When Mr. Dog Bites

by Brian Conaghan

  Probably not.

  I was dead to her.

  Number two (in blue): Fight heaven and earth, tooth and nail, dungeons and dragons, for my mate Amir to stop getting called names about the color of his skin. Stop people slagging him all the time because he smells like a big pot of curry. And help him find a new best bud.

  Number two was cheating a bit, because I’d written three things to do instead of one. So I did a head down, thumbs up for a minute before changing it to:

  Number two: Make Amir a happy chappy again instead of a miserable c***!

  Never, ever, ever would I call him this word to his face, but he was. I scanned the class again. The bold Amir was staring straight at me.

  Serial-killer eyes.

  He was doing that thing where he pretended to have a big willy in his mouth and it was pushing his cheek in and out. I put one eyebrow up as if to say, You are a maddy laddie and need help immediately. Amir’s jokes were weird sometimes. They made him seem like a real bona fide windy-licker. But that was part of his condition; he was on this mad circle called the autism spectrum, which stopped him understanding people’s feelings or personal boundaries. He’d never touched me in my basement place or anything like that, but he would do barmy things like pretend to have a giant willy in his mouth or make out that he was licking the lady place through his fingers.

  After I wrote number three, in red, I did another head down, thumbs up, making a cave for myself by wrapping my arms around my head. My cave was so secure that I could hear myself breathing. In and out. Deep breaths in, long breaths out. The docs told me to do this when I got stressed or anxious or so annoyed that I wanted to pummel someone’s nose into a strawberry. Or when I had the urge to say something totally mad-hatter to someone. They called it “inappropriate” at the clinic. My arms were so tight that my head could hardly move, which was goody-two-shoes, as it meant that it wouldn’t be twitching all over the place. Like Elvis’s hips.

  I lifted my head and looked at number three for such a long, long, long, long time it made my eyes go all blurry. Maybe it would have been easier to write Run around town in women’s underwear or Smash all the windows in my school rather than what I had written. At least I could give number one a fair go. Number two, the Amir thing, would be trickie dickie, but number three—that would be a toughie, as I had no control over huge decisions that governments made. I’d try, though. Like a mad mofo I’d try. Peace out, bro!

  Number three: Get Dad back from the war before . . . you-know-what happens.

  8

  Doctor

  The last time I went to the doc was for my big head scan. They had to give me a special pill so I’d be statue-still when I went into the scanner tunnel. It was a bit like being on the slowest escalator in the world. After that, nothing much happened. I was lying in there thinking scans were dead boring and didn’t even feel a thing. I couldn’t hear the camera clicking for the pics. Mom was there when I escalated out. She had told me what to expect because she had one of her own, but I wasn’t allowed to go to her scan because hers was a scan for lady things and I’m not a lady, and I didn’t really want to see Mom with just her underpants on anyway.

  Last time the waiting room was empty. This time it was full of women who looked as though they were having the most miserable day ever. It was as if they were waiting for their name to be called to enter the Bad Fire. I was staring straight ahead, trying NOT to tic, twitch, jerk, or shout like I’d done last time. My concentration was chess grand master, and I didn’t really notice Mom chewing at my lug.

  “Dylan . . . Dylan . . . Dylan,” Mom sort of angry-whispered.

  This made some of the death faces look at me, which then made me twitch three times, clear my throat with a massive roar, and punch myself twice on my right thigh. Ouch!

  “Sorry, love, but I wanted to give you this.” Mom handed me a brown bag. “I forgot to give it to you earlier.”

  “What is it?” I said with my confused-dot-com face. It wasn’t Christmas, my birthday, or Fantastic A Grade at School Day, so why the presents, eh?

  “Open it.”

  I opened it.

  “Aw,” I said loudly, and had to stop. I didn’t want people gawping at me and thinking I was straitjacket material.

  But I really wanted to lick Mom’s face, give her five hug specials, roll around on the floor, and scream, “YOU’RE THE BEST MOM IN THE WORLD AND FOR BUYING ME THIS PRESENT I’LL LOVE YOU FOREVER AND MAKE US A SPECIAL ‘PIMP MY SOUP’ DISH TONIGHT AS A WAY OF SAYING THANK YOU FOR BUYING ME THE 499 soccer FACTS TO AMAZE YOUR MATES! BOOK.”

  “How did you know I wanted this, Mom?”

  “I’m your mother, Dylan. Moms know everything.” Whoever invented moms should win the Nobel Prize for Fun. “You’ve been so brilliant about things recently. Dad, school, your scan, and all that stuff. So I thought you deserved a little present.”

  “Thanks a gazillion, Mom.”

  “And sometimes, Dylan, things get worse before they get better, so it’s always important to be brilliant and brave.”

  “I agree, Mrs. Mint.”

  “So promise me that you’ll always be brilliant and brave about things.” Mom put her hand on my left thigh and squeezed with about ten percent of her power. “Promise me, sweetheart.”

  “What?”

  “That you’ll be brilliant and brave about things.”

  “Promise.”

  Mom had sparkle eyes. I thought she might even get some wet on my jeans if her eyes started to leak. She liked it when I promised things.

  499 Soccer Facts to Amaze Your Mates! A-MAYONNAISE-ING!

  “Can I read my book when we go in?” I asked.

  “Only if the doctor isn’t talking to you.” Mom squeezed four of my fingers. “We’ll need to be there for each other today, Dylan. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  It was a different doc this time. He sat Mom down on the chair next to him and put me in the corner and didn’t look at me. This is what grown-ups do when they feel uncomfortable about something. He muttered to Mom, and she whispered back. She flicked a glance across at me, and I drilled my eyes into my book. No Way, José would they catch me looking at them.

  Fact 318:

  Zinedine Zidane was never caught offside in his entire career.

  “I know this isn’t what you expected to hear,” the doc said in his soft voice.

  Mom’s chest heaved in and out. “Are you sure?”

  “I’m afraid we are, Mrs. Mint.”

  “One hundred percent?”

  “Yes.”

  “Would a second opinion help?”

  “The scans are pretty conclusive.”

  Mom put her hand up and covered her peepers. She gulped for breath as though she’d just swum a marathon. I looked at her because I wanted to be brave and brilliant and be there for her, but she wouldn’t look at me. She wiped the water away from her face. I groaned because I wanted her to look at my eyes. I wanted Mom to wipe away the water from my face too.

  “When?” Mom said.

  That’s when I wanted to throw the chair through the window so some air could enter the room. Then we wouldn’t all have been sitting there gulping.

  “We’ll monitor things closely, but I think it’s safest to assume no later than the beginning of March.”

  “Oh, God! That’s sooner than we discussed,” Mom wailed.

  All her body shuddered, and I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know if I should hug-special her or put my head on her lap or stroke her hair, like she does to me when I’m in the horrors. I wanted to know what was wrong. I flicked another page.

  Fact 209:

  Aberdeen was the first club to introduce dugouts.

  “I don’t know what to say, Mrs. Mint. I really don’t,” the doc said.

  Mom looked at me for the first time. I love my mom’s beautiful eyes, but these red puppy ones were like a butter knife in my heart.

  “We have people you can speak to, if you think that would h
elp.”

  “It wouldn’t help.”

  “All I’m saying is that you don’t need to go through this alone.”

  Mom sniffed as if she’d been chopping a gazillion onions. The doc gave her a hankie from the box on his table, and she tried to blow all the tears out of her nose. I wanted to be in the waiting room again. I wanted to be with the people gawking at me. I wanted Mom to give all her crying to me so she wouldn’t feel so bad. I WANTED TO KNOW WHAT WAS WRONG.

  Fact 6:

  The Scottish Cup tie between Falkirk and Inverness Thistle in 1979 was postponed no fewer than twenty-nine times because of bad weather.

  When I peeked up from 499 Soccer Facts to Amaze Your Mates!, Mom’s head was wagging like a dog’s tail and her body was Shake, Rattle, and Rolling. Even though I had my hooter and peepers in my book, I still had my floppy ears out there. I knew that the doc and Mom weren’t looking at me, which meant they didn’t want me to know the full meat and potatoes, which meant:

  1. This was an adult conversation, meaning . . .

  2. I had to watch my p’s and q’s, meaning . . .

  3. I had to be seen and not heard.

  I still listened, because this doc couldn’t pull the wool over my ears.

  “I don’t think I can cope with telling him . . .”

  TELLING WHO?

  “. . . I understand, Mrs. Mint . . .”

  “. . . Not with the way he is,” Mom whispered to the brainy doc.

  THE WAY WHO IS?

  “Would your husband be able to help with that?”

  “God, no! No, it has to come from me.”

  HELLO!

  HELLO!

  I’M DYLAN MINT, NOT DYLAN MINT THE DEAF MUTE.

  “There’s absolutely no doubt at all?”

  “None.”

  “Okay . . .”

  “I’m sure once you’ve had some time to think, you’ll feel clearer about things. Then you can prepare yourself and Dylan for . . . what’s going to happen.”

  Mom closed her eyes and did some heavy sniffing. I grunted, snorted, rapido blinked, and squeezed my fists. I could feel my back and bum-crack getting Sweaty Betty because I sensed the words coming.

  “FUCKER DOC.”

  “Dylan!” Mom said.

  “Sorry,” I said.

  “It’s okay, young man. How’s your book?” the doc said.

  “LIAR WANK . . . Sorry . . . It’s good,” I said, and put my hooter back in it.

  “I’m so sorry that this is so incontrovertible, Mrs. Mint.”

  Fact 77:

  The highest attendance for a European club competition match was at Celtic v. Leeds United in the European Cup semifinal in 1970 at Hampden Park, Glasgow. Official attendance: 136,505.

  “I’m just trying to get my head around telling him. I mean, how do you break that news?”

  “Well, you don’t have to tell him right away, but there will come a point when you can’t hide what’s happening.”

  “I know.”

  “And come March, life as he knows it will come to an abrupt end. You need to prepare him for the inevitable.”

  Fact 499:

  David Beckham has two middle names: Robert and Joseph.

  Since it was scorching outside, I thought about our holiday in Torremolinos, when the sun was so blooming hell blistering it made the bits between my legs burn like fried eggs. Dad said I was cutting about like John Wayne, which made me laugh out loud. I never knew who this John Wayne fellow was, but I thought it could have been someone who worked with Dad. Maybe this John Wayne character was a private or a corporal or a special ops dude. If so, I was dead happy to be Dad’s version of John Wayne. Dad was a massive joke man.

  Something rattled in my head. Why did the doc say that in March “life as he knows it will come to an abrupt end”? Then I understood why Mom was at the same thing she was when her and Dad used to shout at each other: breaking point. I was there now. She also said she was “totally scunnered,” but she never told me what “totally scunnered” actually meant. My brain cells told me that it meant totally effing peeved off.

  With my quick rapido thinking powers I cracked it. When the doc said, “prepare him for the inevitable,” I didn’t need to be the Bourne Identity or Mr. T. J. Hooker to figure out what the bloody hell was going on. I hadn’t reached the point of being totally scunnered, but I surely would have if I hadn’t been ace at figuring things out.

  “AAAAAARRRRRRGGGGGG” happened.

  Then “WWWWWWHHHHHHAAAAAA” followed.

  The doc and Mom did some sitting and staring. They didn’t even reach a hand out to show me that everything was A-okay. They didn’t smile as if to say, Don’t worry, Dylan, everything’s A-okay. You’re in safe hands with us. I suppose Mom was used to me being the way I was, so she let me get on with it.

  “FUCKING BASTARD. SPECCY WANK.”

  My blurt was directed straight at the doc. But, and it’s a capital-letter BUT, the doc was a Pakistani, which made the rant ten times worse. Or maybe he was an Indian? Or perhaps a Bangladeshi? He was definitely one of those things. I couldn’t really tell which, though. All those evil things that Amir has to listen to because his skin is not chalk-white came bolting out of my mouth and blootered the doc full force in the face. Tears waterfalled from my eyes and flooded my cheeks, not because I was calling the doc these racist thingies, but because I knew that I was hurting my best bud, Amir, and best buds never, ever hurt each other. Ever. Unless one of them tampers with the other’s gf or bf—only then is it okay. Then everything started to go blurry because I couldn’t see through the water in my peepers. I was like a Fiat 500 in the rain with its wipers gubbed.

  At the same time that I was turning into a racist, I said in my head,

  Please don’t let Mr. Dog get out,

  please don’t let Mr. Dog get out

  over and over again.

  And guess what happened?

  Mr. Dog came out.

  It was what Mr. Comeford, our PE teacher, called Murphy’s Law. He put his hands on his hips, looked up to the sky, and said, “Murphy’s bloody Law” every time we went outside to play soccer and it started raining or when we were stuck inside the gym doing somersaults and the sun was splitting the trees . . . and the somersaults were splitting my head. Wee Tam Coyle, who also had Tourette’s, used to bark and growl like a boy (or dog) possessed. He’d growl so much that spit would be dangling off his two front teeth. Amir was terrified that Wee Tam Coyle would pounce on him and chew his face off or something mad like that. Amir was sure that Wee Tam Coyle had been brought up by a pack of wolves sometime in the past. But I told Amir to knock it off, because I knew what was going through Wee Tam Coyle’s head while he was doing his dog-wolf growl. The school eventually got rid of Wee Tam Coyle ’cause his level of Tourette’s was too bonkers for them; the teachers just didn’t have a clue how to deal with him. So they booted him out.

  I started barking and growling at the doc and Mom. There was no spit dripping from my teeth or anything yuck like that, but the last thing I remember was putting my hands up as if I had these giant paws, like the daft lion in The Wizard of Oz. That had never happened before. And when I was doing the barking it got so bad that it began to make my head

  thump

  hump

  bump.

  It was as if someone had put a balloon in there and blown it up. I thought it was going to pop. Honestly, I did.

  And then darkness.

  *

  “It’s okay, darling. It’s okay.”

  When I opened my eyes, Mom was standing at the side of the bed.

  “You okay, sweetheart?”

  Negative. I groaned.

  “You had one of your turns. Nothing to worry about. It was just a little one.”

  She smiled, and I could see her teeth. When I saw Mom’s teeth smile I knew that she was telling porkies. It was all in the eyes. There was No Way, José that this was “just a little one.” I was lying on this weird bed that ha
d a huge toilet roll as an undersheet. I didn’t say anything, but closed my eyes and counted to ten. The rule was that when I got to ten I had to return to one again, and so on. I learned this at school. It seemed to work for me. In total I counted to about 2,047. Until, abracadabra! I was back at home.

  *

  “Mom?”

  “Yes, love.”

  “What’s happening in March?”

  “March?”

  “Yes.” Mom’s brain spun, I could tell.

  “St. Patrick’s Day. You like that.”

  “No, I mean, what big thing is happening?”

  “Well, we don’t have a holiday to go on or anything like that. Do you have a school trip?”

  “Don’t think so.”

  “It might be the start of springtime that you’re thinking of.”

  “No.”

  “And I know you like spring.”

  “Do I?”

  “Yes, Dylan, you like spring.”

  I had to think about this for a second.

  “Suppose I do.”

  “So maybe that’s why March is on your mind.”

  “No, there is definitely a special thing happening in March.” I was quizzing Mom in the way people do when they’re playing the I-know-that-you-know-that-I-know-that-you-know game. This, however, was what’s called a stalemate.

  “Well, I’m stumped,” she said. Her voice changed from lovey-dovey to it’s time to put a sock in it. “Now, do you want your favorite?”

  “Is Dad coming home in March?”

  “Jesus, Dylan!” When Mom Uses Our Lord’s Name in Vain, it’s time to put socks and sneakers in it. “Look, do you want soup or not?” Her totally scunnered voice. When my eyes did their traffic-light blinking, Mom went to Voice Level One, which was like a whisper. Voice Level One was supposed to calm me down. “I’ll put some tomato sauce in it, just the way you like it.”

  “Okey-dokey,” I said. When Mom was in the kitchen stirring my soup, I shouted at her in a Level Three voice, “Maybe I’ll write to Dad to see if he knows what’s happening in March. Maybe he’ll have some good news for us.”