by Markus Zusak
I couldn’t help but laugh. Trust Rube to still make me laugh despite my hating his guts at that point in time.
It was the blow-dryer, I think.
I kept imagining Keith standing over the poor mongrel with the blow-dryer on full speed and his wife calling out from the back door:
“Is he dry yet, love? Can we chuck him in the fire?”
“No, not yet darlin’!” he’d reply. “I’ll need about another ten minutes, I reckon. I just can’t get this damn tail dry!” Miffy had one of the bushiest tails in the history of the world. Trust me.
We found out the next day that there’d be a small ceremony on Saturday afternoon at four. The dog was being burned on Friday.
Natly, as the walkers of Miffy, we were invited next door for the funeral. But it didn’t stop there. Keith also decided he wanted to scatter Miffy’s ashes in the backyard that was his domain. He asked if we’d like to be the ones who emptied them. “You know,” he said. “Since you spent the most time with him.”
“Really?” I asked.
“Well, to be honest,” he shifted on the spot a little. “The wife wasn’t too keen on the idea, but I put my foot down. I said, No, those boys deserve it and that’s it, Norma.” He laughed and said, “My wife referred to you as the two dirty bastards from next door.”
Old bitch, I thought.
“Old bitch,” Rube said, but luckily, Keith didn’t hear.
On Saturday, Dad, Rube, and I finished work at two so we could get home in time for the big funeral, and by four o’clock it was Rube, Sarah, and me who went next door. We all climbed the fence.
Keith brought Miffy out in a wooden box, and the sun was shining, the breeze was curling, and Keith’s wife was sneering at Rube and me.
Old bitch, I thought again, and you guessed it, Rube actually said it, as a whisper only he, Sarah, and I could hear. It made us all laugh, though I tried to resist. The wife didn’t look too happy. Keith held the box.
He gave a futile speech about how wonderful Miffy was. How loyal. How beautiful. “And how pitiful,” Rube whispered again, to which I had to bite the inside of my mouth to keep from laughing. A small burst actually made it out, and Keith’s wife wasn’t too impressed.
Bloody Rube, I thought. Even when I hated him he could make me laugh. Even when I despised everything he stood for and had done to me, he could make me laugh by giving Miffy a good mouthful.
The thing was, though, it was fitting for it to be like this. There was no point in us standing there claiming how much we loved the dog and all that kind of thing. That would only show how much we didn’t love him. We expressed love for this dog by:
1. Putting him down.
2. Deliberately provoking him.
3. Hurling verbal abuse at him.
4. Discussing whether or not we should throw him over the fence.
5. Giving him meat that was a borderline decision on whether or not he could adequately chew it.
6. Heckling him to make him bark.
7. Pretending we didn’t know him in public.
8. Making jokes at his funeral.
9. Comparing him to a rat, ferret, and any other creature resembling a rodent.
10. Knowing without showing that we cared for him.
The problem with this funeral was that Keith was go, and his wife kept insisting on attempting to cry. Eventually, when everyone was bored senseless and almost expecting a hymn to be sung, Keith asked a vital question. In hindsight, I’m sure he wished like hell he didn’t ask it at all.
He said, “Anyone else got something to say?”
Silence.
Pure silence.
Then Rube.
Keith was just about to hand me the wooden box that contained the last dregs of Miffy the dog when Rube said, “Actually, yes. I have something to say.”
No, Rube, I thought desperately. Please. Don’t do it.
But he did.
As Keith handed me the box, Rube made his announcement. In a loud, clear voice, he said, “Miffy — we will always remember you.” His head was held high. Proud. “You were strictly the most ridiculous animal on the face of the earth. But we loved you.”
He looked over at Sarah and smiled — but not for long.
Definitely not for long, because before we even had time to think, Keith’s wife exploded. She came tearing across at us. She was onto me in a second and she started wrestling me for the bloody box!
“Give us that, y’ little bastard,” she hissed.
“What did I do?” I asked despairingly, and within an instant, there was a war going on with Miffy in the center of it. Rube’s hands were on the box now as well, and with Miffy and me in the middle, he and Norma were going at it. Sarah took some great action shots of the two of them fighting.
“Give us that,” Norma was spitting, but Rube didn’t give in. There was no way. They struggled on, Norma with all her might, and Rube in a relaxed, amused way.
In the end, it was Keith who ended it.
He stepped into the middle of the fray and shouted, “Norma! Norma! Stop being stupid!”
She let go and so did Rube. The only person now with their hands on the box was me, and I couldn’t help but laugh at this ludicrous situation. To be honest, I think Norma was still upset about an incident I haven’t previously mentioned. It was something that happened two years ago. It was the incident that got us walking Miffy to begin with, when Rube and I and a few other fellas were playing football in our yard. Old Miffy got all excited because of all the noise and the ball constantly hitting the fence. He barked until he had a mild heart attack, and to make up for it, Mrs. Wolfe made us pay the vet’s bill and take him for walks at least twice a week.
That was the beginning of Miffy and us. The true beginning, and although we whinged and carried on about him, we did grow to love him.
In the backyard funeral scene, however, Norma wasn’t having any of it. She was still seething. She only calmed down a few minutes later, when we were ready to empty Miffy out into the breeze and the backyard.
“Okay Cameron,” Keith nodded. “It’s time.”
He made me stand up on an old lawn chair and I opened the box.
“Good-bye Miffy,” he said, and I turned the box upside down, expecting Miffy to come pouring out.
The only problem was, he didn’t. He was stuck in there.
“Bloody hell!” Rube exclaimed. “Trust Miffy to be all bloody sticky!”
Keith’s wife looked slightly aggravated, to say the least. Actually, I think ropeable would be a more appropriate word.
All I could do was start shaking the box, but still the ashes didn’t come out.
“Put your finger in it and stir it round a bit,” Sarah suggested.
Norma looked at her. “You’re not gettin’ smart now too, are y’ girly?”
“No way,” Sarah replied honestly. Good idea. You wouldn’t want to upset this lady at this point in time. She looked about ready to strangle someone.
I turned the box back over and cringed before rummaging my hand through the ashes.
The next time I tried emptying it, there was success. Miffy was set free. As Sarah took the photo, the wind picked up the ashes and scattered them over the yard and into Keith’s other neighbor’s yard.
“Oh no,” Keith said, scratching his head. “I knew I should have told next door to take their washing off the line….”
His neighbors would be wearing Miffy on their clothes for at least the next couple of days.
PAUSE OF DEATH
I pause a moment and thoughts of death climb onto me. They hang from my shoulders and breathe in my face, and I get to thinking about religion and heaven and hell.
Or to be honest, I think of hell.
There’s nothing worse than thinking that that’s exactly where you’re going when eternity comes for you.
That’s where I usually think I’m going.
Sometimes I take comfort in the fact that most people I know are probably going to hel
l too. I even tell myself that if all my family are going to hell I’d rather go with them than enter heaven. I mean, I’d feel sort of guilty. There they’d be, burning through eternity, while I’m eating peaches and most likely patting pitiful Pomeranians like Miffy up in heaven.
I don’t know
I don’t.
Really.
I’m pretty much just hoping to live decent. I hope that’s enough.
CHAPTER 17
The question now is, what the hell happened next? Every time I think about the whole death of Miffy saga, the story gets obscured in my mind. I have to concentrate to get it right.
The sound.
That’s always how I remember — the sound of Rube in the basement, punching the bag that hung in there. He was preparing for the Phonecaller, who was still calling on a three nights per week basis. Rube would stay down there for a long time each night, and when he entered our bedroom, I could see some blood leaking across his knuckles.
If our differences were set aside for Miffy’s sake, they returned almost immediately after. In death, Miffy had only brought us together momentarily. He’d failed. There was an outward indifference that Rube constantly sent me in the eyes, if he looked at me at all. The only time he spoke to me was by staring out the window and talking more to himself than to me.
“That friggin’ Julia,” he said one night.
It was a cold Tuesday evening at the start of August when Rube got what seemed like the usual call. This time, though, it was Julia. She told him she’d gone back to the previous bloke — the Phonecaller. Apparently, he’d begged her to go back and she did. She also warned Rube that he was still aft
er him, to which Rube offered to get it over with immediately, in the backyard, if necessary….
The scrubber was gone, but she’d left a legacy.
As he stood at the window and spoke of these things, I remembered once telling him I’d be there if he needed me. “Thanks brother.” That’s what he’d told me back then, but now I wasn’t so sure. I wasn’t sure if he would even want help from me, and I didn’t know if I had the strength to give it to him. I could only watch him at the window, as he enjoyed the hardness of his hands, and the blood that crept from them.
I stopped going to Octavia’s place altogether.
“Maybe it’s time you started rescuing yourself,” I kept hearing her say, though I could also see the pain on her face. I told myself at times that she didn’t mean it; that she didn’t want me to stop coming and standing there. She only did it because she thought it was the right thing to do. The irony was that she thought she was keeping Rube and me together by staying away, but as it currently stood, I’d lost both of them.
Days and nights collected up and slipped by, and Rube continued his routine of answering the empty phone calls and blasting the bag in the basement. In a way, I could only feel sorry for someone who wanted to take him on. Even if there were more than one, at least a few of them would get hurt, because Rube had ed and strength and no hesitation.
One night when the phone rang I answered it and asked the guy on the other end to hang on. “My brother wants to talk to you,” I said. “I mean, this is getting ridiculous. You call three times a week. You say nothing. I’m starting to think you actually like my brother rather than want to kill him — otherwise you’d just beat him up and be done with it. So hang on. Just a minute.”
I went down to the basement.
“What is it?”
Rube didn’t usually sweat much, but after a good hour on the bag, he was drenched. “It’s him,” I said.
He walked up the cold cement steps and practically mauled the phone when he picked it up.
“Now listen,” he growled. “I’ll be waiting down near the old train yard at eight o’clock tomorrow night. You know where that is? … Yeah, that’s the one. If you want, come and get me. If not, stop ringin’ me — you’re a pain in the arse.” There was a longer silence. Rube was listening. “Good,” he spoke again. “Just you and me, alone.” Again, he listened. “That’s right — no help, no tricks, and then it’s over. Good-bye.” He slammed the phone down and I could see he was already fighting in his mind.
“So it’s on?” I asked.
“Apparently so,” and he went to shut the basement door. “Thank Christ for that.”
Then the phone rang. Again.
Rube picked it up, and immediately, I could tell it was his mate again. Rube wasn’t happy.
“What is it this time?” He shot the words through the phone. “You can’t!?” He was getting more irritated by the second. “Now listen, mate — you’re the one who wants to kill me, so make up your mind about when you feel like doin’ it. What about tonight, or right now? No? Well how about Friday? Could you check your calendar and make sure you’ve got nothing else on?” He waited. “Y’ sure now? Positive? You won’t be ringin’ in a minute or two attempting to reschedule? No? So Friday night sounds like a good time to kill me? Good. Same place, same time. Friday. Good.”
Again, he hung up, forcefully. He shook his head but laughed. “It’s an absolute circus with this bloke.”
He started eating some bread and got ready to go out. I guess with Julia gone, there were more girls on the horizon. For a moment, I nearly asked if he wanted me to come along on Friday, but I guess he would have viewed that as scraps behavior — following him around.
Anyway, I thought. He got himself into this. He’d finally stumbled onto the wrong girl, and maybe he was going to pay. Sure, I also told myself that I’d been wrong in the past, because Rube had often escaped dangerous situations for no other reason than the ct that he was Ruben Wolfe and Ruben Wolfe could handle anything.
With his fists.
With his wayward charm.
Any way he could.
This time, though, I couldn’t be sure. It was different. I guess we’d discover the outcome on Friday night.
There were a few days till then, and I spent most of my time thinking about the confrontation, and Octavia. Always Octavia. I considered writing her a letter or calling her, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Sarah said I should keep trying.
“You haven’t cut my hands off in that picture, have you?” I asked her on Thursday night.
She only shook her head, almost forlornly. “No, Cam — I think you’ve fought hard enough. At least for the time being.”
All that was left was Friday night.
Rube got ready in our room at about seven-thirty, putting on his oldest jeans, his work flanno, and boots, which he did up nice and tight. He stared into the mirror, telling himself what to do. Eyeing himself off.
Just before he left, we looked at each other.
What was there to say? Good luck? I hope you get the crap beaten out of you? You want me to come?
No.
It was all silence, and he left.
On his way out, he announced that he was going to a friend’s place, shut the door hard, and went out onto the street. Even from the kitchen window, I could tell he was hyped up and hardened. The cold night air seemed to get out of his way as he walked through it.
Now it was decision time.
Was I going after him or not?
The minutes passed and finally I resolved to go. I knew it was wrong, but I couldn’t help it, even after everything that had happened. The kitchen. Losing Octavia. I still couldn’t get past the fact that Rube was my brother and that trouble was looming in his direction. I moved quickly back to our room, threw on my boots and spray jacket, and headed out.
It was close to eight when I got there, to the old train yard. I could see Rube waiting down by the fence, and I took a different street and a side alley. That way, I doubled back and stood closer, waiting. From near the edge of the alley, I could still see him standing there, but he couldn’t really see me. All I could do now was wait.
The yard was full of wrecked train carriages, standing around in the dark. Their windows were smashed, and stolen words were written across them like scar
s. The fence was tall and made of wire, cordoning off the yard from the street. Rube was leaning against it with his back.
For a moment, I wondered why he didn’t bring friends, just in case. There were plenty of people around here who would glad fight for him and could fight well. Maybe Rube decided this was his own doing and he would face it alone.
Thoughts passed.
Minutes passed.
Some voices started loitering around the street and soon their shadows turned into humans. There were three of them. I could see Rube straighten up as they went past me, not even noticing I was there.
They moved closer and adrenaline shot me down. This was it.
DEEP BREATHS
My breath is made of smoke.
It crouches down.
Right after it comes from my mouth.
It crouches down, holds on a moment, and is swallowed by the air.
I stand in the darkness, in the perpetual shadow. My eyes feel like they glow. My furry, furious hair knots upward for the stars. Thoughts scratch me. My life itches me, and I prepare.
To step out.
To rip the shadows from the ground and hoist the darkness from the air.
I look at my hands, my feet.
Deep breaths.
Breathe depths.
Solemnly, I nod, to myself.
Make a step.
Take a threat.
Not far away, there’s one last fight, one last struggle.
There’s something here, in this place — a smell. It’s all that’s awful, all that’s precious, raw, and real.
When I walk out and face it, I notice what it is.
This place smells.
Like brothers.
CHAPTER 18
I waited for the sound of it.
The jabs of words and the left hook of the fight’s beginning.
But nothing came.
The footsteps of the three figures turned into another small alley, and again, Rube was alone down at the fence. He leaned backward again, moving back and forth into the wire.
He’s late, I could see him thinking. He looked at his wrist, even though he never wears a watch.