by Susan Wilson
There was this one dog. Big fella. Didn’t have the look of a fighter, but clearly not someone to be messed with. His tail had been lopped off and he kept the vestigial end of it poked straight out, as if there were a lot more to it. He became a frequent visitor, but he never got over his wanting to challenge me. We’d growl at each other over the fence, him taunting me about my captivity, me throwing back insults at him. Man, if that gate was ever left open, I’d show you a thing or two. He was the only one who wandered by that provoked me. I was forced to check the sturdiness of the gate by throwing myself against it. Usually someone came out of the building to put a stop to it. Then the coward would run off, that poky short tail flung down to cover his anus. Guess I told you, didn’t I?
Most days some of the men in the building would come out and sit with me. Lighting up those sticks that burn, they’d group around the back stairs and puff away. I didn’t much like the scent, which reminded me too much of my time in the basement with the boys. They’d often reeked of this odor, or one similar to it. But these guys liked it if I joined them. Once in a while, only one of them might come out. If I sat beside him, the guy might throw an arm over me, talk to me, tell me things I was fairly certain he kept to himself most of the time. These men reminded me a little of the man I lived with. There was a certain fragility to them. The soft voices that they used with me immediately rushed into gruffness whenever someone else came out, as if they were embarrassed to be caught talking to a dog. When they sat with me in a pack, they betrayed none of that fragility. Sometimes on the street, you meet a dog that isn’t supposed to be a street dog. He might be lost, or his people lost. Those dogs often make fairly good street dogs, but there is always this core of disbelief that they have ended up this way. That’s what these guys were like.
I’d seen the boys more than those times with my man. I’ll give him credit: He stood up to them, growled in a very professional way. Good man. What he didn’t understand was how much they wanted me back. I don’t mean to brag, but I was a top dog for them, a winner. Which made them happy, which meant they wanted to continue to fight me. So when they showed up, leaning against the fence that surrounded the backyard of the building where my man had left me to slumber away the summer days, I got nervous. Which meant that I barked. Which meant that someone from inside looked out and the boys skulked away like half-grown pups lookin’ cool.
So every day that he left me in the fenced-in yard, I grew more nervous. I liked the job I had now, giving aid and comfort to the street men, being my man’s singles partner with the tennis ball. I just couldn’t see myself back in the pit. I was a pacifist now, not a contender. I admit a tiny bit of embarrassment at that admission, but truth isn’t always pretty. I once was powerful and feared. Now I was loved. A much bigger deal.
Chapter Forty-seven
Adam has two weeks before his final hearing with Judge Johnson. Labor Day is past; the streets are filled in the morning with schoolchildren. He waits at crosswalks manned by crossing guards who eye a childless man with a fierce-looking dog with a wary expression. He smiles at them, says good morning. Hitches Chance closer to his side. He has been assured of a good report from Big Bob, a real testimony to good behavior and going the extra mile. He has proven himself a tractable volunteer and will keep on with his grant writing even as his time will be filled with his new work.
Even better, Adam has been hired as a consultant for a firm downtown. This one isn’t an Internet start-up, or a pie-in-the-sky scheme by recent college graduates; this one is a long-established business looking for someone to head a special project. He sat with two of the three partners and gave them a brief “need to know” about himself. Then hawked his skills so well, they shrugged at the confession. They were getting a very skillful executive at a very reasonable price; his personal failings were his own.
Dr. Stein is pleased with Adam’s recent progress, too. And his report will reflect that.
Adam comes out of Stein’s building and drops another coin into the meter. There’s a gourmet cheese shop nearby, and suddenly Adam has a longing for Wensleydale. They also sell gourmet dog biscuits, and Chance deserves a treat. He deserves a treat. The fresh, dry air ruffles his hair. Tomorrow he’ll stop in at the local barbershop for a trim. No more haircuts that cost as much as a car payment.
All the way down the street, across the road, between buildings, Adam looks for Jupe. Jupe has been absent for several weeks. Maybe he’s back in a hospital, or maybe he’s hitchhiked to Manhattan. Bob doesn’t know, but with continuous good weather, he’s not all that concerned.
Adam doesn’t know why he should be so concerned about Jupe. The old man hasn’t spoken to him since the failed dog search, since he tried to give Chance to him. He cuts Adam dead anytime their paths cross. Jupe is one of those who won’t go into the backyard and sit with Chance.
Adam understands that in Jupiter’s tortured mind, he’s responsible for Benny’s disappearance because he’d failed to keep the promise the old man exacted from him to find the dog. Jupe can’t accept the truth that the dog was doomed the moment he was hospitalized. It wasn’t that Adam didn’t find the dog; he simply no longer existed. But, like a promise spoken to a child, or a man with a child’s grasp of the world, that promise to find Benny was a bond that had no alternate reality. No excuses. But Adam knows how he feels. If anything ever happened to Chance, he’d be devastated. He has become, in a very short time, one of those people who would stay in his house during a nuclear attack if his dog couldn’t be evacuated with him.
So now Adam tends to look for Jupe when he’s in this area, where Jupe alone or with Benny most often lingered.
Adam decides not to tell Gina yet that he’s hired a private investigator, although it was the first impulse he felt after his decision was made, before he’d even met the man in a Denny’s to discuss exactly what he wanted to find out, and how much he was willing to pay. To finally act on this lifelong disappointment came with an unforeseen reaction: relief. It was a relief to think that sometime soon he might be able to stop wondering about Veronica, about what had happened to her, and where she’d ended up. He’s not even anxious to get the news. He doesn’t even try to imagine a reunion, even a nervous phone call to say, “Hi, I’m Adam.”
He knows that it could take awhile, and maybe even that the detective will be unable to come up with any results, but that’s okay. The important thing is that Adam has taken charge of the situation. Just like problems at work, the first step in handling them is to begin doing something. Inertia is a weight that presses down; action is the removal of that weight.
“Mornin’, Adam.” The litany of everyday living.
He’s not late today. He’s been up since dawn, preparing the outline for Stryker, Royal and Martin. He’s already taken Chance around the block. The coffee is brand-new. He’s in sweatpants but has shaved. His business clothes are laid out.
Adam fills a second cup, sugars it, dribbles just enough low-fat milk in to suit Gina’s taste. He makes his purchases, gives Artie an answer to 46 down—archetype—and goes out the door.
The impeccably dressed businessman is headed his way. Late, unusually late. Adam smiles and steps into his way, armed this time with his name. “Good morning, Mr. Martin.”
Augustus Martin of Stryker, Royal and Martin, snaps his head around, his expression one of alarm: How does this bum know my name? Then recognition sets in. Embarrassment. “I thought you looked familiar at that meeting.”
Adam thinks, What bullshit. The guy has never looked him in the face in all the months that they have crossed paths on a daily basis. He would put out a hand, but both are occupied. “You, too. Out of context, right?”
“Yes, out of context. I didn’t realize you lived in this area. I thought that …”
“I know what you thought. Appearances can be deceiving, after all.” Adam sips from his cup, decides to let the guy off the hook. In the glory days when he was in Martin’s Cole Haan shoes, he would have treated a sh
abbily dressed, unshaven early-morning stranger the same way. “I’ve got some ideas on paper to show you at our meeting. I think that you’ll like them.”
“I’m sure I will.”
There is a moment of awkward parting. They do not know each other at all, but there has been such a long period of morning encounters with prejudice that they don’t quite know how to say good-bye.
Gina is washing her front window and watching this little pas de deux between Adam and the man she, too, recognizes from his daily route past her store. She scrapes the squeegee left to right, winks at Adam, and then draws the rubber edge right to left.
“You look pleased with yourself.” She scrapes the moisture off the blade with a paper towel.
“Yes, I am.”
Gina hears something in his voice and sets down the squeegee and toweling. “Why?”
He tells her about his detective.
At first, Adam doesn’t recognize the number illuminated on the screen of his cell phone. He almost lets it go to voice mail, then remembers that the 978 area code belongs to his private investigator. It’s been only a week. Surely not enough time, even in today’s overexposed electronic Big Brother world, to find someone missing for forty years. Someone who maybe has never wanted to be found, someone whose youthful identity has been made over by marriage or alias into something completely new. Someone Adam has always—and don’t ask him why—believed was now on the West Coast, as far away as she could get from her New England beginnings.
“I have some news. Can we meet?” The PI is a small, round man, but on the phone he sounds imposing.
“Can you give it to me over the phone?”
“In person. Denny’s, in an hour?” The solemn voice prohibits argument.
Adam swallows against a swirl of nausea. “Are you afraid I won’t pay you?”
There is a heartbeat of insulted silence. “I prefer to give my reports in person.”
Denny’s is mostly empty at eleven o’clock on a workday, just past breakfast, too early for lunch. The lone occupied table has an old couple sitting in silence, mulling over their plates of eggs and red-tinged home fries. It is the perfect backdrop for hearing news of his missing sister, with its massive plastic-coated menus, the slightly sticky tabletop, a garish interior design based on the color of egg yolks. The geometric pattern of the industrial carpet makes Adam feel unsteady on his feet as he follows the middle-aged waitress to his seat. Ron Pascal joins him almost immediately, handing his menu back to the waitress and asking for black coffee. Adam does the same.
“Can I getcha some home fries or a order of toast or some-thin’?”
Ron Pascal meets her eyes, “No. Just coffee. Please.” The waitress moves away from the table. “You know why I hate missing person cases so much?”
“You never said that you did.” Adam has a packet of sugar in his fingers; he’s rotating it around, as if measuring the sides.
“’Cause it almost always isn’t good.”
“You’re telling me … what, exactly?”
Ron pulls a thin file folder out of his briefcase, sets it on the table between them. “This is what I found.”
The file has a neat green-bordered label on it, VERONICA MARIE MARCH typed in all uppercase Times Roman letters. Solid, real. Not like a missing person at all, but like someone who should have lived enough life to fill this folder. A folder so thin, the edges touch. Thin enough to hold one piece of paper.
“Your sister passed away six weeks after she left home.” Ron flips open the file folder; the death certificate is facing Adam, but Pascal knows the line he’s looking for. “Cause of death: massive internal injuries consistent with being struck by an automobile.”
“Hit by a car? Veronica was killed?”
“I’m afraid so. The two paragraphs of press coverage state that she was either hitchhiking or crossing the street at around two in the morning, when she was struck and killed by a hit-and-run driver.” Pascal pulls the newspaper clipping out from under the death certificate, along with the one square inch of obituary.
Adam feels dizzy. He doesn’t take the articles from Pascal. His hand is shaking as he reaches for the handle of the coffee mug the waitress has set down in front of him. He’s afraid to lift the mug to his lips. It’s not that he hasn’t steeled himself, considered the idea that Veronica might be dead. It’s always been a latent possibility, one that he has from time to time talked himself into expecting. The shock is that she’s been dead all this time; that his every childhood dream of how she would someday come rescue him was beyond fantasy, was impossible, an impotent hope. Should he be grateful for not knowing? How could he not have known? Why didn’t anyone tell him? He imagines a giant conspiracy of silence keeping the most important fact of his childhood from him. Was it a misguided kindness? Don’t say anything and he’ll forget all about her?
If he had known that his sister was dead, throughout all those years of foster homes and pullout couches, of bullying, of loneliness, he would have had no hope at all.
Adam pushes himself out of the booth. His knees buckle as he staggers toward the men’s room, getting inside just in time to vomit.
“Why didn’t my father tell me?”
“I guess you’ll have to ask him.” Pascal snaps shut his briefcase, pulls a wallet out of his back pocket, and drops a couple of dollars on the table.
“I can’t.” Adam lifts his eyes from the folder containing his sister’s death certificate and looks Pascal in the face. “I have no idea if he’s even still alive. I haven’t heard from or spoken to the man since I was nine.”
Pascal opens the folder again and points to a yellow Post-it Note stuck to the inside. “That’s his address and phone number.”
Chapter Forty-eight
Because of his unscheduled appointment with Pascal, Adam is an hour late to the Fort Street Center. He’s called ahead, gotten Big Bob’s dispensation without having to give him any excuse. He’s never been late before, a fact that only today occurs to Adam. He’s treated this enforced do-gooding as he treats all his responsibilities—with professionalism. Someone should be proud of him. It’s not like he’s been working for a merit raise. He’s just applied his hard-coded work ethic to this situation, exactly as he has always done in all of his positions in his rise up the ladder. Automatically doing his best as an involuntary volunteer.
Adam stops by the apartment to leave the car, get Chance, and walk to the center, despite already being late. His pulse is still pronounced from the effects of his conversation with the investigator and he needs to slow it down, to force the twin facts of his sister’s untimely death and his father’s unlikely survival into some form of neutral territory, assign them someplace in his mind where they are harmless. He has to make the basic facts lie down and be still. Instead, his mind cavorts with the unanswered questions.
Gina is in her shop, but Adam can’t tell her yet. He needs to digest this new truth on his own. He can’t speak out loud, can’t make the words come out in a way that will make sense to himself, much less to another. He needs time to adjust his entire concept of the past.
Adam latches the gate behind him, unsnaps the leash, and runs cold water into the dog’s bowl from the outside faucet. With a quick pat on the head, he leaves Chance to entertain himself for the next few hours. Chance lumbers over to his lean-to and flops down in the shade.
Ishmael is behind the steam table, ladling out the day’s soup. Adam grabs a clean apron and a paper toque and settles into serving the main course of pork chops and mashed potatoes. Everything looks gray to Adam, the chops, the gravy, even the soup. Shades of gray, like they say dogs see. Nothing is sharp.
“You okay, man?” Ishmael asks.
“Yeah.”
“You seen a ghost or somethin’?”
Adam shakes his head, tries to smile. “I’m okay.”
“You sick, you shouldn’t be here.”
“Not sick.”
“Sad.” Jupiter is standing in front of Adam.
After so many weeks, it is a surprise to see the old man standing in front of him, his watch cap pulled low, his eyes flinty, and Adam notices for the first time how pale they are, not like looking into eyes at all, but into reflectionless mirrors. “Too bad.” Jupiter might be addressing them, or himself. His pale eyes flicker from Adam to the plate, then to Ishmael. “So sad your dad. Sad is the loneliest word in the world.” Adam vaguely recalls that rhyming can be a symptom of some mental disturbance, but he doesn’t recall Jupe ever doing it before.
“You want gravy with that?” Ishmael slides the plate across the stainless-steel surface.
Jupe takes the plate, squinting at Adam. “Now you know. Now you know.”