by Bob Sanchez
smelled about right for her having died in it. I felt in the stained pillows and covers for hidden cash, knowing perfectly well some cop would already have checked all those obvious places and pocketed the prize. Cabinets and closets and dressers turned up the usual jetsam floating in a sea of dust bunnies as Nellie sailed on to her next life.
I pushed the queen-sized bed aside to rummage through the tattered cardboard boxes underneath and found old letters and bills, a broken telephone, stained Melamine plates, nothing even fit for a yard sale. If this house had anything less than ten years old or worth more than five dollars, I’d have been shocked. Frustrated, I kicked a box. There was no point in looking any more--but wait, this was odd. Several floor boards looked lighter and newer than the rest: pine surrounded by oak, galvanized nails bent but not rusted, hammer-head impressions in the soft wood suggesting slapdash carpentry.
Eagerly I pried another board and looked into the darkness. Some godforsaken life form squeaked and scurried away. I turned my flashlight on a pea-green Army blanket, and a thousand miserable bugs scattered in all directions. Only a fool would disturb that filthy piece of trash, but I was a plain and simple fool.
I went to a closet and found a wire coat hanger that I used to fashion a hook. I tried to catch one edge of the blanket, but the hanger slipped out of my hands and out of reach. Disgusted, I lay on the floor and reached down to pull away the blanket.
A sudden visit from the police couldn’t have brought me closer to cardiac arrest. I didn’t care anymore about money.
A pair of skeletons in rotted clothing lay one on top of the other. A hatchet rested inside the skull it had shattered down the middle. Toadstools grew out of both eye sockets--but there was nothing here that needed eyes.
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Bark
ROBBY MCKESSON STOPPED HIS bicycle and listened for the sounds of Daisy. She had never run off for a whole week before; an overnight romp through the woods, and she would come back with a tick or two and a thick mat of hair that smelled like swamp water. Robby always got it in the face when she shook off the last of her bath water. He fiercely refused to believe that she’d been run over or that he would never see her again. Still, he ached inside. Where was she?
The street’s pavement dissolved into mud and became just a couple of puddled ruts that dead-ended in front of the gray house, which stood alone next to an open field. Poison ivy hugged the post-and-wire fence, and a faint whiff of skunk made Robby wrinkle his nose. He sure hoped Daisy never tangled with a skunk. Somewhere a dog was barking: was it her? The wind whistled through the bare trees, and the cold bit at his face and chilled him through his jacket. Robby couldn’t tell where the sound was coming from, whether from the house or from the development on the other side of the woods.
It was getting too late to keep looking. Soon the sun would be down, and he would have to thaw his bones and start his homework before supper. He decided to walk as far as the house before leaving his dog alone to face whatever nature had in store for her.
Trash littered the roadside: empty soda cans and bottles, torn plastic, a shredded tire. Robby picked up a long strip of chrome and poked aimlessly at the bushes. A tattered sign on the post said “Warning” in bold black letters, but Robby didn’t care about the details as he listened again for Daisy’s bark. A twig crackled under his boot, and he thought he glimpsed something running in the field. He leaned his bicycle against the fence, climbed over it, and began running toward whatever it was that he had seen.
“Daisy!” he called out, but even as he tripped, he could see that it was someone else’s dog, running away as though its tail was on fire. Robby landed face first on a clump of grass, and lay momentarily winded. There was junk even in the field, and he felt lucky he hadn’t cut himself on a rusty – what was that?
Robby let out a yelp. The creature that stared back at him had small, empty eye sockets, a pair of long front teeth, a few patches of fur that hadn’t been torn away down to the skeleton. Its back legs were caught in the steel grip of a leghold trap. He imagined the animal’s agony, and – there was the barking again – once he found Daisy, he was never going to allow her to run loose again. Mom was right on that one. He carefully retraced his steps out of the field, in case there were other traps just waiting to rip his face off.
From the road, Robby could see a man walking in the back yard of the house. Their eyes seemed to meet briefly, then the man turned away. “Hey mister,” Robby yelled, but the man ignored him and headed for the back door of the house.
Robby left his bicycle behind, thinking this would take only a minute, but he couldn’t forgive himself if he didn’t at least ask the man if he’d seen Daisy.
He headed toward the house, toward the man and the sound of the dog that sounded more and more like Daisy. It seemed strange that no lights were on in the place when the trees were sinking into the growing darkness, and someone was obviously home. Maybe they were just keeping her safe until the real owner showed up.
Or maybe they were just keeping her.
“Hello,” he shouted. Daisy was definitely inside, and her bark was filled with alarm. Clack… Clack… Clack… The door to the front porch drifted open and shut with the wind. Behind the door were dark shadows that made Robby’s throat go dry.
The sudden glare blinded him for a moment as a floodlight came on. “What do you want?” The old lady’s voice came from behind a half-open door, and Robby stepped forward.
“I’m looking for my dog,” he said. “Is he in your house?”
A detached hand beckoned from the shadows. “Come in and see if he’s yours. Don’t mind the mess.”
He followed her inside, down a hallway that was a tunnel of newspapers from floor to ceiling. A cooking stench attacked his nose as they entered the kitchen, which was illuminated by a single bright, bare bulb that hung from the ceiling. A kettle boiled on a wood stove.
Daisy’s agitated bark came out of a back room.
“No! Not my finger!” Robby gasped and looked around at a parrot in his cage. “No! Not my finger!”
The woman laughed, and Robby could see her now, a shabby wisp of a grandmother. “That’s definitely my dog back there,” Robby said, reaching for the doorknob. “I’ll just get her and let you folks be. Thanks for keeping her.”
But the door wouldn’t open, and the woman placed a bony hand on Robby’s shoulder. “Why not stay for supper?” she asked.
“I can’t,” he said. “I want my dog now.”
“Patience, dear.” She pulled up a wooden chair and motioned for him to sit down; he obeyed, not knowing what else to do. She took a bowl out of the refrigerator, which was dark inside, and then the door closed with a heavy click. “This old fridge has quite a history,” she said. “Second-hand, you know. A little boy was playing with it, and the latch shut him in. They say it was the saddest funeral. Anyway, my clever son retrieved it, and here it is.”
“Was that him out back?”
“There’s no one here but me now. My Hans lives in the Berkshires, where he’s a trapper, don’t you know.”
Robby thought of pushing past the old bat, racing down the tunnel of newsprint and bolting out the front door. “I know exactly what you’re thinking,” she said, “but your dog is right here. Just humor a lonely old biddy for a few minutes, wouldn’t you?”
Then she took out a pair of cracked bowls and tarnished spoons, and ladled a steaming brown liquid out of the kettle. She cocked her ear toward the door; “Your dog is in good hands,” she said. “Eat up.”
Daisy barked insistently. The smell of stew must have been driving her nuts, even something that smelled this disgusting, like boiled cabbage and road kill. The old woman was lying about no one else being around, but was probably telling the truth about her son’s job. Robby could have fallen face first into that trap if an animal hadn’t gotten there first. It would have ripped his face off.
Robby picked up the spoon and set it right back down, deciding he would
never complain about his mom’s cooking again. “Don’t hurt my feelings,” the woman said.
“No! Not my finger!” the parrot said.
Robby stared at the opaque liquid in the bowl, half expecting a human hand to reach out and grab him by the throat, and the thought made him feel stupid. He reluctantly lifted a spoonful to his mouth, and his body convulsed, a spray of detestable liquid splattering against the kitchen wall. He had gotten a news clipping wet, and now he noticed it for the first time: It had a photograph of a teenaged boy Robby didn’t recognize. Missing, the caption said. The entire wall had articles snipped from newspapers and magazines: Search Continues. Girl Missing. Community Grieves. “I’m sorry for spitting,” he said. “You must have every crime in the state up there.”
The woman smiled through blackened teeth. “Oh, nowhere near. But thank you. Each one is such a tragedy, don’t you think?”
“Oh, look at the time,” Robby said, making a show of checking his watch. “I’ve got to take Daisy home, and I’ve got a million things to do.”
“Very well, son.” The woman reached down her blouse for a skeleton key, which she used to open the door.
“Come on, Daisy, we’re going home,” Robby said in his most chipper voice. He paused. She should have been scratching at the door. “Come on, girl. Is she tied up?”
The woman didn’t answer his question, and Robby peered past the half-open door into the dark room. “Where’s the light, lady?”
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” she said. “Let me get the switch.” The light went on, and Robby stepped into the room. Daisy’s barking became louder and louder, but where was she? There were empty cages, a wooden table. Bare walls. Her bark suddenly turned into a terrified squeal, and then it finally stopped. Robby stared at a tape recorder sitting on the table. The tape whirred and clicked to a stop.
Behind him, the door slammed shut.
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Me and Rico
ME AND RICO, WE heard the whistle from the Shoe. Mom had said the grey monster was the biggest building in the world but short and squat, as though you took a bunch of Empire State Buildings and mooshed them down to four floors. It must have been true, because the whistle meant noontime to the half of Beverly that worked there. We looked up at the white brick chimney with its vertical row of black letters that said “USMC,” just like the Marine Corps initials except they weren't. It was really the United Shoe Machinery Corporation, but Rico called it the Untied Shoe. Sometimes a Shoe guy opened up a window and told us to get the hell off the railroad tracks, but we never left until we wanted to. To catch us they'd have had to go to one end of the Shoe -- by the time they got over here, we'd have gone home and finished lunch.
We balanced ourselves on the rails, and I was the great Blondin, walking the tightrope across Niagara Falls. Then we headed towards the field where we'd play war before we went for risi e bisi at Rico's aunt Carlotta's. Rico usually got to be the sergeant, because his uncle told him that sergeants run the Marines. Emilio had been in Korea since December, and Rico's aunt Carlotta lived next door to me. She was alone with her baby girl and hadn't heard from Emilio for weeks. We could see how worried she was, so me an Rico saw her every day. Our moms saw her most days too.
Carlotta never changed from one day to the next. Same nails bitten down to the quick. Same flowery skirt with roses that seemed a little whiter every day. Same gold-colored necklace with a crucifix hanging into the vee where the top button of her blouse was undone. Same bun pulled real tight like a fist behind her head. Same puckery smile when she'd pinch my cheek and call me a cute little Irishman.
Same temper. “I like Ike,” I said once, repeating