to the window and waved my arms around. The bird flew out of range as I examined the glass; it was hard to believe it hadn’t cracked, though the window was very dirty, so dirty that if there were small chinks or beak holes in it I might not be able to tell. The bird returned—flapping its wings at me, seeming to look right at me—so I knocked on the window and Layla trotted over to the door. I was collecting the stupidest goddamn animals in the world—at some point I might open a museum, or a petting zoo.