They Cage the Animals at Night

by Jennings Michael Burch

  “Look, Doggie,” I said. “That’s a squirrel. He’s looking for nuts.”

  Doggie said he wished he had some nuts. He was starving.

  “I know. As soon as some people start coming in,” I said, “we’ll get some food.”

  I didn’t have any comic books or baseball cards to pass the time with, so I just sat and waited. Hours passed before I saw the first visitor.

  “Come on, Doggie,” I said. “Let’s follow some people around and hope they’re not too hungry.”

  We left our hideout and wandered. The weather was getting so cold, there were hardly any people around, and no food.

  “We got a real problem, Doggie,” I said.

  He knew we did.

  Finally a kid dropped a whole bag of popcorn. He reached down to pick it up, but his mother wouldn’t let him. I waited until they were out of sight before I scooped up the popcorn. I ate most of it before I put any in the bag. As hungry as I was, I needed to save some for later.

  We didn’t find any more food by the time the zoo closed. We went back to our hiding place. I gave some popcorn to Doggie and ate some myself.

  “I think we’ll have to go someplace else, Doggie. We could starve to death right here if we don’t.”

  He agreed.

  I sat back against the trunk part of the bush. I was tired. Not sleepy-tired so much as I was body-tired. I lifted Doggie up near my cheek.

  “You know, Doggie,” I said, “I honestly don’t think I could have come this far without you. You’ve been my friend through an awful lot of things. Thank you.” I kissed his nose.

  I slid down to the ground and put the laundry bag behind my head.

  “I wish Sal would come for us and take us home.”

  Doggie wished that too.

  “I know he can’t, Doggie. There ain’t no use in kidding ourselves into thinking he will. Remember, it hurts twice as much when it doesn’t happen.” I cuddled up to Doggie. I wrapped my arms around him and myself as best I could. I was cold. I fell asleep.

  I woke up to the same scratching sound.

  “Hi, Bushy,” I said. “Do you mind if I call you Bushy?”

  He didn’t mind.

  “I wish I could dig up some nuts like you do,” I said. “I could eat anything right about now.”

  Snow started to fall.

  “Uh-oh,” I said. “I think we got big trouble.”

  Doggie agreed.

  “What’ll we do now?”

  Bushy scurried up a nearby tree.

  “I think we better go, Doggie.” I tucked him into the bag and popped my head out of the bushes. The coast was clear. I ran for my exit, ducking in and around bushes and trees along the way. The last thing I needed was to get caught. I reached the fence and slipped under.

  I walked along Tremont Avenue for miles. I stopped here and there in doorways. I was cold, tired, and hungry. I couldn’t think of anywhere to go, or what I should do.

  I stopped under the awning of a shop across the street from a cemetery to shake some of the snow off and think. I leaned against the shop window and looked out over the tops of the gravestones toward the dark sky. The lights from a bridge seemed to twinkle as the snow swirled and blotted them out from time to time. It looked pretty.

  “Doggie!” I shouted. “I got it!”

  I pulled him out of the bag.

  “Do you know where we’re going?”

  I made him shake his head no so I could tell him.

  “We’re going to Martha, Doggie. We’re going to Martha.”

  I walked along the street looking for someone to ask about the bridge. I saw a man parking his car. I ran up to him.

  “Sir,” I asked as nicely as I could, “is that the Whitestone Bridge over there?”

  He looked in the direction I was pointing. “Yes,” he said. “Are you lost?”

  “Lost? Me lost? Naaa. I’m visiting with my mother and I was just wondering, that’s all.”

  “Yeah, that’s the Whitestone,” he said, and walked off.

  “Whew,” I said, then uncrossed my fingers. “So far, so good.”

  I dashed across the street and hopped over the cemetery wall. I ran up and down the sloping hills toward the bridge. The snow had wiped away the paths, so I headed in as straight a line as I could. My excitement soon gave way to tiredness and I walked. From time to time the snow would swirl away the lights of the bridge altogether. I would stop then and wait for them to reappear. I took Doggie from the bag.

  “Martha’s on the other side of that bridge,” I said.

  He wanted to know what bridge.

  “Well, it was there a minute ago.”

  I walked a little farther, then stopped near a tree to rest. The tall leafless trees stretched high into the dark night sky. Their arms dipped and swayed with the swirling wind. I was getting scared.

  “I don’t think we should have come this way, Doggie,” I said as my eyes darted in all directions.

  I started walking in the direction I thought the bridge was. I was lost.

  “Oh, gosh, Doggie. What are we going to do?”

  He thought we ought to get back to the road.

  “The road! That’s a good idea.”

  I headed in the direction I thought the road was. As I walked, the night sky seemed to get lower. The long arms of the trees seemed to dip down at me, trying to grab me. The arms had hands, and the hands fingers. I ducked around the reaching fingers and started to run. The wind swirled and whistled. I ran faster and faster, trying to find my way out. I tripped over a small gravestone. As I tried to regain my feet, I was grabbed by the fingers of a wiry bush. I screamed.

  “Who’s that?” a deep and gravelly voice asked from nowhere.

  My heart stopped as I looked around and saw no one.

  “Who is that?” the voice asked again, this time slower and louder.

  “Oh, gosh,” I mumbled as I squeezed Doggie’s stuffing into his head and his tail. If it’s a ghost, I thought, I better answer him.

  “Jennings,” I said in the clearest trembling voice I could find. Doggie was at my cheek. He was shaking so hard my knuckles were hitting me in the jaw. My teeth chattered.

  “What are you doing here?” the voice asked.

  “I’m a…I’m a…running away. I’m a…trying to find Martha.”

  “Is she dead?” he boomed out.

  “Gosh, I hope not,” I said. I looked all around, but only saw darkness and the fingerlike branches trying to reach me. “Are you a…a ghost?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Oh!” I squeezed Doggie harder.

  “Boo!” he said as he came at me from a thicket of bushes.

  I ran so fast my feet couldn’t catch up with me. I ran in and around gravestones and reaching branches. I fell two or three times, but stayed on the ground no more than a second. I heard the ghost’s laughter fade in the distance as I ran. I saw the wall of the cemetery and went for it. I leapt over the wall and into the open arms of a policeman.

  “Whoa. Slow down.”

  “There’s a ghost in there!” I said as I peeked back under his arm.

  “A ghost!” he laughed.

  “Yeah! A ghost!”

  “Well, maybe we’d better go take a look.”

  “Oh, I don’t think so. I don’t think we’d better.”

  He laughed again. “What’s your name, son?”

  “Uh…I don’t remember.”

  “His name is Jennings,” the ghost said. He was leaning against the wall of the cemetery.

  “The ghost!” I screamed.

  The policeman held me in one spot. He and the ghost laughed.

  “So you’re the ghost, Pop?” the policeman said.

  “Only when I have to be.” He laughed. “Only when I have to be.” He left the wall and disappeared into the darkness.

  “Is he your father?” I asked.

  “No,” he chuckled. “Pops is the night watchman. He’s there to scare off little boys like you.”
r />   “Oh.”

  “Now, sonny,” he asked, “where do you live?”

  Oh, gosh, now they’ll send me back and I won’t ever get to Martha’s. The tears welled up in my eyes. I tried to fight them off, but I couldn’t.

  “Son,” he said.

  “Huh?”

  “Where do you live?”

  “Nowhere,” I said.

  “Nowhere? Everyone lives somewhere.”

  “Well, I don’t.”

  He brought me over to his police car and opened the door. I sat in the front seat and squeezed Doggie’s stuffing back to where it belonged.

  “That’s a nice dog,” he said. “He looks like he’s been through a lot.”

  I turned Doggie over in my hands. You have been through a lot, haven’t you, fella? I said to him from my heart. I’m sorry.

  “What’s his name?” the policeman asked.

  “Doggie.”

  He reached over toward him; I pulled him close to me.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I only wanted to shake his paw and say hello.”

  “Oh,” I said. I brought Doggie near him and stuck out his paw.

  “Hi,” he said to Doggie. “My name is Daily. Officer Daily.”

  “He says hi.”

  “Oh, he talks? That’s really something. Where do you live, Doggie?” he asked.

  “He lives with me,” I said. I kissed his nose and put him in the bag.

  Officer Daily started his car and we drove off. I listened to the wet slushy snow slap against the underside of the car as we rode along Tremont Avenue. The side window was fogged up. I wiped it with my fingers. The droplets of water on the other side of the glass made the lights along the avenue spread out and run into each other.

  “Have a rough time, son?” he asked.

  I didn’t answer him. I just kept thinking about being sent back. Mrs. Frog Face is going to kill me.

  He patted my knee. “I’ll see that you’re all right,” he said.

  I knew he meant well. I knew he was just saying that to make me feel good.

  As he drove the car, I looked up at him. He had chubby cheeks with a dimple near each corner of his mouth. His hair was bright red and his face was freckled. A shock of his hair curled down on his forehead. He had his cap set back on his head.

  We arrived at his station house. It looked like all the others I’d been in. Two green lights outside the front door, ugly gray stones halfway up the building, and a rickety old door. The inside wasn’t any different, either. The high wooden desk, the iron rail running along the front of the room, and the single wooden bench. I sat down.

  Officer Daily went behind the desk and talked to a policeman without a hat. They spoke in low voices. I strained my neck to try to hear, but it was no use. When someone doesn’t want you to hear, you don’t. I held my laundry bag close to me. I looked around at the cracked walls and the chipped paint, and I waited.

  “Are you Jennings Burch?” the policeman without the hat asked.

  They know who I am, I said to myself. Rats!

  “I don’t wanna go back,” I said.

  Neither of them said anything to me. They continued to talk to each other and read some papers.

  “I don’t wanna go back!” I said louder.

  “Don’t worry, kid. You don’t have to,” the hatless policeman said gruffly.

  “Oh, good,” I mumbled.

  “They don’t want you back,” he added. “We’re sending you to Martin Hall.”

  “Martin Hall?” I said.

  “You’re a juvenile delinquent now, kid,” he said. “You’re going to jail.”

  “Come on, Frank,” Officer Daily said to him. “Do you have to scare the kid?”

  “Well, it’s true!” he snapped.

  They went back to whispers. I was stunned. I hugged the laundry bag to my cheek. The tears rolled down my face.

  “Damn!” I said. I was angry at the tears. I wiped them away on my sleeve. Think of the worst place you been in…That’s what Ronny said. Oh, gosh.

  “Oh, no!” Officer Frank said with a wave of his hand.

  “But Frank!”

  “No way! Not me! Talk to the captain.”

  “He ain’t here.”

  “Sorry,” Officer Frank said with a grin. “Take him down. Now! And when you get back I got some mail for you to run over to the borough office.”

  “Okay,” Officer Daily said. He came around the desk, then over to me.

  “Am I going to jail?” I asked.

  “I’m afraid so,” he said. “But it ain’t so bad. It’s not like a real jail, it’s for kids.”

  I got to my feet. I wobbled.

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  I didn’t answer him. We walked out of the station house and got into his car.

  “Damn,” he said as he hit the steering wheel with the side of his fist.

  “What’s the matter?” I asked.

  “Oh,” he sighed, “it’s nothing.” He started the car.

  “Was it what Officer Frank wouldn’t do for you?”

  He smiled. “You’re pretty sharp, kid. Yeah, it was. I wanted the rest of the night off, but he wouldn’t give it to me.”

  “Oh,” I said. “He must be a mean guy.”

  “Ah, he’s okay. He just likes to go by the book, that’s all.”

  “What book?”

  He laughed. “Never mind. It’s a long story.”

  As we pulled out, another police car pulled in front of us.

  “Come on,” he snarled impatiently at the car that blocked him in.

  A policeman got out of the car. He was tall and all dressed up in a fancy uniform with a gold badge and gold buttons.

  “Who’s that?”

  “That’s the captain.”

  We waited for the car in front of us to move.

  “Didn’t Officer Frank say to ask the captain?”

  “Oh, yeah!” He slapped his hand on his forehead. “Dummy!” He was talking about himself. “Listen, Jennings! If I leave you here for a minute, will you promise to wait and not run away?”

  I nodded my head.

  “No,” he said, “say the words.”

  “I promise.”

  He got out of the car and went back into the station house. He was gone a lot longer than a minute. It was more like half an hour. He came back smiling.

  “Did you get the night off?” I asked.

  “I sure did. Just as soon as I drop you, I’m off.” He made believe one of his hands was a plane—it took off from his other hand.

  He started the car and pulled out. As we rode along the avenue, he began to whistle. He then sang a song that didn’t really have any words. He reminded me a little of Sal. I’m not sure why exactly, but he did. Maybe because he seemed kind and gentle like Sal.

  After a little while and a lot of turns, we stopped in front of a small white house. My heart pounded. It was like St. Teresa’s, or the Carpenters’, all right. It wasn’t a big building with a courtyard and a fence. I was frightened.

  “This is Martin Hall?” I asked almost to myself.

  He frowned. “Oh, yeah. You’re gonna hate it.”

  I got out of the car and saw a blond-haired lady wearing a flowered apron coming down the path. She reached me and smiled.

  “So you’re Jennings,” she said.

  “Jennings,” Officer Daily said, “this is Mrs. Daily, my wife.”

  I shot a glance at him, and then back to her. They were smiling. He hadn’t taken me to jail after all.

  15

  I sat at the kitchen table while Mrs. Daily fixed hot cocoa. She set a plate of cookies down near me. I was so hungry, I wanted to eat them all right away, but I didn’t. I waited. I looked down by the side of my chair to make sure I had my laundry bag and Doggie.

  Officer Daily had returned to his station house to change his clothes and bring back his police car. He said he wouldn’t be gone long.

  “My, but you’re the quietest little
boy I’ve ever seen,” she said.

  I smiled.

  She came over to me and brushed back my hair. I wonder why big people like to do that?

  “Isn’t there anything you’d like to talk about or ask me?” she said.

  “Uh…yes, ma’am.”

  “Oh, good! What?”

  “Is Thanksgiving over or didn’t it come yet?”

  Her eyes filled with tears. Gosh, I wonder what’s so sad about Thanksgiving?

  “Is there something wrong?” I asked.

  “No,” she said. She leaned down and kissed the top of my head. “There’s nothing wrong.” She went over to the stove and filled two cups with cocoa. She set them on the table, then sat across from me. She moved the plate of cookies.

  “Thanksgiving is next week,” she said. “Would you like a great big turkey with cranberry sauce?”

  “Oh, yeah!” I said. Just the thought of turkey made my mouth water.

  “Good! Right now, have some cookies.”

  “Thank you.”

  I heard the front door close.

  “That must be Bob,” she said. “Gosh, that was quick.”

  “Hi,” he said as he stuck his head in the kitchen door.

  I liked the way Mrs. Daily said “gosh.” I gobbled down two cookies, one right after the other.

  “My God,” she said, “he’s starving.”

  “When did you eat last?” he asked.

  I looked up toward the ceiling to think.

  “Well, if you have to think about it…” She broke off. “Didn’t you guys ask him if he was hungry?” she huffed. She moved quickly about the kitchen fixing me something.

  Officer Daily shrugged his shoulders.

  “Men!” she snapped. She handed me a piece of bread and butter. “Never mind the cookies,” she said. “Eat this! I’ll fix you a hamburger.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Would you like something, dear?” she asked more calmly.

  “No, thanks. I’ll just have some coffee and try to get our little friend here to talk.”

  “Oh! He’ll talk to me.”

  “Don’t bet on it.” He smiled, then pinched my cheek.

  “Won’t you?” she asked. She leaned down for my answer.

  “What do you want to know?”

  Officer Daily threw his hands in the air. “Would you look at this! The whole police department couldn’t get him to say a word…” He paused to shake his head. “Then you come along, give him a few cookies, and he spills everything.”