One Good Dog

by Susan Wilson

  My man and I have taken to long walks now that the weather is a bit better. Sometimes we even run, although I don’t like that quite as much. I prefer an olfactory perambulation to a training-level exercise, but, hey, when in Rome. He’s developing some stamina. We go as far now as the outer edges of my old territory. Once in a while, when he slows down enough, I catch a whiff of an old friend still haunting the area. Sometimes, I pick up the scent of one of the boys. I tug on the leash when that happens. I don’t want to go back into that cellar.

  He still hasn’t put me in a pit, nor given me any bouts with sparring partners.

  Life here is pretty good. I do spend a fair amount of time alone, but I’m free to wander this crib, stretch, lap water, and sleep the untrammeled sleep of the secure. We go for rides. I am not one of those dogs who hang their heads out the window. I sit with dignity in the backseat, casting my glance right and left, surveying with the utmost authority the cityscape rolling out before me. Sometimes we go to places where I can smell my own kind, places like where we met. I can hear the vocalizations of the lost even from the quiet seclusion of the car, where I jump into the front seat the minute he leaves.

  Each time, he comes back out and gets into the car without speaking. Each time, I know enough to scarper over the seat into the back.

  After one of these visits, he pulled up to a stretch of sidewalk and left me there, the window rolled down just enough to let the enticing scents of the scene filter down to me, but not far enough for me to get my head out. I glowered at a man in a cap who stuck a bit of paper under the wiper, but I kept my mouth shut. I was bored, so I leapt into the front seat for a change of view. That’s when I saw my mentor’s man crouched against the wall of the place with the warm foodish smells. His street scent wafted my way, so I was certain of his identity, and I got a little excited, hoping that maybe my mentor was reunited with him. But no. He was alone, unaccompanied on his bundle of blanket, shivering in the cold air, desultorily thrusting out his bare hand with a cup in it at passing humans. “Got any change?” His whimper of submission rarely noted by those other people.

  I saw my man come out of the building into which he’d disappeared, watched him coming to the car, walking past my mentor’s man without stopping, without acknowledging him. He yanked the piece of paper that the man in the cap had stuck under the wiper, then climbed into his seat. Then he dropped his head like a puppy being scolded. “You should have been his dog.”

  Suddenly, he pushed open his door and grabbed me by the leash, pulling me out faster than I could comply. We marched over to the squatting man, and my man started barking at him. The othe guy barked back, and I hunched my shoulders, lowered my head, waited for some clue as to what my man expected me to do.

  “Take him,” my man barked.

  “Fuck you,” my mentor’s man snarled.

  “He needs you,” my man snapped.

  “I don’t need him. He ain’t Benny,” my mentor’s man howled.

  The guy on the end of my leash yanked me back off my feet and wrenched open the car door. I jumped in quickly and pressed myself against the opposite door. I might have growled then. A little growl of protest: What the fuck is the matter with you? I was a little carried away with the moment. It was as close to a fight as I’d been in a while. Yes, I definitely growled, low and in concert with his vocalizations.

  He looked at me with these big human eyes of alarm. We were two alpha males faced off over authority. “Don’t you ever do that again.” I understood his meaning, if not the exact words. I waited, expecting the strike. It’s what my boys would have done. It’s what I expected. Maybe I even relished the idea—we’d finally get our cards on the table. But he didn’t. He slammed the door shut and climbed into his own seat. I was thrown against the back of the seat as he pulled away from the curb.

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Adam is ushered into the judge’s chambers. The judge is waiting, standing with his back to the room, his forefinger running along the green spines of the law books soldiered on several shelves. He is intent on his search, says nothing to Adam, who is left standing in the middle of the small room. It’s an old technique, one Adam used to employ himself with underlings who had inflated ideas of their worth. Keep them standing just until the silence becomes painful, a reminder that your time is way more important than theirs. A little nonverbal, nonphysical bullying. Even so, Adam is beginning to think the judge is overacting.

  The timing of this meeting is not good, squeezed in between sessions in a very full docket, and Adam knows that he won’t have a lot of time to impress the judge with his progress. He offered to postpone the meeting, but the judge said no, that if Adam could wait until lunch recess, they could get this over with. Adam doesn’t know whether to take that as good news or bad. He wonders now if the judge has had his lunch, or if he’s hungry and impatient.

  It’s been six months. Adam has half a year to go at Fort Street; he’s worked his way up to ladling soup. He knows most of the regulars by name. Big Bob likes him. He likes his co-workers. What else can the judge want from him? Delaying his conversation with Adam, the judge is weighting it with more purpose than a simple “checking in” requires. He fully expects the man to spin around, point a finger, and … And what, Adam doesn’t allow himself to imagine.

  “Have you learned any humility yet?” The judge has indeed spun around; although he isn’t pointing a finger, he does hold a massive law tome out as if it were a Bible and Adam was expected to swear on it.

  Adam flushes with anger. He hears the singing in his ears; he feels the sway of rising blood pressure rock him. He breathes deeply. He breathes again. He tastes the iron on his tongue and swallows. “I believe that Carmondy’s report will tell you that I’m performing my duties well and with a good attitude.” Big Bob has shared his report with Adam, at least his one-paragraph evaluation. He cites Adam’s willingness to help in ways that go beyond his job description, and they both know that’s spin on his grumbling obedience to Bob in finding Jupe and at least trying to locate Jupe’s dog.

  “Hmm.” Judge Johnson motions to the folding chair opposite his desk.

  Adam lowers himself.

  “I suppose you think that I should commute your sentence? That six months of good behavior is enough?”

  Adam clears his throat. “No. I don’t.”

  This clearly surprises the judge. “Why?”

  “I mean that I don’t believe you will.” Adam pinches the crease in his trousers, crosses one leg over the other in a deliberately casual manner. He understands this man. He knows that the judge would prefer him to be more of a supplicant, that he kowtow in the manner of a man who has seen the light. As he probably should. There is nothing more Adam wants than to be released from his community service. It’s taking up far too much of his time, time he should be spending focusing on the consulting business he believes will lead to a good living. He just has to get his first client, who will then recommend him to more clients. An infinite chain of clients all leading to a new brand of success.

  Ishmael and Rafe joked with him yesterday. “Won’t see you here again; you’ll be outta here faster than Big Brown out the gate on Derby day.”

  “I’ll send you a postcard.” He was surprised at the fleeting moment of nostalgia that stung his throat. Adam assuaged his momentary self-indulgence with a mental promise to make sure his charitable giving included the Fort Street Center from now on, or at least once he began to recover from his personal recession. “Besides, it’s not even on the table that I get off. Don’t take my name off the locker just yet.” But, even as he said it, Adam knew that he was whistling through the graveyard.

  Which is the same reason he’s shown up in the judge’s chambers in his best suit, with his Cole Haan oxfords spit-polished and, just for effect, his battered briefcase with the mileage scuffed into its leather. Men like Judge Johnson belong to the same golf club Adam does, or did. Sterling got the membership. Men like Judge Johnson attend the same
dinner parties and charity galas as Adam, eat the same hors d’oeuvres and drink the same overpriced wines. Except that Adam hasn’t seen an hors d’oeuvre in nearly a year, and his solitary drink of choice remains scotch.

  It’s why he’s challenging the judge, calling his bluff. In any other arena, Adam would be Judge Johnson’s peer. They’d laugh over drinks and debate economic strategy. Adam wonders if the judge understands this.

  The judge sits heavily into his high-backed black chair. He leans forward, his elbows on the blotter in front of him, studying Adam over the frame of his Buddy Holly glasses. His rheumy eyes are unreadable.

  Adam picks a dog hair from his knee. A news brief in the local paper announced that the shelter has reopened. Maybe later today he’ll make another attempt at getting rid of the dog. He’s tried other shelters, but they don’t want what he has. At the only one he got to that would, the staffer was blunt. These dogs don’t get adopted out; the ones who have fought, they get a one-way ticket. “The pit bulls who are voluntarily surrendered are humanely euthanized.” Voluntarily surrendered. Adam had dragged the dog back to his car, frustrated but not cruel. He doesn’t want the dog, but he isn’t going to be responsible for its death. Adam thinks about Gina. He saw her walking down the street this morning, a trio of deerlike greyhounds gliding beside her. He got his latest bag of dog food from Stop & Shop; if there’s any left over, he’ll donate it to the shelter when he takes the dog back.

  Adam thinks, or maybe prays, that the judge will free him.

  “You’re right. You’ve made an improvement, but you’re going to finish out your sentence. I’ll see you in September. Make an appointment with my secretary on your way out.” The judge cracks open the massive law book, pushes his glasses up into place, and forgets that Adam was ever in the room.

  The foyer door sticks a little and Adam kicks it open with the toe of his three-hundred-dollar shoes. He mounts the stairs, his pace slowing to a trudge by the time he reaches the third-floor landing. The weight of his sentence bears down on him. The seemingly endless months of servile punishment, the complication of trying to get his self-employment up and running, and the grip that the Fort Street Center has on his life bear down on Adam step by step, until he thinks he cannot move. He didn’t know how much he was counting on release from his community service until it was denied him. He’s been picturing himself a free man, ready to take his rightful place in society. He’s learned a lesson; he’s working on his humility. He’ll be back in the saddle, his powers restored to him fully within the next six months. Except that he’ll still be serving swill to the homeless. Well, not swill exactly; Rafe would take great exception to that term. Rafe. Ishmael. Mike and Big Bob. Christ, they all but gave him a going-away party. Even they thought he was rehabilitated.

  The dog waits, as always, sitting in the dead center of the room, as if he hasn’t spent the intervening hours on the futon. The rearranged throw pillows with the deep depressions in them are enough of a clue, but he always pretends innocence, bowing and yawning like some sort of slave to his potentate. Every day, Adam asks, “Have you been on the couch?” And every day, the dog just wags his spiky tail and grins in a “Who me?” masquerade.

  Today, Adam doesn’t even look at the dog. He drops his briefcase on the floor, pulls off his fine wool topcoat and drops it on the dog hair-strewn futon, yanks at the tie at his throat, and goes into the galley kitchen. The Dewar’s liter is half-empty. There is a dirty glass on the side of the sink and Adam takes it. Without even rinsing out the dregs of last night’s drink, he is about to pour two inches of scotch into the glass, when his cell phone rings. Adam sees that it’s Ariel and he sets the empty glass down. “Hi, honey.”

  “Can I skip out on you Saturday? Taylor’s having a big birthday party at the Copley and we’re all going early to shop. I really want—”

  “Okay. Go. Have fun, and tell Taylor happy birthday for me.” Adam presses the end key even before his daughter can say thank you. She’s adept at finding reasons not to spend Saturdays with him, and this is just one more he won’t ever get back.

  Then Sterling calls. At some point in the last year, their lawyers have stepped out of the middle and she has found it possible to call and badger him with regularity. Perhaps she is even finding pleasure in it.

  There is no preamble, no easing into a conversation with Sterling these days. She simply jumps into the topic, like a missile, allowing him no moment of transition from “Hello” to “I want.” It is almost like she doesn’t want to allow him to speak, that something in his voice might remind her of their life together. Once upon a time, when they spoke on the phone, they listened to each other. They signed off from every conversation with some affectionate postscript: “Love you,” or “I’ll be home soon,” or “Miss you.” Now it’s the sound of a dial tone. Dismissed.

  Worse, once she’s gotten the demands out of the way, Adam knows that she’ll start reciting his flaws to him: his temper, his untrustworthiness, his destroying her life. Meaning her social standing, which, as far as he can see, hasn’t dipped on the sociometer one bit. She’s taken their friends with her. She still has the houses. She still chairs the charity events that make the evening news.

  Sterling calls only to arrange things to her own advantage, to demand something of him, to treat him as if he were an underling. He has so disappointed her that she is taking it out on him one phone call at a time.

  So it is with great reluctance that Adam presses the answer button. Instead of the woman with whom Adam expected to spend the rest of his life, Sterling has become a sledgehammer, beating him over the head with his sins at every chance.

  This time, she belabors Ariel’s sudden need for her own car. She’s taking her driver’s test in a month, and Sterling believes that every sixteen-year-old should be given a car for her birthday, a Miata or a Volvo. Something safe, something prestigious. Something that will be the envy of everyone else’s sixteen-year-old daughters.

  Somewhere along the line, Adam has tuned Sterling’s voice out. She is like a buzzing bee, or the chime of someone else’s cell phone. Annoying, but hard to swat away. He holds the cell phone away from his ear and wanders around the small apartment. He straightens up one of the throw pillows the dog has flattened out. He rinses the dirty jelly glass, fills it with water. Little words, miniaturized by the phone held at a distance, like some tiny Sterling trapped in the flat oblong of his phone, keeps zzzzing through the instrument. He hears individual words; a phrase here and there comes out of the phone with unexpected clarity. They should consider something that might haul the horse trailer that they should invest in if Ariel is going to attend the major shows.

  Adam dumps the glass of water into the dog’s bowl and unscrews the cap from the bottle of scotch.

  Little Sterling’s little buzzing voice is farther and farther away. The cell phone is on the countertop. His glass is filled with scotch. There is a moment of silence. Then he hears her miniature voice calling out from the instrument, wondering if he is still there. He doesn’t know. Is he? Still there? The Adam that he once was? He can’t afford to buy a full tank of gas, much less a high-priced vehicle for a kid who treats him with as much contempt as Ariel does. She doesn’t need the latest status symbol, the latest keeping-up-with-the-Joneses item on the list. The idea that their little princess might be deprived is ludicrous. Adam knows about deprived. Deprived is not getting new sneakers when your toes are coming through the old ones.

  Adam presses the end button hard enough to shut the phone off completely. Gently he puts it on the counter, pours another finger of scotch into his almost full jelly glass, and goes into the living room.

  The truth is, if things had remained the same, if he hadn’t scuttled his own life with the auger of fear and temper, he would have loved shopping for a car for Ariel. He would have relished the delight on her face at the sight of a brand-new Volvo or Miata, or whatever was the coolest ride these days, in the driveway with a big bow on it. He wouldn’t h
ave deprived Ariel for all the world.

  A bubble of anxiety juxtaposes itself against the lead weight of despair; he’s not free of Fort Street. How is he ever going to get beyond this descent into poverty? Not since he was an undergraduate driving buses far into the night in order to pay for his education has Adam debated the cost of national brand cornflakes against the store brand. Not since he was in his first year of graduate school has Adam let a bill sit unopened, or paid the minimum due.

  The table, under which the dog has ducked, only the tip of his tail exposed, is covered with unopened bills, along with a laptop he is too tired to open, too tired to use to troll the online job searches. Too tired to think.

  Adam sips his jelly glass of scotch. The burn diminishes with each swallow.

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  It was a little awkward to witness, his whimpering like that. Then the full-blown crying. I’d never witnessed something like that in a human. Plenty of my own kind howl, but this was painful to hear. He’d stopped playing with his toy, after which he began shouting so that I hid myself beneath the table. If he started making sounds like that, I wasn’t going to hang around. I knew what an angry human could do. I wasn’t committed to being here. First chance, I was going to book it. Frankly, I had no idea why I was here in the first place. We weren’t training. He wasn’t putting me into the pit. He barely acknowledged my presence. I kept to my side of the room; he kept to his. There was none of that pair-bond stuff going on like I’d seen with my mentor and his man, or the guy and the little bitch that helped me get free of that pole, or even the Labrador and his person.

  He got quiet. Very quiet. He sat on the futon with his drink in his hand and stared out at the empty room until I put myself into his view just to give him something to look at. Long tears ran from his open eyes to the edges of his face. He sipped and wept. Sipped and wept. I lay on the rug but kept my eyes on him.