Patricia Gaffney

by Mad Dash

“Ha.” He had no idea what he was saying or what he might say. “Well, you know. I’m afraid I wouldn’t be much good.”

  “We could just practice.” Her sly smile set him at ease slightly, that and the lazy slide of her eyelids. Maybe she could take him or leave him.

  “It’s probably not a good idea. Us. Professional colleagues.”

  “I won’t tell anyone. If that’s what you’re worried about. It’s been awhile for you.” She raised one eyebrow. “Yes?”

  “Yes. Em, well. Relatively speaking. It’s a subjective—”

  “Make up your mind, I’ve got a nine o’clock class tomorrow.”

  “How about a rain check?” How about a rain check? Had he said that?

  She sat up and looked him in the eye. “When?”

  “When?” He felt like Dash when he said, “What about spontaneity?”

  She frowned into space, processing spontaneity. “All right. Rain check.”

  The music swelled, brass blaring, the relentless timpani like an urgent heartbeat. They sat quietly, thighs touching, listening to the end of the section, the quiet gong striking while the pianissimo low C sounded ominously from the depths of the orchestra.

  “Not to be rude, but would you mind going home now?”

  He stood up, mumbled thanks or good-bye or something. When he got to the door he had to look back. She’d pulled her sweater over her head, was straightening it, folding it on her lap. She wore a black lace brassiere. Her skin was milk white, so pale it didn’t look real.

  He left after Death, before Transfiguration.

  Tim slept most of the way home, slumped against the passenger-side door. Andrew drove his car through green light after green light down Georgia Avenue, monitoring the increase in the pounding of an ache on the right side of his head and calculating his chances of having it all day tomorrow if he didn’t take another pill soon. Rain blew in squalls that shook Tim’s car, almost made it veer out of its lane. In Takoma Park, Andrew pulled into the lot behind the brick apartment building Tim had moved to after the divorce, found an empty spot in back. “Don’t forget where you’re parked.”

  Tim jerked upright. “Jesus Christ. I’ve already got a hangover. What the hell. Can’t even drink anymore, fucking old age.”

  They got out, moving like old men.

  “Where’s your car? At the college. Oh hell, I gotta drive you—”

  “No, I’ll walk.”

  “Walk, no, it’s fucking raining. It’s a mile in the fucking—”

  They argued until Andrew convinced Tim he wanted to walk, felt like a brisk hike in the rain, just the ticket, he’d be completely sober by the time he got to his car. None of that was true, but telling Tim that he—Tim—was in no shape to drive would only prolong the argument, and Andrew suddenly was so tired he could barely speak.

  “Interesting evening, huh?”

  “See you tomorrow, Tim.”

  “Right. You and O’Neal, how’d that go? I missed half the night.”

  “Better go in, it’s freezing.”

  “Okay, I’m going. See you tomorrow, pal.”

  “See you.”

  He was soaked, wet down to his T-shirt before he got halfway to the car. And not sober but no longer drunk, nowhere near “euphoric,” and unable to recall anything over the course of the long night that could’ve put him in proximity to such a specious emotion. Alcohol, that was all, and now that it had worn off everything was settling back into the familiar old groove. He felt the potential of a bottomless funk he could fall into headfirst if he didn’t keep alert. Trudge, trudge, collar up, back to the wind one minute, head into it the next. The memory of Tim’s battered umbrella couldn’t even bring a smile.

  At least the car started. Sometimes it didn’t. Shivering, clammy-skinned, he tried to feel grateful as he peered out the fogged-up window at the empty streets, heat on full blast. Dash called him a pessimist, but he never forgot that things could be worse. If you looked at it like that, he was really an optimist.

  Of course there were no parking spaces near the house. He ended up parking too close to a stop sign three blocks away. Probably get a ticket. The rain had stopped, just the bitter wind seeping through his wet clothes to his skin to his bones. He’d never get out of this without a cold at best. Flu was more likely considering the state of his resistance.

  Oh Christ—Hobbes. Mrs. Melman would’ve walked and fed him at four o’clock, but he’d have gone on the kitchen floor by now—it was close to eleven. Should’ve called her, Andrew berated himself as he unlocked the front door and turned on the lights. Cold in here. He kept his coat on and went in the kitchen.

  “Hobbes! Hey, boy!” Beside the refrigerator, his head throbbed when he knelt to pull on the bundle of blankets and discarded old bathroom rugs Hobbes called home—gently, so as not to startle him. A leg appeared, a haunch. “Wake up, buddy. Wanna go outside?”

  The covers were cool, not warm. That should’ve warned him. His own hands were so cold, though, he didn’t notice. He didn’t notice anything until he saw Hobbes’s gray muzzle lifted in a last grin, the familiar triangle of yellowed eyetooth jutting between dry lips.

  Oh no. Andrew dropped to the floor. Hobbes, oh God. It had to happen, he was so old and rickety, but God. If he’d come home on time, if he’d been here tonight—maybe it wouldn’t have happened. He touched one soft, curly haired ear, the knob of bone on Hobbes’s crown. He’d always dip his head and sigh when you petted him, his lids sagging over his filmy eyes in contentment. No reaction now, no nothing, just stillness, utter vacancy. Hobbes’s shell, that’s all this flattened pile of grizzled fur was. Sweet old boy. His father’s dog.

  He was going to cry. He couldn’t believe it. His throat hurt; the backs of his eyes stung like salt on a wound. But when the tears came, he felt relief, and what little shame he had, he let it go. Why not weep for a dog? Or for mistakes and missed chances? For self-pity, for confusion. For this empty house.

  He folded the blanket in half and carefully wrapped Hobbes’s stiff body in it. The bundle felt unexpectedly heavy when he carried it out to the back porch. He laid it on the glider first, but the wind blew a fine spray of rain through the screen just then. He put the dog on the floor by the wall instead, behind a stack of chair cushions. He’d be dry there. Safe and dry.

  Tomorrow he’d bury him.

  “What made him die?”

  “Old age. He was a very old dog.”

  “Can I dig, too?”

  “I’m about finished.” And, foolishly, he’d chosen a gravesite too close to the maple tree—Wolfie would never get a shovel through this thicket of roots and rocks. Andrew was having a hard time himself. At least the ground wasn’t frozen. “You can help me cover him up, though. Afterward.”

  “How he die? What happened to him?” In his hooded sweatshirt, Wolfie crouched beside Hobbes’s shrouded body, studying the shape, fascinated. He wanted to see the dog, Andrew knew, as much as he was afraid to look at him.

  “Well, I guess his heart stopped.”

  “Did it hurt?”

  “No, no. He was asleep. He just passed away while he was sleeping.”

  “What it feel like? Did he know? What happen to him after he pass away?”

  Andrew dropped the shovel and stepped up from the hole he’d been digging for the last forty minutes. A weak, bleary sun in the corner of the sky barely cast shadows. The perfect gray setting for a funeral. Wolfie, on his way home from school, had seen him from the alley and come into the yard to watch. Andrew looked at him helplessly. “I don’t know for sure. Think this is deep enough?”

  “Did he go to heaven?”

  “Yes. He was a very good dog. Want to help me put him in?”

  Wolfie stood up and stepped back, wide-eyed.

  “That’s okay, I’ve got it.” Andrew knelt and lifted the dog in his arms, surprised again by how heavy old Hobbes was. Dead weight.

  “Wait, I’ll help!” Wolfie put his hand on the edge of the blanket, grabbed a f
old of it, and together they lowered Hobbes into the clay-sided grave.

  “I have something,” Andrew remembered. From underneath his coat, which he’d thrown on the ground when he got hot, he took out Teddy—Dash called it that, a filthy, vaguely beige piece of fake fur with one ear and no eyes. The comfort blob Hobbes kept with him in his blanket jumble even when he kicked or nosed everything else away: covers, tennis balls, stupid rubber toys Andrew bought at the grocery store. “This was his favorite,” he said as he bent down and laid Teddy on the blanket, in what he estimated was the crook between Hobbes’s paws and his nose.

  Wolfie pressed his hands together and closed his eyes.

  Andrew cleared his throat. “Well. Hobbes was thirteen years old. That’s…ninety-one in human years, a pretty ripe old age by any reckoning. He had a good life. A very good life,” he embellished, but he was thinking of his father’s state of mind when second wife Tommie took off, leaving behind nothing but an eight-week-old purebred English cocker spaniel with champion lineage and one undescended testicle. Edward had just moved to a condo on P Street, depressed, recently retired from the law firm, and getting first hints of the price he was about to pay for working too hard and smoking a pack of cigarettes a day for fifty years. As the new, unwilling owner of a dog, he must’ve left a lot to be desired, from Hobbes’s standpoint. But they’d grown old together comfortably enough, settling into a lifeless routine of occasional walks and long, silent sits.

  “Did he ever get hit by a car?” Wolfie came out of a reverie to ask.

  “Not that I know of.”

  “He like to lay out on the front porch. He sure sleep a lot.”

  “He never bit anybody,” Andrew said.

  “I snuck him cookies Dash gave me. He liked me.”

  “He had a big heart.”

  “Yeah.”

  Eulogy over, Andrew let Wolfie drop shovels of dirt into the grave until he got tired. “Got to put his name on top or something,” Wolfie said when the job was done. “Like a cross. You got any flowers?”

  “How about a nice bush?”

  “A bush.”

  “Yes. I could get an azalea and plant it at the head.”

  “When?”

  “In a couple of weeks. Mid-April, I guess.”

  “No, we got to put something now.”

  They looked around the wintry backyard.

  “That rock,” Wolfie said.

  It was a big, shapely stone Dash had wanted in her flower border for a decoration. “Too heavy,” Andrew said, remembering hauling it there for her.

  “We can do it. He got to have a mark.”

  They managed it by rocking and shoving the stone out of the rut it had sunk into over the years, carrying it between them for a few feet, then kicking and rolling it the rest of the way.

  “There.”

  “Looks good. Like in a graveyard.”

  “Headstone. Well, that’s it,” Andrew said before Wolfie could suggest carving Hobbes’s name in it. “Let’s go in, it’s cold. Want some hot chocolate?”

  “My aunt died, but I didn’t see her. My sister said she all dressed up, like going to a party. But laying down in the box. Coffin.”

  “People try to make their loved ones look nice.”

  “My father might die and I wouldn’t know. He could be dead now.” He sat down on the hard ground and crossed his legs.

  Andrew sighed, looking up at the streaky sky, following the black silhouette of a shrieking bird. “Aren’t you cold?” he asked as he hunkered down beside Wolfie.

  “No.” He was starting to shiver, though, and blow into his cupped hands. Small, boyish white scars scored the brown skin of his fingers and wrists.

  Andrew reached over for his coat and threw it across Wolfie’s shoulders. “How long since you last saw your dad?”

  “I don’t know. He use to come by, then he quit.”

  “Well, there are worse things than not having a father.” That sounded heartless. “What I mean is, no father could be better for you than a bad father. Sometimes.”

  “My father…” Wolfie made Xs in the dirt with a stick. “He use to let me put my hand in his pocket, like I was stealing his money. He’d laugh. Sometimes he put his hand on top of my head.” Wolfie put one hand on his own head. “Keep it there.”

  “My father used to laugh at me.”

  “What for? How old were you?”

  “If I’d do something he thought was stupid. Say something he didn’t agree with.”

  “He hit you?”

  “No.” He looked at Wolfie in alarm. “Did your father hit you?”

  “No. How old were you?”

  “Oh, your age, or older. Younger.” All his young life, actually, until Edward and Tommie sent him away to school.

  “Like what? What’d you do to make him laugh for?”

  He regretted beginning this. Wolfie’s puckish face was screwed up with concern, the dark eyes liquid and sad. “Nothing, just silly things. Okay, one thing I remember. It was his birthday, and I wanted to give him something special. You know? Something he would really like.”

  Wolfie nodded.

  “He smoked cigars. He’d smoke one after dinner every night, and if he was at home, one every afternoon at four o’clock. He kept them in his humidor—know what a humidor is?”

  “No.”

  “It’s a fancy name for a cigar box. My father’s had a hygrometer inside, but it was broken.”

  “What’s a—”

  “It’s a dial that reads the humidity inside the box. Cigars can mildew if it gets too damp in there, or dry out if it gets too dry.”

  “You gave him a box?”

  “No, I gave him a hygrometer. Because his was broken. Except”—Andrew started to laugh, to take the sting out—“I didn’t know anything about humidity, I thought that little meter inside the box told the time! He was so regular—four o’clock and eight o’clock, every day—I figured that was a little clock in the humidor.”

  Wolfie grinned uncertainly.

  “So I pried it off with a screwdriver—”

  “How old were you?”

  “Seven. Then I took the watch I’d just gotten for Christmas, took the band off, and glued the watch face inside the box, where the hygrometer had been. Elmer’s glue. And I gave it to my dad for his birthday.” He drew his knees up and wrapped his arms around them, smiling broadly over at Wolfie. “Pretty funny, huh? My father thought so.”

  “He laugh?”

  “He roared.” Andrew’s mother had fluttered her hands—“No, it’s nice, Edward, tell Andrew it’s a nice present”—but every time Edward looked at the Bulova dial inside his handsome, wood-inlaid humidor, he’d laughed harder. Not indulgent laughter, not charmed or tolerant, no “aww” in it to make Andrew feel silly and fallible but still loved. Just humiliated.

  “Hey,” he said to Wolfie, who was pushing his lips in and out, looking worried. “No big deal. Thank you for helping me out with Hobbes. How’s school? What’d you learn today?”

  “I got a girlfriend,” Wolfie said doubtfully, as if half his attention were in the new conversation, half still in the old. “Her name’s Tina.”

  “Is she nice?”

  “Yeah. Only she don’t know she’s my girlfriend yet.”

  “That could be a problem.” He rubbed his cold hands together. He’d known—feared, truthfully—this was coming someday: a call to dispense fatherly advice to Wolfie. Now that it was here, he didn’t feel as burdened as he’d thought he would. “Well, does Tina like you? Can you tell? Does she look at you in cl—”

  “She not in my class. She don’t know me, I see her at recess.”

  “Ah. Well, that makes it a little more difficult. Are you in any clubs together? Perhaps—”

  “I threw a football at her yesterday, got her in the back.” He reached up and patted himself between the shoulder blades.

  “Well, that’s…the direct approach. Maybe if you spoke to her, said, ‘Hi,’ or something, ‘M
y name’s Wolfie,’ and then began a—”

  “Nah, I’m just gonna go and get her. Girls like that.” He jumped up. “I have to go now.” He threw off Andrew’s coat. “See you.”

  “See you.” He was accustomed to Wolfie’s abrupt departures, as if an urgent previous engagement had suddenly occurred to him. He trotted down the walk and through the gate to the alley, sneakers echoing on the concrete for a second, then silence.

  The wind was picking up. Once, a long time ago, Andrew had just gone and gotten Dash. She’d liked it. Beyond Mrs. Melman’s roof, a crooked quarter moon was rising in the paling sky. The sweat Andrew had worked up digging the grave had long since dried on his skin; he should go in before he caught cold. He’d have to call Mrs. Melman, tell her about Hobbes. Andrew usually walked him this time of the day. It took forever. He’d lose patience, mutter, “Come on, come on, come on,” while the dog limped from grass blade to grass blade, deciding where to pee. If he were here now, Andrew would walk him gladly.

  Dash didn’t leave him at the altar—the first time she left him—but almost. Three days before the wedding she’d planned and insisted on paying for—a tiny ceremony at the National Arboretum followed by lunch at their favorite Thai-Vietnamese restaurant; immediate family and closest friends only—Andrew appeared at her apartment to show off the Mexican wedding shirt he’d just bought at a men’s store on F Street. He’d thought at first that that was it, a terrible miscalculation with the shirt, an item of clothing so unlike anything he had ever worn before, he was sure she would love it. But no, it couldn’t have been the shirt, because he’d hardly gotten it out of the bag before she burst into hysterical tears, told him she was sorry she couldn’t marry him, couldn’t, it was impossible, and ran out the door.

  Seven hours later Arlene, his motherin-law-to-be, called. Dash was there, in Greensboro, with her. How did she get there? The train. She was in her room with the door closed and the lights out.

  “May I speak to her, please?”

  “Honey, you know…I think it would be better if you just came on down here.”

  He’d only met Arlene once, when she’d driven up to check him out after Dash told her they were getting married. From Dash’s stories, he’d been expecting someone softer, rounder, a woman who embodied maternalism, and Arlene was hardly that. She was handsome instead of pretty, taller than Dash, with keen, critical brown eyes she’d turned on him with the intensity of searchlights. When she’d decided to like him, he’d felt as if he’d passed some shrewd and difficult test.